So I did a Munin plugin. In PHP ofcourse. ;) It’s my first Munin plugin, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the only one written in PHP. It’s available for download at Munin Exchange, and the code is here for those that just want a quick look.

Update 27.04.10: Updated the plugin to v1.1.

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
/*
#################################################################
# Title : Qstat ping plugin for Munin v1.1
# Author : Håvard Pedersen
# Email : fuzzy76 @ fuzzy76 net
# Loosely based on the Qstat bash script plugin by Benjamin DUPUIS - Poil
#---------------------------------------------------------------#
# CHANGELOG
#
# v1.1 (23. april 2010)
#   - Added highest ping, lowest ping and query response time.
#   - Now supports being run for testing with ./ in front
#
# v1.0 (initial release 22. april 2010)
#   - Basic thing with average ping only
#
#%# family=manual
*/

$qstatloc = "/usr/bin/quakestat";

function doHelp() {
  global $qstatloc;
	echo "To test the script, just run qstatping_ GAMETYPE ADDRESS PORT
Run qstat to see the available gametypes (q3s, q4s, cods, etc)
To install for Munin you must ln -s /usr/share/munin/plugins/qstat_ /etc/munin/plugins/qstatping_GAMETYPE_ADDRESS_PORT
You might also have to set the path to qstat in $qstatloc
Have fun!
";
}

function doConfig() {
  global $argv;

  if ($argv[0] != "qstatping_") {
    $parts = explode("_",$argv[0]);
    $gametype = $parts[1];
    $ip = $parts[2];
    $port = $parts[3];
  } else {
    $gametype = $argv[1];
    $ip = $argv[2];
    $port = $argv[3];
  }

  echo "graph_title Ping on $gametype at $ip:$port
graph_vlabel Ping
graph_category games
minping.label Minimum ping
maxping.label Maximum ping
avgping.label Average ping
querytime.label Query time
";

}

function doFetch() {
  global $argv, $qstatloc;

  if (substr($argv[0],-(strlen("qstatping_"))) != "qstatping_") {
    $parts = explode("_",$argv[0]);
    $gametype = $parts[1];
    $ip = $parts[2];
    $port = $parts[3];
  } else {
    $gametype = $argv[1];
    $ip = $argv[2];
    $port = $argv[3];
  }

  $querytime = "U";
  $output = array();
  if ($gametype && $ip && $port) {

    $time_start = microtime(true);
    exec("$qstatloc -raw \";\" -nh -P -$gametype $ip:$port", &$output);
    $time_end = microtime(true);
    $querytime = ($time_end - $time_start) * 1000;

    array_shift($output);

    $pingavg = 0;
    $pingmax = -1;
    $pingmin = 9999;
    $playerscount = 0;
    foreach ($output as $line) {
      $player = explode(";", $line);
      if (count($player) >= 3 && $player[2] != 999) {
        if ($player[2] > $pingmax)
          $pingmax = $player[2];
        if ($player[2] < $pingmin)
          $pingmin = $player[2];
        $pingavg += $player[2];
        $playerscount++;
      }
    }

    if ($playerscount != 0)
      $pingavg = $pingavg / $playerscount;  

    if ($playerscount != 0) {
      echo "minping.value $pingmin
maxping.value $pingmax
avgping.value $pingavg
querytime.value $querytime
";
      return;
    }

  }
  echo "minping.value U
maxping.value U
avgping.value U
querytime.value $querytime
";
}

switch ($argv[1]) {
  case "config":
    doConfig();
    break;
  case "help":
  case "?":
    doHelp();
    break;
  case "autoconf":
    echo "no (edit the script to set path to qstat)";
    break;
  case "fetch":
  default:
    doFetch();
}

?>

Merk: Et eller annet sted i installasjonen (rundt punkt 13) blir du som oftest bedt om en lisensnøkkel. Den står som regel på et klistremerke på maskinen (undersiden på laptoper). Noen installasjonsplater rett fra produsent hopper over dette punktet.

