Thanks for the emails regarding the previous Firefox Add-ons I have written about over the last couple of columns.   Also, I’m glad to hear that several of you saved a lot of money using the "Invisible Hand" add-on I mentioned.  Tim wrote to say he saved almost $100 on a purchase he made using that add-on!  This will be the last week we’ll deal with Add-ons and then we will move on to something different.

Today I have three for you; one for help, one for fun and one for a neat application.

First, for Google-lovers is the "Google Toolbar" add-on.  If you use Google and/or Gmail and want a quick way to access their features you have to try this one out.  This add-on is also available for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.  It is added into FF differently than the previous ones I’ve mentioned.  Go to "toolbar.google.com" in either browser and the correct toolbar will be installed.  After the installation is finished you will be able to search in Google and check your Gmail, as well as access many other Google related features conveniently from your browser.  Play with the options and see what other useful resources you can come up with!

Next is an add-on which is mostly for convenience, (OK, and a little bit of fun for the geeks out there) "Prism for Firefox".  Prism is the reason I no longer use Google Chrome which allows you to create a "web-application" from a web site.  Yes, I know it is a Google product and I am a Google fan-boy but I don’t care for their browser. 

Prism allows you to create an individual web-application out of any webpage.  For instance, for those of us who enjoy listening to the free music from Pandora.com, it can be combined with Prism to act like a separate program on your computer. 

After installing it in Firefox, log into your Pandora.com account (Prism will work on any site but Pandora shows how well it works.)  Now choose Tools from the menu bar and "Convert Website to Application".  You will be asked to choose a couple of settings such as where to save the link, etc. Placing the link on the desktop is a good starting point.

Next, go look on your desktop and you will see an icon for Pandora, or whatever site you used.  If you double click the icon only Pandora will open in a window. It will run in its own window.  You can run Prism with any website, including online games. 

Be creative and let me know how you have used these add-ons.

Tags: add-on, Firefox, google, Google Toolbar, Prism

I received many emails asking me more about Firefox Add-ons after last week’s column.  So today we are going to look at a few more.  Keep those emails coming since I want to write about what interests you!

If you have any questions about basic Firefox Add-ons you need to read last week’s column about "Invisible Hand" and "Tabloc" online at the DNR or at the DoubleClicks.info site.   

"Forecastbar Enhanced" is another helpful add-on.  It allows you to set your location, via zip code, to get your local weather forecasts.  The forecasts are from Accuweather.com.  Other than the current weather forecasts, radar images, etc., you can display it in different locations in FF.  I keep mine in the status bar at the bottom of the Firefox window, which is the default.  You can also set it up to show forecasts for several days in the future. 

The next one I would like to share with you is called, "FoxTab".  "FoxTab" will allow you to set the sites you most often visit.  It will allow you to add any site to your top site "list" and quickly go to it at another time.  It enables a screen preview of "My Top Sites" in several great GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) which you can pick from.  Not only is it useful, it also looks good.  Once you bring your top site window up by clicking a button on your toolbar, you click on the site you want to go to and it pops right up.  Yes, this is like your favorites but in a slick new format.

The last one I will mention today is for you Gmail users.  It is called, "Gmail Manager".  This add-on allows you to set your Gmail account to be visible in your status bar, showing your unread emails.  By clicking on the account it will open your Gmail account in Firefox as if you had logged into Gmail.com yourself.  Then you can deal with your emails as you normally would.  It is set to a default of checking for new emails every 15 minutes but you can adjust that, along with other settings in the options for this add-on.  It will also allow you to keep track of multiple Gmail accounts at the same time.  Of course, that is for you geeks who, like me have more than one Gmail account.

Have fun trying these out and remember they are all free.  If you don’t like them you can easily uninstall them. 

Let me know if you would like to see some more next week…I have about 20 add-ons that I use in Firefox.

