Instead of limiting yourself with Google search under your context menu. With Context Search, extension for Mozilla Firefox browser, you can turn your search menu into a drop-down list while choosing the search engine after you have highlighted your search terms.

• Direct searching
• All in one search tool with more varieties of search engines
• Faster when you need to search for images

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Note: You need Add to Search Bar extension to add search engine of your choice.

This extension is one of my favourite and it is one that I cannot live without. With Google Image search added to my search bar using Add to Search Bar extension, I can search for images directly after I highlight the search term. After you select a search engine from the drop-down list, it will open the search in a new tab. Nonetheless, there is no settings or options you can set (etg open search in current tab).

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category

Hide Folders XP is a free and compact software by FSPro Labs, it can protect your private files and folders. The program does not need to launch at startup in order to protect your files. It can protect your files even in safe mode.

Features:

1. Hide your files/folders (The file/folder can still be opened or written as long as you know the directory path to your hidden file/folder)
2. Lock your files/folders (By locking it, it is inaccessible and unwritable)
3. Hide and Lock your files/folders (If you hide and lock, your file is not visible and also inaccessible and unwritable. Even if you run it from an absolute path, the user gets “Access is denied.” warning)

Hide Folders XP Settings

I have been using this handy compact program to hide and lock my private documents for a few years and I fully recommend it. It is excellent that there is no need for this Hide Folders XP to run during startup for it to protect your files, and thus consume little to no memory ram process. It can also protect your files in safe mode. Moreover, it can hide auto-startup programs from view and still allowing it to run which is ideal to strict unauthorized user from messing with the hidden program.

When you checked on “Enable strict password policy“, users attempting to open this program will have to input your specified password in order to unlock or unhide your files. It cannot be uninstalled without a password as well.

On the other hand, if you want to tweak some system options (deleting a windows user account or installing other programs that may conflict), you have to turn off the program during tweaking/installation or the system is unable to make the changes thus resulting in an auto-restart/crash.

Note: Turn off and uninstall Hide Folders XP before you reformat your pc.

Do you use search engines often? If you do, with Add to Search Bar and SearchWords, it can save you more time by searching directly using Mozilla Firefox search bar. Add to Search Bar can add custom search engine to your search bar. SearchWords can search terms using URL address bar, and keyword for respective search engine is in the search term. These two extension make a perfect pair when used together.

Let’s look at Add to Search Bar: This extension lets you add other search engines that is not available on Firefox add-on Search Plugin to your browser search bar.

Pros: Lets you add custom search engines Cons: Sometimes the Manage Search Engine window turns buggy after managing/adding search engines, thus you have to restart browser Interface: Usefulness: Ease of use: Performance: Value:

Let’s Look at SearchWords: This extension lets you search with ‘keyword terms’ and search a particular search engine with the keyword you specified in the search term, using the URL address bar.

Pros: Direct searching, you do not have to access the search engine website Less loading time, you do not have to access the search engine website Lets you assign keyword to each search engine Cons: None Interface: Usefulness: Ease of use: Performance: Value:

These two add-ons are great for frequent searchers. If you do not like to search through the URL address bar but the search bar, you can install Scroll Search Engines. It allows you to use your mouse wheel to scroll through different search engines you have. When you add custom search engines, you need favicons/icons for better appearance, you can use Iconfinder.

Related Entries: Firefox Add-on Category

Tweak UI is a free user interface customization program by Microsoft for Windows Xp desktop management. It tweaks settings on how the desktop/explorer behaves, as well as other useful settings. You might want to give it a try.

Click on above image to view full.

Click here to download Tweak UI 2.10.

Tweak UI Settings:

• General – sound, shadow, animation, menu settings
  • Focus – prevent application from stealing focus.
  • Alt+Tab – settings to control size of window when you press Alt+Tab.
• Mouse – menu speed, and mouse sensitivity settings
  • Hover – control settings for mouse hover sensitivity.
  • Wheel – enable/disable scrolling using mouse wheel, and lines amount per scroll setting.
  • X-Mouse – enable/disable window focus type, when mouse over automatic focus window setting.
• Explorer – showing of links and menu settings
  • Shortcut – shortcut icon overlay type setting.
  • Colors – compressed files, hot-tracking, encrypted files settings.
  • Thumbnails – image quality, thumbnail size settings.
  • Command Keys – shortcut keys for explorer, documents, internet explorer settings.
  • Customizations – folder to remember setting.
  • Slide Show – picture delay and interval setting.
• Common Dialogs – auto-finish settings for edit boxes
  • Places Bar – default, hide, or custom place bar settings.
• Taskbar and Start Menu – balloon tooltip settings
  • Grouping – settings to control grouping of applications on taskbar.
  • Start Menu – control visual of frequently used programs on start menu.
• Desktop – show which icons on desktop
  • First Icon – choosing the first icon between ‘My Documents’ and ‘My Computer’. (Default is ‘My Documents’)
• My Computer – show which icons on my computer folder
  
