I am not ashamed to admit I’m an avid Dilbert cartoon fan. Whenever I get off the phone, frustrated with HR’s lack of cooperation regarding the company sponsored insurance plan, or every time I walk out of an especially meaningless and pointless meeting, I pop open a few Dilbert comics on my browser or mobile phone, and I feel much better.

I’m not sure what it is about Dilbert that makes those of us who suffer through cubicle life feel better. Maybe it’s because it helps us to realize that even though we grudgingly agree to the new idiotic buzz-words passed down from management, and even though we allow ourselves to take part in moronic meeting discussions – we can know that we are not alone. Someone out there understands – and that someone is Dilbert. In honor of the man who brings me out of my cubicle depression each day, I would like to offer 6 of the best sites for Dilbert cartoon comic fans.

First Stop – Dilbert.com

Anyone who follows the Dilbert cartoon comic strip likely already knows that the premier spot on the Internet for Dilbert fans is obviously Dilbert.com. MakeUseOf has highlighted this site for its use of Twitter, and the site feature where you can attempt to mash your own Dilbert cartoon strip. The site offers the popular section that offers the Dilbert strip, the user mashup section and even an animated Dilbert clip. My favorite part of the site is actually Scott Adam’s blog.

His updates are sometimes witty, as you would expect, but he also dives into his own personal career decisions as well as political commentary. It’s a fun read and I encourage any die-hard Dilbert fan out there to follow along with the creator’s blog.

Dilbert Doodles

It’s a one-page section of Google Doodles that Saikat mentioned before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Dilbert Doodles were a series of Dilbert cartoon strips created exclusively for Google.

From Monday through Friday, Google updated the Doodle to reflect the Dilbert office crew trying to come up with the new Google logo. On Friday, the logo itself was the punchline. This series of Google Doodles are obvious collectors items for Dilbert fans.

Ringtales – The Animated Dilbert Podcast

While the comic strip is hilarious, the Dilbert animated cartoon is just as funny. At Ringtales, the collection of free Dilbert podcasts at this site is addictive – I couldn’t stop clicking through them!

Do you want to display the 5-day-a-week Dilbert cartoon podcasts on your own blog? Just click on the Widget menu at the top of the website and you can embed the video on your own website.

Embed the video clips in your blog, myspace page, on Facebook or anywhere else you want to share the wit of Dilbert with all of your friends.

Computer Weekly – Dilbert of the Day

Every day, in addition to checking out my favorite tech blog RSS feeds, I also take a look at the latest articles on Computer Weekly. The online version is where I get my latest fix for computer news. One of my favorite pages that I check out every day is Computer Weekly’s “Dilbert of the Day” comic strip.

You can certainly get your Dilbert fix from Dilbert.com – but if you’re looking to add as much Dilbert as possible to your daily life, this is yet another source to get a great daily fix from one of the premier online computer magazines on the net.

Mozilla Firefox Dilbert Add-on

Of course, if you want to receive your daily comic fix without having to browse to a particular web page, you can add the Dilbert Firefox Add-on. This is a free add-on that adds a small button to your status bar. When you click on it, up pops the strip of the day.

Installation is as easy as clicking and in a few moments and a few more clicks you’ll have Dilbert as part of your Firefox installation – what more could a geek ask for?

Track Your Dilbert Reading With Library Thing

LibraryThing is a very cool organizational website that Aibek covered back when it was in Beta. Now, it’s alive and well – and it features its own Dibert section where you can check out a collection of covers from the various comics, or add the titles of the various Scott Adams books you own to your personal Library collection.

This is a lot of fun to browse, and there’s even a section of LibraryThing for communities and groups. As of this writing, there’s no Dilbert group – so why don’t you start one?

Do you have any other fun Dilbert resources for MUO readers who are fans? Share them in the comments section below!

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I am also the member of those email junkies. And given the nature of my mobile work, I prefer to use webmail instead of desktop client. This choice enables me to check my email anytime and anywhere no matter what device that I use.

Speaking of webmail, Google Mail is one of the popular choices for many internet users. As per July 2009, there are about 146 million users who stare at their Gmail inbox every month. If you are one of the users who has been using Gmail since it become available for general public (February 2007), it means that you’ve stared at more or less the same old inbox interface for over two and a half years (roughly about a thousand days or so). And the number is multiplied for those who’s been using Gmail since the “invitation only” beta release back in April 2004.

Have you ever felt bored of the look?

How to change the Gmail appearence

The Gmail interface is not bad. I guess it’s designed with efficiency and practicality in mind. But it’s not the prettiest thing either. Most Gmail users just accept the sight that they’ve got everytime they log into their account. They have never noticed that they can change the theme of the Gmail interface if they wanted to.

Here’s how to change your Gmail theme.

• Click “Settings” on the top right corner of the page



• Choose the Themes tab



• Choose one of the available Gmail themes. Among them are “Random” (if you want Google to pick one for you) or “Choose your own colors“.



• There are themes that will change based on your location. If this is the case, you have to provide the necessary information.

If you choose the option to choose your own color, you’ll have a new window appear with several editable fields. If you bring your mouse to the left side of the field, a small arrow will appear. Click on this arrow and you’ll have a color picker box popping out. You can choose your preferred color combination for your Gmail theme.

Using Firefox add-on

Beside using the available themes provided by Google, there is another way to change your Gmail appearance and background: using a Firefox add-on. Even though this method will limit the facial-lift to Firefox only, the new refreshing look is worth a peek.

I stumbled upon this one add-on called Google Redesigned purely by coincidence. As the name suggested, activating this add on will completely redesign the look of three popular Google applications (Mail, Reader and Calendar) under Firefox. Each app has its own style and each style can be used individually or together as a group.

This is achieved by using Cascading StyleSheet (CSS) files which are loaded on the client’s browser. Google Redesigned does not use any remote images, however it does load style sheets from a remote server. Users can manually update the themes by clicking the Google Redesigned logo at the bottom of the Firefox window and choose “Check for style updates“.

This is the look of Gmail using Google Redesigned under Firefox.

While you’re at it, why not add another Firefox add-on called Integrated Gmail that will combine Google Mail, Google Reader and Google Calendar all on one page?

Have you changed the look of your Gmail? Do you know of any other methods to give your inbox a new look?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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There are numerous tools that aid the serious searcher. Yolink belongs to that tribe. Yolink can be compared to a search accelerator, a growing class of web tools which bring the results closer and faster.

Let’s throw Yolink into the deep end of a web search and see how it comes up. With a thumbs up or for gasps of air?

What does Yolink do?

Yolink can be described as searching within results of a normal web search. For any webpage, put in a search query into the Yolink search box. Press enter or click the adjacent Search Links button.

For instance, here I am searching for Charlize Theron, the actress and Oscar winner in Wikipedia. The tool searches through all the links in that particular page for information matching the search query. The Yolink search accelerator results will be displayed in a right-sided split-pane, adjacent to the original web page.

The Yolink results are like little previews which help you decide which one needs to be followed to get to the right information. The search query is presented in the context of the content. Yolink’s utility goes deep into the levels of the webpage and filters information that’s relevant to the search query thus, saving the researcher’s time as he does not have to needlessly follow each and every link in the hunt for Charlize.

Click on any of the Yolink results which you feel is relevant for further lookup and that same link opens up in its original Web page (on the left pane) and is highlighted in the context.

Yolink’s behavior can be changed from the Yolink button next to the address bar. This button is also a toggle switch to hide and unhide the toolbar.

You can fine tune your search results by modifying the Search Options from the toolbar. Five options for the keywords are available which are self explanatory – Best Match, Match All, Exact Match, Match Any, Allow Breakouts. Allow breakouts is a Firefox-only feature and it’s for forcing the split screen on websites which do not allow dual pane view.

Save & Share your Yolink Search Accelerator Search Results

You can also store and share all your Yolink results in an online account. All it takes is a free registration with any email ID. With the email verification done, you are set to use your account space to save any link for further reference or share it with others.

To save a link, use the Save & Share button on the Yolink toolbar or click on the little Save & Share green icon next to any result.

The detailed user guide for Yolink can be read here.

The result

As an add-on it’s quite large, weighing in at 6.9MB and installs as a search toolbar. Users who like their browsers to be lean ‘n mean machines may not like the add-on weight. The casual searcher may also think of it as overkill. But for the guy who takes his searches passionately, it’s quite a serious tool. I found its main dexterity in trawling through lengthy webpages and news sites. It has also become a handy tool for multi-word search as I can view the context instantly for the multiple search queries without wasting any time.

Do you like to install search accelerators to enhance your search? Which ones have made web search faster and easier for you? Do you think that Yolink could become a worthy member of that tribe? Let us in on your opinion.

Youlink (ver 2.0) is a browser add-on compatible with Firefox (PC and Mac) and IE (ver 6, 7 and 8).

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Zakta differs from traditional search engines in these key areas:

• Personalize and edit your search results
• Automatically save your search results
• Share your saved search results as a social network search with others as Guides
• Collaborate on a search with family or colleagues, just like you do on shared documents

If you are searching for quick factoids of information, you are better served by traditional search engines. However, if you’re planning a vacation or trip, researching a health ailment, exploring the best affordable university to get a degree, or similar broad topics, Zakta shines by beating the thousands of irrelevant links you get in Google or Bing.

The How Zakta Can Help page details the different benefits of Zakta for teachers, students, travelers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc. You can use Zakta as a casual surfer, but to get access to all the features, you need to register.

Ready? Let’s take Zakta for a spin and explore its features.

Organized Search Results

A search for “swine flu” quickly led me to choose the “2009 flu pandemic” organized set of results discarding the “1976 swine flu outbreak”. The search results are organized into sections, listed on the left. In this case, we see Reference, Web Sites, Books and Articles, etc. for swine flu. Observe that we also see sections of Symptoms, Prevention, and Treatment, as if Zakta “knows” that this is a medical condition.

Zakta “knows” about 3 million such informational topics already, so you will find sections meaningful to your search for every search term.

Personalized Search: Editing Results

There are many useful things you can do with the search results. Roll over your mouse over any result to get a mini-toolbar of actions you can perform on that result.

Delete results you don’t want to see again, use drag and drop to reorder results, and annotate or recommend a result. The personal ClipPad is your clipboard that remembers clipped results across related searches.

Share your results as a Guide

You can share your personalized results to create and publish a Zakta Guide. You can choose the sections to include, apply predefined templates, and include related searches as you wish. Once you create a guide, you can easily link to it, share it over email or on any social network. Your guide is shown to other Zakta users, who can recommend it. You can also invite your trusted friends or colleagues to collaborate on a Guide. Finally, a widget lets you embed your guide on your website or blog. You can also create a guide from scratch using the Guide Creator.

