WeatherBug

Over the past year and half I have been using Firefox I am on my third, make that fourth weather extension. I started out with AccuWeather's Forecastfox later upgraded to the Forecastfox Enhanced which was suppose to work better in the Firefox 1.5.0.* builds plus offer larger and more radar images. Later on tried out 1-Click Weather which uses weather.com (The Weather Channel).

The Forecastfox extensions still had compatibility issues and some international users complained it would not work correctly for their local. Forecastfox also produced a slide-up alert with the current temperature, conditions and/or warnings, even when the browser was minimized. Plus it would constantly reload/update the displayed information which even on a high-speed connection caused Firefox to slow down a bit.

1-Click Weather was nice in that it used information provided by The Weather Channel. However it became very annoying fast whenever there were alerts or warnings. It would produce an ugly pop-box which would become the focus of your browser. Highly annoying when participating in chat or composing a message and suddenly nothing is happening because that window/tab is no longer the current focus of Firefox. To make matters worse, it would re-pop the alerts/warnings constantly.

I had thought about going back to one of the Forecastfox extensions, but thought there has to be something better out there. A search on Firefox Add-on for 'Weather' turned up the WeatherBug extension.

I have to say I am very impressed with this simple extension. It is not affiliate with any particular weather providers site (weather.com or AccuWeather), but instead retrieves information from local and independent WeatherBug stations. These stations are mainly schools and airports. The toolbar icons are very compact (compared to Forecastfox or 1-Click Weather's) and simple.

Click Image For Larger View

With all the icons, simply hovering over them displays more information. The icons (from left to right) WeatherBug Icon (opens WeatherBug Web Site in current tab), current temperature, current forecast, tomorrows forecast, day-after tomorrow's forecast, WeatherBug Options.

The options are very simple:

• Current Location
• Sever Weather Alerts (on or off) [note: if selected, current temperature will be replaced with ALERT! Click on ALERT! to view and clear the alert]
• Units of Measure (English or Metric)
• Enable Weather Window (opens and I-Frame window when clicking on any forecast icon)
  
• Display Placement (Toolbar-Menubar, Navigation Toolbar, Bookmark Toolbar, Status Bar or WeatherBug Toolbar)

There are lots of details available on the WeatherBug website when you click on the WeatherBug Icon. These include, current conditions, live camera images, more detailed forecast information and options, featured photos, storm central, World Weather, other WeatherBug stations and much, much more. Since the bulk of the details are on the WeatherBug site it keeps the extension simple and very compact at 37K. Here is how the other three compare:

• 1-Click Weather -- 611K
• Forecastfox -- 413K
• Forecastfox Enhanced -- 700K

WeatherBug also offers optional, but free additional software you can download. This allows you to get the current temperature and other information with a click from your system tray on your desktop.

While WeatherBug may not have such elaborate displays as the others, it provides the basics for quick reference. This helps keep the extension small and provides for less clutter on your browser.

Preview: Foxy Tunes 2.0

The other night I received a comment about my FoxyTunes entry. The developers are coming out with a 'new & improved' version 2.0. You can get more information and download the preview at foxytunes.com .

Click Image For Larger View

Some of the new browser feature include:

• Artist search on several sites such as Amazon, All Music Guide, Wikipedia and more
• Song search on the iTunes Music Store
• Album search on the iTunes Music Store, Amazon, Yahoo!Images and eBay
• Several web search options
• Quick Searches for Info, Images and Lyrics
  

FoxyTunes

There are some extensions that I simply wonder how did I ever get along with out them? FoxyTunes is one of those extensions. Since I am always using WinAmp to listen to my music anytime I am using the computer, not just surfing the web, FoxyTunes makes things so much simpler. With FoxyTunes, you can control (right from the Firefox browser) virtually any music/media player including:

• WinAmp
• Real Player
• iTunes
• Windows Media Players
• Yahoo!Music Engine
• and many more (see the extension page for a complete listing)
  

Once installed, FoxyTunes adds all the player controls on to the status bar (see picture below). No more having to toggle away from Firefox to control your media player. The extension can also be installed for Thunderbird, but I didn't bother since I use Firefox more than I do Thunderbird.

Click Image For Larger View

From left to right, Artist Name & Song Title, FoxyTunes menu, Previous Track, Play, Pause, Stop, Next Track, on hover displays: Artist Name, Song Title, track elapsed time & total track time, Play File, Show Player, Hide Player and Mute. Not shown: Volume Control.

