35 Amazing web tips part three

jjones | Guides | 08/10/2008 15:42pm
2 Comments

Extending Internet Explorer

Toggle Flash

Adobe’s Flash is the power behind many well-designed, original and eye-catching web sites. Unfortunately it’s also used for pointless splash screens and a range of annoying ads, which have an irritating tendency to pop up over the site you’re trying to read, and the ability to crash your browser if things go wrong. Install Toggle Flash (flash.melameth.com), though, and you’ll get a new toolbar button that lets you turn Flash off until you really need it. It’s small, free, simple, uses no system resources and helps speed up your browsing; sounds like a great deal to me.

Resize forms

I often come across web forms that are far too small, and leave me typing long essays into a tiny little comment box. But Cameron Adams has the answer. First add his Internet Explorer ‘bookmarklet’ (www.themaninblue.com/experiment/FormTextResizer) to your favourites. Now choose this when you next encounter a poorly-designed form, then move the mouse cursor over the text box in question, hold down the left mouse button, and drag to resize it.

Spelling matters

Everyone makes occasional spelling mistakes online, but do it regularly, or in important web forms like a job application, and you could be creating a very bad impression. Install ieSpell (http://www.iespell.com/), though, and you’ll get instant spell-checking from within Internet Explorer. Highlight the text with your mouse, right-click, select ieSpell and it’ll check your words for errors, catching your mistakes and making suggestions about how the word should be spelled.

SPEL PROPALY Get spell checking in any web form with this handy Internet Explorer add-on

Restore closed tabs

After hours of intense browsing and in-depth internet research you’ve finally uncovered the exact page you need. So it’s particularly annoying when you accidentally close that browser tab without noting the address. Luckily, though, if you’ve prepared carefully then that won’t be a problem. Download the Open Last Closed Tab add-on from MuvEnum (www.muvenum.com/products/freeware), then right-click it and select Run As Administrator to install the program.
Use Internet Explorer as normal, and if you close a tab accidentally press Alt and X to restore it, or Alt and Q to display the last 25 closed tabs. Just click on the one you’re after to head straight there.

EASY UNDO Press Alt and Q and Open Last Closed Tab will display your last 25 closed tabs

Share your web finds

You’ve just found an interesting paragraph or two online that you’d like to share with a friend. You could copy it to the clipboard, open your email client, paste the text in and so on, but there’s a much easier way. After installing Microsoft Snip IT (tinyurl.com/27xsar) all you need do is select the text, right-click on it and choose the mail client you’d like to use (Microsoft Office Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail and more are supported). Snip IT will then create a new message for you containing the highlighted text, all ready to use.

Clear up annoying pages

Tired of messy pages crammed with Java applets, games, videos that all start playing at once, or flashing ads? Visit CyberNet (tinyurl.com/6oepzt), scroll to the Appearance Manipulation section, right-click on the Remove Bloat link and choose Add to Favorites (ignore the ‘dangerous’ warning: it’s not). The next time you visit a messy page on MySpace, or anywhere else, find and click on Remove Bloat. It’ll strip out Flash, Java, music and other excesses from the page, leaving you just the plain text and image content – much easier to read.

MY EYES! It can’t fix every disaster, but Remove Bloat can make pages a little more readable

Easily organise favourites

The ‘Organize Favorites’ tool in Internet Explorer can sometimes feel an awkward way to rearrange your bookmarks. If you fancy a change, then, here’s a simpler alternative. Press Alt, click Favorites, then hold down Shift and click Organize Favorites. The folder will open in Windows Explorer, meaning you can move your shortcuts around just as you would any other file.

Use safer passwords

Using the same password on every web site is easy, but also horribly dangerous: if someone breaks into one account then they can access all the others. PasswordMaker offers a better way. You only have to remember one master password, and it will generate something unique and unguessable for every site, and the program can even automatically complete password forms for you. Find out more at passwordmaker.org.

JUST WORKS PasswordMaker is available for Windows, Macs, as an online service and more

Super sites to surf

Share large files

Sharing huge files can be hard. Anything over 10MB or so is really too large to email, and most file-hosting sites impose limits of around 100MB. Except this one. Sign up at file dropper (http://www.filedropper.com/) and you can upload files as large as 5GB (no, really). They’re easy to download, too: no waiting, ads or complications.

Access your PC anywhere

I spent weeks preparing for the meeting, then travelled for hours to get there. And discovered I’d left a crucial file at home. The best way to avoid this kind of embarrassment is to sign up for a free account
with LogMeIn (http://www.logmein.com/). Install a small program, enter a password, then leave your PC running when you go out. You can log in from almost any browser, and you’ll see your desktop and be able to run programs or look at files as though you were at home.

Synchronise your favourites

If you regularly browse the web from two or more PCs then keeping your favourites synchronised isn’t easy. Unless you install Zinkmo (www.zinkmo.com). This clever sharing tool provides online access to all your favourites, as well as letting you automatically synchronise them across all your browsers (Firefox as well as IE).

DIY home security

Webcams aren’t just for video chats. Install HomeCamera (www.homecamera.com) and yours can become a home surveillance system, too. Motion detection software can email you pictures if the camera detects anyone moving in front of it, or you can just log on to see what’s going on. It even works with many mobile phones, so you can monitor your home from just about anywhere.

Quick and easy blogging

If you like the idea of running a blog, but it just seems too much like hard work, then we’d recommend giving Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) a try. It’s about sharing interesting things that you find on the web: photos, links, videos, audio files, quotes and more. One of the easiest ways to create an interesting online home.

Find, download and play videos

Follow our easy guide to video heaven

1 GETTING STARTED Don’t waste hours searching for videos. Install Miro (www.getmiro.com) and it’ll provide channels to help you find clips in every genre: music, entertainment, news, science and more. Browse the Miro Guide to get a feel for what’s available.

2 SIMPLE SEARCH Looks complicated? Click Using Miro for assistance. Or click Video Search and enter key words for a TV programme, movie, band or whatever else you’re looking for. Miro will search all the main video sites and display a list of everything it finds.

3 PLAY ANYTHING Click the videos you like and Miro will download them in the background. Click Keep to add a video to your library. And select File > Open to play any other video on your PC, even odd formats that Windows Media Player doesn’t recognise.

Part One ? Part Two ? Part Three

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.