Web development today

Web development today isn’t just HTML editing or basic php scripts. Web development and programming today is usually achieved with a wide set of tools — any popular website around today uses a wide set of tools. For example,

• reddit.com — reddit uses Python and PostgreSQL, which spit out html (of xhtml syntax), javascript and CSS.
• slashdot.com — slashdot.com uses Perl and MySQL, sitting on top of Apache.
• microsoft.com — microsoft.com uses a combination of ASP.NET, running on top of IIS. The output is html (xhtml syntax), css and javascript.

The tools

Web Developer / Firefox Extension

Firefox Web Developer Extension is a useful tool for being able to disable various features on a page, manage cookies, view specific css information using a picker tool for any specific elements and being able to manager userstyles. You can also manage images and various other tools including the ability to view generated source.

You can download it at Mozilla Add-ons

ColorZilla / Firefox Extension

ColorZilla is an extension to firefox that adds a color picker tool to the browser UI. It is then possible to return information for a given pixel on a website.

You can download it at the Mozilla Add-ons site.

MeasureIT / Firefox Extension

The measureIT Firefox extension adds a measuring tool that appears as an overlay on any webpage you need to use it on.

You can download measureIT at the Mozilla Add-ons site

DOM Inspector / Firefox Extension

The Document Object Model Inspector is a tool to inspect the DOM of any webpage. It often comes with the default install of firefox as an option.

You can download DOM Inspector at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/dom_inspector

Firebug / Firefox Extension

Firebug is an extension which is useful for editing css, html or javascript elements within a webpage.

You can download Firebug at the Mozilla Add-ons site.

Google page speed / Firebug Extension

Google page speed is a Firebug extension that is able to give you a wealth of information on the download speeds and execution time of your website. It can also give you tips on how to reduce overheads and improve code.

You can download the Google page speed Firebug extension at the google page speed site.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a tool I often use when working on smaller projects where I do not need a full IDE.

Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.
Based on a powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size.

You can download it over at the notepad++ sourceforge project site.

Netbeans with PHP Development plugin

Netbeans is a Java IDE developed by Sun. It supports various plugins — one being PHP development extensions. When working on large projects, Netbeans proves useful.

You can download it at the Netbeans site.

Visual SVN

VisualSVN is a SVN server for Windows. It is quick and easy to use and requires little previous knowledge of server administration or svn experience, but it can also be quite powerful.

You can download it at the VisualSVN Server site. It is free for both personal and commercial use.

Tortoise SVN

TortoiseSVN is an SVN client that interfaces with Windows Explorer to interface with SVN.

You can download it at the TortoiseSVN site.

XAMPP

XAMPP is a quick and easy way to get an apache server, MySQL daemon and PHP all running on Windows for a development environment. It also supports an FTP server and a few other things.

You can download it at the XAMPP site.

Forums
You can come and discuss web development, get website reviews and also SEO information at the Transcendental Labs forum.

Firefox Add-ons

Looking for the best Firefox extensions in Official Firefox Add-ons is like searching for  the proverbial needle in a haystack.

You can see a periodic new extensions in the Firefox Extension Picks series that is featured once in every few weeks.

Firefox Tips

Here are a few tips for a fun Firefox browsing experience

• It’s always a good idea to backup your profile, extensions, etc. with FEBE before you try a new extension. Some extensions don’t play well together. (Use FEBE - see below)
• If your Firefox seems very slow, it could be because you are using a lot of extensions.
• Remember the Profile Manager option. In Windows, start Firefox from command prompt: firefox.exe -profilemanager

What type of extensions are you looking for?

Shan Krila has created the following categories based on the type of extensions you might be looking for.

• Starter Pack – If you are just trying out Firefox, here are a few extensions that will introduce you to the power of Firefox.
• Power User Pack – Aimed at the power users who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty and who want to squeeze every bit of power from their favorite browser.
• Usability – Aimed at improving browser usability by modifying Firefox chrome or the built-in features.
• Productivity – Extensions aimed at improving Productivity while you use the web for your work
• Fun – When you turn to the web to have some fun.
• Blogging - Useful for bloggers. Look at the add-ons and you’ll know what I mean.
• Social Media - Not all bloggers use all Social Media s this category zeroes in on just the Social Media extensions.
• Web Developer – Aimed at techie’s like myself who either run a website or do some web development.

Starter Pack

If you are just trying out Firefox, here are a few extensions that will introduce you to the power of Firefox.

