One Tip A Day » Browser

Simplify Your Online Social Life With Yoono

Umar — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:12:48 +0000

I decided to learn facts and figures about all the major social media networks and how can they help me build links for my website to drive a decent amount of traffic on them. Submitting and promoting each link individually kind of became a pain because I would need to open a separate tab for each one of them to keep an eye on it which was very time consuming.

Recently, I have stumbled upon an easy to use sidebar for FireFox extension that simplifies your online social life by connecting you to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, AIM and more all in one place.

Yoono is a power tool for social media promoters as it provide you the easiest way to share stuff with all your social networks, share links, images and video from the page you’re viewing across all your networks simultaneously.

It features a “Directory Widget” that lets you discover great new websites, products, and video. You can also share these stories later with your friends with a click of a button via IM or Social Media Networks.

Key features of Yoono includes

Easily share links, images, and video from the page you are viewing with all your social networks at the same time.
Share in your IM conversations by dragging and dropping links, images and video from the page you are viewing
It’s a single, dead simple way to share anything from anywhere you are on the web.

Download Yoono and get all your friend updates, update your status and share stuff easily across Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and more all at once. Simplify your online social life.

Install Yoono

Skyfire – Fastest Browser For Windows Mobile & Symbian

Tony Williams — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:57:33 +0000

A new Windows Mobile application has been creating a buzz in my office this week. Skyfire is a new mobile browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, that is unbelievably quick. It’s so fast it knocks the socks off the iPhone and G1.

Don’t believe me? Then just watch this video which I can assure you fairly represents Skyfire’s speed:

Other than its speed, what also makes Skyfire stand out is that it can handle rich media content. This means that it can display rich media content like Flash 10, Quicktime, Silverlight and audio and video players. So, you can watch Hulu, Youtube, BBC iPlayer and other videos directly in your phone browser.

More: Skyfire

Load Firefox Faster With A Preloader

Tony Williams — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:33:34 +0000

Firefox is the king of browsers, allowing almost unlimited customisation through the numerous addons. But, Firefox can take an eternity to start.

One good way to speedup Firefox launch times is to install Firefox Preloader. Once installed, this program will run as soon as your PC is turned on and it will make sure that Firefox is ready to go whenever you need it.

More: Firefox Preloader

How To Download Images When Right Click Is Disabled

Tony Williams — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:41:28 +0000

I hate when websites disable the right-click mouse menu. Usually this is because I just want to go ‘back’, but sometimes it’s because I want to copy some of the images on the page.

Digital Inspiration have shared an easy way to copy images when a website has disabled the right-click menu:

Just point your mouse pointer over the image you want
Press and hold the left button and drag them image either to the address field in the browser or to a blank space on your desktop

Simple! I love it when tips are as simple as this.

KeyXL – Every Keyboard Shortcut You Could Ever Need

Tony Williams — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:00:34 +0000

Keyboard shortcuts can be very useful, particularly if you’re a laptop use and don’t have a mouse. If you use an application regularly then learning useful keyboard shortcuts will not only allow you to work much faster, then can even unlock additional functionality.

The problem is some program instructions don’t lay out their shortcuts in a nice readable and easily memorized format. This is where KeyXL comes in, with its huge database of keyboard shortcuts for hundreds of applications.

Keyxl.com is the largest online database of keyboard shortcuts in the world. It’s keyboard shortcut database is searchable by software program and covers all the major operating environments including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and browser-based applications. The shortcuts are also grouped by application type e.g. web browsers, email programs, photo/imaging etc

Definitely a site worth bookmarking.

More: KeyXL

Useful Firefox Extensions For Website Owners

Tony Williams — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:12:17 +0000

I know that I keep going on about Firefox, but it is truly the king of internet browsers. To prove my point, here’s a list of 10 Firefox Extensions For Website Owners.

Although you may say ‘oh no, not another list of Firefox extensions’, in my view because there are so many lists like this are the only way to stay on top of all the amazing Firefox Extensions out there.

Take for instance LinkChecker:

If you run a dynamic site, or built a site from scratch, its very possible you have some dead links after moving things around. This simple extension lets you know if your links on a page are good or bad without having to click around. There are some other better tools out there for checking your entire site for dead links (search for xenu link sleuth), but this allows you to see them at quick glance.

I’ve just installed this extension, and I was stunned to see how many dead links there were on this site. Vital information if you want to hold onto as many potential readers as possible.

Send Large Files With Sendago

Tony Williams — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:17:22 +0000

One area that I think many webmail services need to revisit are the limits on sending large files. Many have caps of 10-20MB, which is nothing these days and can make sending large files problematic.

A potential solution if you need to send a large file is to use Sendago. This application allows you send files that are too big to send as an email attachment. The service also comes with 10GB of online storage, so you don’t have to keep uploading files if you want to share them with more than one contact.

Accessing files is easy and can be done via a browser i.e. without having to install the Sendago software.

BitLet: Web-Based Torrent Downloader

Tony Williams — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:59:30 +0000

Using BitTorrent clients can be daunting for novice users. If you’re not comfortable using BitTorrent clients, or maybe your on a PC where you can’t or don’t want to install a client then you should give BitLet a whirl.

BitLet is a web-based torrent downloader that works in a browser. To use BitLet all you have to do is copy and paste into the BitLet window the torrent address and click ‘Download torrent’.

Another good or bad feature depending on how you look at it, is that BitLet only downloads and doesn’t upload i.e. share files. This can be handy if you have a sucky connection like me that slows to a crawl if the upstream channel is used.

Source: Tech-Buzz

How To Display Firefox Referral Ads Only To Non-Firefox Users

Tony Williams — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 23:02:27 +0000

I’ve been running this site for around 9 months now, and although I didn’t start running it to make money it is actually generating enough money now to pay for a few nights out a month. I decided today to see if I could find ways to improve the revenue generation, without ruining the user experience.

I noted that around 60% of my readers are still using Internet Explorer and not Firefox, so I decided to look for a way to promote Google Adsesne Firefox Referrals to non-Firefox readers only, so that they can benefit from the best browser out there, whilst I make up to $1 per user that I convert and educate.

Eventually I found a very simple way to do this. To only show a Firefox referral ad to non-Firefox users just add this code to your site where you want you Firefox referral ad to be displayed:

Once you’ve done this, your Firefox referral ad will be displayed to ALL users visiting your site who are not using Firefox.

Remove Clutter From Firefox Menus With Menu Editor

Tony Williams — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:11:27 +0000

Sometimes one just isn’t enough. Plugins that is. Adding plugins to Firefox can be addictive, and once you start sometimes you can’t stop. After a while Firefox installations can end up getting very bloated and hard to use.

Luckily you can regain some control of your browser by installing the Menu Editor Firefox plugin. What this plugin does is allow you to remove useless or infrequently used items from the right click menu. This can be quite handy as a number of plugins have a nasty habit of adding commands to the contextual menu, which can mean that the right-click menu can get quite massive.

The Menu Editor plugin also allows items in the main Firefox menu to be removed or rearranged. If like me you like to go for the minimalistic look on your PC, then the Menu Editor plugin is for you.

6 Amazing Free Online Games

Tony Williams — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 10:22:44 +0000

If the weather outside isn’t as gorgeous as it is here, then check out this list of 6 Free Online Games.

Whether you’ve only got 5 minutes or an hour to play then these games will keep you hooked. They can all be played through your browser and don’t need any plugins etc to be installed.

My favourite is SinkMyShip as it allows you to play against other players. The game is similar to battlship and it brought back lots of happy memories.

Synchronize Your Firefox Bookmarks Between PCs

Tony Williams — Wed, 23 May 2007 23:26:49 +0000

My favourite Firefox extension is the Google Browser Sync extension and it’s the first Firefox addon I always install when I’m setting up a PC.

Not only does Google Browser Sync keep your vital bookmarks synchronized between PCs, it also sychronizes your history, cookies and passwords. It even syncronizes the pages you were looking at, so you can pick up where you left off on another machine.

If you haven’t switched to Firefox then it’s another reason to do it, as Firefox is the king of Internet browsers. What are you waiting for?

More: Google Browser Sync

Windows Media Player Plugin For Firefox

Tony Williams — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 10:28:03 +0000

The popularity of the internet browser Firefox continues to grow by the day, but it still has a few annoying quirks. One of these is that it can be difficult to watch Windows Media Player videos within Firefox.

Luckily, thanks to Port 25, who are the team at Microsoft who look after interoperability, there’s a new Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox. Once installed this plugin will improve support for embedded Windows Media Player videos.

I haven’t installed it myself as there are issues (as always!) with Vista, which I now have running on all my machines. But, it is good to go for all other operating systems.

More: Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin

Top 10 Firefox Extensions To Avoid

Tony Williams — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 19:45:57 +0000

Firefox is a great browser which allows almost anyone with minimal coding experience to create plugins and addons to make Firefox even better.

