King's Chronicles

I use Firefox on a daily basis, not just for browsing, but as a vital part of my web development platform. The key to this is the excellent web development extensions that users have written for Firefox. Here are the extensions for Firefox that I cannot live without.

Web Developer

The extension that started it all. I did not use Firefox much until I found this. The Web Developer extension provides too many features to document here, but some notables are:

• Resize the browser window to represent different monitor resolutions.
• Display details for all of the fields in a HTML form.
• Outline block level elements.
• Disable JavaScript, CSS, or images.
• Validate the HTML against its DOCTYPE.

HTML Validator

While the Web Developer extension provides the ability to validate your HTML, you still have to click menu item from the Web Developer tool bar to do it. The HTML Validator extension will validate your HTML automatically when you load the page. The validation result is displayed as an icon in the status bar. The extension also integrates with Firefox's source code view so you can easily see which lines of code do not validate and why.

IE Tab

While Firefox is my preferred browser, I always have to make sure my web pages work in Internet Explorer. The IE Tab extension adds an icon that allows you to view your current web page using Internet Explorer rendering. This is very useful for testing. The extension also allows you to define certain URLs that should be viewed in Internet Explorer. So if you use certain web sites that require Internet Explorer, this extension will allow you to switch automatically. Many people use this in order to use online banking web sites that required Internet Explorer.

Firebug

Firebug adds extra functionality useful for JavaScript debugging. I like the interface better than the default JavaScript console. In addition it allows you to view the source code for the page not based on the HTML source received from the server, but based on the DOM as the browser has rendered the page. This allows you to see elements added via JavaScript at run-time.

Tamper Data

The Tamper Data extension is a must for Ajax development. It allows you see all of the HTTP requests and responses, including those created by XmlHttpRequest object. It displays the content and headers of each request and response, which comes in handy when you are trying to figure why an Ajax request is not working. In addition, Tamper Data allows you to intercept and change the contents of HTTP communication. I have not used this feature yet, but I can see where this may come in handy.

Selenium IDE

One of the hot topics in software development in recent is automated testing. Like many other, I have had difficulty getting started with this technique. Enter Selenium IDE. Although not a unit test tool, it does allow you to record and playback browsing actions from within Firefox. In addition you can script tests on the page content that should be executed along with the script. If you have ever wanted to add some automatic testing for your web site, this is the place to start.

Load Time Analyzer

This is a new addition to my arsenal. It shows you every JavaScript event that fires while browsing. This includes HTTP request and responses for the images and CSS files used by you page. The Load Time Analyzer extension is useful to find the bottlenecks in your web page, whether the cause is bandwidth, number of HTTP requests, or client-side JavaScript processing.

Update: While I really like the Load Time Analyzer extension, I have found it clobbers my CPU, making Firefox respond much slower. Therefore I have uninstalled it.

This week has marked a major change in my computing habits. After 15 years of living in the PC/Windows world, I have made the switch to the Mac. Two days ago I received my new 17" MacBook Pro. Over the last year or so I have become more and more dissatisfied with Windows, and it did not look like Vista was going to be any better. In addition, many of the blogs I read share a lot of information about OS X and some of the interesting software that runs on it. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided it was time to make the switch.

In the days and weeks to come I will share more of my experience of becoming a new Mac user. For now I will share my first impressions. If I had to pick one word to sum up my experience with the Mac so far it would be "seamless". Since Apple has full control, OS X and the Mac hardware feel like one seamless product.

Here is one example. Just like in Windows, the first time you start OS X you create an administrator account and select an image to represent the account. By default it allows you to take a snapshot of yourself using the built-in web camera (is this just a MacBook thing?). That's right, before you have even completed the first start up of the operating system, the web camera is fully functional. I cannot imagine what it would take for that to work in Windows.

I was thrilled to hear the buzz yesterday that the two satellite radio providers, XM and Sirius, are going to merge. Sure enough, this morning I see Sirius has the press release up on its website. One of the frustrations of being a Sirius subscriber was that I always wondered if I picked the right company. Since much of their premier content is mutually exclusive I knew subscribing to Sirius meant I would not get any of the good content from XM. So while it sounds like it will take about a year for their programming to merge, it is nice to know I that eventually I will have the best of both worlds.

When I first started shopping online in the late 90's, Amazon.com was the last place I would go. Today, about 10 years later, it is my primary shopping destination on the web. I have been thinking lately about this turnaround and how I got from hating it to Amazon.com becoming my favorite shopping site.

[Disclaimer: Amazon.com is an advertiser on this blog.]

So here are the features that turned me into an Amazon.com shopper:

1. Gift Wrap Options - Sure everyone offers gift wrap. Actually, this past Christmas I was surprised by some big name chains that did not. Amazon is one of the few online stores I am aware of that offers an individual message for each gift wrapped item in a shipment.
2. Selection - When Amazon first switched from books to selling everything I thought it was a mistake. However, I soon learned to appreciate the ability to buy books, electronic devices, and kitchenware all from the same store, at the same time.
3. Customer Reviews - This is the big one. Of all of its features, Amazon customer reviews help me to shop more than anything else. Even if I do not plan on buying from Amazon I will check the site for product reviews.
4. My Wish List - A feature I just started using a few years ago. I like being able to keep track of the items I want to buy. It also make a good queuing area for impulse buys. Many times instead of buying an item on impulse I just add it to my wish list. After a couple of weeks, if I still want to buy it I do so.
5. Recommendations - By default, the products Amazon recommends is pretty broad. However, I found by creating a wish list and rating products the list of recommendations starts to get really accurate. Plus, being able to tell Amazon what I already own and which items I am not interested in takes them off my recommendations list completely.
6. Used Books - Years ago I remember spending an entire day searching used book stores for a copy of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny. Today I can find and purchase used books along side of new ones. Amazon takes care of routing the payment to the seller and even allows me to use an Amazon gift card as payment.

So I hope this was not too much praise for one of my advertisers. I just wanted to share why I am now a loyal customer of a company I once hated.