waconner

Since it is a new year, I figure what better way to start the new year than by revealing a dirty secret I've kept for the past year.

I did not convert to the Mozilla Firefox browser quickly nor easily. I struggled with my friends mightily when they discussed the possibility of changing my browser three years ago. I ignored the urgings of my fellow writers and artists, even after my favorite musician Trent Reznor became a Firefox fanatic, even after Wil Wheaton, one of my notable geekrati made the switch. No, I kept plugging along, using the spyware laden, bug infested, thing that we all know as IE, or as a tech friend once called it, iSneeze. 

So you may ask, why was I such a stubborn git about making the switch?  Well, I think it came down to the fact that I didn't understand exactly WHAT made the Firefox browser so much better than Internet Explorer. It is one thing to hear how safe it is, but that is really a rather vague image to picture in your brain.

It is also difficult to understand what it means when your friends keep telling you that you should make the switch simply because Firefox is sooooo coool. Again, that makes it sound like a bandwagon, and anyone that knows me personally knows that more often than not I can be found looking for the nearest exit off the bandwagon. I tend to relish going against the flow of the masses. Call it the cyberpunk and role-playing gamer gene in me, but I often can't help but try to find a different way to do things. I've relaxed remarkably on that front these days. I'm not sure if it is a product of age or laziness but I've become much more open to trying other people's methods first before striking out on my own.

So that brings us around to what compelled me to make the switch, because after all, I DID make the switch near the end of 2005. The reason that finally sold me was the versatility of the add-on extensions that can be plugged into Firefox. Now if someone had been able to sit me down and show me how powerful, and even more compelling to me, how personalized my browser could be by the use of some well constructed extensions, which were not really available in IE, at least not in such a simple format, I would have made the switch ages ago.

This brings me to my point of all of this rambling. I thought perhaps I should share with you my favorite Firefox extensions thus far, on the slim chance that there is someone else out there who is still sitting on the fence wondering what all the hubbub is about.

1)  Googlepedia by James Hall

    The grandaddy extension of them all. For those who don't know what this extension does I'll explain. After installing this plug-in, when you do a query for a search at the google homepage or through the browser, the google results are brought up on the left hand side of the page, while the result from Wikipedia.org is brought up on the right hand side of the page, allowing you to compare and contrast the results simultaneously, saving both time and energy. No need to bring up Wikipedia on a separate tab and repeat the same search. This is IMMENSELY helpful to someone like me who loves to know every little trivial thing I can about my current obsession. You want to do a search for the official band site of Assemblage 23, while at the same time you can learn all about Tom Shear's group on the right hand side of the page.

2) Digg this!

    Currently the hot trend on the net the past couple of years has been the propagation of social networking, also known colloquially as the "Web 2.0" movement. Well, if you love the Web 2.0 movement as much as I do, then you probably are a frequent visitor of Digg.com, the social news aggregation website. The Digg this! plug-in makes sharing those cool new stories and net marvels simple by giving you the option to right click on the page and choose Digg this! from your mouse menu. Alternately you can also activate Digg This! from your Tools menu and/or your toolbar. Once activated a new tab will come up in the browser with the URL pre-loaded into the Digg submission form. This saves a ton of key strokes and clicks if you are someone who likes to submit stories to Digg often. It could even become helpful should you ever want to Digg this blog entry. ::wink::

3) Foxytunes by Alex Sirota

I LOVE music. If you love music as well, and don't want to have to interrupt heavy web surfing by constantly minimizing and maximizing windows, then you need to get the FoxyTunes extension. Simply put, it allows you to control and operate your favorite media player (WinAmp, iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, Pandora, foobar2000, Windows Media Player, Xbox Media Center, Musicmatch, Quintessential, J. River, jetAudio, XMPlay, MediaMonkey, Media Player Classic, Sonique, wxMusik, Real Player, XMMS, Noatun, Juk, Amarok, Music Player Daemon, Rhythmbox and many others) from the lower right hand corner of your browser window . Additionally, from the same controls location you can search for the artist information in Wikipedia or All Music Guide, or the album on Amazon, Ebay, Emusic, or the iTunes music store. Want to find a cool pic of Tom Shear from Assemblage 23, then try the Flickr search function, or look to see if the band or a fan has made a video using the song on YouTube.

4) Dictionary Lookup

Honestly, how many of us have been poring over a document on the web and come across a word whose definition we did not know?  With Dictionary Lookup you need not worry. If you highlight the word in the document and right click on your mouse button you can choose to "Define this" and it will give an instant definition from http://dictionary.reference.com/  This won't be the most authoritative definition but will certainly make do if you simply want to understand the most basic etymology of the word in question.