When you upgrade your blog, like I did, it’s easy to forget all the changes and tweaks you made along the way. I just realized that I forgot to re-add the code for the Related Posts Plugin, not to mention the MyAvatars code, and quite a few other things!

This is actually a delightfully simple plugin. You install, run the code and paste the important text into the place you wish in your blog.

Its function is simply to offer related posts for readers to find in your blog about the same topic as the current one. So if you look at this post, you’ll see links to five other posts of similar topics that you can also read.

It’s a great plugin, and one that I didn’t realize I missed until my page views went down! However, it’s working again.

BTW, to prevent this kind of thing happening: make a single page or post entry (don’t publish it), and each time you add something to the blog, copy the details into that page so you can refer to it when it comes time to upgrade! Copy your ad codes, your scripts, and php codes there. When you upgrade, it will be easy to find and add all the information.

For those of you who are interested in online applications, you’ve probably used Google Apps before now. Most people hadn’t thought that much about Google as an Office Killer, but now Google Apps has just acquired another component in the Office category to fill in the space between Word and Excel. It’s now got a Powerpoint alternative. This matches with quite an extensive array of other components that are increasingly integrated: Google Docs, Website management, database, Advertising, Domains, Stats, etc… The list is quite extensive. In fact, it’s kind of making Office Live look jaded already, and Google hasn’t really started yet to transform the computing experience…

The BusinessWeek Blog by Rob Hof cites Nick Carr’s as saying about Google Apps:

You first use them as add-on tools for manipulating and sharing Microsoft files online, and then, eventually, you find that you don’t need the underlying applications anymore. Google Apps, in other words, is designed not as an Office Killer but rather as a kind of Office Bodysnatcher. Google doesn’t want to fight the Microsoft apps head-on. It wants to get inside them, and slowly take them over.

I don’t quite agree with that statement, but our office is slowly migrating away from Office 97/2000. We have no plans to upgrade to XP or 2007 versions. Instead, we are using OpenOffice which provides a very usable alternative, and our staff once they realize that they have to relearn Office 2007 anyway agree that they might as well learn OpenOffice.

It’s true that the conversion from Word Document format is painful, esp. with the kind of documents we use, the biggest bugbear we have is the line spacing which is always wrong when we open the converted file in Oo.

But with the increasingly rapacious hands of Microsoft, and their increasingly invasive DRM and copy protections, I’m slowly convinced that our business will be having Penguins as guests soon, and probably when their desktop is friendlier as roommates on our pcs. Naturally, though the photocopy guy is going to be stumped to provide drivers for our aging copy machine, but I’d rather just change our photocopier machine!

Personal Rant: Disclaimer. I don’t own stock in MS or Google ( I wish I did, though! ). I just have an axe to grind.

Firefox really is a much better browser than IE. I guess that’s been said before, but many reviews claimed IE7 finally was now a worthy competitor for Firefox and that it had introduced many of the similar features that made Firefox standout.

But IE7 has a number of challenges that still persist: including the use of add-ons. Yes, Firefox can add extensions that will enhance, modify or even extend the features set beyond what was originally programmed. And the selection is huge, currently over 2,300 add-ons, though some are not being actively developed.

My selection is below with some comments:

• Fasterfox – I use this to speed up Firefox Browsing. It can tweak a number of settings easily and you’ll notice a difference.
• fireftp – Yes, FTP from your browser. Stable and reliable, but doesn’t show hidden files reliably.
• foxmarks – application that allows your bookmarks to be stored centrally and shared between your pcs wherever you are
• foxy tunes – supports all media players that I know of and shows up a control set in your status bar.
• gmail space – allows you to use Gmail as a webstore for files, not just email. Finally, you can put your 2GB allowance to good use.
• ie tab – allows you to open IE windows in Firefox for those stubborn or shortsighted web pages that require IE usage. Dumb policy, but VERY useful extension.
• payperpostopps – see here.
• reload every – an extension that allows you to refresh your page every x seconds/minutes, useful if you are waiting for something to show up on a particular page, like a score, a stock price, etc..
• scribefire – allows you to write posts to your blog from your browser.
• search status – displays the Page Rank and Alexa ranking for any website you visit.

So those are my top ten at the moment, and I chose most of those for helping with my blogging. Firefox is highly extensible in other ways, too: Themes, Plugins, Add-ons, Dictionaries, and Search engines. And it’s available on MANY platforms (though some add-ons only work on Windows!). So why are you NOT using Firefox? Comments, please and tell me what you think about IE6/7 vs. FF 2.0/3.0.