Now that our Firefox version has been released, I am going to get back to blogging regularly. Since our Firefox version is so new, I am going to start a series of usability tips and tricks that will help you get started with SmartSwipe in Firefox.

For my first article in this series, I am going to cover installing SmartSwipe all the way from downloading the installation package to running it and making sure that the toolbar appears where you want it to appear in Firefox. In doing so, I will also (hopefully) show you some interesting tricks to make your overall Firefox experience more pleasant.

The first step in using SmartSwipe with Firefox is to make sure that you meet our minimum requirements. Our Firefox version can only work in Firefox versions 3.6 and higher. If you do not know what version of Firefox you use, please follow these steps:

• Open up Firefox
• Click 'Help'
• Click 'About Mozilla Firefox'

The 'About Mozilla Firefox' window will appear and it will show what version of Firefox you have installed on your computer. If you have version 3.6 (or higher), keep reading - you are all ready to go. Otherwise, before you get started, please take a trip over to Mozilla's web page and download the latest version of Firefox.

Once you have Firefox 3.6+ installed on your computer, it is time to head to our web site and download the installation package. Since you are reading this on our web site, I am going to break a usability rule and make this link open up in a new window/tab (depending on what browser you are using right now). This way, you will be able to go through the installation process while following along with this article. To get started, please click here to go to our download page. After you accept our End User Licensing Agreement, you will be taken to a page where you can download our latest version of SmartSwipe. Please click the button to download SmartSwipe - this one file works for both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. And, it will install SmartSwipe in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

If you are using Firefox to download our software, this window will appear:

Please click 'Save File' to continue. This installation file is less than 12mb so it should be a very quick download for you. If you are using Firefox, after the file has finished downloading, this window will appear:

When that downloads window shows that you have finished downloading SmartSwipe, please double-click "SmartSwipe.exe" to start the installation process.

Our installation wizard will lead you through installing SmartSwipe. Before we start installing SmartSwipe, we will let you choose which browsers to install SmartSwipe into. We recommend that you install SmartSwipe in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, so that is the default. However, you can uncheck a box to avoid installing Smartwipe in one of the browsers.

After the installation process runs, we will ask you to restart your computer. If I were in your shoes, I would select 'restart now'. Our installation replaces a number of files and it has been my experience that computers run a little funny until you do a restart.

After you restart your computer, we will display a welcome screen that instructs you to open up Internet Explorer or Firefox for more instructions. Using SmartSwipe is easy - when you arrive on a payment page, simply click the button, swipe your credit card and then complete the transaction.

At this point though, I would like to show you a little trick. Let's say that you open up Firefox and discover that the SmartSwipe toolbar does not appear. Fixing this is really easy. Please follow these steps:

• Look up towards the top of Firefox. You will see a list of menus that says, "File", "Edit", "View", "History", etc. Please click 'View'
• The 'View' menu appears. Please hover your mouse over 'Toolbars'
• The 'Toolbars' menu appears. Please click 'customize'

When you click 'customize', the 'Customize Toolbars' window will appear. This window is (in my opinion) one of the handier features in Firefox. You can completely customize what buttons appear in your toolbar and even change where they appear. So, if you don't like where any of your buttons appear, you can open up this screen and drag them around to suit your needs!

If you can't see the SmartSwipe toolbar when you first open up Firefox, please find the SmartSwipe toolbar in the 'Customize Toolbars' window. Click on it and drag it wherever you would like it to appear.

Once you do that, your SmartSwipe button will appear in Firefox. Personally, I like it when my SmartSwipe button is right beside the restart button, so I keep Firefox set up like this: