Fridge Dweller

Asteroids Missing Earth: What Means “Close Call”?

2012-03-06T00:13:00.000+01:00

Every now and then you read about asteroids passing Earth in a certain distance but nobody gives you a feeling of how close such an encounter is. Allow me to fill in this gap.

Say an asteroid passes in a distance x from Earth, the radius of which we will call r. We now can ask how likely it is that an object that hits a disk of radius r+x also hits a disk of radius r provided that it any point on the larger disk is hit with equal likelihood.

The likelihood then is p = A(r)/A(r+x) where A is the area of a disk of the given radius, In other words p = πr²/π(r+x)² = 1/(1+x/r)². If we now define ξ=x/r (which is the distance in units of Earth's radius we get a quite simple formula: p = 1/(1+ξ)².

Using ξ is advantageous as it is a value you actually find in tables. Let’s try a couple of values; LD means Lunar distance and is the distance in terms of the average distance between Earth and Moon:

Distance in		ξ	p in %
LD	km	ξ	p in %
1.65614	636619.77	100	0.098
0.49684	190985.93	30	0.104
0.16561	63661.98	10	0.826
0.04968	19098.59	3	6.250
0.01656	6366.20	1	25.000
0.00497	1909.86	0.3	59.172
0.00166	636.62	0.1	82.645
0.00050	190.99	0.03	94.260
0.00017	63.66	0.01	98.030

Please note that the closer an encounter is the less meaningless this rough estimate becomes as the asteroid by no means randomly hits the disk of radius r+x but follows a clearly determined path.

Termtter, a terminal-based Twitter client

2012-03-04T22:03:00.000+01:00

Termtter is a terminal-based Twitter client written in Ruby that can be installed as a Ruby gem. In the easiest case you simply type in

gem install termtter

and you are done with installing the program, otherwise see How to Install.

Once termtter has been installed you can simply run it provided that you do not need to use a proxy; in that case see Configuration. However, like any other Twitter application, termtter needs to be authorised in order to function properly.

Therefore, at the initial run, termtter will provide you with an authorisation URL.

First launch of termtter

Once you visit this URL, you will be asked whether you want to authorise termtter to use your Twitter account.

Visiting authorization URL

If you choose to authorise the application (i.e. termtter) you will provided with a PIN.

Obtaining PIN

After having obtained the PIN you need to enter it in termtter. Copy and paste will not work because the PIN is shown as an image.

Entering PIN

Now that termtter has been authorised you can use it at your liking.

Termtter at work

Michael Geist at INTA Workshop

2012-03-04T01:54:00.000+01:00

If you want a brief explanation what is wrong with ACTA this video is an absolute must.

The full text of the report can be found at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6350/125/

Easily Brighten Underexposed Areas of a Photo

2012-03-02T01:13:00.000+01:00

In Overlay an Inverted Layer Onto a Photo to Brighten Underexposed Areas, PetaPixel shows how to do precisely that. I applied the method to a quite arbitrary underexposed photo and this is what I got:

Original image

Lit up using overlay method

Lit up, white balance applied

White balance only

A nice method indeed and it should work with any image processing program that's worth being used – in the article it's Photoshop while I have been using the Gimp.

Send in the Copyright Demolition Squad!

2012-02-24T23:16:00.000+01:00

A video detailing what a scientist faces if he wants to publish a scientific article made me share some short, rather polemic thoughts on copyright on Google+. I then realized that they are worth being put on this blog. So here we go:

It is a well-established lie that copyright is a means for creators of art, music, scientific papers and other works to protect their intellectual property against people who want to prey on it. Little could be farther from truth. Copyright is regularly and habitually being perverted into a means to dispossess creators of their intellectual property so that they do not obtain a fair payoff.

In my opinion, those who fight the ever worsening, dreadful state of copyright are no enemies of the authors. They surely are enemies of those parasites who prey on these authors' works but fighting this vermin definitely is a just cause.

