• Getting Things Done with Twitter: Don’t like the idea of paying through Twitter.
• Twitterfall: A New Twitter Tool for Journalists: I get nervous about new twitter tools because they can boost your addiction and time spent on twitter [Link: Esther]. And a link to Twitterfall.
• Becoming a Great Programmer: Use Your Trash Can by Esther Schindler.
• What the Hashtag? Can’t figure out what the # means in twitter? Wonder no more.
• Word Count Plus FireFox Plugin: Counts number words in selected text and total.
• How to Be Likeable: 10 Things You Can Do Today [Link: GL Hoffman]
• SPOGG: Society for the Promotional of Good Grammar
• Poll: What is the first media outlet you look/listen in order to get your news on a daily/consistent basis? Saddened (but not surprised) to see print low on the list. Created with twtpoll (multiple choice only).

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 12 Awesome Foosball Tables: WOW. Hubby would love one of these, but they’ll remain admired from afar just like his favorite Corvette ‘61.
• The Great Pyramid PC Mod: Cool.
• 10 tips to give up Facebook during Lent
• Evaluate tech purchases: Retrevo and Wize [Link: Web Worker Daily]

Sometimes Firefox causes problems on my computer by sucking up too much memory. I won’t give up on Firefox easily, so I set to work on how to improve its memory. Over time, I’ve done things here and there to improve its memory usage — but thought it was time to put together a few resources.

As wonderful as extensions are, they can become a memory hog. As a compromise, I looked up my extensions for problematic extensions and made changes. I also do an occasional extension check up to see if I make use of them all. If I rarely use an extension, then it goes bye bye. It’s not worth the memory if I don’t use it enough.

The following resources do a nice job of explaining what to do and offering plenty of options to improve Firefox’s handling of memory:

Excellent forum post on how to improve Firefox’s memory usage.

MozillaZine’s article on Reducing Memory Usage in Firefox offers plenty of tips.

MozDev.org provides a memory usage FQA (frequently questioned answers — appropriate!)

Standard Diagnostic helps troubleshoots Firefox problems — not just memory.

The campaigns to promote Firefox and demote Internet Explorer keep coming and Google tops them all by promoting Firefox on its home page–prime ad estate–along with the its Toolbar. For a limited time on Wednesday, April 26, users in the U.S. surfing with Internet Explorer saw a one-liner that read, “Firefox with Google Toolbar: tabbed browsing, safer surfing.”

Google specifically promoted the Firefox edition that comes with the built-in Google Toolbar. This effort further strengthens the Google and Firefox relationship. In 2005, Google implemented an AdSense Referrals program in which AdSense publishers earned one dollar every time their visitors clicked the referral button and downloaded Firefox.

Contrary to many reports (including well-respected reporters and bloggers), this is not the first time Google has promoted a third-party on its home page. The company has highlighted other third-party bundles such as the Google Pack and Google Video content from the NBA and CBS, according to Google spokesperson Sonya Borälv. The promotion builds on the aforementioned AdSense Firefox referrals program.

Analysts have noticed more advertising on Google’s home pages sending a message that the company is opening up to large partnerships. Google looks like it’s jumping on things that are big and beneficial for the companies involved, said Emily Riley, analyst with JupiterResearch.

Behind Google’s Motivation

What could Google stand to gain from promoting Firefox with its Toolbar? A likely scenario is that Microsoft could be planning to tie the search tool closer with future releases of Internet Explorer. So as a counter-action, Google encourages users to switch to a browser the company can control. “This may be a prelude to either taking over Firefox or launching Google’s own Firefox-like product, but regardless, this initial effort is to ensure Google’s place on the desktop,” said principal analyst of Enderle Group Rob Enderle.

“Google will gain more Toolbar users, which means more data and more committed Google users. Also, the more Firefox in the world, the better for Google, and the worse for Microsoft,” commented John Battelle, chairman of Federated Media Publishing and author of The Search who posted a screen shot in his blog.

