Friday 5

5 Firefox add-ons

Have you tried the free Firefox Web browser yet?

If you haven’t (and you should), consider these five great tools you can add to your Firefox surfing experience — all in less than five minutes:

1. FoxyTunes: Adds a row of music-player controls at the bottom of your browser window, allowing you to pick, play and pause your music without leaving your browser.

2. Stumbleupon: Tell this add-on just a bit about your interests and start “stumbling” around the Web. You’ll join thousands of people with similar interests in a cooperative quest for cool new stuff.

3. Download Status Bar: Don’t you hate it when you download something and then you can’t find where the computer stashed it? This simple tool brings sanity back to downloading.

4. Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer: Set this up for every computer you use and it will keep all your bookmarks identical on each machine.

5. gTalk Sidebar: Add Google’s popular Instant Messaging tool to your browser sidebar.

And the best part? There are literally hundreds of free add-ons for your Firefox browser, so you can customize it to fit your needs.

Boost your personal Google rank

More Americans than ever — including prospective employers, clients and business associates — now use search engines to run background checks on people they’ve never met. Which means it may be time to push the information you want people to find to the top of the “Your Name” search results page.

Like so:

1. BuyYourName.com: So your name is Moultrie Ravenel Pinckney and your friends call you Moot. The URL www.mootpinckney.com is still available, lucky boy. As for you, Mrs. Jane Smith, well ... thanks anyway.
2. Write your autobiography: It’s your life. Describe it. But think resume here, not expose.
3. Link to it: Google treats links as recommendations, so you need as many as you can get to boost your page rank. One good solution: If you comment on other sites and blogs, add your new URL to your log-in identity, and then comment away.
4. Try networking: There are all more professional and personal networking sites and services than we can mention here. Sharing your Web URL on these sites will boost your search profile, even if it does nothing else.
5. Change your name: So your parents named you Barry Bonds, or maybe Paris Hilton. Sorry. Maybe it’s time to start calling yourself “Ace Bonds” or “Zoey Hilton.” It’s all about branding, and if yours is already taken, you’ll just have to get creative.