There are a lot of different ways you can extend the look of Firefox. If you get tired of your basic icons, all you have to do is find another theme you like and you are ready to start a new browsing experience. I know folks that chance Firefox themes once a day, once a week or even once a month. I even know folks that have never chanced the basic Firefox themes.

There are a lot of pretty ones out there, so lets have a look at some of the more popular Firefox themes out there today.

Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) 2.88

I used this theme myself a few weeks ago because I thought it had a very “fun” feeling as far as the icons go. It is very colorful as well. So if you like for your Firefox themes to be screaming out at you, this should be your pick.

Aquatint

Aquatint goes to show you that if you “keep it simple” you can go a long way in the pretty theme department as well. With blue globes on every button, how could you not feel more complete? Think of it as your yin having a party with your yang until you feel at peace with yourself.

Silver Skin

I am sorry. I know this is one of the most popular skins out there for Firefox, but I just think it is one of the ugliest ones that I have ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, I love silver, but the mix with the colorful buttons and the silver background just makes me want to gag myself.

Have a Firefox theme that you love that I didn’t mention here? Let me know about it. I am always willing to try a few new looks for my favorite little browser.

Loomia is another podcasting directory Web site, but it does have a few neat features that others do not. Just check out the Web page for the Web Hosting Show here:

The Web Hosting Show on Loomia

It has a section for both audio and video posts, which is nice to see. It also has the standard voting options, tags and everything else you’d expect to see. It also looks like it gets it’s image tags from the iTunes tags. Mine is a little big, so with the down size they have done it makes it look ugly. Hopefully they’ll get that fixed soon. Other than that, I have high hopes for them. Feel free to sign up and vote for the Web Hosting Show as well. You know me, I can use all the help I can get.

Update: I added a picture of the “Most Popular Channels” from Loomia because right now I am beating TWIT. This is probably both the first and last time this will ever happen.

Firefox is slowly becoming the standard Web browser for a lot of folks out there. Who could blame them? It offers many things for many users. One of the best features it has is that it can be warped and twisted into a Web browser that fits your browsing habits best. The question is, do you know all the tips, tricks, and hacks you can do to Firefox to make it your own?

Most people do not. Others would say go to several hundred different Web sites to get all the best hacks and all the best features. I can do you one better. Thanks to the new book from O’Reilly, Firefox Hacks, you now have a one stop place to find out all the ways you can get better use out of Firefox.

Want to customize the way things look? Firefox Hacks shows you the best ways to edit the exterior of the program, download skins or make your own. Want to customize how things work on the inside? Firefox Hacks covers that, as well.

Through 100 hacks, tips, and tricks, Nigel McFarlane teaches you the best way of going about going in and making Firefox your own browser. Why would you want to use a browser that doesn’t take your browsing habits into consideration? With Firefox and the book Firefox Hacks, you have a tag team combination that cannot go wrong.

Don’t want to believe me yet that this book is that good? Go take a look at some of the sample chapters for yourself.

Out of all the books in the “Hacks” series, I do believe that this one is the best of the best so far. So pick it up and let me know what you think!

Next week will mark the launch date for the Web Hosting Show Video Tutorials. I can not tell you how excited I am to finally be able to bring video content out there to both the Web hosting world and the regular folks out there as well. The folks at the WHIR TV do a great job at bringing video “news” content out there about the Web hosting world. I want to give folks more options though. I won’t have a fancy studio or expensive equipment. What you will get from me is a lot of hard work, a lot of information and hopefully a few laughs as well. Also, I will be offering both flash videos and video downloads as well. This way you can choose how you wish to take in the content.

I was the first to give you a one of a kind Web hosting podcast, and hopefully I can do the same thing for video distribution of Web hosting content as well. So make sure you tune in next Thursday to see the debut of the Web Hosting Show Video Tutorials! Also, if you have any content ideas, be sure to shoot them over my way.

For this week’s Thursday Web Hosting Show segment I thought I would feature one of my new favorite downloads that would be perfect out there for any Web hosts or Web hosting clients that might be listening. The name of the program is PSPad and I have to say it is the best program for Web page editing that I have ever used.

Now in the days before PSPad, if I wanted to edit my Web site, MitchKeeler.com I would have to edit the local version I have saved onto my Web page in a text editor. Then I would have to open up my FTP client, upload the files that were changed, then refresh the Web page in question that I was editing.

