Creating animated avatars is the new fad amongst internet communicators. If you do not know what avatars are (in the internet sense), then here you go: an icon or animation to represent a participant used in internet chat and games.

Still images make fine avatars but the fun of having an animated 3D image moving automatically as your avatar cannot be matched by a still image. The internet now has a number of websites and, in some cases, downloadable tools which let users create wonderful animations which for avatar purposes. Today we are going to explore one such animated avatar creation website which is free to use and gives users the maximum functionality. The website is called Avatara.

Before you get started, we suggest that you log in first. You can login using any one of your OpenID accounts (which include Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook, etc.). Once you have signed in, here is what your newly created Dashboard will look like:

To start making an avatar, click on the CREATE A NEW AVATAR button. The first page shows you some animated faces from which you select the face of your avatar.

You can upload the image of a real face and the site will generate a closely resembling animated face. Select whichever face you like and then proceed to customize it.

Customization options are quite detailed and include minute details as well. We can customize the clothing, body, hair, eyes, skin, and even the facial details.

When done with the customization, you can go on and start sharing your just-built avatar.

Sharing options include sharing via email or a number of popular online social networks.

Avatara provides its users with great avatar creation and sharing features in a user-friendly interface; in our opinion, it is the ultimate go-to website for avatar creation.

Related posts:

1. Free Tools to Create Banners Instantly
2. Create Picture Perfect Avatars Everytime
3. How To Resize Images Online
4. How To Create Custom Toolbars For Your Website

Normally when we are browsing a website and want to go over to some other popular site (such YouTube, Twitter, etc.) the only option we have is to type in the URL in the address bar or choose our Favorite from the Bookmarks Menu. How helpful would it if the website were browsing had links to all such popular sites? Not only would that facilitate users but it would also increase the chance of users spreading word about the site.

This task can be performed by site developers creating a toolbar for their website. This toolbar should have links for popular sites (namely online social networks) along with other fun and useful tools such as games or a translator tool.

If you are website developer or owner who wants such a toolbar incorporated into their website, then you need not be aware of any toolbar-specific programming. You can easily create your website’s toolbar with Wibiya.

Wibiya is a website that lets users create their own toolbars for free. After a quick free registration, we proceed to select our toolbar’s theme from a wide range of color options:

The next step is to choose the applications we want included in our toolbar. The applications we choose here are only few of the ones we can add later. These applications range from Facebook to iTranslation. Pick the ones you like:

Next, depending on the applications we chose, we have to enter our Twitter username, Facebook fan page ID, and two RSS feeds for subscription and latest posts.

Finally we choose our site platform:

Simply click on one of the buttons on the left which matches your site platform. Say you click on Blogger, you will be taken to a Blogger page asking if the Wibiya widget should be added to your blog. This Wibiya widget will in fact be the toolbar you have just created.

If your site platform does not belong to any of the buttons on the left, then click on the last button and code will appear to the right which you can copy and paste into your site’s HTML template:

In these easy steps, you will have created your very own site toolbar and added it to your website. Not only will this give your site visitors a chance to integrate Twitter and Facebook but you will also be able to engage your readers and get more constructive feedback.

Wibiya is a tool no site owner/developer should miss out on.

Related posts:

1. How to Create Polls on Twitter, Facebook and more
2. Create Custom Windows 7 JumpLists
3. How to setup time limit for any website you visit
4. How To Improve Your Alexa Rank

Firefox is not the only browser with great add-ons. Google Chrome’s extensions are gradually building up and forcing users to decide between browsers. Recognizing that a lot of users use Chrome and Firefox interchangeably, some add-on developers are now making their add-ons for both browsers, not just one.
Most of these multi-browser add-ons are wonderful to work with and add great functionality to any browser they are added to. One such add-on is Cooliris that creates an amazing 3D wall of the images and video on a site and presents it to you.
The Cooliris version we will be exploring is the Chrome one which can be downloaded here (unfortunately the link on the official Chrome extensions is currently down, for which purpose we are linking you with the CNET URL).

You will notice that the extension’s size is larger than other extensions. That is because rather than building on an innate function of Chrome, Cooliris has to introduce a completely new visual effect.

Let us see what Cooliris looks like in action.

Suppose you have just searched for the word “hippo” in Google Images; here is what your results will look like:

You will only be able to see a limited number of pictures; to see rest of the results you will need to click on a link and turn the page.
To activate Cooliris we click on its icon in the address bar (encircled in the image above). A 3D wall will be generated in a new tab which looks like this:

This wall can be dragged with the mouse pointer. All results can be viewed simply by dragging the wall:

This view more enjoyable and makes finding an image easier. We can use this images/video 3D wall viewing option with multiple websites of which the names can be found in the image below:

A user can click on the Channels button in the top left panel and a list of categories will appear which contains videos and pictures relevant to that category:

By browsing through the channels one can view great images/videos in a similar 3D wall fashion.
Cooliris for Chrome is currently in its beta stage but should still be given a try. This nifty add-on will remarkably improve your Chrome experience.

