firefox extensions

Apr 27 2009

Bipartisan Goodwill– Cross Platform Picks

There’s no question OS X is king of operating systems, but some of us
have the unfortunate requirement to use other OS’s, and its great to
be able to use familiar applications on both platforms. This week’s
picks run on OS X, Windows and Linux.

File Management

FileZilla

It’s no Cyberduck, but FileZilla is one of the best FTP/SFTP clients
out there. It supports resumable transfers, drag and drop and simple
file privilege management.

Synkron

synkron Bipartisan Goodwill Cross Platform Picks

This cross-platform app promises to sync everything. It does provide
you with flexible, scheduled file and directory synchronization.

Video Tools

VideoLAN

Better known as VLC, this tool is probably the most powerful media
file player out there. It supports a ton of codecs and runs on a slew
of platforms.

MPlayer

mplayer Bipartisan Goodwill Cross Platform Picks

If VLC doesn’t do it for you, MPlayer does about the same thing with a
different interface. Its just as free and supports an on screen info
display.

Miro

Miro is one of the oldest IPTV clients, allowing you to subscribe to
video podcasts and other RSS video channels. It also includes built in
support for YouTube downloas, BitTorrent and suports many video
formats.

Livestation

If you’re in to international news (maybe about something besides the American presidential election) this is the video tool for you. Watch news from around the world (and maybe eventually other stuff) with this cross-platform video app.

Cross Platform Platforms

Adobe Air

Probably the most exciting are whole platforms of applications build on a cross-platform framework. With Adobe Air installed, you can install and use the same applications on any of the there major platforms.

Firefox

The days of Firefox as my default browser may be gone, but its robust selection of extensions make it a platform itself. There are Firefox extensions for everything from twittering to database access and file sharing.

Extra credit

RSSOwl

Probably the first Java app not to suck on the Mac, this RSS reader has all kinds of advanced features (though it lacks the UI refinement of NetNewsWire and Vienna).

KompoZer

KompoZer is the reincarnation of the discontinued NVU project. It is a feature-rich HTML editor that includes CSS authoring tools.

Now, many of these apps may have superior equivalents on OS X, but cross-platform gems are something we can all agree on, right?

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Best of 2004

2004: The Year in Freeware

Best on the Web: FireFox

This one is a real no-brainer. The Mozilla Foundation and an army of volunteers have dethroned Safari for the best web experience. Thunderbird, the companion email program merits a mention too.

Freeware Classic: Gimp

Photoshop brought the desktop-publishing revolution to the Mac, now the Open Source revolution brings the power of Photoshop to freeware. Gimp may be one of the best spoils of the switch to UNIX.

System Extension: Fink

Again, the UNIX core of OS X opens up a whole new platform of free software. Fink gets props for building a gateway for thousands of applications to run on OS X.

Menu Item: Romeo

While much more than a menu item, this application brings new and wonderful capabilities to your Bluetooth phone. It’s a great piece of software Bluetooth users will enjoy daily.

Best Plugin: Firefox Extensions

This collaborative award goes to the rowdy bunch of programmers that have built thousands of useful add-ons for Firefox. Their efforts have helped make Firefox an unbeatable browser.

Best PC App: None

PC’s suck. With no iPhoto for Windows (for the iPod photo), there just wasn’t any free apps that were that interesting. Sorry.

Best Mac Switcher: Skype

This new category goes to the Mac version of Skype (Voice over IP) that you helped bring into existence with your petitioning. May the best freeware always be available on the best OS!

Best New: iPodder and iPodderX

Podcasting is the latest new thing, and these free applications will get you plugged-in. Expect to see some interesting things ahead for these two.

The twentieth year of the Mac was a great year for free software. Keep up with the best in free with Freeloader Friday as we kick off 2005.

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Apr 27 2009

Browser Bonanza

Opera (recently made free), Firefox and Flock have all released new versions, and they all come with great new features from feed handling to eye candy.

Firefox 2.0b1

firefox2b1 Browser Bonanza

New in 2.0:

  • Inline Spell Check (not shown) checks spelling in input boxes
  • New Feed Interface supports different feed readers including Google Reader and Bloglines
  • Search While You Type suggestions
  • Close Tab Buttons on the tab

Opera 9

opera9 Browser Bonanza

New in 9:

  • Widgets! Cool, but I wish you cold resize them
  • Integrated Bittorrent
  • Hover-over Tab Previews show you thumbnails and page info
  • Improved Richtext Formatting

Flock beta 1

flock07 Browser Bonanza

New in .7:

  • Drag and Drop Flickr integration
  • Search Auto-complete from history, bookmarks and more
  • RSS News View with a newspaper style layout and nice feed management
  • Better Support for Firefox Extensions

Wow. Unless you’re still hung on IE 5, there’s at least one cool new browser to try out. Have fun.

Brian

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