Blogging isn’t hard, but it can be a hassle. You collect information from around the web, then keep up with the sources and links, write the blog post, tweak your on-page SEO, find an image, check the links, and that’s not even taking into consideration the linkbuilding, maintenance and competitive analysis. Here are nine free Firefox plugs that can help you spend more time generating content and less time chasing details.

Research

Trail Mix Activities — Collect information on the web and store it in a handy sidebar. Just drag and drop images or text clips to a blue box on the sidebar, and store them until you’re ready to use them later. Collect clips, bookmarks, and images from the web or images and documents from your hard drive and keep them available for later. When you’re done with the blog post or don’t need the information anymore, you can just delete it. No need to clog up long-term disk storage with data or a link you’ll only use once.

Blogging Clients

Deepest Sender and Scribefire Next — With either of these two blogging clients, you can post to any of your blogs from a window of your browser. They both work with a variety of blogging platforms, and they both offer the option of writing in WYSIWYG or HTML. With either one, you can apply the category as you input the post. Both allow you to open and revise old posts. Both will hold your post until you’re ready to publish and to create a post while your computer is offline.

Scribefire Next comes loaded with features. It gives you a field to write your excerpt, if your blog uses that, and other user-defined fields. You can add tags. You can schedule a post or post to "private" — but not to "draft." Deepest Sender’s interface is clean and undistracting. It doesn’t have all the features Scribefire has — no tags, no excerpt. It does have a draft button, which I prefer over Scribefire’s "scheduled" or "private." But having used both, I turn back to Deepest Sender when I just want to write a post. They’re comparable browser-based blogging clients, both with enough features and strengths that it comes down to user preference.

On-Page SEO

SEO Blogger — WordTracker Labs brings you SEO Blogger a free firefox plugin to help you check your keyword use as you write. In the top module, you pick keywords and get comparative traffic figures. From there, you add them to a working list in the bottom module, and the tool keeps track of the number of uses and the keyword density figures. With just a quick look, you can make sure you’ve got your keywords in often enough that Google knows what you’re writing about but not so many times that you get hit for keyword stuffing.

Image and Link Suggestions

Zemanta — Add images and links from right within your blogging window with the Zemanta plugin (also available as a server-side plugin for self-hosted blogs). As you write, Zemanta analyzes your text and offers images, links, and related posts that it thinks might be relevant. Don’t like the ones it suggests? You can put a word into a search field, and it will bring expand your search to include your terms. It also offers informational links for words that appear in your text — to company websites, Wikipedia, your choice. Just click, and the link is in place.

Outbound links to authority sites are good for search engine optimization. And you can put in your Amazon.com affiliate code, and it will link to books and other products that Amazon sells. One caveat is that the pictures tend to be small and don’t reside on your site. That means that you can’t change the size, you can’t use them for feature photos (if your theme uses that), and if the other website changes, you lose your image. You can, however, sacrifice the one-click ease and go directly to the site Zemanta finds and download the photo. Even the search function alone can be a big help.

Commenting

Resizeable Text Area — This handy little Firefox plugin does the small but useful task of increasing the size of text boxes in blogs, forums, comment areas. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the two or three lines you can see as you’re writing, you’ll be glad to find a drag handle so that you can just open it out as far as you want.

CoComment — Comments are a powerful way to increase your exposure and traffic — not to mention SEO linking. And when you comment, half the fun is seeing if anybody continues the conversation. One way to handle that is to subscribe to future comments — if that’s an option on the blog. But then you get emails from the site long after the conversation has faded from memory. CoComment is a Firefox plugin that tracks your comments and stores them at coComment.com. You can follow all your conversations on your schedule without clogging up your inbox.

Competitive Analysis

Search Status — Wondering just how well that other site is really doing? Search Status gives you all kinds of performance information about any site you land on — Alexa, Google, Compete, and Linkscape rankings. It will also highlight no-follow links, give WhoIs information, list backlinks, keyword density, and more. Search Status can make every page an object lesson.

Website Diagnostics

Firebug — Speed is one factor Google uses in assigning authority to your site. Like a lot of people, the robots apparently get bored and move on if it doesn’t load fast enough. Firebug is a free Firefox plugin that will tell you if your site is slow and why. It also helps you analyze your CSS and HTML, and check for Javascript errors. But if all it did was tell you if your site is too slow, that would be a good thing all by itself.

