If you’re a Firefox user, then you no doubt know that Mozilla has released a small update to its popular web browser. Firefox 3.0.1 delivers everything that 3.0 delivered, only slightly more bug-free. It’s not a major change - you probably won’t see a difference in performance - but anything that improves stability is welcomed by us.

Firefox 3.1, on the other hand… now that’s an entirely different story. Mozilla’s next major update will reportedly contain several new features that were left out of the 3.0 release, including better tab switching. As you can guess, Firefox 3.1 is nowhere near ready to be used by the general public. Still, if you’re the adventurous type like I am, Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 pre-release is available on the Mozilla FTP.

For those who would like to try the new tab switching scheme but are wary about loading anything with the word “alpha” in the title, then the Ctrl-Tab add-on is for you. Ctrl-Tab allows users to see snapshots of their open tabs, similar to Alt-Tab in Windows. I’ve been using Ctrl-Tab for awhile now. It’s an extremely handy way to keep track of your tabs. As with all Firefox plug ins and add-ons, Ctrl-Tab is completely free.

If creating new “skins” and themes for Firefox is more your thing, then Personas is definitely for you. It lets anyone theme, skin and modify Firefox on the fly. No actual coding knowledge is needed. All of the changes you make are applied instantly and are easily undone. While Personas helps with the creation of new themes, it doesn’t actually give the user more artistic skill. Darn… still out of luck.

Ah… the clipboard. Best friend to the trio known as “cut, copy, and paste.” If you want to expand your clipboard’s horizons past your desktop, we suggest giving the Clipmarks extension a go. Clipmarks takes the text that you have designated for your clipboard and posts it directly to their site. The new clips are then available to a variety of social networking and blogging applications, such as Facebook and Wordpress. Handy and fun, Clipmarks just might be the clipboard upgrade that you didn’t know you needed.

And finally:

If there’s one thing that we know around here, it’s search engine optimization, or SEO. The Firefox add-on Niche Watch Tool knows a few things about SEO as well. It allows you to track everything SEO, from backlinks to keyword appearances to page ranking. It also has the added bonus of comparing these results to the results of your competition. Despite the unassuming and, frankly, boring name, Niche Watch Tool is perfect for those who want to bring a little “SEO” into their lives.

The Republican Party is now on Facebook. No, this is not a joke. The Republican Platform Committee recently has launched a Facebook application in order to find out what “average people” care about. Topics listed include national security concerns, gas prices, judicial nominations, and tech policies. If you wish to give them a “piece of your mind to feast upon” yet don’t have a Facebook account, have no fear. The GOP has also set up a traditional website as well. While Democratic nominee Barack Obama is embarking on a similar campaign, the party on a whole has yet to implement such a measure. So go on and vent. It’s the American way.

Mozilla, the development house responsible for Firefox and Thunderbird, is in the Guinness Book of World Records. Firefox 3.0 was downloaded a staggering 8,002,530 times on the day of its launch, easily setting the new world record for most downloads in a 24 hour period. Mozilla now finds themselves rubbing elbows with such luminaries as Stephen Carter (world’s fastest pumpkin carver), Claudio Castagnoli (longest held non-submission wrestling maneuver), and the Tivoli Lovelies (world oldest chorus line).

Needless to say, this stunt still has people talking. ZDNet recently talked with Paul Kim, the Vice President of Marketing with Mozilla. According to Mr. Kim, his company has social networking to thank for setting the record. “Since Firefox is all about the online experience, it’s a natural fit for folks who are open to social networking. We announced Download Day with a very concerted plan to leverage multiple social networks and to seed content on those networks that would drive traffic to the download site.” For the complete interview, feel free to visit ZDNet.

Sticking with Firefox for a moment, our colleague Jason Bartholme has a list of the top eleven power plugins for Firefox. Our current favorite is CodeTech, it allows you to edit web pages while viewing them. Think Dream Weaver or Front Page, but without the external program. Very handy in the moments when a page needs to be debugged now.

Everyone needs a little help finding something new from time to time. Enter Similicious. Similicious is sort of the “helper monkey” of social websites. Instead of a plain old web search, Similicious uses Del.icio.us bookmarks as a way of finding websites related to the ones you like. Oh… and it’s free as well. Can’t beat that.

