GMail Add-ons for FireFox

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post about software or add-ons, or anything like that.  Recently I’ve come across a couple things I thought I’d share with you. 

I found Send Later, Follow Up Reminders for Gmail | Download Boomerang in Chrome, and found that there is also a FireFox version, so you know I had to have it.  As big a fan as I am about scheduling my blog posts, doing the same thing for my email has huge appeal for me.  This handy dandy little program, Boomerang, will not only send out your emails on a schedule, but it will also come back to you if you don’t get a reply to an email.  So if you were expecting someone to answer back, and they don’t, and you forget about it, Boomerang can let you know.  Pretty doggone cool! 

Boomerang also has a pay version that has a few more bells and whistles. 

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I saw some reports on this one: SaneBox is Awesome and I confess I didn’t download it because it’s $5 a month and I’m a cheapskate.  I don’t generate enough email to justify it, but if I did I’d be all over this one I’m sure.  The reviews were good and it sounds like it’d be a good product for a company.

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This add-on is awesome.  ActiveInbox – Business Gmail Addon to Organize Email Tasks & Folders.  I’ve been using this one for a few years now, and I even wrote a little on this one back in 2009 in a post called Twitterpated « The "Ness" in DarcNess 😉.  Back then it was called GTDInbox (for Get Things Done) and it’s still as cool now as it was then.  It really helps you streamline and organize your email.  You can also find it here: Active Inbox HQ, outside of FireFox.  I can testify that it does indeed work with the latest FireFox upgrade.  They also have a pay version that includes a few more features.

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The other add-on for Gmail is also one I wrote about in the Twitterpated post.  It’s called Integrated Gmail :: Add-ons for Firefox.  It’s also just as nice now as it was back then.  Hasn’t changed much at all, just kept pace with all the FireFox upgrades – which is no mean feat, I tell ya!  Just a year ago FF was 3.6, and now it’s 14.1!  Sheesh.  Anyway, what’s nice about Integrated Gmail is that you can have multiple Google programs open in a single tab.  Their home site is: IntegratedGmail.com.  I love that you can collapse all the elements and that you can have everything all in one place.  And now you can even add non-Google sites, such as Amazon for example.  Talk about 1-stop shopping! 

*****

If you try something I’ve mentioned here, I’d love to hear about your impressions of it.  And if you know of something I haven’t mentioned that’s made your GMail experience more streamlined and efficient, I’d love to hear about that too. 

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Screen AArrgh!

So I’m a little irritated.  With FireFox Add-ons, that is.  One in particular, actually.  I know, I know.  What could possibly compel me to say something negative about one of my beloved FireFox Add-ons?  Well, I’ll tell you.

Clipped on 7-July-2012, 12:43 AM from Lolcats – Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Some years ago I found an awesome little add-on called FireShot.  Worked like a dream.  It’s a handy dandy little program that can take a screen capture for you and then you can save it or annotate it – add little captions to your screenshot or whatever.  I used it tons of times, several times a week if not on a daily basis.  Loved it.  A few months ago, it did its auto-update thing and without knowing it, users had a copy of the 30 day trial of the pro version.  And no one knew that until the 30 days were up and all of a sudden FireShot stopped working and users got this annoying little pop-up saying that the trial had expired and if you wanted you could go to the website and upgrade.  As awesome a program as it is, I’m not paying $35 to take screenshots and I totally resent the bait-and-switch technique they used.  R.E.S.E.N.T.  They said on their website that if you decided not to go with the pay version, the add-on would automatically revert to the free version.  Only, that didn’t work.  Uninstall, reinstall, no dice!  That made me mad.  I found a fix by editing the registry and things seemed to be working fine again.  Lo and behold, another update and the doggone thing breaks again, and this time the work-arounds and fixes won’t work.  So I uninstalled it, and not just the wimpy little “tell FireFox to uninstall this add-on” button, but the big bad Control Panel “get this crap off my computer” button.  Okay, I don’t really know if there’s a difference but the Control Panel felt a lot more official.  I broke up with FireShot! 

I found a couple of other little add-ons that seem to have potential but don’t have the bells and whistles that FireShot did.  Those are Screenshoter and Abduction!  Time will show if either of them are any good.  They got decent reviews so that’s encouraging.

