gHacks technology news » sage http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Brief – RSS Reader for Firefox Dynamic Bookmarks http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/13/brief-rss-reader-for-firefox-dynamic-bookmarks/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/13/brief-rss-reader-for-firefox-dynamic-bookmarks/#comments Tue, 13 May 2008 21:31:08 +0000 Stefan http://www.ghacks.net/?p=3485 The concept of RSS or newsfeeds in general seemed quite appealing to me the moment I first heard (or read?) about it. But I never managed to find a possibility of utilizing them in a way I liked. I tried standalone-readers like FeedReader, and since I am a FF-enthusiast, I tried Firefox extensions like Sage and Wizz, as well as scroll-readers like infoRSS and took a look at the FeedDemon, but none really seemed to satisfy my needs. I wanted a common view for all unread entries, sorted by date or anything, I wanted it to be lightweight, and I didn’t want it to be another program than my Firefox, so I eliminated all contestants pretty quick.

Luckily, I came across the small Brief Firefox extension which fulfilled all of my wishes. It’s lightweight, it’s a firefox extension, and it has the “unread”-folder as well as a nice and elaborate handling. It’s content-view is skinnable (though I have yet to come across a skin that suited me better than the original one), there are a handful of reasonable options, and it integrates with the Firefox-RSS-capabilities as well using it’s dynamic bookmarks system.
It’s just as the synopsis on the homepage says: “Brief is a light-weight feed reading extension for Firefox. Designed to be easy to use and streamlined, with exactly the right set of features.” – ’nuff said.

Screenshot

So if you happen to be in the market for RSS-Readers, make sure to check this one out.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/05/13/brief-rss-reader-for-firefox-dynamic-bookmarks/feed/ 13 The Sage English Dictionary and Thesaurus http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/02/the-sage-english-dictionary-and-thesaurus/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/02/the-sage-english-dictionary-and-thesaurus/#comments Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:08:18 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/02/the-sage-english-dictionary-and-thesaurus/ I’m very happy about the fact that Firefox 2.0 has a build in (English) dictionary which helps me correct most of the mistakes I make while writing articles here at ghacks. The build in dictionary is great but lacks certain features and that is why I went on a hunt for a better dictionary. Look what I found in my net today: The Sage’s English Dictionary and Thesaurus.

It delivers what the firefox dictionary can’t. You may lookup words by simply pressing a hotkey, the word will be looked up and explained in great detail in the sage. If the word does not exist in the dictionary it presents a list of words that look similar or use the wildcard button to find the word you are looking for.

The great thing about the sage is not that it is easy to use. It’s purpose is not to deliver fast results, the process to lookup a word is simply to slow to be effective (mark a word, hit the hotkey, look it up in the sage, manually edit the word). The sage is effective when it comes to understanding words that you do not know. It also helps by being able to work with almost any other program on your computer.

the sage

As you all know the firefox dictionary is restricted to firefox and thunderbird, what if you want to write something in an instant messenger ?  The Sage has a history function, can stay on top if you like. It displays synonyms and hypernyms while looking up the word and is able to create anagrams from the word as well.

Oh, the hotkey is CTRL+SHIFT+A, took a while to look it up in the documentation.

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