Yesterday at work, I participated in a presentation about blogging. My portion was about using an RSS reader - why it’s handy and helpful, how to get yourself all set up with a slew of subscriptions, etc. During the presentation, I recommended that everyone install Mozilla Firefox just because it’s good - more secure, the original tabbed-browsing browser, and because it has the super handy live bookmarks feature and RSS feed options that make using a reader (like Google Reader or Bloglines) ridiculously easy.

Afterward, I got an email from someone telling me that she had been using Firefox at home for a couple of years, but was suffering through her work-day with IE because she thought that she’d get in trouble for installing it and using it - but that she was going to install it now since I’d “come out” about my Firefox use. Yay, evangelism!

The very first thing I did when I started at this job over two years ago - before I inquired about getting a nameplate for my cubicle - was to ask the IT guys if I could install Firefox. They said it wasn’t a problem, except that our corporate intranet/portal isn’t built for Firefox, so some features might be buggy. Eh, I thought - so I’ll use both: IE for intranet viewing only, Firefox for EVERYTHING else.

[Just so there's no confusion, I'm not a high-functioning computer geek (HFCG); I leave that distinction to people who do actual programming and engineering. Dude - I was an English major. The HFCGs are the people I call when I've tried (to the best of my ability) but can't figure out why the hell my redirect has turned into an infinite redirect, and when I realize that my limited knowledge of Linux commands (cd, mv, chmod, chkconfig, and, uh, exit) won't be enough to solve the problem at hand.]

Tonight I read about a cool new plugin for Firefox and thought, "Damn, there are lots of helpful ones." So here's my round-up of Firefox add-ons (or plugins or extensions - whatever you choose to call them) that I find really useful, handy or just nifty:

• Web Developer: If you’re a dabbler in web design, want to learn more about it or an intermediate user who sometimes sees a page with a really cool layout, tackling a problem you’ve been running into, or doing something that you totally want to jack and use on your own, the Web Developer plugin is invaluable. You can view the CSS for a page, but also highlight individual elements and see “how they did it” - like an amped up “view source.”- read more | install it
• AdBlock Plus: Right-click on a banner ad, choose “Adblock” from the menu and you never have to see it again. - read more | install it
• Forecastfox: If you (or a co-worker) ponder, “I wonder what the weather’s supposed to be like tomorrow…” you’ll have the answer right in your browser status bar. - read more | install it
• PDF Download: Checks if the page/file you’re about to open is a pdf. If so, it lets you choose whether you want to open it in your browser, download it or view as HTML. - read more | install it
• Greasemonkey: There are two ways of interacting with Greasemonkey - writing scripts for it or maintaining an ignorant stance and just running other people’s scripts. Essentially, Greasemonkey lets you adjust the way a webpage behaves and looks. There are over 11,000 user-created scripts out there. - read more | install it
• Google Preview: When you do a Google search, thumbnail images of the resulting pages will appear on your search results page - read more | install it
• URL Fixer: If you ever get sausage fingers when you’re typing too late or too fast, or suffer from that weird tic wherein you become incapable of typing without making tons of errors if someone’s watching you type, or if you just find yourself typing amazon.xom a lot… this is good. It will automatically correct “.con” to “.com”, and you can teach it to correct things that you do constantly and uniquely - esp. helpful if you visit a lot of non-US sites. - read more | install it
• Screengrab!: Sure, you can do the old Ctrl + PrtScn trick and then play in Photoshop or some other app, but this allows you to right-click on a webpage, and save either the entire page, the visible portion or a selection as a .jpg right there. The entire page feature is nice. - read more | install it
• Personas: This is the one I learned about today. It allows you to apply skins to Firefox (not to be confused with themes) without restarting the browser. You can skin Firefox with seasonal images (reindeer, snowflakes), sports images, or relaxing things like blades of grass or bamboo. It looks way cooler than I can make it sound. - read more | install it

So that’s my piece on Firefox and extensions/add-ons and how they make the internet a better place.