I did learn a few weeks ago though, that Windows 7 actually comes with a screen snipping tool.  Who knew?!  Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories, Snipping Tool!  AND the Snipping Tool WILL do annotations too, at least with a pen or highlighter button.  If you put a shortcut to Snipping Tool on your Taskbar, it’s always right there for you.  Seriously. Sweet. That works not just on whatever’s up on your browser, and whichever browser you’re using, but you don’t even have to be online to use it either.    

Also, if you use OneNote, it will go grab screenshots for you too, just click the Insert Tab and then Screen Clipping.  Really, all you need to do is press the Windows Key and S at the same time.

So, I’ll miss FireShot.  But I do have some great tools to help keep my screen captures warm on those chilly nights. 

Crashed

 

GIF: Intew teh Foxhole! – Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

More storms last night!  We had a really powerful cell go through and it was quite spectacular while it lasted, which was only about 10-15 minutes.  Thankfully, the power didn’t go out!  Woo!  But the Internet connection went down.  Boooo!  So I went to bed without putting up a post or commenting on anyone else’s posts.

Then, today when I went to get online, because I saw that the connection was working again, my Firefox kept crashing!  No idea why, it was working just fine last night, so I don’t know what the problem is.  I gave up on it after about 8 successive crashes – yeah, I’m stubborn like that – and went to Chrome. 

They still haven’t forgiven me for my last post about them, either.  I get fewer hits in a week than I used to get in a day since they diverted their search engine from finding me.  Amazing how a giant like Google was so afraid of little ol’ me that they had to divert all my traffic.  *eyeroll*  Because my opinions have that huge an impact on what browser people decide to use.  Yeah.  I can’t make it sound any more ridiculous than it already is! 

Anyway, off to my chores.  Oooh, fun!  Jealous?  LOL

Plugged In

Well I did it!  I downloaded the latest Firefox V5.  So far it’s okay, and I tweaked it to look much like the V3.6 I was using, so that’s nice.  I’m a little bummed that some of my add-ons won’t work now, specifically the Blog it from Windows Live Writer add-on.   I used that one all the time. 

Such is the price of upgrading.  Not everything works!  But it does seem a bit faster – before I upgraded Darc and I had a little race.  He’d click on a site in his V5, and I’d click on the same one in my V3.6 and we’d see who loaded first.  He always won. 

So while there are a few things I’ll have to get used to, overall it’s pretty good so far.  Hopefully the add-ons I like will catch up.  After all, Firefox isn’t standing still.  They already have V8 in the works and later versions in the pipeline.  Get ready!  The Internet waits for no one!

Socializing

Infographic: Google+ vs. Facebook | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

Soooo, Google+ is a social network?  That’s what that little +1 graphic thingy is about?  Interesting.  The linked article above has a nice graphic showing the differences between Google+ and Facebook. 

I guess this means the marriage between Google and Facebook is off? 

I have come to realize that I don’t want to get in on the ground floor of anything anymore.  I can’t even decide if I want to upgrade my beloved Firefox to the new V5.  Version 4 was really buggy and hinky so I didn’t assimilate, and now 5 is out and I’m thinking I just got 3.6 how I like it, I don’t want to go through the hassle of relearning everything.  Yet.  I’ll wait to make sure the bugs are worked out.  Heh, by that time V6 will probably be out!  I love technology but man, sometimes companies seem in such a rush to get things out that they don’t make sure everything works properly first.  Frankly, I don’t want to be an unpaid beta tester just because some place is in a rush.  One tech giant comes to mind – who shall remain nameless – seems to do this on a rather frequent basis.  It’s annoying, but I think they might have learned a very valuable lesson last time they did that.  The backlash was almost fun to watch.    And in the end, we got a better product for it.  That’s what the free market is all about.  Score!

Have you seen the new Google search thing? 

It’s pretty cool – brings up search results in a magazine format.  Click it and see!  Type in something you love!   

Will you be joining Google+?  Have you already?  Thoughts?

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Woo

My loving husband sent me an article a few days ago, “Why Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won’t.”  He knows of my love for Firefox, the one he turned me on to in the first place, to get me away from the pop-up and hacker-friendly  Internet Explorer.  I was kind of sad when I read the article.  If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know how passionate I am about FireFox and being able to use my beloved add-ons.  Oh my gosh I love add-ons!  Once I found them, I barely gave IE a wave goodbye. 

