I prefer Safari for my casual web browsing on the Mac, but for web development, nothing beats Firefox. (Firefox beats IE hands down on Windows.) Firefox's openness and the Firefox plugin architecture means that there is little that you cannot find out about a web page with a Firefox add-on. I've tried a bunch of different Firefox extensions for web development. Here are the ones that I find most useful and that I use on a regular basis.

DOM Inspector

Yes, yes, it comes installed with Firefox, but lets not forget the basics. The DOM Inspector allows you to see what is actually going on in your web document. The DOM Inspector lets you browse DOM nodes, style sheets, or Java Script objects. You select a node by either drilling down, by searching, or by clicking on it. Although, the UI for selecting a node with your mouse is just plain lousy. Once you've chosen your subject, the DOM inspector can show you the box model information for that node, the style sheets associated with the node, the computed CSS styles, or the Javascript object.

Web Developer Extension

Chris Pederick's Web developer extension has been out for a long time and is the plugin I am most familiar with. This is really the swiss army knife of web developer tools. It is so feature packed that I am still finding new things that it does. Unfortunately, the UI is also so cluttered that I am still finding new things that it does.

This add-on can slice and dice a web page every which way. It can outline a variety DOM elements, for example drawing an outline around all block elements on a page. This can be nice for lining things up. The Display Line Guides option is also a good way to verify alignment, not to mention Display Ruler, or Display Page Magnifier for fine detail.

This extension has dozens of reports, each one geared toward diagnosing a particular kind of problem. Some of them are external, such as sending your URL to a validation service. Some are internal, such as showing a dump of all of the page's active cookies. Unfortunately, many of these option open up in a new tab, taking the focus off of the page that you are trying to work with. It can be hard to tell which options do this. There is an option for having the tabs open in the background, but this is not the default.

The View Style Information option is particularly nice. You can point to any element on the page and the extension will display the element tree along with ids and classes. If you click on an element, it will display only the style rules that apply to that element. This beats the drill down approach in the DOM inspector, although it doesn't show box model information or computed style information this way.

The web developer extension can change things as well as inspect them. You can go into a mode where you can edit your CSS or HTML in real time for immediate feedback. This is great for testing out small changes. For the PHP developer, the extension has a variety of options for manipulating cookies and forms. There are also a variety of ways to enable or disable certain elements on the page.

Install Web Developer Extension

Tamper Data

Tamper Data is live HTTP headers on steroids. Tamper data records the HTTP request headers and HTTP response headers for each request that the browser makes. Not only that, It allows you to "tamper" with the requests before they are sent out, editing headers or form values behind the scenes. Tamper data can present a graph of the requests involved with loading a web page. Tamper data is great for security testing and page loading performance tuning.

Install Tamper Data Extension

FireBug

FireBug, ah what can I say but wow! According to their web site:

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Firebug has considerable overlap with the extensions I've mentioned so far. It doesn't necessarily duplicate all of their functions, but the ones it does, it does really well. It goes way beyond in some cases. There is really no point in me talking about Firebug's features, because the website already does such a good job at it. They've impressed this jaded old developer.

If you haven't tried this one yet, seriously, go get it right now.

Install FireBug Extension

ColorZilla

ColorZilla adds a small eyedropper tool to the bottom left corner of the window. You can use this tool to inspect colors on the current web site. Double clicking it brings up a color picker and some other color related tools.

Install ColorZilla Extension

Multiple Profiles

Ok, I lied. There are a few situations where I use FireFox for casual browsing. Some web sites just won't work with Safari, or don't work well with Safari. For these, I pull up Firefox. I don't want my casual browsing tools to clutter up my web development experience and I don't want my web development tools to clutter up my casual browsing experience. The solution is to create multiple profiles in FireFox. I have one for web development and another for normal surfing. I have safari ask me to select a profile on start up. This extra step would be annoying for a primary browser, but it doesn't seem too bad for a secondary browser.

Setting up my Mac series

Firefox is not mac specific, but this is actually the latest installment in my setting up my Mac series.

1. How to Transfer Mac OS X Application Data between Computers
2. Free Software for Mac OS X
3. FireFox Extensions for Web Developers
4. UPCOMING: Configuring Boot Camp and Parallels

For those of you that are Domino developers, here is a new blog you should add to your list...