This post was written by Jan Bear, who gives book marketing tips at Market Your Book She also builds websites for writers and other creative professionals.

Firefox – the browser which can do practically anything has a number of really useful weather add-ons as well.  Here are 4 of the best.

1. How to get long term weather conditions

Extremely customizable, and simple to use, Forecastfox is perhaps the most popular weather related Firefox add-ons.  The weather updates are very simple, does not get in the way of your browsing experience.

2. How to determine air quality

AniWeather is perhaps the most full featured off all the Firefox add-ons for weather.  It even provides air quality monitors so you can check on whether it’s a good idea to be leaving the house today.  The only drawback is that the more advanced features are only available in the USA.

3. How to get weather satellite images

1-click weather is a weather forecast add-on which, on top of the normal weather forecasts, also shows you international weather satellite images. 

4. How to get wind information for sailing

Windfox is an add-on designed specially for sailing.  It provides key weather updates focusing on wind, and even has a wind monitor which will alert you in your firefox statusbar when ideal sailing conditions are met so you can shut down the computer and go sailing.

Do you check the weather online?  Tell us in the comments :)

Because Firefox is an open-source fully customizable web browser, there literally thousands of Firefox extensions which can be used to tweak your Internet experience any which way you like.

When the community was starting to grow, the kind folks at Mozilla put together a section for recommended extensions to help new users get the best extensions, but because the extension ecosystem has grown so large, even that section has become unwieldy. 

Recognizing the fact that it’s going to be incredibly difficult to define the ˜best extensions’ because everyone is different, Mozilla has put together a tool which suggests useful extensions based on the type of person you are. 

Are you a social butterfly?  Hook up Firefox with extensions for easier social networking like Facebook and Twitter.  If you’re a shutterbug, there are also suggestions on great photo and imaging extensions you can try.  There’s even something for music lovers, news junkies, and shopaholics, and many more personality types.

Fashion your Firefox today!

What are your favorite Firefox extensions?  Tell us in the comments

It may come as a surprise to most people that when it comes to languages used on the web, English only accounts for 30.5% of all Internet users.  If you’re using the Firefox browser, here are some free extensions to bridge any language gap you come across on the web. 

1. How to easily switch language dictionaries within Firefox

One of the key features of Firefox is it’s built in spell checker.  This of course goes awry if you’re typing in another language.  Fortunately, you can download dictionaries for other languages, and "Dictionary Switcher" is an extension you can use to toggle languages automatically so you’re always using the correct dictionary when you’re surfing the web.

2. How to translate major languages fast

gTranslate is an extension which hooks onto Google’s translation engine, so all you need to do is select some text, right-click and it will translate it for you on the spot.  What I also like about it is that it can even automatically detect the language on the site so it saves you more time.

3. How to learn Chinese by surfing the web

"Perapera-kun" is a translation tool which goes beyond basic Chinese to English translation work. Working with both Simplified and Traditional characters, just hover your cursor over Chinese text and you’ll get definitions, and an option further explore a selected word, e.g. whether it is a noun, verb etc.  Not only that, it also allows you to export words to a file to study later.

4. How to type in Indian languages in web pages

Indian languages are often overlooked when it comes to web translation tools.  The IndicIME toolbar project addresses that by helping users who want to key in text in Indian Languages in Web pages (Web forms, Emails ) but don’t want to localize their entire Operating System or Browser Application.

It currently supports the following languages:

5. How to quickly type in accented & international characters

The Firefox extension "abcTajpu" allows you to type in accented letters, international characters, and various symbols into Firefox or Thunderbird, either simply by using a context menu or quickly by keyboard macro (you can even define your own).  Fantastic especially if you’re a heavy European language web user.

What other language tools do you use?  Tell us in the comments!

No matter which browser you’ve picked for everyday use – chances are you’ve customized your browser to make it your own.  Here are 5 free tools which will let you backup and preserve your browser profile, so all the tweaking you’ve done is safe.

1. How to backup Google Chrome

Google’s shiny new browser doesn’t come with extensions yet – but ‘Google Chrome Backup’ will help you save all your bookmarks and settings.  Not only that, you can easily create multiple user profiles (each with different settings/bookmarks) and switch between them quickly.

2. How to backup Firefox & Flock

Mozbackup is a cross Mozilla backup utility which allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history, extensions, cache etc.  It works for Firefox, Flock, and any of the other Mozilla based browsers eg. the Sea Monkey browser.

