I feel like it has been confession time for me over the past several weeks.  I previously wrote about how I went to the dark side by buying an Apple iPod (i.e., not a Microsoft product), then I switched to the Firefox browser (also not a Microsoft product) and now I have another confession.

I pointed out a web site last year once in a negative manner.  The reason I was negative is because it was a major popup advertisement at several other sites I was visiting.  For several weeks I got to see that ad over-and-over again.

If you are a regular reader you know that I am of two minds about popup ads.

I don’t like them because they get in my way, I never click on them and in my opinion they are simply obnoxious.  However, I like them because as people do click on them they help keep the majority of websites in the world free of charge to us.

I want to now mention that website that bugged me in the past…in a positive light, Orbitz.com.

Every year or so I mention a site that helps us with vacation planning; Orbitz is it this time.  This year, thanks to Mr. Bush’s tax rebate (please don’t email me about politics; I abhor it and won’t respond), my wife and I decided to fly to our vacation spot.  I used to fly quite often many years ago (before the internet and 9/11 but that is another story) but this was somewhat new to me.

I will add here that the stinking popups must have worked.  Guess which website popped into my mind first when I thought about flying?  You got it, Orbitz.

I am new at the buying plane tickets online so many of you may know a lot more about this and other similar sites than I; however, I just want to give you what I found out.

We found round-trip tickets much less expensively than we thought were possible.  We easily found the airport we wanted to leave from (SHD) and arrive at (JAX).  We were offered a good rate on a rental car at the site.  Me, being the trusting guy that I am, called other rental car companies including the one we were offered at the site to check prices.  I could not get a rate anywhere near as good as I did in the original offer so we also went with that.

I could have also gotten hotel rooms and tickets for different attractions at discounted prices through Orbitz.  I didn’t take advantage of those as we didn’t need them for our plans.

If you have any experiences, good or bad, with sites similar to this let me know.  And if we decide to come back I may let you know how it worked for us.

I received several emails over the past several weeks about cleaning your monitors.  I’m thinking they all referred to the “glass” part so let’s take a look.  You may have even heard that you have to use a special cleaner on your monitor or you could damage the glass.  More about that later.

Cleaning your monitor first requires you to turn off your computer and unplug the monitor from the wall.  Now get a lint-free cloth.  If it is not lint-free it will not hurt your monitor, but it will leave pieces of lint to float around on your monitor.  This means that you will then have to clean the lint off.  Cut out that extra step and go lint-free.

Now as I have said in the past, always check your instruction manual as the next step may not be “authorized”.  They usually recommend using a special cleaning fluid or cloth for cleaning the glass.  I ordered some one time and paid $35 for a special cleaner and cloth.  The cleaner was the regular blue window cleaner that you get at the store (it still had the brand name label on it).  The cloth was lint-free.  What a profit they made on me that time!

My suggestion is to get some regular, non-abrasive, non-ammonia, window cleaner and spray it lightly on your cloth.  Don’t make it dripping wet, and NEVER spray the cleaner directly on your monitor’s screen.  If sprayed directly or too much fluid is on the cloth the cleaner could run down the glass and possibly get into the electronics and you don’t want that to happen.

Next, wipe the cloth on the screen smoothly, gently, and evenly.  When the finger prints and dust on the glass are gone, move on to the next step.

Using the same damp cloth, wipe it over the case, including the little holes that allow heat to vent from your monitor.  Canned air can be used to “blow” out those vents which could aid your monitor in running cooler and longer.  You can put more pressure here as it is just plastic and you can’t hurt it, don’t use an abrasive cleaner anywhere.  After you are done, take a can of compressed air and use it to blow out any leftover dust and lint that you may find.

If you have a newer model flat screen monitor this may not be the way to clean it, so for now follow the manufacturer’s instructions for those.  These may not have a glass screen and it could take special attention and cleaners.

Never remove the monitor’s case!  The inside of a monitor (not flat screen) has a capacitor and has the capacity to shock you possibly to death.

Last week I said that I would give you the other Firefox add-ons that I like to use, if anyone asked.  You readers really surprised me!  You asked, so here goes the rest of my FF add-ons, in alpha order just to keep it simple.  At the end of each I put a one-word adjective describing it for you.

First up, “ColorfulTabs” which a couple of you said were your favorites.  This add-on doesn’t do very much for the geeks out there but it looks good.  “ColorfulTabs” changes the colors of each tab to a different color.  That doesn’t sound so great; however, it makes them easy to distinguish and makes the browser just look better.  There is a separate link for FF v. 3, so click carefully.  Attractive.

Next in my list is “Searchbar Autosizer“.  This one is a real space saver which I like.   I don’t like lots of buttons in my browser since you can see more web page without them.  This add-on allows you to choose between different sizes your searchbar will use in FF.  You can: 1) size incrementally by each letter you type, 2) keep the searchbar small until you start typing then it auto-enlarges or 3) set it to the width of your choice all the time. Useful.