Tags: accuweather, add-in, add-on, Firefox, Forecast, foxtab, Gmail, GUI, mozilla, radar, tabloc, weather

I get many questions about Firefox Add-ons and have not written about them for the past several years.  So today I will discuss two of my favorite Add-ons.

Add-ons "add" more features to this great browser and if you haven’t used FF you should download it and try it out at mozilla.com.  Add-ons can get extra info from the browser that can be really helpful and save time. 

Getting to Add-ons is simple.  While in FF, click on Tools | Add-ons and a window will open  revealing those currently installed.  Next, click the Get Add-ons tab and they will supply a few suggestions or you may search for others.  To search for others type in the name of the Add-on you need in the search box.  Double click on the one you want to try out and it will install.  You must restart Firefox for it to start working.

The first one I would like to suggest was built for those of you who like online shopping.  "Invisible Hand" is really a cost saver.  Once you install it, (without having to make any setting changes) it sits quietly in the background and you can forget about it. 

I was looking for a SanDisk® Cruzer® 32GB Flash Drive at an office supply site.  Within 15 seconds of reading about the drive; a bar popped up at the top of the page.  It gave me the exact item at three other sites.  You are thinking, "Well, terrific! That is no big deal."

However, the terrific part is that it lists the other three prices.  The site I looked at had the drive on sale for $139.99.  The other suggested sites had it for $58.90, $64.84 and $79.99, respectively.  It also does the math for you and says you could save $81.09!  Then (if I had $60 extra to spend) I could click the link and purchase it elsewhere.  And did I mention that all Add-ons are free?

Firefox has tabbed browsing as do all modern browsers.  When you look up something on Google or Bing you get a list of sites to check out.  When you click the link it usually replaces the search page with the link you clicked.  Then to view the other list items you have to click your back button to see them. 

With "Tabloc" running you can set it up so that when you double click a tab it locks in place.  This causes all other links on that page to open in a new tab.  Just view the other site you choose and click back on the existing search tab to check others.  This will significantly decrease your searching time.  Tabloc has other neat settings too, so explore the "options".

Last time I wrote about Add-ons I received overwhelming requests for more.  If that happens again I will talk about more next week.

Tags: add-on, addons, Firefox, invisible hand, mozilla, save money, savings, tabloc

Several of you continued the USB line of thought from the last column and mentioned portable applications.  I thought I had written about these years ago.  However, after a search of over 750 columns I’ve written I realized that I had not mentioned them, so here we go.

A quick definition is needed here for what portable applications are and how are they used.

A portable application is a “stand alone” program that does not need to be installed on a computer’s hard drive.  When you install a regular program there are files that are written all over your computer.  For instance, many entries may be made in your windows’ registry file along with other folders somewhere else.  A portable application is installed in one main folder and no other entries are written anywhere else on the system.  This is like a step back in time.  In the DOS days and the originating days of windows all programs were installed like this; however, things are now different.

The first and predominate portable applications site is called, appropriately enough, “Portable Apps“.  If you go there you can install the basic program on your USB stick and it will provide a lot of good “little” programs.  It creates a menu system so that when you plug your USB stick in it will pop up and you can run your portable applications from there.

There are three different Portable Apps from which to choose.  The differences are in size and  what programs you get with each one.  The first choice, “Platform Only” will only install the basic program.  I don’t find this one to be very useful.  It  is only 1.3MB in size but it doesn’t do much to help you out.

The other two installs are called “Suite Lite” and “Suite Standard”.  These two are respectively 150MB and 355MB in size.  The minimum recommended sizes for your USB device is 256MB and 512MB, again depending on which version you choose.

Each of the larger versions include most of the Mozilla apps like the FireFox browser, Thunderbird email, a messaging program, an antivirus program and several other apps.  The difference between the two is that the larger version includes Open Office Portable version.  That is an excellent substitute for Microsoft Office on a budget…it is free as are all of these apps.  You can look for other portable programs online too.

