Hasta La Gadget!

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

Continue reading Opera 11 now available for download

Opera 11 now available for download originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on May 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Keyboard shortcuts step aside! Mouse gestures have been around for quite some time, and are often used as a way to quickly issue commands. One of the places that these are used the most is in the web browser, and that’s because a lot of repetitive actions are performed there. Just think about how many times each day you click the back or refresh buttons.

Today we’re going to demonstrate the various ways that you can use mouse gestures in Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. The only problem you’ll run into is trying to absorb everything you can do with the mouse gestures.

–Firefox–

Windows; Mac; Linux
As you can imagine there are quite a few Firefox extensions out there that provide some sort of mouse gesture support. Here are two of my favorites (they both work with Firefox 3, although they are not officially compatible yet):

• FireGestures [Homepage]
  This is everything that you would expect from a mouse gesture system, and more. There are dozens of different commands you can associate with your own gestures, and you can even take it one step further by creating your own commands. My guess is that you’ll be more than satisfied with the built-in commands though.

  (Click to Enlarge)
  

• Easy DragToGo [Homepage]
  This isn’t a full-fledged mouse gesture extension like the one above, but it does use mouse movement to perform useful actions. What you can do is set it up so that when you drag-and-drop text, links, or images in a certain direction it will perform a special action. This can be an easy way to open links in a new tab, perform a Google search for text, or save images to your computer.

  (Click to Enlarge)
  

–Opera–

Windows; Mac; Linux
Opera has got to be the easiest browser to use mouse gestures simply because they are included out-of-the-box. You can perform a gesture by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse in one of the basic patterns described here, or one of the more advanced gestures here.

The first time you perform a mouse gesture it will prompt you with a box asking whether you want the gestures to be enabled. Alternatively you can open the Preferences and go to Advanced -> Shortcuts to turn them on. While you’re in the preferences you can also have it flip-flop the back and forward gestures if you’re left handed.

If you find yourself having trouble remembering the various gestures then you may want to consider adding this site as a panel in the sidebar. You can do this by bookmarking the site and choosing the option to show it as a panel. You’ll be more inclined to use the mouse gestures if you leave that site open in the sidebar for a few days while you grow accustomed to the various mouse gestures.

–Internet Explorer–

Windows only
Of course Internet Explorer isn’t without mouse gestures. There are two plug-ins that I believe do a good job of executing mouse gestures in Internet Explorer, and the best part is that both come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors! Here they are:

• Mouse Gestures [Homepage]
  What I really love about this mouse gesture system is that it integrates very well into the browser. You can assign gestures to dozens of different commands, and it is also capable of opening a bookmark or simulating a keyboard shortcut.

  (Click to Enlarge)
  

• IE7Pro [Homepage]
  This is a pretty popular plug-in for Internet Explorer, but if you’re looking only for mouse gestures this won’t likely be what you want. It’s a feature-packed add-on that does dozens of other things besides just gestures. Not only that but the configurability of the mouse gestures is not nearly as good as the previous plug-in that we mentioned. However, if you’re already using IE7Pro for some of the other features then you might as well take advantage of the mouse gestures.

  (Click to Enlarge)
  

–Overview–

As you can see mouse gestures are all over the place, and can be found in all the major browsers. Do you use mouse gestures, or are they not your thing? Personally I’m more of a keyboard shortcut person myself, but I’m sure many of you would rather keep your hand on the mouse.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on May 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

Last week we took a look at where the various browsers stood up against each other in terms of market share. I was shocked (to say the least) when Internet Explorer triumphantly came out on top with a 1.22% market share increase. That really hit hard for Firefox who’s market share was sent spiraling down to 16.96%, which was nearly a percent lower than the previous month. It’s not too often that you see a single browser gain or drop an entire percent from one month to the next.

When the stats rolled out there were a number of red flags thrown up questioning the integrity of the data. Mozilla, confident that their internal numbers did not show such a significant drop, started to investigate the findings. Net Applications gave them a hand, and here are some of the things they found:

1. Usage of Firefox did not appear to decline in April.

2. Usage of IE saw an ultra unusual spike over the period of a few days in April. While there was steady traffic from IE users – as measured by page views – for a short period surrounding April 18th, there was a huge spike in traffic from IE users – as measure by unique visitors – during the same time period. When I say “huge spike”, I mean something on order of 25% to 50% greater than what could have been expected.

3. Most of IE’s spike was attributable to IE6 users on XP (with some assistance from IE7 users on Vista), and nearly the entire spike came from users outside North America.

Net Applications receives traffic data from nearly 40,000 different business websites, and as it turns out there was an online marketing campaign aimed only at Internet Explorer users. There was no details released as to what sites were running it, but Net Applications said that it was “totally unrelated to anything with Vista, Microsoft or Windows.”

They have now put additional filters in place to watch for abnormal behavior like this. According to them they were already watching for stuff like this to happen on any one particular site, but they weren’t expecting such a widespread campaign to occur.

The stats have been updated, and it looks like things have returned to normal. Firefox and Safari both dropped slightly in market share, but only by miniscule amounts this time. Internet Explorer only saw a 0.03% increase instead of the 1.22% that is was at with the incorrect data. Here are the revised stats:

Much better! If you’re curious about what the stats looked like before hop on over to our previous post.

[via ComputerWorld]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Firefox, Safari, & Opera Hit Record-High Market ShareSafari Browser Stats for March are…Browser & OS Stats for April 2009: Windows Losing ShareApril Browser Stats: Safari Triples its Windows Market ShareOS & Browser Stats for Bloggers

Well, pardon us. We balked at the $208 price tag affixed to Tokyoflash’s RPM LED wristwatch, but the value proposition there now looks an awful lot brighter when compared to this. Manufacture Royale’s looking to catch at least one or two elitists off guard with its new Opera Time-Piece, a $1.2 million device that’s composed of 319 parts in the wilds of Switzerland. Purportedly, it was designed by Fabrique du Temps, and the minute repeater plays the hours in the key of A as the minutes chime in C sharp. It’s also encased in 18k gold, sapphire crystal and a healthy dose of self-worth. Word on the street has it that only a dozen of these will be made available for sale, with the accordion casing being the standout feature in our eyes. In a manner of speaking, of course.

Manufacture Royale debuts $1.2 million Opera accordion watch, Sir Steampunk scoffs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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