Related posts:

1. Backing up Google Chrome Profiles with Google Chrome Backup
2. How To Search For Faces On Google Image Search
3. Search Wikipedia Articles with Relevant Images and Videos
4. YouTube Music Video Browser

Surfing the web you might feel the need to note down some piece of information which you want for later viewing. Now when you spot this piece of information in your internet browser, depending on whether it is short or long you do one of the following: open up Notepad and paste the information there, or physically note it down on a piece of paper. In both scenarios you are exiting the scope of your internet browser and spending a few extra seconds which could be saved if your browser has built-in note-taking functionality.

A good piece of news for Google Chrome users is that their browsers can now certainly have this functionality by an amazing little tool called Chromepad.

Chromepad, with its fitting name, serves as a Notepad for the Google Chrome browser i.e. it eliminates our need to exit the scope of Chrome whenever we need to note down something.

Like most other Chrome extensions Chromepad has its icon in the Address Bar after installation:

While browsing the internet, simply click on this icon to drop down a note-taking area where you can store your notes:

This note-taking area can be easily resized by the mouse to adjust to the user’s needs.

One issue reported by users of the extension is that when newer versions are installed the notes in this drop down area disappear. The fact is that those previous notes are actually stored and can be viewed and retrieved in the extension’s options:

In conclusion, Chromepad is a nifty extension for Chrome which adds simple but highly useful functionality to the browser.

Related posts:

1. Backing up Google Chrome Profiles with Google Chrome Backup
2. How to Take Quick Notes In FireFox
3. How To Easily Edit Image Instantly In Chrome By Alt + Right Clicking it
4. How To Put Outlook Notes On Your Desktop

The trick with getting lengthy tasks done is not to do them entirely in one sitting (at least not continuously). One should get started on the task, take a break before boredom takes over, then return from the break and get started again. We can work for a specific time interval, then take a break for a specific time interval, and then repeat.

This type of time management is called the Promodo Technique, which is a way to get the most out of our time. We can turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it. The technique was (officially) created in 1992 by Francesco Cirillo. It is now practiced by professional teams and individuals around the world.

As a blogger I have personally found the technique to be quite helpful. Today I would like to share a little tool that eliminates the need of an external timer and lets us employ the Promodo Technique using just our computer. This tool is an extension for the Google Chrome browser and is titled ChromoDoro.

ChromoDoro is a great Chrome extension that lets us manage our time by setting 25 minutes for uninterruptedworking and then 5 minutes for rest. After the 25 minutes are over, we are shown a message that it is now time for a break.

After the 5 minutes of break are over, the cycle repeats itself and can be activated or deactivated by clicking the extension’s icon in the address bar of Chrome.

The number under the tomato icon shows us the time left in our working period.

The 25 and 5 minute intervals are set by default; to change these intervals, we can right click on the icon and access the extension’s options where we can adjust the work and rest timings.

ChromoDoro is a nifty extension that can help countless computer users particularly professional bloggers.

I remember playing Fifa’99 back in the days of Sony PlayStation(1). Back then PS was the only console to have games on optical media and it was an exhilarating experience for all gamers. We now had games with better graphics, better game play, and amazing soundtracks. Fifa was one of the games that somewhat took full advantage of PS’s potential. Apart from great visuals it has wonderful upbeat songs which kept the menus lively. The game’s music was one of the reasons it was enjoyable.

Similarly there have been many games over the years with songs or scores which were a huge reason for the game’s success. Sometimes during the game we hear a song or piece of music which we like and want to store it in our music library. Doing so is easy if it is an artist’s song and available for download on torrents or is purchasable. However if it is music which the game developers have made especially for the game, then tracking it down could be rather difficult.

Fortunately for us, there is a website which helps us out in this regard and hosts many music files from countless games ranging over all gaming consoles. The site is title VGMusic.

VGMusic is a free website that hosts audio music files in the MID format. We can search for a particular game using the available search tools:

Alternatively we can browse games by choosing our console:

After selecting our console we can browse through games which are arranged alphabetically:

The different music files of a game are listed under the same title. In front of them we can see the size of the audio file:

Depending on your internet browser’s setting, clicking on a music file will either open a new tab and start playing audio or begin downloading the MID file. Here is how the MID file player looks like within Firefox:

If the file starts playing in the browser and a user wants to download it rather than play it, he/she simply needs to right-click on the original link and choose SAVE LINK AS:

From then on we can choose our download location and download the MID file.

