Nowadays we have to embrace Internet. No matter if you want to inform yourself about a product, search you way on a map or your best friend wants to show you his latest photos. From the very beginning of Internet(for the wide public) up to now I’ve spent a good deal of my life on the Net. This Internet time should be pleasing, agreeable and productive. It is a vital step to take time and organize your online life.

The Past

For some of us, we started already soon to realize the importance of Internet. We connected to the Internet for amusement, to communicate with each other and we were eager to acquire more knowledge. I am part of the IRC/ICQ generation. We were  content to chat, download stuff and once the download was completed we disconnected from the net, and we pursued other interesting activities.

Some of my friends didn’t bother to get connected.

After a while came broadband Internet access to the masses. My  IRC/ICQ friends and I where among the first to use this new access to even get more done. At that time forums and community pages was the hot topic. IRC degenerated from an uncontrollable state to  a big giant mess, so a lot of geek folks moved forward to create other tools an a new generation came forward phpNuke, open mailling lists.

Some people didn’t bother to move to the new tools.

Not so long ago a new site emerged; Facebook succeeding in bringing communication(irc/icq), community pages, forums and all of it with a Web 2.0 touch to the masses. Friends with no knowledge of Internet, which missed two decades of technological advances, get infected from the web 2.0 fever, blogs, communities, wikis, sharing photos, videos and a lot more is popping up all over the place. Even Usenet got his share of new surfers. For the first time web technology is user-friendly enough so that anybody can participate.

A word of caution to the new wave of users, who doesn’t realize that internet reflects our real world; Is your world a neat friendly place? No? Internet neither.

Most don’t realize that web 2.0 has already begone to transition to something even bigger. It got a new buzz name: Cloud computing, I would rather call it modern day mainframe. Everything stored on big remote servers, with thin clients connecting and downloading just a necessary interface. You can’t stop this progression and you have to learn and adapt quickly to this new reality. As everything evolves you need a little bit of preparation.

The Present

The browser is your main interface to the cloud and it should feel comfortable to work with. So feel free to adapt the browser to your need, especially Firefox gives you the flexibility to do so. Here is the top ten list you don’t want to miss:

1. Take full advantage of fullscreen( F11 ), and f.ex Wordpress allows you to also edit text in fullscreen
2. It’s all text is an add-on to edit your stuff in your favorite external editor
3. Download Statusbar add-on  one single small download bar which doesn’t clutter up your precious browsing space
4. Tiny Menu add-on  you want to maximize your browsing space
5. Fisson add-on Progressvar in the address bar
6. ReloadEvery add-on timer that reloads a page every X seconds
7. Web Developper add-on ( get yourself comfortable with CSS, HTML and Javascript)
8. Greasemonkey add-on ( I don’t like this one, but It is among the most popular add-ons because it allows you to modify the websites your visit on the fly )
9. Big screen (  If work more than 33% of the day online, get yourself a comfortable sized screen! )
10. Mouse ( In the spirit of point 9. if you work more than 33% of the day online get yourself a comfortable pointing device, 99% of the web is point and click)

The Future

Everything is on-line and we are left streaming everything, up and down. Our digital camera uploads directly to YouTube, and Flickr. We don’t have cellphones anymore we communicate over instant chat and Voip.

How can we prepare ourself for this? Set your priority straight, try to build a  list of commandments and stick to it :

1. I only invest in the activity I must spend the most of my time.
2. I invest less in  the activity I whish I could spend the most of my time.
3. I invest money proportionally to the time I spend on that activity.
4. I don’t buy stuff  I don’t need
5. I don’t buy stuff I don’t use
6. I think twice before signing a legal binding contract.
7. I think twice before registering for a service with recurring fees.
8. I don’t spend money I don’t have( don’t buy with credit cards, don’t borrow money)
9. I don’t gamble
10. Get yourself a Molesksine

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Tags: 10 tips, add-on, addon, addons, cloud computing, extentions, facebook, firefox, futur, icq, Internet, irc, past, present

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.