Joe Scientist comes face-to-face with
the scientific publication business

Copyright Claims vs. Hatsune Miku Youtube Videos

2012-02-03T01:55:00.000+01:00

As you may know, I am a member of the German pirate party. An important reason for joining was that I disapprove a system where the mere claim (without the need for providing any evidence) that certain content infringes copyright is sufficient for its takedown. Not only does this approach collide with my view that guilty until proven guilty should be a universal principle not just for penal codes, it also makes the abusive use of false claims way to easy.

In the case of YouTube’s automated system things are even worse. Not only can false claims be made – they can made by anybody, not just by persons who are authorized by the copyright holder to do so. I am a huge fan of vocaloids in general and Hatsune Miku in particular and while I have an account at nicovideo (the site where most vocaloid music is uploaded), I prefer accessing them on youtube because there you can build a virtually infinite number of playlists.

I now learned that there seems to be a concerted action to have high-ranked Hatsune Miku videos removed from youtube by making false claims of copyright infringement which not only results in those videos being removed but also in accounts being closed due to such claims and the three strikes rule.

The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku from YouTube

This is incident is sad in may ways including:

A means created for a just cause is abused for a hidous one (first and foremost copyright is not about making money but about empowering creators of content so that they have a say in how it is used – this is so central that German law does not even allow you to give up this right).
Damage is done to the community because many Hatsune Miku songs usually are happy ones that brighten your day.
As vocaloids allow every hobby composer to use vocals without having to paying quite a lot of money on a singer or having to find people willing to sing without payment, they allow talents that would otherwise have been lost to give a world-wide audience delight.

For more please visit Recent Copyright Claims Affecting Miku Youtube Videos at Vocaloidism. Please help spread the word about this attack on wonderful music created for what likely is the oldest reason to make music: the fun of making it and listening to it.

Fittingly, the song that you hear as BGM for the above video is The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku.

I wonder if the incident may have to do with the top position at Singers You'd Like to Perform at the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremonies

I can't has lolcats?

2012-01-18T16:32:00.000+01:00

Do you love lolcats? If so, the following image is for you.

I has a sad tewdai

PIPA, SOPA and other FU-KYA ideas may mean that you will no longer be able to see any more lolcats.

The Day The LOLcats Died

For more see cheezburger’s This is Your Internet … after Congress passes new censorship laws. For tweets and the like there is a short URL you may like to use: http://j.mp/lifeaftersopa+

3D printed zoetrope

2012-01-11T20:37:00.000+01:00

Meet the awesome 3Drehkino, an improved zoetrope. Improvements are:

It uses flashing LEDs and the stroboscopic effect instead of a slit.
It has electronics to sync the flashing with the rotation of the disk; the animation therefore works for a wide range of rotation speeds.
It uses 3D objects rather than flat ones, making it look much very realistic.

3Drehkino

If you ask me the obvious next step would be painting the objects. Via A Hack a Day.

Toccata and Fugue in D minor on a Glass Harp

2012-01-09T13:53:00.000+01:00

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) is a piece of organ music attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire. Hear it performed on a glass harp:

Toccata i Fuga d-moll J.S. Bacha - Festiwal Muzyki Kameralnej w Bolonii (HD)

Mr Bean and the European Anthem

2012-01-09T01:01:00.000+01:00

Allow me to share this performance of the European Anthem by Mr. Bean who runs out of text and improvises one of his own using German loanwords and the like. I laughed so heartily that I had tears in my eyes ☺

Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean)
European Anthem - 'Beethoven's 9th Symphony'

Google Maps: From The Shire to Mordor

2012-01-08T23:27:00.000+01:00

This is what happens if you as Google Maps how to walk from The Shire to Mordor.

From The Shire to Mordor

Notice that you do not only get the iconic “One does not simply walk into Mordor.” but also the hint that the given route has tolls.

Youtube Videos: Navigation by Numbers

2012-01-08T21:37:00.000+01:00

You can use the number keys 0 through 9 to move to certain locations in a youtube video:

key	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
position	beginning	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%

Allow me to use Big Buck Bunny as an illustration:

Skipping through Big Buck Bunny

Adblock plus showing ads?

