Aussie Matt » Firefox http://www.aussiematt.com The Aussie Jewel of the Great Australian Dream Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:22:32 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Are bookmarklets dead? http://www.aussiematt.com/are-bookmarklets-dead/ http://www.aussiematt.com/are-bookmarklets-dead/#comments Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:03:58 +0000 Matt Emery http://www.aussiematt.com/are-bookmarklets-dead/ With the rising popularity of Firefox and the 1000′s of useful extensions it may appear that Bookmarklets are indeed, dead.

Bookmarklets or Favlets, are our old friend who helped us through the years of Netscape 3/4/5 and Internet Explorer 3/4/5/6 and indeed 7. Today, Netscape is dismissed at large (thankfully), and Internet Explorer’s extensibility still remains paltry at best. But then there’s Firefox.

Firefox has revolutionised the way we work on the web via the amazingly usefulness of extensions; but extensions are expensive…. as in they use resources. Most extensions run everytime you open your browser, or when a specific command is performed Eg loading a web page, and some extensions run continuously in the background, which all adds up.

I have 40+ extensions installed and still I feel i’ve made huge sacrifices by passing up on other extensions for fear of slowing things down too much. The performance costs would add up quickly if you installed every extension you liked – which is terribly hard NOT to do considering the massive amount of choice we have.

Enter Bookmarklets!

Yep, our old friend can fill in for the jobs where extensions or plugins may be considered overkill. Bookmarklets are great for keeping things simple, and fast. In essence, they have several advantages;

  • They execute when you tell them too, and never otherwise.
  • It’s Javascript!
  • You can create/edit them without having to compile any source code.
  • They work on almost any browser and any operating system.
  • They are easily shared as bookmarks.

 

To use: Simply drag any of the following bookmarklets into your bookmarks/favourites folder or toolbar, or right click on them and choose “Save Bookmark…”. You can even left click on them to see them in action.

Feel free to use/edit/mash them up however you like, they’re yours to keep.

 

  • GmailThis! – pops ups a Gmail “Compose Email” box using the current webpage as the subject.
  • Google Bookmark – Add the current page to Google Bookmarks
  • Google Site Search – Search the current website on Google.
  • Google MP3 Search – search Google for MP3 files.
  • Subscribe in Google Reader – subscribes the current page to Google Reader.
  • Google Translate – translate the current webpage using Google. TIP: also can be used as a proxy at work :) .
  • Flickr++ – shows the full size image on a Flickr page
  • img+ – enlarge all images on the current page incrementally.
  • img- – shrink all images on the current page incrementally.
  • post to del.icio.us – post the current webpage to del.icio.us.
  • View cookies – view cookies set by the current web page in an alert box.
  • Zap – zap the current webpage’s stylesheet away!
  • SpiderTest – test the effectiveness of your page’s seo.
  • TinyURL – convert the current web address into a TinyURL.
  • View passwords – reveal the real text instead of the **** in password fields.
  • Enable Context Menu – re-enable the right click menu on websites that disable it.
  • Hide Images – hides all images on the current webpage.
  • 800×600 – resize the browser window to 800×600.
  • 1024×768 – resize the browser window to 1024×768.
  • 1280×1024 – resize the browser window to 1280×1024.
  • W3C Valid – validates the current webpage at the W3C.

 

Here’s another useful tip; to make them easily accessible, put them inside a folder in your bookmarks toolbar for some drop down action. Check out the screenshot below.

 

Bookmarklets

 

So perhaps bookmarklets aren’t dead after all? Do you have any bookmarklets or improvements/hacks on the ones listed here? Shout it out in the comments box.

And by the way if you’re still using Internet Explorer, check out my other article Microsoft Vs Scarface – Say ‘ello to my little friend!

 

]]> http://www.aussiematt.com/are-bookmarklets-dead/feed/ 2 Huge list of Firefox Extensions http://www.aussiematt.com/huge-list-of-firefox-extensions/ http://www.aussiematt.com/huge-list-of-firefox-extensions/#comments Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:29:58 +0000 Matt Emery http://www.aussiematt.com/huge-list-of-firefox-extensions/ One of the things I love about Firefox is it’s extensibility, there are literally 1000′s of themes and extensions available so you can make your browser just the way you want it, which is one of the many reasons Open Source software is so attractive.

If you’re still using Internet Explorer you’re out of luck. But if you look on the on the bright side; there are tonnes of viruses that work just fine with Internet Explorer.

 

I try and keep things lean, but still I find myself using ALL of the following extensions.

 

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0

Extensions:

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