One Tip A Day » addons

Chromed Bird: How to Access Twitter Easily From Chrome

Umar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:01:48 +0000

There’s nothing impossible when it comes to the web. So what do you get when you cross the fastest internet browser, Chrome, with one of the most popular social networking website, Twitter? You get Chromed Bird! Chromed Bird is a free Google Chrome extension which provides Chrome users with ultra-easy accessibility to their Twitter account:

When you’ve clicked the ‘Add to Chrome’ button you can access your Twitter account by a small button on the address bar:

Just click on it and enter your Twitter info on the first run:

Then click on ‘Go!’ and that’s all there’s to it! From now when you click on the Chromed Bird icon, you’ll be able to follow your Twitter account via a conveniently placed box:

You can even click on the ‘RT Reply’ and Tweet without even leaving the webpage you’re on:

Chromed Bird is only one example of Chrome’s superiority over other internet browsers. With its already speedy interface, and with amazing extensions such as this one, Chrome is on its path to be the perfect internet browsers for us internet users.

More: Chromed Bird

10 Essential Free Vista Media Center Addons & Tweaks

Tony Williams — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:43:23 +0000

I’ve had a lot of fun customizing Windows Vista Media Center over the last couple of days. Here are the best 10 free tweaks and addons I’ve found for VMC that will allow you to get so much more out of your Windows Media Center.

My Movies 2: A free addon that automatically adds new movies that you add to your PC to your Windows Media Center library. It also downloads information about your movies from the My Movies WebService, including genre, actor, movie reviews and other information. More info

Vista Codec Packs: This codec pack is the only one you will need to install on your Vista PC. Not only does it support nearly every format known to man, there are no messy configuration screens. If you are a 32 bit user you just need to install the 32 bit version. If you are a 64 bit OS user then you need to install the 32 bit version AND the 64 bit version.

Remove annoying ‘Sample Music/Sample Videos/Sample Photos folders’: The annoying sample folders that Vista Media Center adds as a default, just refuse to die no matter how many times you say to ‘stop watching’. Unless, you follow these instructions. More info
Add Amazing Visualizations: Media Center visualizations suck – here’s one that doesn’t. More info

Show DVD Library: In VMC the DVD Gallery is not enabled by default like in Windows XP Media Center. A quick registry fix will take care of this problem. More info

Yougle: Watch Youtube Videos In Vista Media Center

Tony Williams — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:09:36 +0000

I’ve spent some time this weekend trying to improve the brilliant Windows Vista Media Center. One feature that VMC is lacking is the ability to watch Youtube videos. The problem was easily solved with a few google searches and I found Yougle Vista.

With Yougle Vista you can watch videos from Youtube, Google Video, DivX Stage 6, Daily Motion and WWITV within VMC. The interface is very easy to use and all videos play full screen. One drawback is that the link to Yougle Vista is within the program library, so I’m now searching for a way to add the link to ‘Pictures & Videos’ or ‘TV & movies’.

You have to register with the developer’s forums to download the file, which is a shame.

More: Yougle Vista

Add My Movies To Watch DVDs In Windows Media Center

Tony Williams — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:00:28 +0000

One of my most popular posts explains how to enable the DVD Library in Windows Media Center. However, I’ve just found a better way to add and play DVDs within Windows Media Center.

My Movies 2 is a free addon that automatically adds new movies that you add to your PC to your Windwos Media Center library. It also downloads information about your movies from the My Movies WebService, including genre, actor, movie reviews and other information.

The service is relatively easy to setup. All you have to do is download nad install My Movies and it automatically adds itself to Windows Media Center. There’s even a version for Windows Home Server which is a bit trickier to install.

WebGuide Available For Windows Home Server

Tony Williams — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:40:12 +0000

My buddy Everton has been raving about his Windows Home Server over the last couple of weeks, and I’ve been seriously tempted to buy/build one so that I can have an always-on-box serving all my music and other content.

