Why you should upgrade to Firefox 3.5

by Dan Perlman on July 2, 2009

in Updates, browsers

firefox-down-logo

We started writing Enquiring Mimes just over a year ago and one of our first entries was intended to convince you to start using the Firefox browser. Mozilla had, amidst great hoopla,  just released Firefox 3.

We gave you a number of reasons to switch if you were still using MS Internet Explorer — they’re probably still true today, but the landscape changed.  There are now two other competitive web browsers, Google Chrome and Apple Safari, both very fast and by comparison their speed made Firefox 3 seem very slow.

Our story has a happy ending. Firefox 3.5, a major release, has been sent out into the world and once again, Firefox is great.  They replaced the Java engine and it’s now as fast as the other guys and there’s a lot to like.  It’s nice to come home to Firefox without sacrificing speed and there are more great plug-ins than ever.

Here’s the top five best features of Firefox 3.5

  • Fast – according to betanews.com, Firefox 3,5 is 251% faster than Firefox 3.
  • Location-aware browsing – if you let it, Firefox can figure out where you are and give location information to sites you’ve approved providing you a more local experience.
  • Support for new web technology -  This will be a benefit in the future as sites begin to use the new features like downloadable fonts
  • Better handling of tabs and windows – easier recovery of mistakenly closed tabs and windows.
  • Private browsing – Firefox will keep no records of your browsing if you head for the wrong side of the tubes.

Here was our list from last year for Firefox 3: (all still true, “great performance” has been regained)

  • Secure
  • Great performance
  • Smart URL bar learns how you browse
  • Smart bookmarks
  • Smarter “Remembered Password” handling
  • Good security and malware protection
  • Use it on Windows, Mac and Linux

Download Firefox 3.5.

Firefox browser speed comparison

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How to connect Google Reader and Evernote

by Dan Perlman on June 29, 2009

in How To, Productivity, evernote

Google Reader, Google’s free online RSS reader is how I keep up with hundreds of websites and Evernote, my “ubiquitous capture” has become the repository of everything I want to do, read and have done.

I use them both every day, but I’ve never been happy about how I get articles I want to save from Google Reader into Evernote.  My solutions have been either pulling up the actual web page from Google reader and then clipping either text or the entire article from the page or trying to highlight text within the reader and clipping it directly to Evernote, both seemed awkward.

The answer is simple.  While in Google Reader you can send articles via email and every Evernote account has it’s own email address that allows Evernote to capture emails that you wish to keep. So I’ve  started happily reading article in Google Reader and then emailing them to my Evernote account. Very simple and very cool.  The command for emailing from Google Reader is letter “e”.

Me? Kind of slow, but eventually I figured it out.

evernote-email

Your Evernote email address found on Settings Tab of Evernote website

greader-email

Entering “E” while reading articles in Google Reader opens an email form, just enter your Evernote email address and send.

Oh, yeah and if the term “Ubiquitous Capture “  sounds overly pompous, it’s from David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology for the place where you can trust that you can put everything important that needs to get done — it can be a notebook.

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Aviary adds cool screen capture and image markup to free online suite

by Dan Perlman on June 29, 2009

in Productivity, web services

aviary-logoAviary, the folks that already have a powerful free suite of online graphic tools, has added very fast screen capture and online image markup tools.

The new tools are Falcon and Talon – Talon is a Firefox browser plugin for capturing images, and Falcon is the image markup tool that lets you add shapes, lines, arrows and crop, resize and flip images.  If you’re not using Firefox, you can open Talon by either using an image from  your computer or take one from the web.  If you want to capture an entire web page just put aviary.com before the web page’s URL and the entire web page is scraped into Falcon.

Aviary’s claim of being fast was well justified in our testing.  After clipping an image with the Talon extension, it immediately opened in Falcon for editing.  You can also store the image directly on your desktop or host it on their servers.

aviary-falcon

It’s a very slick tool and can be useful if you want to capture images from the web and then either scale the image or markup it up for clarification.  I normally use and like Snagit, a $49.95 screen capture and manipulation tool, but for simple captures in the future, I expect to be using Falcon.  The plugin for capture is  especially useful if Firefox is one of the browsers you use.

The other tools in the Aviary suite include an image editor, a color editor, an effects editor and a vector editor.

Visit aviary.com to try it out.

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Planning Vacations via Social Networks: How I’d Plan Mine

06.26.2009 Life skills

I don’t think there is a vacation in our plans for this family of  Mimes this summer, at least not until the Fall – but if we were planning one this is what I’d do.  I’d go see a couple of my favorite friends, who I’ve never met, at least not in person.
Living my life [...]

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Take your dog to work day? They need a special day to do that?

06.26.2009 Non-productivity

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day.  It’s been happening as an annual event since 1999.  Unfortunately, in my experience, too many office buildings bar bringing pets to work, to make it a common occurrence.  Of course at the offices of Enquiring Mimes everyday is take your dog to work and for that matter, [...]

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You do know what a browser is, don’t you?

06.23.2009 browsers

I went on and on about web browsers last week. I wrote about the different ones and how there was a new browser war underway. Did you follow me?
The reason I ask, is Google sent a team into Times Square in NYC to ask about browsers and found that only 8% of the [...]

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Maybe paying attention isn’t such a big deal afterall

06.23.2009 Life skills

Image by Miss ???q?? ? <3 via Flickr

This post is going to be short and sweet but your mind will still wander off while you’re reading. And that’s okay it seems.
Here’s the scoop on a new study that says that a certain amount of zoning out while you’re trying to concentrate is not just [...]

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Father’s Day Update – Blog Style

06.22.2009 Off-topic

I got to do Father’s Day again yesterday.  That was the 2d one for me as Jake nears his 2d birthday.  Some of my presents came by way of blog posts since both “kids” blog — that’s Jake and Kaley corgi.
Here’s a preview if you’re looking for the inside story.
So what i am saying, is, [...]

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