In those easy steps we are able to listen to and obtain the music of our favorite games. If you are avid gamer, then bookmark VGMusic – it will help you get your favorite game’s theme music.

Related posts:

1. Download Videos, Music and Games – Legally!
2. YouTube Music Video Browser
3. Download Music, Movies And TV Shows From iTunes For Free!
4. Install K-Lite Codec Pack To Solve Video Playback Problems

Often while creating a project we need to use an image of something we are describing. My go-to website for images is Google Images where after a little searching, I find my required image. Sometimes however the image needs a little cropping or editing of some other sort. In that case I first save the image on my hard drive and proceed to edit it with my image editing program, Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

If there were a way to edit the images we see in our browser, then my task would be made greatly easier. I could save the time taken to open up Microsoft Office Picture Manager and edit my picture, then save it. All I would need to do is edit my required image within the browser, then save it to my hard drive.

Fortunately for me and for all computer users whose work requires them to find images online, now we can edit our images within our internet browser. The condition is that we need to be Google Chrome users because the tool used to perform our editing task is a Chrome extension titled InstantImageEditor.

The extension works in a very straightforward manner. Suppose we have run a search for “birds” in Google Images and I want to edit a search result:

With the extension installed, all I have to do is right-click on the image while pressing down the ALT key. My image will be opened in the highly popular online image editor Pixlr:

This editor offers a wide range of options which we can use to modify our image. It performs almost all functions which we need while editing our image, including cropping, rotation, resizing, drawing, and adding various effects.

Thanks to InstantImageEditor I no longer have to go through an extra step to obtain my desired image from the internet. Try out the extension yourself and personally experience how easy it makes getting the right image.

Related posts:

1. Backing up Google Chrome Profiles with Google Chrome Backup
2. For Chrome: How To Take Notes Within Your Browser
3. How To Search For Faces On Google Image Search
4. How to Manage Time More Effectively in Chrome

If your job requires you to type for extended periods of time then a fast typing speed can do wonders for you. It can increase your productivity as well as leaving with your free time to focus on other non-typing aspects of your job. This is why people who type a lot have usually enabled the auto-complete option in their browsers or word processing software to cut back on the time taken on typing the same block of words again and again. In this respect the auto-complete feature in various programs benefits a lot of us. Moreover a job comprising of a lot of typing poses a serious threat of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI). By enabling the auto-complete option, we type less and reduce the chances of suffering any RSI.

Today we explore a great little freeware program which lets us auto-complete our texts by predefining our list or block of words. This program is called TypingAid.

TypingAid as the name suggests, assists us while we type. It is a small 200KB program compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Installing it is not necessary; all that is required is that we extract the five files included in the downloaded archive.

Then we run the executable file titled TypingAid. A small window will appear introducing the program. Once this windows disappears,  a green icon will now be present in the system tray.

The TXT file titled WORDLIST includes the list of words which appear as auto-complete options. We can add or remove the word in this file by simply editing it in Notepad.

When we type the first three letters of a word or block of words in the WORDLIST file, our auto-complete options immediately appear.

We press the number corresponding to our option and it gets entered.

In this extremely simple way, TypingAid makes typing easier for most of us whose typing speeds are not as fast as we would like them to be.

Related posts:

1. Control Your Startup Applications with WhatInStartup
2. Add Find As You Type To Internet Explorer
3. How to look for Word Defintions With Examples
4. Restrict The Internet Activity Of A Certain Computer User

Streaming online video is a pastime for a lot of us. According to our mood, we stream videos of various genres from humorous to educational. At times we like a certain video and want our friends to watch it to. One way to do this is by copying the URL of that video’s page and sharing the URL with our contacts. With the increasing popularity of Facebook and other online social networks, we most video hosting sites like YouTube have a Facebook-share feature built into them.

But how about wanting to know how your friends react to the video as they watch it? Perhaps you can do this with one friend by asking him/her to watch the video and hold a live chat with him/her at the same time. But what if the number of friends is more than one? Suppose you are watching a movie online (via streaming) and you want to watch the movie as a group with the only problem being that you and your friends only have an internet connection joining each other. You might not be able to think of any way that is possible.

However with Synchtube that group-online-movie-watching experience is entirely possible and easy.

Synchtube is a free website which lets user create rooms where we can send invitations to friends and select a video to be seen by all group members together.

At the bottom of the site’s homepage we see an area where we paste the URL of the video’s page. After doing this we click CREATE ROOM.

Our video will start playing in window similar to the image below:

In the top right we can see the URL of this page which we can share with other people we want to watch the video with.