2012-01-04T01:01:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed that recent versions of Adblock plus do not filter out certain ads. Here is how to get rid of this “feature”:

First you go to Tools → Addons → Extensions → Adblock Plus to open the Adblock Plus preferences and click on Filter Preferences…

Adblock Plus preferences

Alternatively you can right-click on the Adblock Plus Icon (an octagonal stop sign with the text ABP on it) to open its context menu and select Filter Preferences… or use the Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut. No matter which method you use, simply open the Adblock Plus Filter Preferences window.

In this window go to the Filter subscriptions tab and uncheck Allow some non-intrusive advertising.

Adblock Plus Fiter Preferences:
Filter Subscriptions → Allow some non-intrusive advertising

That's it.

FxIF

2012-01-02T22:04:00.000+01:00

FxIF (Firefox exIF) allows you to view meta information data contained in JPEG images. Most digital cameras add EXIF data to all images you take and much editing software adds or allows you to add more informations on the picture and you the creator.

Install order for Firefox add-ons

2012-01-02T01:53:00.000+01:00

Allow me to suggested an order in which to installing Firefox add-ons. Note that you typically need not restart the browser after installing each and every add-on. However, I cannot guarantee that not doing so will not run you into trouble.

First of all you should ensure that you keep the configuration free from unused options. In order to do so allow me to suggest that the first add-on you install is one that helps you with this (i.e. before you mess up the config).

Note that if you manually modify config settings it may be a good idea to document what you did. Otherwise you will sooner or later forget for what purpose you made which modification and it may even occur that you altogether forget that you made a certain modification – and chances are that you will need to recall precisely that forgotten detail.

Preferences Cleaner - Restart after installing this add-on to make sure that it is in place before you install anything else.

Now you should add some protective measures:

Once the above add-ons (or at least the ones in bold) choose from the other add-ons listed on this page. Allow me to start with a set of suggested add-ons that aim at tuning Firefox:

The purpose of the next bunch of add-ons is providing features to Firefox that are not site-specific:

This bunch of add-ons improve the GUI:

The next bunch is for looking up words and phrases:

Finally here is a bunch of quite site-specific tools:

You may wonder why I am so insane that I wrote this text. Actually this has little to do with sanity – the above documents in which order I actually added the listed bunches of add-ons after my Firefox config had gotten too messy ☺

2012-01-02, 17:46 UTC: I removed Easy App Tabs from the list as its feature is provided by Tab Mix Plus.
2012-01-02, 18:3 UTC: Added GoogleReaderPlus (forgotten)

Quick Locale Switcher

2012-01-02T01:23:00.000+01:00

Quick Locale Switcher allows you to quickly switch to a different language (User Interface, Spell Checker Dictionary and Website content) in your Mozilla application.

Preferences Cleaner

2011-12-31T23:03:00.000+01:00

Preferences Cleaner allows you to automatically track installation or uninstallation of Firefox extensions. When uninstalling an extension, you can automatically remove all its preferences. Alternatively, you may opt to remove them later manually.

rikaichan

2011-12-31T02:30:00.001+01:00

rikaichan is a Japanese to English/German/French/Russian dictionary. Just hover the mouse pointer over a word, and a popup with both the reading and the meaning appears. The add-on automatically de-inflects verbs and adjectives and has a detailed kanji view. For Dictionaries see http://rikaichan.mozdev.org/.

Perapera Chinese Popup Dictionary

2011-12-31T01:51:00.002+01:00

Perapera Chinese Popup Dictionary allows you to look up the pronounciation and meaning of any Chinese word that occurs on a webpage by just hovering the mouse pointer over it. Dictionaries for English (built-in), German, and French are available, it supports Pinyin and Zhuyin as well as simplified and traditional characters.

Copy Link URL

2011-12-30T11:00:00.000+01:00

Copy Link URL copies the URLs of selected links to the clipboard.

Extended Statusbar

2011-12-30T09:30:00.000+01:00

Extended Statusbar provides a Statusbar with speed, percentage, time and loaded size (similar to Opera's one)

Multi Links

2011-12-30T03:13:00.000+01:00

Multi Links lets you open, copy or bookmark multiple links at the same time rather than having to do them all individually.

