Here are a few of the choicest freeware Photoshop addons, to get your creative juices flowing, and hopefully to enhance your experience with Photoshop!

Actions

Normally, when you alter an image in Photoshop, you take a series of steps to get your image from its raw, unadulterated form, to the final, polished masterpiece. If you manipulate your images often, you’ll find yourself taking the same steps for different images, over and over. This is where actions come in – steps are recorded in sequence, and when an action is played, all the steps are carried out on your image of choice – reducing repetitive tasks like framing pictures or changing skin tone to one click.

50 Photoshop Postwork Actions

This is a great pack of actions that alters the tone of your image.  The effects that it produces replicates many of the popular tones seen in magazine photo shoots and professional images, and allows the recreational photographer to achieve better results when post processing.

Photographer’s Toolkit

Another task that photographers have to carry out constantly is digitally framing their pictures. While the process itself is simple, it gets tedious and repetitive when there are dozens of pictures to go through. Luckily, Photographer’s Toolkit produces a myriad of frames for your choosing, and applicable at the click of your mouse.

Brushes

Just about any brush you can think of can be found on the internet. Whatever you need- whether it is a blood splatter, a pair of wings, or even eyelashes- is just a Google search away. Here, I’m going to pinpoint a few brush sets that I like, but keep in mind that there are literally thousands more brush sets out there.

Urban Scrawl Photoshop Brushes

This brush set is perfect for adding a bit of that hand-drawn feel to your projects. I personally adore this set because, while vector or splatter packs are a dime a dozen, this set is truly unique.

Real Smoke

This gorgeous brush set is another example of how anything you can think of has probably been made into a brush. The sample brushes pictured above are just a small selection of the ones in the actual set (there are actually about three times as many). Perfect for adding a bit of mystery and allure to photo manipulations, the variety of brushes in this set makes it useful in many situations, and definitely a set worth adding to your arsenal of Photoshop tools.

Plug-Ins

Plug-ins are a bit like actions in that they simplify the process of manipulating pictures, but they’re a bit more customizable than actions, which produce the same results every time. Think of, for example, how the Gaussian Blur filter allows you to adjust the extent of the blur you want. Plug-ins are like that – they’re essentially filters that change the way your pictures look. Unfortunately, most plug-ins are not free, but the effects they produce can be replicated by hand through a much longer process.

Xero Plug-in Pack

This plugin pack includes about twenty different plug-ins that allow you to do everything from make a picture foggy, to produce a lithograph effect on your picture. All of the plug-ins are adjustable, so you can play with the extent of the transformation. The image above demonstrates the effects of a few of my favorite plug-ins; clockwise from the top, they are: Titanium, Artworkx, Artifax, and Seasons.

Now that I’ve introduced you to just a few of the Photoshop resources on the internet, I hope you’re feeling a bit more artistically inspired by the extent of Photoshop’s adaptability. If you feel like you need to browse a few more brush sets or action packs, websites like deviantArt and Photoshop Tutorials house hundreds, even thousands more resources for you to peruse.

Do you have any trusted sources for Photoshop addons? What are your favorite brushes/actions/plug-ins? Let us know in the comments!

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (10)How To Use Scripts & Plugins in GIMP
• (9)Your Guide To Ubuntu Repositories and Package Management
• (14)Welcome to My Firefox: Extensions, Themes, Setup
• (6)Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox
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For this post I picked two well-integrated extensions that help you organize emails in Thunderbird 3.

Thunderbird’s new version comes with a bunch of novel features. I have previously mentioned tabs. But also searching emails has become a lot more convenient. You can now use operators like in Google or Gmail and results will open in a new tab.

The Mozilla Thunderbird extensions introduced here show refreshing ideas from Thunderbird’s user base.

Messages Timeline

Messages Timeline provides a visual overview of when emails were received.

The email you’re currently viewing is marked with a green dot. When you move the mouse over a light blue dot, both the dot and the respective message are highlighted in yellow. Once you click another dot, it turns green and the respective email is displayed in the message window.

This Mozilla Thunderbird extension lets you visually browse emails by date. Furthermore, when you move the mouse across different folders, it indicates the date range covered by emails in each folder. In the example below the range covered is November 23rd, 2009 to February 12th, 2010.

Are you looking for mails from a specific time frame?  If so, you can click and drag on the timeline to see only those messages. Using right-click on the timeline, you can select time frames and zoom in to distinguish between emails that arrived within a short time.

The developer has announced further features, including automatic expansion of time periods with many messages.

eMarks

Thunderbird 3 supports tabs. This way you can keep all of your conversations together and open sites like Google Wave or Twitter in Thunderbird, rather than a browser. Additionally, you can now make bookmarks in Thunderbird.

This extension, however, isn’t concerned with website bookmarks. How did you handle important emails so far? What did you do with messages that contained information you needed for reference every now and then? Did you tag or copy them into specific folders? Now you can eMark your most important eMails.

The Mozilla Thunderbird extension comes with an entry in the menu bar and a toolbar which can be turned on and off. To add an email to eMarks you have to use either one, there is no option in the right-click menu.

All further options are summarized in eMarks Help, which is also displayed below. Hopefully, future updates of this extension will allow to create folders or categories for eMarks.

There is a lot more information about Thunderbird out there. Here are just a few of the MakeUseOf highlights.

I recently covered 5 Extensions For Tabbed Email Browsing In Thunderbird 3. If you have ever wondered How To Recover Deleted eMails or How To Terminally Delete eMails in Thunderbird, you’ll love to read my respective articles. Furthermore, I explained How to Set Up Message Filters In Thunderbird and How To Integrated Google Calendar Into Thunderbird. Mark showed you how to Synchronize Your Google Contacts, Calendar & RSS In Thunderbird. Saikat demonstrated How to Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird to Send Mass Emails.

How do you successfully manage your emails? What email tasks are you struggling with?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (4)2 Great Thunderbird 3 Notes Addons To Increase Your Productivity
• (19)How to Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird to Send Mass Emails
• (10)How To Access Hotmail Email Messages from Your Gmail Account [Part II]
• (5)5 Extensions For Tabbed Email Browsing In Thunderbird 3
• (27)3 Best Free Alternatives To Microsoft Outlook

Notes are a quick and easy way to keep track of random, but significant thoughts and ideas. They can also help you to remember important phone number, things you need to get done or appointments. The difficult part is to keep your notes organized and not forget about them.

If Thunderbird is your eMail client, you will find the following Thunderbird notes addons very handy for organizing your thoughts and ideas. In addition, they may help you to increase your eMail productivity.

XNote

With XNote, you can attach sticky notes to individual eMails.

To take full advantage of XNote, you should first add the XNote button to your Thunderbird toolbar. For this > right-click onto an empty spot in your toolbar and select > Customize… This will bring up the “Customize Toolbar” window. Locate the XNote button and drag it into a convenient spot within your toolbar. Then hit > Done in the customization window.

You can also create a sticky through the right-click menu. Simply > right-click anywhere into an eMail and you’ll find the > XNote option at the very top of the menu.

In this Thunderbird notes addon, sticky notes are attached to a single eMail and will appear only when that eMail is selected. You can re-size the sticky and move it to any location on your screen. It will disappear as soon as you select another eMail and reappear when you select that eMail again.

To see which eMails contain notes, you have to manually add a new column to your folder display. To do this, > left-click the right-most icon on the bar that lets you sort eMails by subject, date, etc. and select > Notes from the list.

For more tips a tricks, visit the XNote port to Thunderbird 3.

ThunderNote

ThunderNote is a Thunderbird notes addon that allows you to keep track of multiple notes within different categories.

It works much like a standalone tool, only that it is integrated into Thunderbird with a separate toolbar button. You can add the button to your toolbar as described for the XNote button above.

When you click the button, ThunderNote launches within a separate window.

You can now add categories and notes. This extension features only the bare necessities, i.e. writing notes, organizing them within categories, printing individual notes, syncing, as well as import/export through CSV files.

For more information about ThunderNote, visit its Google Code site.

Are you looking for Thunderbird-independent note taking apps? Jeffry covered Four Free Quick Note Taking Apps For The Mac. I compiled 3 Dead-simple Apps For Note Taking & List Making (Windows and online) and I introduced the online tool Springnote. Saikat recently wrote about OrangeNote – A Smart Note Taker & Clipboard Manager. Finally, Shankar introduced Everntote.

If you haven’t done so yet, I recommend you to extend Thunderbird with Google Calendar to handle your appointments. I have described the procedure in my post How To Integrate Google Calendar Into Thunderbird and even though the versions have changed, it essentially still works the same.

Have you adjusted Thunderbird to increase your productivity? Please share what works best for you!

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (3)2 Extensions To Better Manage Emails in Thunderbird 3
• (6)8 Most Useful Plugins For Gnome-Do
• (3)Web Annotation For Students or Professionals From WebNotes (+100 Invites)
• (23)TinyPad – Replace Notepad With Automatic Syncing & Sharing Built In
• (3)Super Simple Sticky Notes From Jjot

Most of us would be hogtied around a computer without the mouse. It’s not that modern computing is impossible without the mouse, but it asks for a huge change in behavior. Even then, as anyone can experience, in the race between keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks, the keyboard usually wins out. That’s why learning keyboard shortcuts is an oft preached (but seldom followed) skill to perform functions and navigate with your keyboard.

Of course, there’s no need to retire your trusty mouse. When you’re all alone with the keyboard, think of the commands you have to learn and master. That’s just too much work.

The second best solution is to use certain software which speeds up our work with the keyboard and save us from the toil of learning commands. We are already skipping that job by using application launchers.

gleeBox is for the guy who loves typing on the keyboard more than clicking with the mouse. Specifically – gleeBox is a browser add-on that lets you navigate the web with your keyboard. Not the full range of controls, but a lot of it. In the end, with a bit of practice, going back, forth, and across a webpage gets considerably speedier.

gleeBox comes in two avatars. It can be installed as an experimental add-on for Firefox and as a Google Chrome extension.

The developer website has an introductory video which goes into the working of gleeBox.

Saving extra mouse-clicks with gleeBox

• gleeBox defines some keyboard commands which help us move around the web. Starting from the basic ‘g’ which launches the application, the commands help us to launch a search, find links in the webpage and follow the link with an enter. For instance, I can type in a few letters for a link and gleeBox immediately highlights the link on the page. Pressing Enter, takes me to the URL. I can also press SHIFT+ENTER to open the page in a new tab.

  

• A search is as simple as entering a keyword and pressing Enter.
• gleeBox defines different types of commands. Scrapper commands start with a ‘?’ and they help to select particular types of elements on the page like titles, linked images, form input fields and all links. Highlighted elements can be hopped using the Tab key.

  

• Some of the most useful commands can be executed with what gleeBox calls the Page Commands. A complete list of all commands is provided in the user manual. But without going into the specific command syntax here are just some of the things you can do with gleeBox.
  1. Direct the page to Readability and have a better reading experience. Readability makes web reading more focused by removing the clutter on the page.
  2. Use bit.ly to create a short URL for the page.
  3. Tweet the page with a short URL.
  4. Subscribe to the RSS feed in Google Reader.
  5. Share the page on social sites like Digg, Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Also, one can email the page using Gmail.

     

• gleeBox is also tied-in with YubNub.org which is a command line tool for the web. A previous post on YubNub will help you appreciate it better. Select your favorite commands from the thousands that are available with YubNub and zip across the web.

  

• gleeBox has some advanced features too which let you customize commands for a particular webpages. Called the ESP Mode, it allows you to keep a bank of ready to use shortcuts for the websites you visit most often.
• Definitely not the least, the Options under gleeBox let you customize the look and the feel of the default grey colored box. After all, if you take the pains to use it regularly, you would want to tweak it a bit.

  

As the developers have pointed out, gleeBox speeds up a few things that we traditionally do with a mouse. Of course, some things will remain the domain of the mouse. But it’s quite handy to have gleeBox on the side. Two tools are always better than one.