While Zakta is still in Beta, hundreds of Guides have already been developed by its users. From the Guides page, you can see popular guides, recently updated guides, or browse through them by subject, title, etc. Published Guides are even accessible from within Facebook with the Zakta Guides for Facebook app.

Zakta Tools: Search Packs and Firefox Plugin

The Zakta Firefox plugin allows you to clip anything from any web page directly to your Zakta ClipPad or Guide. Zakta SearchPacks give you access to a plethora of web search engines in tabs for different types of searches. SearchPacks are available for Web, News, Blogs, Discussions, Images, Videos and Health. For example, the Web SearchPack gives you access to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc.

There are social networking search features built into Zakta as well, if you wish to build a trusted network of friends and keep yourself up-to-date with new search results or guides in your areas of interest.

Will you try out Zakta? Do you find it better for researching topics? We would love to hear your feedback in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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If you are like me, you want to download and backup your Facebook data just in case. Here is a simple way to backup and archive your Facebook information using the ArchiveFacebook Firefox extension.

Archive Facebook is an experimental Firefox extension that allows you to backup Facebook data on your local hard drive. You can browse your archive as if it were your local copy of Facebook. Facebook does not let you upload this data in any way, so you cannot use it for restoring anything in case you delete your data or account in Facebook.

Archive Facebook backs up the following from your Facebook profile:

• Photos
• Messages
• Activity Stream
• Friends List
• Notes
• Events
• Groups
• Info

Note that your friends activity or data is not included in your archive. Also, if you prefer using a browser other than Firefox, you can use this extension by installing Firefox just to backup Facebook data, and then uninstall Firefox. Your backup will be usable from other browsers as well (see last section below).

Disable or Uninstall Scrapbook

Archive Facebook causes instability if the Scrapbook Firefox extension is installed. You should not run both of them simultaneously, so if you have installed Scrapbook, disable or uninstall it.

Get a Facebook Username

As of version 1.0, Archive Facebook works only if you have a vanity URL for your Facebook profile. If you don’t already have one, get a Facebook username for your account here. Once you can access your Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/your_name you are all set.

Install the Extension

To get started, install the Archive Facebook extension from the Mozilla Firefox Addons gallery. This is an experimental extension, so you will need to enable the option to allow you to download and install it.

After restarting Firefox, you should see a new menu item “ArchiveFB” in Firefox between the Bookmarks and the Tools menu.

Backup and Archive

Login to your Facebook account. You should be able to browse in Facebook before you start the archive process.

Go to ArchiveFB > Show in Sidebar and open the sidebar.

While you are seeing Facebook open in your browser, select ArchiveFB > Archive. You will automatically get redirected to your Facebook profile page and see the following dialog box:

Select OK to start the backup process. Cancel will not start any operation. Once you start the archive process, ArchiveFB begins to retrieve your Facebook stream in reverse chronological order. You will see a series of dialog boxes displaying how far back it has progressed in the retrieval process.

If you select Cancel on any of these dialog boxes, your archive will extend back in time only till that date and time stamp.

Once the retrieval process is complete, ArchiveFB will start downloading your Facebook data to create your backup archive.

The process may take several hours depending upon the speed of your connection and how long and extensively you’ve used Facebook.

Be patient, but if you find that the process is stuck on one particular item in the list, click Pause and then Start to resume. I found that this trick worked when ArchiveFB seemed to get stuck on a few items in the list.

Once the backup and archive operation is complete, you can see a new entry in the sidebar “Facebook | username date” with your username and the current date. This indicates that the operation was successful.

Browsing Your Archive

Just like any data backup software, you can have multiple sets of your Facebook archive made at different points in time, which will all appear in your ArchiveFB sidebar. Clicking on any of the entries in the sidebar browses that archive set, starting at your profile page.

Observe the browser address bar URLs when browsing your Facebook profile archive. It will show “file://” instead of “http://” indicating that you are browsing a local copy on your hard disk. You should be able to view your photos, friends list, notes, etc. from within your local copy.

You will see an Annotation Bar at the bottom of the browser. It has highlighting and annotation tools with which you can make notes about any of the items in your Facebook archive.

For Advanced Users and Other Browsers

ArchiveFB stores the copy of your Facebook data within your Firefox profile by default. You will find an ArchiveFB folder created inside your Firefox profile folder, where the archives created by this extension are stored.

What if you normally use a different browser? In the ArchiveFB sidebar, go to Tools > Options. In the Options dialog, go to the Organize tab. In the Location to Store Data, you can specify a different location for your archive.

From any archive set, you can open the “index.html” file to open and browse your Facebook archive data from within any browser.

Before you run off to backup your Facebook data, you might also want to check out our popular Facebook Hack Codes and Privacy Tips!

Were you able to backup your Facebook data? Feel free to share your experience in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Most download managers have it, µtorrent has it and they are perfect for my need. There has always been a great void in this setup due to Firefox. Many a time, I have files downloading in Firefox but no way to auto-shutdown the computer. Some time back, I hacked together an auto script that would sit there and wait for the Firefox’s ‘Downloads finished’ notification to appear, it would then close Firefox and shutdown the computer. Lame I know, but it did the trick.

Recently, however, I found an excellent addon that lets you do schedule auto shutdowns in Firefox and a whole lot more, its (aptly) called Auto-Shutdown. The addon is auto shutdown software that provides you with a number of options to perform precisely the action you want once the downloads have completed. You can play sounds, clear downloads, shutdown, logoff, restart your computer or run any command or multiple commands through a script.

Auto Shutdown is available at AMO, it works with Firefox version 3 and upwards. Once installed, the auto shutdown software will add a power icon to the status bar. You can remove the icon if you desire, however it provides quick access to its options and can be used to enable auto-shutdown in a flash.

You can use the built-in commands for basic needs like shutdown, hibernate, stand by, etc. There are different versions of these commands for different version of Windows and Linux and Mac.

Apart from the built-in commands you can do almost anything with Auto Shutdown. You can run any JavaScript code or any external application when the downloads finish or when the computer is idle while Firefox is downloading the files. To run custom commands or JavaScript code:

• Go to the Customize tab within Auto Shutdown settings.
• Type in your code in the lower text area surrounded by <javaScript> </javaScript> tags or <shell> </shell> tags depending on what you are planning to achieve.

• Click Save As and assign the script to User Command 1 or User Command 2

• Choose User Command 1 or User Command 2 from Adjust shutdown Command drop down list towards the top.

You can easily pass arguments to external applications and Auto Shutdown also provides you with certain reserved words that can be used in your scripts to refer to special locations and files. %sysRoot%, for example, refers to the Windows/system32 directory and %WinD refers to the Windows directory. The complete list is available here.

You can also choose the amount of time Auto Shutdown waits before executing the commands after the downloads have finished. Auto Shutdown will display a countdown for that specified time, allowing you to save any work if you have been working along or cancel the download altogether. You can force Firefox to exit when the command is eventually triggered and choose to restore the session, the next time Firefox is started. If you use DownThemAll, Auto Shutdown has you covered and can monitor DownThemAll as well.

Auto Shutdown is a dream come true if you ever leave the computer running only to let the downloads complete. With Auto Shutdown, you can now automatically close the browser or shutdown the system when downloads complete. Give it a spin and let us know what you like or dislike.

Do you have some clever ways of your own to automatically shutdown the computer after downloads complete? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The Sidewiki’s intent is to pool together the mass of readers who visit a webpage and use their collective knowhow to enhance the content already present with their own website reviews. Don’t muddle it with Searchwiki, that one was for search results. This one is for annotating webpages.

Google Sidewiki installs as a browser sidebar. As you visit a webpage, you can read commentaries and inputs from others who have passed through before you. This information can broaden the original information contained in the webpage by way of additional reference links, tips, inside information or simply a critical website review. The stream of comments is intended to further conversation around a topic.

Google’s page on Sidewiki draws out several examples of potential uses and benefits. So, let’s check if it’s worth the swipe.

Installing Sidewiki

The browser tool for Internet Explorer and Firefox installs as a sideswipe sidebar. It’s a default part of Google Toolbar. So all of us who avoid the Google Toolbar, or any toolbar as such, tough luck.

It’s also a part of the toolbar’s enhanced features which involves sending user browsing info back to Google.

Once installed, you can click the Sidewiki icon or click a little blue tab to open the sidebar to view comments.

Reading, annotating and sharing

As this is a new service, most of your frequented sites won’t have many entries. In that case, you can log in with your Google ID and publish your own. Put in your two bits for the whole page or select a specific section to remark on.

Sharing some info could be a direct benefit. It’s quite simple – click the Share link at the bottom of an entry and pass it on using email, Twitter or post it on Facebook. You can also click the chain icon to copy the link and paste it anywhere like instant messengers. Blogger post integration is also there for those who have one.

Sidewiki entries are coupled with Google Profiles (i.e. those who us them). You can read the other entries by the author and his complete bio on Google Profiles.

Sidewiki website reviews can be edited and deleted any time. You can also disable Sidewiki by clicking on the wrench icon for the toolbar settings and going to the Tools tab. Uncheck the box for Sidewiki.

Sidewiki’s intent as explained by Google is not to have a free-for-all commenting platform. A ranking program is inbuilt to weed out the useless info from the ones that are relevant. The exact tech behind the show is quite beyond me but it does take heed of user feedback (voting), commenting track record of the author and relative quality. Ranking is something Google is good at, so hopefully Sidewiki will show the worthy ones.

Is the footnote clear yet?

It’s still early days so the jury is still not out. Looking at the comments floating around on the web, opinion seems to be divided. Yes, universal sharing of knowledge seems to be a great idea. Questions though remain how strong will the ranking system be? Will it filter out comments which express opposite views? How will webmasters take to this ‘intrusion’? In-site comments can be controlled and blocked, but Sidewiki is open to all. Early indications say that not all comments will make the grade. Algorithms will ensure that the most relevant will appear first. Also, Google’s intent seems to be of adding value rather than start a town square hullabaloo.

Sidewiki’s success is not assured because it’s a Google baby. Annotation tools and web highlighters like Diigo, DotSpots, Trailfire and Fleck are among a few. It will be the value of raw words that might determine Sidewiki’s quality.

What are your early thoughts on sideswiping Sidewiki? Comment or annotate away.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Basically, Greasemonkey allows users to write and implement scripts that customize the way you interact with websites.

Until now, people who knew nothing about writing scripts have been limited to just installing scripts made available by others.  Well, not anymore my friends!  Now we have a whole new, user-friendly, no scripting necessary way of changing the way we interact with our favorite websites.  Sound too good to be true?  I thought so too!  Please check out the Customize Your Web Firefox add-on.

