GigaOM » Collaboration

Gui:Config makes tweaking Firefox advanced settings a snap

Simon Mackie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:03:51 +0000

Firefox is a very customizable browser. As well as add-ons, it has a large number of advanced settings that you can tweak, some of which enable you to do pretty useful things like stopping Firefox from switching into “Work Offline” mode if your Internet connection drops. Firefox’s advanced preferences page is accessed by entering “about:config” into the location bar and hitting return. However, the problem with that page is that there’s no information about what each setting actually does, and the user interface isn’t easy to figure out for less technical folks, either. Gui:Config is an add-on that provides a simple interface for many of the most-tweaked about:config settings via a familiar options-style window. It makes it much easier to change the settings that can normally only be found in the about:config screen.

Once installed, you can access Gui:Config via Tools > Advanced Settings … The options are organized under two tabs: Accessibility and Browser. Under Accessibility, you have settings for Mouse Behavior, Awesomebar, Websites, Session Restore and Miscellaneous. Under Browser you get settings for Browser Cache, Websites, Extensions, Bookmarks and Security and Privacy. Each setting is adjusted via checkboxes and drop-down menus. Helpfully, hovering your mouse pointer over any of the options provides a short description of what it does in a pane at the bottom of the window.

The organization of Gui:Config’s options window may take a little while to get used to, and it doesn’t provide access to all of Firefox’s advanced settings, but it does make tweaking many commonly-used settings really easy. If you need to adjust any other settings, you can still get to the regular about:config page.

Gui:Config can be downloaded from the Firefox add-ons repository. It’s compatible with Firefox version 3.5 to 5.

(via Ghacks)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Chrome breaks 20 percent global browser market share

Simon Mackie — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:59:59 +0000

Google’s Chrome browser is continuing to grow in popularity. According to StatCounter, a website analytics company, Chrome is now used by a fifth of Internet users worldwide, taking 20.7 percent of the global browser market in June, up from just 2.8 percent in June 2009. In the same two-year period, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer share has fallen from 59 to 44 percent, and Mozilla’s Firefox also dropped slightly, from 30 to 28 percent.

That’s an impressive result for Google’s WebKit-based browser, which was only released in December 2008. One of the reasons Chrome originally gained so much traction, apart from its novelty, was its clean design, blisteringly fast V8 JavaScript engine and support for newer web standards, which, when Chrome was released, meant it ran complex web applications, like Gmail and Google Docs, much faster than the crop of browsers that existed at the time. Its release forced the other browsers vendors to catch up, even Microsoft, sparking a new round of browser wars. This resulted in an across-the-board improvement of browsers that’s not only good news for users, it’s good for Google, too, as the company wants to make using its web apps feel as close to a desktop experience as possible.

Note: Browser market share statistics should always be viewed with a healthy slice of skepticism, as they can be skewed depending on where the data is collected from. StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the U.S.) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites, but it should be pointed out that Net Applications, for example, reports Chrome’s marketshare at 12.5 percent in May.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How to back up your Firefox about:config settings

Simon Mackie — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:58:05 +0000

Firefox is a very customizable browser. As well as add-ons, it has a vast number of advanced settings you can adjust via a special “about:config” page, which enable you to do all kinds of useful things, such as stopping the browser from switching into “Work Offline” mode if your Internet connection drops. But what happens if you’ve spent ages tweaking those settings to customize your browser perfectly, only to have to re-install it due to a hard drive crash, or you want to install Firefox on another machine with the same settings? A backup would be very handy.

Firefox stores your about:config settings in a file called prefs.js, which is kept in your profile directory. So to back it up, all you need to do is find your prefs.js file (on my Mac, my profile directory is stored in /Users/simon/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles, while on Windows it’s in \Users\Simon\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\) and copy it to a safe location (Dropbox account, USB stick, etc.). Then if you ever need to reinstall Firefox, you can simply overwrite the prefs.js file in the profile directory with your backup. Restart Firefox and your settings will be restored.

If you want to backup both add-ons and preferences, there are add-ons that can help, such as the Firefox Environment Backup Extension (FEBE), which can back up extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies and more. You can also use Firefox’s built-in Sync tool or MozBackup (a third-party Windows app) to back up profile data, as I detailed in this post.