1. Start maskinen med Windows XP CD’en i CD-ROM’en. Hvis noe tekst på skjermen under oppstart sier noe sånt som “F12 for boot menu” må du trykke F12 og velge å starte fra CD-ROM.
2. Du kan få meldingen “Trykk en tast for å starte fra CD-ROM”. Trykk en tast.
3. En meny merket “Velkommen til installasjonsprogrammet”. Trykk enter for å starte installasjon av Windows XP.
4. Lisensavtalen. Trykk F8 for å godta.
5. Hvis du får spørsmål om du vil reparere en installasjon, trykker du ESC for å ikke reparere.
6. Partisjonering. Her skal vi slette alt. Trykk R, enter og S etter hverandre for å slette en partisjon. Gå gjennom lista med piltastene og slett alle partisjonene.
7. Når det bare er ett punkt du kan velge som heter “Uten partisjoner” trykker du P for å opprette en partisjon. Godkjenn den foreslåtte størrelsen med enter. Deretter godkjenner du partisjonslista med enter en gang til.
8. Velg å formatere partisjonen med NTFS filsystem velg den merket “(Hurtig)” hvis du er 100% sikker på at harddisken er OK, hvis ikke velger du den uten.
9. Ta deg en kaffe, røyk eller pils. Dette kan ta litt tid. :) Først formateres harddisken, deretter kopieres Windows fra plata til harddisken.
10. Etter en stund starter maskinen på nytt av seg selv. Du kan ta ut CD’en nå hvis du vil. Denne gangen skal du IKKE trykke en tast for å starte fra CD-ROM hvis du blir spurt.
11. Innstillinger for region og språk. Hvis det er en norsk Windows-plate trykker du bare på Neste. Hvis ikke trykker du på details, legger til Norsk tastatur, setter norsk tastatur som default (øverst i vinduet) og sletter engelsk tastatur. Så kan du trykke på Ok og gå videre.
12. Tilpasse programvaren. Skriv navnet ditt, organisasjon kan stå tom. Trykk neste.
13. Navnet på datamaskinen. Et navn datamaskinen vil kalle seg i et nettverk. Trykk neste når du har skrevet inn noe.
14. Dato- og tidsinnstillinger. Sjekk at det stemmer (også årstallet), før du trykker neste.
15. Nettverksinnstillinger. De er helt fine som de er, så trykk neste.
16. Det kan hende Windows tilbyr seg å justere skjermoppløsningen. Det kan du trygt svare ja på.
17. Nok en veiviser starter opp. “Velkommen til Microsoft Windows”. Trykk neste.
18. Opprett bruker(e). Skriv inn minst ett brukernavn. Hvis du skriver inn mer enn en bruker må du velge bruker hver gang du starter maskinen. Trykk neste.
19. Oppsettet er ferdig. Trykk på “fullfør”.

Det er selvfølgelig mye innstillinger jeg gjør personlig på en ny Windows-utgave, men det blir litt for mye å skrive i innlegget her. Men du må ihvertfall installere antivirus. Selv anbefaler jeg Avira AntiVirus. Det krever ingen registrering, og gir deg en liten popup-reklame for betalutgaven hver gang den oppdaterer seg. Selv synes jeg det er en liten pris å betale. :)

iPhone apps (gratis)

Facebook

For å aksessere nettstedet med samme navn.

TV.nu

TV-oversikt. Litt buggete for et par kanaler, men det beste jeg har klart å finne.

Instapaper

Lar deg "lagre" artikler fra din vanlige nettleser og få dem syncet for offline lesing (i en lettlest, nedstrippet utgave) på telefonen. Perfekt for litt lengre artikler og lange bussturer. :) Finnes også i en oppjazzet betalversjon.

RemotePad

Remote touchpad – fjernstyr en hvilken som helst datamaskin (krever et serverprogram installert på maskinen).

Wikiamo

Jeg testet faktisk alle Wikipedia-klientene i appstore. :) Denne vant suverent. Jeg bruker den stadig vekk til å slå opp filmer, artister og lignende.

Mocha VNC lite

En ekte VNC-klient! Jeg bruker den til diverse småoppgaver på hjemmekinomaskinen min (en Mac Mini).