  • Drives – set usable drive letters.
  • Special Folders – assigning of default location folders for each special task. (CD burning, shared documents, etc)
  • AutoPlay – customization of autoplay for external harddisk.
    • Drives – set usable drive letters.
    • Types – enable/disable autoplay on which drive types. (removable drives, cd and dvd drives)
    • Handlers – create, edit, delete handlers after autoplay.
  • Drive Letters – settings on how drive letters should appear in ‘My Computer’.
• Control Panel – settings to hide control panel icon extensions
• Templates – which document type to create when using Right-Click > New menu
• Internet Explorer – backslash conversion setting
  • Toolbar Background
  • Search
  • View Source
  • Small Animation
  • Large Animation
  • Image Toolbar
• Command Prompt – auto filename completion setting for Command Prompt
• Logon – showing of accounts setting
  • Autologon – enable/disable and set which account to autologon.
  • Unread Mail – enable/disable showing of unread mail on welcome screen.
  • Settings – copies animation settings for accounts
  • Screen Saver – grace period before showing login screen setting.
• Access Control – switch between ‘Connect to registry remotely’ or ‘Access performance counters’
• Repair – function to repair icons (all, font, music, pictures, videos, regedit, unread mail count)

Tweak UI is useful for tweaking settings which Windows Xp does not have functions/interface to tweak special settings especially inessential or minor ones.

This award winning Firefox extension for Mozilla Firefox browser is called the All-in-One Sidebar. It integrates all the sidebar panels into one and makes switching between panels an easy task. It is easily accessible through vertical toolbar by the left-side of your browser. You can customize the toolbar by adding buttons.

• Integrates all panels into one and display in a single sidebar (downloads, extensions, and other add-ons that uses panel)
• The sidebar can also display url page like a tab
• Collapsible vertical toolbar (toggling the switch button will collapses/show the sidebar)
• Customizable vertical toolbar (you can add any button on it, flexible buttons size, adjustable position of toolbar)
• Many other preferences can be set in options

Add-on and Downloads displayed in sidebar panel.

You can view Bookmarks, History, Page Source, Page Info, Error Console, and other extensions that use window/panel, in the sidebar panel. To view a list of add-ons without using sidebar, you can try EM Menu.

Clicking on the switch toggles the sidebar and toolbar.

• Left-click on the switch – opens/closes both the sidebar and toolbar.
• Ctrl+Left-click or Middle click on the switch – opens/closes toolbar only.
• Right-click on the switch – opens/closes sidebar only.

You can set autohide/autoshow in the options when mouse over the toolbar. Unfortunately, there is no options to set keyboard short-cuts for switch toggling.

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This extension is wonderful for making easy panel switching. Without it each functions may have its own floating window/panel that covers the web content. Another commendable feature is the ability to insert buttons and arrange them anyway you want on the vertical toolbar. If you need more buttons for your vertical toolbar, you can install Toolbar Buttons, it offers many functional buttons (restart browser, stop all tabs, toggle images, etc).

With this new vertical toolbar, I can un-clutter some of the buttons on my status bar. On the other hand, the options is quite complicated when the advanced mode is turned on. There are needless amount of available options and some hardly had any effect. You have to read, trial and error to fully understand each option.

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category

This article shows you how to edit ID3 tag and embed album-art covers for your mp3 players (Ipod, Zen, Zune, Media Players, etc). First, you need an ID3 tag editor. I use Mp3Tag Editor, it can batch edit, rename tag/files, add album-art covers, and create playlist.

Click on above image to view full.

Click here to download Mp3Tag Editor (ver 2.38 supports ID3 v1/2/2.3/2.4 and APE v1/2).

Table of Contents

1. Setting options
2. Edit tags
3. Convert tags to filenames
4. Adding album-art covers

Go to Tools > Options. Go to Mpeg under Tags dropdown list. Match the check boxes with the below image.

2. Edit tags
Select all or individual mp3s and edit the Title, Artist, Album, Year, Track, and Genre fields. When done press File > Save tag (Ctrl+S).

