Pimping Your Firefox Part VIII: Weather in Your Browser

It's been a while since I talked about all the great things you can do with Firefox. For a quick reminder, you'll need Firefox to use these great things (and you can read all my previous Firefox talk here).

Follow this link to download Firefox.

Today I am going to talk about two Firefox add-ons that are weather related.

The first is Forecast Fox. This extension gives you the current weather as well as a few days (mine gives me 3 days) in advance. All you do is open your browser and it's there. The extension even updates itself. So for those of you who are too lazy to bookmark your local Weather Network forecast page (or if you're from Victoria, this awesome page - maybe more on that another day) you don't have to. A couple of caveats though. I would tend to think that the other two pages would be much more reliable (though as you can see on the Victoria Weather page, within a city there can be huge variations - so a home thermometer would be best). The second is that the other pages are way more detailed. I use Forecast Fox, but only as a guide.

A second extension (which is more cool than useful) is Sun Cult. This extension will give you sunrise, sunset, moon rise, moon set information for your city and day (as well as some more information). This could be useful if you need to know how light it will be out (the end of twilight is one of those extras you get). Anyway, I think it's cool and it goes well with Forecast Fox so I threw it in there.

Hope you're all enjoying Firefox. If you haven't at least tried it yet, I suggest you go here and download it for free (as it always is) and try it out!

Pimping Your Firefox Part VII: Getting Rid of Pesky Ads

Ever go to a website that's full of ads? Wish you could just make them disappear? Well, you can with Adblock Plus (if you use Firefox that is!).

Adblock Plus is an extension for firefox that allows you to block any elements of a page. Once you install it from the mozilla page (the last link), all you need to do is right click on an ad and select "adblock image." That ad will no longer appear in your browser. It's that easy.

One caveat though. Some websites and ads are pretty smart and frequently change things about their ads so that they will be shown. This can often be annoying because you may have to re-block the specific ads.

It's definitely worth a shot and really helps get rid of all that unwanted information that gets thrown at you on the web.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to ask them on here or email me at pieceofdust@gmail.com

Pimping Your Firefox Part VI: More Buttons

Ever feel like you use your menu bar too much? Wish you could have more buttons? I have the extension for you: Firefox Menu Buttons

Download this extension from the link above. After you do that, right click on the navigation toolbaar (the one with the address bar in it) and click on "customize". Just drag and drop the buttons you want. I use the following on my toolbar: Favourites, Add a Tab, Add a Favourite and Find (a great feature that lets you search for text on a web page - useful if you're trying to find someone's name in a long list of race results). There are many more available with this extension and I'm sure you'll find something useful.

As always, if you have questions post them here and I'll try to answer them.

Pimping Your Firefox Part V: Searching From the Top of Your Browser

Today I'm going to talk about a quick way to search for things on the internet using Firefox. Though this series has been going on for a while, I think now is a good time to remind you to try Firefox, which can be downloaded from here.

Now that you all have Firefox, you may notice a small bar in the upper right corner where you can type stuff. It may have a little logo right before the blank space. If you have never used this, I suggest you read on from here. This will make searching the internet much easier. You can add ANY search engine on the internet to this bar. All you need to do is go to a search engine you use frequently. Right slick on the bar where you usually type and you should get a menu. Somewhere in that menu should be "Add this search to the searchbar." Select that and you are good to go. You can also go to this page, and pick from some common search engines that you can add.

I personally get a lot of use out of Google, Wikipedia and IMDb (Internet Movie Database), but you may find others that are of more use to you. The great thing is that you don't have to navigate to a specific search engine to search. Just make sure that you don't need the page you are on (opening a new tab will make this easier - more on this next week!) because whatever page is open is the page that the search results will appear in (there is a fix for this, and see this Lifehacker post for an explanation).

Anyway, there is one more thing that you might find useful. An add-on called Seach Engine Ordering will allow you to change the order of search engines so you can have your most used ones at the top.

As always, feel free to ask questions if you're unsure of what I'm talking about.

Pimping Your Firefox Part IV: Previewing Links Without Leaving Your Page

Have you ever been surfing the web and wanted to see a link before you clicked on it and navigated away from the page your on? If so, I've got a great Firefox extension for you: Cooliris previews.

