Everybody has tried del.icio.us at least once. Some people like it, and some people find it confusing. There is no doubt that a Firefox extension would play a good part here in making it easier to use for everybody out there. That is what this del.icio.us Firefox extension does.

So what is del.icio.us? Google tells us, “Del.icio.us is social bookmarking, social software web service for storing and sharing web bookmarks. The site came online in late 2003 and was developed by Joshua Schachter, co-maintainer of Memepool. According to del.icio.us/doc/about: Everything posted to del.icio.us is publicly viewable; it is not a tool for storing private bookmark collections. Many people use del.icio.us to publish ‘linkblogs’ on their weblogs.”

Here is what the author has to say about this del.icio.us Firefox extension:

The del.icio.us extension for Firefox offers everything you need to seamlessly integrate the del.icio.us service with your Firefox browser. Included in the extension are two buttons which allow you to easily post items to del.icio.us, and access your saved items from del.icio.us.

In addition to the buttons, the extension allows for right-click posting functionality. A del.icio.us menu is also installed which allows for quick access to common pages on del.icio.us as well as keyboard shortcuts. The extension also installs the del.icio.us search plug-in right into the existing Firefox search toolbar.

This extension is for Firefox versions 1.0 – 1.5 and once you install it, you will not find an easier way to sink the functionality of del.icio.us with your everyday life.

Usually when the holidays start rolling around, everybody makes a wish list of what they would like to get. From new clothes to the newest gadgets, there are a lot of things covered by a lot of people. My holiday Web Hosting Show wish list is a little different. My wish list is pointed directly to the Web hosting industry in hope that they might listen and change. I don’t want them to change just for me, I want them to change to make the Web hosting world better for each and every one of you as well.

4. I wish for GoDaddy.com to offer a better Web hosting experience.

I have been nothing but disappointed with my hosting experience at GoDaddy.com. I had heard good things from folks in the past about it, so I had to try it out to see what all the fuss was about. I will give them a little credit, as far as bandwidth, disk space and uptime goes, I am very happy. Where I have a problem is the control panel and missing features. The control panel that GoDaddy.com uses sucks, there is no denying that. It is one thing to rule a market, it is another thing to be the best thing in the market. GoDaddy.com might be on the way to ruling the virtual Web hosting world, but they are by far not the best option out there.

4. I wish for Web hosting jargon to become more simple for folks.

Ok, so maybe this wish isn’t so easy to achieve. I just feel like a lot of people are scared off by the idea of Web hosting because some of the words are confusing. To really master and learn the ins and outs of the Web hosting industry, one has to almost learn a different language. POP3, FTP, MySQL, these should be services that work – but I shouldn’t have to know them by such confusing names. As I said before, this wish probably won’t come true. It somebody can do it though, they will have my total support.

2. I wish for more competition within the Web hosting industry.

Well, there are hundreds, if not thousands of Web hosts out there today. Maybe competition isn’t the problem. I just wish more folks would realize that there are more choices other than the top names in the business. I hope that a few more of these smaller companies get a stronger grab onto the Web hosting market. The more top companies there are, the more they will be competing for your business and your money. That is definitely a good thing.

1. I wish the Web hosting industry would catch up to the rest of us.

When it comes to innovation, the Web hosting industry isn’t exactly number one. It seems like with words like RSS and Web 2.0, the world of Web hosting is in the dark ages. As somebody who jumps often from the leading technology stories to the leading Web hosting stories out there, I am disappointed. I am disappointed that more Web hosts and hosting related Web sites aren’t trying something new or something different. You can only release press releases for so long before the public gets tired of you.

Do you have any holiday hosting wishes you’d like to address? Make sure you send them to me and I’ll be sure to let everybody know all the best ones I get.

Download the Web Hosting Show! (MP3) | Read the Show Notes!

Running Time: 7 minutes | File Size: 1.51 MB

Have you visited LinkedIn lately? How about at all? LinkedIn has become one of my favorite places to visit Online. It is a great resources for professionals like myself to find new and interesting business contacts. I like to think of it as MySpace for adults. Now you can bring some of LinkedIn’s functionality to your Firefox browser with the LinkedIn Companion.