Sudoku 101

Veldig bra Sudoku med læringsmodus og korrekte vanskelighetsgrader (basert på teknikkene du må bruke istedenfor antall ruter fylt) Jeg har faktisk ikke denne, men den kommersielle storebroren Sudoku 401 ettersom den var gratis som et introduksjonstilbud (koster nå 45,- kr).

Yr.no

Skal du ha været en plass i Norge, er det vel kun denne som gjelder.

Sol Free Solitaire

Ordinær kabal.

JellyCar

Morsomt spill som eksperimenterer både med realistisk fysikk og bruk av akselerometeret i iPhone. Få gele-bilen gjennom et utall sære brett.

Fring

IM-klient med Skype-støtte! Og ja, det funker faktisk. :)

Lightsaber Unleashed

Nerdete javel, men et obligatorisk bruksområde for din nye iPhone! Lyssabel, slik som de store gutta har.

FStream

Helt kurrant gratis nettradioklient. Lar deg legge til egne stasjoner også.

iHearts

Hjerter, som vi er kjent med fra Windows. :) Morsomt spill når man kjeder seg litt.

iPhone apps (betalvare)

Prisene er det de var når jeg la programmet inn i lista, men kan ha endret seg i mellomtiden.

Tweetie (17,- kr)

Jeg er Twitter-avhengig, og de fleste er ganske enige om at dette er den beste klienten.

iSSH (29,- kr)

Den eneste gratis SSH-klienten var ikke bra nok (den sugde faktisk), men denne kan jeg anbefale.

BeejiveIM (89,- kr)

Det er flere gratis MSN-klienter, men jeg behøvde noe som støttet brukergrupper. Fungerer veldig bra, og støtter også mange andre protokoller (Jabber, Google Talk, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo IM…).

Rolando (35,- kr)

Vanvittig kult plattform/hjernetrim-spill! Redd små klumper fra den visse død. :p Avhengighetsdannende spill med ditto musikk.

Rooms (11,- kr)

IRC-klient for iPhone. Hvorfor? Fordi jeg kan. :)

iPhone webapps

Aftenposten

Nettavis.

VG

Nettavis.

Dagbladet

Nettavis.

Google Reader

RSS-leser for iPhone. Liker å ha leselista synkronisert med den jeg bruker på Mac’en.

TODO-liste

Dette er forsåvidt et kapittel i seg selv. Akkurat nå bruker jeg Remember The Milk. Selv om appen i seg selv er gratis, forutsetter det at man har betalt for en Pro-konto hos RTM. I det siste har Google lansert en task-modul for GMail som også har en bra webapp. Denne ser forsåvidt bra ut. Jeg håper bare de snart kan få på plass skjuling av fremtidige oppføringer, så bytter jeg på dagen. :) Vil du ha et "vanlig" grensesnitt til den, kan du bruke Google Personalised Homepage.

I nettleserverden er det (dessverre) blitt veldig vanlig å sammeligne nettleseres hastighet med benchmark-tester som gjør en kunstig test av nettleserens hastighet. Og i mange av disse, er Firefox 3 markant kjappere enn Safari 3.1. Dessverre viser aldri slike kunstige tester hele sannheten, og for de av oss med OS X (jeg setter pris på om noen tester dette på Windows også) er det fort gjort å teste dette:

1. Start Firefox 3 og Safari 3.1 side om side.
2. Slå av innholdsfiltre (adblocker, Flashblocker osv) i begge to.
3. Last en side stappfull av elementer, gjerne både Flash og bilder (jeg brukte forsiden på VG.no) i begge nettleserene.
4. Scroll opp og ned med musehjul eller scrollbar i begge nettleserene, og merk hvordan Firefox 3 kjennes ut som sirup sammenlignet med Safari!

Og før noen spør, resultatet er det samme med smooth scrolling både av og på i Firefox. Den innstillingen har strengt tatt ingenting med dette fenomenet å gjøre.

