Saturday, May 30, 2009

Windows - some useful tweaks

1. Disable the Windows Startup / Login Sound:

Feel distracted or annoyed by the Windows startup sound, whenever you bootup.Open "Sounds and Audio Devices" from Control Panel. Click Sounds tab. In the "Program events:" slect Windows startup or login as needed.
Click on the pop-up menu that currently says "Windows XP Startup" under "Sounds" and select None. Or you may change to a tone of your liking. Click 'OK' or 'Apply' and you are done.

2. Reduce Bootup time (Defragment Windows Bootup):

Open Regedit, Select "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction", Set Enable value to "Y".

Read what Microsoft says about this:

“Accepted values for this entry are Y or N. If the entry is set to Y, Windows automatically optimizes the file location for boot optimization. This optimization occurs automatically if the system is idle for 10 minutes. Boot optimization improves startup time by locating startup files in contiguous clusters on the volume, reducing the movement of the disk head when reading the volume.”

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Some tips for Chrome (or Iron)

1. Task Manager: Shift + Escape (or right click the title bar)
Shows a Task Manager with the web sites that are open in the Browser. You can directly end any tab from the Task Manager.

2. Visual Browser History: Ctrl+H

3. Search your favourite web sites frome the address Bar : Once you visit a site which has its search engine, the next time you want to search the same site, just type in the site address followed by tab, to search the site.

4. Memory used by different browsers and also in tabs of Chrome open a new tab and type about:Memory in the address bar.

5.Reopen tabs closed by mistake: Press Ctrl+T, which will show an option Recently Closed Tabs in the tab so opened. Select the closed tab link to open it.

6. Desktop shortcuts: Open any site and choose "Create Application Shortcut" from the File Menu.

7. Open Chrome by default in incognito:
Make a new shortcut for chrome. Open the properties of the shortcut and modify the target by adding " -incognito" without the quotes at the end of the program path.

8. Drag & Drop downloads: After any download is finished you can just drag and drop the download directly from Chrome's bottom window to any folder.

9. Add a new search engine with an alias: You can add any search engine as default or with an alias. Open options feom tools menu. In Basics tab click on Default search: 'Manage' Button. In the dialog box which opens add the new search engine you need. In the url enter the url for any search you have done with the new search engine. Replace the search entry with %s. You can give an alias name for this search in the keyword entry. Like g for google search for example. Click OK and you are done. In this case next time you want to search with google just type g "your search term" in the url bar and the default search will be replaced with google as you needed and results of the google search will appear.

10. Add languages that you need chrome to be able to display:

  1. Click the Tools menu tools menu.
  2. Select Options.
  3. Click the Minor Tweaks tab.
  4. Click the Change fonts and language settings button.

Click the Languages tab.

  • If your preferred language isn't listed, click the Add button, then select your language from the 'Languages' drop-down menu. Click the OK button to add it to the list.
  • To change the priority of a language within your list of languages, select the language and use the Move up and Move down buttons. For example, if a website is available in both French and English, and you prefer to see the French content, move French above English in the list.
  • To remove a language from the list, select the language and click theRemove button.
11. Split Chrome's tab into split pane: You can split the Chrome tab into two right down the middle. Just drag the bookmarklet from here to your bookmark toolbar. http://www.chromeplugins.org/plugins/google-chrome-dual-view/

12. How to create Profiles in Google Chrome Browser:

Unlike Firefox that ships with a Profile Manager, the only way to create multiple profiles in Google Chrome browser is manually. Here’s how:

Step 1: Load Chrome and choose "Clear Browsing History" from the Tools menu. This will clear all your private data.

Step 2. Open your Google Chrome installation folder that is available at:

For Windows Vista - C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome 
For Windows XP - 
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

chrome-profileStep 3: Open Windows Explorer and switch to the "User Data" folder available inside Chrome installation folder.

Then select the subfolder called "default" and make a copy of it in the "User Data" folder itself. Give that copy a name, say, Your_Name. (See screenshot).

Step 4 (Optional): We will now initialize this new "Your_Name" profile to the factory default settings.

Open "Command Prompt", switch to the Chrome Application folder and run the following command:

chrome.exe --user-data-dir="..\User Data\Your_Name" -first-run

Step 5: So our new user profile is ready. To run Google Chrome using this profile instead of the default profile, just create a shortcut on your desktop, Quick launch bar or your Windows Start Menu.

