My favorite computer advice site, Lifehacker.com, alerted me to this really cool and useful screencast tool called "CaptureFox":
http://lifehacker.com/5414285/capturefox-adds-screen-capture-capabilities-to-firefox#comments
This tiny (900K) add-on is amazing. It is a high-powered screencast program that runs from within Firefox. It records everything you do to create a tutorial and show your friends how to do something with their PC or Mac. You can minimize Firefox and it records what you do with other programs. Return to Firefox and click “End Record” – Save. What will they think of next?
Summary: It will capture everything streaming video and audio through your computer (you can add a microphone if you want to do a voice over).
For most people, this is a free way to screencast. The leading program for PC/Mac (Camtasia) costs $299 (nonstudents) or $179 for students. A Mac favorite, Snapx Pro, is cheaper but still costs $69. While those two commercial programs have some added features, most people don't need them.
I'm suprised how browser-based my life has become: I've junked a dozen programs because Firefox (with add-ons) can do what they did before. The result is a cleaner computer and easy access to everything I need (since I use portable Firefox on all of my PCs, I simply synchronize them and can always copy to a flash key to carry all my programs with me. Students heading home for vacation might want to copy their portable Firefox on a flash key to use on their parents' computer without messing with their settings).
WARNING: This is the type of add-on you will use on an "as needed" basis. Add-ons slow down Firefox so I highly recommend you disable those you use "as needed." To disable/enable, you open Firefox, then click Tools -- Add-ons -- Disable or Enable.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I guess I'm a corporatist, because I can't seem to leave IE. Even tried Chrome for a while but keep coming back to Microsoft. How would a loyal Internet Explorer user adjust to the switch to Mozilla?
Rich,
For those who can't switch, you ought to upgrade to IE8 -- a major improvement in IE security (IE is arguably the safest browser when in protected mode but earlier iterations have massive security holes).
Here are my tips for IE loyalists to get the advantages of Firefox or Chrome (chief among them eliminating ads, accelerating downloads, a password manager, etc.):
IE8 is a major advance. Previous versions of Internet Explorer were insecure and not user-friendly. See this review for the reasons why IE8 has some advantages over Firefox (although Firefox is still my primary browser). IE8 has features, such as right-click “Accelerators,” that Firefox is now imitating (get KallOut extension to replicate what IE8 Accelerators do for you). The search box is better and IE8 is more secure now than Firefox because it has a “Protected Mode.” IE8 also runs each tab as a separate process: if a single tab (site) crashes, IE8 will try to recover but the whole browser won’t crash. Nevertheless, there are features lacking in IE8 but present in Firefox. To emulate these Firefox features, I recommend the following add-ons (in order of importance):
Ie7Pro: includes the following features (and more): http://download.com or http://ie7pro.com/
*Adblock (equivalent of Adblock Plus)
*Sync bookmarks (equivalent of Xmarks)
*Mini-Download Manager (quintuples your download speed)
Lastpass—add-on for IE8 and FF. http://lastpass.com
TubeDownload and Player (Windows): http://youtomato.com See above description.
Orbit Downloader (see above): combines the features of Firefox’s “Downthemall!” and “Video Downloadhelper.” http://filehippo.com
Post a Comment