gogogadgetearl . software
firefox extensions
- weave: encrypts and securely synchronizes many areas of your browser [bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs, passwords, selected preferences, & form entries] across multiple machines -- so if you have firefox installed at work & at home, you can synchronize many of your settings between the two locations -- i'm hoping that they'll soon start including cookies and extensions
- adblock plus: basically, it blocks ads...it doesn't display them on the page, and it doesn't download them [so pages even download faster] -- that's right, no more "shoot the duck and win a free ipod" flashing ads [yes!] -- although, i do try and disable it on a few sites that rely on ad revenue [a few of my favorite webcomics, for example]
- tab mix plus: gives you very detailed options for your tabs, tab bar, and tab functions
- personal menu: allows you to hide any of the firefox menus [or the menu toolbar entirely; similar to ie7+] -- it also allows you to drop your commonly used menu options into a single customizable menu icon -- i like it because i can move all my bookmarks & plugin buttons up to the [mostly] wasted space in the menu bar after i've hidden everything i don't use
- firebug: an excellent web development tool that lets you edit, debug, & monitor css, [x]html, javascript, & much, much more...and you can do all of this live in nearly any web page
- download statusbar: view & manage downloads from a tidy statusbar, without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing
- greasemonkey: allows you to customize the way a webpage looks & works using small bits of javascript -- it sounds simple, but it can be extremely powerful
- firesizer: allows you to resize the window to specific dimensions -- perfect for my OCPD nature
- autofill forms: enables you to automatically fill out web forms with one click or a keyboard shortcut -- this replaced the recently useless* "autofill" feature of the google toolbar [*i have no idea why, but it just wasn't able to fill in hardly any forms, so i dropped it]
- fasterfox: makes firefox faster -- it can, however, easily be abused...so use responsibly ಠ_ಠ
- locationbar²: breadcrumbs the URL in the address bar, giving the ability to make each path in the URL a clickable link [similar to the breadcrumb address bar in windows vista/7]
- fission: uses the address bar as the page load progress bar [similar to safari]
- save file to: save links, images, & web pages to user-defined folders and their sub-folders straight from context menu, bypassing the "save as..." dialog
windows
- microsoft windows 7: hands down, this is the best version of windows to date -- on modern hardware, it's as good or better than XP in speed [leaps and bounds above vista], it's surprisingly stable [even compared to linux & osx], and the interface is incredibly useful [with the new taskbar & window management tweaks] -- it's also worth noting that i've been running the 64-bit version without any issue for quite a while now
- mozilla firefox: an excellent browser that i consider a necessity in my daily computer use -- this is typically the very first thing i install on any of my computers -- both chrome and opera offer great speed and features [that may be better than firefox], but they lack the flexibility and customization that firefox offers
- microsoft office 2007: admittedly, a great office suite [except for how bad word butchers html] -- i've been using office 2007 for a while now and i really like the ribbon system [that replaced the old menu+toolbar system] -- everyone raves about open office, and it's great for a free office suite, but microsoft office is a far superior in nearly every aspect [except price]
- adobe fireworks cs4: this is, so far, the best tool i have found to prototype and design graphics [for the web or otherwise] -- the price is such a huge setback that i'm exploring other options...i love the direction inkscape is heading, but it's just not there in terms of efficient useability
- microsoft visual studio: i use this to do all of my development at work -- it's a thorough IDE that beats every other development tool that i've ever used with features like intellisense [the single most useful tool for enterprise developers], integration, and general intuitiveness
- scite: this is the best text editor that i have found for any lightweight scripting/markup i need to do [from html to css to javascript to php to python and many things beyond] -- it has a miniscule memory footprint & it's uber-configurable* -- the only thing i miss about beefier development tools is the context-sensitive, intellisense-like code autocompletion -- but scite will scan your current document and autosuggest unique words as you type [even though it's not context-sensitive], and that's enough for me [*it's worth mentioning that this tool has a linux-level learning curve when it comes to customization, but it's fantastic in every other aspect]
- notepad2: a free notepad replacement that is very useful [especially for developers] because it offers a much larger featureset than regular notepad without bloating the memory footprint -- if you want an easy way to directly replace windows' notepad, check out the notepad2 installer that kai liu offers
- infrarecorder: to burn cds and dvds -- i usually use windows whenever possible [drang-n-drop style, or windows media player to burn CDs], but if ever that isn't sufficient, infrarecorder is a great free tool for my needs
- vlc: an excellent open-source media player that plays DVDs and most media formats [windows media, quicktime, divx/xvid, flash video, etc] out-of-the-box, without hijacking your file associations or system resources
- id3-tagit: makes cleaning up filenames and id3 tags a breeze -- it can convert filenames into id3 tags, id3 tags into filenames, v1 tags to v2 tags or vice-versa, upper case to lower case to title case, mass tag editor [edit the tags of multiple files all at once] -- unfortunately, it is no longer in active development...but i haven't had any issues with the last release, so it still works for me
- µtorrent: an excellent bittorrent client with a microscopic memory footprint
- 7-zip: free utility for nearly every compressed archive format [zip/rar/bzip/gzip/tar/7z/cab/iso/msi/etc] -- it's best feature is that it doesn't take over your file associations or drop shortcuts all over the place, it just uses a simple, configurable menu when you right-click any file
- foxit reader: a great, free PDF reader to replace the awful & ugly beast that is adobe reader ::shudder::
- kdiff3: a free diff utility -- if you don't know what a "diff utility" is, then you probably don't need one :-P
- winsnap (free): a nice screenshot tool -- it gives you all kinds of options for screen captures & even will let you autosave your screenshots to a specific directory [like your desktop]...this alone made it worth the download
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