(Note: Be careful when fiddling with Firefox’s about:config settings. If you want to know what each setting actually does — and some of the descriptions are quite arcane — you may want to install the What’s That Preference add-on that I’ve written about previously).

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Quick Tip: How to Use QuickFox Notes With Google Docs

Simon Mackie — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:04:00 +0000

QuickFox Notes is a great little note-taking add-on for Firefox, packed with an array of features. Its notes can be synced between different machines, and it also works with Simplenote. But by using an extension, you can modify QuickFox Notes to save notes to Google Docs.

Installing an extension to QuickFox Notes is not quite as straightforward as installing a browser add-on. You’ll firstly need to download the extension script, which is found here (right-click, and save it as a .js file). To install the script, open QuickFox Notes and then click on Tools->Add-ons->Open add-ons folder, then move the .js file you downloaded into that folder. You’ll need to restart QuickFox Notes for the change to take effect.

Once restarted, you’ll find that you now have an extra button in your QuickFox Notes window for uploading the note to Google Docs, as shown in the screenshot above. Hitting that button will pop up a window asking for your username and password before saving the note to Google Docs. Note that notes are only saved to Google Docs — this extension does not provide a two-way sync.

(Via Addictive Tips)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Google Apps to Drop Support for Older Browsers

Simon Mackie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:22:54 +0000

In a blog post, Google has announced that it will soon discontinue support for older browsers in Google Apps. Beginning Aug. 1, Google Apps will only officially support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, on a rolling basis. So after Aug. 1, Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3 will no longer be supported. Certain features may stop working in those browsers (and in previous versions), and eventually, Google Apps may stop working entirely. Each time a new browser version is released, Google will begin supporting that update, and then stop supporting the third-oldest version.

As Google’s Venkat Panchapakesan noted in his post, Google Apps takes advantage of the newer technologies supported by more recent browsers, such as HTML5, to power some of its advanced features, like drag-and-drop file uploads. Maintaining support for older browsers that don’t include these newer technologies, or only have partial implementation, means not being able to implement certain features, or having to invest considerable engineering efforts to produce workarounds in order to implement them. As more vendors come to rely on the capabilities and power offered by HTML5 and related technologies to produce web apps that can match the power and functionality offered by desktop applications, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more web apps going down this route.

It’s probably not a decision Google took lightly, as this change will affect a significant number of Google Apps users. Taking a look at WebWorkerDaily’s stats, for example, shows that a small percentage of users do continue to use the older browser versions affected. However, as Google will simply stop testing new features and bug fixes in unsupported browsers, it’s unlikely that affected users will see any serious degradation in functionality for some time.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

What’s That Preference? Get the Lowdown on Firefox’s about:config Preferences

Simon Mackie — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:02:13 +0000

One of the great things about Firefox is that it’s a very customizable browser. As well as add-ons, it has a vast number of advanced settings that you can tweak, some of which enable you to do useful things like stopping Firefox from switching into “Work Offline” mode if your Internet connection drops.

Firefox’s advanced preferences page is accessed by entering “about:config” into the location bar and hitting return. If you look at that page, you’ll see a very long list of settings, mostly with hard-to-decipher names. Unfortunately there’s no built-in documentation to tell you what each setting actually does, and whether changing it might break your browser in some way. What’s That Preference? is a handy add-on that enables you to quickly look up any preference on the MozillaZine knowledge base.

Once installed, What’s That Preference? adds a new “MozillaZine Reference” option to your about:config context (right-click) menu, as shown in the screenshot above. Hitting that takes you to the setting’s entry on the MozillaZine knowledge base, complete with a description, its possible values, and any associated caveats:

Of course, the MozillaZine description may still prove fairly tricky to figure out (and in a small number of cases the documentation is non-existent), and the add-on doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t achieve with a manual search of the knowledge base yourself. But it does make the process considerably faster, which makes for much easier (and probably safer) browser tinkering.

What’s That Preference? works with Firefox 4 and later; you can download it here.

(Via ghacks)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Trails, a Firefox Add-On to Help With Research

Simon Mackie — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:03:18 +0000

As part of my efforts to improve my productivity, I’ve been looking for tools that can help me during research. One such tool is The Cafe Society’s Trails, a useful Firefox add-on that can collect and edit text snippets and images from the web, and structure them into a clean booklet layout that you can then easily share with others.

