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Post in forums a lot? BBCode is for you
Came across another neat Firefox extension: BBCode. BBCode adds a list of menu choices to the right-click context menu, allowing you to quickly add BBCode (explained in the phpBB BBCode guide) to your posts (actually, the BBCode context menu appears in all textual input fields).
One of the simplest of things it does is allow you to quickly bold, italicize, or format selected text. Just select "Bold" (or whatever formatting option you wish to use) from the context menu (right-click):
Bam! Your selected text is formatted:
Changing the color of the text also works as in most places, popping up a JavaScript dialog:
But what's a real keeper, is what's found under the "Clipboard" sub-menu. With this, you can copy a piece of text you want to quote, or a URL to an image/webpage, and then have it formatted as quoted text, or as an URL in BBCode. If you post in BBCode, you'll know how much of a hassle this can sometimes grow to be.
With "https://chuyeow.wtf/" in my clipboard, BBCode formats it nicely so that I don't have to.
Excellent work by Jed Brown, who also recently wrote GMailCompose, which is another context menu extension that allows you to compose a reply in GMail when clicking on mailto: links.
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Mozilla Foundation to lead open plugin initiative
The Mozilla Foundation just announced a new open browser plugin API effort that will also consist of players like Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems. The plugin API will be based off Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface (NPAPI), which is what Mozilla browsers (including Firefox) use at the moment, and will be released under an open source license. Notice how Microsoft isn't (yet?) involved - I wonder if they'd consider this a threat (which I hope not, because it's a very smart initiative that saves everyone from doing double work trying to make their plugins cross-platform and cross-browser).
Don't confuse these plugins with extensions though - these plugins are things like the Flash plugin that allows you to play Flash and Shockwave files in your browser, and the Java plugin that lets you load applets. Maybe we'll finally have a Java plugin that isn't so iffy.
Check out the Mozilla Plugins project if you're interested in the technical details.
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Critique my employer's website, please
A little background: I work for muvee Technologies as a web developer. Much of what you see there isn't my work though, since I'm only 3 weeks old in the company.
I'm coming up with a list of things to improve with regards to the website, in terms of making it persuasive and consequently generating more sales. Of course, things like layout, accessibility, design and look and feel are important as well, but secondary for this evaluation. Truth be told, this is something my boss asked me to look at, because I've a pair of fresh eyes undeadened by years of working on the same old (same old) pages.
Nope, I'm not going to be try and get away with hoping that everyone here will generate enough ideas for me to present to my boss. I have my own list and I'm coming up with more stuff (gradually), but I thought that while I had your attention, I might as well see what other minds can come up with and if they are so discordant from mine.
So there, if you could help me evaluate and recommend things that can be changed/improved, I'd be grateful to you, dear mister or missus reader. Focus on how the site could be more persuasive to prospective buyers, or conducive to buyers (transactors). Recommendations on design, layout, accessibility are also welcome, but secondary (I expect plenty of these, nevertheless).
I don't have Gmail invites now, but I promise you I'll send one over if you help me out. Those already with Gmail will instead receive my gratitude (really - a favor is worth something nowadays, right?)
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Top 10 referrers
In the spirit of http://weblog.wlkr.net/archives/000182.html:
Referrer Visits http://gemal.dk/mozilla/blogupdates.html 983 http://feedhouse.mozillazine.org 812 http://www.javablogs.com/Welcome.action 569 http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm 440 http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2004/Jun/09/firefox_09_tour.html 414 http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs_display 294 http://www.thauvin.net/linkblog/ 257 http://gemal.dk/mozilla/blogupdates-beta.html 229 http://animetopia.com/search.php 215 http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php 180 And yes, a table is entirely appropriate.
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FoxAmp Firefox extension integrates Winamp into browser
More and more cool Mozilla Firefox extensions seem to be popping up nowadays. FoxAmp is a Firefox extension that integrates (to an extent) Winamp into the Firefox browser. It adds several buttons into your statusbar, allowing you to play, stop, pause, and change tracks.
There isn't any indication of which track is being played (umm, beyond listening and recognizing it with your sense of hearing, that is), which I got around with the Lounge skin that I'm currently using (it displays a small window for a short while indicating the track name when a new track is played).
Still, a very cool tool added to my list of favorite extensions.
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