15 Best Firefox Productivity Add-ons

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Firefox is indeed THE browser to use these days. While the advent of Chrome has been really promising, still it will take time before we can put Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox in the same row. Having technically lived with Firefox day in and day out, I have got some really cool add -ons to help me in my work. Here is a peek so that you people can also try your hands on and find the best option for yourself.

[A boring plea to all of you before I start here. This blog is meant to help people in technology and share the knowledge. Though I have just started in the blogosphere with my own space, I need your comments and suggestions too to make it more productive. Anyway, let's cut this emotional words short and focus on how we can boost the productivity of Firefox]



1. Noscript



The extension lets you control which scripts run on the page, so you can allow those from the hosting site, but block those from ad networks, for example. NoScript is free to download and install.


Download



2. Customize Google



Customize Google is a very robust extension that lets you customize many features of the services provided by Google.

  1. Customize Google lets you block advertisements on pretty much any Google page (including Gmail).
  2. It remaps Google Images search results to point directly at the images (no longer will you need to click through the originating site).
  3. also lets you add links from other search engines directly into your search results.
  4. block Google click tracking and allows you to connect to Google Calendar and Gmail securely (https).
Download


3. FasterFox



No matter how fast your Internet connection, the Web still makes you wait. You can cut the time it takes web pages to load with the Fasterfox add-on. I am using this app myself and have found it very useful. Something that not only tells us of speed boosting but actually does. It automatically tweaks Firefox's settings to retrieve data from Web servers more quickly.
You can manually right-click the program's muscled-fox icon in the bottom-right corner of the window and click Options to tweak your browser settings manually (choose Custom under the Presets tab to show tabs for resetting the extension's Cache, Connection, Pipelining, Rendering, and Popups options). The add-on also displays the load time for the current page.

Download

4. PDF Options



The PDF Download extension for the Firefox browser

PDFs are very much into Webs now. A Document is almost always found in a PDF format. To download it every time and read is annoying. Why not have a better option? Nitro PDF's add-on lets you decide whether you want to download the file, view it in your Firefox window, or view it as HTML (as long as it isn't copy-protected). After you install the extension, you see a pop-up menu whenever you click a PDF, giving you the option to download it as normal, view it in Adobe Reader or the FoxIt PDF plug-in, or open the HTML version of the file.

Download



5. Adblock Plus




This add-on lets you get rid of flashy banners and advertisements. It blocks all unwanted content like banners, annoying scripts and adverts. Right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu - the banner won’t be downloaded again.

Download

6. Download StatusBar

Download Statusbar manages your downloads in the status bar instead of the Firefox Download Manager. I find that the download manager that comes with Firefox to be very intrusive. Download manager tucks your download progress bars into the generally unused status bar of Firefox. This lets you download care-free without the Firefox Download Manager popping up and interrupting you.

Download


7. URL Fixer


URL fixer will replace the common typos you enter when typing a Web site into the URL bar (i.e., http://www.simplygeeks.blogspot.moc, htp:/simplygeks.blogspot.com).

The auto correct feature of URL fixer is very helpful. “[URL Fixer] will correct common misspellings of .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, and .mil, as well as the protocol (http:, https:).

It will also correct errors in country code TLDS such as .com.XX, .net.XX, and .org.XX.”

Download

8. Tab Mix Plus

Many of the features of Tab Mix Plus were incorporated into the release of Firefox 2. However, Tab Mix Plus allows you to add finer-grained control of your tabs. The following is a description of Tab Mix Plus:

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows


Download

9. ScrapBook


Scrapbook is extremely useful for researchers and students. Scrapbook saves blurbs from Web pages to your hard drive along with the URL of the originating Web site. It allows you to organize and categorize your blurbs in a format similar to your bookmarks so that when it comes to creating a bibliography or works cited, you won’t waste any time.

Download

10. TrailFire


With trailFire you can mark webpages that you find interesting by leaving notes right on the page. These notes are linked together into trails that you organize any way you desire. The trails you make will guide people on the web , the approach is collaborative as other people can leave responses on the trails you made and even add new marked pages.

The next time you are looking for something on the Web, use Trailfire to mark the pages you find and they will be automatically shared with everyone else through the search engines. You can also keep your trails private if you wish to. Though Google has already come up with personalized search options and etc, still this is a very good option to consider.

Download

11. CoolIris Preview




Cooliris is another helpful add- on I liked.

The extension shows you the destination of a link when you hover the mouse over the small blue-and-green Cooliris icon that appears to the right of the link when you highlight it. You can also use the extension to prefetch Web sites, and you can change the preview action from mouseover icon to mouseover link, clicking link, clicking icon, or pressing Ctrl as you mouse over. The options dialog (which opens when you right-click the blue checkmark icon in the bottom-right corner of the Firefox window and choose User options) also lets you customize the options that appear when you right-click selected text in Firefox, allowing fast searches via the service of your choice, and sending links via e-mail, among other options. Another nice feature of the latest version 2.6 of the extension is the ability to view Google and Yahoo image-search results as a slideshow.
The Cooliris Preview add-on for the Firefox browser

Download


12. Speed Dial

You can easily access your most used websites with Speed Dial. To show the Speed Dial tab, use the Speed Dial button (which can be added to the toolbar), or enter chrome://speeddial/content in your location bar.
To assign one website to Speed Dial, use the new Set as Speed Dial option in the bookmarks menu, or right click on the tab you want to add, and choose Set as Speed Dial.