Here is what the author of the extension has to say about it:

Take advantage of this network every day with the LinkedIn Companion for Firefox. Use the Firefox Companion to easily search for professionals or jobs on LinkedIn and bookmark the most interesting results in a clear and organized format. Our powerful JobsInsider feature instantly shows you the inside connections you have at the companies you’re interested in while you browse job listings on the major job boards.

LinkedIn is an online social network of more than 4 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries. LinkedIn helps you be more effective in your daily work and opens doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.

The LinkedIn Companion extension is for Firefox versions 1.0 through 1.5. If you are a LinkedIn expert or you haven’t tried it before, give it a shot and feel free to look me up if you need a few contacts to get you started.

Doesn’t anybody else find this a little creepy? I mean, I am all for adoption and all that, but could you imagine yourself growing up in a data center? Maybe this will be one more way to raise super Web hosting gurus that by the time they are adults will rule the world of Web hosting.

This gives “get ‘em while they’re young” a whole new meaning.

New York web hosting provider Weblinkhosting has announced its intention to adopt a boy (rather than a girl) under its company name.

As you may remember, Weblinkhosting circulated a press release suggesting it intended to legally adopt a child to ‘live at the company’s data center and be provided with food, clothing, shelter and love from the owner and employees’. Weblinkhosting.com’s latest circulation suggests progress has been made with the objective and, “the newly adopted orphan which will live in the web hosting data center will be a male. His name has yet to be determined.”

You want something even stranger?

The company also originally suggested their intention to make the adopted child their official logo.

I’d love to see how the public feels about this one. I’ll be sure to touch on this subject a little deeper on next week’s edition of the Web Hosting Show podcast as well.

It seems like just about every company out there today has an extension written for Firefox. When I heard that there was now a PayPal Firefox extension, I had to raise my eyebrows and think. What could you really add to Firefox that has to do with PayPal? Well, how about an easier process of making payments with the PayPal Send Money Firefox extension.

Here is what the author of the work has to say about this Firefox extension:

The PayPal Send Money extension provides a quick way to send money to anyone with an email address. Enter the recipient’s email address and the extension opens a quick link to PayPal’s Website Payments Standard checkout page so you can log in and make a quick payment to a friend.

When sending money to a friend’s Personal Account, use your PayPal funds or a bank account and avoid any fees.

With the holiday season upon us, don’t we all need an easier way to send a few bucks to our favorite people and our favorite Web sites? Since I do most of my professional work Online, I have to deal with PayPal a lot. Anything that makes that experience better, quicker and easier is perfectly OK in my book.

So check out the PayPal Firefox extension. It is compatible with Firefox versions 1.0 – 1.5 and really does make it easier to combine your browsing and PayPal experiences.

With the 1.5 Firefox release, maybe there wasn’t too many improvements to the search bar in the upper right of your browser window. They have made advancements by leaps and bounds by making it easier to add a search engine to your browser.

The new search engines Web page is welcome change from the look of MyCroft site. The choices haven’t been improved any on the new Web page. That isn’t the exciting part. The exciting part is I am now not afraid to send somebody to that page to get a few new search engines without being afraid they would get lost.

Some of the front page included searches are: A9, Flickr tags, MSN, AOL, WebMD, Market Watch, and Wikipedia. Now if they could only make the rest of the search engine experience more friendly for the rest of the folks who might be scared of the trip down Mozilla Lane.

Another nice feature of this new Web page is they link to a Firefox extension that makes it really easy to remove search engines from the drop down menu. It allows uninstalling search plugins – just right click on a search plugin and choose “Delete”. I’d like for that to be something built into Firefox 2.0, but I know they might have more important things to worry about right now.

So give the new search engine Web page a shot and try out the Search Plugin Hacks extension. You’ll be searching various places like a pro in no time at all.

Everybody’s favorite Web hosting podcast is back on the air again. On podcast 41 of the Web Hosting Show we tackle what to do with .htaccess files, hyphenated domains as well as the usual hosting fun and information we tackle week in and week out. I thought it would be interesting though to share with you some of the biggest hosting headlines from the past week.