Once installed, Trails stores the text and images that you clip onto pages that it calls “spreads.” These are viewable in a sidebar (via View->Sidebar->Trails or a keyboard shortcut). You can create as many spreads in your booklet as you like, and they can be can be set up as one-, two- or three-column pages.

Adding content to your booklet is done via some new Firefox context menu items: As you’re browsing, highlight some text or select an image and right-click to select to add it to your booklet. Before text is added to the spread, it pops up in a window giving you the opportunity to edit it. Content can be deleted and edited after insertion on the page, too. Trails automatically puts the URL a particular snippet or text or image came from below each piece of content on the page, as well as recording the time and date that it was clipped on.

Once your booklet is complete, it can be printed, exported in PDF format or published to the Trails Public Library online.

As a note-taking tool, Trails is nowhere as powerful and flexible as more full-featured, multi-user solutions like Evernote or OneNote. However, it does fit seamlessly into a Firefox-based workflow, and as the booklets that it creates are nicely-formatted and can be exported as a PDF, it makes for a very easy way to share well-presented research with colleagues or clients.

Trails can be downloaded from the Mozilla Add-Ons repository.

(via ghacks)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Faster Firefox Searches Using Drag & DropZones

Simon Mackie — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:00:27 +0000

If you tend to use a few different search engines, check out Drag & DropZones, a nifty Firefox add-on that makes searching for snippets of text in a variety of search engines a snap. It works by dividing the browser window up into a series of “dropzones;” one for each search engine that you use. Grab some text and start to drag it with your mouse; the dropzones will appear. Drop the text a zone and the appropriate search will be performed in a new tab.

Out of the box, Drag & DropZones is automatically set up with your current set of search engines, but you can customize it by repositioning the dropzones, changing the grid size and coloring the zones, as well as altering its behavior, like whether Drag & DropZones activates when dragging images and links.

Drag & DropZones can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox Add-Ons Gallery. It works with Firefox 2 and later (including Firefox 4).

(via Ghacks)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Firefox Feeling Sluggish? Disable Your Add-Ons

Simon Mackie — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:00:32 +0000

Firefox 4 included an update to its JavaScript engine, which made for some serious performance gains. Now Mozilla is going after another cause of sluggishness: slow start-up times caused by add-ons. If your install of Firefox feels slow to start up, you may want to try disabling some add-ons. According to Mozilla, on average, each add-on a user has installed adds 10 percent to Firefox’s start-up time. But that’s only for the average extension; some add-ons have a much worse start-up time impact than others.

To encourage add-on developers to consider this performance hit and optimize their add-ons, Mozilla has started testing the 100 most popular Firefox add-ons and releasing a weekly-updated list of their impact on browser start-up time. Here is a “rogue’s gallery” of the 10 add-ons with the worst impact on start-up time:

The two worst-performing add-ons in the list, FoxLingo and Firebug, add a whopping 76 percent each to Firefox’s start-up time.

As well as publishing the slow add-ons list, Mozilla will also be adding warnings to the Add-On Gallery listing of any add-on that slows Firefox’s start-up time by 25 percent or more. The Mozilla effort to improve add-on performance is not just about “naming and shaming” poor performing add-ons, though, Mozilla is also providing assistance to developers to optimize add-ons by updating its performance best practices documentation, and by releasing tools to help developers test their products.

The availability of a wide range of useful extensions is one of the reasons I use Firefox; I compiled a list of my favorites here. But Mozilla’s testing data shows that it’s good idea to regularly review the add-ons you have installed and disable those you no longer or rarely use, particularly if they appear on the list of the worst offenders above. Disabling an add-on stops Firefox from loading it, so it will no longer affect start-up time, but keeps the add-on in your add-on manager list so it can be re-enabled when you need it. Firebug, for example, is a really useful debugging tool, but I only use it very occasionally, so from now on I’m going to keep it disabled.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Photo Monkey

