Checksum Arcanius

I recently “upgraded” my desktop computer to a development environment, specifically for the task of working on the TRC scouting app, which was a fairly large project. The hardware did not change for this upgrade (although I have recently added hardware, but that is another story). Instead the main additions were gVim, SmartFTP, and some Firefox extensions. While I normally do most of my coding projects on my laptop (my “productivity” machine), I was finding the screen resolution and touch pad too confining and was literally feeling stifled by the system for the size of the project I wanted to take on. So I put a two-monitor, 4-disk RAID, Gigabyte Dual Channel PC3200 DDR RAM, P4E 2.8GHz HT with 1MB Cache on the job. And it did the job well.

But, I began to become concerned about the differences in extensions between my three main installations of Firefox – on my laptop, at work, and on my desktop. So, to help rectify things, I thought I would share here what extensions I have installed on this, my desktop machine from which I publish tonight. Then, I can post comments on what I have on my other machines, and bring them to some happy middle place, so I have more or less the same base functionality, with whatever additional functionality might be useful on each computer. As an added bonus, you too can comment on what extensions you use, and why. Lets call the effect “Synergy…” or something like that.

Without further ado, My Extensions

Tabbrowser Preferences (1.1.1): Enables me to force most new windows to new tabs, unless they are Javascript windows that will be resized (usually for pictures) and thus should really be in a separate window that will close soon.

Disable Target For Downloads (0.9): prevents links that point to downloads from spawning new windows or tabs, which is otherwise a very annoying behavior of websites that choose to employ this unfortunate behavior.

Download Manager Tweak (0.6.3): While this adds a few functions to the download manger, I use it because it allows the download window to be a tab instead of a separate window. This is very nice, because one of the best things about Firefox is the tabs, and the more tabs are used instead of windows, the less cluttered things are in general.

Mini-T (drag+indicator) (0.5): I just recently installed this plug-in after the inability to move tabs around as I pleased finally annoyed me enough to make me muse “I wonder if there’s a plug-in…” And of course there is! This one lets you drag a tab to another part of the tab bar, and provides an indicator of where the tab will drop when you let go. Admittedly, I survived a long time without this one, so I don’t’ find it too hard to live without, but I’m pretty sure I’ll keep it.

SessionSaver (.2 d1 * nightly 25): Like Opera’s restore last session’s windows, this is another new one, and thought I’;m not sure if I’ll keep it, I’ve been happy so far. Really, the reason I became interested in this is because I kept needed to restart Firefox to install and test new plug ins, and I had four or five tabs open working on the scouting program. So this greatly helps when you need to restart many tabs. That being said, I almost never need this functionality in day-to-day activities, but the reason I may keep it anyway is that it can restore a session after a crash without loosing a thing, supposedly. That may one day be a very nice feature indeed. In fact, you can disable its other features, so it only restores in case of a crash. Sort of like an insurance policy – for free!

SpellBound (0.7.3): A form spell-checker. Another new plug in, not used much yet. In fact, this will be the first form I’ll check with it. But the interface seems sleek enough, so I’m going to stick with it I’m pretty sure.

Comments RSS 2.0 | Add a Comment | Trackback