MakeUseOf.com: “The 7 Coolest Wikipedia Plugins for Your Browser” plus 10 more |  |
- The 7 Coolest Wikipedia Plugins for Your Browser
- Cool Websites and Tools [July 23rd]
- The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers]
- 7 Top Firewall Programs To Consider For Your Computer’s Security
- 5 More Websites To Learn More About GIMP Photo Editing
- Hot Tech Deals [July 23rd]
- Turbocharge & Customize Your Mac Finder Windows [Mac]
- 6 Add-Ons To Improve Firefox Page Zoom Feature
- 4 Telltale Signs That You’ve Downloaded A Fake Movie File
- 12 Yahoo Widgets To Stream Interesting Information To Your Desktop
- 4 New Cool Improvements Of Google Image Search
| The 7 Coolest Wikipedia Plugins for Your Browser Posted: 24 Jul 2010 04:51 AM PDT
Firefox users can benefit from a Wikipedia toolbar that gives you complete control over your Wikipedia editing and searching needs. Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer users can all benefit from plugins that allow you to perform Wikipedia searches from any website you happen to be browsing. Take a look at the following list for the best in Wikipedia plugins for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE.
FirefoxWikipedia ToolbarThe first obvious choice for a Wikipedia plugin is the Wikipedia Toolbar. The toolbar gives you easy access to performing searches directly on Wikipedia, and if you have an account, gives you access to every aspect of your interaction with the website itself.
From the toolbar, you can look up random entries, add and remove specific entries to your watch list, access that list, and edit pages on Wikipedia. You also have quick access to the What Links Here page, and can navigate to your own user page.
QuickWikiIf you want an easy way to look up words directly from the website you are browsing, QuickWiki is the perfect plugin to enhance your browsing experience. Highlighting any given word and right-clicking will bring up a menu which allows you to look it up in Wikipedia or Wiktionary. There are two ways the search results can be displayed, either in a window overlaying your current page, or you can open the results in a new tab.
Alternatively, you can configure QuickWiki to work with specific shortcuts to pull up your results at the click of a button.
If you want to perform a quick search, the shortcut, Shift + Space will bring up a small search bar overlaying your current window.
QuickWiki’s additional features include support for English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese and the ability to adjust the appearance of the overlaying window. For an indepth review of QuickWiki, check out Saikat’s post. GooglepediaGooglepedia integrates Wikipedia search directly into Google dividing your search page into two columns. The first column contains the original google results, while in the second, the relevant Wikipedia article is displayed. Googlepedia does have its shortcomings. If you do a search directly from within Google, sometimes Googlepedia’s search results will not be displayed. On the other hand, if you do the search from Firefox’s inbuilt search bar at the top of the page – the results are always displayed. Googlepedia is currently being ported to other browsers and is already available for Chrome.
ChromeWikipedia CompanionChrome users will appreciate the Wikiepdia Companion which gives them easy access to search and browse articles on Wikipedia from the extensions menu.
All results are displayed in a small window overlaying the browser.
Wikipedia Companion doesn’t come with many bells and whistles. It simply serves as a mini browser that is handy for people who tend to look up a lot of information on Wikipedia. If you would prefer to have easy access to a search bar that opens up search results in a new tab, then Wikipedia Search will be sufficient for your purposes.
Wiki-ItSafari users can install Wiki-It, which can be best described as a simplified version of QuickWiki. Installing the extension allows you to right click any given word as you are browsing, and it will add an option to the menu to look up that word on Wikipedia. Search results are opened in a new tab on the Wikipedia website.
You can also choose to open the search results in a new window, in the current tab, or in a new tab in the background.
In order to install Wiki-It, make sure you’ve updated to Safari 5, and take a look at Jeffry’s article on how to enable extensions. Internet ExplorerDefine with WikipediaInternet Explorer users can also add a quick link to look up words in Wikipedia using the right click menu when highlighting a word. Using Define with Wikipedia allows you to do just that, with search results opened in a new tab on the Wikipedia website.