The way this add-on works is really neat.  Basically when you are on a site you want to customize Firefox, click on the hand-dandy icon in your Firefox tray and start customizing.

In this post I would like to walk you through how to set up a few customizations I have found useful.

Automatic clicking

With this add-on you can make it so that a specific button is clicked upon the load of a website.  For instance, when I head over to the login screen for my blog, timmyjohnboy, I always have to click on “log in.”  I already have the username and password fields auto-filled but perhaps I’m just too lazy to click the stupid button.  Come on, you can’t tell me you’ve never felt that way!

Anyways, just click on the icon (or press F10) and you’ll be given a bunch of options.

You’ll also notice that as you move your mouse across the site, the objects highlight and if you click them, you’re given some options.

For what we want to do, and that is saving us from the overbearing task of clicking the “log in” button, click “click.”  Then a window pops up giving you the options you’re looking for.

Make sure the left button is chosen and make sure that the repetition behavior is set to “run always” if you want this to happen every time.  Then, hit “OK.”  Then, in the script properties sidebar, click save for the settings to be saved.

OK, now I can be automatically logged in just by making a few adjustments!  This can obviously be done for any website where you want to automatically click any button.

Get ride of elements you don’t want to see!

For the sake of demonstration, let’s head over to GodlySheep and get rid of Brett’s nifty little sheep icon!  OK, I am not saying that I don’t like the icon, I really do!  It just makes a really good object to make an example of!

Basically just follow the same steps (browse to godlysheep.com, click the icon in the tray, and click on the sheep graphic) but this time click on “remove.”

Just like before, make sure that the repetition behavior is set to “run always.”  Then click the same “save” button.  This is what you should now see:

Cool, huh?  This trick can be applied to many different objects, including ads!  For instance, if you’re like me and you hate those MySpace ads, all you have to do if remove them!

Move objects or elements (cut, copy, and paste)

Let’s say we also want to rearrange the sidebar on GodlySheep.com to better suit your usage patterns.  Let’s move the banner below the navigation links.  All it takes is some simple cut and paste actions.  Click the banner and then click cut,

choose the appropriate settings, and then click the navigation area and click paste after.

That’s all it really takes.  Always make sure you save your changes.

It is also necessary for me to mention that changes you make can ALWAYS be deleted so don’t worry too much about ruining something. You can also do many MANY more modifications with Customize Your Web, including toggling the visibility of objects, keyboard shortcuts and so much more!

Whilst exploring this add-on to customize Firefox, let us know what tricks you like the most!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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It should be the easiest job in the world to enlist their help to promote your blog. In the ‘Digg’ and boost world of the WWW, grabbing a few eyeballs is what counts. Think of the humble email signature as a no cost viral way to publicize your blog.

Adding a link to your latest blog post not only spreads the good word but also spices up your signature.  If you write about something specific, then a blog post signature link adds to your ‘brand’. In today’s ever changing world, an active signature could be like those 30 second filler adverts which play in staccato sequence. They grab our attention because they keep changing.

All it takes for a little bit of PR are these two ways and of course the habit of writing regular and relevant blog posts.

BlogSigs

BlogSigs attaches the link to your latest blog post in your email signature. This utility with a simple function works with a number of email clients like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Entourage.

Additionally, there’s also a Firefox add-on available which makes it the right fit when we send mails using the browser. The Firefox add-on, though free, comes with a BlogSigs promotion link in all emails. Purchasing a BlogSigs Registration Key removes the BlogSigs promotion link (note: the add-on is still not compatible with Firefox 3.5.2).

To get back to the Windows version, here’s how it runs from the system tray.

1. BlogSigs can be setup using the single configurable window.

   

2. On the first run, BlogSigs detects the signatures saved for your Outlook accounts. If not, create a signature from the Outlook Menu path – Tools – Options – Mail Format – Signatures.
3. In the BlogSigs options window, choose the accounts you want to use BlogSigs for.
4. Specify the RSS feed of the blog you want to use. BlogSigs pulls the latest post from the RSS link and sends the headline as a part of the signature.
5. Append an optional stylized text before the blog post. Set the update in days, hours or minutes for BlogSigs to update the link.

   

The little app worked well notwithstanding a few errors. BlogSigs is a 646KB download and compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X.

WiseStamp Email Signature

This Firefox add-on nearly came head of the class in the brief review I did last year in my post on 5 Ways To Create Custom Multiple Signatures In Gmail. Just to refresh, WiseStamp lets you setup rich personalized signatures using a simple WYSIWYG Editor. The app supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and Hotmail.

If you have come over from my earlier post, WiseStamp has added a few new features since then. Automatically sharing of blog posts is what caught my eye.

WiseStamp’s Feed tab allows us to easily include our favorite personalized feed and it automatically updates in our email signatures. Now we can share not only our latest blog posts but also bookmarks, videos, pictures, events and much more. This is a excellent way to promote your blog.

1. Download and install the WiseStamp add-on.



2. Access it from the browser’s Tools menu or right click on the little WiseStamp icon near the bottom right of the browser (Right Click – Edit signature).



3. Design your signature in the WYSIWYG editor.
4. Click on the RSS tab, enter a Feed title and the Feed URL. WiseStamp automatically validates the URL and OK’s it.
5. You can preview the signature before clicking on Apply and OK.
6. Open your email account to compose a new email. Right click on the little icon located on the formatting toolbar or the one at the bottom of the browser window to choose a signature (i.e. if you have more than one). The signature gets automatically inserted with the latest blog post.

Download the WiseStamp Firefox add-on for rich email signatures.

Familiarity may not breed contempt but it certainly lays the grounds for boredom. In a medium where it takes seconds to go from reading a mail to consigning it to the trash, an interesting link attached to the signature might just make someone pause. Who knows, following that link may make someone’s day a lot better.

There are of course many, many innovative ways to promote your blog post. Using your email signature to showcase your latest blog post is comparatively a modest one.

Do you think that this can be an attention grabber in the times of social bookmarking and Tweets? Let us know.

Image Credit: Hammer51012

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• store notes and web pages from my research stage for offline view.
• quickly create a to-do list and alarms out of assignments and tasks, and be able to be synchronized to iCal (then to my mobile) so I’ll always get reminders wherever I am.
• access my email easily.
• track and record my writing assignments and submissions.
• post to blogs and also serve as a word processor – both in WYSIWYG and HTML view.
• show the word count for each of my submissions.

The most important thing is the whole features should come free and in one package (as I’m a bit tired switching back and forth between applications).

Then I remembered about Firefox – the browser that can be transformed into almost anything that we want it to be, and wondered whether I can expand it to be THE writing tool I’m looking for.

The Hunt for the Add-ons

Everybody knows that one of the greatest things about Firefox is the wide range of add-ons available. What I did was search for the right writing addons for Firefox with the right features. I found too many options so I have to be super selective.

And the winners are:

1. Scrapbook –> This is the first writing addon for Firefox on my list. Scrapbook is like a storage house for all of your research materials. You can easily send any web page to be archived inside Scrapbook, either by dragging and dropping it into the Scrapbook sidebar (Option + K)

   

   or by right clicking on the page and choose “Capture Page”.

   

   Add folders, sub-folders, notes, and organize them to your heart’s content by dragging and dropping. I could go on forever as I really love this tool, but there are still a lot to cover so I’ll just link you to our previous coverage on this nifty tool.

2. Scribefire –> Since most of my writing assignments are in the virtual world and need me to be familiar with HTML, I think I’ll just use this powerful blogging add-on to also serve as a WYSIWYG word processor. Scribefire allows its users to easily switch between rich-text and source editing.

   

   To get a clearer picture on what this baby can do, check out the comparison between Scribefire and Deepest Sender.

3. Extended Copy Menu and QuoteURLText –> Sometimes you run into texts that need to be handled with more than just standard “Copy” feature.

   

   These two add-ons provide Firefox users with the ability to go beyond that. Extended Copy Menu enables users to copy the selected text as plain text or HTML, while QuoteURLText will include Page Title, Location and copy date to the copied texts to be used as perfect quotes.

4. Word Count Plus –> Another common thing about writing assignments besides time limits – a.k.a deadly deadlines – is dimension limit or more popularly known as word count. If you have to count your writing word by word, believe me, whatever reward you’ll get won’t be worth the hassle . Imagine J.K Rowling counting the words in her books.  Scribefire is a writing addon for Firefox that has its own word count tool (right click –> View –> Word Count), but for other content – like website text – there’s Word Count Plus.

   

   To use it, just right click on the selected text and choose count words.

5. PageZipper –> How many times have you encountered an article that spans to several pages? Some are so long that it can be turned into a book. Clicking “Next Page” once or twice is still bearable, but if the number goes into more than ten and you have to do it on so many articles, you’d better use PageZipper.

   

   This add-on will combine all the next pages into one and saves you the click. (please note that not all webpages are compatible with this tool) But the usage goes beyond that: if you’ve archived the combined pages using Scrapbook and done a light editing with Scrapbook’s tool – like Highlighter, Annotation and DOM Eraser – you’ll have a tidy document ready to be printed.  See here for T.J’s in-depth look at PageZipper.

6. Toodledo –> This is the add-on version of the online service with the same name. I chose this one among tons of to-do list tools because this one can easily synchronize with iCal and GCal. It means that there’s no way that I can escape from all of my writing assignments.

   

   Another reason is that adding a new task to Toodledo from Firefox is a snap, just hit Command + Option + A (Mac) or Control + Option + A (Windows/Linux) (or use the “Tools –> Toodledo –> Add task” menu). If you are curious, you can read more about Toodledo.

7. Evernote –> If there was no 40 MB limitation on the online storage, this extraordinary service would be my choice of the ultimate writing tool. I filled up Evernote’s limit in less than a week, while my Scrapbook size has already passed 100 MB size and still growing. But that doesn’t mean that I would waste all of the great features. Evernote is a great tool to add, edit and share notes (text, voice, pictures) from any devices that you have from wherever you are.

   

   My sudden muses will never go down the toilet again, I just make quick notes with Evernote, and then manage them all at home – make copies to Scrapbook and delete the originals from Evernote.

All in all, these writing addons for Firefox are the nearest thing to a perfect writing suite for me. But each person has his/her own preferences, so my choices could be different from yours.

Share your favorite writing-related add-ons using the comments below. If you know of another tool that could replace these combinations, you are welcome to share.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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It’s true that a good anti-virus is designed to stop a malware in its tracks before it gets triggered. A firewall and a good anti-virus form the first line of defense. But wouldn’t you surf more peacefully if you had a few more deterrents on your hard disk?

When it comes to protection against virus or Trojan attacks, there’s nothing like too much defense. The more the merrier. So here’s one more for the merry bunch – Dr.Web LinkChecker.