HashColouredTabs+

2011-12-30T03:00:00.001+01:00

HashColouredTabs+ improves tab identification by providing a small colored icon for any site which doesn't have its own favicon.

Is It Compatible?

2011-12-30T02:53:00.002+01:00

Is It Compatible? displays Firefox or Thunderbird compatibility versions for each addon in the addons window

Load Tabs Progressively

2011-12-30T02:22:00.000+01:00

Load Tabs Progressively limits the number of concurrent loading tabs and/or unread loaded tabs. A good idea if you have many open tabs and/or tend to open many tabs at once.

Print Edit

2011-12-30T02:15:00.000+01:00

Print Edit allows editing of the web page content while in Print Preview mode. Editing the web page prior to printing can compact the layout and remove unwanted content such as adverts, sidebars and blank pages. Any element can be formatted, hidden or deleted.

Secure Or Not

2011-12-30T02:09:00.001+01:00

Secure Or Not allows you to identify which links on a page are secure and which are not, where “secure” means an encrypted connection, nothing more, nothing less.

Hide Find Bar

2011-12-30T01:45:00.002+01:00

Hide Find Bar hides the Find Bar after a certain interval of inactivity has elapsed.

Hide Tabbar

2011-12-30T01:43:00.001+01:00

Hide Tabbar allows you to hide/unhide the tabbar by just pressing a key.

Open Image In New Tab

2011-12-30T01:41:00.000+01:00

Open Image In New Tab adds a context menu item for opening images in new tabs.

UnloadTab

2011-12-30T01:34:00.000+01:00

UnloadTab unloads inactive tabs in order to save resources. An unloaded tab is restored back to its original state when you need it again. Features include automatic and manual unloading of tabs, control over tab loading at Firefox start-up, and exclusion of tabs from unloading.

User Agent Switcher

2011-12-30T01:11:00.000+01:00

User Agent Switcher adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser. Especially helpful for those “intelligent” sites that do not display due to a User Agent string their creators were not aware of.

Downloads in Tab

2011-12-30T01:04:00.001+01:00

Downloads in Tab opens the "Downloads" manager in a tab rather than in a window of its own.

Extension Options Menu

2011-12-30T00:21:00.002+01:00

Extension Options Menu adds extension options dialogs to the Tools or Titlebar menu; it also includes toolbar icon. Very handy if you have lots of add-ons.

Link Alert

2011-12-30T00:03:00.000+01:00

Link Alert displays an icon in the tooltip or next to the cursor indicating the target of a link.

Open in Browser

2011-12-29T22:57:00.002+01:00

Open in Browser offers the possibility to display documents in browser window.

Tile Tabs

2011-12-29T22:54:00.001+01:00

Tile Tabs displays tabs in tiles within Firefox. Tiles can be arranged horizontally, vertically or in a grid. Tiles can be re-sized by dragging splitter bars. Links can be dragged to open in other tiles. Allows synchronized scrolling. Works with tab groups.

OptimizeGoogle

2011-12-29T22:49:00.001+01:00

OptimizeGoogle enhances Google search results and removes ads and spam.

Tab Mix Plus

2011-12-29T22:46:00.004+01:00

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager.

FireGestures

2011-12-29T22:40:00.001+01:00

FireGestures is a customizable mouse gestures extension which enables to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures.

LEOs Dictionaries

2011-12-29T22:37:00.000+01:00

LEOs Dictionaries is the official add-on for easier access to LEOs Online Dictionaries. Simply select any word or phrase, right-click on the selection and translate from (to) English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Russian to (from) German

You may also like to take a look at Dict.cc Translation.

OPML Support

2011-12-29T22:32:00.000+01:00

OPML Support adds OPML import/export functionality to the Firefox Bookmarks manager.

View as Text

2011-12-29T22:29:00.001+01:00

View as Text is a simple context-menu plugin to facilitate opening an arbitrary resource as plain text (text/plain).

ColorfulTabs

2011-12-29T22:25:00.002+01:00

ColorfulTabs colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.

Textarea Cache

2011-12-29T22:19:00.000+01:00

Textarea Cache is an add-on that automatically saves the content of a textarea or WYSIWYG editor and allows you to recover the saved text, thereby avoiding data loss if the tab or the window is accidentally being closed.

