Early adopters take note. The Firefox 3 development team has released a new alpha version of the upcoming Firefox 3 web browser codename Gran Paradiso. The new version of Firefox 3 can be downloaded right from the webpage where the developers made the announcement. Versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux are available. It should be noted that this version is for testing purposes only and mainly intended for web developers and the testers who test the alpha version for bugs.

Although I decided to install the new version of Firefox in a separate directory it was using the same profile folder that I was using for Firefox 2. Gran Paradiso performed a check for every extension installed and non was reported to be working. It is still possible to use the nightly tester tools for instance to get those extensions working with Firefox 3.

continue reading "Firefox 3 Alpha 4 has been released"

I’m always looking for ways to reduce the toolbars and menus to have more space for the websites. I have already written about extensions such as Hide Menubar or the Firefox UI Tweaker that change the appearance of Firefox. The Tiny Menu Extension is another great add-on to this list. What it does is that it compresses all entries from the Menu Toolbar (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools and Help) into one entry that lists the compressed items beneath each other and opens the second tier menu entries when you hover your mouse over the first ones.

Take a look at the screenshot to get an impression of how this looks like.

continue reading "Tiny Menu Firefox Extension"

If you have a website, did you ever wonder how your website would look like in another browser ? It is not that practicable to download and install all browsers that you have to use to test your site. Sure, you could install the most used versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera but what about previous versions ? What about browsers in another Operating System ? This is essential for many webmasters especially for business related websites.

continue reading "View your site in different browsers"

Even many experienced Opera users do not know that it is possible to activate the so called “Voice” mode in Opera to use voice commands in Opera and also let Opera read text in websites for you. Before you can use any of the voice features in Opera you need to install the voice add-on package which can be downloaded right from within Opera. Go to Tools > Preferences and select Voice from the left pane. Click on the button “Enable voice-controlled browsing” and follow the few steps that are self explanatory.

Once the voice add-on for Opera has been downloaded you can start using the feature. All you need ia a microphone for the voice commands - of course, would not make much sense to simply yell at your flat screen monitor - and the operating system Windows XP or 2000. You do not need a microphone if you only want to listen to Opera reading websites for you. Instead of saying “Opera Speak” into the microphone to let Opera read text for you you can simply mark the text and either right-click it and select speak or by pressing V.

continue reading "Let Opera speak to you"

Computer users are lazy. Well, not all of them but most are. I just have to look around and see friends to try to automate as much as possible to save some clicks and time. The article Greasmonkey scripts for the lazy is for them, and everyone else who feels the same way. I don’t want to explain Greasemonkey (again) in detail but here is a rather short explanation. Greasemonkey can be installed as a Firefox extension that changes website behavior. To change the behavior you need to install so called userscripts which change elements on websites.

This can be something profane like removing advertisement from websites or disabling comments but also clever additions that increase the usability of a website. You can download the latest version of Greasmonkey from Greasepot. Enough of the babbling, I’m proud to present 10 Greasemonkey scripts for the lazy, enjoy the read:

continue reading "8 Greasemonkey Scripts for the Lazy"