Does the little add-on put the glee in your browsing? Or will you remain a lifelong mouse fancier? Let us know if gleeBox (ver.1.1) does something for you.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (5)How To Master The Power of Mac Shortcut Keys
• (17)Enso Launcher: It Will Make You Feel Like a Hacker
• (17)Abandon Your Mouse & Click On Links With Your Keyboard
• (16)Windows System Tools at your Fingertips with FastKake
• (14)Welcome to My Firefox: Extensions, Themes, Setup

A major new feature in Thunderbird 3 is tabbed email browsing. The idea is to view separate inboxes or emails in parallel tabs. However, more and more extensions emerge, which exploit the tab feature to add web browser capabilities to Thunderbird.

Most of these extensions are experimental, meaning they are very new and haven’t passed the public review process yet. All extensions covered in this article were thoroughly tested and didn’t cause issues, neither alone nor in combination with other standard extensions for Thunderbird 3.

ThunderWave (experimental)

Toolbar buttons are a convenient way to launch applications into Thunderbird tabs. So they essentially work like a bookmark. Since Google Wave basically tries to become “email reloaded”, it’s a good idea to integrate it into Thunderbird, i.e. “old school” email.

Is Google Wave still all Spanish to you? Maybe this video explaining Google Wave “Pulp Fiction” style can fill you in.

If you’re going to add multiple such buttons, you will soon run out of space in your email toolbar. Thus I recommend to create a new custom toolbar just for your new extra buttons. Right-click on any existing toolbar and select > Customize and a > Customize Toolbar window will pop up. At its bottom, click the > Add New Toolbar button, enter a name, and hit > OK. Now you can drag and drop buttons from the > Customize Toolbar window onto your toolbar.

Google Calendar Tab (experimental)

In Thunderbird 3, you can still use Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar. Now you can also use this add-on to launch Google Calendar within a Thunderbird tab. Sadly, there is no toolbar button provided, just an option within the > Tools menu.

Within the add-ons options menu you can switch from > Google Calendar to > Google Apps for your domain.

Addressbook Tab (experimental)

You already saw the toolbar button for this add-on in the first screenshot. With AddressbookTab you can open the address book within a tab, rather than in its separate little window.

ThunderTabs (experimental)

Here is the one extension with which you can open any website, given you know the URL by heart. Simply click ThunderTabs’ toolbar button, a little JavaScript window will load, enter your URL, and hit > OK.

ThunderBrowse

ThunderBrowse, finally, goes all the way and represents the most comprehensive extension in this series. If you really want to browse with Thunderbird, you have to get this extension. Besides, it’s no longer experimental and has been receiving great reviews.

First of all, it comes with a ton of options. You can define how links embedded in emails open, how tabs are handled, you can create Hotkeys for opening the ThunderBrowse window or a ThunderBrowse tab, and much more.

To access all these options, go to > Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > ThunderBrowse and click > Options.

Let me give you a quick overview of some of the main features.

You can quickly open a new ThunderBrowse tab using the icon at the top right of your tabs.

Depending on which options you selected, it will open a Thunderbird tab or a tab within the message window. No matter which of your accounts or folders you open, the tabs you see in the message window of one will be the same in any other.

It may look cluttered at first, but it’s incredibly useful. Imagine someone sends you a reference and you want to quickly review it before reading the rest of the email. Previously, you would have to load it in your browser and switch back and forth between two applications. Now you can open the link in a Thunderbird tab or in a ThunderBrowse tab right next to the email you’re reading.

Of course, you can also open links as you please using the right-click menu. Besides opening in a tab or in your browser, you can also open the link in a new (separate ThunderBrowse) window.

With these tab options available in Thunderbird 3, who needs a browser?

So tell me, what can your browser do that Thunderbird presently can’t?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (14)How To Terminally Delete eMails In Thunderbird By Compacting Folders
• (19)How to Set Up Mozilla Thunderbird to Send Mass Emails
• (10)How To Access Hotmail Email Messages from Your Gmail Account [Part II]
• (27)3 Best Free Alternatives To Microsoft Outlook
• (3)2 Extensions To Better Manage Emails in Thunderbird 3

Well, the kid is growing up very fast. Google Chrome ditched the unofficial workarounds and brought in official support for extensions. Things are getting better at the Google Chrome Extensions site. With its rise on the popularity charts, you will see a lot of web content on the lines of – The Best of Google Chrome Extensions. We also did our fair share. Check out –

10 Cool Extensions for Google Chrome
5 Google Chrome Extensions That Could Finally Make Me Switch From Firefox

Just like Firefox addons, we now have Chrome Extensions to handle everything except perhaps, scratch our backs. So following that route, let’s see what Chrome can do for the guy who likes things in pictures. The following seven extensions are geared to handle images and graphics.

Some are very simple, which merely bring a shortcut to a web app in the form of an extension. While the rest introduce more.

The Image Toolkits

1. Aviary Screen Capture (Talon)

   

   The ability to capture a webpage from within the browser is definitely one of the more useful tools you can have. The Aviary Screen Capture extension saves you trips to the online photo app. Talon makes it a must-have by adding image editing functions within the browser.

   

   For a specific webpage, you can capture the screen and do basic markups like add text, add pointers and mark out with ellipses, rectangles or lines. Alternatively, you can add “aviary.com” to the beginning of the URL in your browser to capture it.

   You can save the capture to the desktop, host it in your Aviary online account or do some further editing in the other Aviary apps. There are six Aviary design apps within a click, outfitted with basic photo editing tools.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

2. Picnik Extension for Chrome

   

Picnik is a nice alternative to Aviary Screen capture but comparatively with fewer tools. With a click you can capture the visible browser page and open it in Picnik for easy editing, annotation and sharing. One of the pluses is that you can select any of the images in the page from a list and work on it. Within Picnik’s online editor, you get all of its options like sending the image directly to a host of web services like Flickr, Twitter or simple email.

Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

The Image Viewers

3. Image Preview

   

   Image links are commonplace in forums. You even see it in the top bar while doing a Google Image Search. It means an extra click to view the image in another tab or window. The Image Preview extension saves us that effort by opening a preview window in a lightbox with only the image loaded and the background darkened. Click anywhere else on the page and the lightbox disappears.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

   Patr is a similar lightbox extension for enhancing your Flickr visits. It loads the full size version of a Flickr image in lightbox.

4. View on Flickriver
   

   

   Flickriver is basically a Flickr enhancer. It turns a Flickr photostream into a ‘river’ of continuous photos. Set against a black (or white) background, photos can be viewed in one continuous scrollable list. Unlike in Flickr, you don’t have to click on each photo to see it in full size.

   In Google Chrome, you can click on the extension while on a Flickr page and see them all in Flickriver. It’s a very simple addon that makes Flickr browsing a bit more convenient.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

   SlideShow is a similar extension that turns Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and Google Images into a continuous slideshow. The SlideShow icon is visible on the address bar of supported websites. Clicking the icon starts the slideshow.

5. Pics Watcher
   

   

   A useful addon to have if you want to take a peek at the latest in Flickr, Picassa and LiveJournal. But if you are ‘the searching for this photo’ guy, this extension is a letdown. I have this loaded for some passive viewing of the latest photos in the three web services. You can select the web services using a dropdown. A few more active features like a search would be nice.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

6. Fittr Flickr
   

   

   This is another extension which improves Flickr. Fittr Flickr can be thought of as a rolled up bundle of the above extensions. The extension improves the navigation by adding a few size controls below the image. You can open the image in a lightbox with a single click. Typing ‘?’ on the page also opens up a menu with the navigation controls. For instance, press x on your keyboard to toggle EXIF info for the photo. Other features include a short Flickr URL for sharing and a link to the BigHugeLabs page where you can do more with Flickr photos.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

7. CoolIris
   

   

   CoolIris is compared to a 3D wall of photos. The comparison is apt because with a click on the extension icon you can start the almost endless conveyor belt style image search. We have covered Cooliris before. The extension brings the same cool features to the Chrome. You can go into the Preferences and customize a few settings like the Wall angle and the Wall Scroll speed. To make it a bit more personal, set a background image for the CoolIris main page. CoolIris is a bit hefty at 2.7MB.

   Also, download it from the Google Extensions Page.

The Firefox Photos, Music and Videos addons section has nearly 750 plugins listed. Chrome has just opened its doors, so it will be a while before we see it catching up. The good thing is that now, we do have some extensions to ‘extend’ the potential of Chrome. Which is your favorite extension that makes adds to your love for images? Have we missed out any on this list?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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I think I have friends out there who are often faced with the same problem. Of course, the fast forward or skip button or the slider can be easily moved to the position where it was left off. But heck, aren’t we movie junkies a lazy bunch. We want one touch solutions to bookmark video.

To solve this problem, I started my search for a way to bookmark video. Bookmarking is a feature in many DVD players. In PCs, bookmark features are there for many applications. From Office suites to PDF files and even the iPod has a feature that remembers to resume a song from where you stopped. Why not a video bookmark for video files? Well, it’s there – by default in some media players and as a plugin in Windows Media Player.

MyMediaBookmarks – A Windows Media Player Plugin to Bookmark Video

MyMediaBookmarks is a Windows Media Player (WMP) plug-in. The automatic bit behind its working is dead simple – while watching a film, the video bookmark is created at the exact frame (or time) where you decide to close the media player. When you launch the video file again, it resumes playing from that spot.

MyMediaBookmarks can be accessed from WMP – Tools – Plugins. From here, it can also be unchecked and disabled.

The Plugins tab under Windows Media Player’s Options takes us into the features of MyMediaBookmarks. As a simple application, it is not feature rich but it does give us some control over the media types we choose to bookmark.

The General tab gives you the choices of auto-resuming video and audio files. If you think that you won’t need it for audio files, choose to disable it. Also, use the same tab to set the auto-resume time difference between the startup and the spot bookmarked. The default of 5 seconds is good enough. As you move through your videos, you can choose to clear all your bookmarks with a click on Clear all bookmarks.

The File Types tab lets you include or remove the different video/audio file formats that Windows Media Player handles. Note the support for newer formats like M4B and MKV.

With MyMediaBookmarks, there doesn’t seem to be any restriction on the number of files you can bookmark. The slight hitch when the plugin starts with WMP is the one thing one has to accept. Or maybe it was so in my individual case, as I have quite a few plugins installed. There is only one way to bookmark your files…by closing WMP. There is no other way you can manually bookmark video without closing the application.

MyMediaBookmarks (ver.1.5) plug-in for Windows Media Player is a 2.19MB download.

KMPlayer – Bookmark Videos Simply and Smoothly

KMPlayer is relatively unheralded but is one of the best media players out there. KMPlayer and VLC Player often get talked about in the same breath as very powerful and free media players. For the purpose of bookmarking videos, I found KMPlayer easier to configure as compared to VLC Player. For an explanation on how to save bookmarks in VLC, go to VideoLAN Wiki.

There are two ways to resume watching a video from where you left off in KMPlayer.

From the right click menu, go to Playback and check Remember Played Position. The next time you play the movie, it resumes from where you left off.

From the right click menu, go to Bookmarks/Chapters – Add to Bookmarks.

The precise time frame gets added to the context menu. You can also use the bookmark editor window (Edit Bookmarks) to add a title or delete bookmarks.

KMPlayer offers the distinct advantage of also letting us bookmark multiple points in the same film. Using this, you can pinpoint all key scenes in a single movie.

KMPlayer (ver.2.9.4) is a 14.2MB free download for Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7.

A plugin with Microsoft’s default media player or a slick third party free application like KMPlayer – take your pick. For the absolute smoothness and ease of the operation, I usually would go for KMPlayer. What about you?

Do you use video bookmarking? Which media player do you have installed and does it handle video bookmarking?

