My Thunderbird Part 4

Contact Sidebar Extension

I like to have my contacts list close at hand and Contacts Sidebar gives me that option. Rather than waste all that space under the local folders, we can use it to display our address books.

This is how Contacts Sidebar looks once it is installed.

Now, without opening the a separate window, you have the ability to:

Switch between address books
Search through address books

Just double-click on any name and a New Message window will appear with that contacts e-mail address in the "To:" field.

For more information and keyboard shortcuts, visit the Contacts Sidebar Web Page

Download the latest version of Contacts Sidebar

My Thunderbird Part 3

Downloading and Installing Extensions in Thunderbird

Downloading and installing extensions in Thunderbird is not as simple as in Firefox.

Once you find an extension that you want, download the file to your hard drive. If you just click on the "Install Now" button on the pages in the Mozilla Add-on/Extension Database, the following window will pop-up and will attempt to install this extension into Firefox. The extension is obviously not for Firefox, so we want to avoid this.Right click on the button and select "Save Link As". Save the file to your hard drive in an easy to find place.
In Thunderbird, select Tools...Add-OnsFrom the Extensions pop-up window, click "Install..." in the lower left-hand corner.
Find the file that you saved to the hard drive earlier and select "Open". A "Software Installation" window will pop-up and after a 5 second countdown...

...you can click the "Install Now" button to add the file.


Click on the "Restart Thunderbird" and when the program is running again, so should your newly installed extension.

My Thunderbird Part 1

I love Thunderbird. I don't know if I like the actual program half as much as I enjoy the ability to make the e-mail client do whatever I want through extensions. I figured I would write a series of posts to expound on why I love Thunderbird and let you all know some of my favorite extensions and tips that make my life easier. Feel free to click on the images for higher resolution screen shots.

First, here is what my Thunderbird 2.0 looks like most of the time.


When I am sorting through my inbox, I like to hide the sidebar with "L" and it looks a little cleaner"And yes, I actually do keep my inbox clean despite receiving quite a bit of e-mail every day.

Here is a screen shot of the list of my extensions that I have installed at this point:


In the next post I will go over some of the extensions and their functions.

I Want a Firefox Extension To...

Looking for a little known extension that will make Firefox the ultimate browser customized just for you? You would be hard pressed not to find it in this extensive list organized by function.

I want a Firefox extension to...

Send Later Thunderbird Extension

Use this extension to send reminder emails to yourself or others. After you compose the email, instead of the regular Ctrl + Enter to drop it into cyberspace, use Ctrl + Shift + Enter to pull up the send later dialog box and tell Thunderbird when to mail the message down to the minute. Remember to leave Thunderbird open, otherwise the message will not be sent. This extension is compatible with the latest Thunderbird version.

Send Later from Lifehacker

asdf-jkl Firefox Extension

From Lifehacker

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): The asdf-jkl Firefox extension adds tooltips to the fox's chrome that display keyboard shortcuts associated with the item your mouse pointer is hovering over.

For example, the address bar shortcut is Cmd+L, as pictured. (It's Ctrl+L for Windows peeps, so the tooltips are platform-aware, too.) Also asdf-jkl adds a Keyboard shorcuts item on Firefox's View menu for quick lookups of common shortcuts. This extension is a fanastic reminder/teaching tool for users who want to learn their way around the chrome via the keyboard. The asdf-jkl extension is a free download, works in conjunction with Firefox. — Gina Trapani

asdf-jkl [Google Code]

Supercharge Your Gmail

From Lifehacker

by Adam Pash
Yesterday Gina released Better Gmail, a Firefox extension that integrates the best Gmail user scripts under one easy-to-manage Firefox extension. Whether you're using the extension or the Greasemonkey scripts, these add-ons turn Gmail into an entirely new and wildly powerful email tool.

The problem is, you've got to know what you're doing to take advantage of what Better Gmail has to offer. That's why today, I'll show you how to use Better Gmail along with a few other Gmail add-ons to turn Gmail into the best email application you've ever used.