Themes: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Revisited

I mentioned in my first post about Themes (Themes: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly), how they can cause Firefox to odd things when paired up with certain extensions. A member on Go Firefox! came to us with an unusual problem, their Firefox was 'jumpy' after updating some of their extensions. Now, I have seen this before when I had had the NoScript extension installed. In fact my Firefox would un-maximize itself and do all kinds of odd stuff. Unfortunately, I do not recall what theme I may have been using at that time, but I am somewhat sure it was the standard Firefox theme.

Anyway, back to the Mexican Jumping Beans Firefox issue, us staff were scratching our heads on this one. The user gave us an InfoLister report and none of the usual suspects...err I mean, extensions were listed. However, our forum hostess, WhiteMare suggested changing to the standard Firefox theme to see if that might make a difference. Well, after they switched to the standard theme all was normal again with their Firefox. Now, it is important to understand that the theme was only part of the problem, the user still must have recently installed or updated an extension that did not get along with this particular theme.

Is Anyone Out There?

This Pearls Before Swine cartoon is the inspiration for this evening's entry. I've gotten some feedback from members on Go Firefox! they have visited my blog. However, I really have no way of tracking visitors unless people leave comments!!! The only comments I have gotten thus far were obliviously done by a robot since they were by the same person, duplicated, minutes a part and not even related to the topic at hand. Because of this I have enabled to word verification feature for leaving comments. You see them all the time on web registrations forms, there is a graphic containing numbers and/or letters that you must enter in order to submit the form. This keeps those pesky spam robots from auto filling & submitting the forms.

So I am asking, if you read my entry's drop a comment (good or bad) just something so I know people are reading the humble Guru's Blog. Thanks!

Themes: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The other major add-on for Firefox is Themes. From the Firefox Update Themes Page:

"Themes are skins for Firefox. They allow you to change the look and feel of the user interface and personalize it to your tastes. A theme can simply change the colors of Firefox or it can change every piece of its appearance."

There are some creative themes out there some are just simple color or icon changes. Others are well...how do I put it? I guess I'll let the author of one such theme, PimpZilla describe it "It's overdone... It's tacky... It's PimpZilla !!!' See for yourself below...

Click for large view

Some themes are cool to look at and really well done, but sometimes they make changes to the way Firefox behaves that are not just cosmetic. One member on Go Firefox! could not access some of their menus from the menu bar while using a particular theme.

Take for example the Mostly Crystal theme which has been download over 1/2 million times. With that many downloads one would think it must work okay, right? Not exactly, under the FAQs in the developers home page, there are several extensions which don't play well with this theme. Also the Google Toolbar does not function correctly with this theme.

A side note about the Google Toolbar, I have found it to be a bit troublesome and caused my Firefox to freeze up and nearly crash several times.

Another example is iPox Theme, also downloaded over 1/2 million times. But it too is not without issues. I'll give credit to the developer for fully disclosing upfront:

" I have not worked with many extensions except Sage in this theme. I have no idea how other extensions will react to my edits. If you have issues please report them in the form and possible fixes. I can't install and theme every extension. Sorry. "

This is not to say that all themes are going to be troublesome and break your Firefox. There may be (and I am sure are) many good themes out there that work flawlessly. But if you start having troubles with Firefox behaving oddly and/or your extensions don't function as they should, try switching over the 'default' theme to see if it is your newly installed theme giving you the troubles. To do this:

1. From the Tools Menu select Themes (FF 2.0 select 'Add-Ons, then click 'Themes')
2. Highlight Firefox (default) and click 'Use Theme'
3. Close and restart Firefox.
   

Troubleshooting Add-ons Installation

For the most part, add-ons (extensions and themes) are trouble free. However, once in a while an add-on will not install, upgrade or uninstall correctly. Or may be you launched a different version of Firefox on the same profile and now your add-ons are disabled because Firefox says they are incompatible.