Image credit: Okko Pyykkö

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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It is for those two reasons that I tried out the Firefox extension that was then called “Twitterfox”.  It is now called “Echofon” and there has been an article written introducing it.  I love it because I get a little memo, while in Firefox, letting me know there is a new tweet so I can check it out, allowing me to easily keep up with the conversation.

A while back I began to also use Google’s browser, known as Google Chrome.  I’ve loved my experience so far with it.  It’s sleek, fast, and easy to use.  One issue I do have with it though is the lack of extensions, comparably at least.  Well, recently I upgraded to a version that allows the installation of extensions.  I then went on a search for some type of extension that would serve as a Twitterfox alternative and finally I came across Chromed Bird.

I would like to share 3 reasons why I think the Twitterfox alternative, Chromed Bird, is worth checking out.

1.  Chromed Bird Keeps You Notified

Some people may view notifications which Chromed Bird offers as distracting.  I actually find myself not distracted but kept abreast.  When I don’t have notifications telling me when someone I am following is tweeting something, I find myself forgetting to check and therefore neglecting the conversation!    Don’t like the intrusion of a notification dropping down?  Tweak the settings!

I think an extension such as Chromed Bird is worth checking out if you like being kept abreast with notifications.

2.  Chromed Bird Makes It Easy To Keep Up With @Replies & DMs

Chromed Bird saves you from having to go to Twitter’s home page or your chosen Twitter client to review the messages meant specifically for you sent via @ replies or direct messages.

All you have to do is click the nifty little birdie icon and you have a view of not only the latest tweets but also a set of tabs.  This drop down window in no way affects your browsing beneath it.  Access is easy and browsing is not interrupted.  I think the ease of access to messages sent to you makes Chromed Bird worth installing.

3.  Chrome Bird Makes Sending Tweets A Piece Of Cake From Within Your Browser

A click of the same birdie also gives you the option to write and send a tweet.  It makes it very easy to not only type a message but also to share a link with several URL shortening services to choose from.

I personally prefer to use a bookmarklet called “Hootlet” for tweeting links because I can use Hootsuite to track links shortened using the ow.ly shortening service to track click statistics.  That being said, if I just have something quick to tweet, or I’m just responding to an @ reply or DM, Chromed Bird makes life a LOT easier!  This too, I think makes Chromed Bird worth checking out!

What do you think of this Twitterfox alternative?  Do you see browser extensions helpful to your tweeting habits or would you rather just keep your respective Twitter clients?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

• (24)Twitter Clients – Web Apps or Desktops Apps? Which is Better?
• (5)Get Google Chrome Extensions On Mac With The Latest Dev Release
• (70)5 Google Chrome Extensions That Could Finally Make Me Switch From Firefox
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• (1)2 Great Browser Addons for Utilizing Twitter Comments

Back then, Chrome still lacked the customizability of Firefox. Without Google Chrome add ons and extensions, it just wasn’t enough. That soon changed. Now, almost every Firefox add-on has a Chrome extension counterpart.

So it was time to make the switch. Finally, newfound speed, flexibility – and extensions!

Imagine the disappointment when discovering that Chrome does not support extensions on Mac OS X. Worse, they actually were supported up to December, before Google decided to disable the feature.

Luckily, as of this week, impatient Mac Chrome users can turn to the Dev Channel for a solution.

Google Chrome Dev Channel

Google Chrome passes through two testing channels before being officially released. Most people know about application betas – the rough candidate, one step from release. Beta users can experience some bugs, but for the most part, the application just isn’t as ‘clean’ as you’d expect from a release version.

Before going beta, Google Chrome resides in the Dev Channel. This is the developer playground. Here they’ll try out new features that might or might not be. If they’ve got a wild idea, they’ll first give it a try in the Dev Channel.

Obviously, these are two major steps in the production process. The Dev Channel releases are often very different from final releases; apart from rough edges, a lot of interesting Dev Channel features will never see the daylight of release.

Extension Support – Again!

Earlier this week Google released a Chrome build via the Dev Channel with, once more, support for Google Chrome add ons and extensions. The build also comes with a (still imperfect) bookmark sync, and fixed html5 audio/video streaming issues. More information here.

We usually don’t take too much issue with early builds like this, but you don’t need to be a programmer to install a Dev Channel build. Just point your current browser to the Dev Channel info page.

Scrolling down, you can find the latest Dev channel build (dmg). It’s that easy. Just download and install it like you always do.

Gear Up

With the Dev Channel build up and running, it’s finally time to get yourself some Google Chrome add ons and extensions. Mark recently wrote about 5 Google Chrome Extensions That Could Finally Make Me Switch From Firefox and before that, Saikat talked about his favorite 10 Extensions for Google Chrome.

No need to stop there, though – MakeUseOf hasn’t had a chance to take a look at all the cool extensions yet. In the meantime, you can already visit the Google Chrome Extensions page and have a look around. At the time of writing this article, there are already over 1,300 extensions available. Sure, that’s still far off from Firefox’s mark, but all things considering, they’re making good progress.

Help out your fellow MakeUseOf readers, and let us know your favorite Google Chrome extensions. Don’t be shy, give a shout in the comments section below!

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But what if you want to access all of those tweets days later? The more Twitter followers you have the more quickly these tweets get lost in the shuffle, and unless you’re looking for them specifically they are unlikely to ever find you.

Luckily there are web apps for just that. In this article, we will be discussing two of the best options for Twitter commenting that are available right now in the form of Twitter addons for your browser, as well as how they allow you to add to the conversation and create your own Twitter comments.

Kutano

Kutano is one of the better Twitter addons for “weaving” Twitter discussions into your browsing. We mentioned Kutano briefly in our article 10 Firefox Add-ons To Find Friends On Social Networks. It is available as a browser extension for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome (Beta builds) and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Kutano is a sidebar Twitter addon and docks to the side of your browser. When you surf the web, it updates with all of the tweets that took place about that particular page. You can see who tweeted about the page, what they said, and how popular it is on Twitter. If there are tweets that are similar (like re-tweets) you can see that too!

By switching to the ‘website’ tab, you can see what other pages are being tweeted about on the website you are viewing. This is a good way to find other articles you might be interested in from the same website.

While viewing the tweets of a particular page, the Kutano Twitter addon allows you to view the person’s Twitter profile, follow them, reply to their tweet, and re-tweet their tweet, all from within the application.

Need more than 140 characters to comment on a webpage? No problem. Kutano has a ‘discussions’ tab where you can write your comments and engage multiple people simultaneously in a discussion about the webpage.

If you sign up for a Kutano account you can login with your Twitter credentials and see your timeline, along with your @mentions, direct messages, and followers. If you don’t want to keep the sidebar visible you can minimize it and view tweet and discussion counts down in your browser’s status bar.

AddATweet

AddATweet is another good Twitter addon for viewing/creating Twitter comments on a page. Although it is strictly featured as an extension for Firefox at the moment, its simplicity and integration with Twitter is what sets it apart from other commenting and web annotation apps.

Like Kutano, AddATweet is a sidebar that allows you to see all of the tweets that were made about a specific webpage. There is a box at the top that allows you to add comments and tweet them out to your followers. Clicking the ‘tweet this’ box adds your comments to the webpage as well as your public timeline on Twitter.

You can reply to tweets, re-tweet them, @ mention the person, and even mark them as spam. When you re-tweet or reply from within AddATweet, your comments are posted right under those that you were responding to, making it a threaded conversation.

You can sort comments by ‘everyone’, those who you are ‘following’, and those based on ‘authority’. Authority means that only comments made by people who have the most followers will be seen first. This sorting ability is useful if a page has a lot of comments and you want to see those made by popular Twitterers or if you simply want to see what your followers have written.

Like Leaving Comments Yet?

Reading and leaving comments directly on the pages you find interesting is yet another great way to utilize the power of Twitter. Even those that don’t understand Twitter all that well can find Twitter addons like Kutano and AddATweet useful because they allow you to find like-minded people and converse with them about popular topics on the web.

If you’re in the commenting mood, why not leave a comment on this page? Let’s start a discussion!

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But now the Google Chrome Extensions Page has lots of browser extensions you can try out. As with everything else, it is populated with a lot of junk but the gems are there if you do a bit of searching.

To use them though, you need to change your version of Chrome to the beta version. You can find it here and updating is very easy. And it goes without saying that you need to open up the Extensions website in the Chrome browser (just covering all bases here!)

Here are 5 good Chrome extensions which are seriously tempting me away from Firefox.

XMarks (Previously Known As Foxmarks)

This is the one that has really got me excited.  One of the biggest problems I previously encountered with having two browsers was being unable to synchronize everything.   As well as two browsers, I also use two computers so being able to have my large set of bookmarks wherever I go was an essential must-have.

As long as I stayed with Firefox, I was safe with using XMarks but what about Chrome?  I briefly looked at Saikat’s suggestion of Transmute but it still didn’t feel right.   But now I don’t have to worry because Xmarks now works on Chrome too!   Just make an XMarks web account, keep it synchronized whenever you close your browser and you will always have an up-to-date set of bookmarks wherever you go and whatever browser you happen to be using – Firefox or Chrome.

Google Mail Checker

I have always been keen to have a decent Gmail Notifier but I didn’t want to install the Google Toolbar or the Google Talk client just to have an email notifier.  So this easy basic no-frills notifier extension is just the trick for me.

Once you have installed it, just open a new tab in Chrome, log into the desired Gmail account and then the notifier remembers the details.   It will also start monitoring the account and will notify you when you have new mail (as well as tell you how many new emails you have).

Since I use Google Apps instead of a regular Gmail account, I had to do some changing about but it’s very easy.  Just go to the Chrome options (that little wrench at the top right of the browser), choose Extensions and then choose Google Mail Checker –>Options.  Then enter your domain details and save it all.

Stumbleupon

I use Stumbleupon a lot on a daily basis and not having a Stumbleupon toolbar for Chrome was a tad annoying.  This meant I was constantly having to use Firefox for my stumbling when I would much rather have been using Chrome.  True, you can go to the Stumbleupon website and start up a web toolbar from there but being the lazy person that I am, even that was a bit too much effort for me when all I had to do in Firefox was click a toolbar button.

And now clicking a button is all you have to do in Chrome too.   This is still the web version of the Stumbleupon toolbar but going to it is made a lot easier now.  Just click the SU logo now on your browser and it will instantly open a web toolbar so you can go stumbling.  When you are finished, press the button again and the web toolbar goes away. Much faster and more convenient for those impulse moments when you want to have a quick stumble or two.

Evernote Web Clipper

I am starting to use Evernote a lot more now, especially for keeping records of URL’s, screenshots, general notes, as well as synchronizing my web account with my Android phone.  The company has now introduced an extension for Chrome that has the same functionalities as the Firefox extension, including being able to clip the whole page to your Evernote web account.

RSS Subscription Extension

One of the really big things lacking in Chrome was the fact that webpage RSS feeds were not being “auto-discovered”.  I was so used to the orange RSS box in the Firefox address bar that when I started using Chrome, I instantly found it really annoying that this feature, which I took for granted in Firefox, was gone.

But now RSS Subscription Extension addresses that issue by putting the “auto-discover” box back into the address bar (but really this should be a default feature).

With these five extensions, a lot of the main tasks I do in Firefox are now covered – email, RSS feeds, stumbling, synchronizing bookmarks and clipping material to Evernote.    It would be even better if I had small search boxes like Firefox but I can’t complain – Chrome is definately heading in the right direction.

Are there any Chrome extensions which you are finding invaluable and which are tugging you away from the clutches of Firefox?   If so, let us know what they are in the comments.

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The news has reached most people by now, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, I’ll start out with an – admittedly oversimplified – explanation. Because that’s the thing with Google Wave: everybody knows it’s cool, but few people really know how to explain it.

The ‘old’ concept of email is still pretty much based on paper post. People sending static messages to other people. Everything is based on the process of sending and receiving. When working in the group, this poses a number of problems. For example, Reply to All creates a new static message, and again sends duplicates to everyone involved.