Why would you want to install these or a USB stick?  You go to a friend’s house and want to do some work on your newspaper column or your personal budget.  You can perform everything you need to on your USB stick after plugging it into their computer.  None of your information is left behind on their computer since you have used your portable “system” to do your work and store your files.  You can check your email, surf the web, etc. without leaving behind any of your private information on someone else’s system.

It provides a good use for your USB thumb drive other than using it for storage only.  There are other portable app sites online – Google for them.  Even so; “Portable Apps” is the first, and in my opinion the best.

Tags: computer, Firefox, google, iPod, memory, Portable Applications, Ron Doyle, thumb drive, usb

Today we get to see part two of the 2009, Double Click review.  Sit back, relax and browse the web for the sites that interest you.  As always, if you prefer clicking to typing please visit the DoubleClicks.info site and read the column later the same day it is published in the paper and actually click the links.

Here they are in their order of their appearance with short descriptions if needed.

• WalMart.com and Costco.com, these need no explanation; although, I wrote about their specific ability to print your vacation photos online.
• Picnik.com, an online photo editing program.
• Picasa, a site where you can download a photo organizational tool to edit and store digital pictures but you can also upload them to Picasa online to create photo albums.  (Our vacation photos shortened, http://bit.ly/lJgaF)
• Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, an excellent blog about MS Windows products.
• MSNBC news & information site
• CrossWalk, a Christian study, blog, information site, etc.
• RonDoyle.wordpress.com, my boring blog which is pretty much in no way related to my columns.
• WordPress.com & WordPress.org, two sites for creating your own blog (There are differences between the two.)
• Hulu.com, an online site where you can view movies and many current TV shows for free.
• Firefox (mozilla.com), today’s best internet browser (in my opinion).
• Microsoft Office 2007 discount (TheUltimateSteal.com), the entire MS Office program for students at a much discounted price of $59.95 (as of the date I wrote this…it may not last long).
• Bing.com, Microsoft’s new online search engine.
• Google Earth, a great mapping application.
• MMTaskbar, extend your task bar across multiple monitors.
• Desk Drive, allows a desktop icon to appear when you plug in an external drive, including thumb drives.
• MS Live Workspace & Google Docs, two similar but different free online file storage sites.
• Google Chrome, Google’s internet browser.
• Evony, free online role playing game.
• Gutenberg.org, Audible.com & Podiobooks.com, three online books sites which have text and/or audio books for free and/or a price.
• Medicalert.org.
• Go to My PC, a site that allows you to login to your home/work computer from another location.
• Team Viewer, similar to above but free and not as stable.

I hope you have found the two "Year in Review" columns helpful!  Don’t forget to keep those emails coming in 2010.

Tags: audible, bing, chrome, Costco, crosswalk wordpress, desk drive, evony, Firefox, google, google docs, gutenberg, hulu, medicalert, mmtaskbar, mozilla, paul thurrott, picasa, picnik, podiobooks, RDP, supersite for windows, taskbar, team viewer, Wal-Mart

Shannon and I were talking about our trips to work. He travels one way for a little over ten minutes and I travel about 40 minutes to work each day. He said he would go crazy having to go that long to work. Well the gas prices are driving me crazy but the time I find very useful.

From age 16 until recently I read two or three books a month but regrettably life is way too busy now. I have found in recent years I just don’t have the time to sit down and enjoy a good book very often. That is one of the things I use summer vacation for – time to read a book.

I have written before about listening to podcasts frequently but I won’t go into that again today. I have never mentioned audio books to you before. There are a couple of great sources for them online. If you like to read, have an mp3 player or want to burn them to CD and don’t have the time to read a book here are some I would like to suggest.

