[the] Code Girl (aka UnrulyGrrl)

All the coding that I do at work is web-based, so I looked for extensions to Firefox that would help me debug/troubleshoot.
Here’s what I found, that I cannot live without:

• Firebug - fantastic for troubleshooting , css, and XMLHTTPRequest… including stack traces; also contains an inspecter and some other things. Bonus: you can add javascript code for debugging (that you wont later have to remove or comment out) by using

  console.debug

  or console.info and a few other error levels. The XMLHTTPRequest debug output alone is worth its weight in gold (i’ve been doing a log Ajax-type stuff lately so it has come in really handy)

• Web Developer toolbar - Contains a boatload of useful things. My favorites: showing all class/id details, displaying element information as you move around a page, and ‘view source -> generated source’ (YES, you can see the source of a page that was dynamically generated without resubmitting the form (as the default ‘view source’ requires)
• Live HTTP Headers - shows you HTTP headers being sent and received real time. You can filter which sites you care about or exclude things like images. Also shows you form-related POST and GET (both requests and responses). Great for finding out what hitting Submit actually sent
• Find in Statusbar - not just for developers but anyone who wants to conserve precious screen real estate. adds a small search text box to the status bar instead of popping up a new section above the statusbar….also dont have to worry about accidentally making it pop up by certain key combinations.

I set

browser.cache.memory.capacity = 16384

and thought I was done. So WHY is Firefox taking even more than that???

about:cache

Memory cache device

Number of entries:  604
Maximum storage size:  16384 KiB
Storage in use:  39828 KiB
Inactive storage:  0 KiB

I’m sure this has been happening for quite some time, but I
only just noticed thanks to the “Cache Status” Extension.

I love you Firefox, but sometimes you piss me off
——————————————————————–
EDIT: 6/30/06
Seems that this is a windoze problem only. On my Linux laptop and desktop,
the mem cache in use is holding steady at “15.9MB / 16MB”.

Stupid windoze
[the only reason i am using it currently is for the VPN client that I need to
get my office network. They do have a linux client but it doesnt work with
2.6 kernels]

I just started using Del.icio.us for most of my bookmarking. I found a great Greasemonkey script that adds the site icon (favicon.ico) from each site next to its link when you view it from Del.icio.us.

Get greasemonkey here: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/

Get Fav.icio.us2 here: http://userscripts.com/scripts/show/3406

For over 900,000 Greasemonkey scripts that do everything you could possibly imagine, check out http://www.userscripts.com. The site has 60+ scripts for Del.icio.us including several ’skins’ to make the website look a little prettier.

I’m famous! well sort of. I made a post to SpreadFirefox.com recently about a letter writing campaign I did recently. I found a link to it on a german website!

Also, the SpreadFirefox admins liked my initiative so much they are sending me one of those super-cool limited editions Firefox coins, and some other swag. Cool. This all started because I checked out an article about how I could help spread Firefox (ie writing to your ISP, local net cafe, local officials, etc). Since my letter got such a good response, I created a template for it on the Firefox wiki

Please think about taking a minute and helping the cause. Every little bit helps combat the entrenched Internet Exploder. The easiest way to help is to put an ‘upgrade firefox’ link or image (pointing to getfirefox.com) on your site/blog somewhere

Are you tired of Firefox taking up more and more RAM the longer you leave it running? Do you have to kill and restart it every day or two just to get back some RAM? Well suffer no more. It’s just one easy setting. Go to

about:config

and add this NEW value, of type Integer:

browser.cache.memory.capacity

The value is in KB, so to set it for 16MB, set the value ‘16384′. That should be plenty. By default this value is ‘-1′ which means ‘TAKE EVERYTHING I HAVE, PLEASE!’.

NOTE: This works on EVERY operating system [AFAIK], even sucky winDoze

using the mplayer plugin for netscape/mozilla you can view streaming Micro$oft media that is embedded in a webpage

Also works from the command line, but you will need to know the path to the stream. This not too hard to find:

1. View the source of the page with the embedded stream and look for something like this:

   <param name="FileName" value="webcam3.asx">

2. Pull up the .asx file in your web browser; it will be in XML.
3. Look for an ything starting with “mms://”, and you’ve found your feed url
4. run

   mplayer <feed url>

For Mac OSX users, there is a port of mplayer available, just for you!

One more thing I can cross of the list of stuff I thought I could only do with M$ WIndoze

Finally! I don’t have to mess with the timestamps on the search plugin files to get them to display in the order I want. I found
some config variables that do it:

browser.search.order.#

where ‘#’ is the order number. “1″ should already be set to “Google”. You can add as many new variables as you like (rt mouse button –> New –>String).

Edit your config variables easily with

about:config

NOTE: You must restart Firefox for the change to take effect

For Firefox/Mozilla users: http://www.firefoxtoolbar.com. If you aren’t using Firefox…well WHY NOT?!?

The whole reason I started using it was because i was annoyed that I could not reorder my list of search plugins for the built-in Firefox search bar. This other toolbar lets you rearrange everything easily, and insert separators. To add a new search, just visit the site and search for “ubterms”. You get a popup box with all the data already filled in, even the “favorite icon” from the site. That only works with forms that submit using “GET”. If the one you want to add uses “POST”, install the Web Developer Firefox extension, then use Forms –> Convert POSTs to GETs, then try again.

I’ve already set it up with a bunch of internal search stuff at work and that functionality could be enough for us (my group) to get everyone else to use Firefox (why they arent, I’ll never understand). “I have this very cool toolbar that lets you lookup somebody in the employee database….. or search for info on a host/ip…..or search all NOC documentation …… or search NetCool events”. So work intranet type stuff is a perfect use for it.

If you’re worried it will take up too much room: have no fear, you can remove the built in search box, drag the address/url bar up to the very top of the screen next to the menu, then drag all your bookmark toolbar items up to the next bar up. Then turn off the “Bookmarks” toolbar.