When another user starts watching the video, a new status bar is added at the bottom left of our window where we can see the progress of each video along with the name of each user watching the video:

To make this service a bit more interesting there is a Live chat facility available can be found at the right side of the page. Synchtube offers a great way to watch video with your friends. It can also be used as a strong educational and instructional tool for a group of students.

These kinds of websites are something the internet could use more of.

Related posts:

1. Friday Break: Real-life Internet Chatroom
2. Load Youtube Videos Without Ads and Comments
3. Stream Online Videos Faster with SpeedBit Video Accelerator
4. How To Watch Deleted YouTube Videos

The educational environment today is much more competitive than it was a few decades ago. In those times the only available sources of information students had were their textbooks and teacher. However today, children use computers to not only grasp what is being taught at school, but also concepts beyond their syllabus. The distance between knowledge and students has been remarkably reduced by computers.

Considering the significance of their supportive role in your child’s education, it is almost essential to buy a computer for your young one’s schooling. However as concerned parents you also have the duty to protect your children from the adult content on the internet. Exposure to such material at an early age can be disturbing and work in contradiction to what you purchased the computer for.

Today we explore one of many free tools available on the internet which parents can use to shield their children from any explicit material. This tool is a Firefox add-on titled ProCon Latte.

Installing and enabling this add-on in your Firefox browser will give you an array of options to restrict the internet activity of a certain computer user. You see a shield icon in the bottom right of your Firefox browser when the add-on’s shield is enabled. The window of options for the add-on looks like this:

In the General tab, the first you would want to do is set a password for the add-on so the options you set are not changed without your consent. Apart from that the General tab lets you set other options such as preventing it from being disabled or uninstalled, locking the link that accesses the browser’s configuration, and hiding the add-on’s entry from the tools menu:

Here is what you can see in the Main Filter tab:

The ‘Edit List’ button will let you modify the words which if present in a site, will prevent the site from being viewed. When a certain page is blocked, you can create a custom message to be displayed as well as page for the user to be redirected to.

The next tab is titled Whitelist:

There might be certain harmless website which include the ‘forbidden’ words in the predefined list or which you have specified. You can add these particular sites to the ‘whitelist’ so the add-on does not block them. (Remember to check the ‘Enable Whitelist’ checkbox to let the whitelist sites through.)

In the final tab, the ‘Profanity Filter’ tab, you can further restrict the words an internet sees/reads:

Suppose an internet user tries to communicate with your young one in a browser-chat window and tries to use profane language. If you have added those profane words to the ‘Profanity Filter’ and specified a replacement word, then your child will never have to read any inappropriate material.

As you have seen, the ProCon Latte add-on provides an impressive array of functionality to help you battle the adult material of the internet and help better protect your young one. If you have a child using your computer, install this add-on right away.

Related posts:

1. How To Disable Windows Vista’s User Account Control
2. Add Find As You Type To Internet Explorer
3. Connect To Websites Using Different User Names
4. Easy to Use Free Coloring Website for Kids

If you have a flash drive, there must have been times where you used it on computers other than yours. On those computers, if you delete a file from your flash drive, it will probably be permanently deleted or be moved to the Recycle Bin. In the first case the file cannot be easily restored. But in the second case you can simply open the Recycle Bin and restore the deleted file. You might face a problem however when you try to restore this deleted file from the Recycle Bin after you are done using the system. For instance if you used the flash drive in an internet café or on a person’s PC who regularly empties his/her Recycle Bin, you might never be able to recover the file.

A developer considered this problem, analyzed it thoroughly and concluded that the best solution was for the flash to have a built-in Recycle Bin. He then created his wonderful program, iBin.

iBin comes in the form of a 700KB ZIP archive. Upon extraction of this ZIP, you will obtain an EXE file which you should copy to your flash drive. Now run the EXE just placed in your flash drive to create your flash drive’s Recycle Bin.

The first three files in the image above are of iBin’s. The last file is a sample file. When we try to delete it, a confirmation appears asking us if we want it deleted by erasure or by moving it to the iBin folder.

By moving it to iBin we can have it available for later restoration. We can adjust the capacity options for iBin along with other options by right-clicking on its system tray icon and opening its menu.

All we have to do is put the EXE file in our flash drive, run it, and we get our flash drive’s very own Recycle Bin.

It is that simple.

Related posts:

1. Use Glary Undelete To Recover Deleted Files
2. How To Recover Deleted Files
3. ReadyBoost: Speedup Windows Vista With A Flash Drive
4. Advanced Browser Based Flash Sketching and Drawing tool

There are many services which we use multiple accounts with. I personally, for instance, use multiple Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts. Shifting between them is quite a bothersome task and the constant logging in and out of the sites wastes valuable time.

