Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Tweak Opera For Better Usability
Like any other browser Opera has many options to let it be configured precisely to your likings. This is done through the usual interface as well as through a configuration page just like Firefox’ about:config.
A great deal of options is already offered in the preferences accessible by going to Opera > Settings > Preferences…. Apart from the usual actions such as form premades, text formating and search engines I’d like to point out a few that might come handy:
In Preferences, go to History on the left pane and set Check images to 24 hours. This lengthens the time span that images are stored in the cache, so they don’t need to be reloaded from the page if you reaccess it.
Afterwards, go to Browsing on the left pane. The option Smooth scrolling gives you a better feel about scrolling, but will most likely cause speed issues with some sites. It’s up to you what you prefer but if you go for performance better disable it.
Close Preferences now. If you need more space for tabs, you may consider right-clicking the tab bar and choosing Customize > Appearance…. Go to the Toolbars tab and set Wrapping to Wrap to multiple lines. This will expand the space you have for tabs vertically.
If you want more options, enter opera:config into the browser’s url bar. This will give you a long list of them which, howeverm want to be handled with care.
If you don’t like Opera’s mouse gestures for example which appear on holding the right mouse button, simply go to User Prefs > Enable Gesture and untick the box.
Documentation for most of the values can be found here: http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/
Jump to Page by Entering Keyword Into URL Bar on Firefox
If you like being lazy and want to browse sites you don’t have in your bookmarks already in the fastest possible way, there is a Firefox option that lets you determine what happens with expressions entered into the url bar.
There, you can enter the Google url that will open the correct search result for the keyword you entered into the url bar without having to enter those nasty “http://”s and “www.”s and “.com”s. Meaning, if you just type faqforge, it will open this site right away.
To enable this feature, enter about:config into your Firefox url bar to access the configuration. In the filter field, type keyword.url. Double-click the only remaining entry to change its value and set it to
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
Close the configuration afterwards and test the settings by entering some sitename into the url bar.
Disable Plugin-Container in Firefox
Plugin-container is a Firefox process designed to ‘out-source’ the plugins used by the browser. Firefox’ model is based on the use of plugins to add functionality, however this goes along with a chance of instability due to a malfunctioning plugin – this would cause the whole browser to collapse since the plugins were all included in one central Firefox process. With the implementation of the plugin-container, the plugins are seperated from the browser process, making it more stable. Now if a plugin crashes, Firefox remains unharmed.
It is known however that this feature causes serious performance issues with many users, that’s why it might be a good idea to test what happens if you deactivate plugin-container (the plugins are not disabled that way, they are just stitched to the main process again).
To do so, open Firefox and direct the URL line to about:config. This is the internal configuration of Firefox, be sure to take the warning that will be shown seriously.
In the search bar on top, enter dom.ipc. A few boolean entries will be shown whose name begins with dom.ipc.plugins (on Firefox 9 there are two, while there are five on some older versions).
Set all of them to false to disable plugin-container:
If this results in performance improvement for you, leave the settings as they are, if there is none however, it is recommendable to switch them back to improve Firefox’ stability.
Fast-Access Search Results on Firefox with Firejump
It often happens that people use search engines just to access a site they know the url of but are too lazy to type it in with all the dots and slashes, although this adds one step to the process of opening the site.
However there is a Firefox Add-on called FireJump that lets you configure what page is opened when you search for a specific keyword, allowing you to skip the search results and direct the browser right to a specific website.
Download the plugin at http://firejump.net/
Unfortunately it is currently only available in German, but the few buttons are self-explaining.
On the above screenshot you are given the option to either open the default search results or to skip to the FireJump homepage when you search for firejump. The button below saves your choice.
Properly Uninstall Software on Windows with Revo Uninstaller
The built-in Windows tool to add and remove software is commonly used to install and uninstall software, in most cases an own uninstaller comes with the program. However, this uninstaller usually does its job quite sloppy, since numerous files, folders and/or registry entries are left behind after installation. This can either be wanted, if the left files serve as configuration preservers for the case of reinstallation of the program or, as it is in most cases, is just taken lightly by the programmers, meaning that the left files are actually only data junk never to be used again.
This data junk, if stored in masses, can slow down your computer over time. While the best method to get rid of it is to format your hard drive and reinstall the operating system from time to time, you may have reasons to not do that, but to look for a more immediate way to get rid of or to prevent such installation leftovers.
One way to uninstall software more effectively as with their own uninstaller is doing so with Revo Uninstaller.
This piece of software provides multiple steps of uninstalling – it first removes the programs with their own uninstaller and then scans the system for the so-called software rot.
If any leftover files are found, they are shown and you are given the option to delete them seperately. Only delete the files that you are sure you won’t need anymore – deleting files you don’t know or recognize can cause severe problems.
Furthermore, Revo Uninstaller comes with a bunch of useful features as emptying browser caches, deleting temporary files, Windows search queries, several histories and erasing all tracks of deleted files.
All-In-One-Gestures Plugin for Firefox
The All-In-One-Gestures plugin for Firefox is a plugin that enables you to accomplish nearly every task you want to in Firefox with the help of drawing lines on the screen. You just need to assign the directions for the common task in the preferences and start drawing:
By default, the key for drawing gestures is the middle-mouse key, meaning the mouse-wheel, which can be changed however. The plugin is highly customizable as you will see on first glance when opening the options window, it is also updated regularly to be up-to-date with Firefox’ fast updates.
To show an example, as seen in the options table above, the following gesture will duplicate the current tab:
Gestures are shown as red lines on the screen by default so that you can see what you are drawing. Additionally, the tool can be misused to draw funny pictures on your Firefox windows!
Decreased Productivity Chrome Add-On
Decreased Productivity is an add-on for Chrome that hides every kind of video and picture from the web-sites you are browsing and makes them look completely boring to by-passers. It is highly customisable in terms of what to show and how to show it, displaying the hidden elements only if you move the cursor over them.
Here’s an example of what it does with default settings:
You can download Decreased Productivity via Chrome options in the add-on manager.
Import SSL Certificates in Thunderbird
SSL certificates are used to sign and encrypt/decrypt mails in thunderbird via S/MIME. If you have got a certificate that you want to use to validate your identity, import it as follows:
Open Thunderbird and go to Edit > Preferences:
Click on Advanced and go to the Certificates tab. There, click on View Certificates:
On the Your Certificates tab, click on Import and browse to the directory where you have saved your certificate, which must be saved as .p12 file (see here to learn how to produce that format). Your certificate will then be shown in the list.
Please notice that your certificate must be valid and trusted to be used in Thunderbird! You will have problems with most self-signed certificates.
Clear Firefox Browser Cache
Browser Cache (or Internet Cache) is there to speed up your browser performance by saving sites and items you visited on the internet on your hard disk and recalling them when you visit them again. However there may be times when you want to delete that cache because it either consumes too much disk space (its size can easily climb to 500MB and more) or you do not want someone who has access on your computer to see what sites you visited. In Firefox there is a simple solution for this. Click on the main button and open the Options window:
Select Advanced and go to the Network tab.
The Offline Storage section shows you how large your cache is at the moment. Here you can use the Clear Now button to delete your cache.
If you stayed loyal to Firefox 3.6, go to Edit > Preferences instead.
Save Tabs on Current Firefox Version
From version 4 on, FireFox has disabled the option to save tabs when you leave the browser and left us with the Restore Session option on program start. To enable the option to save tabs again, direct FireFox to about:config and accept the prompt. In the filter bar, enter browser.showquitwarning and double-click the value to toggle it to true. Firefox will now ask you if you want to save your tabs again:
