Lunascape – If you use anything else I feel sorry for you.

First lets start off with what Lunascape is. Well it’s a browser. I know what most of you are saying already, “OMG not another damn broswer” or “I’ll never move off my Firefox, Never!!” or maybe even “WTF there are enough ‘My browser is better than yours’ blog posts out there. I’m out of here.” and even possibly may be thinking, “Grobnar just ate a cheeseburger, how did he do that without a mouth?” But I tell you this, Lunascape really is awesome. They’re not trying to create anything new really. They are just taking the best features of everything and adding it all to one place and taking a lot of nice features and making them native to the browser itself so no need for add-ons.

How Lunascape works is that it’s a browser that renders in Trident(IE, Avant), Gecko(Firefox, Flock) and WebKit(Safari, Chrome). So say you use Firefox and IETab add-on. Well there’s no need for that here it’s built into the browser. You can also split view to say put up a website you’re working on side by side with IE and FF. Again no add-ons required. Other features that are built in and set as default is that when you type in the address bar you don’t have to create a new tab. Just type your URL and go and it’ll make a new tab for you. It also supports all Firefox add-ons when rendering a page in Firefox view it will have access to all of them and you can also manage and install them as well.

Other features Lunascape has is that it you can set a rendering engine with a host, page(and subpages or different subdomains of that pageName) or specific address. There’s also a nice little toggle button next to the address bar to switch between them. Another thing I like is that it doesn’t dumb it down in the terms it uses on the browser. Meaning that instead of just saying, IE, Firefox, Safari it actually lists the rendering engine instead. Just nice to see stuff like that in applications. It also has a huge array of browser options on top of being able to set the options for each rendering engine. Also the search bar can double as an internet search or a find/highlight on page. It can handle RSS, podcasts and even has a news ticker to use some of the empty space on your tab bar if you only have a few open. Last but not least I would like to also bring up the fact that it can be set to sort your favorites either by rank of the ones you use the most or by title so as to help make them easier to find.

By FreedomChicken

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Drop Entrecards Like a Drunken Monkey Part II: Bauer-Power Entrecard Toolbar for Firefox

Yesterday I told you about my script that allows you to open Entrecard pages using a Windows hot key. That is pretty cool, but there is still something a little too manual about the hot key thing. Do you feel me?

I happened upon a Firefox toolbar that was released by Entrecard themselves, the only problem? It is only available for Firefox 3.0. I don’t know about you, but I am running version 3.5.1 right now. So I took the liberty of updating their Firefox toolbar for them so you can use it in the latest release for Firefox!

Behold, The Bauer-Power Entrecard Toolbar for Firefox 3.5.1! (Actually, it works for all 3.5 versions)

(Click Here to Download)

To install, just do the following:

1. Download Bauer-PowerEC_toolbar-1.0.xpi to your desktop
2. Drag it onto a running Firefox page
3. Ignore the warning about it not being signed
4. Restart Firefox

Now you can seriously drop Entrecards like a drunken monkey with the full blessing of Entrecard!

If you like this tool bar, please pass the word. I only ask that you link back to this post :-)

Technorati Tags: entrecard,dropper,firefox,toolbar

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Bauer-Power Episode 12

The wife is out of town, so Sundance and I had the opportunity to do some filming in order to bring you this installment of our Bauer-Power videos!

In this episode I will show you how easy it is to setup a Joomla website on 000webhost.com, we take a look at what Twitter spam looks like in real life, and finally Sundance shows us his top ten Firefox plugins for web development!

We also decided to give chroma keying another try, as well as recording our voices with a USB desktop mic. We stopped doing that because it was an epic pain in Movie Maker, but is a piece of cake in Adobe Premier Elements!