Some internet browsers offer a quick solution to this by providing their users the option of creating different profiles which store login information and cookies. These profiles do not interfere with each other and function independently making it possible to work with multiple usernames signed in to the same account. Mozilla Firefox is an example of a browser which provides this multiple profiles features.

The problem with profiles however is that a user cannot place the different accounts side by side as at a time only one profile can be chosen and one profile stores only one username of a particular site.

Recognizing these problems, a great Firefox add-on was created to solve them; it is titled Multifox and we will be exploring it today.

With Multifox you can open independent Firefox windows which will have their own set of cookies and let you login on different sites. Let us consider an example with Yahoo Mail. After you open Yahoo Mail’s page, right-click on a Yahoo Mail URL and select “Open in a New Identity Profile”.

A new window will open with a number next to the address bar. If this is the first window you have created with the add-on, then the number will be 2:

The next window you will open will be marked 3, the one after that will be marked 4, and so on. This windows act as a separate profile. The information and cookies stored by them are independent of other windows. Therefore you can log into Facebook with Username1 in the first window (the one with no number), with Username2 in the second window (the one with number 2), and keep logging into different accounts of Facebook. If you choose to save the passwords, then your windows will store that information (meaning when you exit Firefox and reopen the windows, the no-number window will have the information of Username1 and the number 2 window will have the information of Username2).

Reading the above paragraph might have gotten a little confusing for you. However using Multifox is far from confusing. Give it a try today and simultaneously use multiple accounts on a site with unprecedented ease.

Related posts:

1. How To Auto-Logon To A User Account At Startup With Vista
2. Backup Firefox Bookmarks, Extensions, Settings – Everything!
3. WinTabber: Add Tabs To Any Windows Program
4. How to search for a Username on Multiple Websites

If your computer starts up really slowly and takes a long time before you can use your installed applications, there is a good chance that unnecessary programs and files are being opened or initialized at the system startup. Finding out what these applications are and enabling/disabling them can be done by entering Run in the Start menu and typing MSCONFIG. Press the Enter/Return key and in the resultant window, your startup programs can be found in the Startup tab.

This is the most basic way to get control of your startup applications. But as you will soon realize after using this Windows native method, the program you disable often reappear re-checked and cause slower startups. Therefore one cannot rely on this procedure of controlling one’s startup application.

To gain full control of which applications run and do not run on the startup, download and install WhatInStartup.

WhatsInStartup is a freeware utility from NirSoft, creators of other such useful freeware utilities.

The size of WhatsInStartup is less than 50KB and the program needs to installation. Simply extract the downloaded archive and you will be all set to use the program by opening the EXE file titled WhatInStartup.

The first difference you will notice between this program and Windows’ startup applications manager, is that in this little freeware you get to view a lot more attributes of the startup program.

Suppose there is a program listed in the startup list but you are not sure if it is a system file or an unnecessary program file. Checking out the attributes listed ahead of the program entry can greatly help you decide whether you want to disable the program from starting up.

Another feature of this great program is that it helps you permanently disable startup entries. This is done via WhatInStartup’s Permanent Disable Mode feature. This feature can be enabled in the Options menu:

If a program that you previously disabled added itself again to the startup list of Windows, WhatInStartup will automatically detect the change and disable it again.

WhatInStartup is a tiny program yet highly useful; since it supports all Windows operating systems from Windows 2000 till Windows 7, countless people can benefit from it. If you are a Windows user, give WhatsInStartup a try yourself and really control what starts up as you turn your system on.

Related posts:

1. Stop Applications Automatically Starting With Vista
2. Run Blocked Startup Programs In Vista
3. Startup Delayer: Speedup Windows BootTimes
4. 30 Free Windows Applications

Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to image modification and working with graphics. Graphic designers mostly start out with learning Photoshop and a huge number of them stick to it throughout their careers. Although the absolute beginner might Photoshop a bit intimidating, the tools are quite easy to grasp. The best part about Photoshop is the amazing array of features it packs into a single software. All one has to do is familiarize oneself to the tools in the program which, unlike it seems, is not difficult. Since Photoshop is used by people throughout the world, its built-in tools are designed to be easy and quickly graspable. This ease of use is the top priority, right after “great image drawing/editing”.

Photoshop Brushes are a fitting example of such a tool. Painters use canvases to create their masterpieces using different brushes to achieve different strokes and effects. Similar to that are Photoshop Brushes; a Photoshop user need not draw a floral diagram by drawing all the outlines himself/herself because a Floral Brush can be easily used to draw the floral pattern.

Needless to say, Brushes are a big part of any Photoshop user’s drawing experience. This is why one can find countless internet resources which enable visitors to download brushes and use them. Today we cover a similar site which hosts various brushes uploaded by users and lets us vote for our favorite ones. The site is called Brusheezy.

