While scouring the far corners of the internet, we often run across tools that look great but come up just short of making the cut for a post. For example, I’ve been keeping my eyes on a few Firefox extensions lately that I love, but they’re still in Experimental mode on Mozilla, meaning that you need to register with Mozilla and sign in to download them—because Mozilla testers haven’t yet gotten around to approving them to go public just yet. We pass on these to make sure anything we post is readily available to our readers. Rather than continue to wait, which can take a while with Mozilla’s approval process, check out three of my favorite experimental Firefox extensions.
Note: Mozilla hasn’t officially approved these extensions, so do proceed with caution.
Picture in Picture
The Picture in Picture extension, aka PiP, overlays videos from sites like YouTube in the corner of any other tab. That way you can keep an eye on the video while you’re going about the rest of your browsing business. You can set your preferred size for the picture-in-picture video to make it as small or large as you want, and PiP works with several different video sites, from YouTube and Google Video to Funny or Die. (It’s still a touch buggy on others.) To enable PiP, just click the small TV icon on your statusbar while you’re watching a video. This one could still use a little polish around the edges, but it’s also unquestionably brilliant. The downside: Currently it’s Mac only.
FlickrSendr
The FlickrSender extension sideloads any image in your browser directly to your Flickr account. That means that next time your sister sends you a few cute pictures of her baby via email, or you see an image that you’d really like to keep (provided you have the rights, of course), you can easily upload them to your Flickr account via your right-click menu in Firefox.
ErrorZilla Plus
ErrorZilla Plus is a modification to the previously mentioned ErrorZilla Firefox extension, which adds useful options to the “Server not found” page when you follow a a dead or problematic link. The difference: ErrorZilla Plus adds a Proxify option that re-tries the unreachable URL using a web proxy—perfect for getting around your offices IT lockdown blocks or, as the extension’s creator notes, accessing forbidden sites in China.
Got an extension you’ve seen brewing in the Firefox add-ons experimental labs that you think’s worth a mention? Let’s hear about it in the comments. Oh, and if you don’t feel like registering to try these experimental extensions out yourself, there’s always BugMeNot.
Give web site TorrentRelay the URL of any torrent on the internet and it’ll automatically download it for you through your web browser. Not only does that mean that you can download files over BitTorrent without installing a new BitTorrent client if you’re on someone else’s computer, but it also means you can download torrents directly to hardware that doesn’t support BitTorrent clients, like your Wii, PS3, or even iPhone. Currently TorrentRelay downloads are limited to 400MB. For a similar solution, check out previously mentioned BitLet.
A new study by sleep scientists shows a 20-minute nap combats sleepiness more than a cup of coffee. Time to get that sleep pod installed at the office! For more tips for counting sheep, check out our top 10 ways to sleep smarter and better.
Windows/Mac/Linux: Free, open source application KeyJnote transforms any simple PDF into a powerful interactive presentation similar to PowerPoint or Keynote. After you plug your PDF into KeyJnote, you get a slate of powerful presentation tools, with everything from simple forward and back navigation with your left and right mouse buttons, mouse highlighting, rectangle highlighting, slide zooming, and more. KeyJnote doesn’t yet have a graphical interface for starting a PDF presentation, but using it is simple.
The easiest way to get going with KeyJnote is probably to drag your PDF into your KeyJnote directory, fire up a command prompt in that folder, type keyjnote yourpdfnamehere.pdf, and your presentation will automatically start up. For a quick example of KeyJnote in action, try the demo PDF by running keyjnote demo.pdf from the command prompt or terminal in the KeyJnote directory. Thanks jackhab! UPDATE: Our apologies if this one looks familiar.
Mozilla developers found a “showstopper” bug in Firefox 3 for Mac, and they’re issuing a third release candidate to resolve it. Update: Download Firefox 3 RC 3 here.
Scary reports of a malicious ransomware virus—a software that encrypts your files and holds them hostage until you buy a decryption tool—make you glad you’re running one of the best antivirus applications. Even better: An automated backup plan is just as important in situations like this.
Weblog ScienCentral reports that when you can’t come up with an answer that’s sitting on the tip of your tongue, you’re best off forgetting about it altogether. That’s because, according to a study by experimental psychologists at Canada’s McMaster University, the more you struggle to remember a word on the tip of your tongue, the more difficulty you’ll have remembering it in the future. Their recommendation: Just look it up, and do so as soon as possible. Do their findings match up with your experience? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Having a good set of bookmarklets on your browser’s toolbar is like having a web-savvy Leatherman handy—you can take them anywhere, use them in many situations, and they just simply work. A bookmarklet is a little different than a plain old bookmark—it’s a snippet of JavaScript that can perform all sorts of magic on the web page you’re currently viewing. You add bookmarklets to your bookmarks collection to get all sorts of things done as you surf the web. Let’s take a look at some of the best bookmarklets available, which can help you search and email, download videos, and work out some of the web’s kinks.
To start using a bookmarklet, make sure your browser’s bookmarks toolbar is visible. Then, drag and drop the bookmarklet link (enclosed in square brackets below each item on this post) to your bookmarks toolbar. When you’re on a page where you want to use the bookmarklet? Just click its name on your toolbar.
10. YubNub Web Search
If you’re the type who gives their upper-right search box a serious workout, the “web command line” YubNub could be right up your alley, and its bookmarklet makes it lightning-quick. Using the text box that pops up, type in gmaps Starbucks for a Google Maps look at local chain coffee joints, wp Hawaii for the Wikipedia entry on the 50th state, or whatever shortcuts suit your fancy. For even better browser integration, you can install YubNub in your Firefox address bar.
9. Supercharged GmailThis
Our own JavaScript tweaker Adam took a liking to the original GmailThis bookmarklet, which pops up a Gmail compose window with a link to the page you’re browsing already inserted. The Supercharged edition is a custom fit for anyone who does their bookmarking with Gmail, but can also be used to set up multiple pre-addressed, pre-formatted messages: “Thought you’d like to check this out, Boss,” “This week’s discussion topic,” etc. Set it up to your specifications, and it might be faster than your desktop email client.