Dr.Web LinkChecker is a browser add-on for Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer. It is a small tool for a big task; a way to scan files before download in order to protect yourself from potential virus threats. How often do we visit not-so-above board sites, torrents and file sharing sites for a juicy download? I get especially suspicious when the download size doesn’t quite match up with the nature of the software. Usually suspicion wins.

These days a lot many anti-virus solutions scan files on the fly without saving them locally. For instance, avast! has its Web Shield and AVG comes with its proprietary AVG LinkScanner.

Using Dr.Web LinkChecker, you can actively (but manually) scan files before download begins with just a right click. The added protection integrates with the browser’s right click menu and scans the link on Dr. Web’s servers with the most up-to-date version of the Dr.Web scanner and the latest updates of the virus definitions database.

Here’s how it works in Mozilla Firefox (and Thunderbird)…

1. Download Dr.Web LinkChecker from the Mozilla add-ons gallery or the Dr.Web website.
2. Install as you would any other add-on and restart the browser.
3. For any download link, right click and choose Scan with Dr.Web. Dr.Web takes a few seconds to a few minutes to scan the file before download against its online database.



4. The post scan report gives a summary of the results and a visual notification – Green for a clean file and red for an infected one.

Here’s how it works in Internet Explorer.

1. Go to the download page for MS Internet Explorer.
2. Download registry file drweb-online-ru.reg from the language choice among the seven given.
3. Double-click the file and confirm to add it to the registry.
4. Restart Internet Explorer and use with a right-click on a download link.

Here’s how it works in Opera.

1. Opera integration is slightly more arduous as you need to edit an Opera configuration file.
2. From Windows Explorer go to Opera’s default directory under C:\Program Files\Opera\defaults. The defaults folder is the location for all of Opera’s configuration files.
3. Open and edit (using Notepad) the standard_menu.ini configuration file.
4. The sections – [Link Popup Menu], [Document Popup Menu] and [Image Link Popup Menu] need to be edited with an item entry pointing to Dr.Web’s online scanner. The detailed instructions can be found here.

   

   Note: In the snapshot, I have used Notepad2 as the text editor.

5. A Scan Link with Dr.Web gets integrated in the right-click menu.

As a pre-emptive bullet quick online scanner which can be used with three popular browsers, Dr. Web is a handy add-on.  Dr. Web’s anti-virus solutions have existed since 2003. So it is fair to assume that they follow the products with constant virus definition updates as the site itself claims.

Maybe, the main chink is that the anti-virus scans files limited to a maximum of 12MB. As a featherweight solution, it could fill an important role of the third line of defense after the firewall and the principal anti-virus.

But a real test of an anti-virus solution comes with detection rates and that too over a long period. Do you use Dr.Web to scan files before you download them? Do you think that this can add-on to your main anti-virus solution?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Heck, I am just kidding; but it’s true for me at least that sometimes the Firefox download pop-up is a bit too in my face. I like all downloads to be behind the scenes and unobtrusive. I wouldn’t like to do away with the Firefox browser for this minor ‘inconvenience’.

Thankfully, the gallery of Mozilla Firefox add-ons lets me do away with just the download window by giving me three options to choose from.

These three add-ons go a long way in improving the download job by replacing the default download window.

Download Statusbar (v 0.9.6.5)

Download Statusbar saves screen real estate by handing the download job to the goodish little status bar. It’s a wonder of coding that the 445KB add-on packs in a lot within its small size. The add-on can be configured as a separate status bar (Full Mode) or kept within the Firefox status bar (Mini mode).

This is just one option within its quiver of configuration settings. Some other features are…

• Progress notifications give detailed information about downloads. Notifications can be switched on and off. Tooltip notifications add to instant feedback.



• Retain, remove or trim download history.
• Automatically continues downloads with the Firefox download manager, even if the main browser is closed. Pops up a confirmation alert when a download is halted or deleted.
• Pause and resume downloads with a single click (i.e. if downloads are resumable).



• Play a sound when the download finishes.
• Run a finished download with a double click.  Also one can open containing folder, visit source website, and rename the file.
• Appearance of the download status bar can be customized. For instance, Speed Colors allow you to visually appreciate how each download is progressing.



• Virus scanning using default anti-virus can be configured to automatic or manual. File type filters for scans can be set.



• The add-on auto hides when not in use.
• It is also available in 25 languages.

Download Statusbar is a recommended Firefox add-on. Alternatively, check it out at the Mozdev community site.

Custom Download Manager (v 2.1b90630)

The custom part of this add-on is that the user can choose to open the download in a separate tab, sidebar or a fresh window. Though it’s not feature rich as Download Statusbar it introduces some control over the process. User friendly customization features include…

• Decide the buttons, the look and their location with a few checkbox settings. Two important buttons which you can set are – Copy Download Link and Go to Download Page.
• Decide on the behavior of the download manager window. For instance, close the download manager when done.
• Set an alert for an exe file operation.
• Enable/Disable virus scan for a completed file.

Custom Download Manager is compatible with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Downloads in Tab (v 0.0.9)

If you like your download control to be sans any frills, then this add-on fits the need. Downloads in Tab moves the job from the pop-up windows to a regular tab. It’s actually just a tab version of the pop-up. The features are also limited to the regular tab controls…

• Opens a tab automatically with a download and closes it when downloads are finished.
• You can move the download tab to the background by choosing the only from menu setting in the Options panel of the add-on.
• The download tab can be set to become the first tab of the browser window.

Downloads in Tab is an 18KB recommended download from Mozilla.

Karl has also taken us through 11 add-ons he can’t live without. You might want to check out his post for a brief mention of Download Statusbar and the nifty download manager/accelerator called Download Them All.

The three add-ons profiled here cover the gamut of download operations. From the bells and whistles of Download Statusbar to the plainness of Downloads in Tab. And somewhere in between we have the Custom Download Manager. We all have our requirements and thankfully a whole gallery of options to pick for them. Which is your pick of the heap?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Today I discovered Fire.FM which puts a Last.FM toolbar in your Firefox browser. Normally I shun most toolbars in an attempt to keep my Firefox browser running smoothly but after installing Fire.FM, I just know that I will be holding onto this one for quite a while!

With Fire.FM, you can play Last.FM music directly from your Firefox browser without having to visit the site.  You can also get access to your Last.FM radio stations as well as finding similar artists.

The only snag is that listeners to Last.FM outside of the United States, Great Britain and Germany will be asked to subscribe for €3.00 per month ($4), after a 30 track free trial period.  But anyone in the United States, Great Britain and Germany will not face such limitations.

Let’s take a look at each feature in more detail.

After logging into your Last.FM account via the toolbar, you can access your stations by going to the drop down menu.

You can create a station via the toolbar and it will ask you what name you want to give it. Afterwards it will load automatically and start playing :

Whether you create a new station or load an existing one, the music will begin loading and start playing within seconds. You will also receive a pop up window at the bottom of your browser telling you what song is coming :

The toolbar also gives you access to your “Top Artists” and “Similar Artists” so you can discover similar new music :

And to round off the Last.FM features, you can tag, like and dislike the track that’s playing.

This seems to be a well-made Firefox extension which doesn’t slow down Firefox. I have had it running for hours and so far Firefox hasn’t slowed down at all.  It is great if you are browsing / working online and you would like to have some music playing in the background.   An extension like this brings your music to you at the click of a button and of course every song you listen to and every change you make is more or less immediately reflected in your Last.FM account.

With Fire.FM, there is practically no reason to visit the Last.FM webpage, except perhaps to approve friend requests, visit groups or view events which you can’t do with the toolbar.   But if your only use of Last.FM is to listen to music, get the toolbar.

What do you think of Fire.FM?   An essential extension or a piece of bloatware?  Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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If you take stock of your own friends list you will surely find that at least half of them have come through the lost and found power of social networks. And if you take stock again, you will find that our online habitat is mostly a few of these social networking sites and of course, the omnipresent browser.

What I would do without the browser and those little byte sized Firefox add-ons which make it a whole lot richer. Using Firefox outfitted with the right “find friends” add-ons, I can home in any of the social networking sites and hobnob with fellow groupies.

So let’s head over to the Mozilla Add-ons gallery and see what’s in store for us who like to schmooze over bandwidths.

Firefox Super Search

It’s like a master list…a who’s who of search engines. The add-on installs as a toolbar. There are 160 of them with almost 70 that can be used from the toolbar itself. The layout is categorized into different types of searches. So after using it a few times one shouldn’t have a problem dropping down to the right search engine.

Though not specifically for ‘searching friends’, there are a lots of them which help you hunt for them over the net. There are basically two ways to search – blue icons mark the ones you can use directly from the toolbar; green icons are the directory lists for which the shortcut is given in the add-on.

The list of searches is long and varied – reverse lookups, social search, people search, public records search et al. apart from generic web searches.

BuddyFetch

Buddyfetch is an experimental “find friends” Firefox add-on that searches across many social networks IMs and dating sites. It gets added as an additional search engine in the search engine bar. You can search for buddies based on common interests, gender, age, language or location. Use the filters and single or combination keywords to find people after your own heart.

LinkedIn

This one is for the serious guy, not for the tween, the teen or the tweet. LinkedIn is the world’s most popular social network for the professional. If you are one among the 45 million members from a cross-section of 150 industries then you are sure to find a likeminded friend or contact here. The Firefox search add-on makes the job a tad easier by adding a search engine to the Firefox search bar. Not very impressive but its simple functionality lets you search from the bar.

You can also keep an eye open for the updated version of the LinkedIn Companion for Firefox which doesn’t seem to be working for Firefox 3.5x yet.

Facebook Toolbar

The Facebook toolbar brings the social networking site and your circle of friends to your browser. The toolbar lets you do your thing like search and connect with friends, receive notifications and share content. You can set your status via the toolbar and get the same of your friends. Upload photos and quick link to all areas of Facebook. If you spend most of your time poking and defacing your friends walls then this one is for you.

Friendbar

This add-on is less about finding a friend but more about keeping them. Though the add-on installs at a slightly hefty 1MB, it offers real time benefits for the Facebook and Twitter buffs. The interface almost resembles a media player with streaming real time updates (photo and text) of activities in the two social sites.

To complete the effect there’s a play-pause button too. You can post, tweet and reply from the toolbar. Instant TinyURLs makes sending interesting links easy as a tweet. The settings panel lets you configure the Twitter update frequency and other sundries like the look and the scrolling style.

FireStatus

This very unobtrusive experimental add-on lets you send status updates, notes and URL links synchronously to multiple social networks and services, like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Delicious and identi.ca. It also displays updates from them in notification pop-ups, for real-time communication with friends. It installs near the status bar and a right click on the icon opens up all its features.

