A lot of users are in the business of maximizing their screen real-estate. Whether it’s for a reason such as a small screen resolution (like me) or you just believe in visting a website instead of seeing your browser, screen real-estate is important to you. Chances are you’ve got yourself a pretty slimmed down browser with all the buttons and taskbars that you don’t need removed. I personally can’t use firefox with all the extra things that I don’t use removed. Of course, one item that I’ve never been able to remove has always been the title bar. To me personally I see no need for it. The titles of pages are written on the tabs, and I don’t really need to see the title displayed up there. If you think about the browser model (as in organizing the browser from a development point of view) then the title has no place being up above the address bar, as well as below it.

Hide Caption, although oddly named, helps this out a little. It removes the titlebar from firefox and relocates the minimize, maximise and close buttons to the menu bar. This means that you’ve removed yet another 25 pixels that are clogging your viewing area and also allows your browser to look a little more like Chrome.

Note, this addon is actually still experimental, so it invovles you needing to create an account on Mozilla.org, which isn’t really an issue because it’s free.

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Hide Caption

Yoono is a plugin which has been around for a couple years now and I’ve seen it both featured in the Firefox plugin directory and reviewed on a number of other websites. I guess the best way to describe it is as the Flock sidebar for Firefox, however with support for more social networks and perhaps a little better looking.

The big news from Yoono is that they are releasing the plugin for Internet Explorer, a smart move considering Microsoft still owns 70% of the market.

As many of you know, we announced some big changes at Yoono. I’ll talk more about these later but the primary points are that we are releasing a version of our popular sidebar to users of Internet Explorer. We also made some big changes to the user interface of Yoono to make things much easier to use.

Yoono is the ‘hubb of all your media activities’ and actually does a pretty good job of it with social media integration, widgets, photo sharing and a profile page which turns the whole service into a social network of it’s own.

Personally I’m over all this integration, sharing and networking stuff however there’s no question Yoono is creating a great product which does what it says extremely well. Not much more I can say than that.

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Yoono

I’m a terribly forgetful person. If I’m not being constantly reminded of something, then the chances are I’ll never remember it. So it probably comes as no surprise that I have a whole lot of ways that I try and stay organized, and most of them are inter-linked. One way that I have really come to rely on is using Remember The Milk, however I don’t bother with the actual website. I’m sure it’s very well organized, but the idea of having to click multiple things, just to create a to-do list, is beyond me. I don’t want to have to organize by location or tabs, I just want to write down what I need to do. And the Remember The Milk extension for Gmail is perfect. 

This Extension is, of course, Firefox only, but is designed to work only with Gmail. What it does is add a little bar to the right side where you can store quite bits of information on things that you need to do.

The ease of use of such a task manager (It uses AJAX to reduce page refreshes) is immediately noted. It doesn’t seem to offer you much in the way of options but that’s perfect for a simple task manager. All you want it for is to just remember what you tell it and spit it back when you need it. You simply add a task to the input bar and it adds it to your task list. The bonus is that it even recognizes time inputs. As you can see from the sample task being added, you can add a time, or even a date, and the Remember The Milk addon takes care of the rest. 

Also just because options aren’t present at first glance, doesn’t mean they aren’t present at all. Mousing over a specific task lets you change the name, due date, and a whole host of other options from a simple overlaid window. 

The RTM addon for Firefox is a must-have for boosting productivity, especially if you seem to keep that Gmail tab open all day. It provides you with quick access to your task-list in the easiest and simplist possible way.

As a bonus, if you use the RTM website, you’ll be happy to know that the addon actually syncs up with that as well. Meaning you can update either one, and still know that all your tasks will constantly be served up, from wherever you are.

The website is also one of the few implementors of Google’s ‘Gears’ technology which enables you to open and use the website as you would desktop software, both online and offline with your data syncronising inbetween. I find Gears has some annoying problems on occasions but its still a better solution than most task managers provide.

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Remember The Milk, and anything else you need to

After using Chrome for nearly 3 months now, the verdict is in. Firefox is much more usable for me considering I use it for work purposes as well as casual browsing, however I love the visual enhancements and little additives that Chrome brings. In fact I liked them so much I did what any true Firefox fan would do… find an addon to do the same thing - the best thing about Firefox that no amount of GUI additions and screen real estate can ever replace.

