Hasta La Gadget!

Oh, Yoko. John Lennon’s widow told The Daily Mail that, were he alive today, the 70-year-old former Beatle would have been really down with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Also, he would have loved Lady Gaga. Oh, and just for the record, she didn’t break up the Beatles.

“If John were around today he’d love Facebook,” the artist told the paper. “He would love the way the world has changed. He’d love the internet and Twitter. He’d be sending out pronouncements and messages and giving his opinion all the time on everything. He would be 70 years old, but he’d want to know everything that’s going on.”

Ono used the opportunity to discuss her new pal, Lady Gaga, as well. “She performed with me on stage wearing a see-through lace catsuit and people thought it was an insult because you could see her bottom. I’m the lady who did an exhibition of bottoms. How could hers offend me? She has a very lovely bottom. I think she’s wonderful. John would have loved her, because she’s an artist, she’s fearless and she pushes every limit, which we both always adored.”

And before you even ask, no, she didn’t break up the Beatles,

The Beatles were a group made up of four very complex men, and my small hand could not have broken these men up. They broke up because they had reached an end, but in doing so they all also created new wonderful beginnings.

These are the stories you couldn’t find anywhere else. From Apple’s security slips to Facebook’s prolific profile breach, check out Gizmodo’s best Exclusives from 2010. More »

Merry Christmas, everyone. The lists have been assessed. Twice, in fact. The naughty have been weeded out from the nice, and now it’s time for jolly old Saint Nick to get down to what he does best (aside from the whole cookie and milk thing): delivering presents.

If you just can’t wait for tonight to get in on the Santa action, good news–NORAD is tracking the jolly old fat man, as it has for the last 50 years, ever since a Colorado-area Sears store accidentally printed the contact information for the missile defense organization under a listing for Mr. Claus.

Things are a lot different than they were in 1955, of course–thanks to social networking, it’s now possible to track Santa’s every move (just like it is with the rest of us non-holiday icons). NORAD is utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Google Earth to track Santa’s deliveries tonight. You can find all of that info over on the official Santa Tracking page.

This article was written on August 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

I’ve been addicted to sidebars ever since I bought my first widescreen monitor. Sidebars have the ability to provide a lot of information inside a very small space, and it wasn’t until recently that I fully started to utilize them. It all started when I put the Tab-Bar on the side in both my Firefox and Opera installations (video on customizing Opera), and then seeing how Start++ handled the implementation of mobile sites capped it off.

So what I’m going to show you today is my top 10 favorite sites to put in your browser’s sidebar. Most of the sites mentioned were created for mobile devices, which means they load at least twice as fast as the normal site. This makes it even more appealing to me.

Both Opera and Firefox support this kind of feature, so I’ll get started by showing you how to do it in each of those browsers.

–Firefox–

Having a site open in the sidebar is pretty easy in Firefox:

1. Right-click on one of the URL’s that we provide below, and then bookmark it.
   
2. After you have saved the bookmark, go back to the Bookmarks Menu and right-click on the bookmark. Choose the Properties option.
   
3. Now check the box that says Load this bookmark in the sidebar:
   
4. The next time you open that bookmark it will popup in the sidebar!

–Opera–

Opera is actually a little easier when it comes to placing sites in the sidebar, and they have more features as well. One thing that you should know is that Opera refers to the sidebar as “panels,” and here is how you add a bookmark to a panel:

1. Right-click on a URL to bookmark it. Then click the button labeled Details, and then check the box that says Show in panel:
   
2. Now you’ll notice that the bookmark was also added to your list of panels. Note: If the Panel’s bar takes up too much room read our tutorial on making it smaller.

Opera’s additional sidebar features come in handy for displaying sites. When you’re viewing a site in one of the panels, you can adjust the zoom so that the text is bigger or smaller, or you can have the site optimized for small screen display (removes most images, etc…). I recommend that you try out the small screen rendering on all of the sites, and you’ll notice that some of them look better that way:

–Top 10 Sidebar Sites–

Alright, on to the sites! I’ve gone through dozens of different mobile sites (including ones made for the iPhone) and were able to pick 10 of them that look and work well in the sidebar. So without further ado, here are my favorites in no particular order:

Tip: The site titles are hyperlinked to their mobile sites, and all you have to do is follow the instructions given above for bookmarking them in your browser.

1. Weather Underground
   What you’ll want to do with this site is visit the URL in your browser first, enter in your Zipcode, and then bookmark that address. Then you won’t have to worry about putting in that information each time. If you’re using Opera I recommend enabling the small screen rendering that I mentioned above.
   
2. goMovies
   Just like the previous one, you’ll want to visit the URL, enter in your Zipcode, and then bookmark that address. Then each time you pull up your movie listings, it will automatically retrieve them for the theaters in your area. Opera users should probably set the zoom a little lower (I use about 80%).
   
3. Gmail
   The mobile Gmail site not only looks good, but gives you fast access to all of your emails. Using it you can read and compose emails, which makes it an amazing time saver! I’ve been using this for most of my mail needs since it is so much faster than the actual Gmail interface.
4. Google Calendar
   This gives you a quick overview of your upcoming events, but the best part is that you add items to your calendar from here.
   
5. Remember the Milk
   My favorite task manager now has the ability to sit inside of my sidebar. You can add new tasks and see what’s due. I’ve found myself using the service a lot more now that it is so condensed and easily accessible.
6. Google Notebook
   You can manage your entire Google Notebook from your sidebar.
7. Digg
   If you’re a Digg addict then I think this is a must. The mobile version of the Digg site gives you a fast-loading alternative to view the news. It’s nice when it only takes a second to load instead of 30-seconds like the normal site does sometimes!
   
8. Google Talk
   Chat it up with all your friends with this handy little Flash app.
9. Facebook
   I know that a lot of you are addicted to Facebook, and so I thought this would fit right in. It displays recent events from your news feed, upcoming events, and lets you change your status.
   
10. Twitter
    This is a really handy site for anyone that uses Twitter. You can update your status, and view recent entries from your friends. The small screen rendering in Opera is also really nice for this one.
    

–Overview–

I’m finding myself using sites in the sidebar more and more these days, especially since they often reduce the number of extensions you need to install. If you come across any sites that work well in the sidebar, let us know in the comments below. I’m sure there are a bunch of great ones out there, and I just wanted to get the ball rolling by listing off my top 10!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryGoogle Calendar in Your Firefox SidebarCyberNotes: Customize Firefox SidebarsOptimized Google Reader & iGoogle for Your SidebarYour Week in Review with Sunday’s Summary

It’s been a weird year in the tech world. We kicked things off with the on-going Crunchpad/JooJoo saga, Google had a surprising number of misfires (including Buzz and Wave), some of Hollywood’s finest released a movie based on the life of a social network CEO, and Julian Assange leaked the entire world’s dirty laundry.

In fact, when I asked my coworkers at PCMag to help me come up with some of the weirdest stories of the year, I received too many responses to fit into a single post. So, in honor of the weird year that was, I present the first of a two-part roundup of some of the strangest tech stories we followed this calendar year.