I have been giving some Firefox add-ons like ScribeFire a really good test run the past couple of weeks as I have gone about revamping my website. ScribeFire is a Firefox browser add-on that allows you to create, edit, and, if you have the right blog settings, upload blog entries. My self-hosted blog settings are such that I can't upload an entry via ftp into my blog with Scribefire. That does not mean to say ScribeFire is not coming in very useful. I can give the mouse a firm right click while on a page, and have it blogged to the note tab I have open in ScribeFire as a nice clickable link. Later, I can copy and paste the link into my RapidWeaver blog. This is especially useful when coming across interesting news stories like:
Baby OK after train hits stroller in Australia - Yahoo! News
Bear Run! Black bear chills in Wis. beer cooler - Yahoo! News
3rd person dies in Ariz. sweat lodge ceremony case - Yahoo! News.
As I busily type these words out in ScribeFire, I'm afraid trying to keep up with the news, or do any kind of surfing is irritating as hell because the great satellite re-point Starband insisted we needed, has not gone smoothly. When do those kind of things ever go smoothly? To say my ISP is having issues at the moment is a mild understatement. That Scrapbook add-on is coming in really handy right now since the pages that will load, can be captured, and later read offline. Notes, annotations, and highlighted areas can be added once the page is captured. I've also been testing a little ReadLater add-on that saves pages for reading at a later date. I have it set up to automatically save any pages I add to the reading list for offline viewing so if I need or want to refer to those pages, I can even if I'm having connection issues. When I can get to them, I also have add-ons that make it easier to add pages to my Stumble Upon and Delicious bookmarks. And if Starband ever gets all its re-point problems solved, since UberNote FINALLY send the damn activation code after 3 days, I intend to take it for a really good test run as well. Though I have a feeling I will be using ScrapBook most of the time since "capturing" a page or part of a page onto my computer for later viewing means I can always view the page or the part of it I captured no matter what my online connection status is.
I'm tried out a couple of feed readers with FireFox, including Brief and NewsFox add-ons. Brief has a little slicker looking interface, but NewsFox has better bells and whistles when it comes to customizing and organizing my feeds. I quickly fell head over heels for the 3 panel layout NewsFox offers, and by the second day, had uninstalled Brief.
Working mainly in my browser is taking a little getting used to, but I'm finding myself more and more at ease with making extensive notes for the blog in my browser, while I surf the net in search of intelligent life and other interesting stuff. I suggest anyone who has a blog of any kind add ScribeFire to your Firefox browser. If you don't have Firefox on your computer, Click Here, and download what I now consider to be the best browser on the net for those of us who love the kind of bells and whistles that make blogging, researching, or just surfing the net a better experience. I have used many browsers over the years I've been on the net, including Firefox off and on for several years. Lately though, because of its stability, ease of use, and of course all the bells and whistles available in it that make my Web Mistress job a little easier, it is the browser I use the most. And thanks to the Personas add-on I just installed, I can surf the web in a browser who's appearance changes according to the mood I'm in at any given moment. And people wonder wonder why I love bells, whistles and groovy add-ons.