The site is absolutely free to use. You can even download Brushes without having to register for a username. Registration is required however if you intend to upload any Brushes you have created.

The image below shows us only few of the visually brilliant effects that can be achieved by the Brushes available on Brusheezy:

You can find Brushes by either randomly browsing through them, sorting them, or searching for specific ones of which the names you know:

Apart from Brushes, Patterns can also be found on Brusheezy; this makes the site an even greater delight for Photoshop users:

You can access Patterns on Brusheezy for free by clicking here.

If you are an Adobe Photoshop users, you will undoubtedly like Brusheezy. Give the site a visit and experience the cool Brushes and Patterns which you can download and user for absolutely free.

Related posts:

1. Add Painting Effect to your Images Online with PyskoPaint
2. Amazing Free Image & Photo Utilities
3. Remove Backgrounds From Photos For Free With Fotoflexer
4. Online Image Optimizer To Makes Images Load Faster

While working on the internet using our internet browsers, there often come times when we need to note down the information we see. The physical way to do this is to have a pen and notebook handy to write down what we see. But in case of a lot of material we usually copy the text and paste it in a text program, notepad usually because of its speed.

The time required to open an external text editing program for our notes can be drastically cut down if we have a browser built-in note-taking tool. Such a tool could perhaps operate in a separate tab thus being superbly accessible.

An application like that does exist for Firefox users in the shape of a browser add-on titled QuickNote.

QuickNote is free small add-on that lets us create notes in a new browser tab, a floating window or a sidebar. The hotkey for the notes is CTRL+F7. The program can also be accessed by the Tools menu of Firefox:

Here is how QuickNote looks like in a new tab (the yellow portion is our note-taking area):

Here is how QuickNote looks like in a sidebar:

Another great way to use sticky notes in Firefox is to use them in a floating mode. This way you will be able to drag it anywhere on the screen and  take notes whenever you are browsing. Here is how QuickNote looks like in a floating window:

One of the cool features of QuickNote includes the ability to easily store your notes in a TXT file which you can choose in the add-on’s options. Simply go to QuickNote settings > User Files and select file destination.

Each QuickNote tab is assigned a separate TXT file. The maximum number of tabs QuickNote can store the notes in is four and the options can be set in its options:

You can always categorize your search and save notes according to any specific field by creating multiple tabs that displays in the form of tabs. Here is how QuickNote will look like with four tabs:

Furthermore, you can customize details for each tab. The note-taking area can be customized for each tab by going to Customization tab in QuickNote settings:

Last but not the least, you do not need to worry by failing to find the SAVE button because QuickNotes automatically saves your notes:

QuickNote is a Firefox note-taking add-on which will satisfy all its users; it should not be overlooked.

Related posts:

1. How To Put Outlook Notes On Your Desktop
2. For Chrome: How To Take Notes Within Your Browser
3. How To Make Old Firefox Extensions Compatible
4. EverNote: How to Save Notes Online

Not too long ago the only browser war existed between the Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Even that cannot be really called a war since the choice heavily relied on the operating system: Windows users used Internet Explorer and Mac users used Netscape Navigator.

Today however the browser choices are many and almost all of them are cross-platform. Regardless of what operating system you run you have at least four options of internet browsers to choose from. Finding themselves in this highly competitive situation, internet browsers seek newer ways to excel in every way. During the construction and improvement of a browser, special attention is paid to each and every detail. The focus is on speed and user-friendliness.

But even though teams of people work on a single browser, they are still people, human beings. Mistakes are made and sometimes very basic features are overlooked which could provide great convenience to the browser’s users.

One such overlooked feature is related to browser tabs. When tabs were introduced they provided a great way to minimize the number of our browser windows and have all our pages open in the same browser window. But since then the tabs have not been developed extensively. A common problem is that a user is not able to choose the default page which is opened when a new tab is created. This problem is in all browsers I have tried and so far did not have any remedies.

Today we cover a remedy I found for the mentioned tab-related problem. It is a browser add-on titled NewTabURL.

NewTabURL is a free browser add-on compatible with the Firefox and Flock internet browsers. With this nifty add-on downloaded and enabled, one can choose what page opens when a new tab is created. This can be done by accessing the add-on’s options:

A user can choose to have a blank page, the home page, the current page, or a defined URL open up whenever a new tab is created. You can also choose to have the copied-to-clipboard URL open in the new tab which you create.

NewTabURL is a wonderfully simple solution to a problematic situation. This add-on like a lot of browser add-ons was not created by a browser company but an external developer. This is proof that the browser developers need to build their products more meticulously and pay the maximum attention to the user’s needs.

