Researching? Choose Firefox

Posted Monday, February 27, 2006 at 12:18am in Blogging, PR General  | 

Looking through my stats today, I noticed that there is a high percentage of people landing on this blog that’s using the fantastic web browser Firefox. Note: Let me clarify that I am in no way a stat or feed junky. Seldom do I ever check the stats of this blog (ahem!) or visit my FeedBurner account to see how many subscribers I have (ahem!) because that would be lame wouldn’t it?

It was one of them rare occasions where I decided to take a look and ended up being pleasantly surprised. Just over 60 per cent of visitors are using what in my opinion is the greatest browser the world has ever seen….ever! However, there’s still quite a few (25 per cent) using the terrible monstrosity of a browser known as Internet Explorer, or IE for short or ‘Incontrollable Experience’ for a real definition.

Why, why, why people? It will only lead to heartache, heartbreak, crashes and smashes. Make the switch, change your life…well, maybe not your life but your browsing experience and (to coin the phrase) rediscover the web.

This is a PR blog, so I’m assuming that everyone who reads this blog is in, or has something to do with PR? So this is a post on how to utilise Firefox as a research tool from a PR perspective and help make you more efficient as a PR pro.

Although a diverse profession, one fundamental part of PR is carrying out research. No matter which sector you work in, you’ll frequently research various topics ranging from the population of Outer Mongolia to if David Beckham really has a symmetrical obsessive compulsive disorder. You just never know. The Internet has a wealth of information but it’s how to find it and store it.

Extensions

The del.icio.us extension is great to quickly add any sites, blogs, articles etc you find of interest. You can also quickly access your account, inbox, del.icio.us popular and my personal favourite, the related tags and users page, which lets you see how many people have bookmarked a site. Here’s mine. But very rarely do I check it (Ahem!).

The Better Search extension enhances Google and other search engines by adding previews (thumb nails), Way Back Machine links, quick preview links and others all in the search results. Oh it works in del.icio.us too.

The Who Is this Person extension is a nifty little tool that allows you to highlight a person’s name you want to find more about, right mouse click and you then have the option to search LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Technorati, Google, Google News, TailRank, Yahoo! People Search and ZabaSearch.

I use the Skype Toolbar extension for one reason only. It highlights any phone number on a webpage enabling you to make a call quickly. Simply, hover the mouse over the number and with one click you’re ready to go. It adds the appropriate dialling code depending on what country the number is from.

I use ScreenGrab and Highlighter simultaneously. If you ever want to show someone a snapshot of some specific text on a web page, then it’s easily done. You can also save full webpages using ScreenGrab too.

InFormEnter is my God send. I hate the signing up process you have to adhere to when joining a website. This cool extension lets you pre-enter all your details so when the time comes, you can swiftly put them all in with a couple of clicks.

I use the Google toolbar for two reasons. 1. I can check my spelling when entering comments in other people’s blog posts and 2. The word find feature is very handy indeed when searching for specific words on a page full of text.

Bookmarklets

Here’s a list of bookmarklets that I find handy when doing a little research. Note: Drag and drop the links into your toolbar if you want to use them.

Acronym Lookup is useful if you’re ever stuck for a definition. Enter the acronym and it will give you a list of possible definitions from the Acronym website.

Search delicious Tag allows you to quickly query a tag from del.ico.us. You’re looking for sites that people have tagged ‘publicrelations’? No problem, click the bookmarklet, enter the tag and away you go.

BugMeNot bookmarklet stops them annoying sites that ask you to sign up even if you only want to read one article. BugMeNot members add usernames and passwords to such sites allowing you to sign in incognito. I tried it for PR Week (paid subscription) but alas!

Google Translate comes in handy from time-to-time. Admittedly not very often but still useful. I sometimes read Klaus Eck’s (the original PR Blogger) blog using it now and again.

TalkDigger This is cool. If you’re not familiar with TalkDigger, it’s a superb tool to monitor what people are saying about a particular site, link or article. It scans T/rati, MSN, Goog, Goog Blog Search, Bloglines, Yahoo!, BlogDigger and digg. If you land on a site and you want to know other people’s opinions just click the bookmarklet and it will take you straight there.

Browser engines

I love how Firefox has the ability to store an assortment of engines that are neatly tucked away, ready to be used for your researching pleasure. There is choice in abundance ranging from shopping to arts to education to maps. I find these ones particularly useful:

The Wikipedia engine is used religiously every day. It’s my favourite and has helps me incessantly. On a side note, Wikipedia are asking for donations. If you use it as much as me, give a little.

The Answers engine is great for finding dictionary and thesaurus definitions, idioms, synonyms, antonyms, cultural views and translations.

The Rollyo engine is useful tool to quickly scan your personal search engines pre-made via the Rollyo site. I’ve created two personal search engines out of UK national newspapers and my favourite PR blogs. The downside to Rollyo is you can only add 25 sites/blogs to each.

The final three I use are the Technorati, Amazon Book Search (Uk version) and Google Book Search engines. They do what it says on the tin really.

That’s it. There are other extensions, bookmarklets and engines I use but they’re not associated with researching. Have I missed any? What do you find indispensable?

If you haven’t already, Get Firefox

Technorati tags:
research, firefox, pr, public+relations, stephen+davies

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