This nifty program, once installed (remember, you need Firefox for this!), will give you a nice blue and green square whenever your mouse rolls over a link. Roll your mouse over that small square and a the page will show in a small box. If you want to continue to that page, you merely have to click the link. If you don't want to see it, move your mouse away and it will disappear in a few seconds, or you can click the red "X" at the top of the preview and it will close.

Not that complex, but a useful extension nonetheless.

Pimping Your Firefox Part III: Easily Accessible Favourites

Today's tip comes from an older Lifehacker post. I thought I woudl share the advice. Some of you may have the bookmark toolbar on the top of your browser and it may go unused up there. Some of you may also have turned it off. I originally had it hidden until I realized how helpful it can be. Two extensions help you make it quite useful. The first is a nice one that will put only the icons of the site on the bar. Those icons are those little pictures that appear before the address in the address bar (the orange "B" symbol for this site). All that you really need to do is download Smart Bookmarks Bar. You can change the settings for this bar by going to Tools -> Extensions. There should then be a dialog box that lists all your extensions. Just click once on Smart Bookmarks Bar and then click on the "options" button down below to change the settings. There is only one setting (Showing the name when you roll your mouse over the picture). I personally have that box unchecked because I find it distracting. You may want to keep it so you know what the sites are.

The second extension that is helpful is Favicon Picker 2. This extension gives you the option of picking what the icon is for your bookmarks (because not all sites have nice icons like this one). Simply download the program and you are ready to go. If you want to change the icon, just left click on it and click properties. There should be a section of that box that has the icon and two options: Erase or Browse... pick browse to find an icon you want to use (it has to be on your computer).

For those of you who aren't so sure how to make an icon, I will send you to a website that will help you: Favicons from Pics. Simply click on the "Browse" button on the page and select a picture from your computer. It will generate a file that can be used as an icon. You will need to download this to your computer and put it somewhere safe. I suggest making a folder for it (Call it "Icons" if you want to be safe and put it with your other pictures). You can then find this file with the above program to make your icon.

All together, this can give you several of your bookmarks or favourites right in your browser without having to open up the bookmarks sidebar or drop down menu. I personally have 34 bookmarks in my browser with room for 5-10 more. I suggest you try this and see how much easier it is to check your favourite sites.

As always, if you want to try this and are confused, just ask me any questions you may have...

UPDATE (20:50): Oops, I lied. Just after I wrote this, I updated my extensions and the new version of Smart Bookmarks Bar has more options, including decreasing the space between the icons, which allows for more icons on the toolbar. Yet another great feature of Open Source Software - constant improvements!

Open Source Software: The Basics

I have frequently used the term Open Source Software in my posts and some of my readers may not be completely sure what that is. I thought I would do a brief rundown of what it is and the advantages gained from using it.

Open Source Software is simply software that is not a secret. The source code of these programs is freely avaialable to anyone who wants to look at it. These programs are usually created by individuals who are more concerned with making a good program than they are with making money. Due to the code being freely available, the programs are also free (in most cases, there are some small exceptions). Think of Open Source Software as a collaborative effort compared to closed source software (like Windows) which is controlled by a small group of people.

Open Source Software is developed by anyone who wants to help. There are many online communities working on various applications and constantly updating them and making them better for everyone involved. If you wanted to help with building a program (and you had the skills), you could easily help.

The advantages of using Open Source Software are huge. I'll list a few of the bigger ones in a list:

• Since there is no concern for money, and every concern for quality, programmers are constantly working to improve the programs, and not holding innovative ideas back so that people have to buy updates. Often, Open Source Software is more innovative and has been copied by closed source applications. An example of this is Microsoft copying Firefox's tabbed browsing (among other features).
• Speaking of Firefox, many Open Source programs allow for add-ons or extensions. These small programs can give you many helpful tools to complete tasks that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Other extensions are just for fun. Many of those will be discussed in my weekly posts about how to upgrade your Firefox.
• Cost. Open Source Software is free. Even if you don't realize that you pay for Windows or Mac OS, you are when you buy your computer. There are Open Source options (apparently Dell is offering Open Source operating systems on the computers they sell).
• A Sense of Community: Open Source software follows the idea that we are one community working together. Those who make Open Source Software are doing it to make something good for them and for others. They are not doing it for money (they may be doing it for fame, however). Open Source Software embraces the idea that we are a community and not the idea that we should hide the secrets to success.

