We at Appleviews would like to wish all our readers a wonderful and prosperous New Year (2010).
The desktop above was created in Photoshop CS4 and the 2010 has most of the languages saying ‘Happy New Year.’
We look forward to the new year with more articles on Apple applications along with iPhone and Internet articles.
We would like to let our readers know that we greatly appreciate your visits and comments and look forward to the
New Year for new beginnings.

This weeks Appleviews Flickr Pool desktop is by Alex (something1138). He used GeekTool for weather conditions, GT usage, RAM, music, day of week, month, day number, and year. He got the wallpaper from http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2000/sacramento_tower_bridge_passing.html and the icons he got at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30460784@N04/3839526599/. (NOTE: the link to the download doesn’t work…sorry everybody.) Check out his other desktops at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexlielz/. Great desktop Alex!

I use Firefox as my default browser and have been working on developing my skills in web development. Here are a few of the tools for Firefox that I use and find very helpful in helping you learn and grow. (NOTE:  I am unable to link you to the exact location on the Mozilla website, I apologize for the inconvenience. There is a link on a few of the extensions to the developer site.) Enjoy!

ColorZilla 2.0.2

This addon features an advanced eyedropper, color picker, page zoomer and other useful tools. With it, you can obtain color information from any point in your browser, quickly adjust the color and paste it into another program. You can also zoom the page you’re on and measure distances between any two points on the page. It also includes a built-in palette browser containing pre-defined color sets and you can create a custom palette.  There are many other features that you can check out on their web site (the second link).
http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/

Dummy Lipsum 2.3.2

This addon generates ‘Lorem Ipsum’ dummy text. This is useful when creating templates or web sites.
http://sogame.awardspace.com/dummylipsum/

Firebug 1.4.5

This addon provides development tools you can use while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live on any web page.
http://getfirebug.com/

FireFTP 1.0.6

This addon is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Firefox that provides easy access to FTP servers. You can compare directories, sync directories while navigating, use SFTP, SSL encryption, and much more.
http://fireftp.mozdev.org/

FirePHP 0.3.1

This addon allows you to log your Firebug Console using a simple PHP method call.
http://www.firephp.org/

FireRainbow 1.0

This is an experimental addon that requires Firebug. It brings JavaScript syntax highlighting to Firebug.
http://firerainbow.binaryage.com/

MeasureIt 0.3.9

This addon gives you a tool to draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage. It has many more features, see the MeasureIt web site (second link) to see what else it does).
http://www.kevinfreitas.net/extensions/measureit/

YSlow 2.0.2

This addon analyzes web pages and why they’re slow using Yahoo!’s rules for high performance sites. It analyzes pages and gives suggestions on ways to improve their performance. Firebug is required to use this addon.
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

If you have any suggestions for extensions you use or experiences you would like to share, please feel free to leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

For this weeks desktop, my husband created this desktop. He wanted to create something different (hence think differently) by using animal prints and other odd items to the background. I used DragThing to make my frequently used folders on the bottom right (Helvetica font) and ecoute for playing music without having to open iTunes. For the calendar, I simply tweaked DateLine (using Helvetica font and customizing the colors). Please, feel free to upload your customized desktop to the Appleviews Flickr Pool….see the link on the right. Enjoy!

Most of us use Firefox as our preferred browser. I use it myself. I have found many different extensions that Firefox offers along with user scripts that I use with the Greasemonkey and Stylish extensions. Check out the video below to get an idea of how the extensions that I use for customization work (you may want to watch it in full screen mode for a clear picture).

(NOTE: I had links to direct you to the extension for Firefox addons but they don’t seem to work. You would have to type in the name of the extension in Firefox addons to install. I apologize for the inconvenience and will try to figure out how to add the links.)

AutoPager 0.5.3.5
This extension automatically loads the next page of a variety of web sites when you reach the end of the page creating an infinite scrolling of the sites pages. To create custom autopaging for unsupported sites, you can use the included site wizard feature.
http://www.teesoft.info/

Fasterfox 3.8.2 Lite
This extension allows for performance and network tweaks for Firefox.  It allows you to easily tweak many network and rendering settings like simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache and initial paint delay. It includes options for SSL Pipelining, timer-based content reflows, UI Responsiveness, Link Prefetching, IPv6 DNS lookups and the Page Load Timer is disabled.

FastestFox Browse Faster 3.0.0
This extension saves you time by speeding up repetitive tasks. It gives you options like parallelizing downloads, autoloading of next page, improving searches and much more.
http://smarterfox.com/news/

Greasefire 1.0.4
This extension automatically finds Greasemonkey scripts from userscripts.org (requires Greasemonkey). If a page you’re visiting has available user scripts on userscripts.org, this extension will highlight the Greasemonkey icon in your status bar. Just right click the Greasemonkey icon and view the available userscripts.
http://code.google.com/p/greasefire/

Greasemonkey 0.8.20090920.2
This extension allows you to customize the way webpages are displayed using userscripts. It resides in your status bar and you can enable/disable it just by clicking on the Greasemonkey icon.
http://www.greasespot.net/

Platypus 0.81
This extension allows web page modification from your browser (WYSIWYG) and gives you the ability to save your changes as a Greasemonkey script so that every time you are on your modified page, it will be the same page you modified.
http://platypus.mozdev.org/

Restart Firefox 0.3
This extension adds  a ‘Restart Firefox’ menu item to your ‘File’ menu in Firefox.

Stylish 1.0.7
This extension allows you to change the web using Stylish. It allows you to install themes and skins for Google, Facebook, YouTube, and many others using scripts. Click the links below to view more of what Stylish can do.
http://userstyles.org/

These are just a few of the top Firefox extensions that I have found to be useful. What are some of the Firefox extensions that you use that you would like to share with everyone? Feel free to leave a comment with the extension and your experiences with them and share the wealth with our fellow readers.