I will cover the three most common issues with Add-ons Installation:

• Software Installation Disabled
• Extension(s) not installed after restarting Firefox
• Add-on(s) Disabled by Firefox

Software Installation Disabled
This issue mainly occurs when upgrading to a major version of Firefox such as going from 0.* to 1.0.* or 1.0.* to 1.5.0.* versions. For some reason Firefox disabled the installation of themes plug-ins and extensions XPI files. These instructions for re-enabling downloads, are from the Mozilla site:

Firefox 1.0

1. From the 'Tools' Menu select 'Options..."
2. Click 'Web Features'
3. Place a check in the box 'Allow Sites To Install Software'

Firefox 1.5

Starting in Firefox 1.5 the option to allow web sites to install software has been removed from the user interface (UI). The software installation option must be enabled to allow installation of themes, extensions and certain plugins

If you previously disabled this option and then updated to Firefox 1.5, the disabled setting will be carried over. Since the option to enable software installation no longer exists in the UI, you will need to use about:config to reset the "xpinstall.enabled" preference to the default "true" value. Here's step by step how to do this:

1. Type about:config into the Location Bar and hit enter.
2. Type xpi to filter and find xpinstall.enabled.
3. Make sure it's value is true. (double click will toggle).
   

Extension(s) Not Installed After Restarting Firefox
This issue is becoming less common but use to occur frequently with extensions that did not upgrade correctly. There were some extensions that required you to remove them before installing the new version. Failure to do so resulted in a phantom extension that could not be upgraded or removed.

If after restarting Firefox the extension has not installed go to the Tools Menu and select 'Extensions' (FF 2.0, select 'Add-ons'). If the extension appears in the list with this message '(Name) will be installed (removed/upgrade) when Firefox restarts', then follow these directions:

1. Close Firefox
2. Locate your Profile Folder
3. Delete the following files from your profile folder:
• extensions.ini
• extensions.cache
• extensions.rdf
4. Restart Firefox.

Firefox will rebuild the extensions list and these files. Your extension should be installed and functioning now.

Add-on(s)Disabled by Firefox
Firefox will automatically disable any extension that is not compatible with build you are running. This will happen if you try to run and older or newer version of Firefox on the same profile. However, even after you return to the correct version of Firefox, it will not automatically re-enable the add-ons for you. This happened to one our Go Firefox! members who posted:

"...I made the mistake of trying out Bon Jovi...That piece of work has now disabled all my extensions on FF 1.5"

To start, it's Bon Echo after the park in Canada, not after the 80's New Jersey rock group. Second and foremost, they should not have been trying out this "piece of work" with the same profile as they were using with Firefox 1.5. This very reason is why I stress the importance of running separate profiles for testing in my Profiles Revisited posting.

But...this same thing happened to the humble Guru. I had installed the newer version on Bon Echo and didn't noticed the box 'Run Bon Echo after installation is completed' was checked. It ran on my FF 1.5 profile and all my extensions became disabled, even after re-running 1.5. I ended up having to go through and reinstall (or upgrade) all my extensions (not an easy task when you have 38 extensions). The good news is you shouldn't have to go through and reinstall all your extensions. In order to restore your add-ons follow these directions:

1. Close Firefox
2. Locate your Profile Folder
3. Delete the following files from your profile folder:
• extensions.ini
• extensions.cache
• extensions.rdf
4. Restart Firefox.

Firefox will rebuild your extensions and themes list and these files. Your extension should be re-enabled and functioning again.

---

Note: This post was adapted from FF Extension Guru's post, Add-ons FAQs: Troubleshooting Add-ons Installation from Go Firefox!

Problematic Extensions

If your Firefox starts acting odd, slows down, hangs, crashes without reason, etc., chances are you could have a problematic extension installed. Sometimes these extensions are fine by themselves, but if paired with another extension could cause troubles. For example, running No Script and FlashBlock together can cause problems. Flash Blocking is included with No Script, so it is redundant to have both installed.

The folks over at mozillaZine and have come up with a list of known Problematic Extensions.
The list goes into details as to the issues caused by the said extension and offers solutions from changing settings to removing the extension and offering a substitute. Also includes references to the said problems.

A New Look

When I first setup this Blog, I didn't spend much time on the template or adding any customizations. Over the past couple nights I have switched to a 'calmer' template and made some minor changes to the layout. I have also added more links along with listing them under the Links of Interest and Firefox Links.

Installing Spellbound FF 1.5.0.*

Note: Please see the SpellBound - Spellchecker For Firefox entry for more information about the Spellbound Extensions.

With these builds of Firefox the installation site still automatically detect your version of Firefox, but when you go to install you will get an incompatibility error message. Getting SpellBound to work on this build takes a few extra steps:

1. If you have already installed SpellBound on FF 1.5.0.1 or newer and have upgrade to the newer FF build, skip to step 8.
   
2. You will need to install the Nightly Tester Tools extension (if you already have Nightly Tester Tools skip to Step 5), open a new tab.
   
