FIREFOX

I came across an awesome tweak for Firefox that enables spell-checking in one-line input boxes. Normally, spell-check only works on <textarea> elements, but with this tweak, you'll see the familiar red underline when you misspell words in <input type="text"> form elements:

1. Open a new tab in Firefox and type "about:config"
2. Change the value of "layout.spellcheckDefault" to "2" (without the quotes)

And that's it! You don't have to restart Firefox for the changes to take place, so feel free to keep browsing. This tweak works in Firefox 2.x and 3.x, though I've not been able to verify it for myself in Firefox 2 since I'm now running Firefox 3; if you're still using the 2.x version, let me know if this works for you!

Special thanks to Gina Trapani of Lifehacker for including this in her Power User's Guide to Firefox 3.

As a web developer, Firefox has proven itself a reliable tool not only when it comes to editing sites, but also in day-to-day internet browsing. If you're like me and you own multiple computers, you run Firefox on every one of those computers; you also probably face the problem of keeping your settings the same between computers. Today, I'm going to show you how to address the problem of keeping your bookmarks synchronized between computers using the magic of the internet.

This solution requires three things

1. Two computers, each running Firefox
2. An FTP server (optional, but necessary for this guide)
3. The Firefox add-on "Foxmarks"

Foxmarks allows you to quickly and easily synchronize your bookmarks between any computer running Firefox and Foxmarks via their own server; when you install the extension for the first time, you are prompted to set up a Foxmarks account to upload your bookmarks to. If you're an average internet user, chances are this is a good enough setup for you; however, if you're internet-savvy enough and have your own web hosting like I do, there's a way for you to synchronize your bookmarks synchronized from the safety of your own server. Here's how to do it:

Step 1

Close out of the intro screen that pops up after you've installed Foxmarks and restarted Firefox and click on the Foxmarks icon, located in the bottom right:

Step 2

On the first settings page, insert a valid FTP user login for your server:

I prefer to keep my bookmarks updated with minimal effort, so I enable Automatic Synchronization and have Foxmarks synchronize once I've closed Firefox (Sync on Shutdown).

Step 3

On page two, in the box titled, "URL:", place the location on the server where you want your bookmarks stored. You MUST include the name of the XML file at the end of the URL string; the first time I tried to get Foxmarks working, I followed a guide that used an older version of the plugin that didn't require you to include the filename in the url and my bookmarks wouldn't synchronize:

Make sure the directory you're storing the XML file in has the proper permissions set so Foxmarks can write to it.

And that's it! Once you close down Firefox, you should see a notification that Foxmarks is synchronizing your bookmarks. Afterwards, if you look on your server, you'll see an XML file sitting comfortably within the directory you specified. Now, go to any other computer you use that you'd like to synchronize your Firefox bookmarks to and repeat steps 1 through 3. Once that's done, you're finished!

I've been using this setup for a couple weeks and I haven't had a problem yet. If you get conflicting bookmarks, Foxmarks will even ask you which one to keep, as was the case recently with two Digg RSS feeds I had on my list of sites. I tried Google Browser Sync before migrating to Foxmarks, and I have to say that Foxmarks is far superior. When I used  Google Browser Sync, favicons didn't make the transition between computers; I use favicons to easily identify which bookmark I'm clicking on and I was lost without them. Foxmarks hasn't had that problem yet.

And that's that. Good night, folks!

I FINALLY got around to integrating the BBCode editing system I'd whipped up a year or so ago into the front end. Now, when I type a new post, instead of having to manually type in the BBCode for bold or italics or any of the other tags I use, I can just click a button and POOF - instant formatting. I'm sure this'll motivate me to post more regularly since I should be able to (theoretically) spend more time on content and less time on typing in all the formatting tags.

