Solo Technology

One of my favorite Opera features is the recently added Speed Dial. (I discussed this back in my Opera 9.20 article). I love that little thing and am still somewhat surprised at how much I use it.

Frankly, I’d prefer to use Opera for the majority of my browsing. I love the speed (to me it just feels so much faster) and memory footprint. However, every time I try to go “full time” with it, I find myself missing certain Firefox extensions.

That’s where I’m at yet again this week.

To be clear, these days, Firefox the browser doesn’t excite me so much. Oh sure, a few years back when it was the option for a windows user to rid himself of Internet Explorer I was a rabid fan. Now with the rest of the world adopting some of the core features (tabs and some security, anyone?) I don’t see so much to get excited about — except for the extensions.

The extensions are what the Firefox experience is really all about. So, as I once again limped back to Firefox as the primary driver, I wondered how I’d live without my Speed Dial.

I need not have worried: someone had already it for Firefox. Speed Dial 0.2.1 is available at the official Mozilla Add-ons site. I used that version for a few days, but was a bit disappointed. Sure, it worked, but one of the things I really liked about the Opera version was the fact that the thumbnails updated. I could go to the speed dial page, hit refresh and see if anything new showed up on all 9 pages.

The latest release of the Speed Dial for Firefox extension does that now too. (go to the author’s download page and look for speed dial 0.3.1 as of this writing). Much better. Nice little dialog to individually control each “dial” as well (see image below).

Anyone else using this extension — what do you think about the updated version?

12 Responses to “Firefox and Speed Dial”

1. Rich G. on June 5th, 2007 6:38 pm
   

   I have had firefox start crashing on me quite a bit lately, just poof! gone. NO clue why it’s doing it.
   So, I grabbed Opera and was reminded of how much I like the speed dial feature as well almost immediately. I found the hack to put the address bar over the tabs where it belongs and I’m good to go with it now… if only it will render all pages properly and not crash.
   Yes, the blush has gone off the firefox rose for me as well.

   BTW: I wish there were a “leave comment” link at the bottom of your posts. When I’ve read the whole thing it’s weird to have to scroll clear back up to the top.

2. Chris on June 5th, 2007 6:56 pm
   

   There are two things that I struggle with the most when using Opera:
   1) The WordPress wysiwyg editor is borked in many and varied ways

   2) I can’t function for long without the developer extensions

   BTW: I wish there were a “leave comment” link at the bottom of your posts. When I’ve read the whole thing it’s weird to have to scroll clear back up to the top.

   Ah, on the main page? Ok, I added a comment link at bottom too.

   Now maybe I should get rid of the one up top?

3. Rich G. on June 5th, 2007 7:07 pm
   

   Maybe add a pre-fix on the one on bottom?
   I wouldn’t know how, but surely one of your great skill could add a conditional comment.
   if comment count=0 then “Leave a Comment” shows.
   If comment count >0 then “Join in the conversation and check out the comments” could show.

   Or that too froo froo? Average feed reader knows that clicking 2 comments gets them to the Leave a comment section. Does the average web reader know that though?

4. Rich G. on June 5th, 2007 7:09 pm
   

   I bring all this up because I get e-mails that should have been in the comments, but they didn’t… and I wonder if it’s because they don’t now how, or don’t want to register. Obviously I’ve never asked lol. Yours is a more techy site though so you probably don’t run into that.

   What adwords are you using that “TrampSprings” is showing up on your adsense? Did I miss some posts?

5. Chris on June 5th, 2007 9:17 pm
   

   Rich - comments link at bottom of posts on front page look better?

   I dunno what trampsprings is, and I think I’m glad I didn’t see that ad pop up!

6. Chris on June 5th, 2007 9:18 pm
   

   Oh goodness… there’ the banner now, right below this comment field.

   Trampoline springs! That’s an interesting wrinkle on context ads, eh?

7. Rich G. on June 6th, 2007 5:15 am
   

   Start and Join, very nicely done. I knew you could do it hehehe.

8. Nathan on June 6th, 2007 9:14 am
   

   Very nice extension. Thanks for the recommendation.

9. Chris on June 6th, 2007 9:15 pm
   

   @Rich - thanks for the nudge. I kinda like it!

   @Nathan - Glad you liked it and thanks for stopping by.

10. » pingback » Saturday Speedlinks » Solo Technology on July 28th, 2007 1:55 pm
    
    
11. Aki on May 5th, 2008 8:36 am
    

    can some please help me backup the speed dial folder as i keep loosing my pages for speed dial to the default settings when system/firefox crashes..

    5 times and counting, currently i have disabled speed dial until i have a way of backing it up.

    thanks in advance

12. Chris on May 5th, 2008 9:16 am
    

    Aki - have you tried contacting the extension’s author?

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