December 20, 2004

Wow. Today is cold. Mad cold. Excessively cold. Cold as in “I had on my down parka and was still chilly” cold. Woke up this morning and greeted an 8 degree morning. Eight degrees. Windchill was the negative of that - quite below zero. Wow…it was cold. Last night wasn’t as cold, but it felt worse because I had a fleece jacket on.

IMPORTANT PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT

Lands’ End Polartec fleece jackets are wonderful. Ask for one for Christmas. Just be aware that they are absolutely worthless in the wind. It’s just a fleece shell that works wonders, even at 20 degrees. Just without wind.

Today’s computer tips include my favorite list of Firefox extensions. If I have time this afternoon I will list all the reasons I love Firefox. For now, just download it and the following extensions and themes:

Theme
There’s only one you’ll ever need - the ever-popular Noia 2.0 eXtreme. I don’t know what the name stands for, but it’s an excellent theme.

Extensions
Firefox allows you to have “extensions” that expand the program’s already extensive list of features. These are the ones I think are absolutely essential; you may find others and think that these are not as essential. Whatever.

• JustBlogIt - essential for bloggers out there. Find a page you like, right-click the page, select “JustBlogIt!” and type away.
• WebDeveloper - essential for, well, web developers. Has a host of features, checkers, and nifty tools to help you figure out why your CSS doesn’t look like it should. BTW, this was essential for figuring out the three-column layout this site employs.
• Download Statusbar - not as essential, but still a good tool. Reduces your downloads to a hideable bar at the bottom of your screen. Shows progress, speed, and estimated time to finish.
• FoxyTunes - more or less essential for all us audiophiles out there. With the advent of MediaPlayer 10, which minimizes quite nicely to the task bar, this isn’t as useful. But when I’m at work and only running WMP 9, this is great. I can control every aspect of most popular audio player software packages right from Firefox.
• Gmail Notifier - essential for people who use Gmail. NOTE: at this time, it appears this is out-of-date. I couldn’t get Firefox 1.0 to install it. I suggest checking their site frequently to see if it’s been updated. If you care.
• Adblock - absolutely essential. If you don’t download another extension, download this one. I’ve been able, with some wildcard action, to block every single graphic ad from all my favorite sites - The Weather Channel, Airliners.net, and others. It doesn’t just block offending images, either - thanks to the “Block iFrame” option, I can stop a blocked ad from even taking up space on the page. Absolutely wonderful tool, and I’m a little surprised it’s not in the actual shipping copy of Firefox, it’s so useful. YOU MUST GET THIS EXTENSION!!!

That’s about it for the Firefox stuff. Remember, you can download the program here if you don’t have it already. Over 12 million people can’t be wrong. Get rid of IE (to whatever extent you can - it’s so hooked into Windows that I wouldn’t suggest trying to uninstall it; just stop using it and don’t look back) and make the switch.