The Best Things In Life Are Free
Like most people at Snark, I keep a blog. And like most people at Snark, I visit the sites of other people for what they have to say in their blog.
But like many people (and I am totally assuming this) I have a love of free stuff. Therefore, it is always a bonus to see that other people offer free stuff. Like Jem and her scripts.
It still amazes me that, on the internet, there is this whole idea of creating and sharing stuff for free. I’ve told people (who, unlike me, don’t spend every waking moment on the internet) about some of the things Wordpress, SimpleMachines and the GIMP can do, and the first thing they inevitiably ask is, “How much?”
It doesn’t occur to them that things might be free - and not because it has been illegally uploaded/downloaded. On the internet, it seems people like to make things… and then share them. Is it some sort of “pay it forward” mentality? Say, if I were to use mediashelf, instead of making something for Jenny, do I make a wordpress theme for Blogger X to download?
Or do we just do it because it’s fun?
Either way, I think I need to do more for my visitors’ page. I’ve made a whole bunch of stuff that I can just tweak and make available for download.
Five Firefox Addons
One of the things I love about Firefox is all the little addons you can, well, add on! Thus your browsing experience is made much more fun and easy, which makes for a very happy me. Although I do have others, I have listed five of my favourites below.
Web Developer Toolbar
This neat little toolbar allows you to adjust many different aspects of your browser with simple clicks - great for when you are building websites and the like. I can resize my browser, disable CSS, disable images, display all sorts of info, resize the browser window so it is the full size of an 800×600 monitor, and check whether the code of a page - local or online - is valid.
Firebug
The other great tool when it comes to coding, Firebug allows you to analyse different aspects of your page and see if your javascript is working (amongst other things). In “inspect” mode you can move your mouse over different parts of the website and it will show you what ID/class/whatever it is, and the CSS attached to it. And you can “edit” the page to see what it would look like if you make an adjustment (but without affecting the original code). Neato!
Stylish
Ever wished you could change something in the CSS of a website that’s not your own? Now you can with Stylish! Now, if only those silly twits who keep adjusting their font sizes to zero on the forums I visit would use it so all the text is tiny… just not for me.
Screengrab
This handy little addon can either save or copy the contents/a selection of what is in your browser window. Awesome!
Adblock Plus
It’s Adblock Plus - do I really need to explain why this addon is so cool?
So tell me, what are some of your favourite addons? I’m always willing to try more.