To finish things up, I have a simple question for you: have you ever lost Post-It Notes. I’m not talking about the pad. I am talking about the actual, filled out notes. If this is you (it’s definitely me), then we here at the Free Line suggest giving UberNote a try. UberNote is a completely free alternative to Microsoft’s OneNote application, allowing you to take notes, bookmarks make lists and clip portions of the web all from your browser. It’s easy to use, completely free, and best all, can’t be lost.

你知道社交网络是一个强有力的工具，它促进改变并把大家比以往更紧密的联系到一起了。· 美国共和党在Facebook上新推出的程序就是一个好的例子，它提供给大家一个讨论党内事务的平台。GOP创建了这个程序，希望能以此引发大家的讨论，并唤起大家对油价，国家安全和其它问题的重视。·

另一个驾驭社交网络力量的好例子是最近火狐浏览器打破吉尼斯世界记录的事件。人们至今还在讨论它，下载它，就在你我说话的时候。ZDNet·最近采访了Paul Kim，Mozilla的营销副总裁。他告诉了我们许多Mozilla大规模社交网络营销和病毒传播活动幕后的故事。·欲知详情请访问Freelinereport.com

但是如果火狐本身不是好东西的话不管它有再牛的营销活动也是无济于事。 下面就让我们来一下最热门的11款火狐插件。这些插件能让你的浏览器变成一把瑞士军刀，甚至可以替代你每天使用的程序。·CodeTech插件是我们的最，它可以让你浏览网页的时候编辑它，就像DreamWeaver或FrontPage，而且就用你的浏览器·。很酷吧。当然，毕竟火狐本身毕竟只是一款浏览器。如果不是先有好的网络程序的话也不会有它的成功。你将会爱上我将要为你介绍这两款免费的网络程序。·第一款叫做Similicious，它能通过从Delicious的书签中找到你可能喜欢的网站·。你可以把它看成一个书签版的亚马逊推荐系统。

今天为大家介绍的最后一款程序·叫做UberNote。它是一款完全可以取代微软OneNote的免费程序·，你可以记录笔记，存储书签，创建列表，或者从浏览器中截取网页片段，全部都免费。

We all know that WordPress is a great tool for creating a website. It’s much more than a blog platform, it is an essential tool for anyone that wants a website that is easy to maintain and update. But as an essential marketing tool for social networks, a lot of added features for WordPress often get overlooked or ignored entirely. We’ve got some great plugins that can be leveraged easily in any social marketing campaign.

The key to get the word out about your website this day in age is posting about it on social networks. For every social network out there, someone has created a cross posting tool in WordPress. Our current favourites are the MySpace, Twitter and Facebook plugins, that take any post you put on your WordPress website and posts about it on the respective Social Network.

And of course, you want to make sure that your fans and readers have a chance to do the same thing. Check out the Sociable plugin- it makes it a snap to tell anyone and everyone about one of your web pages. It automatically supports Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Email, Facebook and lots of others. Its like the swiss army knife of social bookmarks.

Once you’ve got the word out, you’ll need to take advantage of the social aspects of social networks. If you just cross post your WordPress site without having an extensive list of friends you won’t be taking advantage of the social media platforms. Finding and adding friends can be time consuming. But it can go by a lot faster with the Yoono plugin for FireFox.

And of course, while we’re talking about social networking and WordPress, we might as well return to WordPress MU, also known as WordPress MultiUser, the version of WordPress that lets multiple blogs be hosted on the same website. Automatic, the creators of WordPress and WordPress MU just bought BuddyPress, a plugin that turns WordPress MU into a full fledged Social Network. This means that future versions of WordPress MU will contain all the stuff that BuddyPress added in, giving your WordPress install all the power of MySpace of Facebook.

At the Free Line, we love product launches, because it’s a great way to get free stuff. Plus, if you’re an internet marketer, there’s nothing like selling a few million dollars in an hour to keep the lights on in your business. At StomperNet we’ve done that a few times now and it’s fun. Plus, it lets us pay for the best faculty of world class internet marketing experts ever assembled. And yesterday, StomperNet CEO, Andy Jenkins released a new free video — all about using video to sell more online. It’s 45 minutes long and you won’t want to miss it.  It’s a behind the scenes Director’s commentary on one of the most successful videos StomperNet ever produced. And of course, it’s free.