In contrast, Google Wave creates one dynamic copy, and hosts it in the clouds. Everybody reads one and the same message. And that’s just the core idea. People can edit the message (hence, dynamic) and even put their reply right in the middle of it! Unless turned off, people can read up as you type, and you can edit messages with multiple people at the same time. That, dear people, is Google Wave.

Learn more about Google wave in this 1 hour and 20 minute looooong video.

Another important aspect of Google Wave are the gadgets. These are in fact small web-applications that can be embedded in a wave. When you first start using Google, you’ll notice the two that are present by default; the Yes/No/Maybe- and Map Gadget. But anyone with a bit of programming knowledge can create their own. Below are five that everyone should add.

Invity

Ever noticed how time-consuming it can be to create a multi-person Wave? Instead of adding them all manually, it’d be real nice to have a decent grouping feature. Until then, we’ve got Invity.

Invity is actually a robot (yes, as in a chat bot), but it’s more useful than many gadgets. Instead of installing, just add pw-invity@appspot.com on Wave.

To create a group of contacts, add them to a wave together with Invity. You can then create a new group. The next time you want to create a Wave, simply add the Invity, and invite everyone over! Easy as that.

Napkin

Napkins are known to serve as an outlet for creativity, and now you’ve got one in Wave. You can use it to draw a quick doodle beneath your message, or even draw simultaneously with your friends.

Ribbit Conference Gadget

This begins to show how far Wave has left the conventional email threads behind. With Ribbit’s gadget (free for now, but probably not forever), you have VoIP in your inbox. You can call your friends from a Wave and even create a conference.

iFrame

No pretty picture here, but any one would fit. An iFrame allows you to open a window to any page on the internet. You can use it to add virtually anything; a flash app, the latest Dilbert cartoon, a stock gadget — whatever you can find online.

Here are the Gadget XML and Installer XML. You can use these links to respectively use, or install the gadget in Google Wave.

Know any other cool Google Wave gadgets or robots? Tell us your favorite in the comment!

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Although there are a whole bunch of Firefox spin-offs, Chrome is still pretty much solitary – at least, it used to be.

ChromePlus

Created by Maple Studio, ChromePlus is a Google Chrome alternative that uses the Chromium source code. They’ve released a Chrome spin-off, with some additional features that should make the browser even more fun to use.

ChromePlus looks pretty much the same as its Google brother, and also has the same basic features and strengths – but as a Google Chrome alternative it has a few extra presents under the hood. Read on for a sneak preview of those additions, and see why you’re going to uninstall your current browser in a few minutes time.

Super Drag

Super Drag is an incredible feature that’ll speed up your browsing and research work infinitely. It gives you two nifty extra functions.

Most straightforward is link-dragging. By dragging a link, and releasing it anywhere on the page, the link will automatically be opened in a background tab. This is especially useful on laptops, where you don’t have a scroll button and would have to work with Control-click.

If you start dragging around pieces of highlighted text, a whole other thing happens. Release your mouse anywhere on the screen and a Google search query will be opened in a new tab. Next time you’re reading a text and encounter something you don’t wholly understand, grab a hold and flick your mouse. This makes ChromePlus into an amazing research tool.

You can specify if the new tab needs to open in the background (default) or foreground of your browser in the options, or disable the function altogether.

IE Tab

IE Tab isn’t new. That is, to Firefox users. It’s one of the most famous Firefox add-ons. The biggest difference is that it’s now implemented in Chrome.

Innovating or not, IE Tab can be a life-saver. Although the practice is dying, some web-developers still feel the need to limit their web experience to Internet Explorer browsers. If you ever encounter a webpage that you can’t access with your Chrome browser, don’t close the app. By pressing the browser logo at the right of your address bar, you can make your browser seem like Internet Explorer.

New tabs should open up in Chrome mode by default. If they don’t, reversing the process is as easy as you’d think. This time, hit the Internet Explorer button to switch worlds.

Arrow Trace

We already told you how Super Drag was going to make your browsing a lot faster. Here’s another feature that’ll give your productivity a boost.

By holding your right mouse button, and drawing on the screen, you can execute a variety of commands; scrolling up and down, switching tabs, opening a new page, and so on. We call these “mouse gestures”.

To give you a general idea, here are a few examples:

• straight down makes you scroll down a page
• straight up makes you scroll up a page
• straight left lets you go back in browser history
• straight right lets you advance in browser history
• up, sharp left makes you go to the previous tab
• up, sharp right makes you go to the next tab (screenshot example)

They’ll take some getting used to, but can make your life a lot easier! If you don’t feel like it, you can once again disable it in the options.

Double-Hit-Close

Not that much of an innovation, but you can close a tab by double-clicking it. No more marksmanship required with that little ‘close’ button.

Download Manager Integration

Those using Chrome have probably noticed that it doesn’t support a hell of a lot of download managers. Most of the time, you’ll still be obliged to copy-paste your links.

ChromePlus has integrated download functionality for a whole bunch of popular download applications. Next time, just right-click your links to have them sent over to your download manager.

You can download ChromePlus here

Do you use Chrome yet? Why, or why not? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

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The easiest way of course is through add-ons as Firefox calls them or extensions as Google Chrome calls them. Chrome has a lot going for it despite the vacuum of extensions.

But Google had promised support for Google Chrome extensions and it is beginning to keep it. The official support for extensions has been announced and though it’s still not fully on in the standard version, one gets it with the developer version of Google Chrome.

A few posts back we saw how to download and install Google Chrome extensions in the developer version. Do go through that post again and come back here. In this post we will check out some of the coolest extensions to download and use with Google Chrome.

The population may be small but the seeds of popularity are being sown with these baby steps.

1. Google Chrome Backup

   If the first thing you savor is peace of mind then the Google Chrome Backup is a must install. This is a small tool to create, backup, restore and manage Google Chrome profiles that holds all your bookmarks, history, saved passwords etc. This is not an extension in the strictest sense as it does not run within the browser but as a separate install. Nevertheless, it’s an important tool to have.

   

   The 1.1MB download works with Google Chrome version 0.2.149.27 onwards and requires .NET framework.

2. AdSweep

   A simple ad blocker extension that modifies the CSS rules on a webpage to hide the advertisements. The small javascript code recognizes ads (especially banner ads) based on specific patterns and blocks them. The extension may not work on all webpages because some ads may escape the recognition patterns used by AdSweep.

   

   The 32KB AdSweep userscript works with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

 

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3. Session Saver

   Something I really like because it harks back to the Save sessions and Manage sessions feature of Opera. It’s useful if you have to switch off and need to come back to the same tabs at some point later. This extension can save  multiple sessions each with its own name. You can also save all saved sessions as bookmarks.

   

   The 107KB Session Saver extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

4. TPGoogleReader

   This is a Google Reader extension for Chrome. The extension makes reading and managing feeds a one click job. It installs as two little icons on the toolstrip and shows the number of unread feeds. In the normal mode, clicking on the items counter opens the first unread item and marks it as read. In the auto-mode, one click on the checkbox opens the unread items in background tabs and marks them as read.

   

   The 9.7KB TPGoogleReader extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

5. Web of Trust

   WOT is a free browser add-on that protects the user from online scams and risky websites. A pop-up opens from the bottom of the screen and indicates not only the trustworthiness of a website but also how things stand with a site’s vendor reliability, child safety and privacy. You can also contribute your own ratings and select the ratings you want to get alerts on.

   

   The WOT extension is a 523KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

6. Smoothscroll

   This extension simply adds the smooth scrolling behavior to Google Chrome. Smooth scrolling auto-scrolls the browser at a constant speed. Click the middle mouse button/scroll wheel and drag the mouse down to set the scroll speed.

   The Smoothscroll extension is a 3KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

7. Bubble Translate

This Google Chrome extension enables you to do inline translations of a webpage into any language supported by Google Translate with a single click. You can set all language choices from its settings.



The Bubble Translate extension is a 34KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

8. Cleeki

   This extension is basically a feature rich search accelerator for Google Chrome. Highlight any keyword on a webpage and a little adjoining icon gives you access to a lot of internet choices from Wikipedia to YouTube to get more information. The information opens up in a little inline window, so you don’t need to browse away. Search can also be done on multiple sites at the same time.

   

   The Cleeki extension is a 56KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

9. LastPass
   

LastPass is an online form filler and password manager which got some high marks from us in a previous post. For error free performance, switch off Chrome’s inbuilt password manager (Wrench Icon – Options – Personal Stuff) and Form Autofill under the same tab.



The LastPass extension is a 315KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

10. Greasemetal

Familiar with Greasemonkey userscripts for Firefox? Those little pieces of code that help you customize your Firefox browser. Greasemetal is the Chrome incarnation of those handy javascripts which let you modify its behavior. It’s a good extension to have because a lot of userscripts continue o be developed and are made available from sites like Userscripts.org.

Greasemetal comes as a 1.2MB installer download for Google Chrome.

These ten extensions represent just a few of the many that are out there and slowly burgeoning with each iteration of the Chrome browser. Hopefully, it won’t be long before Chrome would give the Firefox add-ons gallery a run for its download. For us users, this is a war where we will get all the spoils.

True, ten is a very small number. Which is your extension you would have liked to have seen on the list?

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The need for extension support was almost a clarion call as soon as the browser hit the market. The ability to extend the browser’s prowess using little third party apps is what separates Firefox from the herd. And Google has been playing catch-up.

Has it caught up? No, but it is definitely a few yards closer.

The good news is that Google Chrome now officially supports browser extensions. That’s the little bit of good news along with the fact that there developers are jumping on the Google bandwagon and packaging new code to broaden the scope of the browser.

The little bit of bad news is that Google Chrome extension support is still not a feature of the stable version of Chrome but you get it in the latest build of the dev channel release. But as the Chromium team’s blog says, extension support is on the runway and taxiing towards a takeoff for all versions.

Not to get confused between Chrome and Chromium – Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome which Chrome relies on for its final build.

So let’s get up and running with installing extensions in Google Chrome.

1. Download and run the 2MB Dev Channel installer from the Chromium Developer page.
2. The updated version (4.0.221.6) features an extension manager. The extension manager can be accessed in two ways –
   • Type in chrome://extensions/ in the location bar of a new window or tab.
   • Access it by clicking the wrench icon and then Extensions.

   

3. To those of us more attuned to the Add-ons box of Firefox, the extension manager will seem very basic. It features just three tools. The developer version gives you tools to load, pack and update extensions. Remember, Chrome still does not have anything similar to an add-ons gallery, so a direct route to search and select Google Chrome extensions is lacking.



4. To try out your first ‘official’ extensions, head over to these this Chromium page for installing any of the provided three sample extensions. The extensions download as CRX (Chrome Extension Installer) files. Chrome supports two formats for extensions-Compressed CRX files and its uncompressed (unpacked) counterpart which generally consists of files written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.



5. Click the install link below the snapshots and download the package and install in Chrome. If you have downloaded it to your hard drive, just drag and drop it into the browser window.



6. For valid extensions, the Installed extensions section in the Extensions manager, displays the confirming information.



7. Uninstalling or disabling the extensions is also just a matter of a single click from the extensions page.

But all this brouhaha for just three sample extensions! It could be a big letdown, if not for third party developers working behind the scenes on extensions of their own. I can straightaway suggest to you two sites that could empower your browser by a bit…

- Chromeextensions
- Chromeplugins

These sites are not associated to Google but are merely a place for independent developers. But they are the groundbreakers in every sense of the word as Chrome tries to become the internet’s Swiss army knife like Firefox. The salvo has been fired by Google. With time it could be a toss-up between browsers. We just have to pick the browser we want.

Do you think Chrome could soon match up?  Do you know of any other sites offering Google Chrome extensions?

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Being the native Mac OS X browser, Safari – which should have been a no brainer choice for Mac users – faces a fierce challenge from Firefox – the browser that can be anything you need it to be. Add-ons are Firefox’s ultimate weapon.