Google plans to continue working with not only Mozilla, but also other technology providers. The company wants “to ensure our mutual users have the best experience possible with our products and services,” said Borälv.

This helps Mozilla expand its reach. Based on the available tools and applications such as Gmail and Google Calendar, Google is moving away from a “pure search.” “Microsoft still has a huge penetration in the browser space and any new offering that’s better will surely take market share from Microsoft. This is sort of the ‘final frontier’ for Google in becoming both the browser and the home page,” Riley said.

This is the first Firefox book I’ve read, so it won’t have a comparison to any of the others — as a few books hit the market soon after Firefox started nipping at Internet Explorer’s market share of the browser market.

Chapter 1 kicks off the book with an introduction explaining why Firefox is a first-rate browser and how to install its Windows, Mac, and Linux releases. “Essential Browsing Features,” the next chapter, reviews tabbed browsing, searching, downloading, and other features.

I’ve used Firefox prior to the v1.0 release and I’ve picked up a few tricks in this chapter. The tips go beyond entering keywords into the search box or changing search engines. However, I found an error — the book says to left-click on a selected word on any Web page and run a search on the selected word — It’s right-click, not left.

“Revisiting Web Pages” dives into bookmarks and how to get the most out of your bookmark file. The tricks explain how to quickly find a Web page that is hidden in your bookmarks somewhere, and you don’t have a clue what it is called and the keywords aren’t giving you what you want. Also covered are RSS feeds, Live Bookmarks, and memory tools such as using history, managing cookies, using the password manager, and clearing tracks.

Many people love Firefox because it’s customizable. One way to make it your own is by changing the theme (look and feel). “Dressing up Firefox” explains how to find and change themes.

Another way to get what you want out of Firefox is through extensions, covered in chapter 5’s “Personalizing Firefox.” Yeow shows multiple ways of installing extensions and using the extension manager. The chapter works through the extensions the author recommends (he provides a good selection) and how they work.

Intermediate Firefox users most likely want to jump ahead to chapter 6, “Tips, Tricks, and Hacks” and maybe chapter 7, which is for Web developers. Chapter 6 looks at about:config and how to modify preferences through its interface. Then Yeow shows where to find the user’s profile, and covers what files are included in the profile and what they do. Find great tips on how to mark unread tabs, shift the sidebar to the right, and disabling annoying 1996 Web site features like blink and scrolling marquee.

“Web Development Nirvana” highlights the tools that come with Firefox for developers and which extensions make development easier including LiveHTTHeaders, Web Developer Toolbar, and Greasemonkey. The book closes out with troubleshooting and information about browser’s nightly builds.

The book only has minor shortcomings. The tips and warning sidebars text is smaller than the rest of the book’s contents. It might be difficult for some people to read.

While it’s nice that a bonus CD came with it, it’s outdated (v1.0.3 and current is 1.0.6. It also has Thunderbird 1.0.3 and the current is 1.5 Beta 1.). At least, it doesn’t increase the book cost and gives newer users an easier start as they don’t have to worry about downloading files.

It’s a well-rounded book written in a friendly and easy going style that should get new users up-to-speed and provide experienced users with tips to maximize the Firefox browsing experience. The book helps you discover this mighty browser outside of what comes in the box or download. The companion Web site has sample chapters available.

Title: Firefox Secrets
Author: Cheah Chu Yeow
Publisher: Sitepoint
ISBN: 0975240242
Date: June 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 292
Cover Price: USD: $29.95 Amazon: $19.77

These are problems and annoyances I ran into when first installing FireFox on several computers. Thanks to the forums, the problems quickly went away.