However, sometimes letting someone with basic coding skills near your browser isn’t a good thing, and adding certain firefox addons can actually make the greatest browser worse.

Luckily Computer World have named and shamed some of the worst extensions, creating a list of Top 10 Firefox Extensions To Avoid. You may be surprised to learn that the list includes Fasterfox and NoScript, two of the most used extensions.

I’d definitely recommend checking the list to see if any addons you are currently using are listed.

AGLOCO – Don’t Miss Out On Getting Paid To Surf

Tony Williams — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:19:12 +0000

You’ve probably had one or two emails from close friends and from not so close friends trying to get you to join AGLOCO by now. If you haven’t, then AGLOCO is a new service that will be finally launching this week that allows advertisers to reach you directly while you surf and search the internet, by adding a small toolbar called the Viewbar at the bottom of your browser.

The incentive for users to join is that they not only get paid for their own surfing and searching, but also for any of their friends that they refer. The method by which users actually get cash in their hands seems quite convoluted to me, but given that not a lot has to be done for this to happen I’m prepared to at least give it a go.

To join AGLOCO click here.

Useful Internet Explorer 7 Addons

Tony Williams — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:46:22 +0000

Although Internet Explorer 7 doesn’t have as many plugins or addons as Firefox, there are addons for IE7 that will cover off most of the features that users will need covering. Over the last couple of months I’ve been using IE7 as my main browser, because it’s the only one I’m allowed to use at work.

Martin from gHacks has put together a great list of some of the free plugins, which are all available in the Windows Marketplace. He’s even located the Firefox equivalent if you want to compare the plugins side by side. My favorites from the list are IeSpell, Inline Search and Video Downloader.

To check out the full list click here.

Speed Up Your Site: Use Height And Width Tags

Tony Williams — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:28:20 +0000

It’s amazing what a difference a few small changes can make. Daniel from Daily Blog Tips (No, not a sister site!) has explained how when images or tables on your webpages don’t use height and width tags then browsers have to figure out the size of the image, then load the image and then load the rest of the page. All of this extra work can make your pages load slower.

By adding the height and width tags the browser will automatically know the size of the image, which will not only speedup apages but will also allow readers to start reading whilst the image is loading.

How To Reduce Firefox Memory Usage

Tony Williams — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:50:29 +0000

Although Firefox is a great internet browser, it does have its flaws. One major flaw is its use of memory and the way it can increase over a browsing session as a result of memory leaks. Firefox 2 did a good job of fixing the majority of these leaks but many still exist, which can result in your PC virtually grinding to a halt.

Rogue extensions and themes are often the cause of the problem and you should always think twice before installing yet another ‘most have’ extension. But, if you are determined to have your cake and eat it, then some of the steps listed below from gHacks may help you track down memory problems.

Start Firefox in Safe-Mode
- Safe-Mode disables all extensions and themes and loads Firefox with the default template. If this method uses less memory a theme or extension is most likely responsible for the high memory consumption.
- To run Firefox in safe-mode simply add the following parameter during startup “-safe-mode”

Problematic Extensions
- Some extensions cause unwanted side effects. The Mozilla team is collecting information about those extensions which can be looked up here. You can try the suggested workarounds to fix the problem or uninstall the extension completely.

All the following tweaks can be achieved by typing in about:config in the Firefox address bar and entering (part of) the parameter in bold into the filter field.

Browser.cache.memory.capacity
- Controls the maximum amount of memory to use for caching decoded images and chrome (application user interface elements).
- This determines if and how much system ram Firefox will use to cache itself. The element does not exist and has to be created. The default value is set to automatic which means that Firefox uses a certain amount of RAM by default. (values for Firefox 2.x)
  - 32 MB of RAM -> 2 MB
  - 64 MB of RAM -> 4 MB
  - 128 MB of RAM -> 6 MB
  - 256 MB of RAM -> 10 MB
  - 512 MB of RAM -> 14 MB
  - 1024 MB of RAM -> 18 MB
  - 2048 MB of RAM -> 24 MB
  - 4096+ MB of RAM > 32+MB
- You can tell Firefox to use another value by creating the element in about:config and assigning a different value (in KB) to it. It is also possible to turn this feature of by assigning the value 0 to it. This can greatly decrease the performance of Firefox and is not advised at all.
- To reduce memory consumption reduce the amount of RAM that is assigned to Firefox.