Speaking of product launches and free stuff, the the smoke has now cleared and Mozilla’s Firefox 3 Download Day has been a roaring success. Within the first hour of the launch the numbers zoomed past 1 million downloads. Which is amazing, considering the fact that the servers kept going up and down, making it hard for most people to participate. If you were a part of download day - congratulations! You’ve been a part of history.

A majority of plugins don’t work with the new version of the browser, so before you get frustrated, check out this link that lists up to date plugin compatibility for FireFox 3. If your favorite plugin or theme isn’t listed, don’t worry. We’ve also got a tutorial that shows you how to get past that pesky problem with only a few clicks of the mouse and get any of your old plugins working fine.

Now that you’ve got your bright and shiny new version of FireFox, you might wander what new power is under the hood that you’re not taking advantage of yet. We’ve got a link that can show you some little known features that can really make things shine. My favorite? Being able to use Gmail as the default email program in FireFox without using a plugin. Sweet.

And to celebrate the occasion of FireFox Version 3, the folks at Microsoft sent them a cake. A big cake with a giant blue E, the trademark symbol of Internet Explorer. The IE team did the same thing for the release of FireFox 2, so it looks like this might become a tradition of sorts between the two rival companies. So far, we have no idea how good the cake tastes, or whether it was vanilla or chocolate.  But it sure looked delicious.

Speaking of Internet Explorer, we’re starting to get some information about Internet Explorer 8, the new version that’s on the horizon. Due to complaints across the web, IE 8 will be 100% standards compliant, right out of the box. What does this mean? It means a lot of websites need to stop slacking and get things up and running using proper web code, or else it might not work in Internet Explorer. What’s so important about being Standards Complient?  Until now, people had to write special code just to get a website to look the same in Internet Explorer as it did in FireFox and Opera.  Once IE8 goes live, new websites will be easier to create an mantain.

Remember the days when NetZero really cost nothing and all you had to do was watch ads to get free internet access? Those days might come back on steroids. Currently the FCC is toying with the idea of auctioning a portion of the 25 megahertz spectrum with a free provision. This means that whoever buys this spectrum is forced to provide high speed internet access free of charge. We won’t know for certain until June 12th, when the FCC meets and votes on this idea.

And this idea could be right in time, since Time Warner Cable has decided to start metering their bandwidth, charging people a dollar for every gigabyte they go over their lotted amount. This doesn’t sound like much, but if you watch a lot of video on the internet it could add up very fast. Right now this is in a trial period in Texas, but is expected to branch out to the rest of their subscriber base within the next few years.

A program that could definitely get you in trouble with Time Warner Cable is the new Microsoft Silverlight. This alternative to Flash lets you stream movies and play video games that can gobble up bandwidth faster than you can say Bit Torrent. And they have just recently announced support for Ruby on Rails - a programming language that makes developing web applications easier — but not necessarily better — just ask Twitter.

Next, in the Internet Marketing world we’ve been seeing a lot of product launches lately. This week, my buddy Mike Filsaime, (who by the way, is a really great internet marketer that you should pay attention to) is giving away a really cool huge report and mind map series from his $5,000 workshop.

And now even FireFox is getting in on the Product Launch Formula. In fact, FireFox is gunning for the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Software Downloaded in 24 hours. They’ve announced Download Day for the release of FireFox 3, and are trying to get as many people as possible to download a copy of FireFox during that 24 hour period. I just hope it doesn’t break GTD Inbox that we told you about.

And finally, one of the coolest applications to run on a web browser, whether it is FireFox, Internet Explorer or Safari, is the new Unofficial Google Shell. Deemed Goosh, this Unix style command line interface is the brainchild of Stefan Grothkopp. You type in search terms and Goosh brings you information from Google in real time. That’s what I call using the internet in a new and interesting way — and I can’t wait to see what the technical types start doing with this.

