Tag Archives: productivity

My 7 Favorite FireFox Addons

Posted on by
17

I’ve been an avid FireFox user for years.  One of the main reasons I like it is the huge variety of Add-ons that are available.  Google and Apple have recently added support for extensions to Chrome and Safari, respectively, but FireFox has such a massive head start on them in terms of Add-ons that it will take a while for them to catch up.

FireFox Addons FTW

I’ve got some Add-ons that I simply can’t live without.  I install them on every new computer the second I start using it.  There are still thousands out there I want to check out, but these are the ones that I use religiously:

SearchStatus – Automatically displays the PageRank and Alexa ranking for every website that you go to.  It can display it as a graphical bar or a text number.  I like the number personally.  I always like to know how much authority and link juice a site has while I am reading it, and this is the best way.  My browser feels naked without it.

Echofon (formerly TwitterFox) – An awesome Twitter client for FireFox.  Unlike TweetDeck, it doesn’t take up any additional resources on your computer.  I love it.

Yet Another Window Resizer – This one is awesome for PPV guys.  It allows you to right-click on any website and resize the browser window to any size you want.  800×600 or 750×550 is a breeze to preview your PPV landers.

LastPass – This is a password manager and auto form filler that makes life easier on the web for marketers.  If you are like me, you have about 100 different logins for traffic sources, ppc networks, affiliate networks, analytics, forums, the list goes on.  LastPass saves all your passwords and locks them down with a Master Password, and it syncs them between all your different browsers and computers.  It also generates strong passwords for you automatically and saves them when you sign up for a new account somewhere.

Xmarks – This completes the syncing package by syncing your bookmarks across multiple computers and browsers.  I used to use it for Password sync as well, but I replaced it with LastPass.

Colorzilla – Gives you an eyedropper tool that you can use to get the hexadecimal value of any color you see on the web.  Comes in really handy for designing banners & creatives as well as websites.

DT Whois – Adds a button to your browser that gives you one-click access to the Whois info for any website you are viewing.  You end up using it a lot more than you think.

There are others that I use every now and then, and there are loads more available that web developers use, but these are the ones that I can’t live without and my FireFox installation isn’t complete until I load them up.  What are some of your favorites?

The Top 5 Free Open Source Programs

Posted on by
4

The amount of programs that are available for free these days on the internet is astounding. Software that would have cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars just a few short years ago can be had for nothing, all thanks to the Open Source movement in the tech community. Technically speaking, Open Source means that the source code for the software is freely available to be downloaded, compiled, and edited by anyone. But for non-programmer-types (me included), it means that you can use the software for free!

Here are a few of my favorite Open Source equivalents of popular software packages:

1. OpenOffice.org (Microsoft Office / Productivity)

open officeThis one is probably the most popular Open Source program out there (except for FireFox of course). I haven’t bought a new version of Microsoft Office for years because of it. The newest version is practically identical to Office in functionality. As is often the case, the only real thing missing is the Templates and Wizards for making pre-formatted documents. However, these can be found online for free as well with a little extra searching.

2. GIMP (Photoshop / Image Editing)

gimpGIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It started out on Linux, but now there are Windows and Mac OS X versions as well. This will be plenty powerful to handle about 90% of your image editing and graphic design needs. For most people, they will never miss the extra bells & whistles that Photoshop has. This is perfect for installing on a laptop or second computer, if not your primary workstation.

3. Pidgin (AIM / Yahoo / IM)

pidgin

Pidgin is another Linux convert that is available for the major platforms. It is a very lightweight and slick little IM program. It supports all of the major chat protocols, and it won’t pester you with annoying ads like the default AIM and Yahoo clients. You can sign into all of your profiles at once and chat across multiple protocols, including Facebook Chat.

4. FileZilla (WS_FTP)

filezillaThis is hands-down my favorite FTP program. I’ve used paid software like WS_FTP in the past, and FileZilla blows it away in speed and reliability. And did I mention it’s free? This is a no-brainer download for anybody that works with websites at all.

5. ThunderBird (Microsoft Outlook)

thunderbirdIf you are reading this blog, there is a good chance that you are already using Mozilla’s FireFox browser (according to my logs, over 60% of my readers use FireFox, and only 9% use Internet Explorer; way to go guys!). But you may not know that Mozilla has another excellent program called ThunderBird that is a totally free replacement for Microsoft Outlook. You do have to download an additional free plugin to get the Calendar functionality, but it is well worth the extra 30 seconds that should take. I personally like ThunderBird even better than Outlook, it is much faster.

So there you have it, a first step into the world of Open Source software. Beyond these, a simple Google search for “Open Source Software” will bring up hundreds more programs to check out. What are your favorites?