Related posts:

1. How to Choose any Web Browser while Opening a link
2. How to Take Quick Notes In FireFox
3. Reduce Page Loading Times With PHPSpeedy
4. Connect To Websites Using Different User Names

Getting a Sim only contract can save you money on your mobile contract, and have been one of the fastest growing segments in 2009.   Sales of sim card only mobile phone contracts have grown by over 60% in the last 6 months.  According to www.simonlyoffers.com there have been a number of drivers behind this growth:

“we have seen an increase in the number of sim only deals which have been backed by an increase in advertising spend to promote these offers to consumers who are looking to tighten their belts since the economic downturn”

Traditionally mobile phone network operators have tried to lock customers into fixed term contracts by subsidising the latest mobile phones.  However, because mobile phones are becoming more and more expensive networks have put together sim only deals where customers do not get a new handset with the deal, and because the network does not offer a subsidised contract SIM only contracts tend to give more inclusive minutes and texts for the same amount as a standard mobile contract.

SIM only contacts are hence suitable for people who:

• Don’t care if they have the latest mobile phone every 12-18 months e.g they don’t need a multimedia phone like an iPhone or are happy with their iPhone 3G and don’t need the iPhone 3GS
• want to keep their mobile bill costs down

Another reason for buying a sim only contract is so you can mix and match network contracts and handsets e.g. if the handset you want isn’t available on the network you want.  By getting a sim only contract you can buy an unlocked version of the handset you want, and also a sim only contract from the network that provides the best deal that suits your needs e.g. has the best coverage, most inclusive minutes or texts etc

Finding the best sim only contracts is quite easy and a number of websites have sprung up to support this new market.  One such site is http://www.simonlyoffers.com/ who have a section showing all the latest sim card deals.

Related posts:

1. Save Money On 0870 Calls With iPhone App
2. Things You Need To Know Before Buying A Camera Phone
3. How To Improve Mobile Broadband Performance
4. Skyfire – Fastest Browser For Windows Mobile & Symbian

Social networking can keep us jumping from one popular site to the next, sharing information and media as we go along. With the increasing number of websites people use to communicate with each other, keeping track of the sites individually might become difficult. Say you have an account on Delicious, Friendfeed and Twitter; you have found something that you want to share on all three accounts; normally, you would have to log in to each site separately and do the deed. But the Firefox add-on that we shall cover today can make sharing on multiple social networking websites considerably easier.

ShareaHolic is Firefox add-on that includes shortcuts to all major social networking websites; it tries to make it easier for the user to bookmark a page, and then blog about it, email it, or share it with other people.

After it has been added on to Firefox, here is how the add-on looks like:

We need a webpage to use as an example of something we want to share; let us use the homepage of Yahoo. After reaching Yahoo’s homepage, if the user clicks on any one of the green icons in Firefox’s bar, a drop down menus shows the popularity of that page. Here is how the drop menu looked liked in the case of Yahoo:

As you can see, the menu immediately tells the user that the page has been saved 593 times on Delicious, and has been ‘dugg’ twice on Digg. These statistics are a quick way to find out how popular a certain page is.

Now let us say that I want to share Yahoo’s homepage on my Facebook account: all I do is select Facebook from ShareaHolic’s drop down menu, and a small straightforward window appears in which I can publish the link to my profile like so:

Therefore, I do not have to open a separate tab, access my wall and paste Yahoo’s link there; I can quickly access my Facebook page via ShareaHolic and immediately start sharing. ShareaHolic can also be accessed by right clicking anywhere on the webpage:

ShareaHolic’s options can be accessed to check which websites are shown in its menu and which are hidden. Apart from social networking websites, ShareaHolic also has links to various blogging services, email services, link shortening, online shopping stores, and four miscellaneous links.

For sharing web content on popular social networking sites, ShareaHolic includes over 40 links

Furthermore, you can directly post anything you like on your personal Wordpress blog or third party host providers including Blogger(also known as Blogspot) and LiveJournal. Links for these are also included in ShareaHolic

In addition to that if there is something you like and would like to email it to yourself you can do that by checking your Email Service provider. ShareaHoliclinks include the most commonly used email providers including Google Gmail and Hotmail;

After the launch of Twitter there is one noticeable boost in URL shortening websites. Because Twitter does not allow users to write more than 140 characters people shrink their online links using services such as TinyUrl. Shortcuts to these shortening websites are also included in ShareaHolic:

Only two shopping website links are included. But they are still worth checking out. The final tab in ShareaHolic will show you links to other unclassifiable popular websites

ShareaHolic supports over sixty services they are completely customizable i.e. you get to choose the ones you see.

ShareaHolic is the fastest and most convenient way publish/share webpages to your blog or social networking page.