But Firefox is not the only browser that can add functionalities using add-ons. The Safari browser also has plugins to expand its ability. While there are far less Safari browser plugins than there are for Firefox, not everybody needs everything.

So for anybody who are still deciding which one of the two should be the main browser, maybe these list of Safari browser plugins can help you choose sides.

Multifunctional

1. Glims is on top of my list of all other Safari plugins. It has expanded the search box functionality of Safari plus some other bonuses such as: re-opening closed tabs, automatically re-opening the tabs from the last session and full-screen browsing.  It’s been discussed here.

2. SafariStand also adds a few helpful features to Safari such as: Stand Bar (for quick access to bookmarks), history, Stand Search with Spotlight support, an Action Menu, option to restore last workspace, a site alterations preference window with the option to put custom CSS layouts on specific sites, and syntax coloring in viewed source. Go to more detailed explanation here.

Please note that you need to install SIMBL 0.8.2 or later before you can use SafariStand.

Searchbar

3. Inquisitor beautifully extends the functionality of the search bar. It auto-completes your search term, gives you search recommendations and lets you quickly see the results for your specified terms on another sites. If you need to have the powerful searchbar only without additional extra functions choose this one over Glims. Inquisitor also supports IE and Firefox. More about it here.

Multimedia

4. CoolIris (Preview and PictLens) will transform Safari into a picture and movie viewer – in style. ‘Nuff said.

We’ve covered CoolIris before, and it’s nice to know that this product is also working fine under Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux; and for other browsers like Firefox, IE 7 and IE 8, and Flock 2. Safari under Windows is not supported though.

Blockages

5. Safari AdBlock and SafariBlock are the ultimate tools to block ads and provide cleaner browsing. Most web publishers would hate these two as parts of the publishers’ revenue come from advertising. But for users, blocking ads means less clutter and more browsing speed.

6. Click-to-flash – will prevent any flash content from automatically loading and will replace it with an empty grey box. Just click on the box to load the content. Anyone with a slow internet connection will find this webkit plugin indispensable.

Social Media

7. Safari140 is the tool to tweet. This plugin will allow you to send direct tweets from Safari, auto filled with the current site while the long URL’s are shortened.

8. DeliciousSafari is self explanatory. This is the tool to create and use del.icio.us bookmark from Safari.

Tools

9. Greasekit is the comparable Firefox’s Greasemonkey in Safari. It gives users the scripting ability to change looks and add new functionality to their favorite sites. Greasekit is compatible with most Greasemonkey scripts.

Just like SafariStand, Greasekit need SIMBL.

10. Firebug lite is the answered prayer for users who want to have Firebug ability – once Firefox exclusive – in other browsers. There are two ways to activate Firebug under non-Firefox browsers: insert the code in the site, or use the bookmarklet.

This one is not exactly a plugin but it is the solution for those who said that the only reason he/she stays with Firefox is Firebug.

More

11. Pimp My Safari – is the place to go to find more Safari add-ons in the form of plugins or bookmarklets. Please note that not all of the plugins are free.

This list is far from complete, but I think it’s a good start. So if you know (and use) other good Safari plugins, please share them using the comments below.

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An integral part of browsing the internet is collecting URLs or favorites, better known as bookmarks within the Mozilla browser family.

The integrated Firefox bookmarks however are rarely used to their full potential.

Here is a selection of tools that will help you get quick and easy access to your most important bookmarks.

Bookmarks Toolbar

The Bookmarks Toolbar provides instant access to a small collection of your most favorite and most visited websites. You can even add folders with bookmarks to this toolbar.

However, with just text, the Bookmarks Toolbar is rather bleak. You can easily spruce it up and save a ton of space by installing the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension, which replaces the text with the site’s favicon. Further settings are up to you.

I love the Bookmarks Toolbar, but I notoriously run out of space and have to pool URLs into folders or move them to the main bookmarks section. If that is not an option for you, maybe Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar extension can help. It does what it says and extends the toolbar to multiple rows.

Bookmarks in Tabs

A pretty cool option seen in Google’s Chrome browser is when thumbnails of your favorite pages appear once the browser is loaded as well as in every new tab. There are extensions for Firefox that provide you with similar features

Fast Dial integrates this feature, which was originally introduced by the Opera browser, into Firefox. You can choose whether you launch a tab with your favorite websites manually using [CTRL] + [T] or make it your homepage by defining “about:blank” as such. Per default it will appear in every blank tab.

Mark has reviewed Fast Dial in detail in his post Access Your Websites Quickly With Firefox’s Fast Dial.

Auto Dial is similar but different. Rather than listing your favorite sites, something that you can influence by manually adding pages in Fast Dial, Auto Dial displays only your most frequently visited pages in a blank tab. Furthermore, it does not display thumbnails, which makes room for many more bookmarks.

Bookmarks Tab has a slightly different approach. It displays all of your bookmarks in the center of  every new tab you open. This may serve both as a reminder of all the links you have collected as well has a HUB from where you can dive into the net.

With these extensions you will always have your favorite bookmarks right at your fingertips. Which bookmark tools do you love to make use of?

Don’t forget to check out other popular MakeUseOf posts on Firefox addons:

• 10+ Best Firefox Security and Privacy Addons
• 4 Cool Firefox Extensions To Capture Screens
• 4 Firefox Extensions to Search & Record Browsing History
• 3 Firefox Add-Ons To Help You Blog More Easily
• 5 Speedy Tips For Faster Browsing In Firefox

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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• (14)Welcome to My Firefox: Extensions, Themes, Setup
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-tools-to-harvest-the-potential-of-your-firefox-bookmarks/feed/ 20 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/recommendations-on-movies-music-books-from-glue-firefox/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/recommendations-on-movies-music-books-from-glue-firefox/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:00:02 +0000 Stefan Neagu http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=18190 Glue, a social network coupled with a Firefox add-on, manages to bring usefulness to the feature list – providing you with recommendations from your friends and from the Glue community, on movies, music, restaurants and more directly in your browser. It was created by Adaptive Blue, a New York based startup launched in 2006 by Alex Iskold. Glue is based on the so-called “semantic recognition technology”, a new buzzword that probably attracted the investors from Union Square Ventures and RRE Ventures.



The semantic web, as Wikipedia puts it, is:

an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.

In this case, semantic recognition technology means that Glue can figure out when you are visiting a web page about the same “books, music, movies, wines, stocks, movie stars, recording artists” as your friends, but not necessarily on the same website.

If your friend left a comment on, let’s say, Slumdog Millionaire’s page on IMDB, that comment would also show in the Glue toolbar when you are visiting the Wikipedia page of the same movie. The technology basically aggregates information from across the web and serves it back according to ‘semantics’.



After you go to getglue.com and install the 500KB add-on, you’ll be presented with a bar at the top of the page you’re visiting. This bar shows friends that have liked the same thing you’re looking at as well as their comments. You can add it to your favorites or leave replies/comments.

It’s extremely easy to use Glue, it doesn’t seem to slow down Firefox and it only shows up when it detects one of the aforementioned categories i.e. you won’t see Glue popping up on the Wikipedia page for LHC.



It connects to Facebook – which makes importing friends easy for you and gives them a  great opportunity for exponential growth. They also invite you to give your Twitter, Flickr, Last.fm, Linkedin, FriendConnect and Myspace in order to allow fellow Glue users to “instantly see your books, music, movies, and more!”. However, it’s vey easy to close your account from: Glue For You>Account>Delete Account.

If you’re not sure yet whether to install Glue or not, check out this short video which explains how Glue works:

Glue Overview from AdaptiveBlue on Vimeo.

Glue is definitely a very interesting and useful Firefox add-on, and I invite you to try it and let us know in the comments what you think about it.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/recommendations-on-movies-music-books-from-glue-firefox/feed/ 1 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubitmenu-%e2%80%93-bring-back-the-classic-menu-to-microsoft-office-2007/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubitmenu-%e2%80%93-bring-back-the-classic-menu-to-microsoft-office-2007/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:04:22 +0000 Saikat Basu http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16056 I remember the first time I set my eyes on Microsoft Office2007. It was love at first sight because everything seemed so stylish. At second sight, I found myself a bit lost among the buttons of the new Ribbon menu. I knew there was a bit of a learning curve ahead of me. Though I mastered it in a short while, I must confess that it did take some getting used to. That was me…but then there were some (and still are) who found the learning curve a bit steeper. Accustomed to the older pre-2007 classical interface, they thrashed about with the new one. Baffling for most, I guess.

Necessity is the mother of invention and so someone thought up UBitMenu (and thankfully made it free!)

UBitMenu is a small plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) that makes Office 2007 look like Ofice 2003 by giving the menu – the Office2003 makeover. It gets added on as an additional menu tab in the three Office 2007 applications.

While you will get back your old usage habits, do also realize that the new Ribbon interface was designed keeping fluency in mind (take a look at the Quick Styles feature in the Ribbon). The Ribbon interface allows for first level access to the commands we use most often.

For instance, I personally find the Ribbon interface a better help in MS PowerPoint. One point to remember is that shortcut keys will continue to behave as they do in Office2007.



The add-on benefits…

• UBitMenu lets the bewildered switch back and forth at will between the older and newer style interfaces. That’s great because it doesn’t replace the newer feature rich menu with the classical one but merely adds an extra tab. And kilobyte-sized, it’s no extra flab.
• UBitMenu does not interfere with the new features of Office2007 in any way. The contextual tabs like the Mini-formatting toolbar works just as well with the classical menu active.

  

• UBitMenu also retains any extra features that may have been installed through other plug-ins. For instance, documents can still be saved to PDF or XPS from the File – Save As submenu.

  

• UBitMenu is based on standard Microsoft® Office-Add-in technology; therefore it seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Office2007.

This 359KB freeware application lets you keep the best of both worlds. UBitMenu is available for download in several languages from here.

Are you still one of those (Office2007 has been out for some while) who wished they could cut the ribbon and make Office 2007 look like the classic Office 2003 in Windows XP? Then you just might see the utility of this small software. Give us your freewheeling opinion in the comments below.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubitmenu-%e2%80%93-bring-back-the-classic-menu-to-microsoft-office-2007/feed/ 4 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-great-plugins-for-windows-live-writer-2009/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-great-plugins-for-windows-live-writer-2009/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:00:46 +0000 Charnita Fance http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=15668 I have been using Windows Live Writer 2009 for about a month now; for me, it was love at first use. If you haven’t used it before you should really take advantage of the new Windows Live Writer.

For me, Windows Live Writer really makes blogging enjoyable and I especially love the ability to add plugins. There is an extensive list in the Windows Live Gallery but these are the 7 that, in my opinion, are a must have for Windows Live Writer users.

But before we begin, I strongly recommend you check out earlier MakeUseOf article Five Things To Do After Installing Windows Live Writer. It shows you how to

- Turn on Spell Check
- Use Link Glossary
- Configure FTP
- Learn the Shortcuts
- Set Blog Pings

Now, back to plugins.

Flickr4Writer

If you use Flickr for uploading and sharing your photos then this is a great plugin for you. With Flickr4Writer you can browse photos from your own account as well as anyone else and then insert the images into your blog post. You can choose to search all images, photosets, or certain tags. One you find an image that you like, you can then specify how you’d like it to appear in your post. You can customize the alignment, spacing, border, CSS class, and you can even choose whether or not to include a link to the image.



xPollinate

This plugin is for all of you Ping.fm lovers. xPollinate lets you cross post to other blogs linked in your Windows Live Writer and social sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more through the use of Ping.fm. You have the option to customize the setup of how your blog posts, micro-blog posts, and status messages will look. For others blogs that you may choose to cross post to already added in your Windows Live Writer, you can also include a footer and/or header.