The Essentials

The Greasemonkey community has built several must-have scripts for enhancing Gmail, but that used to mean you had to go hunt down each script every time you wanted to power up your Gmail on a new computer. Additionally, for some reason or another, a lot of people out there aren't terribly keen on Greasemonkey. That's why we're all very lucky that just yesterday, Gina released the Better Gmail Firefox extension, which basically wraps together some of the best Gmail Greasemonkey scripts into one master extension. That includes:

Macros: This is the must-have missing feature from Gmail, and it's what I'll spend the most time explaining and demonstrating in this feature. It lets you perform all kinds of fancy Gmail footwork without ever taking your hands off the keyboard.
Attachment Icons: Adds small icons to emails with attachments to indicate what kind of file is attached.
Filter Assistant: Helps you quicky create new filters based on the message you're currently viewing.
Saved Searches: Lets you create custom, often-used searches that work sort of like smart folders.
Conversation Preview: Lets you preview a message with a right-click of your mouse.
and more...

Starting to see how useful this extension is? Now let's take a look at how you might put it to use.

Check out the video above (if you haven't already) for a look at how Gmail Macros, along with several of the other tools included in Better Gmail, can help you get things done in Gmail.
Best, must-know shortcuts

The ability to perform every email task you need, from navigation your conversations with j/k, navigating inside threads with n/p, or selecting the current email with x (all of which are baked into Gmail from the get-go, as long as you enable keyboard shortcuts) to the excellent on-the-fly labeling and label navigation you get from Gmail Macros.

The other keyboard shortcuts from Gmail Macros I use and love most are:
g + label name: This works for any label, saved search, or default sidebar navigation (like inbox, sent mail, etc.). Just type 'g' and the label selector will pop up. Then begin typing the name of the label you want and as soon as you narrow it down, Gmail Macros will take you there.
l + label name: Select your to-be-labeled conversation(s) with 'x', then hit 'l'. Begin typing the name of the label and again, once it's narrowed down, it'll automatically label your email with the match.
Shift-L + label: Lets you remove a specific label from currently selected email(s). You can also remove labels on a per-email basis if you're viewing it within the label you want to remove by archiving it with y.
Shift-N + label: Allows you to create a new label and apply the label to a message on-the-fly, a simple tweak that takes the extra steps out of applying a new label to a message, meaning you won't blow off creating the label because you can't be bothered to take the time. This is currently not available with Better Gmail (but it may be in the next release), but it is available with this version of the Gmail Macros script (via Gmail Power Users Group).

The label selector command window might seem a little confusing, since it looks the same no matter which command brings it up (i.e., g, l, Shift-l, Shift-N), but don't let that bother you. Once you get used to it, it's indispensable.

Then there are the compose, reply, and forward shortcuts. To Compose a message, hit c, to Reply to the message you're currently viewing, hit r, and to Forward the message you're viewing, hit f. Any of these commands can also be used to compose your email in another window by adding the Shift key to the shortcut (e.g., Shift-c will open a pop-up compose window).

To open an email, you can either hit Enter or O for Open. If you're viewing a long conversation thread with a lot of collapsed emails, you can expand them all in one fell swoop by hitting Shift-o.
As you're learning how to use the Macros, always keep in mind that you can pull up the keyboard command list at any time by hitting h, as in Help. However, if you're more into paper cheatsheets, click the thumbnail to the right for a passably printable image of the keyboard command list. [1]

My final favorite that I'm going to highlight is the Conversation preview shortcut. If you've enabled Conversation Preview, you could preview a message by right-clicking it, or you can do that from the keyboard, too, by hitting v for View. Awesome. (I have an unnatural love for my keyboard.)

Gmail as a web-accessible hard drive
As Gmail's storage quickly approaches 3GB, a lot of people have got a lot of room they're not using. That's why it's been a prime target for really cool third party apps that let you mount and browse your Gmail account like it's a hard drive. Windows users should try the Gmail Drive shell, while Mac users should take a look at gDisk. If you want to keep things in Firefox, try out the Gmail File Space extension.

