A real post about Firefox Extensions October 15, 2006
Posted by Angus in Firefox.add a comment
After my weak attempt at pinpointing a couple of useful FF extensions a few days ago – I have found one that someone has put some real and ongoing effort into. Quite a nice idea to keep adding to posts so they have ongoing appeal.
My suggestions are included in the list – but there are many more, organised by use. See the Top 50 Firefox Extensions here.
The post comments also make for great reading.
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Firefox Memory Issues October 14, 2006
Posted by Angus in Firefox.1 comment so far
So I wasn’t imagining things. Seems like there are loads of other people that have been experiencing memory/performance issues when using Firefox – especially when having multiple tabs open.
So it is a feature that has caused the pain. From Element 14
‘Firefox does not have a memory “bug”, but here’s how you improve mem usage
Even after at least hundreds of posts on digg.com, even after a Slashdot article there’s thousands of people out there complaining about the Firefox Memory Bug. Lets get it straight. It’s not a bug. It’s part of the cache feature. This ‘feature’ is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment. To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox 1.5 implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab. This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox’s memory usage can climb dramatically. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.’
Apologies to Meebo from my post yesterday.
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Blame it on the Bandwidth (and Firefox) (and Google) October 12, 2006
Posted by Angus in Firefox, Google, Media, South Africa, Web2.0.add a comment
After the dark years of the internet (2000-2004) there certainly has been a remarkable comeback. So what was it that has made the difference? A culmination I think:
1. Broadband – only in the past few years have there been enough people on the internet with broadband that have made the richer applications like YouTube, Writely (now Google Docs), iTunes, podcasting, video blogging etc really accessible.
2. Firefox – the browser that changed the web. I never really understood what difference a browser could make, or what the real tech geeks at work were on about when they were getting hot under the collar about tabbed browsing. Now it all makes sense.
The ability to develop and use Extensions that integrate with social applications – like del.icio.us, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon has fuelled massive adoption of these services. Imagine your browsing experience without Firefox – without Extensions.
I think that we are still only at the beginning of the ‘web as a platform’ – and the catalyst? Giving power to the people by letting innovation, creativity and utility meet in the browser through the little things like Extensions. Wait until the mighty corporate market wakes up to the power of ‘distributed content’ and ‘opportunity presentation’ using Opera and Mac Widgets, Google Panels, and Firefox Extensions.
This leads back to an adage I’ve used over the past 8 years – ‘insert your content in your customers daily activity’.
3. Shifting the Power Base – closely linked to the above point. By harnessing the collective power of the web users, special things have been created. Think social news sites, blogging, open source software, and most importantly, open source thinking that have made this era in the life of the internet so different to the past. When Tim O’Reilly coined the Web2.0 moniker – that was only just the beginning. We are still only fractionally beyond the beginning. I can’t wait for the times ahead.
The incumbents in the telecoms, utility, media and advertising worlds are (or should be) very aware and weary of the power shifting to the edges of the network – and them not being able to exert the control that they are used to from a central point. The likes of Telkom, Vodacom and SABC will continue to see their positions of power being eroded as disruptive technologies and significantly – disruptive consumers & customers, competitors, applications & software and disruptive thinking leads to innovations that leave them isolated with large expensive infrastructures, dissatisfied customers and declining revenues.
4. Google – some credit has to go to Google for making the web a different place. Fresh thinking, amazing search results, simple interfaces, and a coolness have all come at exactly the right time for the web resurrection.
The final thought – all of the above are governed by the law of abundance. I just hope that it stays this way – so that this amazing thing can continue to change the way we learn, play, work and live.
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Must Have Extensions for a Firefox Newbie (and some features) October 6, 2006
Posted by Angus in Firefox.add a comment
For new Firefox users, or for existing Firefox users that have been using it like IE.
Feature
Tabbed Browsing
Probably the most significant feature that allows use of just a single browser window, but with the ability to have a number of ‘tabs’ open with different websites being displayed. The trick? Press CTRL T.
Extensions
All these Extensions are from the Mozilla (custodian of Firefox) site. All links go the the relevant page within the Mozilla site.
Mouse Gestures
The ability to control navigation and actions using gestures made by your mouse. The most user – back, forward, refresh, new tab, new window. All by using the right button on your mouse.
Get Mouse Gestures at from Optimoz or All-in-One by Marc Boullet
Foxy Tunes
Play music and have access to your controls like play, stop, pause, next, volume, playlist, etc from the bottom of your browser screen.
Get bopping with Foxy Tunes
Forecast Fox
International weather reports and 3 day forecasts – with the option to select a number of cities/towns. Also gives thumbnail satellite imagery for each selected city. Severe weather warnings are useful if you live somewhere other than Johannesburg.
Be safe, warm and cool with Forecast Fox.
Bookmarks Synchroniser
A recent addition for me. I’m becoming more reliant on my Bookmarks and fear 2 things. Losing them, or not being able to access them when I’m not on my laptop. This app creates an online account that synch’s your bookmarks and makes them available online – from any machine. Neat.
Synch is here.
Performancing
I have been banging on about this extension in previous posts – so, here goes again. If you blog (and especially if you have a number of blogs across different platforms) – you can now manage all your posts (amongst other things) without visiting any of the sites.
One of the key things here is the time it saves when using a blogging platform that is hosted in the States. WordPress can be tediously slow when using SA bandwidth.
Try it out here.
Also, see Mozilla’s Recommended Extensions
Most Popular as determined by number of downloads.
Top Rated Extensions as rated by the public.
Got in my post for the day. I’ll look through the rest of my extensions and have a Version 2 of this post in the next week or so.
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