3. How to backup Safari

(Mac Only) Apple provides an uncharacteristically round-about way of backing up your bookmarks on its support portal, but if you’re interested in getting a tool which would help automate the process, try out ‘Safari Backup And Restore’

4. How to backup Internet Explorer

BackRex Internet Explorer Backup is a backup and restore tool for Internet Explorer. It allows you to backup favorites, history, proxy settings, fonts, autocomplete passwords and cookies.  Not only that – it supports backups across different versions of IE eg. IE 6 to IE7 and vice versa.

5. How to backup Opera

The good folks at Opera were the only browser group to actually release a proper official backup utility for their browser, and as a result – it’s a top class product called OperaFly.  Aside from handling the basic backups, it also has the ability to backup and restore to/from an FTP server, send backups via email, and to restore backups from a http site.  It also allows for pre-scheduled backups and automatic backups when the browser is closed.

Yes, I may be a Flock user now, but I fully appreciate the fact that Flock wouldn’t exist if not for the kind folks in the Mozilla Foundation which have worked tirelessly on the development of Firefox and have made the source code openly available…  All of which has resulted in superior alternatives to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. 

Anyhow, SpreadFirefox.com is organizing a worldwide effort to put Firefox in the limelight by setting a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours.

All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours – it’s that easy.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today :)

Update 4/July/2008: Success! The world record was ratified by Guinness with a whopping 8,002,530 downloads in 24 hours!

We’ve already talked about various ways to save your eyes from your screen, but here’s one more tool that I came about on which makes your life so much easier if you’re having vision problems and struggling to read text on the screen. 

NoSquint is a Firefox extension that allows you to adjust the default text zoom level, which is very useful if you have a small display or run at a very high resolution. NoSquint also gives you the option to remember the zoom level per site.

Now that latter point means that you no longer need to constantly change your text zoom back and forth as you visit different sites, making the web much more accessible.

Works on the Firefox browser (and yes – Flock too), sorry Internet Explorer users.

What other web accessibility tools do you like?  Let us know in the comments!

 

Yes I’ve STOPPED using Firefox!

Well not quite… I’ve actually been using the Flock Browser (which is based on the open-source Firefox engine) for the past 3 months now, and I haven’t looked back since!

Why Flock?

1. Flock is the iPod of browsers

It just works!  That’s true for the iPod, and that’s true for this browser.  Not that Firefox is difficult to use…but Flock tweaks the interface ever so slightly that the line between browser and web services fade away.  Email, RSS, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter… everything completely integrated into the browser user interface.   Try it to believe it.  

2. Firefox extensions = Flock extensions

One thing I loved about Firefox was its extensibility which I grew dependant on.  When I switched to Flock, I compromised nothing – I was able to install ALL my Firefox extensions directly into Flock without hassle.  Note: I’m sure there are some extensions which are not 100% compatible but these cases seem to be few and far between).

3. Flock Feed reader whips Live Bookmarks

I first started using RSS with Live bookmarks, so I am pretty fond of it.  Even so, I have to say that the Flock reader completely blows Firefox Live bookmarks absolutely  right out of the water!  It’s extremely simple to use, yet pretty powerful when you get down to it.

4. Faster, simultaneous search

The search box located at the top right hand corner which made Firefox such a joy to use has been tweaked in Flock so you have the option of searching through multiple search engines, and favourite sites simultaneously as you type! 

5. It’s not Internet Explorer

No, this last reason is not aimed at Firefox users, it’s aimed at the 62% of users which still use IE.  The user experience of Flock vs Firefox is a significant one, but if you’re an IE user moving to Flock… trust me – the user experience is so much better that you will want to lick the screen.

Would you like to try Flock?  Tell us in the comments and take our poll!

If you use Adsense to monetize your sites, you may be frustrated with the fact that adsense reports tend to be fairly simple and does not allow you lots of flexibility with charts and graphs, so you can best visualize your information. 

Graphsense is a Firefox extension which graphs your Adsense reports so you can have an easier time analyzing it.  Once you install it, just display an ‘advanced report’ in your Google adsense, and you’ll get a visual look at all kinds of measures like income, CTR, impressions, clicks etc. with the option of multiple chart formats. 

Tip: Graphsense is only able to graph the data you pull up in your report.  Hence, you have to make sure you’re looking at enough data points or you’ll hit an error.  For example, you cannot pull up a 1 day report and ask Graphsense to come up with a weekly graph.