Twitter Notify

This is great for all you Twitter lovers. Twitter Notify allows you to send a tweet for any newly published blog post. With the TinyURL integration, you don’t even have to worry about long URLs; a shortened link to your blog post will be automatically created. You will be prompted to customize your message format You can customize your default message and will be prompted to do so before publishing a post.



DiggThis

This is a very simple plugin that allows you to manually add a Digg button or badge to your blog posts. There are 4 styles to choose from and can set it for right or left alignment.

Tag Generator

This plugin automatically generates tags based on the content of your blog post. Tag Generator allows you to generate tags for Technorati, Windows Live Writer, WordPress, and Blogger. After selecting all of your blog text and clicking on “Generate Tags” your next step will be to edit them. As you can see below, you can modify, delete and add tags. Even though this plugin is more geared toward beginning bloggers, it’s still a tool that can come in handy for anyone.



The final 2 plugins are personal favorites of mine; I definitely could not live without either.

Text Template

This plugin is a must for anyone who uses repeated text or html in their blog posts such as banners, signatures or an invitation for readers to leave comments. With Text Template you can create and save templates containing text and/or html for later use, and then quickly and easily insert them into your posts. Templates that you create can also be put into categories to make them easier to find if you have a lot saved.

Screen Capture

Currently there are 4 screen capture plugins available but this one is by far my favorite and the easiest to use in my opinion. First you’ll need to decide and specify if you want to capture the full screen, browser window, or a customized area. Whatever you choose to capture, it will automatically appear in your blog post. Once inserted you can customize the layout, size, rotate, crop, tilt, contrast, watermark and even add special effects. If you use WordPress, when publishing or saving your blog post these images will be uploaded to your media gallery.

Which plugins do you use and which are your favorite? Please feel free to let us know in the comments.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-great-plugins-for-windows-live-writer-2009/feed/ 8 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/access-files-folders-emails-and-twitter-all-from-a-menu/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/access-files-folders-emails-and-twitter-all-from-a-menu/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:01:29 +0000 Varun Kashyap http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=15517 Ever get tired of all those windows open on your desktop? Want an easier alternative way to browse and quickly access your folders? Have a look at Hawkscope.

A 2 MB download, Hawkscope requires JRE (Java Runtime Environment) to be installed on your computer. If you don’t have it installed, it will take you to the download page.

With the downloads out of the way its time to check Hawkscope out! Fire it up and you will see a Hawk (icon) in your system tray, clicking on which gives you access to all your files and folders. The default configuration shows your home folder, all the partitions and few more options for settings and for exiting the application.



Hover over any of the entries and you see next the contents of the folder, hover over any subfolder and you will see the contents of the subfolder and this can go on and on till you reach the required file.

If you are an adept user you might be thinking all this can be achieved by adding “My Computer” as a toolbar. Yes it can be done but the real power of Hawkscope lies in its customization and plugins.



Click ’settings’ and you can configure Hawkscope according to your liking. You can choose the icon theme, a reload delay value, show/hide common extensions and others.

My favorite feature is however the Quick Access list. You can add the folders you access frequently to this list and they will show up next to your home folder.



There is also a blacklist functionality that allows you to add locations that will not show up in the menu while you are browsing from folder to folder.

The Hawkscope plugin page lists a few plugins that you can use to enhance Hawkscope’s functionality. There is a plugin for Gmail, Google Search, Twitter and to execute commands from the comfort of your Hawkscope menu.

Once you download the plugins you need to place the jar file within the “.hawkscope-plugins” folder under your home directory.

While the plugin list is not overwhelming by any means, it surely lists some good plugins and one can expect the plugins to increase over time as Hawkscope gets popular.



Hawkscope is good and you will enjoy it, especially if you take some time to configure your “Quick Access” locations wisely.  A hotkey to summon Hawkscope would be at the top of my wishlist for the application. This single feature alone would make it even more useful as one could then browse folders quickly with the keyboard itself using hotkeys. It is still a work in progress though and let’s hope we see hotkey support in the future.

Hawkscope is available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Do you use any other software for similar purposes? Tell us in the comments!

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/access-files-folders-emails-and-twitter-all-from-a-menu/feed/ 3 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-add-ins-to-boost-your-ms-word-experience/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-add-ins-to-boost-your-ms-word-experience/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:01:02 +0000 Simon Slangen http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=13996 Although there are many great open source office suites, Microsoft Word remains my number one choice. It belongs to the elite few applications I’m willing to pay for in the big world of software.

However, nothing is perfect. And although imperfections create the uniqueness and beauty in most cases, we want software to be as close as it can get.

This is the main reason why plug-ins were created; one might say to pimp out your applications to fit your preference. Ask any three Firefox users why they use the browser, and I guarantee that you’ll hear the word ‘add-on’ more than once.

However, Firefox add-ons have been discussed multiple times over, but I was stunned to see nearly no one took on the job of looking into Microsoft Word Plugins. We even covered Open Office extensions, but never looked at free Plugins for Microsoft Word.

Save as PDF or XPS in Office 2007

Converting documents from and to PDF is a matter that keeps a lot of tongues occupied. But why all that hassle of converting if you can just save your document to PDF out of Word?

Microsoft released Save as PDF or XPS, a free add-in which adds the PDF format under the save-as menu, together with XPS (Microsoft’s own PDF-like format), and works quicker than many premium solutions I’ve tried before (including the official Acrobat one).



You can also send your documents over the internet in an email, in PDF or XPS format, with a few clicks of the mouse.



The Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS add-on works with the following Office 2007 applications:

• Word 2007
• Access 2007
• Excel 2007
• InfoPath 2007
• OneNote 2007
• PowerPoint 2007
• Publisher 2007
• Visio 2007

The plugin can be downloaded here.

Open and save Docx files in Office 2003

One of the biggest bothers that came with the splendid looking Office 2007, was a new file format – the only bother, if I might say.

OK, I get it. It’s smaller in size, stores additional style types, and so on – honestly, if I could just open it in previous word versions, I’d love it.

I’ve always worked around this problem by either saving it in doc format myself, or by converting it if I was using a non-2007 computer. It wasn’t long ago that I discovered the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. We have already looked at different ways to view docx files.

This download makes all the applications in your 2003 suite compatible with their Office 2007 companions. When installed, you can not only open, but also save docx files.

The plugin can be downloaded here.

Open ODF (OpenOffice) Files In Word

A friend once asked me to print out a document for her. With her liking freeware, she sent me an odf file.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with it, odf is the standard format for OpenOffice documents, an open-source Office alternative.

Luckily for you and me, Sun Microsystems (the guys we know from Java) developed an Office plug-in. It’s compatible with both Office 2000, 2003 and 2007, and it allows the user to open, edit and save in the odf format.

The plugin can be downloaded here.

Do you know of any other Microsoft Word plugins? If so, let us know in the comments.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-add-ins-to-boost-your-ms-word-experience/feed/ 10 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-scripts-plugins-in-gimp-to-extend-its-functionality/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-scripts-plugins-in-gimp-to-extend-its-functionality/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:01:16 +0000 Varun Kashyap http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=11704 Actions? Aren’t all the menus, dialog boxes and commands enough, why would you want actions?

Well if you do any kind of task repeatedly inside GIMP – like resizing images to a particular size, adding your site’s watermark or the “friendly admin” to the images like Karl does, or you want to add some functionality that is not already or directly provided by GIMP, you should consider using actions to simplify and reduce the number of steps involved.

In the GIMP world however, such actions are called scripts and these are analogous to Photoshop Actions and Macros inside Microsoft Office.

How to use scripts and plugins

Search and Download

First of you will need to find a script that meets your requirements. You can create your own scripts in Python, Perl or Scheme, however if you are not the programmer type, there are all kinds of scripts all over the Internet. Just head over to Google and type in your requirements.

In particular, GIMP Plugin Registry is an excellent place to go to search for scripts and plugins.



Install

Generally you are required to unarchive the downloaded file and copy them to ~/.gimp/scripts directory or /usr/share/gimp/2.0/scripts if you want the scripts to be available to all users. You can also find out the location by going to Edit > Preferences > Folders > Scripts if you want to be sure.



You might need to refer to the documentation or author’s site in case this is not what is required. Once you have copied the scripts to the appropriate directories, go to Filters>Script-Fu>Refresh Scripts or restart GIMP altogether.



Using

Depending on what the script does and how it plans to do it, you might see a dedicated menu in the menu bar for your script, or a menu entry under the appropriate bar, or a right click context menu entry activated when the script’s functionality is applicable.



Plugins vs Scripts

You might be wondering which of the two I am talking about. Plugins and Scripts are the two ways to extend GIMP’s functionality. What is the difference? I am not sure either. Apart from the obvious differences in the way these are developed and used, plugins and scripts tend to provide overlapping functionality and the terms are used interchangeably on forums and other GIMP hangouts.

How to create your own plugins

Here is a nice tutorial to get you started. Once you know the syntax start hacking into the scripts that are already available on your systems (shipped by default with GIMP). You can then develop your skill further from here on.

Some Great Scripts/Plugins

While you would have to wait till another day for a list of some of the best plugins out there, here are some recommendations to get you started: The Fx-Foundry Scripts Pack – A collection of useful scripts to perform a variety of tasks, from animations to layer styles and more, Mask for Prints – A very useful plugin that shows you what part of your photo will be printed on the current paper size, UFRaw – For working with RAW files.

Do you use plugins and scripts to good effect in GIMP? I find them one of the most important features. What plugins do you use? Have you written your own scripts? Mention them in the comments and let us check them out.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-scripts-plugins-in-gimp-to-extend-its-functionality/feed/ 1 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-plugins-to-extend-and-make-gedit-a-more-useful-text-editor-linux/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-plugins-to-extend-and-make-gedit-a-more-useful-text-editor-linux/#comments Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:10:01 +0000 Varun Kashyap http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=11181 Few days back we looked at how to customize Nautilus to get most out of the context menus and write custom menu entries as per your requirement. Today let’s pay some attention to the good old text editor – Gedit. Gedit is the default text editor for most of the Linux distributions using Gnome as the desktop environment. As it turns out and as we shall see shortly Gedit supports plugins and there are some very useful plugins for Gedit.

How to install additional Gedit plugins

While Gedit ships with a set of default plugins, you can surely add as many as you like. To install a plugin for Gedit, you must first download it to a local folder and then extract the contents to ‘~/.gnome2/gedit/plugins/’ directory. Also look for a package named “gedit-plugins” in your distribution’s package manager, this package contains some additional plugins for gedit. Once you have installed the plugin you want, you need to enable it via Edit>Preferences and then the Plugins Tab.



And finally here is a list of the top plugins you should definitely check out if you do a lot of text editing:

Align

Lets you arrange blocks of text into columns easily and quickly. Just select the text to be arranged, go to Edit > Align, specify the column separator and presto you have instant columns. No more pressing tabs and arranging text manually!







Auto tab

Autotab detects the indent/space settings in a file and adjusts tabbing accordingly on the fly. Very useful if you have to edit code written by others using different editors.

Browser Preview

Allows you to preview the webpage code you are editing in gedit in different browsers like Firefox, opera, IE, konqueror etc. A dream come true for any web developer.

File Browser (included in default install)



Lets you browse through directories and files in the side pane. Choose the file you want to edit, double click and away she opens in a new tab.

Character Map (included in gedit-plugins)



So you want to type in a different language? Keyboard problems? or do you wonder from where does µtorrent gets its µ? Look no further than the character map plugin. Enable it and you will be able to view the character map in the side pane. Just click on the character you want to insert and it gets inserted in the file.

Class Browser



As the name suggests, this plugin provides you a class browser for browsing source files. You can get an overview of various identifiers used in the code in the gedit side pane once you enable this plugin.