Seven Blunders

2011-12-28T20:17:00.000+01:00

Mahatma Gandhi has identified seven sins of modern society:

wealth without work
politics without principles
pleasure without conscience
knowledge without character
commerce without morality
science without humanity
worship without sacrifice

If you ponder on them, you will soon notice that these seven sins are responsible for most of the issues the world is currently facing – especially the most pressing ones that are nevertheless left unaddressed.

lolifox - Fierr MOD

2011-12-28T12:55:00.000+01:00

lolifox - Fierr MOD replaces the error page with a lolifox appearance with additional features.

Lolifox screenshot

Video DownloadHelper

2011-12-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

Video DownloadHelper makes downloading videos, audio and pictures an easy task. It supports hundreds of sites.

Scriptish

2011-12-28T01:37:00.000+01:00

Scriptish is user script engine on the Internet (a fork of Greasemonkey). One very nice use of it is displaying video ratings on Youtube (see Youtube: Show Ratings)

Space Next

2011-12-28T00:36:00.000+01:00

Space Next allows you to press the "Space" key at the end of a page to load the next page; I removed nextpage in favor of this add-on.

FireFTP

2011-12-27T23:55:00.000+01:00

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP/SFTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP/SFTP servers.

Stylish

2011-12-27T23:48:00.000+01:00

Stylish is a user styles manger that allows you to restyle the web. Stylish lets you easily install themes and skins for Google, Facebook, YouTube, Orkut, and many, many other sites. You can even customize Firefox and other programs themselves.

To give you an example of how to use Stylish allow me to use Google Reader. I cannot stand bright white backgrounds, reading text on them hurts my eyes. For this reason I use Stylish to change the look of Google Reader.

More precisely I essentially use Google Reader – Custom Color and Google Reader – Change the interface (which belong together). “Essentially” because I modified the colors used

from	to
rgb(223, 234, 248)	#bbb
rgb(234, 248, 248)	#bbb
rgb(233, 0, 0)	#009
rgb(191,191,191)	#ccc
#9bf	#4d90f0
#eee	#000

Download Statusbar

2011-12-27T02:06:00.001+01:00

Download Statusbar allows you to view and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.

Vertical Toolbar

2011-12-27T01:55:00.003+01:00

Vertical Toolbar adds a vertical toolbar at the (left or right) edge of the window which either is visible at any time or hides automatically when it is not needed.

Screenshoter

2011-12-27T01:48:00.000+01:00

Screenshoter is a pretty simple and cute screen capturing tool for websites.

GReader Panel

2011-12-27T01:44:00.000+01:00

GReader Panel displays mobile Google Reader in a panel. Quite useful if you just want to take a quick look at the most recent news.

No restart required.

GoogleReaderPlus

2011-12-27T01:39:00.002+01:00

GoogleReaderPlus adds useful tools to your Google reader.

Google Documents Viewer

2011-12-27T00:57:00.001+01:00

Google Documents Viewer allows you to open documents in Google Docs Viewer with a simple right click. View PDF, DOCX, XLSX and much more online with Google Docs Viewer. Supported Document Types are:

Microsoft Word (.DOC and .DOCX)
Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT and .PPTX)
Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF)
Apple Pages (.PAGES)
Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF)
Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
TrueType (.TTF)
XML Paper Specification (.XPS)
Archive file types (.ZIP and .RAR)

No restart required.

Flagfox

2011-12-27T00:47:00.005+01:00

Flagfox displays a country flag depicting the location of the current website's server and provides a multitude of tools such as site safety checks, whois, translation, similar sites, validation, URL shortening, and more…

FireSSH

2011-12-27T00:45:00.002+01:00

FireSSH is a free, cross-platform SSH terminal client for Mozilla Firefox. Written entirely in Javascript!

FireSoup

2011-12-27T00:38:00.000+01:00

FireSoup allows posting to the soup.io tumblelogging platform. It behaves similar to the official soup.io bookmarklet and even opens up the same service page, but the actual opening of the post window (including the communication of necessary page information) happens by means of chrome instead of Javascript injected into the current page, the latter which does not work if you happen to have JavaScript blocked on the current page (e.g. by the means of NoScript or similar addons).