3. Drag into the new tab this link: http://tinyurl.com/q5z2f
4. Closed and restart Firefox
   
5. Install (When the installation box appears, check the box: 'Install using Nightly Tester Tools...'): SpellBound Extension (drag link into new tab)
   
6. Select your operating system (Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X) and click the link below to install the spell check libraries When the installation box appears, check the box: 'Install using Nightly Tester Tools...' (drag link into new tab):
• Linux Mozilla spell check libraries
• Mac OS X Mozilla spell check libraries
• OS/2 Mozilla spell check libraries
• Windows Mozilla spell check libraries
7. Close and restart Firefox
   
8. Go to mozdev.org and download your desired dictionaries - Dictionaries for Spellbound

Adapted From: Go Firefox!: Spellbound FAQs

SpellBound - Spellchecker For Firefox

SpellBound is the one Firefox extension that is a must have for me! SpellBound was developed by Robert Strong who is on the development team for Firefox 2.0 due out late this summer. Now in Firefox 2.0 inline (spell as you type) will be an included feature. But you can have it now with SpellBound.

So, why SpellBound?

• It is a Spellchecker for your browser
• It works on any site with text area such as web forms, forums (mozillaZine, Delphi Forums), web-based e-mails (Hotmail, G-Mail, Yahoo!Mail), and even Blogs!

There two different versions of Spellbound, Spellbound, the 'classic' version and the Developmental Version.

The 'classic' version is for folks running builds older than Firefox 1.5 (it will work with some effort on Firefox 1,5 and above, see entry Installing Spellbound on FF 1.5.0.*). This version adds a 'Check Spelling...' command to your context (right-click) menu and you can add the optional icon on your toolbar.

The developmental version is design to be used with Firefox 1.5.0.* builds and is a preview of what will be standard in Firefox 2.0. The developmental version is so much easier to install and doesn't have migration (moving to a newer version of FF) issues as does the classic version. The biggest and best feature is the inline or spell as you type feature. Very similar to the inline spell checking you see in MS Office, OpenOffice.org, MS Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. It will place a red underline on any misspelled word. However, instead of right-clicking you need to CTRL+Left-Click to access the SpellBound context menu. From there you can pick from a list of suggestions, add the word to your dictionary or ignore the word.

	SpellBound (Classic)	SpellBound Developmental
Firefox Builds	1.0.* (can work with 1.5.0.* but not recommended)	1.5.0.* or newer ONLY
Inline Spellcheck	NO	YES
Spellcheck Icon & via Context Menu	YES	YES
Migration Issues	Yes, dictionary needs to be reinstalled on each upgrade and other issues with 1.5.0.* builds	No re-installation needed after upgrades

Installation Instructions

• SpellBound (classic) Firefox 1.0.* (not 1.5.0.*) - follow the instructions on the SpellBound Installation page.
  
• SpellBound (classic) Firefox 1.5.0.*- see entry Installing Spellbound on FF 1.5.0.*
• SpellBound Developmental Firefox 1.5.0.*:

1. Open a new tab
2. Drag this link into the new tab: http://exchangecode.com/spellbound/downloads/spellbound-dev_20060108.xpi
3. After the extensions has installed close and restart Firefox
4. While in a text-area, right click and select 'Check Spelling..." from the menu.
5. On the bottom left of the 'Check Spelling' window, select English/United States 'Language:' drop down box
6. Click 'Close'

Note to MAC users, there appears to be an issue with the SpellBound Dictionaries with the Firefox 1.5.0.* builds. You will not be able to use SpellBound. However, this problem should be resolved with the release of FF 2.0 later this summer.

IE Tab

Firefox continues to gain popularity and each day more and more sites are becoming Firefox friendly. HOWEVER, there are those sites such as Microsoft Windows Update that refuse to work with Firefox. When you come across a site such as this does it mean you need to open Internet Exploiter...I mean Explorer? Not necessarily, I would say 99% of the sites which are not Firefox friendly can be view within Firefox using the IE Tab Extension.

IE Tab is one of my must have extensions, right up there with Adblock Plus, CoLT, Greasemonkey, Spellbound Developmental (future blog entry) and Foxy Tunes. IE Tab opens Internet Explorer right in a Firefox Tab! This allows you to still view those pesky sites that don't like Firefox. Once the extension is installed some new commands are added. In the context (right-click) menu, when you right-click either on the page or on a link, you will have the options 'Open Link In IE Tab or View Page In IE Tab' From the Tools Menu you will have the new item 'IE Tab Options'

The IE Tab Options allows you to add or remove sites to a list to always be rendered (opened) in the embedded IE Tab. You can either type in the URL or if you navigate to the site you want it will be displayed in the URL box.