Andre Guirard - Best Practice Makes Perfect
A collaboration with Domino developers about how to do it and how to get it right in Domino

I recently posted some tips about how to have success doing web development with Visual Studio 2005 on Vista. One recommendation in that post was to install the "Beta" release of the Visual Studio 2005 Update for Vista . I'm happy to announce final version of the Visual Studio 2005 Update for Vista is available for download. For anyone using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, I highly recommend installing this update as it solves some key bugs that you might be running into. Omar Khan Group Program Manager Visual Studio Web Tools Read More......(read more)

The March CTP is of course a "Preview" and does have some bugs. I thought we'd share the top issues seen and offer some workarounds. 1. TypeLibBuilder.exe "has encountered a problem..." If you're seeing this: This a bug where that particular assembly has not been given a Strong Name. The solution is to turn verification off for this one assembly. To do so, place the following text in a text file, rename the extension from "txt" to "reg", then run (double-click) the file. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftStrongNameVerificationTypeLibBuilder,b03f5f7f11d50a3a] Alternatively, you could manually input this if you're handy with the Registry Editor. If you're familar with SN.exe, the -Vr option should do...(read more)

Google, which has been pushing checkout hard on their search results, has started placing checkout icons in AdSense ads.

What people you don't know think of your site is a quick and cheap source of feedback on how to make it better.

Once you give up distribution you move toward being a commodity unless you add extras or are selling a buying experience.

I think SEO has to be considered mainstream at this point. The media writes about it, many media companies have bought my ebook, government regulated monopolies have bought my ebook, and now there is even a college course on SEO at Rice University.

Post about the self fulfilling prophecy of blogging ethics.

SEO for Firefox has been updated again. It now shows the number of pages from a site that are stuck in the supplemental results.

Post about a recent example of what looks like spamming StumbleUpon.

At Lotusphere 2007, Lotus made big announcements around Unified Communications, setting a stake in the ground to go far beyond what most people think of in the space, which is usually just chat, email, and voicemail integration. ?Together Lotus Sametime, Lotus Expediter, and solutions from our Partners form the foundation for an entirely new type of platform, which Lotus is refering to as UC^2.

Today at Voicecon, Lotus and Cisco made further announcements in this space. ? If you don't already have it bookmarked alongside your other Lotus web sites, I suggest you surf over to Lotus's Unified Communications and Collaboration home page and join the UC² revolution.

Ever wondered how I deal with comment spam on this site? Here's how.

Here are a few interesting examples of "corporate" social software usage:

• Dell + Digg = IdeaStorm. The Dell IdeaStorm site allows customers/random people to suggest and vote for product and service ideas. It seems like the Linux crowd have kind of taken over the voting there, but that should represent an opportunity, not a problem (i.e. -- don't fight the users, adapt the system). And there are several ideas that could be promising for everyone, like a No Extra Software Option and a CD Image Download with All Current Drivers.

• SocialText recently did a case study on internal Wiki usage at an investment bank that had a few interesting use cases: developing meeting agendas, publishing commonly used and often changing information like cost center codes, and brainstorming on brochures and presentations. (via James Governor's del.icio.us links)

The Wikipatterns site has some good links on its Resources page too.

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Avaya Inc. , a global leader in business communications applications, software and services, today introduced a new solution that addresses the challenges businesses face in responding faster, smarter and more effectively in today's 'always-on' world. It embeds Avaya Intelligent Communications capabilities into all types of business processes, resulting in new Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) that help automate and manage the human collaboration required to conduct business. Comprised of new software and services, the CEBP solution enables enterprises to enhance operational efficiency, worker productivity and customer satisfaction.

In a great showing of vendor/customer collaboration, the Lotus User Experience team is looking for your feedback on the Lotus Web sites' product pages. ? Speak now, or never let me hear you complaining!

Excerpted from the book Lotus Notes Developer's Toolbox, by Mark Elliott, this tutorial will introduce you to Formula language for Lotus Notes. From working with Formula keywords to using Formula operators, functions and commands, you'll learn everything you need to know to start scripting with Formula language in Lotus Notes.

Today's tip comes from one of my friends here at IBM, Susanna Doyle. ?She mentioned the following technique for sorting lists...

If you have a list of items, and you would like to have Notes automatically sort them, you can place the data in the members field of a new Group document and sort the list there.

Here is how you do it.

- Create a new Group in your Personal Address Book. (Contacts)
- Place the data you want to sort into the Members field. ? You can either paste it in from the clipboard, or type the text in directly.
- Click the "Sort Members List" action. ?Notes may warn you that the Group needs a name, but don't worry, you are not saving the document so you can ignore this message.
- Select all the text in the Members field (CTRL+A) and copy it to your clipboard (CTRL+C).
- Press the Cancel action to close the group document without saving.
- Return to the document you want the list in, and paste. ?(CTRL+V)

Here are the before and after images: