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 :)

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Twitter is already a social networking phenomena in its own right and every other person who has an active online presence also seems to be tweeting.  Rather than posting directly on twitter.com’s default web interface, here are 6 ways to become a quicker and more effective tweeter, just by tweaking your web browser.

1. How to tweet URLs and post to del.icio.us with one click

 Bigtweet allows you to share websites you visit by clicking a bookmarklet which automatically puts the URL which you’re currently browsing into your tweet and shortens it for you.  It also posts to del.icio.us and/or Ping.fm so you can even share the URL easily across other social networks.

2. How to tweet URLs and enter contests at the same time

Much like BigTweet, TwitThis also automatically puts the URL which you’re currently browsing into your tweet and shortens it for you.  The unique spin here is that you’re able to enter contests as well, which allow you to tweet and win cool prizes at the same time like iPhones and Kindles.

3. How to tweet even faster

With Twitlet, one can tweet just by hitting a bookmarklet on your browser.  No installation, no browser extensions, just a simple bookmark, and a window pops up where you put in your dose of 140 characters without having to load twitter.  It’s really one of the quickest ways to tweet from a browser.  No sign-up required.

4. How to tweet directly from the Firefox address bar

Twitterbar is a Firefox add-on that allows anyone to post tweets fright from the address bar! Just type in any text you want and press the tweet button. Also convenient for tweeting URLs, in which you just have to press the tweet button.

5. How to integrate Twitter into your Firefox sidebar

Self-proclaimed ‘best twitter addon for Firefox’, Twitbin allows users to do anything Twitter-related (send/receive updates, messages etc.) right from the Firefox sidebar. Pretty handy if you are sidebar junkie.

6. How to share links and track them on Twitter

If you use the Bit.ly sidebar to post links to Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, you’ll also be able to see how popular the link is on bit.ly by being able to track the clicks it gets.  You’ll also be able to read all existing twitter and friendfeed conversations surrounding the link you’re sharing.

This post was jointly written by Chan Huey Hoong and James Yeang

What tips do you have for Twitter productivity? Tell us in the comments!

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Formatting is contextual.  One style may look great in one place, but look horrible in the next.  Here are a few quick tips on how to remove unwanted formatting from your documents.

1. How to remove unwanted formatting from your email

If you’ve received an email which has been forwarded multiple times, you’d notice that it can be hard to read if every line is prefixed with on more more ‘>’ characters.  Stripmail is a great piece of freeware which will help you strip any unwanted characters from your email and formats it into proper paragraphs and indentation so it’s much easier to read.  Stripmail is a free standalone utility which does not require installation so it’s incredibly light and portable.

2. How to remove unwanted formatting from any text in Google Docs AND MS Word and Powerpoint

Want a quick way to remove formatting in your document? Select the text you want to remove formatting from, and click Alt + Spacebar.  This built-in function will instantly do the job, and will work both in Google Docs and Microsoft Office.

3. How to remove unwanted formatting from Excel

The Alt + Spacebar trick doesn’t work in Excel, so what you can do is select an already unformatted cell, then click on the format painter button, and then select the area which you want unformatted.   

4. How to remove unwanted formatting when pasting web pages into MS Word

Things you copy from the web tend to end up looking really bad when you paste it into an MS Word file.  The way to get around this, once you copy the text, go to MS-Word and click Edit-Paste Special – Unformatted Text.  If you tend to do this very often, check out this excellent video tutorial on how to set up this up as a macro.

5. How to remove unwanted formatting when copying from your web browser

Have you ever copied something from your web browser to Outlook or Office and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again? This firefox extension gives you an option to copy text without the formatting. You can even set it to trim extra space in and around the copied text!

How do you deal with unwanted formatting?  Tell us in the comments!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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130 MILLION Downloads can’t be wrong.

Firefox (Released for free by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation) is the safer, faster, and better alternative web browser to Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Ever since it’s release, it has been receiving rave reviews by taking the web experience to new heights, and today we’re going to take a closer look at it.

getfirefox.com already has simple beautiful explanations of what the Firefox browser can do for you, so I’ll just tell you all the cool things you can do with one click with Firefox:

• ONE CLICK to navigate the web faster using tabs
• ONE CLICK to access multiple search engines (Smart Search)
• ONE CLICK to instantly read your latest news (Livebookmarks)
• ONE CLICK to access your bookmarks from a toolbar

As mentioned earlier in the post, what is highlighted here is just the simplest of functions. Firefox does much more than this, which is one of the great things about it – that it caters for both the novices and the power users with ease.

If you need more convincing about Firefox, see what others have to say:

• PCWorld Magazine voted it as the Best Product of the Year for 2005
• Cnet Editors rated it “Excellent” and gave it an Editor’s Choice Award

If you think IT publications are too techy and cannot be trusted:

• Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg said “Security, Cool Features of Firefox Web Browser Beat Microsoft’s IE”
• Forbes Magazine rated it as their favourite web browser in their best of the web section.

If you think business publications have all “sold-out” and cannot be trusted:

• Countless other personal testimonials can be found here

… at least try the Opera web browser before going back to Internet Explorer :)

Related Links:

If you are not a Firefox user – Click here
If you are already a Firefox user and want to help spread experience – Click here or here

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What RSS (Really Simple Syndication) technology allowed me to do was to see what’s on all my favourite websites from a central location, instead of visiting each website individually.

In the example pictured below, I can see the updated stories on four websites at a single glance.

Because my favourite websites were coming to me, instead of me going to them:

I was spending time reading articles I want, rather than spending time finding the articles to read.

Which sites can this work with?

Most of the major websites are RSS friendly (CNN, BBC, WSJ, Wired, Fortune, Forbes, NYT etc.) – even this website has RSS feeds!

How do I subscribe to a feed?

I will quickly go through 4 methods from easiest to most difficult.

Method #1: Live Bookmarks (Requires Firefox Browser)

If you’re using Firefox, you will see this orange symbol on the top of your screen, when you visit an RSS compatible site. Click on the button to subscribe via Liveboomarks (built into Firefox).

Method #2: RSS Reader Chicklets

On some websites you may see a number of mini banners called chicklets.

Once you have signed up for an RSS reader, click on the relevant chicklet to subscribe to the website. While this one click solution is easy, not every site supports them.

Method #3: Copy and Paste the RSS Address

This is the original, failsafe method but takes the most number of steps to accomplish. Look out for just a text link saying RSS, on a webpage.

Just right click the icon, copy the link location, and just paste it into your RSS reader where it says something like “Add feed address”.

RSS Reader Recommendations

It’s hard to recommend any single RSS reader because it all depends on what kind of user you are. In any case, if you just want to try out something quickly, I recommend Microsoft Live.com or Google IG

I have picked six of the RSS readers I’ve had good experiences with, and I have prepared a quick web-based sheet which should help you decide.

Of course this is just a quick overall evaluation model, and there are other factors that you may want to consider. Livebookmarks for example, resides on your PC browser. Most of the other pages described here, resides in the Internet, where you can have access to your feeds from any computer. Some readers check web-based email (Yahoo, MSN, Google) . Some will provide US stock quotes, weather, etc. Take a look around.

All things considered…

What is described here is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what RSS can do, and I will cover more in a later post. Give RSS a try, and you will change the way you use the Internet forever.

—

This writer is currently using Netvibes.

Related links:

Livebookmarks
Google IG
Live.com
Bloglines
Netvibes
My Yahoo
RSS technical explanations

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