I Can Finally Use the Search Box In Firefox
I’ve never used the search box in Firefox. I always wanted to have more control over the way it functions. Finally, there’s a plugin that makes this possible. It’s called SearchLoad Options.
My biggest beef with the search bar is not being able to clear my last search. Why is Firefox designed to leave the last search in the box? If you’ve searched for it, why would you want to search for the same thing again? With SearchLoad Options, you have the ability to clear your search term immediately, or after however many seconds you want.
My second issue is that the search is done it the current active tab. I know that this can be changed in about:config, but this addon makes it much more convenient. You can set it so that it opens a new tab with your search results in it.
Simple HTML Validator Addon For Firefox
There are a ton of validation addons for Firefox and although I use several, I always have to have one particular one installed. It’s called Validaty. It’s nothing spectacular, it just does what it does. Validates (X)HTML.
After you’ve installed the addon here, you need to right click on an empty spot in the menu bar and right click and choose ‘Customize’. Then find Validaty and drag it wherever you want in your toolbar area.
Now whenever you want to check and see if a site validates, just click the button and it will validate against the W3C’s standards. If it validates, you get a green checkmark. If it doesn’t you get a red checkmark with the number of errors. You can then click on it and it will take you directly to the W3C’s website.
Find Out What Software a Website Is Using
If you’re like me, one of the first things you wonder about a website is what CMS/backend they’re running. Is that WordPress? Drupal? Are they using a JS framework? MooTools? jQuery? Well now it’s as easy as installing a Firefox plugin called Wappalyzer.
Now even though Wappalyzer is fairly new, it can already recognize a ton of other apps like Google Analytics, Joomla, Prototype and they’re adding more all the time. Definitely a must have addon for any web developer. Get it now.
[ Via woork ]
Quickly Check How Many Unread Emails You Have In Gmail
If you’re not using Firefox, get it. If you’re not using Greasemonkey…get it.
Good. Now that you are living in the current century, Lifehacker found a seriously cool Greasemonkey script today called ‘Gmail Unread Message Count in Favicon‘. It does exactly what it says it does, show your unread mail count in the Gmail favicon.
After you’ve installed the script, restart Firefox and you should now see your unread count in the favicon.
The only drawback I see to this is if you subscribe to the David Allen GTD philosophy. Knowing your unread inbox count is one of the worst thing you can do. If you don’t care about that, this script is a must have.
Using Greasemonkey & Firefox To Show Google Calendar With Gmail
If you are sucked into the Googlverse as badly as I am, you are no doubt using two of Google’s most popular services: Gmail and Google Calendar. Now normally I lock these tabs in Firefox with the PermaTabs addon.
This is nice, but what would be really nice is if I could combine the two tabs into one. Thanks to Greasemonkey and a brilliant developer known as ‘The Dot‘, now we can…and very easily;)
What We’re Going To End Up With
Getting Ready
All you really need to do this is to make sure you have the Firefox web browser installed. After that, we will install Greasemonkey. Here’s how.
Installing Greasemonkey
- Get Greasemonkey.
- Click the green ‘Add to Firefox’ button
- Click the ‘Install Now‘ in the following window
- After it completes, hit the ‘Restart Firefox‘ button to complete the install
Creating the Ultimate Productivity Workstation
So you want to build a workstation that rivals Bill Gates’ without spending your entire technology budget for the year, in one day. Here’s how I did it.
What you’ll End Up With
9 Desktops
3 Monitors
1 Obscenely Productive Workstation
Hardware Used
1 Dell Optiplex (with Windows XP)
2 Dell 19″ Flat Panel Monitors
1 Dell Latitude Laptop (with Windows XP)
1 Logitech Revolution Wireless Mouse
1 Worn out wrist rest
Software Used
Dexpot
Synergy
Firefox
Groupwise (insert your email client)
Dreamweaver
Photoshop
Pandora’s Box (for entertainment:)
Pownce (with all this productivity, I need something anti-productive)
Snitter (see above)
Pidgin
Yahoo! Widgets
ObjectDock
Let’s Get Started
First thing you are going to want to do is setup your dual monitors on your desktop. I’m going to be using Windows XP for everything I do today.
- Shut your machine down and plug both monitors in
Four Hundred Million Firefox Downloads
Congratulations to the everyone at the Mozilla Co and Spread Firefox!
No hurry…but in V3, can you take out the “crash every 20 minutes feature?”
How To Encrypt Your Keystrokes With a Firefox Plugin
I’m always looking for better ways to secure myself and my computer. I use TOR to browse anonymously, TrueCrypt to encrypt personal files, TrackMeNot to keep Google from profiling me, a Clear Private Data plugin in Firefox so starting from a clean slate is just a right click away, https email (login and email browsing), Perfect Passwords from GRC, PayPal Security Key, and multiple other ways.
The only thing I’ve never found is a way to encrypt my actual keystrokes. That was until I stumbled upon KeyScrambler. It’s a simple Firefox plugin (it does actually install itself on your machine as well) that encrypts keystrokes at the kernel level. This means that keyloggers are pretty much useless as long as the software is working correctly.
I’ve been using it for a couple of days and haven’t had any trouble so far, but there have been some complaints on the reviews page.
Support Firefox!
It’s already started to wear off, but I got this tat at the Trade Show at SXSW. If you put the Firefox logo tattoo on either your neck or head, you got a free shirt. Needless to say, I now have a new t-shirt to wear. Promote Firefox! Support Firefox! Get Firefox!