Document Words Completion

This plugin brings Auto Complete to gedit. While you are typing, this plugin will attempt to complete the current word, based on the words that have appeared previously in the current document. You can configure it to AutoComplete or offer suggestions when you hit Ctrl+Enter

External Tools (included in gedit-plugins)



External tools plugin allows you to add custom entries to the tools menu. The entries can run external commands on the current file. A totally indispensable tool considering what all can be achieved with text files and the Linux command line. Highly recommended if you do any kind of repetitive work on text files.

Sort and Spell Check (included in default install)

What good is a text editor without the ability to check your spellings? Yet most text editors lack this functionality.Enable the Spell plugin to add Spell Check functionality to gedit. The Sort plugin on the other hand allows you to sort elected text. You needn’t use sort/sed/awk to sort the file for you. It can be done right from within gedit

LaTeX Plugin

The LaTeX plugin helps you to write and compile LaTeX code. With features like LaTeX code completion, coupled with the power of other plugins, gedit with LaTeX plugin can greatly simplify your work. The LaTeX plugin can be used for BibTeX bibliographies as well.

Session Saver (included in gedit-plugins)

Session saver allows you to save you current workspace within gedit as it is, so that when you restore a session at a later time you can start right where you left your work.

Snippets (included in default install)



Snippets plugin allows you to insert frequently typed phrases and text by using hotkeys or a shortcode. You can configure your own snippets so that if you type something like MUO it automatically gets substituted with MakeUseOf.com. Snippets is one of my personal favorites and can save you a lot of typing.

Tabs Extend

Adds Firefox like useful features to gedit tabs, including the ability to undo a closed tab, close all other tabs, close all tabs and close tabs to the left of the current tab. Very useful if you are working with a lot of files simultaneously

More?

If you are a programmer who uses text editor every now and then to edit some code, gedit has some awesome plugins to make your work easier. The color picker (gedit-plugins) lets you visually choose a color and insert its hex value into your code,code comment lets you comment/uncomment selected text with a single command, there are plugins to tidy up your HTML, indent code, match braces and then there is the python console and many many more. If you use gedit for general purposes you can explore bookmarks, splitview and directly mail the text file from within gedit with plugins. All these and many more are mentioned on Gnome Live. Some of the links are broken and some plugins don’t work as expected so you might be in for some hit and trial.

What really prompted me to write this article was that many people don’t realise that a program such as gedit (viewed as a simple text editor) can support so many additional functionality via plugins. A reason could be that people hardly care about setting preferences for text editors and the plugins option is buried deep inside preferences. I am curious to know how many of our readers knew about gedit plugins? The geeks would have known for sure, so we can expect some plugin suggestions in the comments too. Which ones are your favorites?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-plugins-to-extend-and-make-gedit-a-more-useful-text-editor-linux/feed/ 21 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securely-syncronize-all-of-your-browser-passwords-with-lastpass/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securely-syncronize-all-of-your-browser-passwords-with-lastpass/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:01:01 +0000 T.J. Mininday http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=10541 It’s hard not to find a website these days that doesn’t require some type of registration or login. With every login of course, there is almost always a password. With the password comes with whatever requirements the website has to improve security.

So after you’ve registered at your bank, your three credit cards, your Facebook, your Digg and your blog, you’re so exhausted with usernames and passwords, you begin using your browser’s built-in “Remember This Password” feature. The problem with using this handy feature is that you’re never required to enter another password again. Remembering all those passwords can be quite hard, unless of course you have a method to create strong passwords that are easy to remember.

Now you go home for Christmas, hop on your parents computer to check your latest stock portfolio, and you spend the next hour trying to recall your password. This is where a program like LastPass saves the day.

LastPass is a Firefox or Internet Explorer browser add-on that stores all of your passwords locally and synchronizes all of them to any other browser (with the same add-on) using 256-bit AES encryption. The only two requirements is one strong password and one of the previously mentioned browsers.



After going through the incredibly easy flash-based installation tutorial, the application asks for a strong password as protection and then offers the option to import passwords from Firefox, IE, RoboForm, KeePass, Sxipper and a few others.

Once you have all of your passwords imported, they’ll fill all of your identifiable username and password boxes appropriately.



If a site isn’t stored in the database, it will simply ask you to remember the password, as your current browsers already do.



Again, all of these passwords are stored locally. LastPass uses highly sophisticated code to allow this to happen, so nothing sits out in the cloud.

Once stored, the database is easily accessible to view form information if it needs to be modified in any way.



Along with its great password capabilities, LastPass also includes:

Form Filling

Whether it be for credit card payments or simple site registration, once the they have all the correct information, LastPass takes care of all of the typing.



Password Generation

Generate incredibly strong passwords if you can’t come up with your own.



Site Sharing

Share a site with another member of your family.



Site Logging

Monitor what sites are being logged into, when and where.



As you can see, LastPass has what many of the commercial form fillers, like RoboForm have, plus the added sync capability. The form filling also separates it from password managers, such as PassPack and Clipperz.

If you are already willing to locally store all of your passwords through your browser, you really can’t go wrong with LastPass. It does the exact same thing, in a much more secure fashion.

Again LastPass works in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, on Mac, Linux and Windows.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any better sync solutions? Concerns?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securely-syncronize-all-of-your-browser-passwords-with-lastpass/feed/ 33 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/improve-your-photo-booth-with-90-free-effects-mac-only/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/improve-your-photo-booth-with-90-free-effects-mac-only/#comments Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:01:15 +0000 Jackson Chung http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=9745 Every Mac that comes with an iSight is loaded with Photo Booth. When I was Mac-less, I used to frequent Apple stores and somehow Photo Booth seemed to appeal to me then. Sadly, after I bought a Mac for myself, the attraction didn’t last very long and later, I sort of forgot about this nifty application which attracted me in the first place.

To bring back the romance, I went on a search to see if I could add more effects to Photo Booth. There were only a few interesting pre-packaged ones and most of them had something to do with image distortion (squeeze, bulge, dent, mirror etc.). That was fun for a while but I need the “Wow” factor back desperately.

In my search, I managed to uncover a few sites that offer a good collection of free Photo Booth effects.



From B-L-A-C-K-O-P, I found CatEye, which is a collection of 5 sets of effects. Each set has its own theme:

• RetroPixels – adaptation of 60’s and 70’s video effects.
• Love For 80s – bringing back Space Invaders, Pong and VHS (yes, that’s video tape quality, ladies and gentlemen!).
• Bent Pels – optical image distortion with a twist.
• BoobToob – a set of TV screen effects.
• FewTile – tiled-images effect.

I especially like the BoobToob set, it makes me feel like I’m on television. If you’re sick or bored with the default Photo Booth effects, this will definitely bring back some fun.

CatEye will only work on Leopard and is free (direct download link)



From another site called Macpoupou Factory, I found a collection of Mac Photobooth effects which has been around for quite some time: MoreIchatEffects. After adding these effects, I realised that I have been missing out on a lot of fun! The effects are incredibly awesome beyond the ones Apple provide, especially Hologram – if you’re a Star Wars fan, you’ll love this one. It’s strangely uncanny.

More iChat Effects 2.0.3 (direct download link)

Besides that, several other effects like ASCII art and Line Overlay are pretty cool.





MoreIchatEffects bundles 48 different effects and will only work on Leopard.

UPDATE: This effects bundle crashes when running on Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode. More information here.

I can’t remember how I managed to find this next site but it offers 4 Photo Booth effects (Leopard only), from which I only like one. Visit the site and guess which one it is and let me now in the comments. (Hint: Did you know that Photo Booth has the ability to record video? You can ask Bush what he thought about the shoe).

Finally, a Photo Booth effect that must not be left out: Obamafy. Following in the footsteps of President-Elect Barack Obama, you can now quickly and simply create your “Hope” posters. Remember, Leopard only.

UPDATE: Obamafy crashes Photo Booth on Snow Leopard. At the time of writing, it worked on Leopard. Save the effect in /Users/{your username}/Library/Compositions.



In order to remove unwanted effects, just delete them from the appropriate folder. Keep in mind that if you add a lot of new effects at once, Photo Booth will crash while loading them. It’s best to add one set at a time.

Also, these effects will work with iChat! So, you can fool your friends into thinking that something’s gone wonky with your iSight or that they’re really seeing you through a hologram.

Got more effects to share? Know about other ways to bring back the fun to Photo Booth? Share with us in your comments. Lastly, if you’d like to use your iSight for something more productive, check out my article on Gawker and Eyesight.

UPDATE: I strongly advise you to install each set of effects individually. Remember to quit Photo Booth before installing. To uninstall, empty the ~/Library/Compositions or /Library/Compositions folder.

If Photo Booth becomes unresponsive, Force Quit the application and delete the effects from the Compositions folder.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/improve-your-photo-booth-with-90-free-effects-mac-only/feed/ 153 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mozilla-thunderbird-addons-2/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mozilla-thunderbird-addons-2/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:20:21 +0000 Damien Oh http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=8492 More than a year back, Aibek wrote a great list of 35 must-have thunderbird addons. Since then, a lot of great addons have been created and some of the older addons have also evolved to become better ones.

As such, it is time for us to re-visit the list of Thunderbird addons and update our readers with the latest list of must-have Thunderbird addons. (If you never heard of Thunderbird before, it’s an email client from Mozilla, just like Microsoft’s Outlook but a lot more customizable.)

1. Lightning and its related addons

If you are looking to use Thunderbird to replace your Outlook (or Evolution in Linux), then Lightning is a must-have extension. It adds calendar and task management capabilities to Thunderbird and allows you to manage your daily schedule all within Thunderbird.



At the same time, there are also several Lightning-related extensions that further enhances the functionality and capabilities of Lightning.

ThunderBirthday and MoreFunctionsForAddressBook: MoreFunctionsForAddressBook is an extension that increases the number of fields that you can include in your address book. You now have the option to include the birthday, photo ID, spouse name etc. ThunderBirthday, on the other hand, extracts birthday information from your address book and updates it to the Lightning. With this, you don’t have to manually enter the birthday entry in your Lightning and you won’t ever forget your best friend’s birthday again.

.vcs support: This extension allows you to export your Lightning entries to .vcs format. Currently it only supports .ics, .csv and .htm format.

Remember The Milk Integration: This is still an experiemental addon, but it is in no way inferior than the rest. If you love Remember The Milk, then you are going to love this extension as well. As its name implies, this extension will integrate and sync RTM with Lightning.

2. Thunderbrowse

When someone sends you a link, wouldn’t it be great if you can open the link and browse the Web right within your Thunderbird? Thunderbrowse is here just to serve that purpose. After you have installed this extension, whenever you click on a link within your mail, the message pane will become a full-fledged browser and allow you to view the website without having to open up a browser window.

Like Firefox, it supports tabbed browsing and javascript. In addition, with Thunderbrowse, you can install the Thunderbird extension within itself. There is no need to download the xpi file and install it via the Tools -> Addons section.



3. Foxclocks

If you are like me who always corresponds with partners all around the world, you will appreciate the usefulness of Foxclock. Foxclock is an extension that lets you keep watch of the time around the world by putting small clocks in your statusbar. Next time when you send an email to your partner, you will know why he doesn’t reply to you instantly. He could most probably be sleeping in his country.



In addition, Foxclocks also integrates well with Google Earth. If you don’t know where Budapest is, simply right click and choose  ‘Google Earth…’. It will bring you to where it is.

4. Quicktext

Quicktext is useful for several purposes:

1. It allows you to create templates so that you don’t have to spend lot of time replying repetitive emails.
2. It allows you to create multiple signatures and insert them accordingly to the person you are sending to.
3. It allows you to substitute specific text with a predefined variable, such as [[TO=firstname]]

If you are one who has to send repetitive emails all the time, this extension is the one that you must have.



5. Thunderbird Biff



Thunderbird Biff checks your email in the background and notifies you (in Firefox or Sunbird) when new mail has arrived. To get this extension to work, you will need to install the Thunderbird Biff server version of Thunderbird and the client version in Firefox/Sunbird. Once it is installed, it will display an icon at the status bar. Whenever a new mail has arrived, the icon will pop up and notify you.