• Adblock Plus - Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that
  often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.
• Adblock Filterset.G Updater - This is a companion extension to Adblock or Adblock Plus and should be used in conjunction with it. This extension automatically downloads the latest version of Filterset.G every 4-7 days.
• ForecastBar Enhanced – Mod of the popular ForecastFox that shows weather information in your status bar. This one features enhanced animated radar map as well and I love it!
• TabMixPlus - 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.

Power User Pack

Aimed at the power users who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty and who want to squeeze every bit of power from their favorite browser.

• CLEO package – CLEO is (Compact Library Extension Oraganizer) an extension that helps you create your own extension package (as a .xpi file) from your favaorite extensions (backed up using FEBE). When you want to move your extensions to another computer or three, just copy the custom xpi package you created and open it. Voila! You have cloned your Firefox extensions..
• Firefox Environment Backup Extension (FEBE) – Schedule and automatically back up everything about Firefox.. bookmarks, profiles, saved passwords, form history, etc. No more fear of re-installing Firefox or breaking it with a new extension. You can even upload your backups to your Box.net account.
• Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer – Use Firefox on multiple computers? Install this extension, create a Foxmarks account an forget about keeping your bookmarks in sync. Foxmarks will do it for you.
• Greasemonkey – Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Ex. some of the best Google Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail and Google Reader should get you started on your way to becoming a Greasemonkey script addict!
• OpenSearchFox – Add any website’s search box to your Firefox search bar by right clicking in the searhch box in a website! It doesn’t appear in the Firefox add-ons site anymore but this link takes you to the download page and it works great even in Forefox 3.0.1.
• Menu Editor – TinyMenu mentioned in the next section helps save real estate but it increases the number of clicks to get to your menu option. Menu Editor lets you completely customize your menus. Hide and rearrange options you don’t need making your Firefox menus work for you.
• Remove it Permanently (RIP) – Permanently hide content from web pages using the context menu. Very powerful to customeze your web experience. A powerful options panel that lets you fine tune your preferences to your liking.
• SecureLogin – It uses the Firefox’s built in password manager and disables automatic pre-filling. It highlights the form fields if it detects a saved password and with a customized click or a keyboard shortcut, it fills the username/password as well as signs you in, in one short step. Very useful! I, however, recommend using a more powerful password manager such as Passpack.
• Stylish – Stylish is for CSS where Greasemonkey is for Javascript. Completely customize the looks of websites with Stylish scripts. Browse UserStyles.org to find the ones you like. One of the popular example is Re-Designed Gmail Stylish script.
• Update Notifier – If you can’t wait to know when a Forefox extension has been updated so you can upgrade it right now. Also, provides a useful ‘Restart Firefox’ option in its menu to restart with one click.
• Site Launcher – An experimental add-on thats a must-have for thos who love keyoard shortcuts. Just think Launchy for Firefox. You can launch your favorite sites with just a few hotkeys. Read the full Site Launcher review here.

Usability Add-ons

Aimed at improving browser usability by modifying Firefox chrome or the built-in features.

• Back to Top – Back to Top helps navigate long pages. Go to the top or bottom of a page with a single click. Using right clicks and control clicks you can scroll a page or line at a time.
• Download Statusbar – Download and view status of downloads in a tidy statusbar. No more annoying download window blocking your browsing experience. A full view as well as a tiny view for screen real estate usage.
• Edit Middle – Firefox 3 introduced the Awesomebar. Now whatever you type searches even the middle of the url.
• HashColoredTabs+ – Adds a colored favicon square for those sites without a favicon. This helps you identify tab contents based on a distinct visual cue.
• FaviconizeTab – If you are in the habit opening a dozn tabs anytime you are browsing, this can be save you some real estate in your tab bar. You can also preset certain to sites to always show just the Favicon and not the name of the site in the tab.
• FireGestures – Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard…
• It’s All Text! – If you hate the little comment boxes in blogs or little text boxes where you need to type a long reply or complaint, this extension is for you. It adds a little edit button to the box and on clicking will take you to your favorite editor and on saving will transfer the content over to the box in the web page. Very handy.
• Smart Bookmarks Bar – Do you customize your menu bar to save screen real estate? Now you can hide your bookmark names in the toolbar and show just the favicon saving a lot of space. On mouse over, you’ll see the name of the bookmark for those without a favicon.
• Tiny Menu – Replace the standard menu bar with a tiny menu popup… Save real estate by  customizing the toolbars while shrinking the menu space with this.