Sit back, crack open a cold beer and talk some tech with us! Here is Episode 12:

As always, if you have any questions comments or concerns, hit us up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: joomla,how to,twitter,spam,firefox,plugins

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In Your Face Sundance! 10 Reasons Scribefire is Better Than WLW

I see how it is Sundance! You want to throw a big, "In your face" at me, but to that I say... "NO! In YOUR face!" I said before that I actually liked Live Writer, but because of your little outburst, I will now have to just say flat out that Live Writer sucks! (Actually, that isn't true... I am just acting out)

I decided to compile a list of the ten reasons why Scribefire is far superior to your pathetic Live Writer. It wasn't hard actually. Mainly because Microsoft Sucks, and it is easy to dig up dirt about just about all of their software! LOL! [Evil Dr. Doom laugh]

So here we go, the top ten reasons Scribefire is better than Windows Live Writer:

1. It's not Microsoft - Everyone knows how crappy M$ stuff is. Just look at Vista and Windows ME!
2. Firefox is already open - I usually have Firefox open anyway. So when I get the urge to blog about something, a quick F8 press and I am off blogging. WLW you have to open separatlely.
3. Firefox is already installed - It is much easier, and faster to install a new FF plugin, than to install an entire separate piece of software like you do with Windows Live Writer.
4. Technorati Tags - SF will inster Technorati tags without the need for additional plugins.
5. Post to Delicious- SF will post to Delicious when you publish your blog post without additional plugins.
   
6. Scribefire can be used in Windows, Linux, and Mac - Were are my Linux users at? I suppose you could install WLW using WINE. Enhoy your Windows 98 style graphics!
7. Less Overhead - Additional programs running means an additional load on the computer. Scribefire doesn't put any additional load on your PC when running.
8. Blog Directly From The Web - Did you find a funny lolcatz picture on the web? Press F8, and blog directly from that page in split screen!
9. No additional crap - Windows Live Writer comes with every other friggin' Windows Live Product they offer. You have to manually un-check all of the extra crap you don't want. SF installs as-is, with no additional junk!
   
10. Monetize with QuickAds - Finally, the best reason to use Scribefire over WLW is the integration of Scribefire QuickAds!
    

I suppose what it all comes down to in the end is preference. Do you like to have a whole boat load of additional software installed when it is completely unneccesary? Do you like supporting an evil multimillion dollar conglomorate? If all your friends jumped off a building would you do it too? If you answered yes to any of the above, then Windows Live Writer is definitely right for you!

If you prefer ease of use, less bloatware, better performance, and the ability to use something on multiple platforms, then you should probably give Scribefire another look.

Oh, one more thing... Did I you can install Portable Firefox to a USB stick with the Scribefire plugin and take it with you with all of your settings, and browser bookmarks? I didn't huh? Maybe that is for a different post.


Technorati Tags: scribefire, firefox, windows live writer, top ten, blog, editor

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My New Favorite Blog Editor

So Sundance walks over to my desk while I am troubleshooting a print server in Atlanta Georgia, and tells me to stop what I am doing so he can show me HIS favorite new blog editor. I played with it, and I really did like it, but that one is not my favorite blog editor.

No, my new favorite editor is a plugin for Firefox called Scribefire! It is awesome because it plugs right into my browser, which I have open all the time anyway. Not to mention that it is really intuitive, easy to use and most importantly, it allows me to schedule future blog posts!

It makes formatting a snap, and allows you to embed videos from Youtube, and pictures from Flickr with just a click of a button.

Another thing I like is that you can set it to pop open (Simply by pressing F8 I might add) in a split screen mode so you can continue to surf, and blog at the same time. That is handy if you are blogging about something from another news site, blog, or whatever. If you don't like that, you can configure it to open in a new tab or new window as well.

This is from the Scribefire website:

ScribeFire Blog Editor enables users to easily drag and drop
formatted text from the web into their blog(s), post entries,
take notes, and optimize their ad inventory directly through the
Firefox browser.

Additionally Blog Editor enables you to:

• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Upload images
• Set timestamps
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Post an entry as a draft
• Share your posts on social websites
• Upload files via FTP

Now, Sundance's choice is a good one too. In fact I believe he is working on a post explaining why the one he picked is his favorite blog client. It is certainly a good one to use, so look for his post tomorrow!

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Finding DoFollow Sites on The Easy: Firefox Extension

One of my New Years resolutions this year was to comment on more blogs, and beef up my back links a bit. Sure, Bauer-Power does okay in the Google PR department, but certainly not as good as some other blogs.

Everyone knows that the way to boost your Google PR is to score relevant back links, and lots of them! Some people don't focus on this, and wonder why their blogs don't get any traffic. Lots of people say, "Screw Google, I'm going to spend all day trying to get to the front page of Digg." They don't realize that the quality traffic they need has to be natural traffic from people that want to read your stuff. Natural traffic comes from search engines, where the people landing on your site are actually looking for something you have!

