tricking out firefox, part 3

Continuing in my Firefox extensions saga, I’ve got one or two more that I use.

Google Notebook

I admit that when Google Notebook first came out, I didn’t test it out much beyond a casual glance. One of my colleagues, with whom I was working on a paper with, put together a Notebook for us to share within a couple of weeks of its release, but when that particular methodology didn’t pan out, I kind of forgot about Google Notebook. That was until I recently read an article in Wired about someone who did all their work with just a web browser for a month and found himself using Google Notebook instead of del.icio.us. I was a bit curious that anyone would possibly want to replace del.icio.us with anything, so I decided to take another look.

Basically, it is a really simple way to create a list of links with snippets or even very large chunks of text, organize them into notebooks, and then share them, either publicly or with a few invited people. Since I took a second look, I’ve created two Google Notebooks. In reality, I don’t always want to share my del.icio.us account name with people, nor do I necessarily want to clutter up my del.icio.us account with stuff that is for a single project, presentation, or is essentially unrelated to my interests. It’s very easy to do a little web research, highlight whatever you want in a page, click on the Note this button that magically appears if you have it activated in the extension, and start a list of resources. It would be very nice for creating subject resource guides, handouts, and more.

The Firefox extension lets you access your notebooks from within any page–you don’t have to go to the Google Notebook homepage. I wish that there was a bit more that you could do with Google Notebook, like organize sections with headings (you probably can, actually, but I want to do it without creating a “note” for a heading, and so far, I haven’t bothered figuring out how). For now, though, I’ll continue to use it when I want to prep lists of web resources to share.

del.icio.us and del.icio.us complete

Given my obsession with del.icio.us, it’s obvious that del.icio.us would be one of the extensions I’d be using. Right now, I have del.icio.us complete installed in addition to the bookmarklets. Why? Well, I was trying to go back and forth between two accounts, my personal one and a shared one with the med school tech crew. It got annoying really fast, given my virtual dependence on del.icio.us. So, I saw this post about a way to simultaneously post to 2 accounts. I never got it to work, but I am going to try it again when I get my new and hopefully less cranky computer at work. (Has anyone else done this?)

I have been more than a little wary of the new del.icio.us extension. For one thing, I am not a big fan of sidebars. I have precious little screen space on my work computer as it is (I swear, I have the world’s tiniest monitor), but the main reason is that I am a bit scared of doing it after reading so many horror stories on the del.icio.us discussion group. One of these days, I’ll grit my teeth and do it.

Notea

I’ve still got Notea installed in the hopes that one of these days, it will work with Firefox 2.0. It’s an extension designed to work with Connotea–it saves local copies of web pages and PDF files and lets you access said copies via Connotea. Pretty cool in concept, right? Well, here’s keeping my fingers crossed that it works for 2.0 one of these days. CiteULike already does the copy storing thing, so Connotea is kind of behind.

config

Well, this isn’t really an extension, but as a true Firefoxaholic, when I saw a Lifehacker post talking about further customizing Firefox, I took a look and liked what I saw. I’ve done the ones to limit RAM usage, change the tab width, and probably some others.

Others

There are a couple others that I might mention, though I don’t use them myself. The significant other adores Mouse Gestures, and the best friend at work can’t stop talking about NoScript.

tricking out firefox, part 2

When writing my last Firefox installment, I forgot that the next day was to bring enormous amounts of house construction. As was yesterday. So, it’s a little belated. And, I forgot my list of extensions at work, so I am sure I’ll forget a bunch.

Greasemonkey

Greasemonkey almost always shows up in people’s list of what you must install if you are using Firefox, and mine will be no exception. It’s basically a tool to let you use scripts to make web sites do what you want. I use Greasemonkey for two scripts in particular, Familiar Taste and L2. Familiar Taste shows me if I’ve already posted something to del.icio.us so I don’t need to waste time trying to bookmark something I’ve already seen. With over five thousand bookmarks, I do occasionally forget that I’ve seen something before. 🙂 Weirdly, when I went to find the link for it, I saw the userscripts.org listing stating that it has been banned by del.icio.us. Well, it’s still working for me.