With PSPad all I do is open it up, edit the page in question, and hit save. That is it.

Check out these links for more information on PSPad:

Download PSPad for free!

View Screenshots of PSPad in action!

All “finder’s rights” to this program belong to Chris Pirillo. I heard him mention the program on last week’s edition of The Chris Pirillo Show and had to try it out. After 30 minutes of playing with it, I just felt the need to drop Chris an E-mail thanking him for introducing me to PSPad. It really is that nice of a program.

The best part about it is it is totally free! So try it out and be sure to let me know what you think. If you have a standard Web site out there that needs some editing, there is no better free tool on the market.

Download the Web Hosting Show!

Running Time: 3 minutes | File Size: 1.51 MB

Now you can hunt for books or Web site that will tell you diffrent ways you can hack or change Firefox to fit your needs. Before you spend the cash though, make sure you haven’t found it on Firefox’s Web site.

The folks at Firefox have put together a great tips section that any Firefox fan should check out. Who knows, the tweak you might want to acheive might already be listed there.

All the tips are broken down into four diffrent sections, Browser Appearance, Browser Behavior, Web Page Appearance, and Other Tips. Under each category you can learn about such things as, “Speed up page rendering” or “Ad Blocking”.

So take a look at the list of tips they have there. If you have one that isn’t on the list, make sure you let me know and I’ll be sure to share it with the rest of the folks, right here.

Let me start this off with, I really want an invite to test out this new Yahoo! Mail beta! Right now I use my Yahoo! Mail account to catch all my other E-mail, so I can’t wait to see what it is they have in store for me. With that said and out of the way, I have to say I am impressed so far. With tabbed browsing inside the Web site and a cleaner interface, that are on a good start.

Check out these screen shots I found (via patcavit.com) to see for yourself. Yahoo, are you listening? I want to try this out as soon as possible!

I really like Google’s new blog search. I like it so much, I just copied and tweaked my original Google Firefox search plugin so that I can now search Google’s new blog search via Firefox. Want it? I’ll be more than happy to share.

Download the Firefox Search Plugin for Google Blog Search!

Just download this, unzip it and dump both files inside into your “searchplugins” folder. That should be located in your “Mozilla Firefox” folder, under “Program Files” in Windows. Sorry it couldn’t be a little more simple, but I am in a hurry this morning. Writing Firefox search plugins can be so much fun.

Okay, I could not write this article without a small reference back to Devo. I promise you I’m not wearing a funny hat while I am writing this though. Now that is out of the way, I can tell you about the Firefox extension, Rip. What does it do? It remove it permanently. “Removes what?” you might be asking yourself. It will remove just about anything from a Web site.

Lets say you have a favorite Web site, but you don’t like the side bars. Maybe you don’t like something about the top or the bottom of the Web page in question. What Rip allows you to do is edit down the Web site to something your eyeballs would enjoy viewing. Now I am not the world’s biggest fan of editing somebody else’s Web site. However, you are the only ones seeing your changes, and once the information gets in the hands of the user, how can I really tell them not to do something? So I’ll embrace it.

If you are looking for something to remove the ads on a Web site, you might want to take a look at the AdBlock extension. If you just want to remove a few things that annoy you about a Web site, then download the Rip extension for Firefox.

I Love Lucy? Sure lots of people loved Lucy, but how many folks out there love linky? Hopefully after reading this, I will convince a few more of you to jump over to loving linky a lot more. What is linky? It is a Firefox extension that gives you more control over the links on a Web site. Sure, that might not sound like the most exciting thing to read about, but hang in here with me.

Linky the Firefox extension, doesn’t give you a reason to get up in the morning, but it does do a lot with the links on a Web page. After installing it, you can reach it by right clicking on any Web page. There you will see a few options. Linky will tell you how many links and images are on the Web page. It will also let you open up all those links or pictures up in new tabs or new windows.

Now where is this a useful thing to have? Well let us just say you were searching in Google. Now instead of having to open up each search result one by one, you can now open them all up at once, and then navigate your way through them. Linky has the power to open up 99 images or 99 links. That is more than enough power for me. Who would look at more than 99 Web pages at a time? So get to loving your links again, forget about the Lucy woman, and install the linky Firefox extension.