Firefox Add-ons via kwout

In the post Why Use Firefox I stated:

There are thousands of add-ons to choose from and with over 30 add-ons on my system. This is perhaps one the most important personal reason to use Firefox-you can make it do exactly what you want or need it to do.

I also indicated that I would be writing about extensions and plugins in future posts and this presents a problem. Do I write about all 30+ extensions and 12 plugins I use or do I just try to provide and overview of some of the best extension or the “ones I couldn’t live without”.

In this post I will identity Dwayne’s Top Ten Firefox extensions and provide a list of the ten extension that I load up first when I rebuild my system or experiment with a new OS or computer.

• Diigo Bookmarks and Web Annotations – In addition to enabling you to save your bookmarks so that you can access them anywhere on the web, the system allows you to highlight, annotate and put sticky notes on pages that others can see.
• Greasmonkey – This user script manager allow me to use a variety of greasemonkey scripts that help me enhance the functionality of Google Gmail and Google Calendar and so much more.
• Integrated GMail – Gmail and Google apps are fundamental to the way that I work, so being able to view my Google Calendar (Reader, Notebook, Groups etc.) in a collapsible view directly below my gmail (rather than in a tabbed window) make Google apps even more efficient.
• Kwout on Firefox – Rather than just providing a link to a website in a blog post or web page Kwout allow you to cut out a snapshot of the page that can be easily embedded creating and instant visual and text based citation for your link–keeps the copyright police happy.
• DownloadHelper – This slick extension makes it possible to download youtube videos and many other formats of video from the web–I only do this when I will be presenting in a location where there is no guarantee of  broad band internet access.
• Google Gears – With Gear you can use Gmail, Google Doc and much more offline.
• Toodedo – My current web-based ToDo list manager.
• WOT – Web of Trust warns you about potential spyware embedded in a site.
• Linkbunch – Captures all your open browser tabs and creates a link.
• GTD Inbox – Even though Gmail’s latest implementation of Move to & Label make some of the GTD inbox features moot, this tool is still must have to enable you to use the Get Things Done principle to organize your gmail.
• PDF Dowload – Gives you the options of how you want to deal with a PDF – download, open view with an external viewer.

Educational Applications:

While only Diigo, Kwout, DownloadHelper, LinkBunch and PDF Download have direct instructional applications because they all help one to organize and present content from the web, all these above listed extensions contribute to making one more efficient.  Furthermore, these extensions provide the easiest way to do things which ultimately saves time–which is, to an instructor, the most important commodity.

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