What other adsense tools do you use?  Tell us in the comments!

I’ve decided that I should make it a point to highlight useful posts other people have done, which are in line with this blog’s objective of solving everyday problems with simple technology.  This week’s theme: Useful Firefox tips – Enjoy!

Best Ways to Read RSS Feeds in Firefox

Feed Sidebar – The Feed Sidebar is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser that displays the new items from your Live Bookmarks in the sidebar. It works well – as long as you don’t have many feeds to get through.

Like this tip?  Read the full list at: RSS Bootcamp with Sargeant Firefox via Firefox Facts

How to make your Firefox browser looks bigger without breaking the bank on a new monitor

FullerScreen is a Firefox plugin than enhances full screen mode by hiding the toolbars and statusbars. All the toolbars will be in auto-hide mode and you can make it appear again by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen.

Like this tip?  Read the full list at: 4 Simple Tips for Bigger Mozilla Firefox Screen via TechMalaya

How to download videos from YouTube with Firefox

DownloadHelper is a Firefox extension offers and easy and alternative way to download your favourite videos from sites like MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, YouTube etc. It also extracts audio and picture galleries.

Like this tip?  Read the full review at Firefox extension – DownloadHelper via Kabotology

What other interesting Firefox tips do you have?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] firefox, monitor, youtube, rss [/tags]

Now that IE7 has come along and has incorporated tabs in their own browser as well, does it make Firefox any less appealing?  Not with amount of development which has taken place with the tabs function. Here are some prime examples:

1. Color tabs to make them more distinct

The ‘Chromatabs‘ Firefox extension tints browser tabs with a color specific to the website loaded. This helps you identify tab contents based on a distinct visual cue.  It can pick a random color automatically (based on the site’s hostname), or it can pick a color based on the site’s tab icon.

2. Group tabs automatically

With the ‘Separate Tabs‘ extension, tabs can be grouped automatically by host URL making the arrangement of tabs much more logical.

3. Preview all tabs at once

Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.

4. Preview tabs as you mouse over

While the ‘Showcase’ extension described above is useful, Tab Scope provides a much more subtle approach to the situation, displaying tab previews only when the mouse is moved over the tab.  Don’t be fooled though, it even allows interaction navigation within that preview itself.

5. Share your tabs to a friend via email

The ‘Send Tab URLs’ extension adds a File menu command to the main browser window; when choosing this command, a new email message is automatically created, containing a list of URLs from all browser tabs in the current window.

6. Enhance your tabbing options with Tab Mix Plus

‘Tab Mix Plus‘ enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

7. Save space to view more tabs in a single screen

This extension adds a new ‘FaviconizeTab’ option to the context menu of the tab.  When it is clicked, The width of the tab becomes small up to the size of favicon.  It returns to the former size when ‘FaviconizeTab’ is clicked again.

8. Count the number of tabs you have open

‘Tab Counter‘ is a simple extension that counts the number of open tabs per window and displays the count in the toolbar.  Mainly for fun or you need an indication of how much system resources you are clogging up by having that many tabs open at once.

9. Identify unused tabs

If you have too many tabs open and need help identifying the tabs which you are probably no longer using, the ‘Aging Tabs‘ extension makes unused tabs fade with age.  This highlights potential tabs which may be just adding to clutter.

10. Control Tabs With Your Keyboard

Firefox makes mouse-less browsing a breeze with these simple shortcuts:

• Ctrl T will open a new tab
• Ctrl shift T will undo closed tab
• Ctrl Page Up and Ctrl Page Down will scroll through your tabs
• Ctrl Number will bring you instantly to a certain tab.  eg. If you hit Ctrl and ?3? you will go to the third tab
• Ctrl D will bookmark the current tab
• Ctrl Shift D will bookmark all the tabs in the window

Bonus Tip #1: You can move Firefox browser tabs from one window to another by dragging and dropping it.

Bonus Tip #2: Disable tab scrolling : Although it does make tabs slightly easier to read on occasion, scrolling through tabs is a hassle.  The How-To-Geek blog goes through two useful ways to work around this scrolling feature.

How do you deal with your Firefox tabs?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] firefox, firefox extensions, firefox addons firefox tabs [/tags]

Firefox is so flexible that there are currently more than 2000 ways to customize its features! 

Everything from better ways to read news, quicker way of downloading, to better organized bookmarking can be adapted to your needs.