Encryption
If you've logged into Gmail at http://mail.google.com rather than https://mail.google.com, the messages you're sending could potentially be read by any dirty sniffer on your network. Logging into the https version, however, will encrypt your information as it's sent so no one can stick their nose into your messages. The 's' is for secure, people! To set every Gmail connection to redirect to the more secure https connection, try out CustomizeGoogle or the HTTP-to-HTTPS redirector Greasemonkey script. You can also use CustomizeGoogle to remove the Spam count from your Gmail sidebar, along with lots of other Google tweaks.
Real privacy hounds should check out FireGPG or Gmail Encrypt to add secure encryption to email you've sent with Gmail.

Knock out repetitive email
This is more of a tip for any email application than Gmail specifically, but if you process a lot of email every day, I can't stress enough how much time a text replacement application like Texter for Windows, TextExpander for Macs, or Snippits for Linux can can save you. For a very brief (and somewhat trivial) demonstration of how I use Texter with Gmail to automate personalized responses to email, check out the video below.
To find out how that worked, check out Texter.

Honorable mentions
GmailThis Bookmarklet: This little bookmarklet makes it easy to email any web page with the click of a button. Beyond that, if the mood strikes you, you can learn the advanced usage techniques to customize what your composed email will look like.

Gmail Date Search: Viewing emails sent on a specific date in Gmail requires a somewhat convoluted bit of syntax. The Gmail Date Search Greasemonkey script adds a Search by Date button to Gmail that lets you quickly search for emails by date by entering dates in a simple MM/DD/YY format. I wrote this one, so if you notice any bugs/have any suggestions, let me know.

DragDropUpload: This handy Firefox extension lets you drag files into Gmail (or any other file upload field) so that you don't have to go through the messy process of searching through your file directory just to upload a file you're looking at on your desktop.

GTDGmail: Fans of Getting Things Done should check out GTDGmail, a full-featured Firefox extension that seamlessly integrates the GTD philosophy to your Gmail inbox.
For more of a beginner's look at Gmail, check out my previous Gmail master feature. It covers more of the basics, like label creation (with an explanation, if you're confused), setting up filters, and Gmail search operators. For a look at the huge repository of Gmail-related tips we've posted, check out our Gmail tag.

New WMP Plugin for Firefox

Microsoft Releases New Windows Media Plug-in For Firefox
From Compiler

Microsoft has released a new Windows Media plug-in for Firefox which allows you to use Windows Media Player inside the Firefox browser. The new plug-in supports Windows XP SP2 and Vista including the 64 bit versions of both OSes.

Port25, a Microsoft website devoted to interoperability with Linux, is hosting the download. If you visit the plug-in site at Mozilla, you will be automatically redirected to Port25 to download and install the plug-in.

Some Firefox users have complained that Microsoft is not using the XPI format for extensions, but in fact the .xpi extensions are for add-ons not plug-ins. As with the Flash plug-in for Firefox, the Windows Media plug-in in a .exe file.

The new plug-in addresses the known issues that plagued the previous version and adds Vista support.

There is however one known issue with the new plugin as noted on the Port25 site:
If you are using Firefox version 2.0.0.3 on Windows Vista with the installer failing with error code -203. To work around this simply restart Firefox (you will get a notification that Windows Vista will be changing the Firefox compatibility settings) and then install again - the second time should succeed.

I did not experience this issue and in fact had no problems at all installing the plug-in on Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Vista, but if you do let us know is the workaround helps.
Also note that the plug-in is compatible with the 64 bit versions of XP and Vista, but not with the 64 bit version of Firefox.

Regrettably there is still no plug-in for Windows Media 11 on Mac or Linux.

Posted by Scott Gilbertson 10:20:18 AM

Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Avoid

From Computerworld

April 10, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Welcome back, Firefox fans! We've helped you get started on your journey to browser perfection with our list of 20 must-have Firefox extensions. But the ability to tweak your browser is a double-edged sword. There are extensions best avoided, including some of the most popular.

Popularity shouldn't be the acid test to determine if you should install an extension. The important question is whether it enhances your browsing experience without any nasty side effects. The good news is that the extension community is actually pretty adept at self-policing. Most extensions that are truly "broken" (for instance, they crash your browser or suck up all your CPU power) either get fixed quickly or simply vanish.

