Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Google Maps is hands down my favorite online mapping service because it has a simplistic design, which in the end makes it load extremely fast. Not only that but they offer features not found on other mapping services, including Street View, Wikipedia integration, and even walking directions.

Naturally when there is a great web service people will start making Firefox extensions that take full advantage of it, and that’s exactly what’s happened with Google Maps. Below we’ve got our top 5 Firefox extensions that push Google Maps (and some other mapping services) to the limits.

–CyberSearch (Homepage)–

CyberSearch is the advanced Google Search extension that we’ve created, and one of the services it supports is Google Maps. What this gives you is full access to the Google Maps database right from the Firefox 3 address bar. When searching for a location it will also provide the address and phone number right there in the title, and clicking on a result will take you to the Google Maps page.

–GDirections (Homepage)–

This extension is pretty simple because all it does is provide a context menu entry to pull up a highlighted address on Google Maps. Just select an address on the screen, right-click on it, go to GDirections and choose the map option. You can also go into the preferences and customize up to three default home/from addresses so that you can get quick directions.

Note: This extension also works with Yahoo! Maps.

–All Your Maps Are Belong To Us (Homepage)–

Not much to see here. This extension pretty much does everything in the background without you ever noticing. Anytime it recognizes a URL pointing to another mapping service (like Yahoo!) it will automatically reroute the links to point to Google Maps. There’s no list of what services it supports, but Yahoo is definitely one of them.

–Mini Map Sidebar (Homepage)–

Do all of your mapping right from the Firefox sidebar with the Mini Map extension. This has an incredible interface setup to navigate, search, and obtain directions all from the comfort of your Firefox sidebar. Plus mapping an address is as simple as dragging and dropping it into the dropzone located below the maps.

Note: This extension also works with Yahoo! Maps.

–Locator (Homepage)–

This is actually very similar to the Mini Map extension mentioned above, but instead of opening in the sidebar it opens in either a new tab or new window. I actually prefer to have the map open in a new tab so that I have a much larger viewing area available to me, and that’s the primary reason I’ve chosen to use this extension over Mini Map.

To get a map of an address all you have to do is highlight the address on the page, right-click, and then use the “Locate on Google Map” option to have it open a map for you.

–Overview–

As you can see there are a variety of different extensions available that put the full power of Google Maps right at your fingertips. Plus the fact that they make getting a map just a click away can save you a ton of time.

If you’ve got a favorite Google Maps extension be sure to let us know in the comments!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on March 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

I’ve sat through a lot of PowerPoint presentations before, and one thing that always struck me as interesting was how many people don’t take advantage of PowerPoint’s special “Presenter’s View.” It’s been around since at least Office 2003, and I’ve found it to be an incredibly valuable tool when making presentations myself.

Note: The Presenter’s View (a.k.a. presentation mode) is only available when you’re giving a presentation using a computer that supports multiple monitors. I think most laptops fall under that category these days, and that’s what a lot of people are using to give their presentations.

In the Presenter’s View the audience will see the presentation just as they would normally, but on the presenter’s screen is some extremely useful information. Instead of having a full screen presentation it is scaled down so that a scrolling timeline of the slides is shown along the bottom, and the notes from each slide is shown along the right side. The timeline at the bottom is great for getting a peek at what’s coming up next. Here’s what the Presenter’s View looks like in PowerPoint 2007:

(Click to Enlarge)

This will be a real gem if you’re given time constraints for your presentation. Underneath where it shows the current slide there is a running stopwatch to let you know how long you’ve been presenting, and it also has the current time according to your system’s clock. That way you’ll be able to see if you’re going too fast or too slow, and adjust accordingly.

Forget your laser pointer? No problem, use the marker tool located underneath the current slide to draw on the presentation in real-time. If you’re using a mouse it might not turn out to be very pretty since you’re hand will probably be jittery, but it works.

So how do you setup the Presenter’s View? Here are the instructions for PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2003:

–PowerPoint 2007 Instructions–

1. In PowerPoint, under the Slide Show tab, locate the Monitors section:
2. Check the box labeled Use Presenter View.
3. In the Show Presentation On menu click the monitor you want the slide show presentation to appear on.