Wikipedia Visual SearchWikipedia Visual Search adds Wikipedia to the search engines included in IE’s inbuilt search bar. If you enter a search term and press Enter, it will take you directly to the related Wikipedia page. On the other hand, if you enter the search term and do not press Enter, it will display a list of suggested pages from Wikipedia, with thumbnails where applicable.
What are your favourite Wikipedia browser addons? Let us know in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Cool Websites and Tools [July 23rd] Posted: 23 Jul 2010 08:31 PM PDT
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| The 5 Best Questions From You [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 23 Jul 2010 06:31 PM PDT
This week’s well deserved winner is Yousef for his answer to this question: “Is a Mac harder to use than a Windows PC?” Congratulations Yousef! And here are our best questions of the week:
To learn more than you ever wanted to know, browse MakeUseOf Answers. You can view Latest Questions, Unanswered Questions or Most Popular Questions. For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask your question at MakeUseOf Answers! Free, no signup, no spam. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 7 Top Firewall Programs To Consider For Your Computer’s Security Posted: 23 Jul 2010 04:31 PM PDT
There are many tools out there to help you manage your firewall’s operations, but there aren’t too many free ones. Putting a list together may help you contrast and compare the decent programs that are out there.
1-3. Comodo Internet Security, PC Tools Firewall Plus Free Edition, ZoneAlarm Free FirewallLast month, Matt wrote about The Three Best Free Firewalls for Windows. The three firewall programs he wrote about are definitely worth revisiting and are a good starting point for this list. Since they were covered previously, I will only briefly cover them here.
Comodo, always a popular choice among our readers (see ‘08 poll), has merged its antivirus program with Firewall Pro, creating a free security program for everyone. If you are only interested in the firewall (or antivirus), the installer does let you opt out of either of the components.
PC Tools Firewall Plus is a powerful personal free firewall that protects your computer from hackers and intruders. It can stop Trojans, backdoors, and keyloggers from damaging your computer and stealing your private information.
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall is an excellent tool for replacing the default Windows firewall. It’s always among the top 1 or 2 rated firewall programs and includes better outbound protection, antiphishing guards, and ZoneAlarm’s behavioral detection network. 4. Ashampoo FireWall FreeAshampoo FireWall Free is an easy-to-use program that lets users control and prevent unwanted connections to the Internet. It has a tabbed interface that is easy to navigate and comes readily configured.
The program provides automatic notifications when an app attempts to connect to the Internet and gives you the power to block or allow such actions. You can also go in and add rules for programs manually, along with viewing connection stats and logs. With the Internet Cleaner feature, you can erase evidence of Internet activity as well. 5. Online Armor FreeOnline Armor has all of the normal features of a firewall, but it also comes with a keylogger guard, tamper protection, script and worm protection, and autostart protection. It can defend you from a wide range of attacks, which can be pretty useful.
The program installs incredibly fast, and offers many initial settings and configurations during the start-up wizard so you can be all set right from the beginning. 6. Agnitum Outpost Firewall Free
Next up on the list is Outpost Firewall. This program offers many advanced features that you would usually only find with commercial software, including proactive protection against malware, control over installed applications’ activity, illegal termination prevention capabilities, policy correction for popular applications, and real-time network statistics. 7. Filseclab Personal Firewall Professional EditionFilseclab Personal Firewall Professional Edition is another great free firewall. It can block most attacks from worm viruses and Trojans, as well as some main Adware and Spyware.
It supports real-time monitoring, interactive rules creation, password protection, logging, live updates, and privacy protection. Windows Security Center integration, including balloon message alerts, are also among its unique features. ConclusionIf you’re looking for a replacement for the default Windows firewall, there are a lot of great, free alternatives available to you. While features may vary, you will find that all of the programs mentioned are more than capable of handling all of your firewall needs. What do you think of the list? Did I miss any great firewall apps? Leave your thoughts, ideas, and opinions below! Image Credit: ruzzilla3000 Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 5 More Websites To Learn More About GIMP Photo Editing Posted: 23 Jul 2010 02:31 PM PDT
Steven recently wrote an article listing 5 websites that will help you learn GIMP for free. As Steven mentions, there are many articles here on MakeUseOf that provide GIMP photo editing tips (check out the “GIMP” tag), but there are also so many other GIMP photo editing resources out there on the Internet.