还记得以前有NetZero的日子，我们上网只要看一些广告就可以不用花钱吗？那些日子可能再Steroids上重现。+目前FCC正在考虑进行对25兆赫的一部分波段进行有条件拍卖+。这就意味着那个竞标成功的公司就必须免费的提供高速网络服务。我们等到12号FCC投票通过之后才能得到消息。

而且这个想法来的正好，因为＋时代华纳刚刚决定开始计算网络流量，将对超过用量的用户收取每GB1美元的费用＋。听起来好像不多，但是如果你经常在网上看视频的话可能超的就会很快。现在它正在德州进行测试，不过预计在几年之内将对其所有用户生效。

政策施行之后一个可能让你抓狂的软件也许就是微软的银光。这个Flash的替代品可以使你用比bt下载更短的时间观看流媒体视频和游戏。＋而且他们最近刚刚宣布了对Ruby on Rails的支持，后者是一种可以让网络程序开发简单化的编程语言，可这未必是更牛，＋比如Twitter

接下来，最近网络营销行业里面出现了很多新推出的产品。而本周，我的哥们Mike Filsaime，（顺便说一下他是一个非常优秀的网络营销师），将要推出一本超牛的报告并介绍他在一个5000美元的工作里产生的脑图理论＋。它完全免费，所以不要错过了！

＋而且现在火狐也加入到了推出产品的行列。其实，火狐正在评选24小时能下载最多的软件。他们刚刚宣布了Firefox3的下载日期＋我只希望我那天提到过的GTD收件箱不要因此而挂掉。那是一个超牛的插件。

今天最后，我们带给你史上最酷的网页版程序，无论是在火狐，IE或是Safari中，都可运行的Google Shell，＋也就是Goosh。这个Unix风格的命令行界面来自于Stefan Grothkopp。你只要输入关键字Goosh就会实时返回Google的结果。其实没什么用，就是很搞而已＋。不知道哪位高手什么时候可以推出一个Dos版的baidu。

That’s the freelinereport for this week.

Fans of productivity guru, David Allen, rejoice! Today, in Part two of our series on productivity we’re going to focus on free applications that can help you get things done.

Anyone familiar with David’s system will appreciate the GTD Inbox plugin for Firefox. This plugin adds additional functionality to Google Mail, most importantly, how it deals with labels. As emails come in, you decide whether they are actions, next actions, someday/maybes, or reference material. GTD Inbox encourages you to then archive the categorized email, and provides handy search tools for reviewing your task lists. Installing this plugin should be on everyone’s To Do List. So follow our link and get that done today.

Mindomo is a web based application that lets you create and share sophisticated mind maps. A Mind Mapping tool is one that helps you organize your thoughts visually, literally connecting the dots in a graphically representation of your idea. This tool stands out from the rest with it’s simple to use interface and easy to embed software. Want to put a mindmap in your MySpace, Facebook or LiveJournal account? It’s as simple as YouTube.

Scrybe is a great tool that can turn your chaotic life into one that’s more coherent and productive. The tools in this online application are intuitive, and contextual. Its calendaring application lets you move easily between time zones and gives you a great visual way of seeing your day to day schedules and appointments. You can bring in lists from Excel and use them as to-do lists, take notes on web pages and save portions of the page for later. And, it has a true offline mode that synchs easily with it’s web counterpart- without installing any extra software - Just using your browser’s offline mode. It’s in private beta right now, but once it goes live this will be –THE- tool for getting anything done online and offline. Make sure you visit the Free Line Dot Com and see our link to the promotional video. This is something you have to see in order to believe.

Next up we’ve got PageOnce. This is a great new web application that aims to be your internet personal assistant. And it does this with style. You can track just about anything online, from your email to your bank account to the blogs that you read. All in one place and organized. And if you’re worried about security, this system is rock solid. It’s got military grade security in place, so you never have to worry about some hacker breaking in and stealing your banking information.

And now that we have your digital life streamlined, let me show you something that’s going to change the way you get work done. Adobe’s releasing its next version of Acrobat along with a new website, Acrobat.com, that’s aimed at facilitating online collaboration. Similar to Google docs, Acrobat let’s you share documents online, but Adobe let’s you do it in REAL TIME. That’s because its built with Flash technology such as their freshly acquired, Buzzword wordprocessor. But it only gets better. You can also video chat in real time while sharing your desktop and collaborating on a document. And of course, like all the other tools we covered today, Acrobat.com is free.