It is also offers up powerful tools for handling images on the web. 

Here are some of the best image related extensions for Firefox.

1. Have Yourself a Better Flickr Experience

Flickr is perhaps the largest, most popular photo sharing site on the planet.  With this set of tools prepared by LifeHacker.com, you can resize, zoom, comment, find camera info, and perform many other functions in a more efficient manner, improving your overall site experience.

2. Pick Precise Colors with ColorZilla

With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program.  Very handy if you see a certain shade of color that you like or when trying to make sure colors blend properly in a web page.

3. See the Finer Details With Image Zoom

Want to see the finer details of an image?  Fret no more.  All that is required of you is to hold down the right mouse button and scroll your mouse-wheel up and down to zoom in and out of a picture.  Granted resolution may not be the best when you zoom in, but this is still a handle little tool all the same.

4. Edit Pictures Online with Picnik

We have touched on other online image editors in the past, but Picnik has got to be the most intuitive, but yet powerful online editor I have used thus far. With the Picnik extension you can grab a screenshot of a page,or any image on the web with a simple click and move it directly to Picnik for editing.  You do however have to join Picnik (Free) to get started, but you definitely will not be disappointed. 

5. Upload files faster to ImageShack or PhotoBucket with Imagebot

ImageShack and Photobucket have got to be two of the most popular ways of storing images for web pages online.  If you want to put a picture online without cluttering up your own web space, those are the two services you use. 

ImageBot allows lets you upload your images to either service and lets you sort, filter, and make image galleries out of your images in a snap. 

What other image related Firefox extensions do you use?  Tell us in the comments!

[tags] images, pictures, Firefox, Firefox extensions, Firefox addons, photos, photo editing [/tags]

A lot of sites today offer certifications like 70-284 online. In order to convey more easily, they have a relatively simpler web site design and a direct domain name. They concentrate on directed internet advertising in order to drive the right kind of web traffic to the site. They try to avoid use of any complicated computer software requirements for their products as well, for user’s compliance.

I’ve had quite a number of posts on this site which talk about the many ways you can improve Firefox with some top notch extensions…

This however, is a list of extensions to AVOID.  Many of them have spyware or adware installed and are maliciously released to the community.  Take a quick look and make sure none of them are installed on your PC.

Having said that, Firefox is still FAR more secure than IE.  Washington Post recently reported that Internet Explorer was unsafe 284 days in 2006.  Not exactly a vote of confidence in Microsoft’s favor.

[tags]firefox, firefox extensions[/tags]

Open up Firefox and take a look at the top right search box. Wherever you are on the Web, you can enter a search term in the Search bar and receive immediate answers from the search engine you’ve chosen.

Now, since the very beginning of Firefox – Mycroft has been the key repository for Firefox search plugins. Well, now you don’t have to wait any longer for someone to create a plugin for your favourite website…

OpenSearchFox is a great new extension which helps you create your own search plugin in 2 simple step:

1. Right-click ANY searchbox on ANY page
2. Click “Add OpenSearch plugin”.

…and that’s it!

Have an interesting search plugin which you rolled? Share it with us in the comments!

Based on my web stats, if you’re reading this, there’s a 72% chance that you’re already on the Firefox browser – in which case you’re in the perfect position enjoy the browser extensions and tweaks below.

If you’re one of the 24% STILL on Internet Explorer, it’s time to consider a free upgrade :)

Link Alert – What happens when you click on a link? Are you going to open a new window? download a file? read a document? Now you’ll be able to quickly find that out. By simply hovering your mouse over the link, your cursor will change to indicate what will happen next.

Tab Mix Plus – Even with Firefox 2.0′s improved tabs, this extension is still powerful. Aside from enabling you to do just about anything with your tabs, I love that it incorporates a session saver where you can save all your tabs for later use.

Download Them All – DownThemAll is the ultimate downloads manager. It features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

Stop-Or-Reload Button – You either stop loading a page, or you reload a stopped one. You only really need one button. This extension merges them both and saves you screen space.

User Agent Switcher – Some companies block Instant Messaging at work and this sometimes ends up blocking Firefox as well because AOL IM uses similar protocols! To get around this, use this extension to ‘fool’ your company’s web filter to think you are using Opera or IE, and Firefox should function perfectly.

What are your favorite Firefox extensions?

[tags] firefox, firefox extensions, firefox addons [/tags]