Create Images From Web Pages

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox

screengrab

Ever tried to save complex flash displayed images or perhaps Google Maps? Unfortunately, it is not as simple as right clicking the images and clicking save as, because complex scripts are employed to display the image/media properly. So how can we overcome this problem? Luckily, there is an easier way to make a perfect copy of the page.

Using the Screengrab extension for Firefox, it adds an option whilst right clicking to either save the current view of the page or the complete page as an image. In my opinion, this will come in very handy when I have to save google maps that has directions on the page. Extension’s like this one make life just that little bit easier ;) .

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Organize Downloads in Firefox with Download Sort Extension

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Tips

Anyone that uses FireFox to download files knows how unorganized Firefox is. You’ll be left with a bunch of files in one folder in which you’ll have to filter though manually. Download Sort Extension solves this problem.

Download Sort Extension
This extension will organize downloads by filetype and store them in folders set by the user. For example, when you download mp3 files, it’ll store them in the Mp3 folder. If you download JPEG files, it will store them in the JPEG folder and so on.

This extension will save you a lot of time. Give it a go. :)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

List of Firefox Add-ons to help you Saves Time (Episode #1)

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox

Over at The Online Quest, DJYano has listed a terrific list of handy Firefox add-ons to make a life just that little bit easier. I suggest you take a look, as most of the add-ons listed I didn’t even know about.

Just one for example is URL Fixer . URL Fixer corrects typos in URLs that you enter in the address bar. Say if you type google.con, it will correct it to google.com (asking first, if you enable confirmation).

It will correct common misspellings of .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .mil, and all other mainstream TLDs, as well as the protocol (http:, https:).
Click here to find out more handy add-ons.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Morning Coffee – The FireFox Extension Must Have

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Tips

Morning Coffee

Morning Coffee is an extension that allows you to set a group of Web sites that will open (each in its own tab) with the click of a button. This will save you from having to roam through your bookmarks (while drinking that first cup of wake-me-up in the morning) to view your favorite sites. And you don’t have to limit yourself to the same tabs everday, either. You can set sites up to open only on certain days (or every day). So if your tech guru or a regular surfer: this extension will make your browsing life a little easier.

You can get this nice extension from here: Morning Coffee 1.32

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Recover Firefox Bookmarks

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Tips, Uncategorized

Just tonight I came back to my computer to browse the web, however when I went to select my bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox I noticed they had all disappeared! Immediately, I tried restarting Firefox, but that didn’t work. I then attempted to restore the json bookmark file but FireFox returned the error message: Unable to process restoration file.

I was puzzled by this, as I thought restoring the backup should have fixed it. After checking out the process manager, i found another instance of FireFox running that was using 102,222KB of memory! So i ended it, and then re-opened FireFox and finally, my bookmarks magically re-appeared. My conclusion to this problem was i don’t think i shut down Firefox Properly, thus it must of been left open in the memory. Morale of the story, shut down Firefox properly or else you’ll face problems!

Have you had mysteries things happen to you in Firefox? If so, please leave a comment as I’m sure everyone would love to hear about it and how you fixed it. I know I would ;) .

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

No Script Everyone Should Have It

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Security, Tips

No Script

NoScript, by Informaction is plug-in that allows you to disable unwanted Java script, Java and more on unwanted websites. This means malicious codes on websites have no way of running on your computer. Also, you can prevent video playback on sites that run using java script. And because it uses a white-list to allow sites, it means you customize it as much as you like. So to sum it up, this plug-in means:

  • No worries of malicious code running.
  • Prevent video from running, thus saving you bandwidth.
  • Has a white-list to allow sites.
  • And it’s FREE!

You can get it here: No Script
Your Anti-virus software will really appreciate it :) .

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Enhance Firefox Startup

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Tips

Firefox is a great web browser, but in comparison to Internet Explorer’s startup speed, Firefox lags behind. This is because Microsoft integrated IE into windows and loads into the memory. Some developer has made a nifty program to load firefox into the memory at startup. Pretty sweet huh? Download your copy of Firefox Preloader today.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Fire Fox Tips

Posted by: pctutorials  :  Category: FireFox, Tips

Today, Firefox is a very popular alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. If you’re a user of Firefox, here is a list of tips that will make your web browsing experience easier and much more enjoyable.

Tip: Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’

Tip: Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on a Bookmark on your Personal Toolbar will open it up in a New Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a folder will open all the bookmarks in the folder in a new Tab(s)

Tip: holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick to “View Image” or “View Backround Image”will open the image in a New Tab or New Window.

Tip: Unused menus or menu Items can be hidden by using the customizing your userChrome.css stylesheet

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a Tab will close that Tab.

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a History item will open the page in a new Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Back and Forward buttons will open the last/next page in a new Tab

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Home button will open your homepage in a new Tab(s)

Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Throbber (the ‘busy’ icon at the top-right) will open the Firefox homepage in a new Tab

Tip: For those without middle mouse buttons or mousewheels, ctrl-click will also open new tabs for links, bookmarks, bookmark folders, history items, and toolbar buttons

Tip: Ctrl+TAB you can navigate in the tabs to the right

Tip: Ctrl+Shift+Tab you can navigate in the tabs to the left

Tip: Many Laptops mimic the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function if you click both right/left pads at the same time.

Tip: Set mutliple Home pages : Tools—->Options—>General and seperate each page with the pipe | symbol
(eg h**p://forums.mozillazine.org/|h**p://www.google.com|h**p://www.y..]h**p://forums.mozillazine.org/|h**p://www….|h**p://www.y…

Tip: Clear your Download history to make the download manager more responsive : Tools—->Options—>Privacy

Tip: Rearrange add/remove Icons on Toolbars: View—>ToolBars—>Customize….