Note: < keep > means you have selected multiple files and each files have different tag value.

3. Convert tags to filenames
Select Convert > Tag – Filename (Alt+1). This automatically renames all files to values of the tags. %track%, %artist%, %title% are dynamic variables for each tag.

Tips: This is an optional step, renaming filenames will make your directory neater.

4. Adding album-art covers
Select View > Extended Tags (Alt+T). Choose the image file you want to assign as the album-art cover.

Note: It is highly recommended to resize your album-art cover images to 200×200 or 100×100 pixels. Big images will take more time to load in your mp3 players and will deplete your mp3 player’s battery life more easily.

You are done! Add editing ID3 tags and add album-art covers is quite easy. Eventually, you might want to turn off prompting confirmation messages (after save, and after change) by going to Tools > Options > Messages. Too much prompting is quite distracting right? There are other functions that you might want to explore further. Have a nice day!

Related Entries:
Convert your MP3s with NCH Switch
Tutorials, Mp3, Softwares, Tech Category

12 things that I think WordPress can improve for its bloggers. Details after the jump.

12. Unique visitor tracking Stats
Adding a more specific unique visitor would be good to check how many visitor has been to your site exactly. It tracks visitors by IP address so only visitors with different IP will be counted.

11. Multiple File Uploader
Uploading single individual files takes too much loading time. What if you need to upload 50 files?

10. WordPress Polls
Poll adds more interactive to your site. A good feature if available.

9. Template Category
Create a new post with similar category list as older post. You do not have to check all related tags all over again for post that is related. This provides more consistency and saves time.

8. Recent Edits/Updates Widget
Just like recent posts and recent comments widget, this widget only shows post have major edits.

7. Add New Category Placement
Add new category should be place at the top instead of bottom-most. If you have over 200 categories, to add new category, you have to scroll down extensively. Although there is an archor link to it.

6. Presentation > Widgets
Under Presentation section, Themes are showed first by default. How many times do you actually change your site theme, not in few days right? Changes made to Widgets is more frequently made than Themes. Widgets should be showed first by default. This saves WordPress bandwidth without loading the themes thumbnails as well.

5. Browsing/Manage Uploads Results
Searching for wanted images/files can be a pain when there is 10 result per page. What if there is 100+ pages? If number of result per page can be set in Options, files are more accessible and it saves user time to search for the exact image/file.

4. Draft Post Placement
Draft post should appear at the top irregardless of Timestamp, by default. Currently, you have to select “Draft” from Status drop down list and click filter. Three steps can be skipped when Draft posts are showed at the top by default. Again it’s more time saving and less hassle.

3. Publish Button
When you have already written a draft and want to publish it, you have to edit and wait for the WYSIWYG Editor and your content to load before you can publish. Already published post, can have “Status” button in place of “Publish” button instead, which can change the status of the published post to private, pending review, or draft once again.

2. Tag Surfer
I don’t know if this is a bug or an intended purpose. When subscribing tags, the tags will be added as Category without the means of the user. Would be great if user’s own post with specific subscribed tag can be showed in Tag Surfer as well, user can visual and edit layout of post to make it more suitable for viewing in Tag Surfer. One more thing, when there are many results on Tag Surfer, it only shows first 10 or 15 post depending on the setting of WordPress itself, the rest is cut off. This can be solved by result per page just like Managing images/files.

1. WYSIWYG Editor
There is no button for insertion or handling of tables. It must be done in html code.

If you can think of few more features WordPress can add, feel free to comment.

ChinesePera-Kun is a chinese popup dictionary Firefox extension for Mozilla Firefox browser. It defines the word and provide Hanyu Pinyin translation.

• Allow toggling (on/off)
• Popup dictionary when mouse over Chinese characters
• Detailed Lookup Search Status-bar Panel when needed
• Works with both Simplified and Traditional characters
• Can save text for output to text file via preference settings
• Behaviours changeable via preference settings (Popup colour theme, popup delays, keyboard short-cuts, etc)

Lookup Search Status-bar Panel (fig.1)

Lookup Search Status-bar Panel (fig.2)

Interface:
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The popup dictionary is extremely useful for someone like me who is weak in written chinese. lol. It provides Hanyu Pinyin which is the more handy feature i needed. The Hanyu Pinyin translation is very accurate. The popup dictionary design is great, however the layout position of Lookup Search Status-bar Panel (fig.1) is displeasing, it blocks the content I want to view or click-on. There is no settings for the layout position as well. ChinesePera-kun can clutter context menu and navigational toolbar which can be unpleasant looking (luckily there is Menu Editor). As for the performance, it lags approx. 0.5-3 sec for the first session you turn on the popup dictionary, nevertheless still acceptable. Ultimately the functions overshadows small eye-unpleasing details.