But some extensions are "bad" in unapparent ways, or just don't provide enough benefits to be worth running. So, in no particular order, let's look at 10 to avoid.

Fasterfox

This Web accelerator has a "pre-fetching" mechanism that makes you a very bad Web citizen. Here's how it works: You land on a page and start reading it. While your system is idle, Fasterfox silently starts following links and downloading the destination pages. The idea is that if you then decide to click on one of these links, the page is already cached on your local machine and will pop up very quickly.

This is nice for you, but it can be an incredible waste of bandwidth -- just think about how many links are on a typical page. Even if you don't care about bandwidth, there are reports that some systems administrators are now detecting the extension (and others like it) and blocking clients that are using it. While it is possible to use Fasterfox responsibly, it is best avoided unless you know what you are doing.

If you must use Fasterfox, choose the Courteous setting -- it will speed up your browsing a bit without making you a complete bandwidth hog.

NoScript

This extension is hugely popular and works as advertised, giving you control over which JavaScript, Java and other executable content on a page can run, depending on that content's source domain. You whitelist the sites you consider safe and blacklist the sites you don't.

	NoScript has you allow or forbid executable content by originating domain; a single Web page can include such content from multiple domains.

If you really have a need for this kind of control, then you're already using the extension and will continue to do so. But for the average Web surfer, constantly having to whitelist sites so that scripts can execute in order to give you a fully formed Web experience gets tedious very quickly.

Does NoScript make Firefox safer? Sure. Is it worth the hassle? No. For some reason, paranoia seems to be cool among Web geeks, but for the most part, it is totally unwarranted unless you're sending and receiving sensitive data. Most typical Web surfers who install this extension remove it after the novelty wears off.
Adblock and Adblock Plus

Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions, as Computerworld is an ad-supported site. We also understand that these are very popular extensions. But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?

We'll be the first to admit that there are some horribly annoying ads out there. (Buzzing bee, anyone?) But we prefer using Nuke Anything Enhanced to zap the annoying ads while continuing to support the sites we love by allowing most ads to appear.

PDF Download

Here's another extension that works as advertised and is very popular, but it seems like overkill for most users and can cause headaches for others. PDF Download lets you control how Firefox handles PDF files when you click on them -- you can display a pop-up box that lets you choose whether to download, open or view the file as HTML. You can also set it to take one of these actions by default, skipping the pop-up.

PDF Download's pop-up dialog.

Besides the option to view the file as HTML, the real draw for many people is the ability to have PDF files open in the external PDF viewer of their choice rather than the Adobe Reader plug-in for Firefox. Using the external viewer is significantly faster on some systems but not at all on others. Likewise, viewing as HTML sometimes takes longer than opening the PDF with the Adobe Reader plug-in.

So what's the problem? The extension can run into trouble when it tries to handle certain PDFs. Some Web sites send you to a "silent interstitial" page for tracking purposes or some other reason, then redirect you to the PDF. In these cases, the extension won't work. Usually when this happens, PDF Download just gets bypassed, but we've had Firefox freeze up when dealing with redirected PDFs, too. For the little benefit that PDF Download provides, the problems it can cause just aren't worth it.

VideoDownloader

Homegrown video is hot right now, and why not? Sites like YouTube and Google Video make it easy to put content online for Web denizens to enjoy. The VideoDownloader extension promises a way to download video from these sites and many more for your offline viewing pleasure. Sounds great, right?

The problem is that the extension has to connect to a Web site in order to work, and more often than not, you'll find that instead of a download window, what you get is "Service Temporarily Unavailable." When it does finally work, the download is infuriatingly slow.

What you should see when you try to download a video (left) ... and what you'll often see instead.

Perhaps the extension is a victim of its own success, but until the server issues are addressed, save yourself some aggravation and skip this one.
Greasemonkey

Hey, wait just a minute. Wasn't this on our list of best extensions? Well, yes it was. Greasemonkey is a really nifty extension to use, as long as you know what you're doing with it. It can potentially get you in trouble because it allows JavaScripts written by other people to run in Firefox. If one of those scripts is malicious, your system could be at risk.

