XML RSS pages don’t render very nicely in Firefox if at all. However, there is an extension to solve this problem called “Feedviewer”:https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=all&category=Blogging&numpg=10&id=445. Feedviewer allows Firefox to render RSS pages in a manner similar to Apples Safari browser. Click “here”:https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=all&category=Blogging&numpg=10&id=445 for a demo of how Safari handles RSS pages.

Overall, Feedview works pretty well, but I do get some strange behaviors every now and then. This may be caused by how I have my browser set up. For example, when trying to view En gadget’s “RSS page”:http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml the download menu comes up asking me if I would like to download the page… hum. Feedview works on Zoinger’s “RSS page”:http://www.zoinger.com/index.xml, but sadly doesn’t like Zoinger’s “RDF page”:http://www.zoinger.com/index.rdf.

OK, not perfect, but better than nothing.

“Mapit”:http://mapit.mozdev.org/ is a small, handy extension for Firefox that allows you to select addresses from web pages and quickly generate a map by selecting the @Mapit@ menu item from the context menu (right click menu). Through Firefox’s Extension Manager (Tools -> Extensions), can program which mapping application you would like Mapit to use. Several mapping sites are supported from “Yahoo! Maps”:http://maps.yahoo.com to Microsoft’s “TerraServer”:http://terraserver.microsoft.com/. “Google Maps”:http://maps.google.com is currently not supported.

A better UI experience would be for Mapit to allow you to choose the mapping site at the time of selection instead of having to access the Extension Manager to change sites. “Context Search”:http://www.cusser.net/extensions/contextsearch/, another Firefox extension, allows you to do this based on your installed “search plug-ins”:http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html.

I haven’t thoroughly tested Mapit, but it seems to fine on the few address I did query.

I haven’t been looking to switch “themes”:https://addons.update.mozilla.org/themes/?application=firefox in Firefox, but I ran across one called Rein when reading about the “ScrapBook”:http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/feature.php?lang=en extension I talked about “here”:http://www.zoinger.com/archives/2005/02/14/19.36.22/. Please note that the Rein site is written in Japanese (I think), so may not render very well in your browser. Hunt around the page for find the link for the install. “Here’s”:http://www1.skz.or.jp/~kusumi/klee/mozilla.html a link to the Rein page.

According to the site where Rein is posted, Rein means ‘pure’ in German. Rein’s nice because it changes most of the UI elements to various shades of gray… all the way from black to white. Basically, it helps gets the UI out of your browsing way. After all, isn’t that what browsers are for?