L2 has been written about in Library Journal and a bunch of other places. It’s a script that adds helpful information to your library catalog. I use it for my BlinkList project’s workflow. Basically, when I add new books to my BlinkList page, I need 2 pieces of information: the call number (hence using the catalog) and the Amazon page link. So, what I do is look it up in my library’s catalog, copy the call number, open up the L2 display that overlays the record in the OPAC, follow the Amazon link, and “blink” it. If Firefox was supported at my institution, I would recommend this to patrons, too, because it is a really easy way to see book jackets.

Lifehack.org recently posted a top 10 list of Greasemonkey scripts to improve productivity. I installed Gmail Conversation Preview and RSS Quick Subscribe from there, and am finding RSS Quick Subscribe useful.

I also have a script installed that shows if any blog posts link to PubMed citations.

ScrapBook

I use ScrapBook irregularly, but when I need it, it is invaluable. Essentially, it saves copies of web pages and lets you organize them. What I like it for is the simplicity of saving the contents of all open tabs in one step. If I am writing an article or something, I can open all the resources I know I’ll be using, save them to the ScrapBook, and then use that copy, even if I am offline. You can open the ScrapBook in a sidebar in Firefox, and from there, open all pages in a certain folder or just one page, add notes, etc.

I’ve taught ScrapBook to some of the medical students I work with, and a couple appear to be using it. It’s very nice for doing research where a lot of sources are blogs or web pages.

Zotero

I have Zotero installed, but I don’t ever use it. I use EndNote whenever I need to write something involving a bibliography, and though Zotero seemed like it would be useful, I found that its ability to export to EndNote was a bit lacking–it doesn’t bring in all the information or put it in the correct places, and it either can’t or I can’t figure out how to make it export citations just from single folders or tags). Maybe it is because I am using EndNote 7 or something. And, it messes up the ability to save citations from EBSCO to EndNote. For some reason, when I try to export to EndNote from Academic Search Premier, for example, Zotero sneakily grabs the citations, bypassing EndNote. And, then with exporting functionality being less than I would wish, it becomes very quickly obnoxious.

So, what is Zotero supposed to do? It is a bibliographic management tool designed for Firefox 2.0. It can capture citation information from web sites, blogs, databases, Amazon, library catalogs, and etc.; organize those citations with tags and saved searches; save copies of web pages (like ScrapBook, only I find it is not as reliable); annotate web pages; and export citations in a couple of standard formats like APA style. I notice that now there is a component that allows it to work with Microsoft Word a la EndNote, but I still won’t be making use of it until it has more than the five bibliographic formats.  I do love to use it with Google Scholar, though!  It is way easier than using EndNote.

I think Zotero, which is in Beta 4 currently, has great potential–it’s getting better all the time. I hope that ISI takes note and starts making improvements to EndNote. A couple of my friends are obsessed with Papers, the new tool for Mac users that is like an iTunes version of EndNote, but without the bibliography-creation component. With Zotero and Papers starting to encroach on ISI’s monopoly, maybe their products will start to look a little different than they did in 1999.

ErrorZilla

Whenever you come across a web page that’s down or giving some sort of error, ErrorZilla gives you a couple of useful choices, like seeing the Google cache version or the Wayback Machine version. You can also see DNS information.

So, that is it for today. I’ll think I’ll have to do a 3rd part tomorrow.

tricking out firefox, part 1

I consider Firefox to be pretty indispensable to my work life. I have IE installed, of course, but only for those few times when it is absolutely necessary to use it. I luckily have administrative rights to upload Firefox on my computers, but for those I don’t, I have the PortableApps version installed on my network drive and also on a flash drive.

So, if you want any recommendations for ways to trick out your Firefox, here are the extensions (add-ons) I use.