效能软件尤其是David Allen的粉丝们尤其是又该开心了！今天，免费帮三部曲的第二部分将介绍给大家一些免费的能帮大家把事情做完的软件。任何熟悉David系统的人们应该会感谢GTD的Firefox收件箱插件。＋这个插件为Google Gmail增添了附件的功能，最重要的是它的标签的处理。当有email进来的时候，你可以决定它们到底是属于必须做，接下来做，某一天去做，还是参考资料＋。GTD收件箱还鼓励你把邮件归类，并提供了对事件方便的搜索功能。安装这个插件应该在所有人的日程表当中。所以点击链接完成这件事吧。

Mindemo是一款基于网页的软件，你可以用它创建和分享“脑图”。“脑图”工具能帮助你视觉化你的想法，或者说把你脑海中的想法用视觉方法链接整理起来。这个工具漂亮的界面和简洁的内嵌工具使它脱颖而出＋。想要把“脑图”放在你的MySpace，Facebook或是LiveJournal里面吗？它就像使用YouTude的内嵌一样简单。

＋Scrybe是一个能把你混乱的生活变得清晰连贯并且高效的工具。这个在线软件非常的直观和连贯。比如它的日程表功能可以使你轻松的在不同时区里旅行并能给你一个非常直观的视觉化方式浏览每次的行程。目前它正在内测阶段，可它一旦开放之后就会成为最好的在线和离线的日程表工具。欢迎大家访问FreeLineReport.com来看一下它们的推广视频。这是一个你必须亲眼看到才能体会的东西。

下面我们来看看PageOnce。＋这是一个希望能成为你在线个人助理的优秀工具。你可以在线查看任何东西，从email到你的银行帐户到你每日阅读的博客，它们全部被整理到一个页面当中。另外你完全不用担心安全问题。它的防备是军事级别的，所以你永远不用担心有黑客会进来盗取你的银行信息。

现在你的生活应该开始有条例了，所以接下来让我来给你看一个可以改变你完成工作的方式的东西。Adobe将要发行下个版本的Acrobat和一个全新的网站Acrobat.com，一个非常好的在线协作工具。就像Google文档一样，你可以利用Acrobat在线实时共享协作文件。它是构建在Flash技术上的，比如它最新收购的Buzzword文字处理系统。你更可以进行实时视频对话并共享桌面来编辑文件＋。当然，跟其它我们今天介绍的软件一样，Acrobat.com完全免费。

我们来看看……GTD、Mindomo、Scrybe、PageOnece、Acrobat……全了！

Ever wanted to talk to Martians on MySpace? That future could be a distinct possibility soon, if NASA has its way. They’re bringing all the details and goals of the new mars mission online. They plan on providing real time images of the space craft landing. This will allow millions of people across the world to experience the Martian landscape first hand. And if we see any little green men, we’ll make sure to let them friend us on MySpace and Facebook.

If you believe you are one of those people who have already met a little man from outer space, then Spielberg’s new venture should be right up your alley. It’s a website called The Rising, and it’s out to create a Facebook style social platform for UFO abductees. ET no longer needs to phone home- he just has to post a bulletin on his profile.

For those of us still trapped here on earth, we’ve got a link to Wired’s new How-To section, about using the internet to live green. It’s set up in a wiki format, so if you know anything about living with a low carbon footprint, you can go and share your knowledge with the world.

Earlier on the Free Line we showed you several free online applications that let you add Geo Tags to pictures, including one that used your cellphone. Looks like someone at Apple watches these videos and knows what the public wants. The next version of iPhone, 2.0, will have geo tagging for photos built in directly. Take a picture with your iPhone, and the geo tags automatically pop up.

While we’re on the subject of tags, we’ve got some startling news about the next version of FireFox. It will not have microformat support after all. Microformats are a form of semantic web browsing, a technology now used in Yahoo and Google searches and one that will be used in Digg in the near future. This new technology is hailed as the future of the web, and it seems sad that Firefox won’t have them built in. Fear not, though, for you can always download the Operator plugin and experience web 3.0 first hand.