–PowerPoint 2003 Instructions–

1. In PowerPoint, on the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show.
2. Under Multiple monitors, select the Show Presenter View check box.
3. In the Display slide show on list, click the monitor you want the slide show presentation to appear on.

–Overview–

Once you have the Presenter’s View enabled in PowerPoint it will automatically start when you begin your presentation. After you’ve used this presentation mode one time I think you’ll see first hand just how useful it really is.

Remember: Your computer has to support multiple monitors in order for this to work.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on June 04, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

Graphics can really add a lot to any presentation, and can help your audience connect with what’s being presented.  One of the new features in Microsoft Office 2007 helps you do this.  SmartArt can be found in Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, and Outlook 2007, and is used for creating classy diagrams for projects and presentations.

While the SmartArt graphics are included in four different Office 2007 applications, I have found that it’s especially helpful in PowerPoint 2007 where you can bring the graphics to life with animation – something you can’t do in the other apps.

It’s a really simple process that I’ll break down into just a few steps:

• The first thing you’ll want to do is open up PowerPoint 2007.  From there you’ll need to find the SmartArt.  Click on the “Insert” tab at the top, and “smart art” will be one of the options in the illustrations section.
  
• Click on SmartArt to view all of your options.

There’s a variety of different SmartArt choices, and it’s divided into several different categories. Or, you can just view them all at once. Categories include list, process, cycle, hierarchy, relationship, matrix, and pyramid. If you have a reason to be using PowerPoint in the first place, chances are you’ll have some reason to use some of the SmartArt graphics options within your presentation.

Steps continued:

• Once you’ve selected the SmartArt graphic that you’d like to worth with, go to the animations tab and select the animation that you want. The image below shows the list of choices. There are quite a few, so it make take you some time to decide which one is right for your presentation.

  

• After you’ve selected your animation that will be applied to your SmartArt, all that’s left is to view the finished product! The video below shows what the animation looks like in action.

If by chance you decide that you don’t want the animation included anymore, all you have to do is go back to the animations tab, and in the “animate” section click on the drop-down list and select “no animation.” This will remove the animation from your graphic.

It’s a very simple process, but one that will really add a lot to the graphics in your PowerPoint 2007 presentation.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on October 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

With so many “social” online bookmark services available like Del.icio.us, some of the “non-social” services have been pushed to the background. Today’s weekend website is Quick Bookmarks, a great tool to help you manage your personal bookmarks without the social side. Not only does it utilize tabs and groups to keep all of your important links organized, it can also be used as an RSS aggregator. Because it’s an online service, you can manage and access your bookmarks no matter where you are.  If you already have a bookmark solution that you’re satisfied with, this would be a great place to backup all of your favorite bookmarks, especially because you can import your bookmarks. For those of you with insanely long lists of bookmarks that aren’t organized, I recommend trying out Quick Bookmarks to see if it’s a good organization solution for you.

Getting Started

The first thing that you’ll need to do to start using Quick Bookmarks is to signup for an account.  All you have to do is choose a user name, provide an email address, and select a password – that’s it! Once you’re all signed up, you’ll be brought to a generic main page which has a handful of different sites already bookmarked and a few RSS feeds displayed. This is just to get you started. You’re able to delete any of the bookmarks and start adding your own.

Features

• Store and organize your bookmarks in tabs and groups
• Show the original site icons near every bookmark
• Import bookmarks (if you have an HTML file with your bookmarks)
• Export bookmarks

Settings

Once you have an account created, click “settings” up at the top to specify how you’d like this service to work for you. Some of those options include:

• Turning on “Snap” Shots to get previews of the bookmarked site before you click
• Removing the Google search bar
• The option to display site icons
• Change the skin from blue (default) to red green or black
• Options for how often to refresh RSS feeds from 5mn. to 60mn.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Adding a New Tab

Much like personalized homepages like iGoogle, Quick Bookmarks allows you to create multiple tabs.  For example, you could have a tab just for the bookmarks to all of your news sites or one for all of your work related sites.  You choose the name of the tab, add a description, enter some keywords, and select whether or not you want the tab to be public which means they can be shared with family and friends.

Adding a Group

Under each tab will be groups like “Search Engines,” “shopping,” “music,” etc. You can add a group by clicking “Add new group, RSS or Gadget” at the top of the page.  Once you do this, you’ll be able to create a name for the group and then decide upon the type.  Different types of groups include bookmarks, RSS Reader, Gadget, Last Visited bookmarks, or Text Content.