Browser.sessionhistory.max_entries
- Firefox 2.x saves the last 50 visited websites of a single session in memory which means that it could add up quickly if you visit lots of content filled websites.
- Reduce the amount of websites that are stored this way to reduce the memory consumption. It does not make a huge difference for most surfing habits to reduce the figure to 5 or 10.

Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
- Automatically determine the maximum amount of pages to store in memory based on the total amount of RAM.
- If you have 64 MB or Ram 1 page is stored in memory, 2 for 128 MB, 3 for 256 MB, 5 for 512 and 8 for everything higher than that figure.
- If you never navigate using the Back and Forward buttons in Firefox you can set this value to 0 to disable the feature.
- Otherwise reduce the amount of pages stored in memory to make this feature use less memory.

Config.trim_on_minimize
- This preference determines whether to allow Windows to reclaim memory from a minimized Mozilla application.
- Set to True if you want to free up memory when minimizing Firefox.
- The value does not exist by default, simply create it and set it to true for better memory management.

Join AGLOCO And Get Paid To Use The Internet!

Tony Williams — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 11:18:48 +0000

AGLOCO is a new service that will be launching next month that will allow internet users to get paid directly by advertisers while they surf and search the internet, by adding a small toolbar, the ‘Viewbar’, at the bottom of their browsers.

I think this is a brilliant idea as why should site owners get paid for my usage, and not me?

The incentive for users to join is that they not only get paid for their own surfing and searching, but also for any of their friends that they refer. They also get paid a percentage of what their friends make, so if you manage to signup 10 mates and they also signup 10 each, then you will get paid a share of what 100 people make.

The toolbar will be launched next month, but you can get a headstart now by inviting friends to join your network to make it as big as possible. I’ve signed up as the toolbar is tiny and I won’t even see it. Even if I only use the toolbar to search, I should still be getting a nice payment every month or so.

To join AGLOCO click here.

Install FaviconizeTab And Freeup Firefox Space

Tony Williams — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 00:17:04 +0000

I’m obsessed with keeping my desktop and my browser nice and tidy so I love plugins like FaviconizeTab, which reduces the width of specified Firefox tabs to only its favicon to save space in the tab bar.

For sites where you only need to see the favicon to know what it is, then set those tabs to just their icon to make room for other tabs’ titles that you actually need to read.

Once the extension is installed, just right-click to ‘Faviconize it’. Simple.

Download FaviconizeTab here. Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip.

Top 10 Greasemonkey Scripts For Google Products – Gmail, Search, Reader And More

Tony Williams — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:35:21 +0000

For those of who don’t know what Greasemonkey is, it’s a Firefox extension that lets you change the look and feel of many popular pages. In much the same way that user CSS lets you take control of a web page’s style, user scripts let you easily control any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction.

There are many scripts available that are available that are really easy to install. I thought I’d make a list of my favourite Google e.g. Google Reader, Gmail, Search etc.

Of course, all of these scripts require Greasemonkey to be installed. If you haven’t done so yet, then here’s how:

install Firefox (I had to say it just in case…..)
install greasemonkey

Now for the scripts. To install just follow the links below and install each script in two clicks, just like firefox addons:

Remove Google Ads: Removes Google/Adsense ads from all pages
Google Reader Optimized: Uses the maximum amount of space for the feed viewing area, at the expense of all unnecessary UI elements
Del.icio.us Meets Google: Replaces Yahoo Ads on Del.icio.us with Google Results

Download Google Videos: Lets you download Google Videos
Force Reader: Add feeds to Google Reader automatically without having to view a bridge page
Gmail CSS Skin: Make Gmail look even sexier. So cool
GmailTo: Opens Gmail compose window whenever you click on an email address in a webpage
Try This Search On: Google may be the best search engine, but it’s not perfect. This script tries to detect when you are searching any website and then provides links to do a similar search on: Amazon.com, Ask.com, dmoz, Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Wikipedia and many other sites
Gmail random signature: Make your emails cooler with a random signature
Google Translate: Translate any page into the selected language

Control Your Firefox Tabs – Download Tab Mix Plus Extension

Tony Williams — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:01:03 +0000

If you haven’t discovered Firefox, I would definitely give it a whirl. Microsoft are good at making software that cater for the masses, but aren’t great at building software that allow users to personalize their experience. This is where Firefox excels, and users can tweak their browsers to their hearts content through Extensions.

One of my favourite plugins for Firefox 1.5 was Tab Mix Plus. A lot of the functionality that Tab Mix Plus provided is now built into Firefox 2.0, but the tab duplication, focus control and undo options included in Tab Mix Plus are still not built into the browser.