Easy App Tabs

2011-12-27T00:29:00.000+01:00

Easy App Tabs allows you to double-click a tab to convert it to/from an App Tab.

No restart required.

Discreet Tab Badge

2011-12-27T00:14:00.001+01:00

Discreet Tab Badge adds a discreet counter badge to your tabs - great for Gmail, Facebook or Twitter notifications. Derived from the original Tab Badge by Geoff Lankow.

No restart required.

CuteButtons - Crystal SVG

2011-12-27T00:11:00.000+01:00

CuteButtons - Crystal SVG adds icons to buttons, menus, etc. It may sound like just adding some visual sugar but icons allow for a faster identification of menu entries than just using plain text.

Copy ShortURL

2011-12-27T00:03:00.000+01:00

Copy ShortURL lets you instantly create a short URL for web pages that you visit, so you can easily share links. If possible it uses a short URL provided by the site itself rather than a short URL service (like shortening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hul4pJo_z-8 to http://youtu.be/Hul4pJo_z-8).

No restart required.

Padlock

2011-12-25T23:56:00.000+01:00

Padlock brings back the padlock icon which will be shown when connecting successfully to a site using the https protocol. I find this tool useful because while I can understand the reasoning behind it, I find the new color-encoded information not too helpful.

Popup ALT Attribute

2011-12-25T20:44:00.001+01:00

Popup ALT Attribute is an add-on that displays alternate texts (i.e. the value of the ALT attribute) of images and other content in the same manner that a title (i.e. the value of the TITLE attribute) would be displayed. If both an ALT and a TITLE attribute are present only the latter is shown.

No restart required.

NetVideoHunter Video Downloader

2011-12-25T00:00:00.001+01:00

NetVideoHunter Video Downloader is a very nice download helper tool that lets you easily collect and download videos and music from sites like Youtube, Facebook, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Break, VKontakte, DivShare and from many other sites…

2011-12-24T23:39:00.000+01:00

nextpage allows you to use the space bar to go to the next page. The add-on rebinds SPC key so that it scrolls down the page as long as you are not at the button but then follows a link to the next page (provided there is one). You can also press n key anytime which will get you to the next page without first having to scroll to the bottom of the current page.

I now use Space Next instead.

XHTML Mobile Profile

2011-12-24T22:59:00.000+01:00

XHTML Mobile Profile adds support for the application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml mime-type to Firefox, a possible mime-type for XHTML Mobile Profile that is not natively supported.

QuickFolders (Tabbed Folders)

2011-12-24T22:09:00.003+01:00

QuickFolders (Tabbed Folders) allows you to cut through the clutter of the folders sidebar with your favorite folders as tabs. Open folders and sub folders, move mails without scrolling around or searching.

CompactHeader

2011-12-24T22:05:00.001+01:00

CompactHeader add a symbol to the header plane that allows you to switch between compact and expanded view.

Automatic dictionary

2011-12-24T21:56:00.000+01:00

Automatic dictionary is an extension that remembers the language of the email when composing, something very useful if you write emails in different languages.

Cert Viewer Plus

2011-12-24T21:47:00.001+01:00

Cert Viewer Plus is a Thunderbird add-on that extends the certificate viewer dialog with additional options: an X.509 certificate can be displayed in PEM format (opens in a new window) or saved to a file (PEM/DER/PKCS#7). On the "General" tab, Cert Viewer Plus will also show any e-mail addresses included in the certificate, and make the fingerprint values copyable. On the "Details" tab, the trust configuration (SSL/Mail/Code) is shown for each certificate, and can be edited in newer releases of Firefox/Thunderbird/Seamonkey. Furthermore, an entry for direct access to the certificate manager dialog is added to the Tools menu, together with a keyboard shortcut.

This add-on is also available for Firefox.

Certificate Patrol

2011-12-24T21:23:00.000+01:00

Certificate Patrol is a Thunderbird add-on that reveals when certificates are updated, so you can ensure it was a legitimate change. Note that your browser trusts many certification authorities and intermediate sub-authorities quietly, every time you enter an HTTPS web site.