The first is named, “Audible“. These books are not free but if you are an avid reader of current authors try it out. They have had a deal on it for quite a while for your first book being free if you use a secret code (audible.com/night, thanks to Leo Laporte). Their standard offer is $7.49 for the first three months and then $14.95/month afterward for one book/month. They also have other offers but these are the least expensive. You can get most any current author in a wide range of categories from adventure to science along with some free mp3s. The quality of these recordings is excellent. The books last anywhere from four to 24 hours.

The other site that I like (since my pockets aren’t usually very full) is, “Podiobooks“. All of the audio books here are free, but the large percentage of these books have not been published on paper yet.

These are usually written by unknown authors who have never gotten contracts from the big publishers. You will have to search for them by the types of books you are interested in. I have found some excellent books here and some that I listened to for 20 minutes and then gave up. They are all originally done as weekly/monthly podcasts, read by the authors. Sign up with your email address to be notified each time another “chapter” has been posted to the site. However, if you are like me and want an entire book “right now”, search for the “completed” books and grab all of the podcasts at once and listen to them at your convenience.

One final site is, “The Gutenberg Project” where there is a very large collection of eBooks to be read on a computer or book reader. There is also a collection of books in audio formats, some read by humans (decent quality) and others read by computers (poor). These books have expired copyrights; therefore, they are free. So at TGP you can get most of the old classics.

If you have a long commute or a friend who likes to read but can’t see well enough to read well, these sites are great ways to go.

Tags: audio, books, computers, Firefox, google, iPod, mp3, mp3 player, Ron Doyle, zune

Last week I wrote about “Google Chrome” and mentioned a couple of its better options.  “Google Chrome” is a good browser; however, at this point on the internet timeline I like another browser better.  “Better” used here is “as in my opinion”, so you are certainly welcomed to disagree.  Due to the huge number of emails about my favorite browser I will write this week about Firefox.  From the Firefox URL of mozilla.com, you can probably figure that FF is somehow related to Mozilla.  A very quick/short history of the browser starts in the 1990s as Netscape Communicator, later becoming Mozilla which is now Firefox.  That history leaves out a lot of the details but if you are really interested just Google for “history of Firefox” and you will find more than you care to know.

Why do I like Firefox more than other browsers?  Well, I can’t really put it in words but basically, for me, it is due to the “add-ons” available for Firefox.  You can make it a slim, fast running browser as it is downloaded from the URL above.  But also you can add add-ons which give it other abilities beyond those that come with it.  Be careful.  If you add too many add-ons it has been my experience that the browser can slow down significantly, especially when opening.

Add-ons are easy to find, download, install and use.  Every time I see something on the internet about Firefox it always includes the author’s favorite add-ons for their preferred browser, so that is where I will head today.  My “have to have” add-ons for Firefox are:

KEYSCRAMBLER:  When you type on your keyboard, the signals from the keys travel along a path in the operating system before it hits your browser. Keyloggers (the bad guys) are in this path and monitor, record and then send these keystrokes to the criminals who then use your secret data.  KeyScrambler stops keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes before they get to this path. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely impossible to read at that level.

IE TAB:  Sometimes web sites/pages are written to only use Internet Explorer.  The only one I have issues with is Microsoft’s “Outlook Web Access” which allows Outlook email to be used on the internet, usually by companies.  If I open it in FF they are jumbled and disordered but if I open them using the IE Tab in FF, the Outlook Web screens are displayed properly.

GOOGLE TOOLBAR:  This is the Google Toolbar that is available for most all browsers but this version is for FF.  It really ties your browser into all of your Google related resources on the web.

TABLOC:  This add-on obviously deals with tabs in FF.  It has many features but the one that I appreciate most is being able to double-click a tab and it locks.  Once a tab is locked when you click any link on that locked page a new tab will open.  That way it is much easier to go back to the tab that you started on before clicking away from it.

These are just a few of the add-ons that I like in Firefox.  Shoot me an email this week and let me know what you like about Firefox and its abundance of add-ons.

Tags: add-on, addons, computer, Double Click, doyle, FF, Firefox, google, internet, Ron Doyle

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