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

11 Must-Have Add-Ons for Firefox 4

Simon Mackie — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:00:30 +0000

One of the best things about Firefox is the huge number of useful add-ons that can be downloaded for it, enabling users to customize the browser to their needs. Some time ago, we put together an official WWD add-ons collection for Firefox, gathering together our favorite add-ons at the time. The speedy Firefox 4 was released this week and some of you may be giving it a try, so I thought I’d update the collection. I’ve removed those add-ons from the list that are now redundant or incompatible with Firefox 4, and added a couple of newer favorites:

Adblock Plus. Gets rid of annoying adverts and auto-playing videos. You can subscribe to filter subscriptions in dozens of languages which can automatically configure it for purposes ranging from removing online advertising to blocking all known malware domains.
Better Gmail 2. Gina Trapani’s extension adds a bunch of useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons and more.
Download Statusbar. View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar, without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.
Gmail Manager. A Gmail notifier for multiple accounts; it allows you to receive new mail notifications, along with the ability to view account details.
LastPass Password Manager. A free online password manager and form filler that makes your web browsing more secure.
Greasemonkey. Allows you to customize the way a web page displays or behaves, by using small bits of JavaScript. You can write your own scripts, or download one from the hundreds available at http://userscripts.org.
Read It Later. Save pages to read later with a click, then when you have time, access your reading list from any computer or phone, even offline.
Shareaholic. This add-on provides an easy way to share interesting links using Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Bit.ly, StumbleUpon, and more.
After the Deadline. After the Deadline is an intelligent grammar, style and spell checker. It works with most web sites.
Web Developer. Even if you’re not a web developer, this extension offers a raft of useful features: manage cookies, change up styles with CSS, adjust form options and much more.
Awesome Screenshot. Diigo’s handy screenshot tool lets you capture the whole web page or any portion, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, blur sensitive info, and then share the output.

What are your favorite Firefox add-ons?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How to Back Up Your Firefox 4 Profile Data

Simon Mackie — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:00:18 +0000

If you’re busy playing with your fresh download of the new Firefox 4, you might not have put much thought into how you’ll back up your profile data, such as history, passwords and bookmarks. But you probably should — we’re all spending much more time working on our browsers and storing more useful data in our profiles. Fortunately, there are a couple of options that make backing up your Firefox 4 profile data really easy.

Firefox Sync

Firefox 4 includes a new, built-in tool called Sync that can save (most of) your profile data to a server. Just go to “Set Up Sync” and create an account. Firefox will automatically back up bookmarks, passwords, preferences, history and tabs to the Firefox Sync server. You’ll need to keep a note of the Sync Key, as that’s used to encrypt the data that’s sent to the server and you won’t be able to re-sync/restore the data without it.

MozBackup

MozBackup is a freeware Windows app (it’s unfortunately not available for the Mac) that can back up profile data from Firefox and Thunderbird. It can save and restore a more complete version of your profile than Firefox Sync, including your browser cache, cookies, certificates and extensions. The latest developer version of the app, MozBackup 1.5 beta, is compatible with Firefox 4 (although the developer promised that the final version would be released before Firefox 4, it’s not available yet). It’s very simple to use: close Firefox, start up MozBackup, select the details you’d like to back up from your profile and where you’d like to save it, and (optionally) provide a password to protect the file. Restoring the profile is just as straightforward.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Are You Ready for IE9 and Firefox 4?

Charles Hamilton — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:00:01 +0000

I always hold my breath when I install a new web browser, as I never know what might break. New browsers are always a headache for my web development company, but even if you don’t develop sites yourself, I’m sure you have significant web presences.

Last week, Internet Explorer 9 was released, and while Firefox 4 is due to be officially launched today, you can already download it from the Mozilla FTP site (UPDATED: it’s now launched, and you can download it from Mozilla). Luckily, so far, we haven’t seen any major issues with the new browsers, but there have been reports that some widely-used tools will need to be updated.

With that in mind, here is a short list of tests you’ll want to make when a new browser becomes available.

