Jeremy's Notes

I have been using Firefox for probably the last 3.5 years and so far it seems to be great. It was love at first site. The tabbing feature, the custom addons, the custom themes… Need I say more? I especially like Firefox 3, I think the new default theme is great! I havent changed from it yet. Oh btw I guess before you read on I’ll put the specific version of my Firefox, to leave out any confusion on if these tricks will work for you. I am using Firefox v3.0.1 (the way you check that is by going to help -> about Moz. Firefox).

Here are a few Tips and Tricks for making your internet browsing experience more enjoyable:

1) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box. I specifically use this for wikipedia (keyword w), google calendar (keyword gc), and a few others.

2) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.

3) TwitterFox. If you use the Twitter.com online micro-blogging website, you will LOVE this! The addon places a “T” – Twitter Icon at the lower-right corner of your Firefox screen and whenever you get a “tweet”, it will pop-up and show the message automatically. But lets say you havent been on your computer all day and you get on only @ night. If open up your browser to check email, the TwitterFox icon will may have a number next to it. If it does then all you have to do is click on the icon and it will show you the rest of the items.

4) Faviconize. The Faviconize addon cleanes up and gives you more space on your tab-bar by changing your tabs into favicons. A favicon is the little icon that almost every site has (all popular sites will have them). This is convienent because it alleviates the problem of having to scroll back and forth through your tabs if you happen to have several open.

5) Sxipper. Anyone who has accounts on several different websites (wether it be blogs, forums, email, or whatever) will utilitize this addon a lot! Sxipper is a very well designed auto-form-filler and account information tracker. I use it all the time for all of my accounts accross the web. It has saved me countless times from having to type in my passwords (which btw are very well designed and long).

6) Foxmarks. This is a great tool for snycing the bookmarks/favorites of all of your computers. I use it because I am constantly switching between two different computers, and for the most part I use a lot of my bookmarks on a regular basis.

Well that’s all for now! If you have any suggestions, comments or concerns about this article, please comment or email at jmac@jmactheattack.com

Click here to download Firefox 3.0.1