Note: There are Japanese popup dictionaries as well, try Rikaichan or PeraPera-kun.

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category

NCH Switch is an simple and easy-to-use audio converter. It convert many formats including (mp3, wma, wav, ogg, aac, flac, amr, and others). It can also rip CDs into many formats. Switch is ranked #3 at insideTonic. It’s Free!

Just add the files you want to convert to the list via the context or program menu, select the format you want to use, and then click the convert button. Being a very light-weight program, it takes up little CPU process when converting.

The settings are quite straight-forward, the above is my default settings for converting mp3s. I’ve been using it for years and the only problem i encounter with Switch is that it is unable to detect mp3 with bizarre symbols, Chinese, Japanese characters in filenames and folders.

Click here to download NCH Switch v1.12 (413kb) from download.com.
Click here to visit its official homepage.

Have you used before MileWideBack Firefox extension for Mozilla Firefox browser? With MileWideBack, you can remove your back and forward navigational buttons permanently. Clicking allows you to navigate back, forward, and switch between tabs by clicking on the left side of the screen/window.

• Left clicking, go back one page
• Right clicking, go forward one page
• Middle clicking, close tab
• Mouse scrolling, switch between tabs
• Hit area is the whole height of the page region, so you do not need to press on specific area like the navigational buttons (forward and back)
• Functions can be altered, by setting value in “about:config” settings

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I feel this is an under appreciated extension for Firefox, mainly because of the bizarre name given by the author, nrlz. I reversed the click settings for MileWideBack, left clicking will trigger forward navigation instead. Often unintentionally clicked on the left side of the screen/window. Scrolling your mouse on the left side of the screen can be quite annoying when it switched tabs unexpectedly. Particularly when your mouse scrolling sensitivity is high, it switches tab too quickly. Quite a simple, yet effective extension. What do you think of this extension? Try it.

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category

Using the Email Icon Generator to generate an email icon for your site can prevent spams being picked up by ads bots and spiders. Never post your email directly (using the @ sign) onto websites or forums, it can be picked up by ads bots and add to their spam list.

Some examples:

Note: All above email address does not exist.

When registering for a website, uncheck all subscription topics, so no ads emails will be sent to you. Using example (cococokies-jar[at]anyurl.com) on your page can also reduce spams, however advance scanning bots can still read and add to their spam list.

Ever download a rar archive along with a readme.txt that requires password? Opening readme.txt instructs you to visit a website to ask for password. To unlock the rar archive you have to enter your email. Take time to check out that site, or comments by other downloaders whether it sells your email to ads spammers.

If you are looking image uploading Firefox extension for Mozilla Firefox browser, you can try ImageBot. It that allows you to upload images to ImageShack and Photobucket without the need of visiting the image hosting website. The extension also allows multiple image upload, better interface, and less waiting time for page loading, and many more.

Click on above image to view full.

• Allows massive multiple image upload and deletion
• Can copy URL, view, delete, upload from clipboard, re-upload particular image via context menu
• Can be set to re-size images automatically
• Remembers uploaded images
• Less waiting time for page to load web layout
• Allow server deletion of uploaded images
• Neat Interface compare to site web layout
• Template Editor allows you to create your own information template
• Flexible settings (Allow ImageBot to open in tab or floating window, set row height, hide ImageBot status bar, hide ImageBot context menu, set naming convention for images uploaded from clipboard, etc)

Click on above image to view full.

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I can hardly live without this Firefox extension. It’s incredibly useful in handling bulk amount of images. Can’t imagine having to upload them one-by-one on an image hosting site. Although some offers toolbar for the Firefox which also allows multiple upload. I loathe toolbars, it clutters the browsers’ precious viewing space. Apparently, there is a bug regarding the filter search not working. Moreover, uploads are delayed until all thumbnails are loaded.

A few things that can be done to make ImageBot better, the arrangement of newer images displaying at the top rather than the bottom. To select the newest image I have to scroll down all the way. Shortcut keys for launching the upload window will be extremely useful. Most computer users are lazy, at least I am. =p

ImageBot tutorial video:

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category

Ever had messy and cluttered desktop context menus after installing other softwares? There are manual ways to remove them from Registry Editor but in a tedious way, and backup is necessary. Here easier solution, you can hide them with ShewExView by Nirsoft, a Shell Extensions Manager. It does not require any installation and it’s free.