The Skin

One thing that always struck me whenever I start up Chrome, was the fact that it looks good. The blue gradients, subtle blue tinge on buttons and the way the font was rendered all stick out to me.

Call it the web designer in me, but Chrome looks good while being so usable. There are so many programs out there that sacrifice functionality for visual appeal or vice versa but Chrome has this perfect blend.

Thankfully to falconer (from the addons community at Firefox) for releasing what has to be one of the best themes for replicating Chrome. Chromifox provides all the visual appeal of Chrome but seems to be designed in such a way so that it doesn’t take up as much room as I expected it to. One thing that I liked about Chrome was the fact that it provided so much real-estate by removing the title bar, but the Chromifox theme, with a few browser modifications definitely keep the screen real-estate almost exactly the same.

-Update 10/11/2008-
Development on Chromifox has been handed over to Triton (Jeff T) and is now version 2. I’d recommend downloading that instead of Chromifox 1. Compatibility has also been tested with 3.1b2 and it works great.

Single Menu Button

Chrome user’s will have noticed the similarities between Chrome and IE7 (and 8’s) single menu button interface. While it all it seems to do is add another click, for those of us who rarely access the menu, it really does not take anything away. This feature can easily be added by using the Tiny Menu add-on. This add-on simply mashes up all the menu links into one. Normally it shows up as a text link called “menu” but those of us who are looking for the ultimate Firefox to Chrome conversion can use this image, since Tiny Menu supports an image as well. However, just note that on hover, the image will disappear. Which isn’t a problem, since the reason you got the add-on was because you don’t really use the menu all that much to begin with.

Search Through Address Bar

While Chrome claims to automatically add new search engines to it’s address bar (I say claims because it doesn’t always work as advertised), this feature is also enabled in Firefox, and has been for a while now. The only difference is, you get to add the search websites that you want, and customize them by keywords. So if I want to search Google, and it’s not my default search engine, I can simply type [g search terms] and it will be off and search Google. To access this, all you have to do is navigate to a website that has a search bar. Right click the search bar and click on “Add a keyword for this search”. Now all you have to do is add a keyword (for example g for Google, or wiki for wikipedia) and give it a name. Now, whenever you want to search using that particular engine, it’s just a matter of heading to your address bar and typing in your keyword, followed by a space. Here’s an old video I made that I managed to scrounge up through youtube that walks you through this.

Now get rid of the search bar

Now that you can search through your address bar, you can get rid of your search bar. You can easily remove components from Firefox by right-clicking on the UI and then clicking on customize. Now you can easily drag and drop components from the browser window, into the window that pop’s up. You can also drag stuff from the little window to your browser window, and even reorganize elements that are in the browser. So to remove the search bar, you just have to click and drag it to the window. Presto.

Merge your toolbars

Since repositioning elements in your browser window is no longer an issue for you, you can easily eliminate all your toolbars. Firefox by default starts with 3 different toolbars. A menu toolbar, a navigation toolbar and a bookmarks toolbar. However, most of the elements that start out on your toolbar can be removed to make way for something that’s a little nicer and cleaner. You’ll probably need your back and forward buttons, unless you have keyboard shortcuts for those, but you don’t need them to be so big. Open up the customization window again and click on Tiny Icons. You’ll see a noticable increase in the screen real-estate. Now, you can drag the rest of your icons around so that they only occupy the menu toolbar. For me, the toolbar now looks like this, since almost every button is removed, and I don’t keep bookmarks on the toolbar.

Hide your status-bar

This add-on is covered more in depth in another article I wrote on Extendably, but I’ll do a quick run-through on how to set it up. Simply install the add-on from this page, and you’re almost done. It’s just a matter of configuring the status bar to stay permanently hidden. You can do this by clicking on Tools and then on Add-ons. Then it’s just a matter of selecting autoHideStatusBar and clicking on options. Check of always hide, and click on OK and you’re done. Now to add the status-bar functionailty to your address bar so that you can see where that link will take you.