Productivity Pack

Extensions aimed at improving productivity while you use the web for your work. Supercharge it now!

• PDF Download – Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
• Better Gmail 2 – A compilation of the best GMail Greasemonkey and Stylish enhancements in one extension from Lifehacker.com. A must have for a power Gmail user.
• Black Canvas Gmail Signatures – Another must have for the power Gmail user. Lets you create multiple HTML signatures for friends, business and others with live preview.
• GMail Manager - Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail
  notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail…
• InformEnter – It adds a small clickable icon (that can be turned off with a right click) next to every form field. You can configure it to fill in semi-automatic mode with any frequently used field values for e.g. not just usernames & passwords, but address, website url, multiple email addresses, phone numbers etc.
• OPML Support – OPML Support adds OPML import/export functionality to the Firefox Bookmarks manager. OPML is a file type that is widely used to distribute lists of RSS/newsfeeds…
• Web Search Pro - Search the web the way you like… Lets you add your favorite search engines from their vast repository. Don’t find one you want, you can request and they will add it. To truly understand it, see the kinds of sites you could right to your search bar.

Fun Add-ons

When you turn to the web to have a little fun.

• Better Flickr – Another great Lifehacker extension that adds the best of Greasemonkey & Stylish scripts just for Flickr. A must have for a Flickr user.
• FoxClocks – Lets you keep an eye on the time around the world or even just your local time by adding an icon in your statusbar.
• FullerScreen - Really full screen… You still have access to the tabs and the status bar in this Full Screen mode. Use F11 to toggle between the modes.
• PicLens – Lets you view pictures in full screen with a single click in various popular sites like Flickr, Facebook, Google Images, Yahoo Images, etc.
• Woot Watcher – Woot Watcher monitors the Woot! web site, and keeps you updated with the current item, price, and if it is sold out. During Woot-offs, it will also let you know what percent of the item is…

Blogging Add-ons

If you are into blogging, some of these extensions could make blogging that much fun and easy. Check out the add-ons and you’ll know what I mean.

• Adsense Notifier – Displays your Adsense earnings on the…
• Copy as HTML Link – Creates an HTML link to the current page using the selected text and copies it. Highly useful.
• Copy Plain Text – Copies text without the formatting.. no more embedded html in your copied text.
• Feedburner Subscribers – If you are not displaying your Feedburner chicklet in yoru site, you can keep track of subscribers right from your browser with this extension.
  
• FireUploader - Lets you upload  Files, photos videos to online services such as Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Google Docs, Box.net, Facebook, Webshots, etc.
  
• Google Notebook – Add text clippings, images and links to your Google Notebook and share them with friends.
• Niche Watch Tool This wonderful SEO extension provides you the technical information required to beat your competitor websites in serps.It gives you backlinks number, indexed pages, keyword occurences on the page, page rank, all in anchor, all in title and all in text rank for both domain and webpage information.
• Screengrab! – Save entire webpages or a particular selection or a frame as images. Excellent tool to get screenshots of different things for blogging. Various image formats like jpg, png, etc. available as well for saving..
• ScribeFire – ScribeFire (previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
• SearchStatus – Displays Google Pagerank, Alexa, Compete ranking, etc. Fast keyword density finder, highlighting keyword/nofollow, backward/related links, etc.
• Update Scanner – No RSS in a website? Add the page you are interested in to this extension and get notified right in your status bar when the page has been updated. You could also use a bookmarklet such as Page2RSS to get updates via email.
• WordPress Helper – A must have for the WordPress power user. It puts the WordPress codex, forums and other WordPress relevant information in your fingertips via the context menu. Also, checkout our Top WordPress Plugins list that features some of the 65+ best WordPress Plugins!

Social Media Add-ons

Not all bloggers use all Social Media so this category zeroes in on just the Social Media extensions.

• Better GReader – A compilation of Google Reader GreaseMonkey and Stylish scripts that enhances Google Reader.
• Delicious Bookmarks – Yes, the weird dots are gone in Delicious.com. This is the official add-on for Delicious. Sidebar, tags and all the goodies for a Delicious.com user. (my delicious profile)
• Digg Toolbar – For the power Digg.com user. Digg, submit content and get notifications of popular content without ever visiting Digg.com.
• Feedly – A fun social startup webpage extension. It integrates with Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, etc and gives you a magazine style start page. You can even annotate, share stories and leave comments in blogs right from the Feedly page.
• Sage RSS Reader – Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t.
• Shareaholic – A catch-all extension for social media sites. Supports multiple web 2.0 sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, etc. If you have a social media sharing addiction, this is just for you!
• SimpleDelicious – Access to your del.icio.us bookmarks right from your browser menu. It synchronizes your bookmarks seamlessly and makes adding and deleting bookmarks very simple.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you “channelsurf” the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for finding and sharing great sites. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for. (my StumbleUpon profile)
• TwitterFox – One of the earliest Twitter add-ons I used. It’s nice and works well. But, there are a lot of other Twitter add-on options you can choose from.. I prefer using Adobe AIR clients such as Twhirl or TweetDeck for Twitter as they povide more options.