Tip: Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the link

Tip: Pressing ctrl+enter will add h**p://www. before and .com after the text in the toolbar and load the resulting url. Similarly, shift+enter will add h**p://www. and .net, and ctrl+shift+enter will add h**p://www. and .org

Tip: You can work offline like in IE by clicking File>Work Offline. This means that you can browse your previously visited pages even when you’re offline.

Tip: If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop down menu, Highlight it WITHOUT CLICKING and use Shift+Delete

Tip: A bookmarks’s position Dragged & Dropped (ie. change position in a Folder or move from one folder to another or move to another position on the toolbar) by highlighting it & clicking on it (WITHOUT LETTING GO) and Dragging it to your desired position

Tip: A Folder can be move the same way as above tip but u MUST hold down the SHIFT key while Dragging

Tip: Former/current users of IE who are accustomed to copying items from “Temporary Internet Files” folder (FireFox calls it “Cache” ) can achieve the same results by Tools—>Page Info and then select the “Media” Tab, then Highlight the item u want to download and clicking “Save As…”

Tip: If u accidentally delete a bookmark and want to recover it, if it is not already open then, open the “Bookmarks Manager” (Bookmarks—>Manage Bookmarks) and either use Ctrl+Z or Edit—>Undo (in The Bookmarks Manager)

Tip: DoubleClicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will open/launch the file (provided u haven’t moved it yet)

Tip: You can also directly download anything from a page by drag and dropping it onto the ‘download’ icon in your toolbar (provided you put it there in ‘right-click > customize’)

Tip: You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page

Tip: Of course, you can also do what the last tip said in the other direction: drag a text file, a link, a picture, etcetera… from your folders or your desktop to Firefox and it will open in Firefox

Tip: You can save all open tabs in a bookmark folder. Ctl-D, select the “bookmark all tabs in a folder” select or create a folder.

Tip: To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.

Tip: Instead of clicking the Back or Forward buttons, hold down the Shift key and turn the scroll wheel to back or forward

Tip: you can give “keywords” to your bookmarks by right-clicking the bookmark and then Properties. If you put a string in the keyword field now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark. For example, if I have a bookmark for the firefox website, I might give it the keyword “ff”. Now, when I type “ff” in the address bar, it goes to the firefox site. I find it is often faster than going through your bookmarks to find it

Tip: Ctrl and a number key will go to the tab indicated by the number. (e.g. Ctrl+3 will go to the third tab from the left)

Tip: CTRL+F5 refreshes the page without accessign the file cache

Firefox Mouse Tips

Middle Click
Note: Two-button mouse

For those without middle mouse buttons or mousewheels, ctrl-click will also open new tabs for links, bookmarks, bookmark folders, history items, and toolbar buttons.

Many Laptops mimic the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function if you click both right/left pads at the same time.

Clicking both mouse buttons at the same time also mimics the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function.

Tabs

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a Tab will close that Tab.

Personal Toolbar

Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on a Bookmark on your Personal Toolbar will open it up in a New Tab

Folders

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a folder will open all the bookmarks in the folder in a new Tab(s)

History

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a History item will open the page in a new Tab.

Back and Forward buttons

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Back and Forward buttons will open the last/next page in a new Tab.

Home button

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Home button will open your homepage in a new Tab(s).

Links

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a link will open that link in a new tab.

Throbber

MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Throbber (the ‘busy’ icon at the top-right) will open the Firefox homepage in a new Tab.

Images

Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New Tab.

Double Click
Download Manager

DoubleClicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will open/launch the file (provided you haven’t moved it yet)

Tab Bar

Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’

Right Click
Customize Toolbar

You can adjust your toolbars to your liking. Right click on any toolbar, and select ‘Customize’. While this dialogue is up, you can move buttons around on your toolbars by click-and-drag to the new location. The window that pops up when you do this is a holding area for unused icons. You can drag any item from it onto your toolbars to have it made available, and you can drag any icon from your toolbars onto this box to hide that icon completely.

Tip: Some toolbar items, such as the Location bar, will expand to take up all available space.

Keyword Bookmark

Right clicking in a search box (such as the ’search mozillazine, powered by google’, on the left of this page) and selecting ‘add a keyword for this search’ lets you make an interactive keyword bookmark.

Here is how it works:

Give it a name, such as ‘Mozillazine search’
now, assign a keyword to it, such as ‘moz’
click ‘ok’

From now on, you can search mozillazine (or any other search box you used for this) from your address bar like this:

Enter ‘moz search topic’ in your address bar and click Go!

Drag’n Drop
Moving bookmarks and folders

You can change a bookmark’s position in a folder or move it from one folder to another or move it to another position on the toolbar by highlighting it & clicking on it (WITHOUT LETTING GO) and dragging it to your desired position.

A folder can be moved the same way as above tip but u MUST hold down the SHIFT key while dragging.

Icons

You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page.

Drag a text file, a link, a picture, etcetera… from your folders or your desktop to Firefox and it will open in Firefox!

Links

“Click-and-drag” a bookmark to the main content windown (which is the biggest on the firefox userinterface),so you can open it in a new tab !

Dragging a link onto a new tab will open the link in the new tab.

Downloading links

Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the link.

You can also directly download anything from a page by drag and dropping it onto the ‘download’ icon in your toolbar (provided you put it there in ‘right-click > customize’)

Mouse and Keyboard
Images

Holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick to “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New Tab or New Window.

Selecting text

If you hold down the CTRL key and left click on part of a web page, that section of the page will be highlighted. If you right click on the selection and choose ‘View selection source’, the source code for that part of the page will be displayed.

To quickly highlight text, especially long text fields. Left-click once in the window where you want the selection to start; and then shift-click in the spot where you want the selection to end (selection range). *this is a lot easier than click-selection-dragging, especially where there is a lot of text to highlight.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!