That was in 2005.  Seems like so long ago, and I guess in tech-years, that’s like centuries or something.  I’ve been locked in embrace with FireFox ever since and haven’t regretted it in the least.

Oh, I looked at Chrome.  With a bit of trepidation.  Seems like Google was using it to gather lots of private information. 

Not interested in Opera very much.  There’s nothing wrong with it or anything, it just wasn’t my speed.  Although, they’re coming out with a new version soon. 

This month has been a big month in the “browser wars.”  War?  Really?  Why not battles?  I like the alliterative qualities of that better.  Browser battles.    All three of the biggies made major upgrades this month.  All showing off for our attention, wooing us with their features. 

I read the article my husband sent me.  Looked like FF was on the outs, and IE9 and Chrome were neck and neck for the lead.  IE9 has some bang-up new features, so they say, and Chrome backed off on the privacy issues and also had some cool beans features, and the kids in the know say both have awesome add-ons.

Add-ons?  One of my drugs of choice. 

I went to check it out and frankly, while they’re making great strides, they can’t compete with my beloved FireFox. 

Then I came across these articles: Firefox 4 downloads eclipse Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 usage share is twice Internet Explorer 9 in half the time.

So it looks like FireFox just might be around longer than the writer of the first article thinks.  Heh.    I sure am happy about that!

But I’m playing with IE9 and Chrome anyway.  I guess it’s good for a girl to know a bit about the other prospects in the neighborhood. 

©DarcsFalcon All rights reserved

Finally Flying

Do you see it there?  My new terabyte baby!  It got here Wednesday and I have done nothing but play play play, and I don’t even have my Sims installed yet! 

It’s a mini-tower and it fits so nice and neatly on the shelf with just a tiny bit of overhang.  There’s a little door there on the bottom that flips open to reveal the multi-card reader and several USB ports.  I can’t believe how great it picks up the wireless signal too, even though it’s tucked in the back.

I’m using my old monitor, because it was nice and big and still works just fine, even if it is at least 5 years old.  I might upgrade to a newer one some time in the future, but for now, I’m good.  I don’t think I much prefer that wide aspect ratio on the new stuff anyway.  

I have even managed to get all my data off of the old Flintstones laptop in the kids room, thanks to my handy dandy little thumb drive.  And the things I use online, like FireFox that has all my personalization, were super easy to move over too since I found add-ons to sync between computers.  They really work!  Siphon, WebMail; Delicious and GMarks remembered all my bookmarks.  I love it when things work like they’re supposed to!

I also used a great little plug-in for Live Writer, Import and Export Wizard for Windows Live Writer, that worked really well. 

I’m trying to adjust to the new keyboard.  I’m like a diva I suppose when it comes to keyboards.  I don’t care for the flatter ones, but the old fashioned kind seem to be going out of vogue.  It doesn’t help that I like to keep my nails really long either, I know, but my vanity won’t let me keep them short. 

After Darc got his new laptop, it was so fun to sit on the couch and surf, and I thought maybe I was going to be good with a laptop myself.  But then I saw this one while browsing, and I realized I am truly a desktop girl.  Sofa surfing has its place, but I think I’m more happy with the throne aspect of my desk chair.    And a whole terabyte to myself, heh. 

So I am one happy camper and it was all relatively painless, as far as setting up a new computer goes. 

It has been a long time since I put up that post about my computer dying.  It was May 28 2009 when I posted this –>>When it rains, the day after my computer died.  [insert mournful tune here]

623 Days Between…
May 27, 2009 and February 9, 2011 (delivery date)

623 Days!

= 14,952 Hours
= 897,120 Minutes
= 53,827,200 Seconds

It was a long 53+ million seconds, but it’s over, and now this Falcon is finally flying free!

Oh, I skipped the funnies this week because the one I got in the email was kind of man-bashing, and I just … didn’t want to go there.    Hopefully next week’s will be better. 

And check out Darc’s interview over on Bryce’s StoryHack site!  I love how Bryce got the video with the robots talking, it rocks!  Interview with J. Dane Tyler

©DarcsFalcon All rights reserved

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