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Add ons for Firefox and other tools

Herramientas / Tools

My Firefox Add Ons

This is a list for myself as much as anything. So, Peter. The next time that your computer breaks and is wiped clean by IT – then these are the main things that you need.

Delicious Bookmarks – Access your bookmarks wherever you go and keep them organised

Firebug – Web development tool

Fire FTP – An FTP client for Firefox – and a pretty good one at that

Fireshot – For screenshots of entire screens which can be edited and saved as JPEG, GIF, PNG or BMP

Google Toolbar for Firefox – A bunch of Google Tools and the (in)famous green page rank bar

LinkDiagnosis – For examining link competition

NoDoFollow – Highlight links in a document and splits them between follow/do follow

SearchStatus – Displays the Google, Alexa, Compete and Linkscape rankings of a website

YSlow – measuring loading speeds – more important with the advent of Google Caffeine. It also contains Smush.it – a good free tool from Yahoo for optimising web images

And a couple of software packages

Jing – for screenshots

Traffic Travis – for keyword reporting and backlinks

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Image credit: Olaya B

Posted in News. Tagged with , , .

By Peter Moore
July 27, 2010

1 comment

Raoul Moat and Nineteenth Century Newspapers

Rothbury - Northumberland

Nineteenth century newspapers

I spent Saturday searching through newspapers at the British Library branch up in Colindale. It’s an odd enough place with pale blue walls, stiff wooden doors and an atmosphere that is best described as a mix between a 1960’s comprehensive and an old village hall. It’s not too difficult to detect that the old building will be closed in 2012 and that – in the meantime – it is more lingering on than existing outright.

Still, the newspapers are what make the place and there are some fabulous collections stored there. I’ve always enjoyed reading 19th century newspapers. They’ve a knack for savage clarity and pithy expression. Of course, they might be inaccurate, prim, judgemental and filled to the rafters with quack medical adverts, but nowadays, while browsing through them, these are things to enjoy rather than endure.

Best of all, of course, are the news snippets. Something like NIBS, I suppose, published weekly in a section usually titled ‘Home News.’ Here’s an imagined version of how they might have reported the Raoul Moat case. It’s a bit of a tonic from all today’s over-reporting.

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Manhunt

Saturday evening last. In a most calamitous incident Raoul Moat, of Newcastle Upon Tyne, did shoot dead with a shotgun one Chris Brown of the same neighbourhood. Moat, aged 37, a known villain, did, by the same weapon, moments after, shoot a subsequent victim, Samantha Stobbart, through a window, causing near fatal bleeding. A terrific chase was made after Moat by the town magistrates until the wretched criminal was discovered some days afterwards near a river in the village of Rothbury, close to this city. Moat, who exhibited many signs of rough living, held a shotgun to his temple in the most violent and effecting manner for a period upwards of six hours, raging wildly at the magistrates and agents of the law who had beset him on all sides. At a little after one o’clock in the morning, the lamentable man, who demonstrated very many signs of the hardest sorrows and most deranged ravings of the mind, did launch himself forever into eternity with the aid of his gun. An inquest was held on the body the following day by Ms Sue Sim, JP, Coroner. Verdict – lunacy.

Image credit:Effervescing Elephant

Posted in Journalism. Tagged with , , .

By Peter Moore
July 26, 2010

1 comment

The 2010 FIFA World Cup – in Google Trends

2010 World Cup Adidas fountain in the international broadcast centre

As the South African World Cup draws towards its end, I thought that it would be useful to have a look at what Google Trends has made of the competition.

The Players

It’s a simple process. I’ve just pulled out the names of five players – Robert Green, David Villa, Lionel Messi, Arjen Robben and Diego Forlan – who I feel have had (for one reason or another)  notable tournaments. And this is what Google Trends comes out with:

Players at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Google Trends

(Click image above to enlarge)

It all started off with a big spike for Robert Green after the USA game – testimony to the awfulness of his error and, quite probably, the fact that people knew little about him. They had to type his name into Google to find out more.

The most hyped player, Lionel Messi, has had consistent attention all the way until Argentina’s exit the other day. David Villa’s popularity has rocketed up in the past week with his cluster of goals, as has the Uruguayan, Diego Forlan’s. Villa’s spike after his goal against Paraguay just about beat Robert Green’s earlier on in total number of global searches.

It’s interesting to note that, in comparison, barely anyone has been interested in Arjen Robben, the best Dutch player – despite the fact that he has scored two goals in four games and been an important part of a team that might win the whole competition.

The Coaches

Players at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Google Trends

(Click image above to enlarge)

Here’s the same exercise performed for a handful of manager/coaches: Vicente del Bosque, Diego Maradona, Fabio Capello, Raymond Domenech and Bert Van Marwijk.

It’s plain to see that Maradona is the most high profile coach on this list – followed by Fabio Capello, who has about two thirds of the global interest. Raymond Domenech, who presided over the French shambles, briefly rivalled the two of them in interest but has now slipped off into obscurity while – interestingly enough – no one seems to be too interested in searching for information about the coaches of either of the finalists – Vicente del Bosque of Spain and Bert Van Marwijk of Holland.

So. If we consider Google Trends to be reflective of general interest in a topic, then, these graphs suggest that it is far better to let the players and coaches get on with it – with less of the microscopic scrutiny – rather than whipping ourselves up in the usual frenzy.

As if.

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Here are the Google Trends results for players and the Google Trends results for coaches – in case you’d like to try some different ones.

Image credit: Shine 2010 on Flickr

Posted in Search. Tagged with , , , .

By Peter Moore
July 9, 2010

1 comment