I’ve just upgraded to an Apple 13″ MacBookPro and so far loving it! This is my venture back into Mac OS world after being majorly disappointed with the performance of the  17″ Apple PowerBook G4 that first hit Australia in 2004. My decision to go Mac recently, was set in concrete by several hair-pulling-out “Blue Screen Of Death” experiences. Didn’t help that most of these happened just when I was about to publish a lengthy blog post

Sure it’s been a tad tedious having to setup and configure everything just the way I like as well as getting used to the different keyboard layout of Mac machines, but I’m really digging Mac OS   (I’ll talk more about this in a later post).

One of the first things that I did was install Firefox. While Safari has improved substantially over the last couple of years in terms of speed and functionality it doesn’t have the extendability and support that Firefox has particularly through Add-ons. For those who don’t know, Add-ons are extensions that you can add to your Firefox browser to give you more functionality. They can range from news readers to games.

6 WebMaster Must-Have Add-on for Firefox

A lot of people ask me what Add-ons I use for Firefox since I’m such an FF advocate. The ones I present below will particularly help those who have websites or blogs and want to not only monitor its performance but also allow you to share your content rapidly.

1. Alexa Sparky : Displays Alexa website ranking. For those those who don’t know what this is jump to Alexa’s Website.

2. SearchStatus : Displays Google Page Rank for websites that you browse. You can read about Google Page Rank here.

3. Shareaholic : Once installed you can submit your website to a multitude of social bookmarking sites by simply right clicking

4. StumbleUpon Toolbar : Speaking of social bookmarking sites, one of the most famous is StumbleUpon. Quickly access all StumbleUpon’s main features with this.

5. Web Developer : If you’re a website designer or developer this add-on will help you quickly identify various elements of websites. Especially handy when customising CSS

6. NoFollow: Incoming and outgoing links are very important to website owners. This site gives you information if website, particularly a blog will reciprocate a link to your website after you’ve left a comment.

There are a couple of other ones that I use out of personal preference, not really having to do anything with web work like ForecastFox and FoxClocks that help me keep track of weather and international timezones. You can get a whole stack more of Firefox Addons here.

What Firefox Add-ons Do You Use?

I’d be interested in hearing what any other web developers / designers use with Firefox, especially to make the work of creating, maintaining and promoting their websites.

Hope this post helps some out there.

Are you on Symbian? You might be happy to know that you’re getting another option for a new web browser soon. Aside from the recently-released Opera Mini, Firefox is reportedly developing a Mobile version for Symbian smartphones.

continue reading "Firefox Mobile for the Symbian Platform Coming Soon"

Firefox’s mobile browser is truly a figment of people’s overactive imagination no more. After last week’s announcement that we’ll see an alpha real soon comes a few screenshots to prove that Mozilla’s CEO wasn’t just rattling off some tentative dates to appease impatient fans.

continue reading "Screenshots of the Firefox Mobile Fennec Web Browser"

Last June, the Firefox Mobile browser codenamed “Fennec” was only a concept Mozilla is working on. Rumors came out that the target release date is 2010, but it was debunked later afterwards. A recent interview with Mozilla CEO revealed that we’ll be seeing the Firefox Mobile real soon though.

continue reading "Firefox Mobile Alpha Version Coming Real Soon"

If you’re still not persuaded that upgrading to Firefox 3 equates to any benefits, check out the Firefox 3 Youtube video below (Great work Jimmy!):

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g30Xyh6Wqc]

Download Firefox 3 here.

Without the advantage of being pre-installed in the world’s most used operating system, Firefox is slowly catching up to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the Internet browser of choice. It is now the second most used browser with an 18.41% share of the browser market. This achievement is non-trivial.

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continue reading "Official Release Date for Firefox 3 is June 17th : Be part of a Guiness World Record Attempt"

Yes, Firefox is really coming to mobile devices. Firefox Mobile (codenamed Fennec) is still in the experimental stages and it’s not yet known when it’ll become available to the masses. In fact, there still isn’t a working demo available of the actual browser itself, but this demo of a mock-up user interface shows quite a promising future for Firefox Mobile.

continue reading "Firefox Mobile Concept Video"

If you’re a web designer, you’ll share my pain as I describe my frustrations of having to write style sheets (CSS) for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 and EVERYTHING else. I spent a good part of my evening yesterday trying to fix our “IE6″ version of the site which I realised has had a whacked-out menu for at least 5 months.

If it wasn’t for the fact that there are a lot of you out there still using it, I would quite happily not bother about it. Check out this May’s Urchin Stats Report on Browser / Operating Systems visting my site:

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continue reading "Do Yourself and Us a Favour : Get Rid of Internet Explorer 6"

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i0JAAlONQMU]

PicLens is a special plug-in for various web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Flock. The plug-in gives you the capacity to view enabled web sites as a dynamic wall of images rather than the usual image thumbnail lists.

continue reading "PicLens: View Web Sites in 3D"

For those who are using Twitter and are of the refined browsing club who use Firefox, you’ll love TwitterFox. This Firefox extension allows you to see that status of friends, families and whoever else you’re following from the comfort of your current Firefox browser without having to visit the Twitter website or run a separate Twitter app. It’s also just as easy to send up your Twitter updates too!

I got wind of TwitterFox through one of my “followers” and now friends, ericnicolaas. Thanks Eric!