One significant piece of functionality that WHS was missing has just been solved by the release of WebGuide for Windows Home Server. Out of the box WHS requires files to be downloaded before they can be played, but WebGuide for Windows Home Server enables you to remotely access, listen, watch and stream your music, photos and videos stored on your home server while away from home.

Integrates with Windows Home Server remote website via homepage link and single-signon.
Access your photos with thumbnails, “zoom” and exif-data.
Browse your music library and listen to it via the web.
Stream your videos/movies at multiple resolutions and bitrates.
Mobile access to your music and videos from Windows Mobile devices.

To learn more about WebGuide, click here.

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.

Stop YouTube Videos Playing Automatically

Tony Williams — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:18:39 +0000

If you are a Firefox user you may occasionally open multiple YouTube videos in separate tabs to queue them up for viewing. The problem is that by default YouTube videos autoplay.

A way to stop this is to install the new TubeStop Firefox extension. The TubeStop firefox extension disables the autoplay feature of YouTube videos, as well as videos on other sites like MySpace and Blogger.

More: TubeStop

Screen Capture Complete Web Pages With Picknik Firefox Add-on

Tony Williams — Sat, 26 May 2007 09:02:59 +0000

This tip is great for people who want to use create thumbnails of their website, or have to use screen captures in documents or presentations.

One of the annoying problems with the Screen Capture function on PCs is it only captures what is visible on the screen. This is ok most of the time, but sometimes you want to Screen Capture a whole webpage that may be a few screens long. Well now you can capture an entire webpage using the new Picnik Firefox Add-on.

With the Picnik Firefox Add-on you can capture the entire visible portion of a webpage or the entire webpage, regardless of how long it is. Once the image is captured you can then use the Picnik image editor to make additional tweaks.

Yet another great reason to switch to Firefox if you are an Internet Explorer user…..

Thanks to Amit for the great find.

Snap Links – Open Multiple Links At The Same Time

Tony Williams — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:42:09 +0000

CyberNet have uncovered a great Firefox extension that is great if you want to open several links on a page in one go. Snap Links allows you to open multiple links on a page in separate tabs, just by dragging a box around the links you want to open.

This is great if you are using a search engine as you can open all the top results at the same time, or pages that contain links to photos in an album. Snap Links is even intelligent enough to only open just the main links within the area that is highlighted e.g. it won’t open links to author pages etc.

Snap Links for me just highlights the main advantages of Firefox. over Internet Exploer. There are so many extensions available for Firefox that with a bit of research, allows anyone to create their perfect browser.

More: Snap Links

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.

FoxTorrent: Download Torrents From Within Firefox

Tony Williams — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:33:22 +0000

Tech-buzz.net have just shared details of a new torrent extension for Firefox caled FoxTorrent, that has been leaked by Redswoosh. FoxTorrent does all the usual things we have come to expect from a torrent service. However it has one feauture that I think many people will find useful.

It can play streamable media (e.g. .WMV, .MOV, .MP3) files as your torrent downloads and can download torrents at a greater speed by using BitTorrent and Redswoosh at the same time.

There are some restrictions on the beta like only being able to download one file at a time from each torrent, but if you still want to give it a try then click here.

Useful Gmail Tips And Hacks

Tony Williams — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:39:48 +0000

Sometimes I worry about my reliance on Google for web apps, and I would like to introduce some variety, but Google’s services are just too good.

Take Gmail for instance – no other webmail app comes close in terms of functionality. And don’t get me started about the cool Mobile Java client, which is lightyears ahead of any other mobile email client. What makes Gmail even better is the list of third-party clients that are available for it. One such tool is Gmail Manager, which is an add-on for Firefox that untangles your Gmail web by allowing you to manage, swap between and receive new message salerts from multiple Gmail accounts, including those run on Google Apps.

To learn about more cool Gmail tips and Hacks then visit Download Squad