Now a really slick one for the FF GUI (Graphical User Interface, or how it looks on the screen) called, “Tab Preview“.  For you Windows Vista users this add-on makes the tabs in FF perform very similarly to the way that the Tabs in your taskbar do.  When you hover over a tab in FF a small thumbnail (picture) of the page represented by that tab opens.  This allows you to not only know what page the tab represents, but to actually see a preview of its contents.  Favorite.

“TwitterFox” is one that is specifically for Twitter users (twitter.com).  By-the-way, you should check out Twitter. Find me at http://twitter.com/rondoyle. TwitterFox lets you know twitter statuses and allows updates to your tweets. Like I said specific to Twitterers, is that a word?  It will add a tiny “T” icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their statuses. Also it has a small text input field where you can tweet. Cute.

Last, but not least, “Windows Update” will allow you to update your version of windows without having to open MSIE.  Convenient.

Tags: add-on, addons, FF, Firefox, twit, twitter, Twitter.com

Last time I wrote about my trip to the dark side by starting to use (and really enjoying) Firefox. I mentioned how Firefox (FF) uses add-ons to make other features available to you in their browser. Today I will tell you about some of the ones that I like to use.

At this time I use nine add-ons so I am not too addicted to them but the ones that I have I enjoy using. They can get extra info, do certain things that FF can’t perform by itself, etc. Here are my top four – I would add more if I had the space.

Getting to Add-ons is simple. While in FF, click on Tools/Add-ons and a window will open revealing the ones that are currently installed on your computer. Now click the “Get Add-ons” tab and you will have a few suggestions or you may search for additional ones.

Go ahead and search for “Fast Dial” the first of my favorites. You may need to click “See All” after the search to get this one. “Fast Dial” permits you to save any website to the Fast Dial window and when you go back to it later you will have a thumbnail graphic of that site. You may then click the “picture” to arrive at that page. It is basically a graphical Favorites list for the browser.

Next, I would highly recommend “Forecastfox”. This one will add the local weather report to the status bar (or several other locations that you may choose from) which can include the current weather as well as several days in advance…without having to click anything or open another window in your browser.

“IE Tab” would be my next and possibly most important addition to the list. The importance is that many sites will not work properly unless they run from Internet Explorer. For instance if any of you use Outlook Web Access you must have this add-on for it to work suitably. If you run into a site that requires MSIE to be viewed correctly just right click on the site’s tab and choose, “Switch Rendering Engine”. You can even enter the site into “IE Tab” to always be opened according to MSIE.

The last add-on I will mention today is “MapThis”. If you see an address while browsing the web just select it, right click and choose either, “Map This” or “Map to This”. The first choice will immediately open Google Maps (or Yahoo Maps depending on your choice at set up of “MapThis”) with the address you selected mapped in the center of the window. The last choice will open a map from your home address to the address you selected. Your home address is set up when you start “MapThis” the first time.

Have fun adding on! If there is enough email interest in this column from you, next time I may finish my nine.

OK, I hate to admit it but if you have read this column for a while you already realize it…I am a Microsoft addict.  I like Microsoft products like Word, Excel, Media Player, etc.  I rarely go over to the dark side of other major providers of software.  I did go over to the dark side of Apple last Christmas when I opted for the iPod over the Zune but that’s another story.

Well, I have a confession and since I write about computers I guess I have to go public with it.  Are you ready?  I am now totally pro-Firefox for my browser.  Yes, I have gone over to the dark side once again.

Firefox (free at mozilla.com) was created by a company named, Mozilla. Mozilla came on the scene in 1998 and started promoting something that has been gaining support ever since and that is open source software.  Mozilla originally started as the Netscape Navigator.  The name is derived from “Mosaic” (the dominant browser at the time) combined with “Godzilla” the monster.

Open source is software whose code is open for alteration by the public for free.  If I were a programmer and thought of a new idea to incorporate into Firefox I could write the code and implement use it with Firefox.

June 17, 2008, Firefox 3 was released to the public and I have been pounding on it ever since.  I have to say that I went in with a lot of prejudice and I have never been too impressed with the previous versions.  However, this one has now replaced Maxthon (my favorite for the past 6-7 years, maxthon.com) and MSIE (microsoft.com/ie) as my browser on all of my computers.  In my opinion this version is really well done.

The basic internet browser looks clean and is fairly similar to all the others.  The real power comes from features called “add-ons“.  Add-ons allow you to add on (duh) other features designed by people from all over the world; remember open source?  There are many of them that perform useful and sometimes just silly functions.  We will look at a few of my favorites next time.

There is one comment in their advertising that makes me wonder how good Firefox really was in the past.  They state, “With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before.”  WOW, that is a lot of improvements – I didn’t realize they could even have that many things to work on.