Evernote Clearly

Evernote Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/) is an add-in for Chrome, Firefox and Opera that allows you to strip away the menus, ads and other extraneous content and only keep text and pictures.  The goal is to allow you to send a stripped down version of the page to Evernote for storage (I have a previously posted about Evernote, an app I become more enthusiastic about as I add content to it).

And while that alone makes Clearly a very useful tool, what makes it even more useful is that you don't even need to use it in the context of Evernote, but can simply use it to strip away all the distractions and advertisements and only focus on content.

Here's a random example.  Before...

 

And after...

 To launch Clearly, click the lamp icon (see screenshot at left) in the upper right of your browser (the elephant icon is used to send the webpage directly to Evernote).  In addition to the icon, there is a slide out menu (see screenshot at right) that allows you to highlight, print, change text size, and send to Evernote. Clearly is an excellent companion to an already remarkably useful tool.
 


      

Firefox Add-ins and Hyperwords

Firefox's Add-ons page (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/) allows you to easily customize the Firefox browser. There are hundreds of add-ons available, ranging from changing the appearance of your browser to managing bookmarks, downloads and RSS feeds. Many are merely odd, some are engaging enough to actually change the way you use your browser.

I'll focus on one I find particularly useful here: Hyperwords (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1941). Hyperwords adds a right-click menu to your mouse button so that by selecting text and right-clicking you can select from a dizzying array of commands. Search Google for the selected text, look up a dictionary definition, translate it one of 16 languages, copy it to your clipboard, even shop for it on Craigslist. The screenshot below shows how to search for YouTube videos of Pedro Martinez simply with a right-click and a couple of menu commands.



This is just one of the hundreds of add-ins available on Firefox. I urge you to follow the link at the top of the post and take a look. it will change the way you use your browser.

IE Tester

IE Tester (http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage), from My DeBugBar, allows you to test your websites on multiple versions of Internet Explorer, including IE 8, IE 7 IE 6 and IE 5.5.

It is important to test and preview your webpages in several browsers, from Firefox and Safari to all the various flavors of Internet Explorer out there. The problem with Internet Explorer is that you can only download the most recent version from Microsoft. And, when you do, it will attempt to overwrite the older version.

IE Tester is an elegant solution to this problem. I've previously mentioned Multiple IE as a solution, but, while a good product, Multiple IE does not install on Vista, nor does it allow testing on IE7 and IE8. IE Tester overcomes these limitations nicely.

Thanks to Zach Hittle for the suggestion.

Read It Later

There are lots of cool "add-on's" for Firefox, which allow you to customize your browser to best fit your own personal habits. You can add instant Babelfish translation, be notified of email, or receive scoring updates from your favorite teams.
You can view them all at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/.

A recent one that has worked its way into my every day life is Read It Later. It puts a little checkmark icon in the location bar of Firefox (circled in red below), and a "Read It Later" folder in your bookmarks menu. If you run across an interesting article or webpage, you simply click the checkmark icon in the location bar, and it will save the webpage as a bookmark inside the Read It Later folder inside your bookmarks menu. That way, you can look at the pages you've flagged when you find the time.


Read It Later is also available for Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, and many cellphones. Learn more about it, and download it, at http://readitlaterlist.com/

Thanks to Loretta Lohman for suggesting the topic of Firefox add-ons.