6. Sync Kolab

Sync Kolab uses the Kolab technology to synchronize your address book and calendar (Lightning) with several other computers and platform. Basically, it makes use of an IMAP server to do the synchronization. It supports vCard/iCal/xml format and is compatible with a lot of other mail/calendar clients.



7. Auto Address Cleaner

Auto Address Cleaner cleans up your address field and eliminates any chances of offending the recipients by using wrong (possibly mistyped in the address book) names in the To/Cc fields. Instead of displaying the name of the recipient, it will only show their email address.



8. Google-related addons

For those who are fans of Google apps or you simply can’t live without Google, here are some of the extensions that integrates Google apps into Thunderbird.

Gmail IMAP setup – enables you to setup Gmail IMAP account with almost zero configuration.
Google Contact – synchronizes Thunderbird with Google contacts.
Provider for Google Calendar – allows bi-directional sync between Lightning and Google Calendar.

9. Check and Send

Have you ever sent an email and realized that you didn’t attach a file to it? The Check and Send extension checks your message content, subject and address before you send the message. You can define a specified keyword for it to look out for (such as ‘attachment’, ‘attached files’) and inform you when no attachment was found. You can also use it to check if certain words exist in the message or if the recipient is in the address book.



10. Tags Toolbar



Are you missing your favorite tags in Gmail? You can have it now. Tag Toolbar allows you to add tags for your email. You can define your own tags, specify the color and there is a nice toolbar that makes it easy for you to tag your emails.

Do check out Aibek’s article for the other 35 must have Thunderbird addons.

Also, don’t forget to download the Thunderbird cheat sheet that contains plenty of excellent shortcuts for Thunderbird users. Highly recommended.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/mozilla-thunderbird-addons-2/feed/ 23 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-more-browser-addon-suggestions-with-fashion-your-firefox/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-more-browser-addon-suggestions-with-fashion-your-firefox/#comments Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:01:57 +0000 Varun Kashyap http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=8448 So you are a huge Firefox fan?  You have it customised to your liking and are always on the hunt to find out a theme or extension that would make your browsing more productive? Great, then you must keep up with Firefox Vogue with help from Fashion Your Firefox

Through Fashion Your Firefox, Mozilla offers recommendations to some of the most popular and useful addons. The recommendations are based on what you really use the internet for. So if you are a search junkie or like to research about topics on the web, then check out the “Finder and Seeker” category and see what addons can be used in your work. If you are an adept Firefox user than chances are you might already be using some of them. If so, just pat yourself and check out the other categories.

There are recommendations for all kinds of users:-

Finders and Seekers – For finding information online quickly.

Social Butterflies – A set of addons to go along with your social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Shutterbugs – A set of addons to help you download, browse and upload photos and videos to a large number of sites.

Digital Pack Rats - Addons to help you sync and keep track of your bookmarks and sites you visit often and your favorite blogs.

Rock Stars – Very cool addons to help you control your media player, discover music and go to your favorite Last.fm stations from the Firefox address bar.

Shopaholics – For those of us who can’t get enough of online deals and auctions.

Decorators – Some awesome themes to spice up your browsing.

News Junkies – Get weather, news and website updates delivered to you instead of you running behind one of these!

Executive assistants – Addons to aid in your day to day tasks with calendars, to do lists, alerts, password management and so on.

Hmm….let’s see, I am a bit of a Finder and Seeker, a News Junkie and perhaps even a Shutterbug if we limit it to discovery and download! Anyway, what’s your poison? Let us hear in the comments. Oh and by the way, you don’t have to install each and every one of them, just check the ones you find interesting and let it know when you are done. You will get only the ones you selected instantly. Not only this, sometime in the future you might also get the ability to share your fashion with friends and let them know what you are running to have them come along.

If these Mozilla recommendations are not enough for you then check out some of the best extensions that won accolades in the Extend Firefox Contest held some time back.

So much for Mozilla recommendations, how about we throw in some MakeUseOf recommendations to the list? Here we go.

First check out some addons to help you get the most out of tabs in Firefox. Find out some extensions that help you capture screenshots and others that are best for microblogging. Finally, check out our round-up on best extensions to manage your bookmarks better.

Phew….those are some addons. However knowing the Firefox user you are, one can never say that the list is exhaustive. There is always room for something new that I may not have covered. So let us know if you have a favorite extension that missed Mozilla’s or our eyes. You know we would love to hear about it!

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-more-browser-addon-suggestions-with-fashion-your-firefox/feed/ 5 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-simplify-your-writing-and-gain-results/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-simplify-your-writing-and-gain-results/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:01:39 +0000 James Yeang http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=7369 Having difficulties trying to get people to understand you?

One way to get your message across in a more effective manner is just to simplify what you’re trying to say. Cut the jargon, use simpler words, and you’ll be surprised how much more receptive your audience or readers may be. This is often simpler said than done, and for that reason I introduce to you… one of my favorite pieces of writing freeware – Bullfighter.



Bullfighter was released in 2003 by Deloitte Consulting, to help with better writing but has since been released for free to the public. What it is really, is a Microsoft Office add-in for Word and Powerpoint which will analyze your work, tell you how complex it is, and potentially help you simplify and make it better.

For example, after I had recently finished a report, I ran the Bullfighter add-in which then analyzed my work and confirmed that my document had no jargon (bull-free).  In case you’re wondering – yes you can add your own jargon to the list of words Bullfighter will mark down as ‘bull’, so its really quite flexible in that respect.



Bullfighter also analyses sentence length, and syllables per word to help ensure waffling is minimized.  On top of that, it also gives you something called the Flesch score. This famous test was designed in the 1960’s and is still relevant today, and is used to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of English. Higher scores indicate material that is easier to read; lower numbers mark “more difficult to read” passages.

• Where a score of 90–100 means that it is easily understandable by an average 11-year old student
• 60–70 would easily be understandable by 13- to 15-year old students
• and 0–30 would be best understood by college graduates

To give you an idea of what that means, according to Wikipedia:

Reader’s Digest magazine has a readability index of about 65, Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30’s.

So as you can see, a low score doesn’t necessarily mean a bad score – it just means that it’s better understood by a wider audience, which in most cases – is a good thing.

Finally, Bullfighter also comes with a nifty online tool called the ‘Mystery Matador’ which helps you to analyze and anonymously send scores by email to some of your friends or colleagues who just love to ramble on and on. All you need to do is copy and paste their letter or any other document text in the mystery matador. Bullfighter will measure the jargon and verbosity, and send an email with a link to their score for free.

Do you use other cool writing tools? Would love to hear your thoughts!

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-simplify-your-writing-and-gain-results/feed/ 5 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/9-must-have-openoffice-extensions/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/9-must-have-openoffice-extensions/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:00:43 +0000 Damien Oh http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=6630 Like Firefox, OpenOffice also comes with extensions that you can use to improve its functionality. Here, we have tested all the extensions and sorted out those that are useful for everyday use. Some of them are for general use while some are only meant for Writer, Calc or Impress. (For those who haven’t heard about OpenOffice before, it’s a popular free alternative to Microsoft Office)

Before you carry on reading, here are some things that you need to do/know:

Obviously, the extensions require OpenOffice to work. If you have not installed OpenOffice, grab the latest version here.

To install the extension, you have to go to Tools -> Extension Manager in any of the OpenOffice applications. Click ‘Add’ to install the extension that you have downloaded.

Let’s proceed onto the 9 must-have extensions for your OpenOffice.



1) Sun PDF Import Extension

Normally, OpenOffice only allows you to export your file to PDF format, but not to import and make changes to it. With this PDF Import extension, you can now import your PDF files and make changes to the date, numbers or even a small portion of text.

By default, this extension imports the PDF file into the Draw application rather than Writer, even though it may contain a full page of text. You may be wondering why, but if you remember that when the PDF format was first created, it was designed not to allow any editing at all. As such, importing as a text document into Writer may prove too difficult a thing to do.

With that, capturing the content as a Draw object now seems the easiest and most logical thing to do. When you import your PDF file into your Draw application, every single line of text will be treated as a draw object and you can edit the text and rearrange it as you like.

Sun PDF Import Extension is still in beta and only works in OpenOffice 3.0.

2) Professional Template Pack II – English

With more than 120 professionally designed document templates at your fingertips, it is hard not to create a high quality document or presentation.

This extension adds various kinds of templates, ranging from business correspondence, budgets and project plans, event posters, invoices, notes, minutes, press releases to personal letter templates.

You’ll never have to spend your time writing up the whole document again.

After installation, the templates can be found under File -> New –> Templates and Documents.

3) OpenOffice.org2GoogleDoc



This extension allows you to export and import documents from Google Docs, Zoho and any WebDav server. Files supported include OpenDocument Text (.odt), StarOffice (.sxw), Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods), Microsoft Excel (.xls), Comma Separated Value (.csv) and Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).

Java 6 is required to use this extension.

4) Writer’s Tools

If you are just like me, who spends a great deal of time sitting behind OpenOffice writing articles, then Writer’s Tools is the extension that you must have. Writer’s Tools is a set of utilities designed to help OpenOffice users perform a wide range of tasks. You can back up documents, look up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep tabs on document statistics. Some of the useful functions of this extension include:

• Lookup word from several sources, including Cambridge Dictionaries, WordNet, and Google Define.
• Backup a copy of your current document by sending an email to a specified address.
• Wikify Word tool links a selected word or text fragment in the current document to a Writer document, which is created on the fly
• Quick Converter that lets you convert between the metric and imperial systems easily.
• Bookmarks tool allows you to bookmark often-used documents, so you can access them with a few mouse clicks.
• Word of the Day tool picks and displays a random word and its definition from the accompanying WriterDB database.

and many more…

5) LanguageTool



What use is there if you can’t check your grammar and other language errors in an Office suite? The LanguageTool extension is an Open Source language checker for English, German, Polish, Dutch, and other languages. It is rule-based, which means it will find errors for which a rule is defined in its XML configuration files. Rules for more complicated errors can be written in Java. You can think of LanguageTool as a tool to detect errors that a simple spell checker cannot detect, e.g. mixing up there/their, no/now etc. It can also detect some grammar mistakes.

The Language Tool extension does not include spell checking.

6) Creative Commons Licensing



If you are always creating open source projects with the Creative Commons License, this extension will come in handy to you. The Creative Commons Licensing extension provides the ability to select and embed a Creative Commons License in Writer, Calc and Impress documents.

7) Data Form

In the Excel application in Microsoft Office, there is this feature – Data -> Form – that allows you to key in data easily. What this extension does is to replicate that feature in OpenOffice. The Data Form extension generates a data input form for tables in the Calc application that you can use to enter values.

In Calc, create a table with at least one row and the headline, for example:



Then, click on a range or any cell of the newly created table (not on empty cells), and go to Data – Form. That’s it. A form should appear letting you insert other records, or edit-delete the old ones.

Modern Impress Template



The Modern Impress template extension installs more than 30 beautiful templates that you can use for your presentation. All the graphics in the template are based on open-source art.

After installation, you can access the template at File -> New -> Templates and Documents -> Templates -> My Templates

9) Sun Presenter Console

For those who need to give presentations regularly, wouldn’t it be great if during the presentation, you can view what the next slide is and read the note that you have written all from the screen? It will take the guesswork out of you and also keeps you away from the troublesome paper notes scribbled with tiny text. What this extension does is to project different views to different monitors and allows you to see your upcoming slide and note while the audience only sees the current slide and the slide effect.

There are three views that you can configure in the Presenter Console. The first view displays the current slide for your audience to read while the second view shows the speaker’s notes in large, clear and scalable type plus the current and upcoming slide. The third view is a slider sorter view with the slide thumbnails. In your Impress application, go to Slide Show -> Slide Show settings and you can decide which view is to be projected to each monitor.

Do you use extensions for your OpenOffice? If so, which one is your favorite?

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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