The few changes to the front end also accompanied a few changes to the backend. I've recently become a validation Nazi (I coded my work portfolio using valid XHTML 1.1 markup, the strictest of doctypes!), so it brings me great pride to announce that I've eliminated many of the bits of code that were not validating according to the rather lenient XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype. I suppose this is more of a note for myself, since most of you won't notice the changes unless your the kind of person who enjoyes poring over HTML and spotting all the invalid code (or if you have a Firefox extension that does it for you [thanks HTML Validator!]).

There's also a new "Link to me!" page that has HTML or BBCode you can use to link to this site. Look for the link to that page underneath the Affiliates box.

And its come to my attention that a friend of mine is looking for a reason to get my server dugg into the ground; if you have any ideas for worthwhile articles, let me know and I'll get to posting.

And here's a schedule of things to come, subject to change because I'm lazy like that:

1. I FINALLY figured out how to do a proper fluid-height 3-column layout
2. I had the craziest dream involving teleportation and John Candy...its MORE twisted than it seems!
3. Whatever else I can dredge up from my otherwise mundane life

And that reminds me, I need to take more pictures...its a damn shame my life revolves around edu-ma-cation, or else I'd probably be going to myriad parties and cavorting with all calibers of women and SNAPPING ALL SORTS OF PICS OMG LO-[END TRANSMISSION]

I'm sure you've seen them before; lists of Firefox extensions that "you cannot live without". Well, I make no claims that this is a list of the "BEST Firefox extensions EVER"; simply put, this is a list of Firefox extensions that I personally use, and that you may or may not be interested in.

--Extensions for Web Developers--

The Web Developer toolbar features an insane amount of tools for web developers that allow you to play around with and manipulate the layout of websites. I find that I use it mainly to:

• See the page layouts without styles attached (hint: hit [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [S] with the extension installed)
• Disable JavaScript on a few clients' sites that use anti-rightclick script (which prevents me from easily accessing the source)
• Resize the browser window to a set "resolution", to imitate viewing the site on 1024x768 or 800x600 (I run at 1280x1024 resolution, but most people are still stuck on the lower resolutions)
• Outline certain elements, such as table cells and divs, to check for nesting and organization of sites
• Validate the CSS or markup of a site without having to navigate to each individual validation site

There are a TON of other features in this extension, and I'd recommend this extension as the BEST one in this list!


--IE View Lite--

IE View Lite is a nifty little extension that allows you to right-click on any site you're viewing in Firefox and open it in Internet Explorer without having to open the program and type the address in manually. It saves a lot of time, and lets me quickly see my code in the other browser... :P


--Html Validator--

Html Validator offers the functionality of an HTML code validator inside Firefox. Normally, you have to go to http://validator.w3.org/ to get your website's code validated, but with this extension, you can see the number and location of errors in your code.


--ColorZilla--

If you're like me, you've found yourself needing to get the Hexadecimal code for a particular color you've seen on a picture or website; rather than Print Screening the color, then Copy > Paste-ing into an image editing program to get the code, ColorZilla gives you a built-in eyedropper tool that you can use to pick a color within Firefox and get that color's Hex code. Very handy!


--FireBug--

I just got into JavaScript recently, and the built-in Javascript Console in Firefox is fine for some basic work. FireBug is like the Javascript Console on steroids. Each error received with either bad JavaScript or CSS code is displayed, and this extension will even highlight where in the source code the problem lies so you can fix the problem with minimal searching.


So there you have it. Five Firefox extensions that I commonly use, and that you might enjoy. So go ahead, give these extensions a try, and if you don't have Firefox, go here to download it!

Check back sometime next week for another Firefox Extensions post, this time with general-use extensions :D

As I perused the internet, looking for cool tech stories, I came across a link to a Firefox memory leak fix that actually works.

So here's the deal:

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar
2. Create a new boolean called "config.trim_on_minimize"
3. Set it equal to "true"

Now, all you have to do is minimize the browser window, and Firefox will automatically cut down the amount of memory it is currently using.

And for those of you wondering, apparently Mozilla knew about this fix.

So there you go. A way to cut back Firefox's memory usage until Mozilla fixes the problem with an official patch!