Performancing your blog
I recently upgraded my Firefox browser to version 2.0 and with it installed a new plugin called Performancing for Firefox (PFF). PFF adds several nifty and convenient features to Firefox. First and foremost is a solid WYSIWYG blog editor comparable to those provided by Blogger and WordPress that is compatible with all major blog software and supports Trackback, Technorati and Del.icio.us. It also has built-in spell checking and supports multiple dictionaries, so I have no excuse to misspell anything. It doesn’t warn you about mistakes in grammar or context, however, so you may want to double-check your post in Outlook/Word as well.
The next feature worth mentioning is a site metrics panel. This appears to tie into the Performancing business model of dynamic valuation and sales of ad space on partner blogs. For this feature to work, you’ll need to sign up for a free partner account and add a bit of code to your blog page templates. Once the system refreshes, visitors to your blog are tracked and tallied on the ‘Metrics’ tab in the PFF editor as well as on a corresponding metrics page on the Performancing site. While this may not be of much value to a casual blogger like me, I can definitely see the benefit to corporate, pro and semi-pro bloggers.
Other helpful features include ‘Page Tools’ (an interface for Technorati page search) and ‘Bookmarks’ (an interface for the Del.icio.us bookmarking service). Both are pre-populated with page info from the current Firefox tab – handy. Another useful feature is the ‘Notes’ tab which allows you to capture and preserve data locally (via the editor) and also doubles as a ‘draft’ feature. BTW, be sure to save your current post/note before viewing other notes to avoid loss of data. Hopefully this usability issue will be addressed in a future version of PFF.
Lastly, Performancing does something very interesting by inviting developers to create their own Themes and Add-ons for PFF. They provide templates and instructions on how to do this and a forum for support. This could be a great way for developers to get their feet wet with XUL and the Mozilla Extension architecture. I know I am going to play with it and will likely post more about it later.
All in all, I am digging the useability and features of PFF and am pleasantly surprised by how much incorporating a blog editor directly into my browser has improved my workflow. So much of blogging (for me anyway) involves researching and linking to other web sites. With PFF, I no longer need to tab back and forth between web content and a web based editor. Hah! Just discovered another useful feature: drag-and-drop content from the web.
Technorati Tags: Performancing, PFF, blogging, xul, firefox
I should probably clarify that the Performancing ad in the corner of the blog is a place holder for potential 3rd party advertising. If someone wants to advertise in this space, the dynamic valuation service I mentioned in the post would calculate the value/cost of the space based on traffic metrics for the blog. Pretty clever, eh? Now all I need is 20 thousand page views per day
November 18th, 2006 at 12:05 am[...] While you may think of Firefox as nothing more than a fancy web browser, it is in fact, much more. Firefox is an extensible, open-source application built on the Mozilla application framework. Developers can build extensions for Firefox that extend the RIA model back to the client, providing access to the file system, off-line functionality and other features similar to those to be offered by Apollo. A good example of such an extension is the Performancing for Firefox app I reviewed in an earlier post. [...]
December 1st, 2006 at 1:36 am[...] Just a quick post because it’s late and I am tired… A while back I posted about Performancing and their Performancing for Firefox plugin (which I use to write posts like this one). One of the key features, the Metrics tab and the corresponding Ad Partners network was shutdown on January 31, 2007 and is no longer supported. So those of you who have added the metrics script to your sites will need to remove them if you if haven’t already. Not the end of the world or anything, but sad that the Performancing guys weren’t able to get this feature off the ground. Additionally, the Firefox plugin has been re-branded as ScribeFire (eh?!), though I have yet to download this new version. Otherwise, the plugin still works great and I still recommend it. You can read more about this (and other interesting bits) in the Performancing blog. « An Inconvenient Truth: Can PowerPoint save the planet? [...]
February 13th, 2007 at 9:10 am[...] Just a quick test of my settings for the RSSolve blog in my preferred blog editor – Performancing for Firefox. I reviewed this plugin a while back in my Flash blog: here and here. [...]
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 amVery useful information, thanks a lot. I’m especially interested in thes ite metrics panel. The number of viewers is really important for me as I use my blog as a financial tool.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:46 pmI agree, Firefox is not just an ordinary web browser. It gives you much more opportunities for managing your site or blog.