En fin ting med dette er at jeg la Twitter til steder å sende oppdatering til slik at jeg kunne legge til en Twitter Badge her i bloggen. Vips, enda mindre personvern! :p Ja, man må nok huske på alle steder statusen blir postet så man ikke skriver noe man helst ikke skulle gjort… Du vet sånn cirka hvem som ser MSN-statusen din, men står den på bloggen din risikerer du at den caches ute på det store internettet for all fremtid.

Backspace won’t work through SSH

Insert export TERM=linux into ~/.profile. I dunno why Apple has decided to be retarded about this, but it REALLY bugged me.

System default encoding isn’t UTF-8

Norwegian input language is, for some reason, not enough. But there was an extended norwegian input locale that actually changed the default encoding to real UTF-8. Again a seemingly stupid default choice from Apple. It’s really about time you put the "Mac Roman" encoding to rest.

iChat can’t connect to MSN

I signed up for a Jabber server with MSN transport, and it works like a charm. :) Jabber.no comes highly recommended for norwegian users. The only downside is that you need to set the display names for the contacts manually. I just set the right address book vcard for my contacts.

I want pretty colors in the terminal

The OS X terminal is color-challenged by default. Add the following to ~/.profile:

CLICOLOR=1
LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad
export LSCOLORS CLICOLOR

Source: Mac1.no

Finder leaves .DS_Store files all over the place on remote servers.

Just do a defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true from the terminal and reboot.

Mediacenters and home servers should never go to sleep

My mediacenter would go to sleep if I wasn’t careful enough with the play button on the Apple Remote. And when I woke it up again, it wouldn’t always reconnect to the WLAN. sudo pmset -a disablesleep 1 solved it. Sleep is now 100% disabled.

OS X has completely broken support for pageup/pagedown/home/end

The default behaviour for these keys are completely useless out of the box. Fix them by saving this to ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict :

{
    "\UF729"  = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
    "$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
    "\UF72B"  = "moveToEndOfLine:";
    "$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
    "\UF72C"  = "pageUp:";
    "\UF72D"  = "pageDown:";
}

Source: Phatness.com.

Proxy settings doesn’t work for command line tools

Ryan Tomayko had a partial solution for this, which I’ve adapted slightly. Add this to ~/.profile :

netloc=$(/usr/sbin/scselect 2>&1 | egrep '^ \* ' | sed 's:.*(\(.*\)):\1:')
http_proxy=$(egrep "$netloc[ \t]*=" /etc/http_proxy | sed 's/.*=[ \t]*\(.*\)/\1/')
if [ -n "$http_proxy" ]; then
  export http_proxy="$http_proxy"
  export HTTP_PROXY="$http_proxy"
else
  unset http_proxy
  unset HTTP_PROXY
fi

Then add this in /etc/sudoers (needs sudo), right at then end of the lines starting with “Defaults”:

Defaults	env_keep += "ALL_PROXY http_proxy HTTP_PROXY"

From now on, all new terminals will use the proxy setting of the network location that was active when the terminal was started.

As those who know me might know, I love researching stuff on the net. In addition to that, I’ve also got a personal policy of always using freeware when it does the job – my own way of avoiding pirated software. It also helps freeware authors get a nice user mass, so I can’t say I feel sorry for NOT buying commercial alternatives.

So one of the first things I did (actually before I received my black new-model MacBook with 2GB ram) was researching for apps I needed. And now, after actually testing them I figured I might publish my findings, so others could benefit from it as well. :) So here it is, my list of Mac OS X "must have" freewares:

0xED

There comes a time in every man’s life where he needs a hex editor. This is it, ’nuff said.

Adium

When first arriving from Windows, a Jabber transport (in iChat) was the only way to view your MSN contacts statusmessages. But since then, Adium (and libpidgin) has received proper MSN protocol support. And this IM is so smooth, it’ll make you go "aaahhhh" every time you start it.

AppFresh

Integrates into iusethis.com and keeps all your apps and widgets up to date.

AppleJack

AppleJack is a small rescue script, meant to be used from single-user mode. It can do a number of maintenance tasks and rescue operations. I have been able to repair filesystem inconsistencies, which Apples normal Disk utility couldn’t fix and I wasn’t even able to boot my Mac. So install it before it’s too late. Once installed, you will be reminded of its usage every time you login in single-user mode (command-S).

AppTrap

Uninstalling could be as easy as dropping the application in the trash, but there’s always some settings left behind. This application integrates with your trash, so that when you drop application in it, you will be asked if you want to remove other files beloning to the application as well.

Audacity

Easy straight-forward digital audio editor. Wav, MP3, Flac and so on. Great for cropping ringtones and such.

Audio overload

Small player for those obscure mod / NES / Spectrum / whatever files.

Burn

Burn is a CD burning software. It’s not much to say about it, it does what it’s supposed to do.

Sequel-Pro

A desktop client for MySQL. Think of it as phpMyAdmins agile little brother. :)

CocoaPacketAnalyzer

Awesome packet analyzer for that really technical stuff.

CocoASpell

Sadly, OS X doesn’t come with a norwegian spelling dictionary. Installing this gem will take care of it. :)

Colloquy

I’m a regular IRC’er, and sadly Mac only has one decent client and this is it. It’s still a bit rough in the edges, but works nicely.

Cyberduck

Sometime you need a real FTP client. I seldom do, but when that happens, I use Cyberduck. Why people still insist on Transmit is beyond me.

Disk Inventory X

Analyzes a given directory (or disk) and its subfolder to give you a report on disk usage. Nice to find those space hogs on your harddrive.

Dockless

Dockless let you make any app run in the background (no dock icon).

DropBox

DropBox is a universal internet disk service. It has revisions (how did this file look like a month ago?), automatic sync (all your computers has identical files), allows you to share files with other DropBox users, it even let you share pictures in your DropBox as a web gallery. The free account is 2GB, I bought myself a 50GB for all of my projects.

Flip4Mac

This is a WMV (Windows Media Video) plugin so you can watch online video encoded as such.

Fluid

Fluid is a Site-Specific Browser (SSB) that allows you to create desktop applications out of webapps. I use it for API lookups, Google Reader, GMail and more.

FStream

A small netradio app. Handles a lot more types of streams than iTunes.

Growl

Gives youy nice bubble notifications from a lot of programs. Very configurable and very pretty. :) Make sure you also install the extra utilities, like HardwareGrowler to get instant statusnotifications on USB devices, network connections and so on.

Handbrake

Video conversion and ripping done simple.

IdentiTwitch

My microblogging client of choice. Supports both Twitter and Identi.ca.

ies4osx

While some people might prefer a root canal before running Internet Explorer, some of us actually need it.

iStumbler

Wireless network scanner, which shows a lot more info than the normal airport menu. Also does Bluetooth and Bonjour.

JustLooking

A good picture preview program. Nice for browsing large collections.

Komodo Edit

Komodo Edit is the freeware (or light if you prefer) version of ActiveState’s Komodo IDE. Even this stripped-down version has more features than any other free alternative out there. It’s also a big bonus that it look and feels identical on Windows, Linux and OS X. Syntax coloring, project management, inline compilation, error checking, autocomplete and much more.

last.fm

I consider the statistics and scrobbling secondary features. What really makes last.fm awesome is the ability to play automatic net radio based on tags or artists.

Livestation

I have tried several TV-streaming applications, but this one is the only one that delivers on all accounts. Good selection of channels, good quality, easy to use.

MacFusion

Wouldn’t it be nice to mount ftp and SSH servers as network folders, accessible directly from your desktop? MacFusion does exactly that! It requires MacFuse from Google installed.

MacPorts

The BSD Ports system adapted for Mac. Gives you all those geeky UNIX tools. ;-)

Menumeters

I’m addicted to know at a glance how my computer is working. Menumeters does exactly that by giving you small menubar indicators of your network, memory, cpu and disk usage. All completely configurable.

MPEG Streamclip

Video software for conversion, batch processing and more. I use it to convert any video type into DV format so iMovie will use it.

muCommander

A universal filecommander, because most computers need one. This one does several protocols (FTP, SFTP, SMB, NFS, HTTP and Bonjour), several archive formats (ZIP, RAR, TAR, GZip, BZip2, ISO/NRG, AR/Deb and LST) and all the usual operations.

