Review: Foxy Tunes

There are some extensions that I simply wonder how did I ever get along with out them? FoxyTunes is one of those extensions and by far the most used. Since I am always using WinAmp to listen to my music anytime I am using the computer (not just surfing the web), FoxyTunes makes things so much simpler. With FoxyTunes, you can control (right from the Firefox browser) virtually any music/media player including:

• WinAmp
• Real Player
• iTunes
• Windows Media Players
• Yahoo!Music Engine
• and many more (see the extension page for a complete listing)

Once installed and configured, FoxyTunes adds all the player controls on to the status bar (see picture below) or any toolbar. No more having to toggle away from Firefox to control your media player.

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From left to right, Artist Name & Song Title, FoxyTunes Main Menu, Previous Track, Play, Pause, Stop, Next Track, on hover on note button () displays: Artist Name, Song Title, track elapsed time & total track time, Play File, Show Player, Hide Player and Mute. Not shown: Volume Control.

When you click the search () button to left of the Artist Name & Song Title you get a search menu which will allow you to search (in a new tab) various sites for the artist, album and song. For example searching for artist you can choose Wikipedia, All Music Guide, Amazon, YouTube, eBay and more.

Foxy Tunes is around 516 KB and works with the following applications:

• Firefox 1.5.0.-2.0.0.X
• Mozilla 1.6-1.8
• SeaMonkey 1.0
• Thunderbird 1.5-3.0a1

Review: Download Statusbar

About six months ago I download this extension just to try it out. I had a friend raving about it, so I decided to try it out myself just to see. Now I can’t imagine using Firefox without it. Instead of having the Firefox download manger pop-up in it’s own window or tab this adds a “download statusbar” directly above your status bar.

During the download it will display a colored progress bar, the name of the file, amount download so far, estimated time and download speed. If you hover your mouse over the downloading file the tooltip will show you more details including where you are downloading the file from, the total size and the status including amount and percentage completed as well as transfer rate. Once the download is completed the status bar will change colors and right-clicking on the completed download will give you more options…

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When I am done viewing a file (such as PDF’s) that I don’t need to have sitting on my hard drive, all I have to do is right-click on the file(s) and select ‘Delete From System’. If I were to have used the Firefox’s Download Manager I would need to open the Download Manager, select the file, right-click and then select ‘Open Containing Folder’ which would then open Windows Explorer and then I could delete the file(s).

This extension has a lot of options (accessible via the add-ons manager) including choosing what information to display during the download, how and when downloads should be cleared, colors for downloading (you can even specify color display based on the transfer speed) and completed files as well as the size of each download (tab).

Download Statusbar works with Firefox 1.5.0.X and 2.0.0.X builds and is about 115 KB.

Fx 3 2007/02/20 Update

The Mozilla Developers have decided to break up the Wednesday Firefox 3 (Gran Paradiso)/Gecko 1.9 (Minefield) status meetings into to two separate meetings. This began last Tuesday (02/13) with Fx 3 meetings mvoing to Tuesdays at 11:00 AM PST and Gecko 1.9 meetings staying at the Wednesdays 11:00 AM PST slot. For those familiar with the meeting schedule, you may recall the Tuesday time slot use to be for the Bon Echo (Fx 2) Status meetings. I will continue to post weekly updates on the Fx 3 meetings and (if there is) anything of interest from the Gecko meeting.

Not much from today’s Firefox 3 Status Meeting. There was brief mention in regards to Places: “Still on track for turning on the bookmarks stuff for alpha3.” Also there appears to be some performance regressions with the current User Interface.

Info Source: Firefox3 Status Meeting

Firefox Extension Backup Extension

I was looking at the list of reviews at the Firefox Add-Ons Contest Squidoo Lens and noticed several I had not heard of before. Of course, this is that the purpose of the contest is to get more exposure to the extensions. An interesting one I found is called Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE).

This extension is great for testers such as myself who run multiple profiles or the casual Firefox user who has experienced the pain and heartache of dealing with a fried profile. I’ve said before the most difficult part of creating a new profile is not just the you lose all your bookmarks, preferences, saved passwords, etc. Nope, those are the easy parts to recover. However, the task of not only remembering all the extensions you have (currently I have 33), but finding and installing each individual extension is a major pain!

With FEBE can save yourself a lot of time and heartache. Further you can also synchronize multiple browsers (home and office) with the installable xpi files it creates. FEBE does all of this (either manually or automatically):

• Extensions
• Themes
• Bookmarks
• Preferences
• Passwords
• Cookies
• Your entire profile
• and more…

I had to stop my automatic profile back-ups I had talked about in the Backing-up your Fx Bookmarks & Profile post due to issues with X Drive. Keep in mind the back-up is stored on your hard drive in a location you specify. At this time it appears FEBE can not backup to a CD Drive. But since the extension does the bulk of the work locating all the needed files, it shouldn’t be too difficult to go in on your own and backup the backup directory to a CD-R, Tape Drive or web based backup service.

FEBE works with Firefox 1.5.0.X or 2.0.0.X for Windows XP (may work on older versions) and Linux. Windows Vista users see How To FEBE on Windows Vista. MAC user can try out (still in development) beta version 5. This extension is about 358 KB and once installed can be accessed via the FEBE option in the Tools menu.  It will also add an icon on the bottom left of your status bar.

Information Sources: Mouse Runner’s Firefox Guide & FEBE Add-on