Download

13. Video Download Helper




This is a must have add-on for video, audio and picture gallery downloads from popular services like Youtube, MySpace and Google Video etc. When an embedded audio or video file is detected on a website the downloadhelper icon gets animated and you can download the required media.

DownloadHelper also allows you to download files one by one, so that you keep bandwidth to surf for other stuff to download.

Download

14. EverNote Web Clipper

Several times during the day we spot interesting things and may want to write about it later. Evernote Web Clipper fits in perfectly with our note taking allowing us to clip web pages, images and text, so that we can go over it later at our own leisure. You may also want to check out Google Notebook add-on.

Download

15. ReminderFox



Since we spend a lot of time using Firefox, we prefer to use ReminderFox for several reasons. It definitely saved us a lot of time remembering birthdays, anniversaries, paying of cable and internet and more without having to maintain another application just for reminding us about important dates and events.

Download

Conclusion

With right add-ons and right workability, Firefox can give you a fully OS like integration inside a single browser. Hope this article will help you in a significant way. If you want to add more to this or suggest anything else, feel free to comment. I need your feedbacks. Take care.

[Thanks to: lifehack.org, thenextweb.com, news.cnet.com, techie-buzz.com]


Read more...



Firefox Hack: How to Run Firefox inside Firefox?

Monday, January 12, 2009

You can run Firefox inside firefox. Though you may ask the whole purpose of it. But you know what, you can try it for fun. And its really easy too. Just type in this url in Firefox's address bar and there you go!
Firefox inside Firefox!

Copy paste following url in a web browser (mozilla firefox).

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul


And you are done!

Read more...



Save Photos from Orkut Album Directly

You can not download any image file from Orkut directly from
someone's album. The best possible way is also too dumb to do. You will have to take a screen-shot and then crop it using paints and then save it to get a single picture done!

Isn't it too tedious? The other day I saw a beautiful landscape in
my friend's album and I had to tell him to send me that photo! So here
is what I found to be a simple trick which can solve your problem
within seconds.


1. Open the the particular picture you want to save in your computer.

2. Then just drag and drop the photo to your address bar where orkut.com/ orkut.co.in is written. You will see the same photo in a slightly different link, say, images.orkut.com/….


and then right click on the photo, Bingo! Now you can save the photo to your computer.


So, isn't it the coolest trick available? Please leave a note if you liked it.

-The Tech Talker


Read more...



How to Create XML documents from within a PL/SQL block?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Oracle XML publisher can use the dbms_xlmgen package, but note that the XML calls are embedded into the SQL, not PL/SQL.
The dbms_xmlgen procedure can be extremely useful for quick retrieval of Oracle records, formatted for web browser display. With these formatting procedures you can display the output of any query directly to the screen, and you have an easy XML display program. The best part comes with easily formatting Oracle reports. XML Publisher is made to accept XML that looks just like this and form extremely detailed reports using templates made in Microsoft Word.

[Source: oranet.com]


Read more...



Labels: , ,

How to Configure auto-startup programs in Ubuntu - A Detailed Guide

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

There are 2 places to configure for auto-startup programs in Ubuntu.

The Service settings:

The Services settings under the System > Administration menu is used to configure for daemons to be started every time when the system boot up, even before any user is login. Unless manually stopped by administrative user, the daemons will stay running until the system shutdown. Their startup/shutdown scripts can be found in /etc/init.d.

You need to key in your password to Unlock the panel, before you can change the activation status of the listed services.


The Sessions settings:

The Sessions settings under the System > Preferences menu is used to configure for programs to be started every time after you login the system. This setting is personalized for each user. The program can be closed by you at any time, or they'll exit when you logout the system.


You can add new applications into the list. For example, if you want the Pidgin Instant Messenger to autorun whenever you login the system, click on the +Add button and key in the following information, then Save it:

Name: Pidgin
Command: /usr/bin/pidgin
Comment: Instant messenger


You will now be able to see Pigdin available in the Startup Programs list.

So isn't that cool?

[Source: voyager8.blogspot.com]

Read more...



How to Create XML documents from within a PL/SQL block?

The Oracle XML publisher can use the dbms_xlmgen package, but note that the XML calls are embedded into the SQL, not PL/SQL.

The dbms_xmlgen procedure can be extremely useful for quick retrieval of Oracle records, formatted for web browser display. With these formatting procedures you can display the output of any query directly to the screen, and you have an easy XML display program. The best part comes with easily formatting Oracle reports. XML Publisher is made to accept XML that looks just like this and form extremely detailed reports using templates made in Microsoft Word.

[Source: oranet.com]

Read more...



How to Allow empty password for Windows Vista

Monday, January 5, 2009

Microsoft Windows Vista doesn’t allow users without password by default, but if you remember correctly, it was possible at Windows XP.

Overriding this behaviour is quite easy but requires a little registry modification.


  • Open regedit.exe and go to the following key
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
  • Now create a new DWORD value named “limitblankpassworduse
  • Set it to 0.


Once done Vista will behave like Windows XP. Isn't it cool?


Read more...