OpenOffice

I guess I don’t really need to describe this one. :)

Perian

Adds support for a ton of additional media formats to QuickTime. Too many to list here.

PhotoBook

A Facebook photo browser for the Facebook addicts out there.

Remote desktop connection

Because you have to, not because you want to. :)

Renoise

Trackerbased music sequencing software. Mostly for nostalgic reasons.

SIDPlay

For that old C64 feeling! ;)

Skitch

This is the ultimate picture… uhm… faciliator. :-P Inputs from screenshots, files, drag’n'drop. Annotate, draw, edit. Outputs to drag’n'drop, webpublish, file, anywhere. I use this all the time!

Skype

While iChat has very good conference abilities, it’s not cross-platform. For audio/video conferencing with Windows users, this is the only viable alternative.

SlimBatteryMonitor

It has always bugged me that OS X’s battery meter can’t be set to show only when actually on battery (or charging). Luckily, this one can.

Smultron

Smultron is what is known as a "Notepad replacement" in the Windows world. It does syntax highlighting for most programming languages, and has some very powerful text processing tools available.

SOAP Client

A simple SOAP Web Service client. Nice for debugging. The same author also has a XML-RPC Client.

Spark

Spark lets you create global hotkeys for just about everything. I use it to start Terminal.app, control iTunes and much more.

Spotify

The program that really changed how I consume my music! Listen to any song, create and share playlists, etc.

The Unarchiver

For extracting any archive format you throw at it.

Transmission

A simple and effective BitTorrent client. Though the upcoming beta of uTorrent also looks promising.

VLC media player

The ugly and cumbersome, but extremely powerful media player. :) I install this on all operating systems. It uses builtin codecs for all media formats you can throw at it. Whenever I encounter a file I can’t play elsewhere, VLC will. It even has conversion abilities.

And a couple of games:

• Otis – Easy puzzle game
• Quinn – Tetris
• Solitaire XL – Solitaire
• Tetrinet Aqua – Multiplayer Tetris clone

And the few programs I actually found worth paying for:

• JungleDisk – Real "in the cloud" backup. Uses personal Amazon S3 accounts for storage.
• Meerkat – Just plain awesome tunnel handling. SSH tunnels, Bonjour support, Application triggering… This one does it all.
• NetworkLocation – Dynamically changes system settings (and more, for instance start a Meerkat tunnel) based on your location. Location may be derived from wireless networks, cabled networks, bluetooth and USB devices.
• Today – A "day at a glance" app which show your daily appointments and tasks, fetched from iCal.

And my screensavers:

• Lotsawater – Water effect on top of your desktop.
• PongSaver – Pong as a screensaver.
• ShuffleSaver – Slideshow based on tags/authors/sets from Flickr
• Space Invaders – The classic game as screensaver.
• Surveillance saver – Live AXIS surveillance cameras straight from Google. Gotta love the information super highway. ;)
• Word Clock – A typographic screensaver featuring the current time and date.
• …White Knight Logic – A collection of 3D screensavers.

Some might want to know which I browser I prefer for Mac, but the truth is that I’m still testing out my options. I started out with Opera, went through Camino, Safari 3 beta, Opera 9.5 alpha, Safari 3 and Firefox 3. I’ll let you know when I’ve settled in. :) Here are my Safari extensions (I have a separate blogpost with my Firefox extensions, but it haven’t been updated for ages):

• Sogudi – Keyword search from adress bar
• SafariBlock – Small and effective adblocker
• Inquisitor – Inline AJAX-style search bar
• Webkit webdev tools – Just what I said

I will probably update this entry as I discover new applications (and scrap my old ones), so if you’re a Mac user yourself, feel free to bookmark it. :)

Edited: 11th july 2007, 27th june 2007, 24th september 2007, 24th september 2007, 13th december 2007, 3rd december 2008, 6th december 2008, 7th december 2008, 3rd january 2009.