SWsoft, a recognized leader in server automation and virtualization software, today announced the availability of SiteBuilder 2.0 for Windows, an upgraded release of the next generation, browser-based application designed to quickly and easily create and edit websites. The new version 2.0 adds ecommerce and blog capabilities, plan and site management, several new modules and reseller support for the fastest-growing hosting platform. First announced in September 2005, the SiteBuilder for Windows promotion will last through September 30, 2006.

SWsoft’s SiteBuilder tool is one of the best the Web hosting industry has to offer. I like to see that they are keeping it up to date and adding more and more features along the way.

According to reports by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a 19-year-old Winnipeg man is trying to clear his name after his Netgo Web Hosting business unknowingly hosted al-Qaeda terrorist related content.

Well, taking the terrorism aspect out of the picture of the moment, this just proves that Web hosts should always pay attention to the content they are hosting. Keeping records on every Web site is almost impossible, but you never know when you might get hit like this or with something else of this nature.

Web hosting provider AIT said on Thursday that it had taken over as the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit that accuses Google of breach of contract and unfair business practices. AIT’s motion was filed on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. AIT takes over as lead plaintiff from ClickDefense, which filed suit on June 24, 2005.

If they can prove the case, I say more power to AIT. In my opinion this will be a hard case to fight. You will have to prove that these clicks were not real. Who is right? Who is wrong? I guess we’ll have to see what comes of the case.

Download the Web Hosting Show! (MP3) | Read the Show Notes!

Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 3.40 MB

We all like using the find bar in Firefox right? It makes it simple to find a string of text or maybe even just a word on a Web site. It is clean and simple. I love how it just comes up at the bottom of the screen when I need it as well. Is there a way to make the find bar experience any better? Findbar Basics tries to do just that.

The Findbar Basics extension does a few things. Some of these include: a status bar button that opens the find toolbar; a clear button inside the find toolbar for clearing all text from the input box, an optional toolbar button that opens the Find Toolbar, Ctrl-F toggle to switch the Find Toolbar on and off.

There is something to be said about the ease of use of the find bar. Since it was moved down to the bottom of the screen, it has become one of my favorite Firefox features. Any windows that pop up at me make me angry. Why pop up a box in front of the text I am trying to search through?

Many other programs could learn from Firefox in that department.

This extension is compatible with Firefox versions 1.0 through 1.6. Download it today and find what it is you are really looking for.

I don’t want to fighten anybody, but yes, I merged what was MitchKeeler.com with what is Mitchelaneous (the Web site you find yourself on right now). Now why did I do such a thing? Well, MitchKeeler.com wasn’t much more than an ego-builder for me. Now I can kill two birds with one stone and build my ego here instead. As you can see by the navigation at the top, all the MitchKeeler.com pages have been moved over. So hopefully not too many will be lost in the transition, and we can keep on rockin’ the world one post at a time.

Why are there not any Web hosting-related holiday songs? The Web hosting world is just as festive as any other industry out there today. Well, here is a project that didn’t exactly work out the way I had seen it at first. At first I thought I would be able to sing this as a Web Hosting Show holiday special. Then I remembered, I can’t carry a tune to save my life. I didn’t want to trash all my efforts in writing the song though. So here you have it, the very first Web hosting related Christmas song, The Twelve Days of a Web Hosting Christmas!

On the first day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the second day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the third day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the fourth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the fifth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

*five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the sixth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the seventh day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the eighth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

eight forum flavors,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the ninth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

nine FTP logins,

eight forum flavors,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the tenth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

ten T1 connections,

nine FTP logins,

eight forum flavors,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

eleven virtual accounts,

ten T1 connections,

nine FTP logins,

eight forum flavors,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

my Web host sent to me,

twelve bandwidth tutorials,

eleven virtual accounts,

ten T1 connections,

nine FTP logins,

eight forum flavors,

seven sub-domains,

six server side includes,

five mySQL databases,

four domain registrations,

three nerdy gurus,

two gigs of disk space,

and one hell of a hosting podcast.