Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog

The Guru is finally having a chance to dig through his Contact Us mailbox. After shoveling out a thick layer of the spam messages, I came across a message from Richard Kershaw, developer of The Domain Lookup Extension. This neat little extension that will allow you to see if a domain name based on the highlighted text is available. Once installed Domain Lookup add-on will add a ‘Domain Lookup for…’ option to the context (right-click) menu. There is also suppose to be a short cut key (CTRL+SHIFT+D) but that does not seem to work as Firefox keeps asking me where I want to Bookmark on all my tabs. I will have to drop a note to the developer about this issue.

Options are plenty with this add-on. You can select your favorite Registrar, which TLD (extensions) you wish to search, define the short-cut key and opt-out of anonymous usage statistics. You can also do a manual update on the domain registrar details.

Being in the domain name business, I can see the usefulness of this add-on. The casual domain buyers may not have much use for this add-on, but for the power-buyers (those who call up and ask me for my e-mail address so they can send a list of a couple hundred domain names they want to register) could find this very useful. I would suggest adding .TV, .MOBI and .ASIA to the list of TLDs and may be the .NAME or .WS, not that I have seen many of those registered. Users can contact the developer via a link on the site to suggest additional registrars and/or TLD’s. Domain Lookup is 23 KB and NOT available via AMO. To download this add-on, you will need to go directly to the developer site.

There has been one feature lacking in Firefox for some time now, the ability to ‘run’ or ‘open’ a downloaded file. The main difference is this file is downloaded to a temporary folder (where it will eventually be deleted) and immediately ran. Firefox allows you to download the file (to your default downloads folder or the folder of your choice) then you have the option to open/run the file. The OpenDownload add-on gives you the functionality like you would fine in Internet Explorer. Depending on what type of file you are downloading you will be presented with one of two download windows:

Downloading the Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 Application (.exe file).

Downloading the Update Channel Selector add-on for Thunderbird (.xpi file).

OpenDownload is about 16 KB and can be download here.

Tip Source: CyberNet News

More and more I find myself ordering products and services online. Almost every online retailer has a place for ‘promo code’ or ‘coupon codes. You could hunt around on Google for coupon codes only to discovered they have expired or are no longer supported. RetailMeNot.com claims to be the world’s largest coupon source with some 13,000 stores. What I really like about RetailMeNot is the coupon success ratings based on feedback from community members.

The way the extension work is quite simple. When you go to a website of one of the over 13,00 stores in the RetailMeNot database, Firefox will display an alert at the top of your browser window. This alert will inform you there are coupon code(s) avaialble for this retailer and will display the top coupon. There is a ‘View Coupons’ button on the right side which will open a new tab with that retailer’s coupon page on RetailMeNot.

The add-on only had two options, disable the alerts or update database. Also it tracks which sites you have already visited and will only display the alert the first time you have visited that site (during that browsing session).

RetailMeNot add-on is about 17 KB and get be download here.

Here is the second new Get a Mac commercials just released. Yoga, PC trying to relax from all the stressed caused by Vista, takes up Yoga. I thought this commercial was the better of two, especially with the unexpected twist…

Here is one of two new Get a Mac commercials just release. Breakthrough, PC has a major breakthrough while in group therapy with Mac. This is an okay commercial, but still not good as they use to be.

It was in late June 2007 when I saw the ‘other’ marketing Video for The Big Ass Table, otherwise known as Microsoft Surface. Microsoft has announced beginning April 17th, select (Atlanta, San Antonio, San Fransisco and New York City) AT&T wireless stores will get the tables. More stores will be added, but only within the these four markets come May.

The big U.S. wireless provider says its retail customers will be able to place specific mobile phones on Surface’s 30-inch screen to learn about features, accessories and rate plans. They also will be able to compare two phones at a time, and use their hands to navigate a high-tech wireless coverage map.

In May 2007, CyberNet News mentioned the tabletop computer would appear in hotels like Starwood, restaurants, retail locations like T-Mobile, and casino resorts like Harrah’s. Like many things Microsoft, this didn’t quite go as planned.

AT&T wasn’t among the original customers announced by Microsoft, and it initially won’t be tapping the full promise of the Surface machines. For example, customers won’t be able to finish their mobile-phone purchases on the tabletop computer. Microsoft’s prototype applications were more complex — showing, for example, how people could drag digital icons across the tabletop to order food and later split the bill at a restaurant.

I had mentioned earlier about the “other” marketing video for Microsoft Surface, here is the original one from the Microsoft Surface site.

New Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

The last Beta milestone, Beta 5 was released today. Only a few days later than the original March 27th date. The release had been delayed due to Bug 424719 as mentioned in the Firefox 3 Beta 5 Delayed post.

You can download Firefox 3 Beta 5 from the Firefox beta page.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Release Notes

News Sources:

mozillaZine
Mozilla Developers News