Web Developer Add-ons

Aimed at techie’s who either run a website or do some web development.

• Aardvark – Powerful and user-friendly selector utility for selecting elements and doing various actions on them. It can be used for cleaning up a page prior to printing it (by removing and isolating elements), for making the page more readable, and (most appreciated by web developers), for analyzing the structure of a page.
• Colorzilla – Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies…
• EditCSS – Stylesheet modifier in the Sidebar. Great to save your own custom stylesheet in a browser and view the changes realtime. I prefer Firebug for this but some people might find this handy.
• Firebug – A must have. Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page… (check out FireBug Lite bookmarklet that works in IE & Opera)
• FireCookie – A Firebug extension for Firefox that lets you view and manage cookies.
• FireFTP - FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
• FirePHP – Lets you print to your Firebug console with a PHP function call. You need to have the ‘Net’ panel enabled and also download a PHP library from www.firephp.org.
• FlagFox – Just shows the flag of the country the web server is in for the website you are currently viewing.
• IE Tab – Switch to IE for ‘those sites’ that work only on Internet Explorer without leaving Firefox. Mark it and it will remember next time you visit those sites.
• MeasureIt – Draw out a ruler to measure height or width of any element in a web page. A must have.
• Pallette Grabber -
• Server Spy – Server Spy indicates what brand of HTTP server (eg. Apache, IIS, etc.) runs on the visited sites. When a tab is selected, the corresponding server name is shown on the right-hand side of the browser’s status…
• ShowIP – Show the IP address of the current page in the status bar. It also allows querying custom services by IP (right mouse button) and Hostname (left mouse button), like whois, netcraft. Additionally you can copy the IP address to the clipboard.
• Tamper Data – Use tamperdata to view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and post parameters…
• View Source Chart – * Creates a Colorful Chart of a Web Page’s Rendered Source Code * Displays Source in its Altered State After the DOM has been Manipulated by JavaScript.
• Web Developer – Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
• Xinha Here! – Portable WYSIWYG editor! No matter what site you’re visiting you can launch a WYSIWYG right in your browser.
• X-Ray – See the tags on a page without viewing the sourcecode. …

Best of Firefox coverage

Here are some of the best of Krila’s Firefox coverage that might help you. You could also browse other Firefox posts with the Firefox tag.

• How to Run Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 Simultaneously
• Open Google Talk Gadget in Browser Sidebar
• How to Safely Try New Firefox Extensions?
• Run Google Docs in Your Firefox Sidebar

Saptamana trecuta a fost una mare pentru Google Toolbar: a lansat noul Google Toolbar cu Sidewiki pentru Internet Explorer şi Firefox, permiţându-ne să contribuim cu  informaţii utile la orice pagina de web. Cu noua versiune a Google Toolbar, traducerea cuvintelor si a paginilor web a devenit disponibil pentru Firefox, ceea ce face uşor de citit o pagină de Web într-o altă limbă, cu un singur clic.

Aţi avut vreodată nevoie să traduceţi pagini Web din alte limbi în română? Selectaţi „Traduceţi pagina în română” din meniul Traducere al Barei de instrumente pentru a vedea pagini din toate limbile acceptate de „Traduceţi pagina în română”.

Puteţi utiliza funcţia Translator cuvinte pentru a traduce cuvintele din limba engleză de pe o pagină Web în altă limbă. Selectaţi „Activaţi Translator cuvinte” din meniul Traducere, apoi este de ajuns să treceţi cursorul mouse-ului pe deasupra unui cuvânt în engleză pentru a-i vedea traducerea. Translator cuvinte acceptă traducerea din engleză în franceză, germană, italiană, spaniolă, rusă, chineză (tradiţională şi simplificată), japoneză şi coreeană.

Când vizitaţi o pagină Web într-o limbă diferită decât cea a Barei de instrumente, Bara de instrumente va afişa bara de traducere aproape de partea de sus a ferestrei browserului şi vă va întreba dacă doriţi să traduceţi pagina. Faceţi clic pe Traduceţi din Bara de instrumente. Faceţi clic pe Afişaţi originalul sau pe pictograma X pentru a închide bara de traducere şi pentru a vedea pagina Web originală. Dacă schimbaţi limba de traducere preferată, Bara de instrumente va reţine preferinţele dvs. de limbă şi le va utiliza la traducerea ulterioară a paginilor.

Pentru a activa sau a dezactiva funcţia Traduceţi, consultaţi acest articol din Centrul de ajutor. Pentru a schimba limba Barei de instrumente, consultaţi acest articol din Centrul de ajutor.

Noua versiune a Google Toolbar pentru Firefox are multe alte caracteristici noi. Puteţi găsi (aproape) totul despre bara de instrumente in Centrul de Ajutor.

Descărcaţi cea mai recentă versiune a Google Toolbar pentru a încerca aceste caracteristici noi.

There are some really cool features in StumbleUpon. I’ve tried to cover all of the basic functionality of the service in my prior blog about Stumble. Today I’m going to go over a few of the more advanced features.

Now next to the button is a button labeled “All” with a drop down arrow. Click the drop down arrow and you get a list of items and a list of your interests:

You can choose any of the icons or select any of the interest categories you have chosen. When you do the “Stumble” button will change to show that you are Stumbling a particular category. For instance, if you choose “Photos” on the drop down menu, the button will look like this: . Now when you click the button it will only display pictures. You can also choose from videos, news, stumble friends, people, or page from specific users. To go back to the normal Stumble function, just click the drop down again and select “All” . These categories are referred to as “Channels”. You can also change the channels to Stumble by selecting the icons further to the right on the Stumble bar .

If you click the drop down arrow next to the crossed green arrows you are given the option to pick a website to “Stumble Thru”. This will only display items from that websites domain. Here is the list.

So you can now Stumble the best videos on You Tube, the best pictures on Flickr, even the best blogs on WordPress. Not to mention you can choose one of your specific interest categories to Stumble through as well.

My two favorite features of the Stumble bar are the “Search” and the “Share” . Search is under the “All” drop down arrow with the other “channels”. It works in much the same way except when you select this you get a pop up box:

Type in anything you want to search for and click OK. Now when you hit the Stumble button you will be given web sites that have a tag matching your search terms. Keep in mind that thousands of other people may have tagged the page your seeing so someone may have put in a tag that doesn’t quite line up to what it is you had intended. I find most of the tagging pretty accurate. It makes it very easy to find quality content fast, much better sometimes than having to look through all of the Google entries until you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Share is also great. Click this button and it allows you to Share a website with other friends. You can upload the URL to your Twitter feed if you want. You can send the website to an email address, or just one of your other Stumble friends. I personally like the email feature. I can email the page to myself so I can go back to it later. While all the pages you Stumble and “Like” are saved on your Stumble account page as “Stumbles” or “Favorites” respectively, it can sometimes be hard to find a particular page if you didn’t tag it or don’t remember when you Stumbled it. Especially when you have over 32,000 Stumbles and 6,200 favorites (like me).

The other thing that bears mentioning briefly about StumbleUpon is that it is not meant to be a quick and dirty way to get traffic to your website. So don’t go around giving all of your sites the “Thumbs Up”. I’m not sure if the User Agreement specifically mentions this or not, but your free to give it a look-see and let me know. StumbleUpon has recently banned some users for spam or other inappropriate behavior (more info about that here and here), so make sure what you’re “Thumbs Up”-ing is because its legit and you like it and not because you’re trying to link bait as many people you can into your Ad Sense farm. As far as I can tell though, there’s nothing wrong with giving a friends site or blog and “Thumbs Up” either because you like the site or want to help out your friend. Just be careful as to how often, because you may look like your trading “Thumbs Up”s which is frowned upon. It’s not perfect yet, nothing is.

StumbleUpon is a business though and does have some new sites and services that work with Stumble, including some paid submissions and ad services, so you may want to do research on those if increasing traffic is your thing. I personally think that if you have a site that provides some value to the reader or customer, then you shouldn’t need to trick people into going there. They will go there because they like the site.

There are probably a lot more advanced tricks with using StumbleUpon to build site traffic. I know quite a few of my Stumble friends send me their blog pages through the “Share” service and ask me to “Thumbs Up” or review it if I like the page. I don’t see anything wrong with that, the site is meant for networking after all. There are also some options to configure with the toolbar itself, but those are pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll let you figure those out yourselves.

