July 18, 2007

Five Awesome Firefox Extensions - Part II

Since my first post on Firefox extensions went over so well, I've decided to make it a regular category here on this blog. So with no further ado, here are five more awesome Firefox extensions that will make your blogging and online life easier and more enjoyable.

Five Awesome Firefox Extensions
Part II


1. coComment - This Firefox Extension has been getting rave reviews from those who've been using it. With coComment you can keep track of all of the comments you've left on people's blogs and websites, all in one convenient place. Whenever someone has added to the conversation, coComment will let automatically let you know!

When installed, coComment is seamlessly integrated in your Firefox browser and any comments you make around the web will be automatically added to the tracked conversations in your coComment account. This way you'll know when someone has replied to one of your comments and you comment back.

This is a really excellent extension that allows you to stay to "connected" to all the online conversations you've participated in. Definitely two thumbs up for coComment.


2. Session Manager - This extension is great for when you're researching things to blog about and want to collect and keep track of your sources. Session Manager saves the session of your open browser windows and tabs so you can come back to them later. If you're afraid of losing browsing data, this extension will ease all of your fears.

What's great about Session Manager is that it saves and restores all browser windows and tabs, both automatically and on command. So if by chance something happens that causes your browser to crash, or if you accidentally close any windows or tabs, you won't lose the data from that browsing session. Session Manager will restore it!

Note: Firefox 2.0 itself does have built-in crash recovery for restoring and reopening tabs after a crash, but Session Manager stores more data and is more reliable. In addition, it allows you to save and restore multiple browsing sessions, as opposed to just the most recent one.


3. BlogRovR - If you're like most people, you don't have time to read all the blogs you'd like to. So why not let RovR do it for you! RovR fetches posts (from your favorite blogs or blogs that you list) that discuss whatever topics you're browsing on the web.

Simply tell BlogRovR which blogs you like, and as you browse the web, it'll instantly fetch posts from those blogs that link to whatever web pages you’re viewing. The BlogRovR tray slides out from the side to show you summaries of these posts. From there you can click to read a full post, right on the page it’s about.

All in all, BlogRovR is a nice little time-saver and a good addition to your regular feed reader. As you browse the web you get a neat view of all the blogs covering the very content that you're browsing. Very cool.


4. Speak It - This extension is another good one for saving you some time. With Speak It you can have pages or selected text read to you out loud so you can attend to other things, like doing the dishes or just lying down and resting your eyes as you listen.

Speak It is actually a rewritten version of FoxyVoice (no longer available) and it uses the MicroSoft TTS (Text-To-Speech) Engine.


5. Trailfire - The Trailfire extension allows you to mark pages that you think are interesting by leaving notes right on those pages. These notes are linked together into "trails" that you can organize any way you wish. This allows for a collaborative discovery on the Web.

These trails will let you guide people on the Web, but they're also collaborative because people can comment on your trails and add new marked pages themselves if you let them. When you're looking for something online, Trailfire is handy for to marking the pages you find. These pages can be automatically shared with everyone else through the search engines, or you can just flip a switch and keep it all private.


Do you have a favorite Firefox extension? Leave a comment and let everyone know! And if you enjoyed this post, then give it a Digg! :)

Five Awesome Firefox Extensions - Part I is here.

12 comments:

  1. Aaron, Thanks for the great write up on blogrovr. We also help you find new blogs you might be interested in, based on what popular blogs have to say about what you're reading.

    And we've got some awesome new stuff in the pipeline for you!
    Cheers,
    Marc Meyer, Activeweave, makers of BlogRovR.

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  2. Thanks for the wonderful compliment Marc! It's really great to have the actual makers of BlogRovR pop in for a visit. It made my day. :)

    I'll definitely be on the lookout for the new things that will be coming out. Can't wait!

    Shine on,
    Aaron

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  3. AnonymousJuly 19, 2007

    Nice job, Aaron! I've used coComment for about a week, then I stopped using it because it would get in the way. Specifically, I would try to post a comment on some blogs and it would get stuck in a loop, saying something about it sending to the coComment server. I didn't mind it sending it to their server if only it would just do it and let me get on with my life. :)

    I may decide to enable it again because I think it's a great idea.

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  4. Many thanks Mark!

    Yes, it's a really great idea indeed. But I hadn't heard about it getting stuck at all. Hmmm. How long ago had you tried it? And were you using coComment itself or the Firefox extension?

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  5. AnonymousJuly 20, 2007

    Session Manager sounds interesting. That could make doing my link love posts easier. I could just save all the posts I plan to link to in a session. I may just give that a whirl :)

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  6. Mike, that's exactly right! That's why I like Session Manager. It saves a lot of time when it comes to doing posts like that. :)

    You just open up that particular session you saved and all the posts you want to give link love to are right there all together.

    Shine on,
    Aaron

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  7. AnonymousJuly 20, 2007

    Great list Aaron.. I may want to try coComments and Session Manager. Till now I was using the Firefox feature to save my session. Most of the time I don't give Firefox normal death ;) I do an end process so that automatic recovery triggers for me :)

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  8. Thanks Benedict! Yeah, I think you should give Session Manager a whirl. Firefox does have the built-in save mechanism, but SM is more reliable, stores more data and lets you save more than one session.

    Plus, it's good for more than just preventing data loss during crashes...it can come in handy for regular blogging too (see Mike's comment). :)

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  9. AnonymousJuly 21, 2007

    Yup, I realized that. I added coComments and Session Manager to my try out list!

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  10. Awesome man. Be sure to let me know what you think of them...the good, the bad and the ugly.

    I plan to do a follow-up post on all of the the Firefox extensions sometime in the near future, and your input would be most greatly appreciated. :)

    Shine on,
    Aaron

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  11. AnonymousJuly 28, 2007

    I've had cocomment extension and a cocomment account for sometime now, but I cannot use the wordpress olugin to have it at the bottom of each comment. My template is built on sandbox and I am learning that now. I'll give a try to some of these others you recommend. Great job Aaron!

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  12. Thanks Bobby! Whatever ones you try, I hope you enjoy them. And good luck with your learning and getting it to work with your template! :)

    Shine on,
    Aaron

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Shine on,
Aaron