Related posts:

1. How to Tweet Music on Twitter
2. Manage Your Online Social Life With Kazle
3. A Secure Way to Share Files With your Colleagues
4. Simplify Your Online Social Life With Yoono

Being a blogger it becomes really important to know when a website goes down because whenever a site disappears just like that there is nothing much you can do really. But at least you can keep tabs on whether or not a site is online. With the following five services, you will easily be able to do so:

1. WasItUp

With this great online site, you can ask to be emailed at an account you specify if a certain site goes down.

For the more technical reader, here is how WasItUp functions: WasItUp performs a HTTP HEAD request and checks that the status code is 200 OK. If you provided a text to match, the site performs a GET request, checks that the status code is 200 OK, and check that the text is present/not present in the returned HTTP body.

Yes, that means you can also check sites for specific words and be notified if the words no longer exist on the site.

WasItUp checks your sites every five minutes and lets you add up to 10 sites to monitor.

2. WhenDOUP

WhenDOUP performs a similar function and sends you an email if the site you specify goes down. And additional feature of WhenDOUP is that if that site that went offline comes back online, you can choose to be notified.

WhenDOUP checks the site’s status about every fifteen minutes.

3. AreMySitesUp

AreMySiteUp offers two plans: paid and free.

People using the service for free can choose to be notified by email or SMS text messages if a site goes down. The site checks up to five sites in the free plan; the checks are performed twenty-five times a day.

The paid plan includes the keyword inclusion check (which WasItUp offers for free). In the paid plan a user can add up to a hundred sites and have them checked at fifteen minute intervals. In addition to being notified via email and SMS text messages, paid users also get Twitter integration and RSS feeds.

4. MrUptime

This tool is primarily a Firefox add-on that keeps on trying to reach the site in the background, while you continue browsing other sites. Of course this can lead to bandwidth being unjustly consumed however MrUptime can come greatly in handy when a certain site is not currently loading well and needs to be refreshed constantly. At the cost of a little bandwidth, you are able to instantly know if your site is down or back up.

5. Basic State

This website offers great services completely free of charge. It lets the user add unlimited sites, checks them on fifteen minute intervals, and shows a daily uptime report that goes back fourteen days. Basic State will suit most users looking for a site-checking service.

Try all the five services out and settle on the one best for you. No more will you have to unpleasantly surprised about a site going to down.

Related posts:

1. Get Notified When a Website Goes Down
2. Free Websites to help you Avoid Spam
3. How to search for a Username on Multiple Websites
4. Some Very Useful Websites

Imagine being able to build your very own database of the content your find online. You are able to search for any keyword from this library and within seconds the relevant results will be shown up. How easy would that make life? No more browsing for information online, saving everything interesting on your PC.

The program that accomplishes that is not an imaginary one. It very much exists and is called Favorist.

Favorist is a freeware application that lets you build your own portable library of knowledge. After downloading the small 1.4MB file, you can install the application and get down to business. Remember to restart any internet browsers that were open during the installation.

The program offers a lot of ways to add your information and build up your own library. In this review I will be covering the easiest method to enable users to get started with the application. Detailed tutorial videos of Favorist can be found on its website (go there by clicking here).

When you run Favorist for the first time you will see its toolbar at the top of your screen:

The first thing I suggest you do is assign the program hotkeys. Click on the second button from the left and access Settings:

Enter the tab titled Loocal: Remember to assign hotkeys that are not in use by any other programs. Click on OK and restart Favorist.

Now suppose you are viewing a webpage, reading a word document, or a PDF document, and you find something interesting which you want to save for future access. What you do is highlight the area containing your text (or image or both) and press the ‘New Loocal’ hotkey you assigned. A small window will drop down from the Favorist toolbar above which will save the information you have highlighted. Before it being saved, Favorist prompts you to enter its details:

Fill out the details and click on Save; your content will be saved to your Library. To search for a word included in the content, click on ‘Loocal’ in the Favorist toolbar and type your word in the subsequent search engine:

Using this procedure you will be able to add all the content you want to your library and search for information within it.

Favorist also installs itself as an add-on into Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari internet browsers. While surfing you will find Favorist’s button in the toolbar and you can use it instead of the hotkeys.

This program has immense potential. Various popular software reviewing sites have lauded Favorist. However the reason it has not been as popular as it deserves to be is its user interface. From the online tutorial videos it becomes clear that Favorist needs to majorly work on user-friendliness. If the program is made easier to use and familiarize oneself with, it will be greatly successful.

Related posts:

1. How to enable the DVD Library in Windows Vista Media Center
2. Webmastery 101: How To Cut Fat And Build Muscle
3. Clean Your iTunes Library with TidySongs
4. How To Use The Same iTunes Library On A Home Network