Master Password – whenever I signed on a site, FireFox asked if I wanted it to remember the password. When answering, “Yes,” it would asked for a Master Password. WHAT!?!? I never set up a Master Password. Three ways to solve it:
1. Enter chrome://pippki/content/pref-masterpass.xul into the location bar and click the Reset password button. However, this option did not work for me. Furthermore, it will delete all saved passwords.
2. Exit Firebird.
Go to your profile folder: http://texturizer.net/firefox/edit.html
Delete key3.db (your master password) and signons.txt (all your stored passwords, which are now useless, because Firefox can’t decrypt them). Note: signons.txt was not in my folder probably because it was deleted by the previous step. It worked.
3. Create a new profile. I didn’t like this option because all the bookmarks, settings, extensions that I worked hard to put in place before discovering this lovely password problem were gone and I didn’t have time to import them all again. I had no Profile Manager in my folder list (surprised), so I did the second option and put it in the folder list for easy access.

When I clicked on links from Thunderbird and a couple of other places, it would open something other than FireFox even though I confirmed FireFox as my default browser. The easiest way to fix it is to use a free tool called SetBrowser. The program may show FireFox as the default. Do the steps anyway.

Once fixed, I started getting this error when clicking a link: Firefox loads the URL and the following message appears, “Windows cannot find [add Web URL]. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try it again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.” The solution.

One more problem. I thought it was just me because of the order I did things, but it happened to Paul, too. If you try clicking on a link in Outlook or something else, it’s possible FireFox AND IE or just IE open. If this is the case, here are the forum notes. The step that worked for me was going into file types and deleting “%1.” Also, check the second route.

I didn’t like the search bar size. Too small. The location bar could stand to be smaller while the search bar should be larger. This is a cool fix because you use an extension that makes life easier. Install ChromEdit. Exit and open FireFox. Open Tools > Edit User Files. Copy the following into the blank page on the first tab called userChrome.css:

/* fix search bar width */
#search-container {
-moz-box-flex: 250 !important;
}

Adjust the number to your taste. It won’t take effect until you’ve exited and opened FireFox.

I use RoboForm for filling forms. It’s worth the investment. Since the program was installed before I installed FireFox, it wasn’t working in FireFox. Easy fix. Download and install the adapter.

I use MovableType to manage this blog and one of the features I immediately missed was the editor buttons B, I, U, and URL. Not anymore. They’re back! Thanks to the kurcula.com hack. However, where second part of the instructions says, “Place the code between <script> tags; put it after the lt;/script;gt; tag as shown in the example.

Another option is the FCKeditor. Bad name (author’s initials), but it is supposedly a great open source editor.

In the past, FireFox froze where I could not do anything (it has not happened since v1.x). Easy fix thanks to Mozilla Backup. I used the last backup and everything worked again. Whew.

For those who are unclear on the differences between the Mozilla package and Firefox / Thunderbird, here it is:

1. Mozilla is a complete package meaning it comes with email, browser, address book, newsgroup, and chat applications integrated.

2. FireFox is a stand-alone browser application. It doesn’t have email built-in. There is a chatzilla extension available.

3. Thunderbird is the stand-alone email application. It doesn’t have a browser built-in. The address book is included.

4. If you use Mozilla for email and click on a link within an email, it will open them in Mozilla not FireFox even when FireFox is the default browser.

5. The applications are similar, yet different. The look and feel is different. It requires experiencing it for yourself to understand this.

6. Commands and features are not identical. For instance, Mozilla has F9 to open the sidebar with search, history, bookmarks, etc. whereas FireFox only opens Bookmarks and History in the sidepanel via Ctrl+B and Ctrl+H respectively. There are a few extensions to do more with this.

7. FireFox has fewer options because it doesn’t have other applications integrated with it, which can make it easier to modify.

At this point, Mozilla is tapering off while Mozilla.org moves forward with its brightest start, Firefox.

Chris Pederick has created the Web Developer Extension for Firefox and Mozilla, which adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various Web developer tools. It’s a fabulous tool for learning and doing development work. Install the extension by clicking on the download link and following the dialog boxes as with installing any extension.

What makes the toolbar outstanding is its ability to do things with any Web page. It offers many features and we’ll cover a handful so you can see what it can do. Let’s work through the buttons from left to right.

