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This is part 3 of my Mozilla coverage and I wanted to discuss one particularly odd, yet incredibly useful addon/application.  This one is by far the most useful of the ones I’ve reviewed so far and let me tell ya, my uses for it just keep growing by the day.  The name of this wonderful creation is Prism and here’s where it’s hiding.

What does it do?  Well, in a nutshell, prism is capable of taking a web page you’re viewing and turns it into an independent application with it’s own set of independent passwords and such.  So let’s say you have multiple twitter accounts, and logging in/out is a pain.  All you do is visit twitter.com, turn the page into it’s own application.  What will then happen is you’ll have the choice to select where you want it added and what you want to name it amongst other features.  You would then select let’s say… “desktop” and call it “Twitter Account 1″.

From there, you would look to your desktop and see there now an icon for “Twitter Account 1″.  Double click on the icon and it’ll open a single browser window to the twitter home page. Simply login, tell it to save your pass/user and remember you.  Now close it.  Go back to your FireFox browser and add another to your desktop calling it “Twitter Account 2″.  Repeat the steps of opening, saving passwords etc…

Now, you have 2 icons on your desktop, which can both be run simultaneously, displaying both of your twitter home pages and logging you in automatically each time.  You can use this for anything…. including your ATS, CRM, Web calendars, Emails, etc…  Yes, tabs are great, but when it’s something specific you want, you can add that icon/app to any of your shortcut bars like quicklaunch, rocketdock, start menu, etc…  and it’s 1 click to login to whatever place you want w/o having to mess w/ tabs.  Then just use alt+tab to switch between and you’re golden!  I highly advise checking this app out, it’s just…  too good not to!

Here’s the link for the addon download.  You can also chose to install it as a stand alone application which in and of itself is pretty cool…

Mozilla Prism Download site

Cheers^^

In continuation with my series of recommendations for Mozilla tools, thought I’d follow up with one I’ve really quite come to enjoy.  It’s called Snowl and it’s essentially a media/news aggregate addon built into FireFox.  Snowl has been out for a little over 2 years I guess and it seems like something you’d give up on…  but they haven’t, and neither have I.

With so many of these out there, you might wonder why it is that I’m enjoying this so much…  well, the short answer is…  LAYOUT LAYOUT LAYOUT.  Yes, I have Seesmic and Tweetdeck, and belong to every Twitter/Feed tool out there… but this one… something about it.

You can download SnOwl here.

It’s not something for everyone, and it’s still in beta, but it’s pretty cool.  I have the people I read on a regular separated by blog and tweet, and while i’m surfing the web, i can keep an eye on anything coming from them.  The breakdown is really sweet, and you can use it as side or top bar function.  You can also use their “River” of news which is a play on “stream” I guess which is kind of unique. It’s almost like reading your content in a newspaper format.  Kind of like if it were all spread out on large sheets of paper and you can flip pages, sort by subscription, or look at the mass group of all.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the best solution right now, but it beats having to constantly visit the twitter home page, or open my deck or seesmic everytime i want to see something going on.  The biggest downfall about it is the ability to send back.  you can’t just click for auto-reply or dm…  you have to type the persons name in when you want to send… I think anyway, haven’t found any other way to do it.  But it’s a time saver when it comes to app switching and just reading and keeping up on your core content.

Give it a shot, let me know what you think^^

Cheers^^

Today I’d like to recommend the addon:  Hyperwords.  It’s fricken great.  A real time saver, just… watch the video!

Install Hyperwords

Ok… change the topic for a moment.  I want to talk about Facebook.com for a moment.  Since overhauling their site, it’s nearly impossible to navigate.  Not sure why, or who authorized this change, but I for one don’t like it.

Fortunately… there was a little application released called “Advanced Search 2.0″.  Now, it’s not a great application by any sense for searching people.  It’ss kind of only limited to the people who actually use the application.

What it DOES do very well is search for groups.  Groups which allow you to post your reqs in… groups which allow you to mine for new candidates..  groups where you can get referrals.

TRY IT, USE IT, LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!

Oh and uh…  here’s a link.  not sure if it’ll work or not… I couldn’t find my way back to the app page…

Advanced Search 2.0 Beta

Cheers^^

For my add-on of the day I’m going to run w/ one that I couldn’t live without anymore.  It’s called “Mouse Gestures”, and it’s a little funny to get used to, but once you’ve got the hang of it, it becomes an essential. The idea behind mouse gestures is that you’re able to control what FireFox does by moving the mouse in a specific pattern and using the mouse buttons during. It comes w/ a ton of pre-written gestures, but also gives you the ability to write your own and map them to a bunch of different options.

My personal favorites are going forward, backward, opening new tabs, and linking it up to MacroExpress for more complicated procedures.  Give it a whirl, it’s a lot of fun, just have to use it, play w/ the settings a touch, and I’m sure that after only a week or so, you’ll find yourself unable to go on without it.

Mouse Gestures Download

Cheers^^