CustomizeGoogle

CustomizeGoogle is a very handy tool for not only tricking out Firefox, but for tricking out your Google experience. I won’t bore you with a detailed description of each and every feature, but the ones I like the best are the ability to block ads and the additional links you can build into your searches, like Wayback Machine links (very useful!) and links to search other engines.

There’s a new feature that works a bit like Google’s SearchMash interface–it will pre-fetch the next set of results and add them to your search. You never need to go to the next page! I am loving this feature–it’s my favorite bit of SearchMash by far, and with CustomizeGoogle both blocking the ads and adding this new streaming feature, there’s not much reason to go to SearchMash beyond merely keeping up with what Google is experimenting with (though the SearchMash video search interface is quite cool–videos load inside the search results, so you never have to leave the search page). (More on SearchMash)

Google Preview

Google Preview is kind of like Snap, but not annoying. Essentially, it shows a little image of each web page next to the Google result. It’s just another one of those little clues that can help you figure out if the result is what you’re looking for, as well as giving some color to your results.

Screengrab!

Screengrab! has made major improvements in the last couple of weeks. I had been keeping half of my computers on Firefox 1.5 so that I could use Snapper, the cute little red fish that saved selected portions of a web page as an image, but I was finally able to move on to 2.0 on all of them when Screengrab! added that functionality to its new release.

Screengrab! is essential for anyone doing anything needing images of web sites or portions of web sites. You can grab an image (a png file) of the entire page, the viewable portion of the page, or now, any size selection of the page. Very, very handy for making handouts, instructional web pages, etc. I miss the Snapper icon, but having one extension to do it all is really nice. And, the processing seems to have speeded up a bit since I was last using it.

Google Toolbar

This one goes without saying, right? I use it for a couple of things, but primarily for starting searches, as a substitute for the built in Find, the highlighter, the new translation features, and the Gmail link. I’ve been experimenting with the bookmarking capabilities and haven’t been remotely impressed. I’d like there to be ways to share lists of bookmarks, to export by label/tag, and to batch label/tag.

The new privacy implications of the Toolbar have meant that I have stopped recommending this tool to people attending my Google searching classes. I know that I am savvy enough to turn off PageRank and the Web History, but I am not so sure that everyone else is. I don’t see a whole lot of benefit to the Web History or the Search History, but maybe that is because it just isn’t ingrained into my workflow. I use the Search History occasionally to get back at results from really complicated searches, but more for a laugh and a time-waster when I’m bored.

I like being able to have all of my searches open in new tabs, too–and with Tab Mix Plus, I have it set so that all new searches (and tabs) open in tabs in the background, so I am not always having to jump from page to page as they load.

Everyone who is interested in the new Web History feature and the privacy implications of using the Toolbar should read the Search Engine Land article on it.

Tab Mix Plus

When Firefox 2.0 came out, it integrated a lot of the great features that you used to have to have Tab Mix Plus or its Lite equivalent to use. It at first seemed like maybe Tab Mix Plus was irrelevant for 2.0 users, but I quickly learned that this was not the case. I am particularly fond of the Session Manager (can recover multiple sessions back, not just the most recently closed or crashed one). It basically means that irregardless of my shutting down the computer, I can get Firefox back up and exactly as it was, history, tabs, and everything else intact.

I also like the tab customizations available, such as the ability to have all my new tabs open behind old tabs and so on. There are really too many cool things about Tab Mix Plus to mention here. And to be honest, I have been using it so long, I don’t even remember what all I’ve customized with Firefox itself and what with Tab Mix Plus.

IE Tab and IE View Lite

IE Tab is useful for using web pages that just think they need IE–you just right-click on any page, and voila, it opens a new tab in Firefox that feigns IE well-enough to fool most of those pesky IE only sites. For those that just won’t work outside IE (who DOES that anymore?), IE View Lite comes in handy. You can right-click to open a link in IE itself and set your preferences for certain pages to always open in IE.

More tomorrow…

I realized that I have a lot more add-ons and extensions than I thought, so I will continue writing about them tomorrow!