The Address Bar

The address bar in Firefox will take a couple add-ons before you can get all of the functionality of Chrome within it. One thing Chrome does, is highlight the root url of a website. This helps draw your attention to it and serves as a very simple anti-phishing measure. By making sure the root of the website you are on is actually the right website you want to be on, it saves you potentially entering sensitive information into a website that is just trying to collect it. This can be added through an add-on called LocationBar2. You can feel free to play around with the options, but the default settings are enough to match Chrome.

Finally, since we removed our status-bar, we’re going to add some of that functionality to the address bar, so that our browser still shows us all the same information it did before, just in a smaller space. What we need to install is Fission. Simply install it and head to the options for Fission, make sure the 3rd option is selected (which adds the status bar rollover information to the address bar) and you’re all set. Now if you mouse over a link the address of the link will show up in your address bar, and if you click on it, a progress bar is underlayed on the text that appears in the address bar.

-Update 10/11/2008-
Move your tabs above the address bar

Optionally, if you want to emulate the look completely, install the add-on Stylish. Then head over to this page, and install the userstyle created by falconer. What it does, is move your tabs above the address bar. Note, this add-on does not work with Tab Mix Plus, or most other tab feature add-on’s.

And there you have it  - a comprehensive guide for taking Firefox through some tweaks and add-ons till it mimics a lot of the Chrome functionality. If you feel like I missed anything, or want to mention a better way of doing something, feel free to leave a comment behind.

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From Firefox to Chromifox - A Comprehsive Addon Guide

Seriously though, I haven’t given up on this blog, I just took a break for a week or so due to things getting a bit out of hand for me and also because I’ve been doing a lot of work on the backend of this blog.

In short, I liked the design, but wasn’t happy with its quality code-wise, so I began creating the entire site from scratch and using everything I have learnt since when I first began this site.

Progress is good so far both size and validation-wise. At this point it’s looking identical to what I currently have but is now at least 50% smaller. I’m pretty happy with that.

Anyway, you won’t see anything for a few more days, so till then I have a great competition at Hack WordPress to tell you about. Hack WordPress is one of my favourite WordPress niche blogs and I’ve followed it for some time. As a celebration of one year Kyle Eslik has the following announcement:

The Hack WordPress Anniversary Giveaway

The other thing I have to announce is the Hack WordPress anniversary giveaway!   Before I explain how to enter, here is a list of premium WordPress themes that I’ve collected to give away to our readers:

• 6 Month Developer Subscription - The winner of this prize will receive a 6 month developer subscription to Woo Themes (Courtesy of the Adii and the Woo Themes team)
• 2008 Theme Club Subscription - The winner of this prize will receive a copy of all themes released by iThemes in 2008, valued at over $1400.00  (Courtesy of Cory Miller of iThemes)
• 3 Revolution Single-Use Licenses - All 3 winners will get their choice of which Revolution theme they want their license to be for.  (Courtesy of Brian Gardner of Revolution themes)
• 5 One Theme Single-Use Licenses - All 5 winners will receive a webmaster (single-use) license of the extremely popular One Theme (Courtesy of Lee Cooper and Karl Forshaw of One Theme).
• 2 Gabfire Single-Use Licenses, 2 Multiple-Use Licenses, and 2 Developer’s Licenses - Winners will have a choice of which of Mehmet’s 3 different themes you would like your license to be for.  (Courtesy of Mehmet of Gabfire Themes)
• 2 TV Elements Single-Use Licenses - Winners will get a single-use copy of the extremely popular TV Elements video theme.  (Courtesy of Jason of Press 75)

To get a chance to win this all you have to do, is exactly what I’ve just done!

How Do I Enter the Hack WordPress Anniversary Giveaway?

This giveaway is fairly simple, with everyone having two different ways to enter.  Here is what you need to do:

1. Blog About This Contest (3 Entries) - Write a post on your blog about this contest and link to this post.   The post needs to include the prize list found above (links in tact) and details on how to enter.  (I will be using trackbacks/pingbacks to track this so make sure it shows up here to receive your entries).  This will earn you 3 entries into the drawing.
2. Leave a Comment (1 Entry) - Leave a comment on this post giving us feedback on the new theme.  What do you like and what could be improved?  This will earn you one entry into the drawing.

Doing both will give you 4 entries into our drawing.   I will collect entries through Thursday, October 9th and plan to announce the winners sometime Friday, October 10th.