GIMP GuruIf you want a one-stop-shop for learning some typical image enhancing with the GIMP (many of the principles learned here also apply to other programs), GIMP Guru’s tutorial page is the place to check out. Learn how to do stuff like red-eye removal, converting to black and white plus reducing noise or haze all in this one place.
Grokking the GIMPThis site is actually an HTML version of a book written all about the GIMP. You can order the actual physical book or you can use the online version for free. Um, let’s see, spend money? Or free? This book is a very thorough look at how to use GIMP so it could be a manual to come back to again and again.
Malgalin’s YouTube ChannelWhen it comes to tutorials, sometimes video screencasts can really solidify what it is that you are attempting to learn about GIMP photo editing. What better place to find screencasts than YouTube? I ran across Malgalin’s channel but a quick search on YouTube in general will come up with all kinds of GIMP tutorials.
GHUJ – GIMP TuroialsI’m not too sure about the name but the site is very cool. It acts as sort of a GIMP tutorial portal of sorts. Scroll through the very graphically based front page and find a cool effect you want to learn and click it. You’ll be brought to a quick description of the tutorial and a link.
Noupe.com’s 30 Exceptional GIMP Tutorials & ResourcesNoupe happens to be a site/blog all about different design aspects and software. They have other tutorials besides just the GIMP. What I found here was one specific article containing links to some very exceptional GIMP tutorials I think are worth checking out. Learn how to do some cool effects like neon lights, recoloring eyes, and oil paintings and pencil drawings from photographs. Oh, and for you Star Wars fans out there, they even listed a tutorial on how to do that cool lightsaber effect.
The Internet is a wonderful place to find out how to learn many different things and the GIMP is definitely no exception. There is no way that in two articles we can possibly find all of the GIMP tutorials the Internet has to offer. Please, by all means, add to this list in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Posted: 23 Jul 2010 01:30 PM PDT
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| Turbocharge & Customize Your Mac Finder Windows [Mac] Posted: 23 Jul 2010 12:31 PM PDT
(Note: for additional tips about the Mac Finder and other Mac related tools and how-tos, download the free MakeUseOf Mac manual. If you’re an advanced Mac user, you might want to check out this MUO article about TotalFinder – A Mac Finder Alternative with Some Cool Extras). Customize The ToolbarAs with all applications, you should see what can be customized in a program’s toolbar. The Finder is no different. So first, open a Finder window (Finder>New Finder Window) and let’s see the few items there by default.
(1) Forward/back buttons for navigating open windows. (2) Icon, List, Column, and Cover Flow buttons for file viewing and arrangement. (3) Action button (more about this later) for creating new folders; duplicating, burning, and labeling files and folders
(4) Search bar for finding files and folders in your hard drive. These items are a good start, but there’s a few more handy items that you might want to add to the toolbar. So click on View>Customize items.., in the menu bar to see what else can be added.
All of these items are pretty self-explanatory. You can drag any item onto the toolbar for easier and quicker access, since more than likely you will have one or more Finder windows open at any given time. You can also of course drag items out of your toolbar that you are not using. If you don’t need these items labeled, click the Show Icon Only drop-down button on the bottom-left. Files & FoldersThe Customize items are great, but more importantly you can also drag any file or application in your hard drive onto your Finder toolbar. It’s like having a dock of items in the Finder that you can activate or open.