Disable

Turns off cookies, images, Java, JavaScript, colors, etc. To show you what some of the options can do, I use Amazon as our guinea pig. Fig 1 is the original page. Turning off images animation stops the treasure box from rocking back and forth.

Fig 2 is what happens when disabling page colors. There are still colors from the images. These are the colors from the borders, backgrounds, and fonts.

Turning off the styles results in not much of a big difference, but it’s harder to see the links. Style disabling is more prevalent on pages relying on heavier CSS. Try it in CSS Zen Garden.

CSS

To see Amazon’s CSS, use “View CSS” and it appears in its own tab. It’s no wonder why turning off styles didn’t look different. The style sheet covers fonts and little else.

“View style information” provides style information about whatever the mouse cursor rolls over in the status bar. See fig 3 for an example.

Here’s one feature where Firefox has an advantage as Mozilla doesn’t have this option. It offers the “Edit CSS” option and this is a great way to experiment. I went wild and changed a few colors on the meryl.net home page. You can do more, but it’s a simple example.

Forms

The form’s GET and POST methods operate differently. If you’re experimenting with them or want to see what happens if you switch them, use the “Convert POSTs to GETs” and “Convert GETs to POSTs.”

To see the form’s code, select “Display Form Details” and you see something like fig 4.

Images

For “Image Dimensions,” click on it to get the height and width of every image on the page as shown in fig 5.

When images on a page are broken or you want to know their paths, instead of using the “View Source” and scrolling through all the code, use “Display Image Paths.” And to find all broken images, click on “Find Broken Images.”

See how your page looks for those who surf without images or people who are visually impaired by using “Make Images Invisible.” See fig 6. You can also “Replace Images with Alt Attributes” as well as use the “Outline Images” to help you quickly find images with or without certain features.

Information

Information is also good for testing and identifying parts of a Web page without searching for it. “View ID and Class Details” puts blocks around Class and ID. Green for ID and red for class for easier identification.

Here is an example output of “View Response Headers,” which puts the information in a separate tab:

Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 22:25:08 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 21272

“View Speed Report” links to WebSiteOptimization’s Web Page Analzyer and provides details about the page you’re on.

Miscellaneous

“Show Comments” makes ! appear where there are comments. Here’s one from Yahoo! with the comment expanded by clicking on the !. You can copy and paste the comments.

From the source code:
A readable screen shot

From the Web page:

“Visited Links” allows you to make all links as visited or unvisited. It’s like resetting the colors (if there are different colors for visited and unvisited links).

“Zoom” makes the text larger.

Outline

No fretting. This isn’t the outline you learned in school. The feature puts a border around block level elements, deprecated elements, frames, links without the title attribute, and table cells. If you’re trying to get rid of tables, ensure you have titles for every link, and dump deprecated elements, use this to find them without scanning the code.

Or create your own using the “Custom Elements” option.

Resize

Self-explanatory. “Display Current Size” puts the info in a pop up box while “Display Current Size in Title” puts it at the top of the browser.

Validation

One-click validation of HTML, CSS, accessibility (WAI and 508), links, and create your own.

View Source

Click it and get the page code.

Options

If you want the changes you’ve made using the toolbar to apply to another page, click on “Persist Styles.” To reset the mess I made, I click “Reset Page.” This erases all the things I’ve done to the page with the toolbar.

“Options” controls the hiding / unhiding of the toolbar and how you want the windows / tabs to behave. ‘Validators’ is for adding another validator that isn’t on the list or replace an existing one.

Add frequently used window sizes in ‘Resize’ so you don’t have to customize it every time.

Don’t like red and green for identifying class vs. ID? Change it in ‘Colors’ as well as the tooltip colors.

You can access the toolbar through Tools > Web Developer or right-clicking on the browser window and selecting “Web Developer” from the context menu.

Like candy for Web design, isn’t it? Play and test Web pages without worrying about screwing things.