It is also available for Firefox.

Color Folders

2011-12-23T02:22:00.001+01:00

Color Folders allows you to color your Folder Treeview Icons. You can for example use different colors to indicate folders of different importance or urgency.

Maximize Message Pane

2011-12-23T00:23:00.000+01:00

Maximize Message Pane allows you to maximize the message pane by collapsing the thread pane. You can read a message in larger area without opening a new message window.

In addition to this functionality, the following functionalities are provided:

hide the folder pane,
change folder selection from the toolbar button or the context menus (it is useful when the folder pane is hidden),
hide the message pane by the toolbar button,
save visibility of the folder pane and the last selected message.
change message selection by the navigation bar when the message pane is maximized

Note that this add-on does not work properly if you use the Wide Thread View or Stacked View provided by MoreLayouts.

Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus

2011-12-22T23:53:00.000+01:00

Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus is a Thunderbird add-on that simplifies the creation of element hiding rules. You simply select the element you want to be hidden and then choose which attributes of this element should be taken into account when hiding it in future. The element hiding rule is generated and added automatically.

This add-on is also available for Firefox.

Adblock Plus

2011-12-22T23:47:00.000+01:00

Adblock Plus is an add-on for Thunderbird that blocks advertisements. It allows you to regain control of the Internet and view the web the way you want to. The add-on is supported by over forty filter subscriptions in dozens of languages which automatically configure it for purposes ranging from removing online advertising to blocking all known malware domains. Adblock Plus also allows you to customize your filters with the assistance of a variety of useful features, including a context option for images, a block tab for Flash and Java objects, and a list of blockable items to remove scripts and stylesheets.

This add-on also is available for Firefox.

CookieFast

2011-12-22T23:33:00.002+01:00

CookieFast provides fast toolbar button access to cookie management in a very small package. If you use Thunderbrowse having cookie management is a must.

Polar Sea Ice Coverage

2011-12-22T22:31:00.001+01:00

I added a page illustrating the current polar (i.e. Arctic and Antarctic) sea ice overage to my blog. It was originally located elsewhere. The information is provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The diagrams show the ice concentration in the polar regions, the regions covered by polar sea ice and how the area with an ice density of 15 percent or higher varies.

LightningButton

2011-12-22T22:25:00.002+01:00

LightningButton provides toolbar buttons for Lightning, namely Calendar, Tasks, New Event, New Task, Convert to Event, Convert to Task, and Messages.

Tag Toolbar

2011-12-22T21:41:00.000+01:00

Tag Toolbar adds a new toolbar and display the tags you have created as toggle buttons. You can attach/remove tags to/from the selected messages. The tag buttons' states are changed automatically, so you can easily know what tags are attached to the message. Moreover, you can filter the tags to be displayed by categorizing tags. You can create and change category from the listbox on Tag Bar.

Some UTF-8 Settings for Thunderbird

2011-12-22T21:34:00.000+01:00

It is beyond me why Thunderbird still sticks to outdated ISO 8859-1 as default setting for displaying and sending news. Fortunately it is easy to fix this and use UTF-8 instead:

Preference Name	Default	New
intl.charset.default	ISO-8859-1	UTF-8
mailnews.send_default_charset	ISO-8859-1	UTF-8
mailnews.view_default_charset	ISO-8859-1	UTF-8

Google Contacts

2011-12-22T14:12:00.000+01:00

Google Contacts is a Thunderbird add-on which allows you to access your Google contacts and synchronize them with Thunderbird address books. It detects gmail accounts which have already set up and creates address books for each of them.

Cards in the address books are synchronized with Google contacts; they represent the current Google contacts contents and Google contacts will be modified when you modify the cards. TB's mailing lists and Google's contacts groups are synchronized in the same manner.

Gather the senders !

2011-12-22T13:44:00.000+01:00

Gather the senders ! allows you to select all the mails in a directory sent by the selected authors. This add-on has a number of applications, the most obvious one is discarding messages by a certain sender (spammer).

Shrunked Image Resizer

2011-12-22T13:33:00.003+01:00

Shrunked Image Resizer is an add-on for both Thunderbird (available here) and Firefox (available here) that makes your photos smaller, so they don’t take forever to email or send to websites.

MoreLayouts

2011-12-22T13:18:00.000+01:00

MoreLayouts adds additional Wide Thread and Stacked views to Thunderbird. Plus Fullscreen F11 and configurable Message Pane F8 toggle.

Search Results Sort By Date Not Relevance

2011-12-22T13:04:00.002+01:00

Search Results Sort By Date Not Relevance changes the default sorting of search results from “relevance” to date.

Normally, when doing a standard CTRL-K (aka “faceted”) search, the results are sorted by ”relevance”. If you are usually searching for the most recent message on a topic it is very annoying that you always have to change the sort order to “date” because neither does Thunderbird keep the setting nor is there an easy way to change the default. Enters Search Results Sort By Date Not Relevance.

Dict.cc Translation

2011-12-22T11:53:00.002+01:00

Dict.cc Translation translates words and phrases via Dict.cc from within any web site.

You may also like to take a look at LEOs Dictionaries.

Hide Menubar

2011-12-22T11:53:00.001+01:00

Hide Menubar can automatcally hide the Menu Bar, just press ALT or hover the mouse over the title bar to make it visible; also available for Firefox.

Xpunge

2011-12-22T11:53:00.000+01:00

Xpunge empties the Trash folder and compacts folders in multiple Thunderbird accounts.

ThunderBrowse

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000+01:00

ThunderBrowse adds browsing functions to Thunderbird, allowing you to be able to view websites without having to open another application. You can easily save time, space, and memory usage by opening up the website within Thunderbird. ThunderBrowse is easy to use and unobtrusive. In my opinion it is especially handy if someone sends you a link to a youtube video.

Clean Subject

2011-12-22T11:00:00.000+01:00

Clean Subject cleans the subject from multiple occurrences of subject prefixes such as ("Re: Re-2: Re:") and postfixes that are inserted by other clients. Words like "[SPAM]" can be cleaned as well. These prefixes can be defined in the preferences.

CuteButtons - Crystal SVG

2011-12-22T10:00:00.000+01:00

CuteButtons - Crystal SVG adds icons to buttons, menus, etc. It may sound like just adding some visual sugar but icons allow for a faster identification of menu entries than just using plain text.

Advanced Unread Folders

2011-12-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

Advanced Unread Folders adds a folder view showing unread folders, including their hierarchy. This is helpful if you have a lot of folders to make sure you don't miss an email, or if you are not happy with the existing unread folders view.

Auto Compress File

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000+01:00

Auto Compress File is a compressor for attachment files that supports Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Disable Ctrl-Q Shortcut

2011-12-21T15:44:00.002+01:00

Disable Ctrl-Q Shortcut prevents you from closing the browser by accidentally using the ctrl-q shortcut.

It may sound like a solution to a non-problem but this actually happens to me on a regular basis – when I intend to press ctrl-w. I use touch typing and if you ask me, modern keyboards are not very touch typing friendly because they are quite strait.

Add-on Update Checker

2011-12-21T14:10:00.000+01:00

Add-on Update Checker is an add-on for both Firefox and Thunderbird that adds a Tools menu item to check for add-on updates and provides a toolbar icon to do this as well.

The add-on is for those who do not want Firefox to update add-ons without their knowledge (and therefore turn off automatic add-on updates) but I still wanted to be notified of new versions.

Show Fixed-width Temporarily

2011-12-21T02:00:00.000+01:00

Show Fixed-width Temporarily shows the current plain text message in fixed-width text.

This extension is useful if you normally view plain-text messages with a variable-width font (which is easier to read than a fixed-width font) but wish to view one in a fixed-width font temporarily. Such emails might be text arranged in columns, such as log files, where a variable-width font misaligns the text.

A button is added to the Toolbar (right-click on Toolbar and Customize…). Clicking on it shows the current plain text message in a fixed-width font. The effect only lasts for the current message and automatically reverts back to the default setting (as set in Options) for the next message. You don't have to click on the button again to revert back to the default state.