Techno-muffin » applications

Firefox? Oh, that’s the browser, right?

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:01:06 +0000

I'm a Chrome-guy now. I never thought I would let Firefox go. It has always worked wonders for me, especially since I'm all into addons and personalization. What changed my mind then?

Well, most of all: the speed. Chrome is fast! As in awesomely, turbo, "the Flash"-fast. It starts within a second after clicking the shortcut in my taskbar, and it opens every page at a speed I've never seen in Firefox.

It did take a while to change, though. The Firefox shortcut sat for months in my taskbar, mostly because of habit (and the affection you get for a loyal app over the years, I guess), but also because Chrome didn't support addons at first. I couldn't use adblock, flashblock, X-marks, videodownloadhelper etc., so I naturally had to keep a copy of FF on my computer.

Nevertheless, this all changed when Chrome released a version in which extensions had been added! I did a little dance that day. As quick as I could I installed AdThwart and Flashblock along with some other tools such as RSS Subscription Extension and Google Dictionary. I finally had my good old "Firefox" back, just a lot faster. And till this day, that's all I need. Perhaps Google really is taking over the world after all.

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Handy Windows 7 tweaks

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:16:44 +0000

I just stumbled upon some cool W7 tweaks on SevenForums and figured I'd post them here.

The first one is a tweak to change the hover delay on Aero Peak/thumbnail previews in the taskbar. The original link is here, but I've written a resume here.

Open regedit.

Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced"

Right-click and create a new DWORD called "ExtendedUIHoverTime".

Choose decimal and enter a time in milliseconds. I've chosen 200 and that works out fine.

Close regedit and restart explorer either by terminating and restarting the proces or logging out/in/restarting the computer

The next one also concerns the taskbar. It's a tweak to enable easy cycling through previews by clicking on the taskbar icon. Copy+pasta:

Launch regedit.exe (Win+R, then paste regedit.exe)

Navigate in the left tree control to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Go to Edit->New->DWORD (32-bit) Value

Name the value LastActiveClick

Hit enter to assign the value and change it to 1

Restart Explorer and you're good to go.

My last tweak for you is really awesome. By creating transparent shortcuts in the taskbar you can group items in an easy way. Go to LifeHacker and find out how.

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Application alternatives

admin — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:50:04 +0000

I've already had one post about alternatives to crappy software such as quicktime. Well, now I've found a whole site dedicated to software alternatives. Check it out, it's cool :)

Wordle

admin — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:58:17 +0000

Have you ever needed a good and easy-to-use tool for creating a cool title page or similar? Have a look at wordle. It's an incredible online-application and has a ton of features if you are the experimenting type.

Fresh Windows Install? Ninite will help you!

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:33:49 +0000

A few days ago I came across a fabulous site called Ninite. Have you ever done a fresh install of Windows? Well, of course. Have you ever enjoyed reinstalling all your favorite apps? Many of us don't! None of that anymore.

Go to Ninite and check off the apps you wish to install. Click the 'get installer' button and download the exe-file. Run it and make a cup of coffee while all your programs are installed WITHOUT junk such as browser toolbars. Thank you, Ninite!

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