Test your website(s). Make sure layout and interactive functions operate correctly, including content management systems, contact and feedback forms, styles and links.
Test your collaboration tools. Web-based project management, screen sharing, conferencing and collaboration services should be updating themselves continuously, but you should check your intranet and any tools that have been built or are being hosted in-house.
Test add-ons and extensions you and your colleagues are using. When you upgrade Firefox, it will check your add-ons and update or disable any that aren’t compatible. But you should also check the add-on developer’s website to see if there are beta versions available. And some add-ons may no longer be needed. After the controversy regarding hacking tool Firesheep a few months ago, I started using a Firefox add-on called Force-TLS that connected me to websites using HTTPS when possible. Firefox 4 has the appropriate technology built in, so Force-TLS is no longer needed.
Test social media tools you are using. Especially check custom pages that you have created on sites like Facebook.

You’ll probably want to keep copies of old browser versions handy, since a lot of users don’t upgrade right away. This can be tricky, since some browsers, such as IE, don’t allow you to install two different versions on the same machine; virtual machines and browser testing services can be handy.

How do you test new browsers?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Internet Explorer 9 Released, But Should You Care?

Simon Mackie — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:19:35 +0000

UPDATED: Microsoft has released IE9, the latest version of the venerable Internet Explorer browser. It boasts greatly improved support for standards like HTML5, a new design and greater speed, as well as some nifty new features, like privacy controls and being able to pin websites to the taskbar.

To check out how IE9 compares to its competitors, I installed it (which, unlike other browsers, required me to restart my machine) and ran it through a few different benchmarking tools.

Acid3

Acid3 is a benchmark which checks how well a browser follows selected web standards. The browser is marked out of 100.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

Microsoft has made an effort to improve the standards support in IE in this release, and as you can see, IE9 scores a creditable 95 (much better than IE8 which scored a paltry 21), but it still can’t match Opera and Chrome’s perfect scores.

The HTML5 Test

Acid3 doesn’t test for HTML5, as it’s a newer web standard, so I also ran the browsers through The HTML5 Test, which provides an indication of how well they support the upcoming HTML5 standard and its related specifications.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

HTML5 support is important, because as more browsers are able to handle its advanced features, developers will be able to build much more powerful apps (see Why HTML5 Web Apps Are Going to Rock Your World). As you can see, although Microsoft has made a bit of fuss about IE9 supporting newer standards like HTML5 (even providing some online demos to show off the browser’s HTML5 chops), it’s actually lagging behind its competitors here, although none of them scores perfectly. However, I’d take this benchmark with a pinch of salt, as the standard isn’t finalized yet.

Kraken

Kraken is Mozilla’s JavaScript benchmark, primarily based on the SunSpider suite. It tests how well a browser handles JavaScript and is supposed to simulate a number of different “real world” scenarios.

UPDATE: Replaced figure

JavaScript performance is vital, because we’re all increasingly reliant on JavScript-heavy web apps. The Kraken score above is a the time in milliseconds it takes for the browser to complete the test runs; a lower score is better. Note that JavaScript benchmarks should be regarded with a healthy degree of skepticism; it’s incredibly hard to create a realistic benchmark that accurately indicates how fast a browser will be in day-to-day use, so these tests can only give an indication of how fast a browser might be. That said, once again, IE is lagging behind the best here: It took twice as long to complete the tests as Chrome, and nearly three times as long as Firefox (although it’s much better than the beta of IE9, which scored around 50,000 ms).

Overall

IE9 is a great improvement over previous incarnations; it has caught up to the pack and now doesn’t lag so very far behind the other browsers available. In particular, Microsoft should be applauded for its efforts to support web standards in this release. However, unless you really want some of its novel features, like the ability to pin websites to the taskbar, or your choice is restricted by your employer to Microsoft’s browser, I still can’t recommend it over Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

Internet Explorer 9 can be downloaded from microsoft.com; it requires Vista or Windows 7.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Stuff I’m Still Using: My Favorite Products From 2010

Charles Hamilton — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:00:31 +0000

One of the fun things about writing here is that I get to experiment with a bunch of apps and devices that I might not have tried otherwise. A friend recently asked how many of the products I wrote about last year have made their way into my everyday work life. I checked, and here’s the list, in no particular order:

Devices

The Overdrive Mobile Hotspot from Sprint. I’ve been very impressed with the simplicity and usefulness of this device while I’m on the road. I took it on a cross-country train trip last summer, and was able to get a 4G or 3G signal in many large and medium-sized cities. I’ve had to exchange this device twice: The first one stopped booting, and the second one had a defective USB port. But Sprint was very good about replacing them, and the current version came with updated firmware and seems to be faster and more reliable than the original one.
The HTC EVO 4G, and most of the Android apps I wrote about in November. I’m still discovering more cool apps, and have added some like the official LinkedIn app that was recently released.
The ZaggSPARQ backup battery charger for USB devices. Much as I like the EVO, I have to watch its battery use, so having some extra power in my pocket is awfully handy.
The third-generation Kindle. I find it so comfortable that I forget I’m using an e-book reader.