To stay out of trouble, you should use Greasemonkey only with scripts you know are safe, either because you're familiar enough with JavaScript to satisfy yourself or because the script has enough comments at userscripts.org to indicate that people are using it with no ill effects.

If you're not willing to do your homework, skip this extension altogether.

ScribeFire (formerly Performancing)

This falls into the category of extensions that seem pointless. What we have here is a browser-based tool for writing blog posts. But don't most blogs already have a browser-based editor that works just fine?

Perhaps there's a blogging system out there that needs this kind of helper app, but we're not familiar with it. Until we come upon such a beast, we'd rather skip the overhead of an extension and stick to our blogging software's built-in editor.

WordPress' built-in editor on the top, ScribeFire on the bottom. Do you need both?

Don't get us wrong, ScribeFire is a nice piece of software. We just don't see a need for it at this time. If you do happen to be using blogging software without a decent editor, ScribeFire would be a fine addition to your extension toolbox.

TrackMeNot

This is another of those extensions for the overly paranoid. The developers apparently became concerned with search engine profiling -- the process in which search engines track your queries and build a demographic profile of you based on those queries -- after a list of three months' worth of search queries from 657,000 AOL members was released on the Web.

	A small section of a log file of searches performed by TrackMeNot.

We don't mean to downplay privacy concerns, but the technique used in TrackMeNot is questionable. The extension runs in the background while you surf, and sends random search queries to AOL, Yahoo, Google and MSN search engines. What a waste of system resources for both you and the search engines you rely on!

Tabbrowser Preferences

This extension lets you tweak Firefox's tab settings in various minor ways. For instance, you can add a New Tab button to your tab bar, or control whether the Close Tab icon appears on each tab or at the end of the tab bar. It works fine.

The problem is that if you uninstall the extension, it doesn't reset your tab settings, leaving you with tweaks that you have to undo by going to the about:config page, which many users don't understand or even know about.

If you uninstall this extension, you'll have to delve into the about:config page to undo the changes it made. That's poor extension etiquette.

The changes the extension makes are fairly subtle, but that's not the point. If you uninstall an extension, you do so for a reason, and once it's uninstalled, the browser should be reset to its default state.

Tabbrowser Extensions

This extension is a real heavyweight but seems quite popular in certain Firefox circles -- it almost seems to be a rite of passage for Firefox nerds. It gives you lots of control over how tabbed browsing works and even supports plug-ins to add even more functionality. However, it is buggy and conflicts with many other extensions. In fact, even its developers suggest that you not install it!

When the people writing the code suggest you stay away, you should stay away, no matter what your über-Firefox-geek friend says. In any event, the extension hasn't been -- and probably won't be -- upgraded to support Firefox 2.x.

Bonus: Watch out for the Numbered Links 0.9 imposter

There's nothing wrong with the Numbered Links 0.9 extension per se. By showing numbers next to links, buttons and other interactive elements on Web pages, it lets you navigate without using a mouse. If you chose to install Numbered Links 0.9 previously, there's no reason not to go on using it if you find it helpful (though you might be interested in Conkeror by the same developer).

However, if you see this extension in your add-ons list and don't recall installing it, then tread carefully. There's a version that has been modified into the FormSpy Trojan, which installs itself as a Firefox extension and keeps the title "Numbered Links 0.9." FormSpy can potentially capture information entered into HTML forms and send them on to a malicious Web site. For more information, see McAfee's FormSpy profile.

What do you think?

So there you have it -- our 10 picks for Firefox extensions to avoid, plus an imposter to really be on the alert for.

As always, we welcome your thoughts. Have any extension horror stories you'd care to share? Want to defend an extension that we've listed? Please use the comment form at the bottom of the page.

Peter Smith is a Web developer and freelance writer with a special interest in personal technology and digital entertainment.

Top 20 Wordpress Plugins

From Makeuseof.com

30 March, 2007 | written by Aibek |

Finally something for wordpress folks, my all-time favorite, carefully-selected, top 20 wordpress plugins. Enjoy!

