Thursday, June 19, 2008

Power User's Guide to Firefox 3 [Firefox 3]

there are a couple of tips for the "awesomebar."

(not that you'd have time for them today, anyway.)

 
 

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You already know about Firefox 3's marquee new features, but now it's time to dig deep and unearth the shortcuts, tweaks, and even Easter eggs that Mozilla marketing doesn't mention. In honor of today's official release of Firefox 3—at 10AM Pacific Time—let's dive in past Firefox 3's most talked-about feature-set into its lesser-known power uses, tricks, and customizations.

Shrink the Super-sized Back Button

The very first thing you notice in Firefox 3 is its extra large Back button. While it's actually quite handy—less chance of missing your target!—if the Back button's just too big for your tastes, it's as easy as pie to reduce. Just right-click on Firefox's toolbar, and choose Customize. In the dialog box, select "Use small icons."


Adjust the Smart Location Bar's Number of Suggestions

adjustsuggestion.pngThe Firefox 3 feature that you'll get to know and love the most is the new smart location bar's as-you-type suggestions that learn where you probably want to go as you browse. But if you're feeling like the number of suggestions is too high or too low? Adjust it to your liking in Firefox's configuration area. Here's how.
  1. Enter about:config into the address bar and hit Enter.
  2. Press the "I''ll be carefull. I promise!" button. (Because you will be.)
  3. Enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults in the Filter field to reach this preference.
  4. Set it to your desired number of suggestions. Three shown here.
Here's another way to adjust the location bar behavior with an about:config tweak.


Delete Mistyped URL Suggestions and Other Auto-complete Entries

shiftdelete.pngWhile the Smart Location bar is quite intelligent, if you enter an incorrect URL—say, to a page that doesn't exist, or a parked domain—Firefox 3 will still remember it and suggest it again later. (Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.) To remove a mistyped URL from your suggestion list forever, key down to the suggestion and type Shift+Delete on the Mac, and just Delete on Windows. This trick also works for any form auto-complete entry, like if you mistype a username into a login form.


Ditch Obselete Extensions

Firefox's philosophy seems to be "stay lean and mean and leave the extras to add-ons." Nevertheless, Firefox 3 does bake in some functionality that makes some extensions you might love unnecessary. Here are five extensions you won't need with Firefox 3.


Revert the "AwesomeBar" with Oldbar

oldbar.png Firefox's smart location bar (a.k.a. "AwesomeBar")—which drops down a suggestion list of destinations as you type into it—is extra verbose and extra-tall, since it includes both web site titles and URLs. If you're missing Firefox 2's classic one-line drop-down look, the Oldbar extension can revert the "AwesomeBar" to something less awesome—or at least something that looks less awesome.


Trick Out Your Smart Bookmarks

smartbookmarks1.png Like iTunes Smart Playlists and saved search folders in OS X and Vista, Firefox 3's Smart Bookmarks are dynamic lists of URLs generated by certain search criteria. Here's how to create your own collections of Smart Bookmarks using search parameters. Hint: Add the most frequent pages you visit on Lifehacker.com by bookmarking place:queryType=0&sort=8&maxResults=5&domain=lifehacker.com.


Set Gmail as Your Default Email client—Without an Add-on

gmailfx3.png Firefox 3's filetype handling mechanism can now associate web applications as well as desktop applications with certain files. This opens the door to possibilities like automatically launching links to ical files in your web-based calendar app, or opening your webmail when you click on email links. While most webapps have to catch up to Firefox 3 to enable this functionality, one we already know and love is already there. Here's how to launch Gmail when you click mailto: links on web pages.


Say Hello to the Firefox Robots


You already know about the age-old Firefox about:mozilla Easter egg. Well, Firefox 3 has a new Easter egg that pays homage to its robot mascot. Type about:robots into the Firefox 3 address bar to get a fun page with a list of robot pop culture references, from I, Robot to Blade Runner to Battlestar Galactica to Futurama.


Enable Spellchecking in One-line Input Fields

typo.png This tweak goes back to Firefox 2, but is still just as useful and functional in Firefox 3, especially if you're a web writer. In about:config, set layout.spellcheckDefault value equal to 2 to enable spell-checking in single line input fields as well as textareas. (Less typos in your email subject lines and blog post titles!) Here are a few more Firefox about:config tweaks.


