MediaFox, a good idea made even better

MediaFox, a good idea made even better

A fellow by the name of Andrew Royce customized a version of Portable Firefox (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable) for media viewing and shared his work with the folks at Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/5169172/mediafox-a-firefox-build-with-media-on-the-mind) for the world to enjoy, which I have already started to do. His tweaks are written up at LH. This post is about my tweaks.

First thing I did was install the app on my network drive. As a portable version, it can run from any drive and doesn't install into the operating system. Since my main media consumption is at home, it makes sense to keep my media browser here.

Next, I installed the FireGestures (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6366) and Grab & Drag (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1250) add-ons for pen navigation and the IE Tab (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419) for viewing Netflix. Between that and the preset bookmarks for video from Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/) and TV network websites, I have access to all the online video I need, such as The Daily Show and SNL.

Then I tweaked the bookmarks for quick access to my favorite shows and added links to our various web-based photo albums and the web interface of the network drive. Thus, we can enjoy most of our music and photos from the browser.

Finally, I tweaked it so it can run concurrently (http://proreviewer.com/2009/01/05/tip-run-multiple-instances-of-firefox-portable/) with another instance of Firefox so I can jump to MediaFox at anytime. All together this gives me a streamlined web browser, free of extraneous add-ons and live bookmarks, optimized for web video that can run on any Windows PC in the house. It's pretty cool stuff. Thanks, Mr Royce.
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