PureBlogging

I love Firefox. I have done since I first started using it, way back when the only version available was 0.2. One of the things I love most about it is the hundreds of add-ons you can use to customise it to suit your needs. Today, I’d like to share five of the extensions I find most useful when I blog.

British English Dictionary

Ok, so it’s not the most exciting extension, but it’s something I use every day. The default language in Firefox is US English, but it’s got a number of dictionaries in other languages. One of these is UK English. Now, I bet you’re wondering why it would matter what language your browser uses. The truth is that it never used to. However, the more time I spend on the net, the more I need to fill in forms and check that they are spelled correctly.

Still not excited? How about this? The Wordpress compose window in the admin panel is a web form. That means that the inline spell checker checks my spelling on that form. It’s an easy way to spell check my posts. For me it works two ways. Sometimes I use the spell checker to check that I have used British spelling; at other times I use it to check that I haven’t.

IE Tab

In spite of my love of Firefox, there are some blogs and sites that just don’t display well in it. If people persist in using IE, then there are times when I need to use it – or do I? Not any more, thanks to IE Tab. This nifty little extension allows you to open a new tab that uses the IE rendering engine right within Firefox. You can look at an IE enabled site without having to leave your (ok, my) favourite browser. You can right click on any link and choose to open it in an IE Tab. I sometimes use it to check how my blog themes look in different browsers. Occasionally, this has sent me back to the drawing board to choose a new theme.

FoxClocks

FoxClocks is not so much a blogging tool, as an everything tool. In a wired world, many of us are blogging and writing for people around the world. I currently write for people in the UK, US and Canada, and work with people who are based in Australia. That means that it soon gets difficult to keep track of all the time zones. FoxClocks is the answer. You can track an almost unlimited number of countries and time zones by using a simple interface. Then all you do is hover over the icon in your statusbar to see what time it is in several countries.

Twitterbar

This is a good one. Twitterbar lets you post to Twitter from your browser address bar. All you do is type your Tweet, hit the plus sign and it’s posted. This is great when I find a blog post that I want to tell others about. A word to the wise, though. Don’t press that plus sign till you’re really ready. I’ve ended up sending Tweets from my WP Admin panel before – not cool!

SU Toolbar

If you want to stumble blogs posts that you have found, ask others to stumble yours or simply browse the web to see what’s happening, then you can’t do without the StumbleUpon toolbar. I love the fact that I can limit my stumbles to a particular category or communicate with friends right from the toolbar.

I use many other Firefox add-ons . One more good blogging tool is Scribefire, which I’ve recently replaced with Windows Live Writer. Which Firefox extensions do you find most useful for blogging?

Popularity: 13% [?]