Apps

TotalFinder, the Mac Finder replacement that adds tabs and other enhancements. The latest version has added cut and paste, a real necessity.
The Firefox add-ons that require secure connections over wi-fi networks. I’m still using Firefox, thanks to the add-ons I still can’t live without. Most are now available for Chrome; I might be able to switch once something like Gmail Manager is available for that browser.
My web-design company is using the Google Font API for embedding fonts into websites.
The “Call from Gmail” function that Google Voice debuted in 2010.

I tried some really great hardware and software last year. There are some other products that didn’t make the list, not because I didn’t like them, but because they didn’t fit my workflow for one reason or another.

The innovations from 2010 were quite impressive. I look forward to seeing more great stuff in 2011!

What cool new apps and devices did you discover in 2010?

Image by sxc.hu user coscurro

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

How to Stop Firefox Going Into “Work Offline” Mode

Simon Mackie — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:00:51 +0000

Firefox has an irritating habit of switching into “Work Offline” mode if it detects that the Internet connection drops. If you’re working somewhere with dodgy Wi-Fi, it can mean constantly having to go the “File” menu to disable it. The good news is that there’s a new option available in Firefox 3.6 and above that you can use to prevent the browser from automatically switching into “Work Offline” mode.

To set the option, type about:config in the browser’s address bar. Then right-click anywhere in the window, and click New->Boolean. The preference name needs to be entered as network.manage-offline-status. Set its value as false. If that all sounds a bit complex, here’s a short screencast showing all of the steps:

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

Note that setting this option just prevents Firefox from entering Work Offline mode automatically; you can still set it manually via the “File” menu.

(via Ghacks)

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

Making a Smarter Social Browser With Gist

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:26:08 +0000

While I continue to look for ways to better filter and access information about the people in my social graph, the people with whom I do business and those who are somehow connected to me through social networks, “social CRM” company Gist is quietly taking over the world — or at least socializing your web browser.

Today, the company announced an extension for Firefox that brings its intelligent data about your contacts to your Gmail account, , and it plans to roll out an extension for Chrome very soon. Gist already has a web app, iPhone app, Android app, a plug-in for Outlook and Lotus Notes and a gadget for Google Apps.

With Gist for Firefox, you get a pervasive widget in Gmail that brings up information about all the individuals mentioned in the “To:” or “Cc:” fields of an opened email. You can choose to view their various social media feeds, their profile, stats that include data on your level of interactions with that person, and notes that you can make about the person at any time.

Gist is constantly measuring the importance of the people you’re interacting with at any given time, based on the frequency of emails between you, mentions in your calendar, and how else you are connected with them such as on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or their listings in your CRM program such as Salesforce or SugarCRM.

Let’s face it: networking is hard. Remembering details about the many people with whom you network is even harder. Having information about the people with whom you are interacting for business is invaluable. Gist is like having a personal assistant whispering key information about someone as they are walking up to you or call you or email — just in case you’ve forgotten a few details. It is also like having that same personal assistant inform you of any important news about that person, or provide you with details of something interesting they said in the social mediasphere, so you can dash off a quick note to them. With Gist, wherever you go, or wherever you are, you can tap into the professional and social profiles of people with whom you want to network.

I think we’re going to see several other savvy companies slowly taking over their market sector by creating a ubiquity of functionality like Gist. See my recent piece on WatchDox’s iPhone app as another example. These companies realize we don’t want to be locked into one platform for accessing useful tools; they understand the value of being pervasive and always at our fingertips.

To take advantage of Gist for Firefox, you must first sign up for a free Gist account then download the Firefox browser extension. You can also read my previous article on the company Gist Adds Public Business Profiles for more about Gist features.

How do you keep up with your contacts?

image by stock xchng user salingpusa

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):