Note: This is for Windows XP only.

1. Right-click on any context menu you want to hide and select “Disable Selected Items” or press the Red-Colored button on the top menu.
   
2. You are done!

Click here to download ShellExView (45kb) from its official homepage.

Just ask them nicely.

A small developer sees his work pirated on the internet, what can he do about it with his tiny resources? Easy. He emails the warez group, turns on the charm and asks them nicely to leave him alone in the future – and they agree!

Organizations such as the MPAA, RIAA and IFPI spend millions of dollars enforcing copyrights by getting people fined and even jailed for file-sharing.

Trey Harrison is a 29 year old, living in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and a couple of cats. He enjoys writing music and creating music videos and has just invested the last 7 years to bring out a PC application called ‘Salvation‘.

“I imagined it as a tool for creating custom video and lighting controls at music venues” says Trey. “My first customer Denne continues to please crowds with his mixes at club Rai in Moscow, and recently the Inside Us All VJ collective began using it to power some awesome multi-projector HD displays in the UK. It’s a rather powerful realtime graphics tool now, and one of my next goals is to make that power accessible within After Effects and Final Cut.”

Then came the inevitable news – ‘Salvation’ had been cracked and made available on the internet by a release group known as BlueBeta3D who actually displayed their email address in the .NFO. So Trey dropped them a line, to see if they could come to some sort of arrangement…..

___________________________________________Subject: Is there any negotiating with pirates?
From: Trey Harrison
Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 20:56:27 -0700
To: BlueBeta3D@hushmail.com

Hi, you guys have recently released a pirated version of my software called
“Salvation”. I’m not very surprised – actually I’m flattered – but I was
wondering if we could arrange a meeting to discuss the possibility of you
not doing this any more?

Best,
Trey Harrison
http://www.harrisondigitalmedia.com
___________________________________________

Trey explains, “I was pretty sure I’d never hear from them, so I sent off an email to the company I purchased my anti-piracy protection tool from, as well as an email to the hosting company that is hosting the warezed copy. Who responded first? The pirates.”

___________________________________________

Subject: Re: Is there any negotiating with pirates?
From:
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 17:11:27 +0100
To: “Trey Harrison”

Hi Trey,

We appreciate your comments and understand the role of developers ,
we only released it so many people who may not have access or
privileges could try this and learn. Hopefully its given more
global coverage. Apologies for any grievance it may have caused. We
also noted your comments and will not release this again. Good Luck
and best wishes for future developement.

Greets

We contacted BlueBeta3D and they said “Our release are aimed for purely for people who wish to learn and do not have the benefits/or just help to extend an evaluation.” They also made it quite clear that they are against any commercialization of piracy and maybe, just maybe, they’re also men of their word in respect of leaving Trey alone in the future.

Who said you can’t negotiate with pirates?

Source: Torrentfreak (more detailed article)

This shows that there are many methods to solve piracy without the need of strictly enforcing the law onto them. This may happen in a small extent of the world of piracy, nevertheless positive attitude comes great accomplishment.

Introducing this new Firefox extension for Mozilla Firefox browser, Snap Links. It’s extremely useful for people who like to open multiple new tabs all at once. Very useful when you are browsing forums, and you want to open multiple thread all into new tabs all in a go!

• The user selects the links by drawing a rectangle (instead of highlighting the text or moving the mouse over the link)
• Only main links are selected by default
• You can set to use the left, right or middle mouse button to draw the rectangle
• Selected links will have a red border as visual aid
• Number of links highlighted will be stated at the status bar below
• Requires only one click to open many links with multiple tabs

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I like this extension, no more right-click > open link in new tab, for many threads in forums. The options are not complicated as well. If you accidentally opened too many tabs with Snap Links, you can install Active Stop Button extension. Active Stop Button can stop all tabs from loading instantly by right-clicking on the default stop button, default Firefox can only stop individual tab and one at a time.

Sometimes this bug occur, the status bar showed “Resize selection, Shift: All links in selection, Alt: Move selection” when you are not using Snap Links. Being unable to stop Snap Links when you Right-Click on flash objects, under Interface it gets 3 stars. Overall, Snap Links is a nicely done extension.

Related Entries:
Firefox Add-on Category