I’m back on Twitter, and only recently also on Plunk and discovered a prominent Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget for Twitter called Twadget, it takes up alittle too much screen real-estate so I’ve placed it on it’s own panel.

Download Twadget

Windows Media Player 11 includes great track crossfading support. Simply this means at the end of each song the volume is decreased and the next song faded in.

Crossfading tracks in Windows Media Player

To turn crossfading on in Windows Media Player 11:

1. Open Windows Media Player.
2. Expand Enhancements from the View menu, select Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling.
3. Press “Turn on Crossfading” to activate track crossfading.
4. Drag the overlap slider to your desired level (I set mine to 10.0 seconds).
5. Press the red Close button.

The Windows Sidebar gadget Optus Quota developed by Alexander Burton shows your OptusNet monthly quota both peak and off peak on your sidebar, updating statistics from the OptusNet feeds on the half hour.

Optus Quota

Download Optus Quota from the Windows Live Gallery

Quit thumping the table and spilling your drink when you accidentally close the tab you had Pandora active within, Pandora Player is available.

Luke Carbis has created a free desktop executable for Windows that opens the Pandora station controller within your typical application window. Drag it, minimize it, add a shortcut… whatever! Cheers to Luke for this beauty, I love it!

It’s coming…

Subscribe to this post feed and you’ll know how it’s coming along!

January 22: My test build got stripped back, I can successfully post an update from a local file.

• I am now building a Firefox Addon from the ground up.

January 14: I’ve made a test build using the source of the del.icio.us official addon.

• The Twitter addon now installs instead of downloading as an *.xpi after setting up the MIME content on the server
• Addon installs itself before vanishing from the Extensions listings and proceeded to kill my Firefox instance, I’m blaming unique IDs or a bug in my conversion
• I’ve got the submit form data out as well as the main links to appear on the top menu

March 17: Trying to find time…

• I’m speaking to folk in #firefox on Freenode as well as #extdev on mozilla.org, making slow progress…

Check out the next generation media player, this bird’ll blow you away.

Songbird media player

A simple list of extensions for the Firefox browser that I cannot live without on a day-to-day basis.

Web Developer

Goes without introduction, if you’re even remotely interested in HTML analysis, non-CSS support browsing, scrubbing cookies, GET/POST security (forms), all manner of SEO, browser standards and support or just like messing around with the rendering of web sites then this is the extension to install. Should be a formal requirement on resumes - above tertiary study -, you won’t be taken serious without it.

Download Web Developer

View Source Chart (2.6)

I’m a convert, every machine I have to examine page elements or pull apart Javascript quickly also becomes a convert to this great extension.

Download View Source Chart

IE Tab

Screw opening iexplore from the Start > Run menu every time you check for cross-browser support, IE Tab opens an Internet Explorer instance using Javascript within a Firefox tab. Just click the browser icon in the bottom right corner and you’re away.

FYI, cross-browser support is now a little trickier with the advent of Internet Explorer 7. I haven’t found any way to switch the default IE engine IE Tab uses so am having to open an additional Internet Explorer instance to check support between versions.

Download IE Tab

There is a much more efficient method of searching as apposed to the top right search box.

1. Find any search form, be that google, wiki, etc.
2. Right click the search box and click “Add a keyword for this search…
3. Enter your future Keyword for this search as well as a suitable name and place to store the Bookmark.
4. To use, type your keyword along with a search term in the address bar.

“wiki John Howard height”
“torrent time delayed film“

LaunchBar 4 should be a native feature to all OS, allowing for the immediate loading, searching and sub-searching of common windows and their contents alike by typing an acromyn or name of the window in question. (eg. TED to open a new TextEdit instance or GEN to open the iTunes Genres smart group followed by a space and CLA to sub-search the Genre’s window for the entry named Classical.

Apple users win with support for this one! Windows has similar alternatives but damn no where near as usable as what Objective Development Software have pulled out of the bag.

While you’re at it check out AskTog to Make Your Mac a Monster Machine, I read it over and am quite envious as none of these are currently available to Windows.

RocketDock is out and it’s great! ObjectDock was previously the resource hungry choice next to the non-existant Y’z Dock for a smooth, minimal desktop application launcher.

By far the greatest move Punk Software made has been the integratoion of support for all current major application launchers!

So shift on up to what Apple users (and people with way too much free processing power) have been using for years.
Download RocketDock