Crenk

Here at Crenk we really like talking about Firefox and extensions, as you can see from previous posts, but this time I wanted combined Firefox with the feed reader I use Google Reader. There are so many Google Reader Firefox extensions out there, but here are the top five I think are worth using.

As with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you’d like to slow down your browser. And, honestly, how many notifications do you need to show you that you have unread items in Reader?

AideRSS - Brings AideRSS to your Google Reader, allowing you to see ranks directly in your reader, as well as letting you group feeds by rank. Also allows you to add your own thoughts on each feed.

Better GReader - Combines several Greasemonkey scripts in one extension. Includes things such as skipping the iGoogle choice page, the ability to preview the item as it appears on the actual Web page, shows the favicon for each feed, and several other choices.

Google Reader Notifier - Shows you how many unread items there are, provides an itemized list, lets you customize where the information appears in your browser, different icon sets, and more.

Google Reader Watcher - Based on a Greasemonkey script by the same author, Google Reader Watcher will check your account at an interval you set and will show you how many unread items you have. It can show this broken down by feed and more.

IntenseDebate in Google Reader - This plugin will add a link to each item in your Google Reader to allow you to post comments directly to IntenseDebate.

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For those us who desk jockey, day in and day out, it’s tough to stay focused on work all day long. A few of us get sidetracked to read personal email or do personal web searches in order to break the monotony of the daily grind.

Here are a 4 Firefox plug-ins to keep track of that time and stay on task. Nothing is worse than realizing that you just blew an entire day on surfing rather than working. Keep these tools close at hand to prevent any effects on your job performance.

1. MeeTimer
MeeTimer is probably one of the most effective plug-ins for tracking time that I have found. MeeTimer will not only time your time wasting, but also can provide you a report where you spend your time to give you a better idea of how to properly make corrections. The thoroughness of this plug-in can truly assist in correcting time wasting habits. Warnings have also been placed to warn you prior to going to a new address or loading a new tab.

2. TimeTracker
TimeTracker is a comparable plug-in to MeeTimer in terms of usefulness. TimeTracker is much simpler, and focuses more on tracking your time, as opposed to providing direct reports. Still this plug-in offers some attractive additions. TimeTracker allows you to input “work” sites that should not count towards the tracking, so your clock will actually stop as long as you are on those listed sties. Time also pauses when you are taking a break from surfing, and the clock will provide you a daily report as to where you are spending your time. You can reset your clock daily or track an entire work week, depending on your needs.

3. LeechBlock
The LeechBlock plug-in comes at you with an interesting approach. It asks you to type in all the sites you want blocked. That’s right, it will block from sites, and it even allows you to designate days and times to keep them blocked from you. An interesting approach, but I would have far too many sites to include on that list. I like the approach of TimeTracker much better by adding the sites that you actually need for work, as those are sure to be fewer and easier to remember. It also tracks your time to provide you with an accurate view of where you spend your time.

4. Procrastato
This plug-in cuts to the chase! No fancy reports, no time tracking, it doesn’t even care if you like the way it works or not. Procrastato does one thing, and one thing very well. Once you input the sites you spend most time on, the plugin will monitor you very effectively. Spending more time than you should on any of the listed sites and you get smacked down with a massive alert informing you that you are wasting time and they are watching (not literally watching you but the eyes they show you are creepy). If that does not disrupt your time wasting, then you are doomed to waste time forever!

Photo Credit, sugu

ReminderFox

This neat little plug-in goes for simplicity. While not necessarily an official “to-do” application, I find it almost necessary for those that seem to forget the important dates. People that forget birthdays, anniversaries, parties, and other date based events, ReminderFox will send out an alarm or an alert to remind you of what’s coming up. This plug-in has no aspirations to be a full calendar application, but rather makes its home at the bottom right of your browser ready to announce the days you NEED to remember!

ToDo Cue (experimental)
ToDo Cue unfortunately was very buggy in my use of this plug-in. It relies on the user creating simple, let me stress that again…simple, to-do lists. Once installed a side bar will appear in both your Gmail and Gcal accounts with the lists of things to-do in priority order. I was only able to get sustainable functionality with the older version of Gmail, which did me little good as I have updated it. There are a lot of other tools that do the same with better results. This plug-in needs more work, but remember, it is still labeled experimental, just not sure if it will ever be ready.

Todo Reminder
I found this to be the plug-in with the most potential. Currently the plug-in is very effective with event reminders. Things like parties, birthdays, get togethers, anniversaries, etc. What I loved about it is that alerts not only come via email, but you can set yourself up with SMS alerts. If more than one person is involved, take it further by setting up group alerts. This will make sure everyone is on task and aware of what is coming up. I especially found the one mouse click addition through emails and pages very effective when needing to list something quickly. The site says further development is needed, but I think this little plug-in has a great future in the productivity field.