Adding new bookmarks

I was disappointed to find that the “Add new bookmark” button at the top of the page does not work.  This is a bug which I’ve reported, and hopefully it will be fixed soon. During the mean time, you can use the “Plus” sign which you’ll find next to each of the groups as displayed in the image below (explanation of numbers following the image):

1. Add a bookmark – click this button to add a bookmark
2. Modify the group
3. Move the group
4. Sort bookmarks in alphabetical order
5. Read news from your favorite feeds

Once you click the plus sign to add a bookmark, you’ll enter in the site URL  There is also a field for the Site Name which you can leave blank, and Quick Bookmarks will fill it in for you. You can also add a few notes if there’s something you want to remember about the link.

Customization

Much like what you’d expect with personalized homepages, you can drag and drop all of your groups, RSS items, and Gadgets around on each of the tabs and place them exactly where you’d like them to be among three different columns.

Wrapping it up

Overall I’d say that Quick Bookmarks is a practical solution for those of you looking for a way to organize your bookmarks without the socialness.  My favorite things about this service are that you can both import and export a bookmark file which is extremely helpful, but I also like that you can add RSS items. It’s also great to be able to add tabs and groups to keep everything organized. Once they get the bug fixed with the new bookmark button, I’ll be a happy camper.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on July 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Mac only
Making one browser look like another has been a trend for ages. More often than not users like the functionality of a browser, but don’t exactly like how it looks on the particular operating system. That’s how I am with Firefox on just about any operating system I use it on, and that’s despite the fact that they’ve redesigned Firefox 3 to take on characteristics of the various operating systems.

In the past we’ve already shown you how you can make Firefox fit in a little better with Windows Vista, and that’s especially true if you install this extension which gives Firefox 3 the Aero glass effect. Today, however, we’re going to jump to the other side of the pond and show you how to make Firefox 3 take on a look that’s more in line with Mac OS X’s Safari browser. We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve that should get the job done.

–The Theme–

Firefox 3 does include a new theme for Mac OS X that fits in well with the operating system, but it still doesn’t look like Safari. So the first thing that we need to take care of is finding a near-perfect replica of the Safari theme, and we’re in luck because there happens to be one that’s already compatible with Firefox 3. It’s called GrApple Yummy, and it’s as close to Safari as it gets:

You might recall us having written about this theme before, and it’s important to note that it has a nearly identical twin brother called GrApple Delicious. We won’t bore you with all of the minor differences again, but it’s safe to say that GrApple Yummy is the theme that’s the most Safari like for Firefox 3.

Okay, we’re off to a good start… now let’s move on.

–The Address Bar–

Safari uses the Address Bar to show users how much time a page has until it finishes loading, and it actually looks pretty nice, too. To get this feature all you need to do is install the Fission Firefox extension and you’ll be ready to go.

This is what the Address Bar will look like while loading a page once you have Fission installed:

–The Status Bar–

Personally I would go crazy in a day’s time if I didn’t have the Status Bar in my browser, but for some odd reason Safari has decided to disable it by default. For the sake of consistency… if you want to ditch the Status Bar just pull up the View menu and uncheck the Status Bar option.

–Resizable Text Areas–

In Safari you can resize text areas, such as the comment box we have located below, simply by grabbing onto the corner of the box and dragging it to the size you desire. Firefox 3 users can enjoy the same experience with the Resizeable Textarea extension.

–Find as you Type–

Safari has a rather slick find-as-you-type feature where it grays out the background as you shuffle around the page looking for specific words. The current selection is not only highlighted in green, but it also bounces up and down to really help it keep you’re attention.

It takes a little bit of work, but as we’ve previously outlined it’s very much possible to get a search feature just like this in Firefox. We also put together a video demonstration in case you want to see it in action.

–Stop / Reload Button–

Once you install the Stop or Reload extension you will notice that a button is missing on your navigation bar. Don’t worry, the stop button will be visible whenever a page is loading, otherwise it will serve as the refresh button. Clever, huh?

–Overview–

Now if you followed through on a lot of the stuff in this article you should find that it’s difficult to distinguish the two browsers when glancing at them. Here, see for yourself:

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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