Right click anywhere on the desktop, choose New -> Shortcut and type the location:

For Windows Vista: C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe –user-data-dir="..\User Data\Your_Name"

For Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe –user-data-dir="..\User Data\Your_Name"

13. How to move your cache folder location:

1) Right-click the Google Chrome program shortcut and select Properties from the menu.

2) Append the chrome.exe command line option switch at the end of program path in Target text-box with the following:

--user-data-dir="type the full path of the cache folder here


14. Bothered about privacy use Iron instead:

If you like Chrome and is bothered about privacy and Google making use of your browsing data, then Iron is a good browser to try.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

If you are using Iron instead of Chrome all these workarounds should work.

15. Foxit plugin for Chrome:

After installing Foxit, copy the "npFoxitReaderplugin.dll" found in "...\Foxit Reader\Plugin" folder and copy it in "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\Plugins" folder. For iron it will be something like "C:\Program Files\Iron portable\Iron\plugins" folder.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

To disable the recent documents history In WindowsXP

1. Open Registry editor

2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

3. Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value of NoRecentDocsHistory by double clicking.

4. Set the Data Value to 1. Save the value and close the registry editor.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Firefox tweaks (about:config)

1. Reduce memory in use when firefox is minimized:

Go to about:config by typing in the url bar. Right-click any area in the window and select New > Boolean. In the dialogue box enter config.trim_on_minimize and press Enter. Select value True and press Enter.

2. Force Extension compatibility with Firefox 3.6 plus:

Go to about:config by typing in the url bar. Right-click any area in the window and select New > Boolean. In the dialogue box enter extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6 [format is extensions.checkCompatibility.(VERSION).(a for alpha OR b for beta) ] and press Enter. Select value False and press Enter.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Change the default time for ending any unresponsive program

If you click on ‘End Task’ when any program is unresponsive, you may find that the program is taking a long time to get killed. You can change this by editing the regedit.exe --- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\WaitToKillServiceTimeout and change this value to 2000 or whatever you like.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Useful Firefox addons

LastPass Password Manager

by LastPass

Preview Image of LastPass Password Manager


LastPass is a free online password manager and Form Filler that makes your web browsing easier and more secure. LastPass supports IE and Firefox as Plugins (Opera, Safari, Chrome, iPhone, Opera Mini via Bookmarklets), allows you to import from every major password storage vendor and export too, captures passwords that other managers won't including many AJAX forms, and allows you to make strong passwords easily. Your sensitive data is encrypted _locally_ before upload so even LastPass cannot get access to it. One Time Passwords & Screen Keyboard help protect your master password.

Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.1

by onemen, Gary Reyes

Chromin Frame 1.0.9.3

by Zero Fire


Zotero


Preview Image of Zotero


Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.

IE Tab

by PCMan (Hong Jen Yee), yuoo2k

Preview Image of IE Tab


IE Tab - an extension from Taiwan, features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox...

Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)

by Xmarks Inc.


Preview Image of Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)


Xmarks is the #1 bookmarking add-on. Install it on all your computers to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords backed up and synchronized. Xmarks also helps you uncover the best of the web based on what millions of people are bookmarking.

Read It Later

by Idea Shower

recommended

Preview Image of Read It Later


Read It Later allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It eliminates cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest.


Keyscrambler Personnel

by QFX Software



KeyScrambler encrypts your keystrokes in the kernel and decrypts it at the destination application, leaving Keyloggers with indecipherable keys to record.

The anti-keylogging browser addon protects IE, Firefox, Flock against keyloggers. It encrypts everything you type into a web page, including logins, account numbers, addresses, email messages, and more. Absolutely Free.

The following are not needed if Tab Mix Plus is used:

Session Manager

by Morac

Preview Image of Session Manager


Session Manager saves and restores the state of all windows - either when you want it or automatically at startup and after crashes. Additionally it offers you to reopen (accidentally) closed windows and tabs.

ReloadEvery

by Jaap Haitsma

Preview Image of ReloadEvery


Reloads web pages every so many seconds or minutes. The function is accessible via the context menu (menu you get when you right click on a web page) or via a drop down menu on the reload button

CheckPlaces 2.2.0

by Andy Halford