------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 2, Issue 22 Go out and vote. Whew! Got that over with. Now I can discuss more enjoyable things -- like the fact that, despite her current crying state -- having my daughter at home is much better than not having her here. I discovered this in the last week while she and her mom were down in Texas visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. As with every gray cloud, though, there was a silver lining. I ended up having a lot more time to check out more extensions to Firefox. Check out my report below. ---------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: Extending Your Reach 2. Shameless Self-Promotion 3. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: Extending Your Reach ---------------------------------------------------------------- In the last issue I talked about some of the extensions I've been using in Firefox. Some were specific to my work as a Web programmer, but others had general usefulness. This issue has a similarly mixed bag. Still I hope one or two might prove to be of use. 1. Colorzilla. This is a relatively simple little tool which allows you to "sample" the colors on the browser window to find out what they are. This really helps out when I'm doing the layout for a website. I don't use this as much anymore now that I have Firebug (which I talked about last issue), but it can be convenient for just doing a quick color grab. 2. Google Notebook. This extension gives you direct access to your Google Notebook. I find this useful for nabbing quick clips from a web page. Sometimes it's just a short concept that I might use later in my writing. Sometimes I'll be doing research for a project and I'll find the perfect reference that I want to remember. This one isn't available in the Mozilla add-on library. You have to go directly to the Google page if you want to try it -- http://www.google.com/notebook/download/ 3. MeasureIt. This is another of my "quick and dirty" web development add-ons. In this case I can use this to draw a small box on the screen and display its dimensions. This comes in handy when I want to verify the amount of padding between two objects on the screen. The folks who slave long and hard over the way their website looks actually do care if I put ten pixels instead of nine in between their name and their picture. 4. NoScript. My buddy Spencer Thomas recommended this one after last issue. I'm still on the fence. What it does is disable every script on every webpage you might visit. Why would you want to do this? Well, there are a number of nefarious characters out there who make it a practice to try to ruin your day with malevolent scripts. On a less dire note, many advertisements on the Web require scripting. The flip side is that you'd be surprised by the number of sites which require scripting in order to provide you with the services you want. With this extension active, the first time you visit one of these "good scripting" sites, you'll have to tell NoScript that it's OK to let the scripts on this site run. Not a huge deal, but annoying at times. I might have one or two more to talk about next time. I'm playing around with one called Zotero right now, but I'll fill you in on it when I've had more chance to explore. As always, I'd love to hear about your experience extending Firefox. What tools do you use? Drop me a line at gpeters@cyberdatasolutionsllc.com. Take care and talk with you next time. Copyright 2008, Greg Peters ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Shameless Self-Promotion ---------------------------------------------------------------- The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: You can subscribe to the "Clearing Up The Confusion" E-zine at: http://www.cyberdatasolns.com/ezine Questions: If you have any questions, concerns or comments regarding the Clearing Up the Confusion E-zine, please email Greg Peters at: gpeters@cyberdatasolns.com This content may be forwarded in full, with copyright and contact information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Greg Peters is required, with notification to the original author. We never send the "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-zine uninvited, and we NEVER share, sell or rent our mailing list to anyone. Your privacy is safe with us. Unsubscribe: $UNSUBSCRIBEURL$