Simply click on an item and drag it to the toolbar. An alias of that item will be created in the toolbar and the original will remain in its place. To drag the item out of the toolbar, hold down the Command key and click and drag it off the toolbar. Applications that you have in the toolbar can be useful for opening accompanying files. So for example if you have a picture file that you want to open, simply drag that file from its folder, place it on top of the Preview icon in your toolbar and it will open that file. You can also activate an application that you put in the toolbar by simply clicking on it. You can drag as many items you like in the toolbar. When a window is dragged to a smaller dimension, overflow items can be accessed by clicking the arrow icon that will appear in the toolbar.
Finder PreferencesAgain, as with any application, open its Preferences and see what you can customize to fit your needs. Click on your desktop and then go to Finder>Preferences. There you will find four sections. Let’s examine some possible items you might want to change. GeneralYou probably will want to uncheck the boxes for items on the desktop. Having your Finder filled with Hard and External disks, and CD/DVD icons does nothing but add clutter. These items can always be accessed on the Sidebar of any opened Finder window.
Each time you open a Finder window, you can have it open to a selected window by default. So for example, if you find yourself opening your Documents or Pictures folder a lot, then change the drop-down button under “New Finder windows open:“. LabelsUsing the Actions button (noted above) in your toolbar, you can select one or more file or applications and label them with a selected color. I use the colors to make certain items stand out in a folder, but you might want a more systematic approach to your color coding. So you can change the names for each color to say Red for Urgent files, Green for Complete Drafts, etc.
SidebarThe Sidebar is where you can click on or off items that you want to appear in any Finder window that you open. You will probably want to keep all the items checked, except for a few items in the Search For area.
AdvancedItems in the Advanced area are pretty self-explanatory as well. If for example you don’t need to be warned that you’re emptying Trash on your computer, then simply uncheck that item. If you want all your trashed items securely deleted, then check that box.
The key to becoming a Mac power user is knowing how to get things done faster on your computer. Let us know how you have customized your Finder to get things done faster. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| 6 Add-Ons To Improve Firefox Page Zoom Feature Posted: 23 Jul 2010 11:30 AM PDT
Noting down the finer details of an image is one of them. Sometimes, thumbnails don't link to their larger versions. A bit of zoom helps to get a hint of the picture. But the most useful use of zoom is reserved for the elderly. Zooming the webpage a few notches more than the default, makes everything stand out better for them.
But as we have seen many times, Firefox is a lot about add-ons. And there are quite a few add-ons available at the Firefox add-on gallery that add whizz to the zoom. Let's check out six of the best Firefox zoom add-ons. Zoom Page
Zoom Page is basically a simple add-on that brings the zoom controls from the menu to the status bar for quicker accessibility. You have two buttons (+ and -), and the zoom level. Clicking on either of the two buttons (or using the mouse wheel) increases or decreases the zoom level. A click on the zoom level percentage resets it to the default. Setting 'Full Page' zoom or 'Text Only' zoom is just as easy with a right click on the zoom level indicator. From the add-on's options, the zoom levels can be set to anything between 25% up to 400%. MouseZoom
MouseZoom is a simple but useful add-on that lets you zoom a webpage using the right mouse button and scroll wheel combo. Another combo renders the browser window in fullscreen. Zoom levels are displayed right on the center of the webpage. You can also configure the zoom levels in the add-on's options. NoSquint
NoSquint brings more control to the zoom business by taking over the native zoom of Firefox. You can not only set the default zoom levels on a site by site basis or apply global settings; you can also change the text and background color to whatever suits you. Irritating backgrounds can also be disabled. Sometimes, NoSquint treats sub-domains of a particular website as the same (For e.g. Gmail and Google Reader). Different zoom levels and colors can be customized for each by using the advanced exception handling features of this add-on. Image Zoom