I said that it works with 99% of the sites which want IE. The Narada Radio is part of that 1%, it plain out refused to work even in IE Tab. For that I had to have Internet Exploiter open. But for everything else that wants IE, IE Tab will work great for you.

Bon Echo Alpha 3 Milestone

From mozillaZine, Saturday, May 27th, 2006:

"Yesterday, Bon Echo Alpha 3 was released as scheduled. This latest milestone of the code that will eventually become Mozilla Firefox 2.0 adds new anti-phishing features and includes support for client-side session and persistent storage as specified by the WHATWG. Furthermore, when using Google or Yahoo! in the Search bar, users are presented with their previous searches in addition to search suggestions.

The Mozilla Developer News weblog has an announcement about the release of Bon Echo Alpha 3, which includes download links for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The Bon Echo Alpha 3 Release Notes also have more information.

The Bon Echo Planning Center has details about future plans, including the Firefox 2 milestone schedule, which has the first feature-complete beta set for release in June."

It appears the anti-phishing feature is going to be part of the Goggle Toolbar. Below is a sample of the warning message you will get if you navigate upon a fake site.

Click Image For Larger View

Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 Released

What's New in Thunderbird 1.5.0.4
Upgrade From Thunderbird 1.5.0.2

Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 provides stability and security enhancements that are part of our ongoing program to provide a safer email experience for our users. We recommend that all Thunderbird users upgrade to this latest version.

Here's what's new in Thunderbird 1.5.0.4:

• Universal Binary Support for Mac OS X which provides native support for Macintosh with Intel Core processors. Thunderbird supports the enhancements to performance introduced by the new MacIntel chipsets.
• Improvements to product stability.
• Several security fixes.

See complete release notes for more details.

Firefox 1.5.0.4 Released

In Mozilla's on going commitment to provide a quality and safe product, Firefox 1.5.0.4 was released tonight. See the release notes for full details of FF 1.5.0.4

What's New in Firefox 1.5.0.4

Firefox 1.5.0.4 is a security update that is part of our ongoing program to provide a safe Internet experience for our customers. We recommend that all users upgrade to this latest version.

• Improvements to product stability
• Several security fixes

Release Date: June 1, 2006.

Profiles Revisited

Last month I mentioned about my Multiple Profile Disorder but I never really went into the importance of having multiple profiles. Never gave that much thought, until today on Go Firefox!, a member learned & discovered what happens if you try to run the same profile on a developmental version of Firefox. A quick reminder about profiles from the Firefox Help site:

Multiple profiles and profile management is an advanced feature, mainly intended for developers. Unless you are an extension developer or an advanced user, you should probably not be trying to use multiple profiles.

I am what they called an 'advanced user' which means I tend to play and crash the test versions of new Firefox builds. A couple weeks back I was doing a lot of testing with the new Bon Echo release. First thing I did after downloading and installing the release was create a new profile. There are several reasons why I did this, most importantly I did not want to mess up or lose any of my settings for FF 1.5.0.3.

Remember, your profile not only includes all your browser settings and preferences not to mention your bookmarks, but extensions, themes and plug-ins too. Many of the extensions I have installed in FF 1.5.0.3 will not work (at least not yet) in Bon Echo. Firefox has a safeguard in place to prevent an incompatible extension from causing problems, it disables the said extension. If you return to a compatible version of Firefox then it should re-enable the extensions, but sometimes you may end up having to restart in Safe Mode and manually reactivate the extensions.

In my case I have a profile for Firefox 1.5 (or 1.5.0.3) as well as a different profile for Bon Echo. I have setup the program short cuts to include loading with the desired profile. Below are my program short cuts for FF 1.5.0.3 and Bon Echo.

• Firefox 1.5.0.3: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3\firefox.exe" -p "1.5.0.3"
• Bon Echo: "C:\Program Files\Bon Echo\firefox.exe" -p "bonecho"

Notice the '-p' after the location in the short cut? This tells Firefox to either launch the profile manager or the specified profile. If nothing follows the '-p' then Firefox will launch the profile manager which will allow you to create, delete, select and/or make as default a profile. You can also set this up so each time Firefox is launched the profile manager opens. This is useful for computers with multiple users so each person can have their own profile with their own settings.

For more detailed information on profiles be sure to review the Firefox Help site.