Delegate to Remember the Milk
A lot of you have heard of Remember the Milk. If you’ve not, no worries, Remember the Milk (RtM) is simply another way to create your to-do lists with functionality with both web apps and mobile apps. There are a great number of power users for RtM, and as such, this plug-in is very popular. For starters, if you follow the GTD (Getting Things Done) philosophy, then this plug-in will be very effective. A “remember” button is added to all of your emails for quick task managing directly from you email. No bothering with cut and paste, simply click and the message is tasked into your RtM account. Yes, it’s that simple!

GTD Inbox
GTD Inbox is a plug-in that tries to do a whole lot. Unfortunately in this endeavor it tends to fail on a lot of fronts. This plug-in completely changes the face of your Gmail inbox by adding the functionality of GTD (mentioned above). For hardcore GTD’ers, the layout will be very familiar with intuitive clicks to productively manage all of your information. Similar to the RtM plug-in, you have a button that will take your emails and place them into your task list. You have the ability to create labels, ticklers, and build the productivity method that best suits your needs. This productivity juggaurnaut is definitely not an entry level “to-do” plug-in and may confuse first time users of GTD. A little buggy with newer versions of Gmail, but useful if you can understand it.

There are more I am sure, and even more being created for Firefox 3, but share your favorite To-Do Plug-ins here and let’s all get more done.

It looks like FireFox’s campaign to get the most software downloads in 24 hours has worked. They now have an announcement on their website saying :

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

I still find it quite amazing that their servers could handle all of those downloads in one single day. Well lets not forget that there were some major issues when the day started because it was really difficult to actually get the download from the sites.

Yesterday we wrote about Firefox 3 and potential themes that you can download, but today we are going to talk about one of the most popular add-ons on Firefox 3, Foxytunes. Foxytunes is currently owned by Yahoo and improved a lot in the last 6 months or so.

Foxytunes lets you control almost any media player and find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more with a click right from your browser.

Foxytunes can either be download from their website or via the Firefox add-on section. Either way this free download is a must for all web users!

The majority of Firefox 3 users are still using Firefox 2, but it is now time to upgrade to Firefox 3! Already here on Crenk we have covered Firefox 3 Download day and 7 Firefox add-ons to help you browse anonomously, but we thought it was time that we covered some Firefox 3 themes that we thought you should go and download right now. These themes are worth upgrading for.

Phoenity Reborn - A colorful theme with multiple icon sizes to customize your browser buttons. This theme is totally compatible with Firefox 3 and might even just brighten up your day at work. Well probably not really.

Walnut - This has to be one of the sexiest Firefox 3 themes out there. It kinda looks like a wood grain dash board, but I must admit I would much rather be sitting in a car with this as interior than playing around on Firefox.

Red Cats -Well im not too sure if this should be called red cats, should be orange cats. This theme has some great extensions and it also comes in blue, you can ask for more than that.

Today is Firefox 3 Download Day and it is past the launch time of 10am PDT and still no download to be available. Im sure there are thousand if not millions of people trying to get this download at exactly the same time, but come on they had months to prepare for this!

I think I am just going to have wait until tomorrow my time to get the download and actually review it for everyone here.

Firefox 3 is coming on the 17th of June. So next Tuesday make sure you are online and actually downloading the new firefox. Seriously, it’s been a long time. 34 months of development, 5 betas and 2 RCs, that’s enough to make any user squirm with anticipation. If everything goes well, we’ll finally be able to wave memory leaks and instabilities goodbye. If not, we’ll be the first to complain, don’t worry.

Currently, I am already using the Firefox 3 RC2 and it is great. Im looking forward to seeing if they make any more major changes before they launch to the public. Remember if you want to download Firefox 3 RC 2 now then you can, all you have to do is head over here and download it. Im guessing that when they upgrade to the public Firefox 3 then the current users will just see a basic update appear.

Following on from the Firefox 3 RC1 post the other day, I thought I would write another article about Firefox Add-ons. Here is a list put together showing 7 Firefox add-ons to browse the web anonymously.

Anonymization Toolbar – This special tool will enable you to stay more anonymous while browsing the internet through Firefox. There are one click options that allow you to delete your browsing history, cache and cookies.

FoxTor – This program will help hide your computer behind different proxies, changing your IP address as you surf different websites on the internet.

FoxyProxy - Gives you complete control over the proxy configuration. Can be used to browse anonymously.

ProxySel - Add-on that allows you to choose a proxy from a drop down list and also to import proxies from proxy lists

BrowseAtWork - Add-on ideal for viewing webpages blocked by many corporate or school filters.

SwitchProxy - This add-on allows you to easily switch between proxy configurations and keep your surfing more anonymous.

Torbutton - Add-on for enabling and disabling Firefox’s use of Tor for safer surfing.