PeekYou Status Bar

Yes, this one is almost the web equivalent from the peek-a-boo game we have all played as kids. This is a search engine enhancement as it shows the people behind the search results. That is the guy who is associated with the site.

According to the developers it works with most of the search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Live.com, Ask.com, and Clutsy.com. The add-on installs as a status bar and updates the info with each site that’s loaded on that page.  Clicking on the small profile pics next to the search results or the bar takes it to another detailed info page.

It looks like a work in progress as numerous well known blogging names were not displayed. You can also check out profile listings from the homepage of PeekYou where you can search by name, location and tag.

Identify

This add-on also does a similar ‘unmasking’ job as the last one. Identify though goes one step ahead and collates together available profile info on the man behind a website or blog from many different sources and lists the other social sites where he can be found. All it takes are two keystrokes once a page loads – On Windows it’s Alt – i. Of course, expect hits and misses so do double check the info always.

Kutano

If friendships are forged around common interests then a browser add-on like Kutano is a big help. Kutano basically connects the webpage you are browsing to the comments it’s generating in Twitter-space. This add-on won’t get your old friends but will certainly help make a few new ones. Kutano opens up on a sidebar and lists all tweets and discussions on related to that site/page…whether it’s good or bad. Kutano lets you respond and start discussions yourself. You can share the discussions in Facebook and MySpace with a click.

Yoono

I won’t say too much about Yoono as Wez has shown in detail how to Stay Socially Connected Online With Yoono . Suffice to say that this add-on acts like a central command center for social connectedness. Connect with your buddies on social networks and on IMs like Google Talk Yahoo, MSN or AIM. After log-in you can start searching for friends who are on Yoono by using an address book of Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or AOL, or simply by their Yoono username.

These ten Firefox add-ons are not only about searching for friends old and new using the power of social networking. They are also add-ons which make social networking more seamless by bringing together the different services under a common umbrella. They also underscore the one universal fact – it’s easier to make friends than it is to keep them. Let’s hope these add-ons add to the heart that beats for a friend.

Has your social connectedness hinged around any of these add-ons?

Image Credit: Striatic

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But in our quest for the right data, how many times have we come across a website which lacks a search engine of its own? There have been sites which I could have loved more but alas for a search box of its own. Then there are sites which do have a search box but you aren’t quite getting what you want. So it’s worth a second try with some deep digging of your own.

So for such crunch times, here are some workarounds to do an internal search on a specific website or blog.

1. Google Site Search Query

The ol’ favorite reminds us the value of memorizing advanced Google search operators. Google indexes most sites on the web and so the ‘site:’ search query helps to limit your search within a website. For instance, the query antivirus site:makeuseof.com will return results for the keyword antivirus but only from MakeUseof.com. (Their shouldn’t be a space between the colon and the domain name).



The site: operator can also be used to restrict searches within one top domain. For instance, keyword site:net or keyword site:edu. This works on Yahoo and Bing too.

According to a little poll we had some while back, it is the third most liked Google operator.

2. Search Engines and Advanced Search Options

Most search engines have this feature as an option but you just have to go into the advanced search page. Here’s where you get it in these two popular (one upcoming) search engines.

For Google




For Yahoo



For Bing




3. Use a Firefox Add-on

Search Site is an experimental Firefox add-on which makes site-specific searches very easy. The local search can be done either by selecting a word on a webpage and using the right-click context menu (Search site for selection).



Or by clicking the Search Site green icon on the search bar. You can use the search engine of your choice to do the site-specific search.



Also check out the use of Firefox smart keywords mentioned by Ann in her post on 8 Tips to Make Firefox Search Friendly.

4. Use a web service

Though the interface is plain, the Newtechusa.com search interface does the job intended using the Google search engine. Specify the domain URL in the first field and then use the second step to query the specific domain.



5. Create your own site searcher using Rollyo

Rollyo lets you roll on with your search by providing an easy non-geeky way to create a customized search engines for sites you want – rather than the whole worldwide web. Pick the sites you want to search, and Rollyo creates a custom search engine for it.

You can create a search engine for one specific site or a max of 25 sites. You can also browse, use, modify and share Searchrolls (the created search engines) created by the community of users on Rollyo. Any Rollyo Searchroll can be added to Firefox for one click access. For a quick single site setup, you can use the Rollyo Bookmarklet which not only lets you do a local search but also you can add sites to your Searchrolls on the fly.



Kaly’s post on creating your own search engines with Rollyo looks into in with more detail.

Sometimes we miss the trees because of the forest. A single site in itself instead of the whole wide web could be the source of all our information needs. So, it helps to dig deep into its coffers with specific searches.

What do you do if you come across a site which lacks a search box? Do you browse merrily away or you fall back on a utility like Google for advanced searching?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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1. NoScript

Many browser security issues stem from exploits of JavaScript code. NoScript prevents that code from executing, and then notifies you of what code is blocked. You may then add the page to your white-list with a few clicks. That way, you’re protected when browsing unfamiliar sites, but can still check your Gmail and surf Digg.

2. Ad-Block Plus (ABP)

According to Mozilla, this is the #2 favorite add-on (next to FlashGot), and it is for good reason. Ad-Block Plus improves on its predecessor, allowing you to subscribe to a list of advertising codes to block, just like one might subscribe to antivirus updates. Advertisers can potentially track user behavior across the Web, and it’s no surprise that many users don’t like that. Like NoScript, ABP can be disabled for specific sites and pages. ABP will block 99% of the ads out there. And as a bonus, pages should render much faster.

3. Web of Trust (WOT)

My new favorite! WOT adds an extra layer of protection to your browser, utilizing users ratings to show you, at a glance, which sites are OK and which ones should be left unclicked. WOT can enhance search results and links on AOL, Ask, Bing, Delicious, Digg, Dogpile, Google, Gmail, Mahalo, Wikipedia, Hotmail, Yahoo, DMOZ and Reddit, among others.

Above is the first screen you’ll see after installing WOT. WOT can be as intrusive as you wish, and also be used to block kids’ access to unsafe sites.

Above is an example of Firefox viewing a site which has been rated poorly by WOT users. You can still go to the site, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so.

NoScript, Ad-Block Plus, and Web of Trust take only moments to install, but will help keep their users safe from many of the Web’s seedier elements. We welcome any suggestions you may have of additions to this list are welcome, in the comments below.

For more posts on security and privacy online, do read:

10+ Best Firefox Security and Privacy Addons
7 Essential Security Downloads You MUST Have Installed
Detect Fake Antivirus software & Spyware Removal programs
Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I am talking about adding functionality to our favorite browser that well, should have been there from the get go. Well now, here is an awesome download called SmarterFox. It adds a bunch of new options to your already pretty awesome browser. First off, it allows you to search different search engines with text that you highlight via a pop-up bubble.

It adds functionality to Wikipedia by adding a related-articles box, among other things. One of my favorite features is its ability to change a plain text link into a working URL. The plug-in was created by Yongq.

To start, you would visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9825 and install the add-on to your FireFox browser.

After you have successfully installed it and restarted FireFox, you should try it out. We can start by highlighting a chunk of text and checking out the pop-up bubble as you can see below:

Each of those icons represents a search you can perform on the highlighted text. This is a godsend for research!

To try it out, I highlighted some text from the add-on’s page and hit the Google icon. It instantly returned the following Google Search page:

Not to shabby! Next up, we will take a look at its control panel that lives in your FireFox’s Tools menu. Simply click Tools and then SmarterFox to see your options.

Here are the options below. Linkify text URLs is what I was talking about earlier. It will look for www.xyz.com that is not underlined or hyperlinked and actually make it clickable. This is very handy, so you don’t ever have to copy and paste the link. The “add related articles to Wikipedia” feature will be shown a little further down and the enhancements to the AwesomeBar we did not try out because we do not use the AwesomeBar. But, according to the documentation, it will automagically add your search terms to the AwesomeBar as well as speed it up.

The copy and paste section hosts a lot of great features. By checking the “Auto copy selected” box, you can copy text automatically by selecting it and pasting it with another key. Wow, this is out of control.

The qLauncher can be activated by hitting Control and Space. It can be configured to open in a new tab. What the qLauncher does is give you a new search window with lots of choices for your search engine. You can see a shot of the qLauncher below its options.

The qLauncher

And the last option page lets us choose which search engines should show up on the bubble. You might also want to take notice of the “Display as a single row” button – this makes it easier to use with multiple options.

And as promised, here is the related-articles feature on Wikipedia. It is such a great idea – now why didn’t the Wikipedia people think of that?

Do you have a favorite FireFox add-on? Give it a shout out in the comments and maybe you can help another user find their golden add-on or plug-in!

Check out our posts on other popular Firefox addons:

How To Twitter Quickly from Firefox, IE, Opera and Chrome
Top 6 Firefox Add-ons For The Movie Freak
5 Tools to Harvest the Potential of Your Firefox Bookmarks
10+ Firefox Addons To Enhance Google Search

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Though Twitter is all pervasive, I have found that twittering becomes easier if it’s always in my face and married into the tools I use almost as a habit for my daily web hops. Mark’s comprehensive post on Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience became my first roadmap as I surrendered myself to the Twitter universe.

Mark put in mentions about how to Twitter from some of the popular instant messengers and even from the command line. To further my own user experience, I started looking for ways to say my 140 bytes worth in an uncomplicatedly fast way sans frills from the browsers I use often and almost live in. With the popularity of Twitter, it wasn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Twitter Addons for Firefox

CloudBerry TweetFox for Firefox brings micro-blogging to the browser. This Firefox addon for Twitter lets you tweet excerpts you like from websites with a click of the button and attach a short URL to the source page.

Download and install the Firefox experimental add-on. Restart your browser and add your Twitter username and password through the options dialogue of the add-on: Tools – Add-ons – CloudBerry TweetFox 1.0 – Options.

Select an excerpt from any interesting website and click on the Twitter icon on the toolbar. Tweet the selected text (or any message) from the TweetFox box. Optionally, you can also include the source URL courtesy of the URL shortening service from Chilp.It. Of course, make sure that the entire message is within the 140 character limit of Twitter.

The latter versions expectedly will see support for multiple Twitter accounts and also a feature to send replies.

TwitterBar is a similar add-on which uses the address bar to do the job. David has covered it in a previous post on 9 Ways To Use Twitter – No Website Necessary.

Twitter Addons for Internet Explorer

As above, CloudBerry’s Twitter addon for Internet Explorer does the same job. TweetIE installs as a toolbar in IE. If it is not visible, select View – Toolbars – CloudBerry Twitter plugin.  On first use, the plugin asks for your username and password.

Write your own text or select text from any website and click on the Twitter toolbar icon. Your 140 character limited message can now be dispatched with a click.

