Nibby Priest -Life On Purpose

Living at Mile Marker 803.9 of the Ohio River in Downtown Henderson KY

Enhance your FireFox Browser with Add-Ons

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Writers Note:  Since writing this blog in January 2011, I have totally ditched using Firefox and started using Google Chrome. Look for a new blog coming soon about my thoughts on use chrome especially with as a independent insurance agent.

We have quite a selection of Internet browsers that we can use now days.  I use a collection of several.   I am required to use Microsoft Internet Explorer with many insurance related sites simply because that is what they require.  Our agency management software at GoVaughn.com Insurance (AMS360 by Vertafore) will only work inside of IE.  Hopefully that is going to change soon.

Insurance company websites such as the Progressive foragentsonly.com site are another example of ones that will only work in IE.  The insurance industry in general seems to be uniquely woven into the Microsoft Internet Explorer experience to many agents dismay.

The Google’s Chrome Internet browser seems to be working quite well for me.  It is fast and looks like a browser I will be using more of in the future.

firefoxThe browser that I use most often is FireFox.  Below are some add in programs that work in conjunction with FireFox.  Many even work with Google Chrome but none of them work with Microsoft IE (Internet Explorer).  Check them out and let me know which ones you like.

Add-on’s are programs that help your browser do and look the way you want it to. Many times they are free and quite beneficial. Below are a collection of several that I like and use inside of FireFox.

Adblock Plus stops advertisements from appearing on your pages. Sweet and simple. Regain control of the pages you like and not be annoyed by obtrusive online advertising.

IE View – Lets you make FireFox your default browser but then when a site requires IE it will automatically switch to IE and load the site. Example when we need to run our Vertafore Management System AMS360 the site only works in IE. If we type the url in FireFox it automatically invokes IE and loads the site in IE. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/35/

Readability a simple tool that makes reading on the web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you are reading. This is also nice when you want to print a book like PDF of just text on a blog or site. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/46442/

Screengrab captures what you can see in a window, entire page or just a section. Saves webpages as images either to file or clipboard. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146/

Smart Bookmarks Bar this little tool hides bookmarks names and just shows icons so you can squeeze more in. Bookmark names will be displayed on a mouse over. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4072/

Easy YouTube Video Downloader Ever need or want to download a YouTube video? This handy tool allows you to do so. It is updated often and works quite well. I use it a lot for church media work. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10137/

What are some that you like? Do you use other browsers? Which ones and why? I seem to be totally over using IE (Internet Explorer).

Organizing your Digital Photographs

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GoVaughn.com Insurance has been taking digital photographs of homes and businesses that we have insured since 1996.  Our photo collection has become quite large.   We had one of the first digital camera produced the Cannon Elph. 

We use several different methods for cataloging our images but still with all the pictures that are being taken today it can be a daunting task.

image Personally I have been using for a long time a program called ThumbsPlus.  I like this program because it gives me a quick an easy way to manipulate photographs and organize them.  Cerious Software Inc is a small company I have been using various versions of this software since April of 1999.   Since they are small sometimes support can be difficult.  However most of the features and problems with the software I have been able to fix using their online help.

One of the biggest issues that I have with organizing photographs how should you organize folders and directories? Do you file photos by date, location, people in photograph or what.  

image One software that seems to be helping with this is Google Picasa.  The coolest feature I think they have is facial recognition.  How many times have you gone looking for a picture with someone in it and couldn’t find it.  This software searches your photographs and makes a list of all faces.  Once you give a particular face a name it searches and matches all like faces with that name.   If you have issues with privacy of Google you might try another service that is doing a similar thing Fotobounce.com.

What are some tips you have for organizing the ever growing collection of digital photographs that we are accumulating?

Dropbox- an Alternative to a Thumb Drive

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Dropbox-logo Dropbox allows you to share and manage files among multiple computers.

Recently I was introduced to a piece of cloud based software called Dropbox (thank you John L). 

At first I just thought it was another one of those around for a short time file sharing tools.  Of the others I have looked at  this one is the best.

After installing Dropbox, there is a folder placed in your My Documents named “My Dropbox”.  To sum the service up in one sentence: any files placed into this folder will both be uploaded to the Dropbox servers, and will be synchronized with any other clients in your account.

So, in a single computer situation, this Dropbox folder is effectively a backup solution. If you have more than one PC in the account, any files placed into this folder on one computer will automatically be synchronized onto all others running Dropbox  in the same account.

At my church Community Baptist Church, our media team who puts together the video for the worship services needed an easy way to transfer sermon graphics and other media to the people who needed it.  We started using drop box and haven’t looked back.  It is like having a network.   It works like any other folder on your computer and then replicates the folder to others of your choosing via a internet connections.  Dropbox works  on both Windows and MacOS X systems.  This is nice since some members of our media team use Mac’s.

Dropbox installs a small application on your desktop or you can use the convenient web application.  One nice tool that I like about the software is that it keeps your last revisions and deletions for back reference.

So throw away those aggravating thumb drives and starting using one of the best secure file sharing options out there-Dropbox!

What do you like about Dropbox?