Open Source is not just a computer thing. The idea is a whole movement. Many other things can be made open source. This Wikipedia article (which may be biased) contains a few other areas that have been termed Open Source.

Here are a couple of sites that have various Open Source programs on them (all free of course):

• Open Source Windows
• Mohawke's Best

And a site that talks about Open Source Software:

• Make the Move

I hope this has been informative. I would suggest trying some Open Source Software out to see how well it can serve your needs. I will be profiling some of the better programs I have encountered in the coming weeks and as always, I'll be talking about Firefox later today.

Pimping Your Firefox Part II: Multiple Tabs for Your Homepage

One of the neat things about Firefox (if you haven't downloaded it yet, see the link on the sidebar) is that it has tabs. Tabs allow you to have more than one window open in the same browser. This is helpful so you don't have to open too many browser windows which can become confusing. One nifty feature that Firefox allows is to have different tabs to open up when you open a new browser window. For example, when I open Firefox, I get three pages instead of one. How do you do this? Let me show you.

The first step is to make a folder in your bookmarks sidebar. To do this, open the bookmarks sidebar (there should be an icon on the top - it may be called favourites). Once there, left click to create a new folder. You can name this folder anything you want, but it might be best to name it "Startup."

Once you have that, go find multiple pages you want to open when you open Firefox. When you are at the page, right click the little picture in the address bar that shows up before the address (for this site it looks like an orange square with a "B" inside of it. Hold the mouse button down as you drag that picture into the folder you just made ("Startup"). Repeat this as many times as you want, but I would not add too many as it could get overwhelming when you open Firefox.

The next thing you need to do is to go to the menu on top. Go to Tools then to Options. A window should open. Go to the "General Tab." It should show what your current homepage is. Below it will be a button that says: "Use Bookmark" Click on that and select the folder you just made ("Startup"). Close Firefox and the next time you open it you will get all the pages you selected. There are other ways to do this as well, and if you figure them out, feel free to share.

If you want to change the pages that open for you, change the pages in the folder first and then complete the last step again. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

Hope this was helpful and that you are starting to see the advantages of using Firefox! More tips to come next week.

Pimping Your Firefox Part I: Finding Cool New Sites

To my dismay, I've noticed most of my viewers do not use firefox as their web browser. I debated giving a long rant about why Firefox is better, but I thought showing you would be the best way (the teacher in me is thinking about how we all learn better by doing). If you don't yet have firefox, you can use this nifty link to get you started. Firefox is completely free (it's Open Source Software) and it is actually safer to use than Internet Explorer – sorry Mac users, I'm sure Safari and Opera are great, but I still think Firefox is better.

One of the things that makes Firefox so great is that there are hundreds of little “extensions” you can add to “pimp it up.” Today I am going to talk about two of themselves

The first is StumbleUpon. Once you download this extension and you make an account with StumbleUpon and the internet opens up for you. It works in several ways. One way is that you can rate sites (thumbs up or thumbs down). StumbleUpon keeps track of all the votes for and votes against to help recommend sites to others. It also keeps track of the sites you like and the sites you don't like. Another feature is that you can “tag” sites with different words. For example, this post could get the tag “Firefox” or “Computers.” You can similarly attach tags to yourself of things you like. This is where it gets neat. When you hit the “Stumble!” button, StumbleUpon takes you to a site that fits your preferences. It doesn't always get a site you'll like, but if you hit it often enough, you can find something that interests you.

The second extension came to me from my involvement in BzzAgent. This is a site that tells me about certain products or programs in exchange for me talking about them. The extension in question is free (as are all Firefox extensions) and it's called Me.dium. It works similarly but the interface is different. It opens up a sidebar and shows you sites floating around that are similar. It also has little people to show you which other Me.dium users are at those sites. You can make “friends” with Me.dium and is especially good when trying to share websites with your “friends.” In essence, Me.dium is for people who want to surf the web with someone else. You could use this for things such as shopping, planning a trip, or doing research. It sounds complicated, but once you see it, it makes much more sense. One thing I should also note is that it won't show other people sites that are password protected, and you can turn it off whenever you don't want people to see what site you're on (for whatever reason).

So this is just the first part of many where I'll tell you about great Firefox extensions in my bid to switch a few of you over. I hope you try out Firefox and you'll see why everyone is raving about it!