The least used and known feature in Firefox is the sidebar. You can open any page in a sidebar that sits on the left of your browser window. Because the sidebar is typically narrow, it will not be feasible to use the sidebar to view every website. But, you can use it with at least 4 of the major Google services which use the sidebar without distorting the page. Please note that these links might require you to save the site URL to your bookmarks. Also note that I use All-in-One Sidebar extension for Firefox, which adds an additional menu bar at the top of the screen.

Note: Save the sites to your Bookmarks folder, then right click on the link and click “Properties”. Select “view this site in the sidebar” and you are done! The next time you use this link, it will load into the sidebar.

• Google Search - Loads your Google search results in the sidebar. It is very clean and simple to use. Displays 10 search results at a time.

• Google Docs & Spreadsheets - the list of your files sorted by the last modified date. When you click on a file, it opens in a new tab (or window, depending on your preferences), ready for you to modify or view it.

• Google Notebook - Displays Google Notebook in a simple way. This is great if you don’t want to visit the Google Notebook site each time you want to add a note or add the Google Notebook extension.

• Google Talk - This is great for those times when you just want to chat but can’t download the Google Talk client. Provides all of the basic features.

Growing up, I always wanted to be a school bus driver. I thought it was the coolest job ever - even cooler than being President. Why is it so cool? Well, visit The Life of a School Bus Driver and find out!

Jennifer, the site’s owner, is probably the happiest blogger in the universe. I love her site. The photos and well-written recaps of all of the family fun just makes me want to go hug my little brothers! The layout is good. Some of the formatting in the sidebars is wierd (sometimes left, sometimes right), but overall, it is a cheery site. I also think the signature on every post is cool! I have got to get one of those, too!

I am glad I found this site. After reading some of the posts, I feel happy. Maybe I will go get a job as a bus driver - especially if it can make me as positive and happy as Jennifer!

Hey - is your index finger tired from clicking from one social networking site to another all day long? Spokeo is a new social network aggregator that solves most, if not all, of your social networking problems! From their website:

Stay up to date with friends all over the Web - Spokeo checks on your friends to see who’s favorited new videos on Youtube, uploaded photos to MySpace, or blogged on Blogger. Spokeo tracks friends for you, so you won’t miss an update.

Instantly see what has changed in your network - Spokeo remembers what you’ve read and highlights what you haven’t read. You can get an overview of all the newest updates from your friends, and avoid reading the same old content.

Organize friends in a AIM-like buddy list - Spokeo aggregates your friends from different social networks into a central buddy list. You can group, reorder, merge, and delete friends with simple drag-and-drop actions.

Track friends alongside RSS feeds -In addition to tracking photos, videos, and music on social networks, Spokeo is a full RSS/Atom reader. Import friends and feeds to get all the latest news in one place.

Signing up was extremely easy and I was pleased to see that the site allowed me to create a password upon signing up, rather than waiting on an email to arrive, then creating it. Click on the image below for a larger screenshot of the Spokeo website.

The selection of social networks is a little limited, but some of the major ones are there, like MySpace, YouTube and Digg. I’d love to see Facebook, Technorati, Pownce and Twitter added in the future.

The site is beautiful and easy to navigate. Because I was lacking “buddies”, I wasn’t able to use the site at first. However, there is a feature that allows you to import .opml files from your newsreader (i.e. Google Reader or Bloglines). Well, the importer got stuck on 48 of 109 feeds. Even after 10 minutes, they still aren’t all there.

However, some of my favorite feeds did import. Reading was so easy and far better than Google Reader in some aspects. When I move my mouse over the title of a feed, an icon appears. If the site has an icon set, I can see that - or the default Spokeo icon, which is pretty “cute”.

The interface for the buddy list is cool - you can drag and drop people into new categories, as well as “mark all items as read,” “rename” buddies and more!

I moved around a few feeds, renamed them and without any problems. Because the site uses Ajax, I was quite pleased with the speed and appearance. No slow dragging or loading! Click on the image below for a larger screenshot of the Spokeo buddy list and user screen.

Clicking on a feed marks all items as read. Only snippets of articles are shown, but pressing “more” drops the rest of the article text in the page, Ajax style (no page reloading). Fan-freaking-tastic!

Overall, Spokeo has some great strengths and as it evolves, it has the potential to become a Google Reader killer!