Now don't get me wrong, getting to the front page of Digg will bring you server crushing traffic, but the chances of you getting your stories up there are slim to none, unless your handle is MrBabyMan. Besides, getting to the front page of Digg, or Reddit takes a crap load of work. You have to build friends, you have to shout stories, blah, blah, blah.

Search engine traffic, on the other hand comes without you working hardly at all. I guess I shouldn't say that, I mean you do have to write some stuff worth reading, and you have to increase your back links.

According to Google Analytics, search engine traffic to Bauer-Power comprises almost 62% of my traffic. That is more than half of my traffic!

Well I aim to change that. I want it to comprise way more than that, and still have an increase in visitors at the same time. Which brings me back to my original point... Increasing back links.

So as I mentioned I am planning on commenting on more blogs. I figure ten a day is easy enough. Now, I am not going to comment on just any old blogs. They must meet two criteria items.

1. They have to be relevant to the content of Bauer-Power
2. They have to be DoFollow sites
   

For those of you not in the know, DoFollow sites allow search engine spiders to crawl their sites and categorize the outgoing links. This helps those sites boost their page rank on search engines. If a site is a NoFollow site, they add a special tag to their links telling search engines not to categorize outbound links. Hence the reason why only commenting on DoFollow sites can help your rankings.

Anyhoo, I found a cool Firefox (Or Flock! Hells yeah!) plugin that allows you to tell who's who in the zoo when it comes to DoFollow and NoFollow. It's called NoDoFollow from ZacharyFox.com.

When activated it highlights all of the links on the page in one of two colors. Blue for DoFollow, and red for NoFollow. If it's red skip ahead, if its blue go through. (Like how I rhymed that?)

Want to know if you should comment or not on Bauer-Power? Check it!


The links are blue baby so comment away!

What other methods of increasing back links do you know of? I would love to hear about them in...you guessed it, the comments!

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How to Manually Update any FireFox Extension XPI File

OpenSource is perhaps one of the greatest things about the web. Using OpenSource programs, however, can sometimes be frustrating because when some programs are updated, others are not. Usually, you will have to either wait for updates of your non-workable programs or delay the updating of other programs to retain functionality. With FireFox extensions, however, you can usually update yourself. Let me tell you how.

1. Download the extension you want to update to your hard drive.


2. Rename the extension from *.xpi to *.zip


3. Open the file with your .zip application.


4. Open "install.rdf" with your favorite text editor.


5. Change the "maxVersion" setting as in the following example: REPLACE maxVersion=1.0+ WITH maxVersion=1.5.*


6. Replace the "install.rdf" file with the one you just edited.


7. Rename the extension from *.zip to *.xpi


8. Install your updated extension.

Congratulations! You just updated your extension, which in most cases will work with the higher version. It is that easy.

By now, you have figured out (correctly) that an XPI file is just a modified ZIP file. It is not exactly the same, however. You will notice that this does not work if you create an entirely new zip file. You must edit the original one. In addition, you will also notice that the file "install.rdf" is actually an XML file, which also makes sense. Many OpenSource applications put installation settings and other important instructions in XML files.

Without a doubt, the best way to learn about how things work on the web is to jump in and do things yourself. Updating your non-workable FireFox extension is a great example.

By David Picella

David Picella is a Family Nurse Practitioner and PhD Student at UW Milwaukee who studies women's health issues and NaProTechnology. He also writes computer technical articles. You can find additional technical resources for this article in the technology section at: http://www.majella.us

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Print Without Prompt in Firefox

My buddy Karl over at Ask The Admin, got an email asking him how to make Firefox automatically print to the default printer without the prompt. You know, the prompt asking you which printer you want, which pages, etc. The user, oddly enough, wanted Firefox to act like internet explorer in that IE doesn't prompt you when you press the print icon.

You can do it in Firefox too, you just have to know the secret configuration area of Firefox.

To make Firefox stop prompting you do the following:

1. In the address bar type about:config then enter
   


2. Right click in the white space and select New > Boolean


3. Create a new string called print.always_print_silent and set it to True

If you ever want to turn that off just go back into about:config, right click on the string we just created and set it to false.

If you know of an easier way of doing this, or a Firefox extension that will let you do this, hit me up in the comments!