The author's website gives a very good learn-by-trial intro of the add-on. As the name suggests, Image Zoom brings zoom control specifically for images using the mouse buttons and wheel. Right-clicking on any image on a webpage brings up the Image Zoom functions: I don't know how useful it is, but you can also rotate images from the context menu. You can also use the wheel and the mouse buttons to do things like zooming in and out, or fit the image to the screen. PixelZoomer
PixelZoomer represents the web development uses of the zoom tool. Clicking on PixelZoomer's icon in opens up a screenshot window where you can apply tools like a select tool to measure pixel distance, an eyedropper to pick up color values, and a zoom dropdown to go right down to the details. The maximum zoom level is 3200%. You can speed up your web work with the shortcut keys for all the functions of PixelZoomer. Theme Font Size Changer
Theme Font Size Changer is a zoom tool with a difference. Instead of changing the size of text or images, it changes the font size in all windows, menus, toolbars, and other browser elements within Firefox. Font sizes can be set anywhere between 9 and 40 pixels to change the appearance of the browser for better accessibility. As these zoom tools show, it is first about visual accessibility, but the zoom tool is also important for development tasks like picking up pixels and finely measuring pixel distances between two points. Do you use the zoom tool often or do you let your eyes do all the hard work? Let us know. Image credits: yauhin1 NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE! Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 4 Telltale Signs That You’ve Downloaded A Fake Movie File Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:31 AM PDT
If you’re not careful, you might get a virus from that fake movie file – or end up with a German porno instead of Winnie The Pooh. Below are a number of telltales that you’re being deceived. It’s hard to be 100% sure, but these will go a long way in keeping your bandwidth from being wasted, and in keeping your computer away from potential threats.
1. Keep To A Trusted SourceDownloading movies has always been something of a murky grey area – Do you own the original? What are your regional laws? – So “trusted” is a strange word to mouth in this context. However, even these websites have makeshift ‘certified’ labels; a satisfied community.
A download source, or even a single uploader that has delivered a steady stream of quality material, can be relied upon with a fair amount of certainty. Call it the momentum of trustworthiness. Stay away from unknown sources – the metaphorical back-alleys of the internet – as much as you can, and you will likely not even need the next couple of tips. 2. Keep A Close Eye On The File NamesMovies are initially captured, compressed and uploaded by encoders. They’re proud people, as they should be, because they’re iconizing and trying to maintain a brand. As a rule, movie filenames are long, sometimes complicated and often ugly. This is because they convey a lot of information; who encoded the movie, what source was used, and which subtitle files will match the timecode.
You’ll sometimes encounter downloads that fail to convey this. If there’s no specific release stated in the folder, archive or movie filename, you’re either dealing with an amateur re-uploader or a swindler. You’ll do good staying away from movie.avi, and other downloads that are too obviously ’simple’. 2. Double-Check The FiletypesThere are a ton of different movie containers, but only a few are regularly used for feature films. Most of the cases, you’ll have to deal with AVI’s, and MKV’s to a lesser extent. Sometimes, your movie will be an MOV, RM/REAL/RMV, or MP4. Other movie formats, like WMA, WMV, DV, SWF and 3GP are encountered as a rarity. That sums up the majority of them.
There are a couple of filetypes that you want to watch out for, and they’re headed by the executables. EXE files can infect and start damaging your computer as soon as they’re opened. That, and the fact that movie containers and executables are two entirely different things, should warn you away from these “movies”. So if you encounter a movie with an EXE suffix, or one that requires an executable to “unpack”, you better turn around and don’t look back. 3. Be Wary Of Installing Extra “Codecs” Or “Licenses”Sometimes it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but it is actually a particularly nasty virus looking to infect your computer. These video files at first reveal nothing, but then a warning pops up, telling you’ve got an outdated/missing codec, or need to download a special license to play the video.
