March Madness In Your Browser

I’m the kind of guy who likes to set things up once.  Since I have a bracket for the NCAA tournament, I’ll probably tune into some games. So the question is, should I google “march madness 2009″ each time or should I setup a dedicated browser that I can launch with one click?

Here’s a step by step guide for the 2nd option.

Step 0: Get Firefox

If you are not using Firefox, shame on you (although Chrome is pretty good too).

Download Firefox and install it.

Step 1: Create a New Firefox Profile

[Note: These steps are for Windows XP. I'm sure Mac fanboys can figure it out too]

You can follow the steps at this link, or read below.

Using the Start menu, click on Run… and type “firefox -P“

Firefox Profile Manager

This opens the Profile Manager (which is a little known feature of Firefox). We’re going to create a dedicated profile called “March Madness“.

Firefox : Create A Profile

Once you have created that profile, it will return to the profile manager. Launch the profile called “March Madness”. You will get a default Firefox configuration.

Firefox: 1st Time Startup

Step 2: Set the Home Page to CBS Sports

The link is http://mmod.ncaa.com/video. Just paste that link into the address bar and the player should load. If this is your first time going to the player, it will ask to install Microsoft Silverlight which you must do. After that, it will bring you directly to the menu of games.

If you have any problems getting to the menu, just go to cbssports.com and click through until you are fully configured.

Finally, we want to set the home page to http://mmod.ncaa.com/video. Go to Tools > Options and paste that address into the “Home Page” field.

Firefox: Set NCAA Video As Your Home Page

After clicking OK, test it out by clicking on the Home icon on the browser.

Step 3: Slim Down the Browser

Alright, you’ve got the browser configured, but it’s big, it’s got toolbars and maybe add-ons. Here’s how you slim it down:

• Open Tools > Add-ons and disable any Extensions that are listed (you’ll need to restart Firefox)
• Under the View menu, you will want to click on any visible toolbars to hide them (including the status bar)
• Finally, resize the window so that it exactly fits the content.

Here’s the final configuration

Final Config - March Madness

Close the browser and your size and toolbar preferences will be saved for this profile (“March Madness”).

Step 4: Create a Desktop Shortcut

You probably have a desktop shortcut called “Firefox 3″ that was added when you installed Firefox. Click once on that shortcut, hit Ctrl-C to copy, then Ctrl-V to paste. You will get a new shortcut called “Copy of Firefox 3″

Change the name of that shortcut to “March Madness!” or whatever you like.

Here’s the magic: Right-click on that short-cut and choose “Properties”. Under Target, enter this text “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -no-remote -P “March Madness” including the quotes.

That’s it! Click OK and you are good to go.

Enjoy March Madness in One-Click

Double-click on the shortcut you created and your custom browser will open, resized and at the menu of games currently being played.

Oh, and don’t forget about the Boss Button, which brings up this screen.

March Madness Boss Button

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