Firefox Add On – Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer 0.84

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I use Firefox 2.0 on my desktop and the BPCA laptop, as well as Firefox Portable 1.5.0.8 on a USB Drive. Getting my bookmarks and RSS feeds synchronized manually was very tedious and error prone.

When I upgraded the other day to 2.0, one of the recommended add ons was the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, so I thought OK give it a try.

I made back ups of the various profiles, as I always do in case of a foul up and then installed the Foxmarks extension, available at , and ran the setup on each of the computers and the USB drive. Now I have the same bookmarks on each of my devices.

Part of the setup includes getting a free account at http://foxmarks.com/, where all your bookmarks are stored. Also, you can access your bookmarks from that site, using the user name and password created during setup, from anywhere, yes even using IE provided Javascript is enabled.

More in-depth information is available through the Foxmarks FAQ: .

I find this a very useful Firefox add on, making my collection of bookmarks available no matter where I am accessing the Internet from.

What are your favorite Firefox add ons?

Open Source – Firefox 2.0

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Well I finally downloaded Firefox 2.0 and installed it.

Just for my reference, I backed up my whole PC and then just doubled clicked the Firefox Setup 2.0.exe file and ran the installer. I did not remove my 1.5.0.7 version or any of its components first.

The installer ran in less than a minute and when Firefox started up I found that everything worked must faster, and that my installed extensions (now called add ons) worked with no problems.

In regards to add-ons, I particularly like that Firefox now restarts itself, with my permission of course, and then immediately I have access to the add-on. This is much simpler and quicker than the previous versions.

All of my bookmarks and prior settings seem to have come out OK. If upon further use, any problems turn up, I will let you know about them through this blog.

All in all, I am quite impressed with the improvements I have seen so far.

I can not compare this to the new Internet Explorer 7, as I have not yet installed or tried it. I very seldom, need to use IE anymore for anything and do not even have it at work yet.

For now, I think that I will stay with my current Firefox Portable 1.5.0.7, as 2.0 is only in release candidate stages at this time, but when Firefox Portable 2.0 is put out as a full version I intend to switch over to that also.

Let me know about your experiences with Firefox 2.0, good or bad, by leaving a comment to this post.

Freeware – Foxit Reader 2.0

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I ended up with a problem while I was away. I did not take my laptop, only my 1 GB USB Drive loaded with portable versions of Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org.

The problem was that the computers available in the business center wher I was staying did not have Adobe Reader, in any version, installed. I was therefore unable to open any PDF files.

I went looking around and found Foxit Reader 2.0 for Windows from Foxit Software http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm.

I downloaded it to my USB drive, double clicked on the FoxitReader.exe file and was able to access PDF files to my heart’s content and even fill in interactive forms, without having to install anything. On top of that it is much faster loading than Adobe Reader, in my experience.

Note: The paid version with enhanced capabilities does have an installer and writes to the registry, at least that is my understanding.

The free version does not have all the capabilities of Adobe Reader, but for the price and my uses, it is very adequate. I must say that I also have the full Adobe Acrobat 7 application on my main computer, with which I can generate PDFs and manipulate them, as well as just read or fill in interactive PDFs.

If I keep having no problems opening and reading PDF files in the next few weeks, Foxit Reader will become my default PDF reader.

Give this a try and you might be using it as your default PDF reader as well.