Twitter Addon for Opera

If it’s add-ons and plug-ins with the last two browsers, then it’s widgets with Opera. More exactly, the Twitter Opera Widget. The widget is light and installs in a jiffy. It can be accessed from the Widgets menu on the toolbar.

After logging in, this is how Twitter addons for Opera looks like –

The little menu on the top gives you access to all your tweets. Posts and updates are almost concurrent. On the minus side, unlike the Twitter tools for IE and Firefox, the Opera widget lacks a URL shortener. But as a simple lightweight Twitter tool, it scores.

Twitter Addons for Chrome

Chrome so far lacks Firefox’s add-on richness or Opera’s widget gallery. Though, Chrome extensions are on fast track development… till then, it’s a little bookmarklet that I must fall back on.

Twitlet (beta) is a Twitter javascript bookmarklet service that lets you post from the convenience of your browser.

Twitlet is fast and simple. All you have to do is insert your Twitter log-in details to get the bookmarklet. Drag it to your browser’s toolbar and start using it with messages or selected texts. #link or #this can be used to insert the current page’s shortened URL.

Big Tweet is a similar service but it gives better text control over Twitlet. Using the bookmarklet, you can post to Twitter or Friendfeed. With Big Tweet, you can post highlighted text from any webpage with a shortened URL. A significant plus is that it lets you easily insert special characters in your messages for that emotional appeal.

Big Tweet as a bookmarklet also runs with Firefox, IE and Safari.

If I knew that we would be so keen to follow each other’s lives in 140 characters or less, I would have jumped in sooner. Are you are already in the deep end or are you a new believer like me? Either way, you can take a walkthrough of our huge list of posts on things that are Twitter. And of course, don’t forget to comment or tweet on days spent with Twitter.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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It used to be that there were only a few video file formats and they were easily download by right-clicking and saving them. Now there is the Flash Video format (FLV), Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-4, QuickTime and many more.

Let’s take a look at the tool I would recommend, personally.

So, How To Download Streaming Video

DownloadHelper is the application I use. It plugs in to Firefox, so it’s always there in my toolbar, right when I need it. Any site I’ve been on, where there is video content, I’ve always been able to download it.

Download and Install DownloadHelper

Point your browser at the DownloadHelper site. Once you are there, look for the Add to Firefox button and click right there.

After clicking on the button, you’ll see the Software Installation screen. To continue, click on the Install Now button.

What happens next? Well, let me show you. Camera guy, are you getting this?

It downloads quickly. Then, it self-installs. All it wants you to do now is Restart Firefox. So let’s do that.

Once Firefox restarts, you’ll see the DownloadHelper button in your toolbar. Sure, it’s greyed out, but once we begin to use it, you’ll see how it works.

How To Use DownloadHelper to Download Videos

Let’s say, I go to DailyMotion and I want to download the Glutes are Made For Walking video – just to send it to my wife, because she doesn’t believe me that women do this sort of thing. Seriously though, check out the video. It’s funny, yet creepy – kind of like someone poking you in the belly button.

Once the video starts playing, you can see the DownloadHelper icon in colour, and spinning.

Now, if you just want the video so you can watch it later,  just click on it and click on the file name of the video. You may want to note that the file name isn’t always something easily recognizable. In this case, it’s a bunch of numbers.

DownloadHelper even gives me the ability to convert the video from FLV to, say, AVI or any other format. If this were a documentary, I might want to change it to AVI, so I could burn it to a DVD. To perform the conversion, you need to have some more software installed like FFMPEG, which you can learn more about over at FFMPEG.org. It appears to be the backbone to many video conversion software applications.

DownloadHelper also comes with other features, such as multiple video download, great documentation and a guide, of sorts, to sites featuring videos. It is freeware, but I would recommend donating a few bucks to the developer. It’s definitely good work. Keep the karma going. Just like the glute exercises….

Do you save your online videos? Will this little add-on come in handy? Are you aware of any faster/easier way to download streamig videos? Shout out in the comments!

For other methods of saving online videos, check out:

4 Quick Ways To Download YouTube Videos Off The Net
18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet
Download, Viewing and Converter Tools for Youtube & Google Video

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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If you are a movie addict and scavenger of cinema information, then you must give these Firefox add-ons a first look. These Firefox add-ons save us time and effort by bringing movie information within a hover or a click.

1. IMDb Movie Review

IMDb is the preferred destination for anyone who wishes to know more about a movie title. The IMDb rating often is an indicator of movie quality. Along with the cast info and plotline, it’s a precursor to the whole show. The add-on makes researching IMDb a short right-click affair. Highlight any text which mentions the movie title, right-click and select the IMDb Review button. The relevant IMDb page will open in a new tab or reuse an already opened IMDb tab.



The add-on is labeled as an experimental add-on compatible with Firefox 1.5 – 3.0+.


2. IMDb Preview

The add-on gives a quick preview with a mouse-over any IMDb link on any website. Hover your mouse over any IMDb movie link and a pop-up informs you about the cast and the plot along with a small poster on the side. Take it over any cast name and you get his picture with some profile info.





The add-on is compatible with Firefox 1.5 – 3.0+.

3. IMDB Ripper

This add-on lets you rip movie information from an IMDb page and export it to either a NFO (ASCII text) or a XML file. Access the add-on from Firefox’s Tools menu when browsing an IMDb movie page. Apart from movie tags, the add-on also rips thumbnails and posters thus enabling a user to easily catalogue a movie using the internet’s largest movie database.



The add-on is labeled as an experimental add-on and is compatible with Firefox 1.5 – 3.0+.

4. IMDb Pirated Version

On the first run after installation, a configuration window appears, asking the user to set choices regarding torrent search sites. The add-on ‘adds’ a small script on an IMDb page. The script appears like a toolbar on the movie info page. With its help, you can search directly from the IMDb page for subtitles (from Opensubtitles.com and All4divx.com), torrents and downloads from server sites (Rapidshare, Megaupload, DepositFiles, etc.) and the quality of the movie file available from VCDQuality.com. Also of help is the option to view a trailer right from the IMDb page.

After installation, this is how it looks like:



Click on the little black arrows to expand the results for the particular category.



The add-on is labeled as an experimental add-on and is compatible with Firefox 2.0 – 3.0+.

5. Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes finds mention with IMDb as the two websites that can be called the online Bibles for movies. This add-on installs itself as a search engine in Firefox’s search bar. The functionality is simple – use the search plugin to search for movie info on the Rotten Tomatoes site directly from the browser instead of going to the site and then using its search feature.



This too is an experimental add-on.

6. Hollywood

Another search engine add-on which lets you query the Hollywood.com site for movie listings and reviews.



This add-on works with all versions of Firefox.

Add-ons thus, are the shortcuts to the movie information we are looking for. By eliminating a search step or two, they increase our productivity and save us time. Time we can spend on watching our favorite flick with a bagful of popcorn.

A movie buff like you shouldn’t also miss out on our treasure trove of posts on all things movies.

Which one of these is a must-have on your browser? Or do you prefer the direct approach rather than to use the help of an add-on? Let us know about the movie buff in you, in the comments!

Thumbnail: I am Charley

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• What Movie Should I Watch Next? (29)
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MakeUseOf has published a lot of articles on Greasemonkey scripts. Among the more popular articles are 20 must-see Greasemonkey Addons, 6 Cool GreaseMonkey Scripts To Rock Your Friendfeed and Some Of The Best Greasemonkey Scripts For BitTorrent Users, be sure to check them out to see what you’re missing.

Now, let’s get a move on, shall we? Here are 5 Greasemonkey scripts that have made my browsing experience much easier. I hope they do the same for you.

TinyURL Decoder

If you use Twitter, like nearly every other MakeUseOf reader, then I am sure you will find a use for TinyURL Decoder. As is mildly obvious from the name, TinyURL Decoder automatically decodes shortened URLs from sites like TinyURL, is.gd, cli.gs, etc. This can be especially helpful in differing URLs that could possibly contain links to sites that are known to be scams, spammy, or just not worth your time. Definitely quite helpful.

Install Anyways

Nearly all of you reading this article are likely using a fair amount of Firefox add-ons (I should hope!), and have experienced the trouble that comes with being unable to install your favorite and absolutely necessary Firefox extension due to a new update, nightly build(s), etc. Well, here is your solution! Enter Install Anyways. Install Anyways a simple script that runs on the Mozilla Add-Ons page that will allow you to install any Firefox add-on, putting aside any – and all – compatibility issues.

Automate Reddit

Reddit has become an extremely fast growing media monster in the tech world, and rightfully so. It’s more, in my opinion, user-friendly interface and generally good selection of stories that aren’t covered by the media, have led Reddit to what it is today. Unfortunately, as all large websites eventually circum to, annoying junk often gets added to such sites frequently, and because there is only so much time in the day, Automate Reddit comes to the rescue.

Automate Reddit automatically searches the page when you load http://reddit.com for things it would consider nonsense, e.g. political articles, misplaced foreign language articles, repetitive topics, etc; and automatically reduces their votes. Not only is this helpful for personal viewing, but in my experience, Automate Reddit makes your Reddit reading experience that much more enjoyable by eliminating weird and irrelevant topics.

Digg Mirrors

Digg has also become an extremely valuable and widely used social bookmarking platform, allowing users the ability to decide what it is they want to see, instead of what the mainstream media says. One of the problems with this immensely popular resource is that, well, it is immensely popular. Any site that is Dugg enough times to get to the front page is nearly certain to have its web server go down (also known as the Digg effect).

Fortunately, Greasemonkey has us covered. Digg Mirrors is a very simple Greasemonkey script that adds small favicon-like links under each story on Digg to let you view a cached version of the site, even if the original site is down! This one is certainly a necessary install for any user of Digg.

Facebook Purity

Many people these days have Facebook accounts – around 200 million in fact – and seriously annoying quizzes with the day. Staying true to its title, Facebook Purity removes all of those annoying quizzes, application notifications, etc. and really does make Facebook pure again. I highly recommend trying it out.

What absolutely awesome Greasemonkey scripts do you use? Tell us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• View A Multi-Page Article On One Single Page With PageZipper (14)
• Top 6 Firefox Add-ons For The Movie Freak (13)
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• SmarterFox Makes You More Productive in FireFox (5)

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

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-tools-to-harvest-the-potential-of-your-firefox-bookmarks/feed/ 20 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-distractions-from-google-reader-with-helvetireader/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-distractions-from-google-reader-with-helvetireader/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:00:58 +0000 Jim Henderson http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=18377 We’ve supplied quite a few Google Reader (GReader) articles in the past, including Mark’s help with keyboard shortcuts, a set of general tips from Aibek, productivity hints again from Mark, and a set of eight features you might have missed altogether from Abhijeet. But this one is a little different.

What’s that all about?