For quite a while, I’ve been using a free service called ScheduleWorld for syncing the calendar on my mobile phone against my Google Calendar. It’s a service that provides sync for calendars, notes, todo-items and contacts. It supports all of this through a J2ME app for mobile phones, SyncML (which most new phones support, including my Nokia N80), Google Calendar integration and a dedicated Mozilla Thunderbird plugin (there are SyncML plugins for Thunderbird, but the SyncML protocol is hard to get a perfect implementation of). The page also has a webinterface for all your data, so it’s easy to view your “stuff” even if all of your clients are unavailable.

It suddenly occured to me that I might as well move my data completely to this service instead of relying on several third parties for this. I installed Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Lightning (a calendar/todo extension for Thunderbird) and the SW Thunderbird plugin and I was ready to go!

Ofcourse, once I set up my phone to synchronize contacts and imported the GMail address book into SW as well and they both showed up in Thunderbird, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. Thanks to the Duplicate Contact Manager extension for Thunderbird it didn’t took me long to clean it all up. Granted, I had to do 4-5 syncs between the phone and Thunderbird before the list was completely cleaned up, but it was definitely worth it. :)

And for mail, you might wonder? I still route all mail through GMail, but I’ve gone back to my old setup of using my own Courier IMAP-server, which uses fetchmail to automatically fetch all GMail. Importing everything back from GMail into the IMAP server was relatively easy, I just started fetchmail again and it churned away for an hour. Thankfully it started from the last date the account was accessed through POP3, which was when I stopped fetchmail on my server last autumn. :) Unfortunately, I did get quite a bit of duplicate messages after the import, but it was easily remedied by the Remove Duplicate Messages extension for Thunderbird (2.0-compatible version available in the comments for the extension).

As an extra tip, I figured out a way to share config files between work and home aswell. I set up a folder in my home directory called “share”, which essentially is a Subversion working copy. I keep my mail signatures there, so if I edit them at home, all I need to do is commit the changes and perform a update the next time I log in at work. :) Program settings can also be stored there, and all I need to do to get it working is symlinking the real config file to the one in my share folder. :)

So there you have it! Signatures, todo-items, calendars, address books and mail – all shared across home computer, work computer and mobile phone! :) If I’m on someone else’s computer I still have Horde to fall back on for reading email (or my WLAN-enabled Nokia N80 which comes with an IMAP reader), and ScheduleWorld’s web interface for my organizer.

Warning: At the time of writing, ScheduleWorlds Thunderbird extension is not tested for Thunderbird 2.0. It worked for me (some phone numbers were “invisible” in Thunderbird, but were still present in both the web interface and on the phone), but other people have had problems with the combination.

Alternative 1: Ofcourse, the snappiest way to get mail from GMail is to set GMail itself to forward the mails instead of using fetchmail. This also let you use any IMAP server (for instance if you company provided you with an IMAP account). Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option for me as my server can’t accept incoming mail traffic (so it’s purely a dummy server).

Alternative 2: If you do not trust a third party with your calendar and mobile sync isn’t an issue for you, Sync Kolab promises to sync all information across Thunderbird installations by using an IMAP folder. A pretty smart concept. :)

Aardvark

This plugin with the weird name is indisposable for printing web pages. You can delete elements, remove width of elements (so they expand properly), grab an element out of it’s surroundings (think article in the middle of a heavy website layout) and more. Once you’re satisfied with the result, click print! :)

Adblock plus

This is the best ad blocker I’ve seen, and I’ve tried quite a bit. Rightclick on any ad and add a rule, completely configurable with wildcars. Does both flash and images.

Blink-related plugins (various)

These plugins are specific for the norwegian community website, Blink. The ones I use are (though there are more):

• Blinkbilder – Previews both profile pictures and files in the upper right corner when the mouse is over a nick or a filename.
• Blinksvar – Adds a much better way of replying to guestbook entries, mails or debate posts.
• Blinkmeny – Adds a right-click menu for nicks that lets you go directly to any page of a users profile.

