How to sync firefox bookmarks and passwords

Do you use more than one computer? Well then, this tip may be indispensable: keep all your bookmarks and passwords in harmonious synchronization across every single computer that you use.

One of the best things about Firefox is its extensions--the ability to add functionality to the web browser that didn't exist before--functionality that is limited only by the imagination of developers out there worldwide.

Do yourself a favor and download this must-have Firefox extension, Foxmarks. Add it to firefox on each of your computers, and you'll never have to leave your bookmarks or passwords behind again.

But what if you're on a public computer? No problem, just visit http://my.foxmarks.com to access your bookmarks. Your passwords will not be available to you from here, but at least you've got your bookmarks. Besides, if there's a password you really don't remember but it's on your home computer, that's ok because you could always just use LogMeIn and, well, that solves that problem.

Review of Firefox 3

I have had the pleasure of using the Firefox 3 beta for some time now and, while initial versions were a bit buggy, the latest release candidate (RC 3 as of this writing) has really won me over with its stability and overall usefulness.

Here are my top 3 reasons you should switch to Firefox 3:

1. Bookmarks. At long last, bookmarks are now usable and user-friendly. Find a site you want to come back to later? Bookmark it with one click by lighting up the little star in the Smart Location Bar (more about that in a minute). By default, this new bookmark will be stored in the Unfiled Bookmarks folder, so you'll never ever have an unorganized Bookmarks list ever again.
   
   Should you later decide you'd like to organize this bookmark, you have two options: do it right away by clicking the star again (or double-click it at the outset) to bring up a simple organizing tool, or go to the full-fledged bookmarks organizer, where you can sort out all your unsorted bookmarks.
   
2. The Smart Location Bar (AKA the "AwesomeBar"). Instead of pulling up a list of mind-numbing URLs, Firefox now allows you to throw in keywords just like a Google search. The result set is nothing short of absolutely useful; the result is a list of sites you've both visited in the past and/or bookmarked, which contain your keywords.
   
   
3. Speed. Firefox has always been a little bit faster than Internet Explorer, especially if you used the FasterFox extension. Well now, I'm pleased to say that Firefox 3 is dramatically faster, including start up time and page loads. Users of Digg might notice that the site loads at least twice as fast and stories with 100+ comments now load in a fraction of the time. (This, combined with their revamp of the comments system makes the experience even better. Thanks, Digg!). Perhaps even more impressive is how snappy Gmail feels now.

For further review, head over to dria.org and check out this "field guide".

Firefox 3 Beta 5 - Memory Leak Screenshots

I know that it's still in beta, and I appreciate the speed increases over Firefox 2, but damn it, I thought the memory leaks were supposed to be a thing of the past? Posted for no other reason than I thought it was funny. I love Firefox. Really.

Below: Firefox consuming an ungodly 1.33GB of RAM, while utilizing 49% CPU.


Below: notice the ramp-up before my page file finally caps out, coinciding with the sudden hang of the program (50% CPU usage).

Do you keep getting the following error while using foxmarks?

Status: DNS Unknown host

If so, the solution may be something as simple as changing your password. In my case, my password had a pound sign in it (#). Once I created a new password without the pound sign, all was well in the world again. I'm not sure if this error occurs when there are other symbols in the password, but I know for sure that Foxmarks does not like the pound sign.

Happy syncing.

Greasemonkey for Firefox

I know it's been out for a long time now, but I've just discovered the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox. There are countless reviews about it on the web, so I won't bore you with those details. Rather, I will simply endorse it and proclaim it an absolute must-have firefox extension if you spend lots of time on the web.

For those who don't know, Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that basically re-works web pages of your choice to make them look and act the way YOU want them to. Click here (Wikipedia entry) for more details on that.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that I'm using Greasemonkey to make posting this blog entry a little more efficient, I use it to get rid of all the clutter on my MySpace profile editing page (say goodbye to every single ad they serve up) and it has proven exceedingly handy while on Digg.

Some other must-have Firefox extensions:

1. FasterFox
2. NoScript
3. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
4. Minute Minder for AT&T Service (if you have Cingular/AT&T Wireless)
5. Session Manager
6. IETab

Here are two extensions that don't get daily usage, but rather are very handy when things could be "just a little more efficient"

1. Split Browser
2. Viamatic foXpose

Safari for Windows is out

In its classic, secretive fashion, Apple has just announced the launch of its Safari web browser for the Windows platform. It works on both Windows XP and Vista. It still shows signs it's in beta form, as the application crashes every now and then when browsing certain web sites.

Can't really say much about it, other than I am pleased to see that much of the Apple user interface has made it into this program, right down to the aqua scrollbar, arrows, and smooth flowing dialogue boxes (try bookmarking this page in Safari, for instance). They even got the glowing buttons right.

However, this is a beta and there are plenty of things to complain about. Since there are thousands of other tech writers out there I'll leave the details to them. I just wanted to write this post in Safari to test how it interacts with different web sites.

It's no replacement to Firefox just yet since it's still in beta, but once it's a finished product for Windows, it'll be a contender. The one thing I really like about firefox is all the plugins. NoScript, FasterFox and the IE Tab plugins are truly useful, as is the crash guard built into Firefox. (If the browser crashes for some reason, you can restore your previous browsing session, for example.)

Craigslist + RSS = Sweet Deals

Ever wish you could heave a "steal of a deal" pushed through the internet directly to your inbox? Now you can. I stumbled upon this neat trick last week and had to share.

I prefer a site like Craigslist. Search for [bills] and nothing else. What results is a list of people who are generally selling so they can "pay the bills" or "have bills to pay" or... you get the idea. Often, they are very motivated sellers. It is here where you will find your steal of a deal.

"But wait," you ask, I still have to manually search for this stuff. That's not convenient!

Enter RSS.Subscribe to the RSS feed of the search query you just executed (in Firefox, click on the little RSS icon in the URL bar), and off you go--in Firefox, just subscribe to the "live bookmark" and you've got your self an automatically updating list of great deals on craigslist.