It’s very well possible that your codecs are outdated. But never, ever, download new codecs from a link offered by the video file. For more information about, and where to find these codecs, take a look at 3 Ways to Play Unplayable Files on Your PC. 4. Stay Away From x3player & The LikesA lesser known, and therefore all the more dangerous problem is the x3player. Your video file will tell you that it can’t be played with your native video player. Instead, it wants you to download one of the following ‘alternative’ players:
There’s no reason that a video file should be telling you to switch video players. Any such problem can surely be solved by updating your codecs. No matter which link you use to download these ‘alternative players’, you’re in for a nasty surprise. Also check out 3 Easy Ways To Preview Partially Downloaded Video Files, so you can abort those fake videos in time. Do you have any other tips and tricks for us to avoid fake video files? Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 12 Yahoo Widgets To Stream Interesting Information To Your Desktop Posted: 23 Jul 2010 09:31 AM PDT
Aibek covered Yahoo Widgets years ago when it was first getting started and Mark briefly touched on Yahoo Widgets in his review of 10 great Yahoo services. Yahoo widgets now offers a very cool “heads-up” display which you can enable any time your computer is idle. Once you set up all of the data widgets, you can transform your computer into a huge display of the information from around the world that you can check out with a quick glance.
12 Yahoo Widgets To Stream Information To Your PCI’ve spent many hours digging through Yahoo Widgets to pull out a collection of 12 widgets that will turn your heads-up display into a real-time monitor of your PC statistics, your website and email updates, and news and information. Before you do anything else, install the Yahoo Widgets app to your computer. Then you can start downloading each of the individual widgets below. The very first one is a no-brainer. It’s called Informer and it’s probably the best Yahoo Widget in the entire directory. Informer is almost like the Swiss Army knife of Yahoo widgets.
It lets you enable “sensors,” which includes your email accounts (Gmail and Yahoo), RSS feeds as well as memory, CPU and other computer stats. There are a lot of other Yahoo Widgets that show you computer data, but to be honest this is really the only one you need. It stays docked at the lower part of the heads-up display, leaving plenty of room for the rest of the data you’re going to add. Personal Data
So long as the indicator is green, your website is up and running great, but if the widget ever can’t ping any of the servers, the indicator turns red, letting you know that there’s a problem Another useful widget, similar to Site Status is another widget called AAlert. This one is the top widget shown below. All you do is type in the search terms, and if there are no new listings, the indicator is red. Some new listings show yellow, and many listings show green. When there are new listings, just click the term and you go straight to the listings.
If you have an interest in rare items, you can set up “search” terms for eBay, and when they are listed, this widget will let you know. The next widget, shown under the AAlert widget above, is called Personal Radio Tuner. This lets you choose presets from about 100 online radio stations so that you can stream radio shows by clicking on any one of the preset buttons. In addition to radio, you can also add another widget that displays what is currently available on TV at the moment. This widget is called the TV Navigator.
Setting up the widget just involves selecting the server for your country, and typing in the code for your region. The widget is immediately populated by current television listings that you can check out with a quick glance. Worldwide News & Information
Then, of course, if you’re like me and you interact with family, friends and colleagues from all across the globe, you always need to know what time it is in Germany, Russia or India. This is what the World Clock Pro widget was made for. You can add as many clocks as you need, select the time zone based on the region of the world, and place the clock anywhere on the display that you like.
Now that you have Internet threats and the time from around the world, there’s still a lot of information we need to stream to our computer, like weather and news. So next up is the Hurricane Monitor widget. This widget shows up like a marquee news alert, and if you click on any of the alert images, a large display pops up that shows you the active hurricane (or most recent), and details like direction, speed and more.
General weather information is available from the WidecapeWeather widget.
And of course, Earthquake information is available from the Yahoo widget aptly named Earthquakes.
This widget displays all of the most recent earthquake spots, with size represented by rings of various sizes. Hover your mouse over a ring and you can view the real-time data from that event, including the scale of the quake as well as where and when it took place. Finally, the last widget you’re going to need is one that will feed a steady stream of news from around the world – a widget called News Ticker.
This widget delivers breaking news to your display in the form of a scrolling marquee. Just click on any headline item and you’ll go directly to the news report on the web. So, once you’ve got all of your data feed widgets installed and configured – your display will look something like this, which you can enable whenever you aren’t actively using your computer.