Mac Users: Add Favicons to Your Bookmark Toolbar

Mac users who are rockin' Firefox 3's new slick Mac-like theme—but who miss their bookmarks' favicons—can easily add web site icons to their toolbar with a little tweak.


For a bird's-eye view of Firefox's evolution over the last four years, see the history of Firefox 1.0 to 3.0 in screenshots. Then, see how Firefox 3 stacks up in performance tests in comparison to Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer.

How are you tweaking Firefox 3 today when you install it? Give it up in the comments.


Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, looks forward to allocating memory to applications other than Firefox with version 3.0. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Monday on Lifehacker—except today, Tuesday. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.



 
 

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Bloglines - Homie Depo

Bloglines user ncaut (nc_aut@yahoo.com) has sent this item to you.


only in Memphis

Homie Depo

By Melvis

This city has so many great small businesses. Special thanks to Fudge for finding this one on Summer Avenue.
Homie Depo shares a parking lot with Taqueria Guadalupana. That way you can get your taco on after you shop for some hoochie wear.


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Sunday, June 15, 2008

Trixie Tracker: Data-driven Parenting



 
 

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via KK Lifestream on 6/12/08

Originally posted in The Quantified Self

The Quantified Self is primarily about self-monitoring, and not about monitoring others. But your baby is close to the self, so there may be some technology in baby monitoring to be of use to adults.

Trixie Tracker tracks and displays the activity patterns of babies. As they claim on their website:

"Uncover patterns in your baby's sleep rhythms and daily activity. Develop a good sleep schedule with helpful charts. Share online with family and friends."

Trixietracker

Using this software parents can track what goes into baby, and when; what comes out, when; when baby sleeps, when baby wakes, and any other activity you want to collect data for.

This is a primitive version 1.0 of tracking tools because you need to manually enter all data. The tool provides a web-based fancy spreadsheet with cute charts. You provide the data entry.  It has an iPhone input option, too, which could make a difference. What you can take away -- particularly if you are willing to share your baby' data -- is some sophisticated analysis of say baby's sleep probability.

Sleepprobability

Trixie Tracker is part of a larger idea called data-driven parenting, which I suspect has a small following right now, because who wants to spend their lives inputing data? But once all these ubiquitous devices collect data for us, crunching your kids' day later in the evening after they go to bed may be the new parental chore.


 
 

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Commercial Baby Toy Alternatives [Parent Hacks]



 
 

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toddlerreading.pngThe folks over at the Unclutterer blog are on a war against toy clutter in the house that inevitably builds up with toddlers. They offer a few "duh!" alternative activities to commercial toys, like matching the socks in a freshly-done load of laundry, plus this great suggestion for a two-year-old:

Man, does she love to "paint" the sidewalk or fence with a paintbrush and small bucket of water. She can easily spend a half an hour painting and when she is done there is absolutely no mess to clean up.
If you're looking for ways to entertain the kids this weekend, see our previously posted 10 ways to entertain young kids for $1 or less without the TV.


 
 

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Change your Cooking Style to Cut Back on Meat [Food]



 
 

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vegetables_scaled.jpgThere's nothing wrong with a meat-focused meal now and again, but food author Mark Bittman notes that Americans eat almost double their USDA guideline amounts every day. If you need to scale back on the tender stuff for any reason, he's got some worthwhile advice on how to make it less a central focus of your diet:

Remember that most traditional styles of cooking use meat as a condiment or a treat. This is true in American frontier cooking, where salt pork and bacon were used to season beans; in Italy, where a small piece of meat is served as a secondo (rarely more than a few ounces, even in restaurants); and around the world, where bits of meat are added to stir-fries and salads, as well as bean, rice and noodle dishes. In all of these cases, meat is seen as a treasure, not as something to be gobbled up as if it were air.

In other words, don't feel like you have to cook a half-pound of meat to get its juicy flavor into your diet. Hit the link below for more advice on broadening your repertoire of non-steak dinners.



 
 

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Hawkeye Font Browser Helps You Pick the Perfect Typeface [Featured Windows D...



 
 

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fontbrowser_cropped.pngWindows only: Hawkeye Font Browser, a free Windows utility, makes it simple to see how a word or sentence looks in any of your system's installed TrueType fonts. In other words, it's one of those Windows utilities that's hard to believe isn't built into the system, but comes in pretty handy in certain situations. Change the size and color to see if a font can meet your needs, and distinguish monospace fonts from others with a simple list indentation. Hawkeye Font Browser is a free download for Windows systems only.



 
 

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