So there you have it. That’s how I use Stumble. What do you like most about StumbleUpon? What do you use it for? As always if you have a question, or a suggestion for a future blog topic, please leave me a comment. And hey, if you like the blog a “Thumbs Up” wouldn’t hurt either.

OK, so per my mother’s first comment request, I’m going to talk a little about Stumble Upon.

I’m going to warn you right now though. When you’re up channel surfing the Internet until 4am on a weeknight because you have to push that button one more time, don’t blame me.

So first for the uninitiated, what is Stumbleup0n? Is it a website? Is it a toolbar? Is it a Firefox add-on? Is it a social networking site? Well, truth is, it sort of defies classifications and labels. There’s not much else like it that I’ve found. It’s similar in function to Delicious (aka del.icio.us).  Wikipedia defines Stumbleupon as:

StumbleUpon is an Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.

I like to describe it simply as “It lets you channel surf the web.” Just like channel surfing on the TV, you keep clicking, looking for something better on another channel. The thing is with the TV eventually you run out of channels and your back to where you started. With the Internet, you don’t run out of channels.

Essentially, you create a user account where you can enter some personalized information and get detailed if you want. You can even have a picture, so it feels like a Facebook/Myspace type thing at first. Then there is a toolbar that you can download for Firefox, and there used to be one for Internet Explorer (I’m not sure if IE8 supports Stumble or not). If your using Chrome or Opera or even Safari, I’m not sure. I have gotten Stumble to work in Opera, but by far it works the best using Firefox. Either way, you need the toolbar to appreciate the full effects of Stumbling. So just get Firefox already, it’s free.

So the tool bar you install will be below your bookmark toolbar in Firefox and just above the tab section:

When you get started setting up your account the site will ask you to choose your interests. There is a long list of categories broken down into sub-categories. You’ll select each sub topic that your’e interested in and StumbleUpon will present you with pages in that category when you click the “Stumble” button .

As of now, you can only choose 127 different topics, so choose carefully (you can always go back and change them later).

Now the idea behind Stumbleupon is simple. When your online and you find a website that you like or want to share, you click the “I Like It” thumbs up icon .

If the page is a new submission then it will ask you to tag it, or in other words, give the page descriptive words about its content. You can use pretty much any words for tags (separated by commas) but they only let you use five total tags. You can also right a review and categorize the page if you want. If the page has already been submitted to the database it will simply note that you “like it” and add it to your listed favorites on your profile.

Once you “thumbs up” a page it is added to your “Favorites” section. On your Stumbleupon profile all of the pages that you “like” are listed for you or any of your “friends” or “fans” to see. One of the reasons I started using StumbleUpon was as an alternative to del.icio.us. It allows you to bookmark sites that you can then access from any web browser. So if your not at your home computer you can still pull up sites that you may not remember the URL to get to.

If you decide after all that it’s not a favorite or you don’t want it to be seen or listed on your profile, then it can be deleted be clicking the “Delete” link on your list of favorites.

Now when you hit the Stumble button a page is retrieved from the database of submissions that matches up to the categories you’ve selected as interests. I’m sure there’s more to it than this, but without trying to reverse engineer the whole thing, that’s the just of it. Sometimes you will get a page that one of your friends has submitted. Generally when you click Stumble the Stumbleupon user that submitted the page will appear in the Stumble bar. You can then click on the user button to visit their profile and see what other pages they like and learn more about them.

If you are given a page that you don’t like for whatever reason you can click the “Thumbs Down” button with a few options in the drop down arrow.

First, you can simply decide that the page is “Not for you”.  You can also report the page as spam, duplicate content (meaning you’ve seen the page or a the same content on another page), or you can choose to “Block Website”. This last option will keep any page from the website that you are on from being displayed by a click of your Stumble button.

There are a lot of other advanced features that make StumbleUpon really addictive. I’ll talk about those in a future blog. But for now go ahead and download the toolbar and sign up for an account. Did I mention that it’s free? Play with it and if you run across something you have a question about, drop me a line (leave a comment).

Until next time I leave you with this and wish you happy Stumbling.

So I’m going to briefly talk about Firefox add ons (also called extensions) today. For those of you living under a rock “Firefox” is a web-browser similar in function to “Internet Explorer” or “Netscape” or “Safari” or “Opera” or “Chrome”. Actually, these days there is a huge selection of web-browsers. Comparisons between them will be left to a future post.