This turns your idle computer into a place where people in your household can stop off to glance at what’s on TV, what the latest news headlines are, the weather, or even listen to the radio. With these Widgets you can make sure your computer is being productive even when you’re not. Have you ever used Yahoo Widgets? What are some of your favorite ones? Share your insight in the comments section below. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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| 4 New Cool Improvements Of Google Image Search Posted: 23 Jul 2010 08:31 AM PDT
This update added many new features that make Image Search quicker and easier to use. Some of the new features are obvious, but some are a bit under-the-hood, so you may not realize that they’re there unless you go looking.
Improved Tile InterfaceThe first new feature you’ll notice when you use Google Image Search is that revamped tile layout that is used to display images. Previously images were displayed with their file name, image size and other information listed below each image. That information has now been moved and instead appears when you hover your mouse cursor over an image.
In addition to the tile layout, the interface has also been improved by adding an “instant scroll” feature. In the old Image Search you had to view images page by page, but now you can simply scroll through a huge number of them at a time. If you want even more images to appear you can simply click the “Show More” button. More images will load on the same page. Better Image View PaneOne of the most annoying traits of the old image search was that clicking on an image did not take you directly to it. Instead a framed window opened with the image in thumbnail at the top and the webpage the image was on at the bottom. To open the full size image you had to click the thumbnail again. Not anymore! Clicking on a thumbnail now loads a full size version of the photo instantly in the foreground. The webpage the photo is located on is in the background, fully visible but grayed out. If you want to view the full webpage you can simply click on the X to close the image.
Information about the image, including website name, resolution and file size is available on the right side of the browser. Also, if the image has a very high resolution it won’t be displayed at full size automatically. To display it at full size you’ll need to click the “Full-size image” link. Better Keyboard IntegrationThe new features of Image Search are a mouse cursor’s best friend. The larger tile layout, with bigger thumbnails and clearer links, makes navigating with a mouse much easier than ever before. However, the old-fashioned keyboard has not been forgotten, and Image Search now makes use of the Page Up/Page Down keys. Try it. You’ll find that moving through Image Search with your keyboard can now be every bit as accurate as using your mouse. New Search MethodsNot all of the improvements to Image Search focus on the interface. Google also has made changes to how you can search for images, and the changes are actually quite fantastic. For example, you can now search for individual images based on color. Let’s say you want to find red bicycles. On the left side of Image Search there is a color palette. If you select red and then search for bicycles you will only receive images of red bicycles.
There are twelve colors available that you can currently search for, and you can also search exclusively for images that are full color or in black and white. Other search functions, like the ability to search only for faces, photos, clip art or line drawings, remain. ConclusionThese new Google Image Search features are long overdue, but now that they’re here the service is quicker, easier to use, and more powerful. Image Search was beginning to look a bit out of date compared to its competitors, but not anymore. These new features work only on Chrome, Safari, Firefox 3.x, and Internet Explorer 7/8, so if you have an older web browser this is another good reason to upgrade. Which part of the new Image Search do you like the best? Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles
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If you are relatively new to the Mac and you rely on the default setup of the Mac Finder, you are probably taking longer to find items on your hard drive than you actually need to. The Finder, like other applications, can be customized and turbocharged so that you can access and open items faster.
Not all webpages are made equal. There will be some webpages which will render you optically-challenged. But thanks to the Zoom feature in all browsers, webpages can be made clearer for readability. The zoom feature has some uses apart from just text enlarging functions.
When you’re downloading a movie from a non-conventional source – torrents, warez websites, FTP – you’re always taking a stab in the dark. Especially if it’s your first experience with the source, there’s no telling what you’re actually downloaded.
One of the great things about the Internet advancing from dial-up to high speed Internet is that we can leave our computers turned on and always collect or download information. Your computer can automatically check your email accounts or alert you on RSS feeds. So if your computer is already downloading some information – why not convert it, during it’s idle time, into a display of information and data from all throughout the world?
The first set of widgets as part of this “data-streaming” suite consists of four great widgets. The first is called 
Now that you’ve set up your display with data from your email, websites radio and TV preferences, now it’s time to set up data and news feeds about events and activities taking place all around the world. One Yahoo Widget called 
If you’ve used
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