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Internet Explorer: Benefit Analysis vs Firefox

Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) is very much the incumbent in the web browser arena. Before the arrival of Firefox, MSIE had estimates of >97% of market share. Firefox has cut into MSIE's marketshare, dipping MSIE usage below 90% in the US, and down to the 60% range in markets such as Germany.

Advantages Integration with other Microsoft products Microsoft often offers its customers good integration among its products, and MSIE is no exception. One can drag an Excel bar graph from an MSIE webpage onto an existing Excel document, or view a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation from within MSIE. Within a Microsoft-only corporate intranet, this integration is very helpful. However, for a business interacting with the outside world, the argument weakens since the foundation of the Internet is to share among different platforms. Outside users expect documents to be in platform-agnostic formats such as HTML or Acrobat PDF files.

MSIE also offers strong integration with its Microsoft operating system, though is a double-edged sword, since it contributes to its security woes.

ActiveX and VBScript support ActiveX refers to small Windows executable programs that can be run from MSIE, and VBScript is a client-side script for Windows code.

Some business have heavily invested in either developing or purchasing custom ActiveX software (and/or VBScript), for applications ranging from web-based accounting to e-learning simulators.

The Firefox team made a conscious decision to support neither ActiveX nor VBScript, since they are not accepted web standards and are often the source of the security vulnerabilities within MSIE.

Since Firefox will not likely ever support ActiveX and VBScript, businesses whose products revolve around these technologies would be better served with MSIE than with Firefox.

Still some MSIE-only webpages Since MSIE formerly had such a large marketshare, some businesses' webpages still only display correctly in MSIE.

However, Firefox's increasing marketshare has caused many companies to revamp their pages to work correctly in Firefox also.

There are several reasons. Businesses want to ensure that they can sell to the Firefox customers. Moreover, many of the users who purchase with credit cards have moved to Firefox because of the extra security for that sensitive transaction. Finally, many businesses see that it costs less to fix the pages, than to cover the "Why doesn't work in Firefox?" technical support calls support calls.

Arrives with a new Windows computer MSIE arrives installed new Windows and Mac computers; Firebird does not.

However, the initial MSIE is unpatched and thus riddled with security holes. Thus, novice Windows users are often disappointed as their computers become increasingly unresponsive with viruses and spyware.

Thus, the convenience of having MSIE preinstalled on Windows is minimal, since Firebird can be downloaded and installed about as easily as patching the initial insecure MSIE.

Microsoft has ceased new development of MSIE for the Mac, so it has decreasing usefulness on the Mac as an out-of-box browser. Disadvantages Closed source and tied to a U.S. company Closed source prevents users from reviewing the code to ensure that there are no security backdoors included in the software.

This is particularly important for Internet communication software, as the U.S. government may approach Microsoft to either divulge or include security backdoors that can be used for information surveillance, especially on foreign governments or high-risk suspects. Some governments don't want to have a foreign country’s closed source software at the heart of their information network. This may partially account for the higher adoption rate of open-sourced Firefox in countries outside the U.S.

Selling of other Microsoft items and forced end-of-life Part of any corporation's mission is to maximize profits. For Microsoft, this includes selling the maximum number of its own products and services.

So to use the newest MSIE, one has to purchase a license of their newest OS. MSIE's built-in search only works with Microsoft's MSN search, versus Firefox's built-in search toolbar that uses technically superior Google as the default and is user-selectable.

Moreover, since MSIE is closed-source software, users always face the possibility of forced end-of-life of the MSIE software and anything the user has built around it.

Total cost of ownership Both browsers can be downloaded and used free of charge, so their initial cost is equal.

For technical support questions, both are widely enough used that many solutions to common problems can be found in free online public forums. Telephone support for Firefox costs $39.95 per incident, and Microsoft costs between $35.00 per incident and can cost over $200.00 for advanced issues.

However, MSIE has heavier ongoing support costs due to the nearly monthly security patches that are required. Also, there are ongoing costs from lost work time due to the poor stability and viruses when using MSIE. Finally, with MSIE requiring the newest version of their operating system, it forces the total cost of ownership to include the cost of updating all licenses to Windows XP SP2.

Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host, became a "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. He has helped a number of clients target his specialty, opt-in email direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world's top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies.

For more information, visit Bacak's site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com

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