The Firefox web browser allows for the use of “add ons”. Add ons are essentially little programs written by third party companies that work within the Firefox web browser and add extra functionality. I’m going to discuss my favorite add on, which is called Screengrab.

Now there are literally thousands of ad-ons for Firefox. To check them out and instructions for installing them you can go here.

Screengrab allows you to copy an entire web page or a portion of a web page either to the clipboard (which allows you to paste the copied area into a document or another file) or to an image file to save to a drive.

This is helpful for several reasons. When you come across some page on the internet you’d like to save or have for future reference you can easily bookmark the site or copy and save the URL. The problem is that the page may change or be removed in the future. Some pages change daily, while others may stay the same forever. If the web page that your URL link points to is deleted or moved, then essentially its gone.

With Screengrab, you can highlight an area of the page and save it to an image file, so even if the page is removed or changed later, you still have a record of what was there. Very useful for documenting various mistakes or areas of concern on a web page. Think of it like clipping an article from a newspaper. It’s also better than print screen because it can save an image of the entire page. Print screen will only save what’s visible on the monitor and may not keep the formatting correctly. It’s also great if you want to save a portion of an image on a web page, but not the entire thing. Simply select from the Screengrab icon in the lower right corner of the window: Save, Selection. Then highlight the area you’d like to save and let go of the mouse. You can save the resulting image file as either a PNG or JPG.

Here is the area from the darker pink selection  I copied from the earlier picture:

It’s pretty self-explanatory, but as always if you have a question or something else you’d like to discuss, please drop in a comment.

So go explore the world of Firefox add ons and let me know which one is your favorite.

This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we have written some easy instructions to repair the flash plugin on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. In fact, after a brand new install on my Acer Aspire Athlon X2 I had big problems in visualizing Flash contents on Firefox 3. I tried to reinstall the plugin different times but the result did not change. Finally, reading a page in ubuntuforums.org I find the right solution for my problem. First of all you have to open Synaptic Package Manager (in System – Administration) and remove all the swfdec packages (in my case swfdec -mozilla and swfdec -gnome). Then, using the Terminal you have to type sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree. Now you restart Firefox and Flash contents will be available again. We believe that this solution is really fast and practical but if you know a better one which could permit us not to install non free code please let us know.

1.  GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program)  – http://gimp.org/ – Useful for creating blog headers, cropping, and touching -up photos

2.  FireFox Extensions

• ColorZilla – Choose colors from any web page for use in your blog
• MeasureIt – Useful for measuring current dimensions of website headers, footers, columns, etc.
• Pixlr – Edit screen captures online

3.  Image hosting – Picasa (requires Google Account) or Flickr (requires Yahoo! account) – Useful for hosting your own images for use in creating web headers and blog images.

Für alle die Xmarks nicht kennen: Es handelt sich dabei um eine Erweiterung für den Firefox mit der die Lesezeichen – und wenn gewünscht auch Passwörter – auf einen Webspace oder direkt bei Xmarks syncronisiert werden können.

Zweiteres ist für Leute interessant die keinen eigenen Webspace oder WebDAV Server im Internet haben. Außerdem kann man so auch noch weitere Features nutzen, wie zB eine Vorschlagfunktion für noch unbekannte Websites auf Basis der eigenen Interessen die aus den eigenen Lesezeichen und denen aller anderen User errechnet werden.

Ich persönlich verwende allerdings nur die Synchronisierung auf einen eigenen Webspace und würde das auch jedem anderen Empfehlen. Meine angeborene Paranoia hindert mich daran so aussagekräftige Daten über meine Persönlichkeit auf die Server irgendeiner Firma zu übertragen wo man nicht sicher sein kann was damit passiert.
Somit sind für mich die meisten Features der Extension eigentlich unnötig und manuell von mir deaktiviert worden.

Xmarks hat nun für Leute für mich die Xmarks BYOS Edition erfunden.
BYOS steht für “Bring Your Own Server” und der Name ist Programm. Diese Extension lässt nur die Synchronisation mit einem eigenen Server zu und alle Funktionen für die man einen Account bei Xmarks braucht wurden entfernt. Somit bleibt nun eine schlanke Extension ohne unnötigen Ballast und Features die ich sowieso ausschalten würde.

Wenn ihr also schon Xmarks nutzt solltet ihr die BYOS Edition unbedingt mal ausprobieren.