Just so we’re all on the same page, GReader is a web-based RSS feed reader from Google. If you need to know what any of that means, click the links above. You want to be familiar with RSS and GReader before you try this.

Imagine taking the functionality of GReader, and then rebuilding the visual part of the site. Paring it down, and just leaving what is necessary. It actually takes some getting used to, but once you get there the result is very nice.

Helvetireader is essentially a stack of CSS, packaged in a number of different ways.


Getting your copy

The most likely way you’ll get hold of Helvetireader is by downloading the Greasemonkey script and installing it in Firefox, with Greasemonkey already installed.

You probably don’t need much help with that, but just in case, follow these easy steps:

Take a ride to the Helvetireader site in Firefox (for other browsers, see below), and click on the Install as a userscript option.

Wait for a moment then click the Install button.

Making it work

Refresh your GReader page, and take a look at the differences. That’s it.

Menus

Before



After



Individual feeds

Before



After



Using the result is easy too. Mostly, things are just the same, but you’ll find it’s better to make use of the keyboard shortcuts than the mouse.

Icons for options are sometimes a little less obvious, but the red highlighting in the menus is wonderful.

In the end, it’s more about visual design than functionality for me, but I like it. I’d just like to perhaps see a dark version as well. Photos are my thing, and they generally look better against something other than white.

Other options

If you’re a little more adventurous you can also make use of Helvetireader in other browsers such as Opera, Chrome, Safari and Omniweb. Details at the site again.

Outside my area of expertise, you can also make use of Fluid [Instructions] and Mozilla Prism [Instructions] to turn GReader into a desktop application.

For you low level types, you can also just grab the CSS. The beauty of that is the ability to customise things to get them just the way you want them.

So do you use Google Reader? Is it customised? Are you big on keyboard usage? What add-ons do you use? Let me know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-distractions-from-google-reader-with-helvetireader/feed/ 3 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-firefox-addons-to-enhance-google-search/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-firefox-addons-to-enhance-google-search/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 15:00:15 +0000 Varun Kashyap http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=17861 Let’s be honest, we all use Google’s search function many a times, daily. Whether you are researching on a topic, searching for software or finding solutions to your problems, Google is your man. Here are some Firefox addons that will enhance the Google Search results page to offer additional information or functionality.

CustomizeGoogle



A must have extension if you are looking to add some functionality to Google. It adds links to perform the same search on other search actions, provide Google’s “suggest” functionality and adds direct links to images from Google’s Image search. The addon is highly customizable and you can configure it by enabling and disabling features according to your liking. In addition to Google search, it also lets you customise other Google services.

Google Enhancer

Another great addon, Google Enhancer offers some pretty neat enhancements. The addon adds icons, numbers, highlighting and various search options to the Google Results page.

WebMynd



One of my favorite addons, Webmynd allows you to spread your search to different sources from the same Google query. The results are displayed as a sidebar on the right side of the Google Search Result page. You can add all your favorite services like Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, Yahoo, Delicious etc.

GooglePreview

The GooglePreview addon adds thumbnail previews and popularity ranks of the websites to Google’s search results so you can check them out before clicking on the individual results.

Google Results Walker





Allows for easier navigation of Google results with the help of mousewheel. You can also get a preview of the search result when you mouse over any result, and mark the results in color or remove them from the list.

Googlepedia

The addons displays a wikipedia article relevant to the Google search you just made. It is great for research on a topic as clicking a link sends another Google query in addition to opening the said Wikipedia page.

Search Cloudlet



Inserts tag clouds on Google, Yahoo and Twitter search result pages to help discover better search terms related to yours. Click on them to further narrow or specify your search.

GoogleTube

This addon adds a YouTube icon to the relevant Google search results. Clicking on the icon opens the YouTube video on the same page for your viewing pleasure.

Back To Google

The simple addon lets you go back to the last Google search that you performed in the current, active tab.

BetterSearch



The addon adds preview thumbnails, site info, “Wayback Machine” and “Open in new window” links to the Google search results.

Google Toolbar

The Google Toolbar lets you search your favorite sites from the toolbar, provide search suggestion and easier access to other Google services as well.

If you liked this article, be sure to check out DeeperWeb as well.

Did we miss any one of your favorites that you can’t live without? Why not mention them in the comments?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-firefox-addons-to-enhance-google-search/feed/ 16 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/deeperweb-gets-more-out-of-your-google-search/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/deeperweb-gets-more-out-of-your-google-search/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 13:00:59 +0000 Saikat Basu http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=17529 Here’s another search tool that piggybacks on the Google search engine. But it’s not just the spiffed up interface or a few tweaks here and there, DeeperWeb promises to offer more as an alternate search engine extension. DeeperWeb gives several new angles to the same Google search results.

A search query always gives us a heap of search results to sift through. DeeperWeb takes these search results, churns them out in the normal Google fashion and also sorts them out according to other associated sources like news, blogs, metrics, Wikipedia and answers. Thus, a user gets a better view of his search results. Now it’s a choice of which heap of results to dive deeper into.



Courtesy DeeperWeb.com

How does DeeperWeb help me get a deeper look at the web?

Let me try it out with a simple query – I type “recession” in the search box. It’s something I am worried about and here’s what I get:

The usual 9,370,000 results in 0.27 seconds. Just like a Google search results page. But I also get the two unique DeeperWeb features on a sidebar.

The Tag Cloud



The tag cloud (or DeeperCloud) provides the user with an understanding of the relative issues arranged around the main query. The other tags are basically keywords which I can click to fine tune my search results further.

I click on the ‘economic’ tag and Google works behind the scenes to return a results page for ‘economic recession’. The Tag Cloud and the sidebar resources contents change to reflect the new result.

I can also use a phrase like “personal finances” to enhance my search or search in a specific site. A mouse-over over a particular tag allows me to filter out that word from a search, much like the Google query minus (-) operator.



I can now go on clicking the related tags to go ‘deeper’ into the search results. Probably, I can get the same results using Google operators directly but tag searching not only takes the hassle out of it but also suggests associated keywords which we may not have thought of at the time.

Topic Mapping

DeeperWeb describes this feature as a way to reduce the usual clutter of search result page. DeeperWeb ‘maps’ the results into specific sidebar categories depending on the source and type of result. These categories resemble mini search engines.



Courtesy DeeperWeb.com

Search results are arranged into neat little boxes like – Blogs Search, Answers Search, Metrics Search, Business News Search, Resources Search and Wikipedia Search.

For my ‘recession’ query, I can go directly to blogs which discussing the topic or check out when the last U.S. recession took place via Answers Search. The Resources Search gives me many PDF documents on the subject. The Business News Search tells me that it might not be a good time to buy a car. The Metrics Search gives the pollsters feedback on a universal worry. And of course, Wikipedia Search throws in its rich storehouse of information.

Narrowing down the search results into categories and sources does wonders for personal productivity.

Great! How do I get DeeperWeb for myself?

Couldn’t be easier. DeeperWeb 1.1.0 is available in these flavors:

• Directly, as a web interface at DeeperWeb.com.
• As a Firefox Add-on from the Mozilla Add-ons page. Conduct a usual search and the DeeperWeb pane appears on the results page and disappears when you leave the page.
• And for IE as a search plug-in. The plug-in is available for Internet Explorer 7 and 8.
• Nope! It doesn’t work with Chrome, yet.

The DeeperWeb add-on is compatible with Windows (2000, XP, Vista), Mac OS X and Linux.

I took DeeperWeb for quite a few spins around the web. The web app is still in beta and so the promise for the days to come is still fresh. Although, it’s Google that’s doing the heavy lifting, DeeperWeb does give it more muscle.

Let us know whether DeeperWeb enhanced your search experience or boosted your efficiency. How does it stand up to the other Google-driven search engines? Speak your mind in the comment.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/deeperweb-gets-more-out-of-your-google-search/feed/ 4 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-firefox-add-ons-to-help-jumpstart-your-online-business/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-firefox-add-ons-to-help-jumpstart-your-online-business/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 17:30:05 +0000 Joel Reyes http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16906 For the most part, Firefox has become one of the most widely utilized applications to browse the web. Mainly this is due to the flexibility and endless possibilities that this browser offers. If Firefox is an open source application that allows the use of extensions in order to simplify our everyday lives, why not place it upon your browser to aid you in jump-starting your online business?

Below you will find 7 Firefox Add-on’s that will help you jump-start your online business guiding it into the right direction.

Domain Lookup

One of the first things you have to take into account when starting an online business is finding the right domain name. This can sometimes become quite a difficult task, this where Domain Lookup steps into place. With this add-on if you’re searching the web and find a phrase or two that might make a great domain name if properly thought out, then you can search for generic domains that match those key words. This extension also checks for the validity of the specific domains by cross-checking the information with many of the webs top domain registrars.

Take a quick look at the Domain Look-up informative tutorial on how to search for domains here.



Firebux

Firebux lets you automatically and securely download transactions from your banks and credit cards. You can also automatically categorize them, create budgets for each and every category and receive real-time alerts on your mobile phone for free. In order to use Firebux, you need to have an account on Buxfer. Key features include: Automatically download transactions, track your expenses, track who owes you money, send money through Amazon Payments and more.



LinkedIn Companion

The thing about starting an online business is, well, you need recognition. Depending on what your business is focused on (web design, service of goods, IT solutions and more) than you can resort to LinkedIn Companion. This add-on allows you to open doors and opportunities for networking and the facilitation of finding projects through LinkedIn’s connection to over 25 million experienced professionals.



Gmail Manager

An important and vital part of your online business revolves around how connected you are with your prospect clients and future customers. The most widely used choice of contact on the web is the use of email. Countless amounts of businesses utilize Gmail as their sole provider for contacting needs, especially since you can easily register a customized Gmail account with your specific domain name through your web host.

Gmail Manager allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts all at the same time in the same browser window. You’ll instantly receive updates on new messages and replies with the use of a handy drop-down menu embedded into your toolbar.



Find on Xing

Xing is a global networking site for professionals that houses over 7 million online professionals in over 200 countries. Xing is very much like LinkedIn, however with a more diversified goal in global outreach to businesses and individuals. The Firefox extension Find on Xing allows you to specifically highlight a professionals name and find a profile or review of them on the Xing database. This will allow you to network, create social stature, and expand the available opportunities you’re able to take part in with your online business.



MoneyQuake

Have you ever wanted to virtually keep track of  how much your exact earnings of advertisement services on your website are? Well with MoneyQuake you can pretty much do just that. This extension displays real time earning statistics from several of the most popular advertisement systems such as Google Adsense, Bidvertizer, SoftwareProfi, PeakClick and more. This will allow you to easily create and manage your websites budget on a daily basis.



