Snap Links Firefox Add-ons

Snap Links, a Firefox Add-on, does something I’ve been wanting for some time.  It allows me to draw a box around an area on the screen, and then will open each link within the box in a separate tab.  I assigned the middle button of my mouse to draw the box, since I found it awkward working with the right button, which was the default.

Better Gmail Firefox Extension

About three weeks ago, I decided to see if I could use Gmail as my full time mail client.  I had been using Google Reader as my feed reader for some time, and decided to give Gmail another try.  (I had been using Gmail to archive stuff, but only used it to read my mail when I was traveling.) So far, there are just a few things that I have found that I don’t like as well as the way kmail worked, and the experiment is a success so far.

One tool that I recently started using to improve my Gmail experience is the Better Gmail Firefox extension from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.  She incorporated a number of <a href=”http://www.greasespot.net/”>Greasemonkey</a> scripts into one, easy to install Firefox extension.  I like the keyboard macros, which extends the set of keyboard controls that are built into Gmail.

Hummingbird Bar

April 29, 2007 – Click on image for higher resolution version.

I set up the hummingbird feeders on Thursday, and it took approximately 20 minutes for the first hummingbird to visit. However, it wasn’t until yesterday that business was brisk enough that I started seeing tiny aerial dog-fights as one hummingbird would chase away another.

Let There Be Light

Tuesday morning, about 8:15, we lost power due to a severe spring snow storm. Without electricity, our only working appliance was the gas range. We have a five gallon cooler that we keep filled with reasonably fresh water year round, so we had water we could heat and give to the dogs. The temperatures never fell significantly below freezing, so we didn’t have to worry about the pipes freezing. However, I was very happy at 10:10 pm last night when the bedside light woke me and I heard the hot water heater and furnace start. I got up for a while and puttered around, starting the dish washer, turning off lights and heating rice packs to warm the bed. I was practically purring to have electrical power after 36 hours without it.

Mountain View Electrical Coop generally does a great job on restoring power after storms. In our fifteen years in this neighborhood, this is the first outage that lasted more than four to six hours. I am just glad we don’t live near Calhan, an area to the east of us. I saw a report that they lost 200 utility poles, and may not get their power back until Saturday.