BugMeNot

Online newspapers that require you to register before reading a single article are extremely irritating, and I have never registered for one of those. With this plugin you can still read the article. It autofills the login form with a dummy account. And if you encounter sites not supported, you can add it to Bugmenot yourself!

CustomizeGoogle

Adds a bunch of configuration options and extended functionality for Google’s services.

Download Statusbar

The Firefox download dialog is just plain irritating. I’ve tried to configure it useful, but I just can’t get used to it. This extension replaces it with a download bar (above the statusbar) that feels much better in my opinion.

DownThemAll!

A mass-downloader for Firefox. Allows you to download all links or images or specific files from a given page. Great when downloading browsable directories from servers.

Fasterfox

Fasterfox gives you a nice view of all performance-related settings in Firfox and let you tweak every one of them. It also has a couple of pre-configured profiles which I found to be more than enough for me. The difference is very noticable!

Fetch Text URL

When migrating from Opera to Firefox I really missed being able to right-click a plaintext webadress (not hyperlinked) and actually open that adress in a new tab. Voila!

Firebug

Firebug is sort of the built-in DOM Inspector on steroids! It lets you inspect the page on a per-element basis. Look at elements created by Javascript or elements in your HTML. Check active CSS rules, active even handlers and much more for each element. Extremely useful for tracing down bugs in your CSS declarations and inspecting what your Javascripts really does to the DOM. It also has a Javascript console, xmlhttprequest logging, Javascript debugging with breakpoints and more!

Google Browser Sync

This plugin has me hooked! It synchronizes open tabs, bookmarks, settings (not extension settings though), history, passwords and even cookies between all your Firefoxes! I have this installed on both Windows and Linux on my home computer (dualboot) and my work laptop and the sync works all ways!

Google Notebook

Google Notebook is a online “quick note” service from Google. With this plugin you can mark text in the browser and convert it into a note, open up your notes from the statusbar icon and more.

Google Toolbar

I know Firefox has excellent searching to begin with, but that’s not the reason for installing this. I normally just enables the Google Docs integration that causes Firefox to open all Word documents in Google Docs and then hide the bar entirely.

HTML Validator

Shows a small icon on the status bar that tells you wether or not the current page is valid. Also adds inline validation results in Firefox’ view source dialog.

LiveHTTPHeaders

Let you inspect the HTTP headers of any page and even view or log all requests as they happen.

All-in-one Gestures

Mouse gestures are a really good timesaver once you get used to them. This plugin is very configurable and let you edit all the default gestures.

Snissa.com screenshot extension

Lets you save full pages as screenshots, no matter how high the page is. Really useful for designers. When I wanted to make a schematic view of the ad placements on Bladet Tromsø I first simplified the page with Aardvark, then saved the screenshot with this. Also lets you publish the screenshot to Snissa.com, which I guess is nice if you want to display webdesigns residing on local servers or show someone how the page looks on your computer.

Stylish

Override CSS rules for any domain or URL. I use this for customizing a lot of the Google services and other stuff. Pretty nifty. A lot of pre-made customizations are available at Userstyles.org.

Tabbrowser preferences

I could never be satisfied with the tab behaviour in Firefox until I installed this one. Adds a lot of configurable options on how tabbed browsing work.

Video downloader

Download videos from online video communities that doesn’t normally allow you to do this. Supports YouTube, Google Video and a lot more.

Web developer

For anyone doing web development, this toolbar is the most important extension! View CSS rules, disable stylesheets, highlight elements, view elements info, validate HTML/CSS (even for local files), emulate browsers without referrer/javascript/css/cookies, direct CSS editing, size profiling, resize browser window, view generated source (including Javascript additions) and much, much more! This plugin was actually the reason for my switch from Opera to Firefox.

I will probably update this entry as I discover new extensions (and scrap my old ones), so if you’re a Firefox user yourself, feel free to bookmark it. :) Right now, the extensions that aren’t updated for Firefox 2.0 are Aardvark and LiveHTTPHeaders.

Edit: Added Stylish 8th november 2006. Added Google Toolbar 3rd february 2007. Added Snissa 6th March 2007.