Business.com

Business.com is one of the most sought out online resources that help you search for vital information to expand the presence of your online entrepreneurial ventures. This add-on will allow you to effortlessly search through this sites composite archive of hundreds of articles and thousands of resources that will help you establish your business, gain experience, and brainstorm with new found ideas.



Which one of these Firefox extensions were you able to find helpful? Please MakeUseOf the comment box below and share with us your valuable thoughts and insight.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-firefox-add-ons-to-help-jumpstart-your-online-business/feed/ 7 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/long-url-please-prevents-you-from-getting-rick-rolled-firefox/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/long-url-please-prevents-you-from-getting-rick-rolled-firefox/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 13:00:40 +0000 Karl L. Gechlik http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16605 There are times shortened URLs come in handy. Like when posting super long urls on Twitter or via a text message. And there are times when a shortened URL on a website is covering up an affiliate link or a friend playing a practical joke. You can click on a tinyUrl that says one thing and when you actually arrive at the site you realize you have been tricked!

Any user can make a short URL that says anything and points to here. And to prove my point check out this link here.

Vaccination information for the swine flu. – http://reallytinyurl.com/1300

Did you click it? Did you enjoy Rick Astley video?

Well if you had this Firefox extension you would have seen that the link was pointing to this site instead of the non existent make believe site we were referencing. Instead of seeing the above link you would have seen:

Vaccination information for the swine flu. – http://www.yougotrickrolled.com

Simply go here and grab the extension. The Long URL Please homepage is also located here. It will work on any Firefox. Windows Mac or Linux – no one will be getting rick rolled anymore. Sorry rick your internets 15 minutes of fame is up! There are LOTS and LOTS of different URL shortening tools and Long URL Please will work with most of them. The ones it will work with are:

bit.ly, cli.gs, digg.com, is.gd, kl.am, tinyurl.com, 307.to, adjix.com, b23.ru, bacn.me, bloat.me, budurl.com, clipurl.us, cort.as, dwarfurl.com, ff.im, fff.to, href.in, idek.net, korta.nu, lin.cr, ln-s.net, loopt.us, memurl.com, merky.de, moourl.com, nanourl.se, ow.ly, peaurl.com, ping.fm, piurl.com, plurl.me, pnt.me, poprl.com, rde.me, reallytinyurl.com, redir.ec, rubyurl.com, short.ie, short.to, smallr.com, sn.vc, snipr.com, snipurl.com, snurl.com, tiny.cc, togoto.us, tr.im, tra.kz, twurl.cc, twurl.nl, u.mavrev.com, ur1.ca, url.az, url.ie, urlx.ie, w34.us, xrl.us, yep.it, zi.ma, zurl.ws, chilp.it, notlong.com, qlnk.net.

After installing the extension your shortened URL links within Firefox will be longened (not a word but it sounds pretty cool). They won’t get so big that they break the page but you also might not be able to see the whole link – in that case just hover over it.



If you don’t use The Fox you can always create a BookMarkLet for your Internet Explorer using this code:

javascript:void(function(){if(typeof%20jQuery%20==%20′undefined’){var%20s=document.createElement(’script’);s.src=’[ajax.googleapis.com]‘;document.getElementsByTagName(’head’)[0].appendChild(s);}var%20l=document.createElement(’script’);l.src=’[www.longurlplease.com]‘;document.getElementsByTagName(’head’)[0].appendChild(l);function%20runIfReady(){try{if($.longurlplease){%20$.longurlplease();%20clearInterval(interval);}}catch(e){alert(’sadsda’)}};%20var%20interval%20=%20window.setInterval(runIfReady,100);}())

You have some options on how the extension works. You can set and .

How do you deal with shortened URLs? Do you just click them or discard them? Do you have another method of deciphering them? Put us on in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/long-url-please-prevents-you-from-getting-rick-rolled-firefox/feed/ 1 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-extensions-to-fire-up-your-firefox-right-click-menu/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-extensions-to-fire-up-your-firefox-right-click-menu/#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 16:30:44 +0000 Tina http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16055 What would Firefox be without extensions? Basically just another browser (well, still better than Internet Explorer of course) because addons breathe life into the raw browser skeleton.

Extensions are a key ingredient to a successful browser because they provide extra functionality and in most cases, they simply make life easier for the user.

Here is a selection of addons that enhance the right-click menu, for the lazy mouse user in you.

gTranslate

gTranslate is a handy translator hidden in the right-click menu. Select the word or text to translate, right-click it and click on Translate “…” in the right-click menu.



The extension applies Google translate and supports over 20 different languages, which are automatically identified. You may have to change the language it translates to, though.

Right-Click-Link

Isn’t it annoying when links appear as dead text? It often happens in forums and comments, when the links is posted as example.com without the www, let go http prefixes to identify it as URL. This addon provides a workaround. Simply select the text, right-click and click open “example.com” in the right-click menu.



Can come in handy even in MakeUseOf comments.

Context Search

Firefox does come with a pretty cool search feature per default. It contains a respectable list of search engines and can be modified to your desires. But we’re all lazy and with this extension you don’t have to copy&paste or even hand type words into the search field anymore.



All you do is select the word in a text, right-click and then move the mouse over search for “…” and the list of available search engines will pop open.

FireShot

FireShot is an extension for creating screenshots. Via the right-click menu you can choose to capture the visible area or the entire website you’re viewing and subsequently edit the image, save, print, eMail, copy to clipboard or upload it to a free hosting solution with EasyCaptures (account required).



The extension is also available for Internet Explorer.

Open Image In New Tab

Here we have a very simple extension that doesn’t really do much. But it may be quite useful if – for whatever reason – you cannot use middle-click to open links or images in a new tab.



So quite obviously it adds an option to the right-click menu with which you can open images in a new tab.

Next Tab

If you tend to open a ton of tabs while browsing the net, you may find it a bit of a hassle to open a new link at the very end of the tabs list.

With Next Tab you’ll have the option to open a new link in the tab right next to the originating tab. Simple and straightforward.

MouseZoom

This extension liberates the hand that used to push the [Ctrl] key in order to zoom into or out of websites. Now it’s all in one hand. Hold the right mouse button and move the wheel to zoom. A left-click while pressing the right mouse button will revert the zoom level back to default.



Hide/show of all toolbars by clicking the wheel (middle mouse button), while holding down the right mouse button didn’t work for me. Is it working for you?

What is your favorite right-click menu option in Firefox?

Photo credits: hagit

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-extensions-to-fire-up-your-firefox-right-click-menu/feed/ 17 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/are-you-a-reckless-web-user-use-avg-linkscanner-for-some-protection/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/are-you-a-reckless-web-user-use-avg-linkscanner-for-some-protection/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:30:33 +0000 Karl L. Gechlik http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16274 I am a reckless web surfer and I admit it. But seeming most of my browsing is done via a virtual machine or my mobile device I am protected. But what about the millions of other users that are using their Firefox to browse sites blindly. We use our favorite web browser to search for whatever we are looking for and then click the links to see what we find.

Now we don’t have to blindly click those links anymore. Using AVG’s Linkscanner browser plug-in. I installed it and tested it on Internet Explorer which worked flawlessly and on Firefox where it would not work with Google. Maybe it was something I did (or didn’t do) but I would love to hear about your experiences with it.

(Note: If you’re using AVG 2008 Antivirus software then you already have this installed, you just need to enabled it from AVG settings panel.)

I started by downloading the 14.4 mb installer from here



I ran through the normal setup steps. You know hitting next, next and then finish…





I choose the standard installation.





And I allowed it to install the toolbar (which turns out to not be necessary to get this to work.)



After you install it the plug-in will be added to each of your browsers automatically.

I only tried IE 7 and Firefox 3. In Firefox I was able to get Yahoo to show me AVG’s ratings on websites. Below is a search for the term Warez. You can see the Red X next to potentially dangerous websites and websites that are proven clean have a green check mark next to them.



I fired up Google in Internet Explorer 7 and searched for HACKz and as you can see by the green check marks next to each of the search results… They are clean! So you don’t have to be worried browsing on over to um research hackz and all



Some of the statistics provided by AVG’s website will blow your mind:

• On any given day, some two million web pages are poisoned by hidden threats.
• 60 percent of malicious web sites appear for less than one day.
• Real-time scanning is critical as relying on a database of known URLs isn’t sufficient protection.
• 95% of online threats are web-based and cannot be stopped with anti-virus software alone.
• AVG sees 100,000-150,000 threats a day.
• Online criminals set up their own websites or poison legitimate ones (even just single web pages).
• 60% of all pages hosting web threats are poisoned for less than a day, making the threats difficult to catch unless they are viewed on the actual page in real-time. This makes AVG LinkScanner essential protection.
• One in eight web users will unknowingly come across a poisoned page at least once a month.

So how are you protected from web threats? Share your experiences and favorite software in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/are-you-a-reckless-web-user-use-avg-linkscanner-for-some-protection/feed/ 12 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-new-tab-king-firefox-for-windows/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-new-tab-king-firefox-for-windows/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:10:42 +0000 Karl L. Gechlik http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16095 Have you heard about the New Tab King? You haven’t?

Well then what do you see when you hit Control + T in Firefox?

When you open a new tab do you see a blank window or is there some useful data you can use?

Did you even know you could have some cool and useful things there when you opened a new tab?

Most people running Firefox out of the box see something like this:



That is way better than what I get when I open Internet Explorer’s new tab by default:



Now how about we replace our Firefox new tab screen with something totally awesome? How does this strike you?



So not only do you get a list of the most used websites, you also have shortcuts to popular windows folders and applications! You can open My Documents or Outlook with a single click. There is a button for recently closed tabs as well as the fabled Boss mode key.

Let’s install it and have a look at it. You can find the download here www.thenewtabking.com or via their Firefox plug-in page here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10828. Download the plug-in and you will see this:



Simply hit Install Now, let it install and then restart your browser. When you Firefox restarts you won’t notice anything new until you actually open a blank tab. Then you will see the screen we showed you above. Let’s take a look at it’s features. By clicking on the different headings under Most Used Websites you can see what sites you have visited most often in the morning, afternoon, evening or night. Strangely all my browsing is almost identical regardless of time of day – but hey that’s just me!



You can click the boss button:



And your most used websites will become that of an older stock broker… Check it out for yourself below.

It still might not be appropriate for your environment but hey it’s better than porn right!

(Disclaimer: Don’t browse porn during work! You will still get caught!)



A very simple but functional plug-in. You can also change the default girl in the background to something else by hitting the Customize Background button up in the upper right hand corner of the window. It has these images by default:



But you can always just go ahead and browse on over to your own images. What do you use for your new tabs in Firefox? We would love to hear so share your new tab magic with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-new-tab-king-firefox-for-windows/feed/ 17