Matthew's Weblog

Well, I sure hope Kunstler is overstating what happens when we run out of oil but I can see the potential… This is one of those situations where tech may be able to dig us out – and I hope it does – but the downside is very possible. Time to start thinking 30+ years ahead, since the catastrophic changes he’s mentioning will take 50 to fully appear…

An article pushing Google’s enlightened self-interest… an interesting theory, and probably for the one company that may realize that short-term profit isn’t always best.

OK, organized as best as possible by my current usage:

Active and I couldn’t live without them:
SessionSaver .2 0.2.1.027 – “SessionSaver will auto-track and restore your browser exactly as you left it — every startup, every time. Not even a crash can faze it…” – this is my #1 extension and absolutely essential. Never browse without it. On a fresh install, this is my first download. Get it now.
Adblock 0.5.2.039 – does what it says. Pretty cool.
Download Manager Tweak 0.6.3 – makes it easier to control your downloads.
Add Bookmark Here 0.5.2 – Makes filing bookmarks easier.
FLST 0.7 – Brings focus to the last selected tab when closing the active tab.

Active and used every day:
ScrapBook 0.13.7
Duplicate Tab 0.5.1
PrefBar 2.3.1
lori (Life-of-request info) 0.1.0.20050201
CTC 0.3 – Close Tab Context (menu) puts an option in the context menu to close the active tab. Very handy.
LastTab 1.0.5 – modifies Ctrl-Tab to switch to recently selected tabs, rather than always go from left-to-right.

Active and used occasionally (but still important):
Copy Plain Text 0.2.1
undoclosetab 20041125.3
Web Developer 0.8
Live HTTP Headers 0.10
SubmitToTab 0.2.1

Nice-to-have:
Copy Plain Text 0.2.1
ReloadEvery 0.5
DictionarySearch 0.7
Configuration Mania 1.05.2004110501
Rot13 Encoder/Decoder 0.1
Calculator 0.7
ieview 0.84 – launches current page (or link) in IE
Launchy 3.9.0 – Launches the page (or source) in various places, including IE. Like ieview on steroids.
FirefoxView 0.31.1 – the reverse of IEView… adds a context item in IE to view the page in Firefox
Checky 2.5 – Checks the HTML/CSS against various validators
Ext2File 0.2.8 – Exports an extension list to a file (so I could make this post!)
Open Source in Tab 0.1

Played with and then haven’t used:
Plain Text Links 0.2
Linky 2.3.0

Tried to use but haven’t figured out yet:
Magpie 3.1.2
BugMeNot 0.6.1

Not used yet but sounded cool:
Keyconfig – assignable hotkeys for your favorite stuff
DOM Inspector 1.0
LoremIpsum Content Generator 0.4.1
Sage 1.3.1
Nuke Anything 0.2
jsLib 0.1.245
Minesweeper 0.8
View Cookies 1.2
Mozilla Calendar 0.8.3+
Calendar Help 0.1
Feedview 0.9
RequestPoison 0.5
EditCSS 0.2.3
Drag And Drop Upload 1.0
Download Sort 2.5.0
Leech 1.5.0+
webcache 0.1
Googlebar
Privacy Fox 0.3.7 – View short privacy policies for sites
Policy Manager 1.3.2004081801 – allows you to set Javascript (maybe others?) policies for specific sites, like the Zones stuff in IE.
Right Encoding 0.1 – Lets you see a page’s encoding (language and character set) and manipulate the selection. Should be useful if you’re debugging a page that appears odd in other character sets?
SwiftTabs 0.2.1 – move to next or previous tab via keystroke. I just haven’t learned the keystrokes yet…

Didn’t really work out (but not their fault):
spooFX 0.3
SpoofStick 1.05

Just plain didn’t work like I wanted:
Research Buddy 1.01
Slogger 0.5.11

Hated it!
RadialContext (and I can’t get it uninstalled!)

I don’t know…
PrefButtons 0.3.2 – I may be using these buttons but I’m not sure… too many extensions!

# DISABLED EXTENSIONS: (5)
Bandwidth Tester 0.4 – out of version sync
miniT (drag+indicator) 0.4 – out of version sync
Toolbar Enhancements 0.16.2 – out of version sync
Tab X 0.5 – Messed with my tabs closing, and I couldn’t have that
ForecastFox 0.5.9 – Would make my browser lock at 100%, usually when I was offline. Might have been something about being disconnected, but on a portable machine that was catastrophic because SessionSaver is still only 85-92%.
Retro Find 1.1 – makes the Find toolbar go away and gives you a dialog box instead. I didn’t like it.

(I’ll be adding more links and descriptions but don’t want to make people wait… if you don’t see it here, look on the Extensions Mirror or Mozilla Addons)

Apparently there has been blogging buzz about a concept of ‘The Long Tail’ – described in a Guardian story – that shows how businesses targeting niche audiences are the ones winning on the web. An interesting angle on the thoughts, if not completely new, and it is putting a spin on it I hadn’t considered.

Still, it’s just an extension of 500 cable channels and nothing on, right? Not sure, I’m going to have to think about it…