1. Advanced WYSIWYG Editor - adds more editing options to the WYSIWYG post editor. See it below

2. Akismet - default wordpress plugin which does an excellent job at filtering spam comments. To activate it you’ll need WordPress API key, which is freely available to every wordpress.com user. Once activated you can access it through ‘Options ->Discussion’.

3. BDP RSS Aggregator (update: original site seems to be offline, for now you can download this plugin from here) - lets you grab one or several RSS feeds, mix/style them and publish them on your blog. It’s an ideal solution, for any blogger looking for an easy and yet powerful solution to embed RSS feeds on your blog posts or pages. Access it through ‘Manage-> RSS feeds’.

4. Bookmark Me - adds links to popular social bookmarking sites. Once installed, it will add ‘Bookmark Me’ tab under the ‘Options’ menu, from where you can select which sites you want to be shown. Includes almost all popular sites.

5. Category Tagging - powerful plugin that lets you (1) create tag clouds based on your existing categories and (2) display related posts for each of your posts.

6. Comment Count - can be used to count total number of comments or comments for a specific post. You can see it in action on top of every article on makeuseof

7. Optimal Title - lets you move the position of the title ’separator’ to after the blog name rather than before. Even though some folks have been saying that such naming is good from the SEO(Search Engine Optimization) point of view, I think it’s just a better way to title your posts. It will also produce better looking pingbacks when you link to external blog posts.

• before: MakeUseOf.com >> Gmail Craze: 30+ Tools and Hacks for Gmail
• after: Gmail Craze: 30+ Tools and Hacks for Gmail >> MakeUseOf.com

8. Exec-PHP - lets you execute PHP queries within any of your posts or pages

9. Google Sitemaps - handy generator that will create a Google, Yahoo and MSN compliant, auto-updated sitemap of your blog and place it to the indicated location on your server. Access it through ‘Options -> Sitemap’.

10. WP-Cache - very fast cache module, that can come in handy for sudden traffic spikes, i.e. when featured on digg’s homepage. Once installed and enabled(’Options -> WP-Cache -> enable’) it will considerably reduce the load from your server, helping you survive the digg effect. (Note: Make sure to disable it once traffic level gets back to normal)

11. WSR Contact Form - lets you quickly create ‘contact’ page for your blog. See it in action on our contact page

12. Smart Archives - provides simple and clean way to present your archives. Check it out here

13. WordPress Database Backup - On demand backup of your WordPress database. You can either run backups manually or schedule them (daily, weekly, etc.)

(click to enlarge and open it in a new window)

14. WordPress Reports - gets stats from Google Analytics and Feedburner and adds them to the new ‘Reports’ tab

(click to enlarge and open it in a new window)

15. Custom Query String (CQS) - allows you to choose how many posts to be shown and specify how they should be ordered, for any of the ’search queries’ and blog categories.(’Options->CQS’)

16. Feedburner Feed Replacement - automatically detects all ways to access your blog feed (i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/feed/ or http://www.yourdomai.com/wp-rss2.php, etc.), and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every subscriber

17. Digg This - this one is a popular one, it detects incoming links from Digg.com to your wordpress post and automatically displays animated digg-count button(or text link) showing number of diggs a story got. Cool thing about it, is that as soon as your post is submitted to Digg, an email is sent to the site’s admin.

18. WP-Postviews - allows you to display the number of times a post has been viewed. In addition, you can use it to display your top 10 most popular posts.

19. HowTo: Separate Comments from Trackbacks - this isn’t a plugin but a quick and easy howto explaining how to separate blog comments from Pings/Trackbacks.

20. 1024px-10 - many people expressed interest to the theme used on makeuseof.com, hence I decided to post it here as well. It’s a simple theme which is extremely flexible for further buildup. Note that what you see on makeuseof right now is a slightly modified version. I shifted the sidebar menu to the left, this can be done by modifying style.css file in 2 places.

• for the ‘content’ titled box change the float value from right to left
• do the opposite for the ’sidebar’ one