Alle die Xmarks noch nicht kennen und mehr als einen PC haben (oder auch nur mehrere Betriebssystem auf dem selben Rechner) sollten sich überlegen ob sie’s nicht brauchen könnten. Ich persönlich kann mir ein Leben ohne synchronisierte Bookmarks nicht mehr Vorstellen. Hab Xmarks auf 5 Rechnern insgesamt 7 mal installiert.

Und ein bisschen Webspace hat jeder (auch wenn er’s nicht weiß) – bei der TA zB sind beim normalen KombiPaket 20MB Webspace dabei … das ist mehr als genug zum Lesezeichensynchronisieren.

چنانچه از طرفداران فايرفاكس هستيد به اطلاع مي رساند نسخه 3.5.1 آن بصورت پرتابل توسط  Portable Apps ارائه شده است.

براي دريافت آخرين نسخه پرتابل فايرفاكس از لينك زير استفاده نماييد و يا براي دريافت مستقيم برروي شكل  كليك كنيد

لينك دريافت : http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

فيس بوك من | فرندفيد من |  توييتر من |   اشتراك ايميلي

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The Hide Tab is a Boss Key for your Browser

Firefox only (Win/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension HideTab minimizes open tabs into an icon on the status bar—and even adds a shortcut key to instantly hide everything.

Installing the extension works a little different than normal—you’ll need to download the extension and drag the file into the Add-ons window manually. Once you’ve restarted your browser, head into the options panel and change the default “Panic page” to use something other than the default, and then you can start hiding tabs through the context menu or using the handy Ctrl+Q shortcut key. To hide all tabs instead of just the current one, use the Alt+Q shortcut key instead, and Ctrl+Alt+Q will restore all hidden tabs, though you can pick and choose from the icon in the status bar.

HideTab is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. For a similar extension that closes all your open tabs instead of just hiding them, check out previously mentioned Panic.

This site is one of my favorite creations.

It gathers information from many sources and points them to one site from one rss feed!

Now you can find information about:

• Firefox Extensions
• Firefox Themes
• Firefox Plugins

Now you can find everything you need included news for your favorite browser in just one site! Enjoy!

Easy Firefox

Easy Firefox

I found out about Cooliris while digging through the Firefox add-ons last month and I came across a gem called Cooliris and was instantly hooked. Like most good things, what it does is actually quite simple. After downloading Cooliris, a logo is placed on the upper right-hand corner of your browser. When visiting a site that is Cooliris friendly, it lights up and becomes clickable. After clicking the icon, a very modern Apple-esque window appears and you have a whole new way to see photos.

Cooliris works on a variety of websites and can handle both video and pictures, but so far I’ve really only been interested in using it for pictures. The reason why I love this add-on so much is because it’s one of the things that come along once in a while that you never thought you would need, but you have it you can’t imagine what it was like without it. The scrolling wall format is very similar to iTunes’ cover flow and will go on endlessly as long as there are more pictures available. Cooliris also works as a stand alone program which allows you to search YouTube, Flickr, and Google.

You can download the Cooliris add-on through the Firefox website here. There is also more information available at their website Cooliris.com.

To πρόβλημα συνηθισμένο πλέον. Κυκλοφόρησε νέα έκδοση του Firefox (στη δική μας περίπτωση η 3.5b4) και κάποια από τα αγαπημένα σας extensions είναι ανενεργά.

Την λύση θα σας την δώσει το extension MR Tech Toolkit. To MR Tech Toolkit είναι ένα πακέτο εργαλείων το οποίο αρχικά χρησιμοποιούταν για την εγκατάσταση extensions (.xpi) που είχαμε στον δίσκο μας αλλά εμάς μας ενδιαφέρει άλλο κομμάτι. Λοιπόν αφού το κάνουμε εγκατάσταση και επανεκκινήσουμε τον Firefox , στα addons τα οποία θα δείτε λίγο διαφορετική εμφάνιση, εντοπίστε τα extensions τα οποία είναι ανενεργά. Κάντε δεξί κλικ , επιλέξτε “Make Compatible”, επανεκκίνηση Firefox και voila! όλα παίζουν ΟΚ!

Τουλάχιστον σε όσα extension έχω δοκιμάσει δούλεψε μια χαρά συμπεριλαμβανομένου και του ιδιότροπου Grease Monkey. Λογικά κάποια extensions θα έχουν προβληματάκια αλλά το MR Tech Toolkit θα κάνει σίγουρα τον Firefox 3.5b4 σίγουρα πιο χρήσιμο.

Official Page

Download MR Tech Toolkit