For the ultimate tab control download Tab Mix Plus here.

Privacy And Security Add-Ons For Firefox 2.0

Tony Williams — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:24:01 +0000

You can never be too safe…. Although Firefox is a great browser, there are lots of things you can do to make yourself more secure. gHacks have pulled together a great list of add-ons for Firefox that will turn your browser into the equivalent of Fort Knox.

Here’s the full list.

Browse At Work – Adds an option to use a webproxy for specific requests.
Dr. Web Anti-Virus Link checker – Sends a link to a file to the anti-virus checker which scans the content and warns you if malicious content was found.
FlashBlock – Block nasty flash ads with this add-on. More and more websites use flash advertisement which is not blocked by most ad blockers.
Fox Tor – Adds a button to Firefox which enables the Tor anonymity service.
Foxy Proxy – adds lots of functionalitity to the proxy settings like the ability to use multiple proxies.
Http only – Makes it impossible to read cookies using javascript by encrypting them.
Key Scrambler – Encrypts the keystrokes on the way to your browser, defeats keyloggers.
No Script – Block Java and Javascript and enable it only for trusted websites using a whitelist.
Safe Cache – Defends against web privacy attacks.
Safe History – Defends against web privacy attacks.
Show IP – Displays information about the website that you are currently connected to. Makes it possible to lookup the owner of a website for example.
Stealther – Makes it possible to temporarily disable certain privacy related settings like cookies, disk cache and browsing history in firefox. Firefox offers a similar option in the privacy options menu which lets you clear those settings with the click of a button (or when you exit firefox). The second method deletes everything, the first makes it possible to keep the settings (cookies for example) for trusted websites and enable stealther only when you browse other sites.
Temporary Inbox – Use this service to create a temporary email address which can be used to register at certain websites that require a registration. This is great if you want to avoid that your real email addresses are sold and you get flodded with spam. (Trashmail.net is an alternative.)
View Cookies CS – A basic cookies manager, edit cookies, protect, unprotect, import and export.

Check out the comments at gHacks as more add-ons are sure to be added.

More: gHacks

Tiny Menu Firefox Extension – Make More Space For Browsing

Tony Williams — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 23:01:20 +0000

I love clearing up clutter on my PC and the Tiny Menu Firefox Extension helps in a big way by removing one of my Firefox tool bars to make more room for browsing. This cool extension compresses all the Firefox’s menu items into one pulldown, rather than taking up a whole toolbar.

To install the extension do the following:

Install the extension
Right click and customize the toolbar
Drag the buttons UP into the menu bar
Right click, remove “navigation” toolbar if it is now empty

How To Make Old Firefox Extensions Compatible

Tony Williams — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 08:31:35 +0000

Firefox 2.0 is a great browser, but unfortunately some of the older extensions aren’t compatible. However, it is possible to manually make the majority of old extensions compatible.

To make an extension compatible, do the following:

1. Download (file save as) the xpi installation file

2. Open the file with ZIP or other compressor program

3. Extract the “install.rdf” file

4. Edit the “install.rdf” file by changing a text line near the bottom to use FF 2.0 as the maxversion. The line should be “2.0″ when done

5. Save the file

6. Replace the original “install.rdf” file with the revised file

7. Open Firefox

8. Go to the menu -> File – Open File

9. Select the xpi file

10. Finish in the normal manner for extension installs

Reduce Firefox Memory Usage

Tony Williams — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 12:19:12 +0000

Firefox’s memory leakage problems are well documented. What tends to happen is the longer you browse using Firefox it uses up more and more memory until your PC virtually stips.

This tip from gHacks should reduce Firefox’s memory usage to under 10MB. It’s very simple to implement:

Write ‘about:config’ in your firefox address bar and hit enter
Right click and select ‘new Boolean’
Paste config.trim_on_minimize in the field and hit enter again
Select True from the list
Restart Firefox

Once you’ve done this you should notice a speed improvement on your PC when using Firefox

More: gHacks

Remove Dead And Dupliate Bookmarks

Tony Williams — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 18:28:08 +0000

I bookmark everything and over the years I’ve accumulated hundreds of links. Maintaining these lists can a pain in the ass, but I find using AM-DeadLink a big help.

AM-Deadlink detects dead links and duplicates in your Browser Bookmarks. If a Bookmark has become unavailable you can verify it in the internal preview and delete it from your Browser. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks.

Even better news is that AM-Deadlink works with Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox and it’s free!

Download Am-Deadlink now.