Jonathan Hensley | The Blog | JHensley.org

The more you use Firefox the more you love it. The more quality extensions you find and install the more functional, convenient and helpful Firefox becomes.

I was a latecomer to FireFox… I rebelled for a while and stuck with IE7. Firefox felt kind of rogue to me at first. It wasn’t until FireFox 2 that really made the full switch. The thing that really put the final nail in the IE coffin was finding some really useful extensions that made my online tasks easier.

Here’s a list of my top 10 favorite Firefox extensions… in mostly random order.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
This one is a must have for anyone who uses multiple computers. Install it on all of them and it’ll sync your bookmarks across them all. It also backs them up online so you can access them when you’re on someone else’s computer.

Better GMail 2
If you use GMail or Google Apps email (and you should be) then Better GMail 2 is also a must have. This extension gives your GMail interface more functionality and gives you more control over what buttons or modules you see. It also allows you to tweak the interface to your needs.

Hide Menubar
I don’t need the menu bar so why show it. If you do need all you have to do is press [Alt].

Colorful Tabs
Makes your tabs colorful. To me this just helps me visually separate them.

Delicious Bookmarks

I use delicious to for quick posting to this blog. If you use delicious you should have the bookmarklet.

Google Gears
Google Gears lets you store certain data locally which in turn allows webapps to perform faster. I use Gears for Wordpress and Google Reader mainly. It’s also compatible with Google Docs.

IE Tab
For the few sites left that don’t like IE7.

Picnik
Picnik is awesome for taking an image from the web and quickly letting you fancy it up with shadows, borders or effects. It’s an especially great blogging tool.

TwitterFox
TwitterFox is a lightweight little Twitter client that runs in your FireFox tray. New tweets pop up when they come in (configurable of course) and it also lets you tweet.

PDF Download
Gives you more control over what to do with PDF links: download, launch, print. Prevents PDF’s from crashing your browser session.

Let me know what extensions you use or which of these are your favorites.

Here are some interesting links from today:

• Rumor: Apple’s iTunes going DRM-free starting Tuesday
  A report from last week brought to AppleInsider's attention by French technology site ElectronLibre asserts that it's now "clear" Apple will spark new interest in its music store by removing DRM from tracks published by Sony, Universal and Warner on December 9th.
• Gmail Finally Gets A To-Do List
  Someone at Google finally realized how helpful it would be to add a to-do list to Gmail. It is called “Tasks” and is now available in Gmail Labs (click on the beaker icon next to “Settings” on the upper right hand corner of Gmail). When you enable Tasks, it appears as a link in the left-hand column under Contacts. Click on the link and a box pops up in the lower right-hand corner like it does with Gtalk. You can add tasks, reorder them, cross out completed tasks, switch to a new list, or pop out the box to keep on your desktop.
• Wal-Mart to start selling the iPhone this month
  Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will become the second mass-market retail chain to start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone, with two store representatives saying the world’s largest retailer will carry two models of the Web-surfing handset this month.

  Employees in the cell-phone departments at five California stores, contacted by phone today, said Wal-Mart will offer iPhones by the end of December. Employees are currently being trained on how to sell the device, all five said.

Robert Scoble just posted this video from one of Seagate’s hard drive factory’s in China. This video shows a little bit of the process of how they make a hard drive but the part I was most fascinated by was the cleanroom itself. Seagate says they build hard drives in this factory at a rate of about 1 every 4 seconds… or, over 1 million drives per week!

Here are some interesting links from today:

• New Google Android phone launches
  Google's new mobile operating system, Android, is now available on a handset that isn't the G1.

  Only available in Australia, the phone is called the Kogan Agora, and will be available in Q1 of next year – 29 January, to be exact.

  Like the G1, the phone will feature a whole host of Google-based applications.

  These include: Google Calendar, GMail, a Google search bar and instant access to Google Maps and YouTube.

• Bluetooth 2.2 to be released in mid-2009
  The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) recently announced that it will release a new version of Bluetooth in mid-2009. Bluetooth 2.2 promises to be much faster than previous versions, allowing transfer rates at higher speeds.
• Premium LCD TV brands slash prices to compete for holiday shoppers
  the top brands cut slashed prices on their LCD TV models on average of 23 percent for the holiday shopping weekend beginning on the day after Thanksgiving. The big guys cut their prices even more than lower-tier players like Vizio and Westinghouse, which dropped theirs by just 19 percent.

Here are some interesting links from today:

• HD streaming added to Netflix-compatible Samsung Blu-ray decks
  Samsung has added support for HD streaming of Netflix video to its BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 players. The upgrade is available as a free firmware update (players should automatically prompt users to install the software update, or DIYers can download it from Samsung's support site and burn it to disc).
• Live TV on the iPhone
  On Thursday Livestation will preview a development application for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Perhaps it will be the making of the platform? Who knows. But the irony to all this is that in 2006 Microsoft and Skinkers signed a technology for equity deal in 2006, a first for Microsoft in Europe at the time. So Microsoft will have a stake in bringing live TV to the iPhone. Nice.