These are great prizes and would be incredibly useful to me, so let’s just hope eh?

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Hack WordPress Competition

So what if I get a bit of spam, junk filters are pretty decent now and It’s easier then loading up a new temporary email account.

If you do use this kind of server though, YopMail has what is perhaps the best solution I’ve seen so far. They provide an extension which is really nothing more than a search engine plugin for the Firefox search box.

When you need an email account however, just type in whatever you want into the search box and you’ll get that account straight away.

Sounds like the handiest way of doing it to me.

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The Easiest way to Use a Temporary Email Address

Windows Live Wave 3 beta has been out for a few days now and its a solid release. Great new features, new look and better service integration across the whole suite.

The standout feature is of course Live Calendar which can now be accessed online and synchronised between Live Mail, Outlook and Vista Calendar.

Outlook Live Connector has been available for a few months now, but got a an update with the Wave 3 beta release. I tried it initially but it actually mangled up my calendars a bit, mucking dates around after synchronising which was a pain.

I use Live Mail now and have no need for Outlook, but if you use that at work then this add-in should be extremely handy. It does more then just synchronise Calendars of course, you can also access all your hotmail contacts and mail from Outlook.

Update: Dare Obasanjo (who worked on the technology behind Live Calendar) posted about the service and how much easier it makes sharing his schedule.

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Outlook Live Connector 12.1 Beta

InformationWeek announced today that according to Google Chrome Engineer Ojan Vafai the idea is for the browser to support both scripts and extensions:

"There’s two different kinds of add-ons," Vafai said. "The Firefox things extend your browser, so to speak, and then there are user scripts. We intend to do both of those in Google Chrome”

Does anything about this remind you of the Car industry? The panel discussion involving Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, Microsoft Platform Architect Chris Wilson and Google engineer Vafai resulted in each company acknowledging the strengths of their competitors and stating their own progress in that direction.

Extensions for Chrome, Standards support for IE, Tab isolation for Firefox.

Looks like they’ve all got something to work on and the real winners are us, the users who have 4 major companies all pushing each other to innovate and improve their products.

Interestingly though is Vafai’s comment about extensions in Firefox; “there are problems with instability". That’s something Google wants to avoid and perhaps explains the delay.

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Google Chrome Getting Extensions Soon

There is so much to talk about but I’ll just stick to what’s relevant, the new Live Photo Gallery and also the final release of Live Writer. Writer has always supported extensions but now includes the fully updated API for plugins, so you can get started on those.

Windows Live Photo Gallery 3 has a lot of changes including a sleak new UI (although I think I prefer the blue theme from Wave 2), the ability to create Photosynths directly from the gallery and some new people-tagging features. What it doesn’t include is facial recognition which is a considerable let-down.

One of the best additions however is the brand new API which will enable developers to create their own extensions and plugins for sharing photos in more online services then just Live Space and Flickr.

Michael Palermiti, project manager of the Live Photo Gallery software posted this entry on the Windows Live Dev Blog:

As part of the new beta release we announced today we’re also announcing some new extensibility interfaces for Photo Gallery beta. One of the most requested features we’ve heard this past year from users (and developers!) is more support for sharing services.

Today, I’m pleased to announce a brand new, simple framework that enables developers to create photo and video publishing plug-ins. The framework defines a set of interfaces that facilitate communication between Photo Gallery and the plug-in. The plug-in developer has creative control of the user interface of the plug-in and handles the details of communication with the 3rd party service. Plug-ins are managed applications; .NET Framework 2.0 or greater is required for the plug-ins.

Once a plug-in is installed they will be accessible right on the Publish menu under More services.

We’re excited about what the community will come up with. You can get all the developer resources you’ll need over on new Photo Gallery web page on this site: http://dev.live.com/photogallery. On our team blog we’ll be blogging a lot more about this and all the slick new features in the beta.

Also incidentally, I’ve been finding Live Photo Gallery to be a lot faster and more responsive then the Wave 2 offering, and that’s definitely a good thing =)

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New Windows Live Photo Gallery Plugins

The annoying thing about site maintenance is the more you do, the more you find that needs doing. Oh, and most of it isn’t anything anyone will ever notice.

Subscribe to my feed and check back often to watch this grow!

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Extendably Resources is Up