Sunday, August 16, 2009

Do More From Your Browser Address Bar

Some really cool tips from Amit Aggarwal
--
Do More From Your Browser Address Bar: "

You are already familiar with quite a few browser address bar shortcuts. For instance, type some text in the address bar of your browser (e.g. apple) , press Ctrl + Enter and the browser will automatically send you to the corresponding .com website (in this case, www.apple.com).




The search and address bar of Google Chrome


Or type in some complex search query (e.g., site:firefox.com internet explorer) in the address bar, hit go and the browser will show results from your default search engine*. The address bar of Google Chrome is even smarter as it can offer live suggestions while you are typing the search query.


Other than these built-in shortcuts, you may also want to know about a couple of URL hacks (a better term would be “address bar commands“) that let you do stuff from the address bar itself  - they are pretty easy to remember and don’t require you to install any bookmarklets or add-ons (so you can use them on any computer and even some mobile phones).


address


1. Capture a screenshot - Go to your browser’s address bar, type aviary.com before the http:// part of the URL and hit Enter. Aviary will immediately capture a full screenshot image of the web page that’s currently open in your browser - here’s an example.


2. Download videos - If you are like to download a YouTube video, just add deturl.com to the URL (see example) and you’ll be able to save the video in either Flash or Quicktime format. This is a pretty useful option for mobile phones that don’t support the flash player but can play Quicktime.


3. Shrink the address - There are about a million URL shortening services out there but if you want to quickly shrink the URL from the address bar itself, try this - just type bit.ly before the URL and it give you the short form on the next screen.


bitly


4. Email a web page - If you want to email a link of the current web page to a contact or to your own self, here’s a trick. Just type the mailto command in the address bar and this will compose a new message in your default email program - you can have the URL of the page in either the body of the message or in the subject line itself.


mailto:a@b.com?body=http://google.com/  (a@b.com is the email of your contact)


5. Share or bookmark a web page - If you find the above email command a bit scary, here’s something more simple. Go the address bar of your browser and type smub.it/ just before the URL as in this example. You can then share that page on any social site or even send the link to your friends via email. A perfect option for mobile phones.


6. Who owns that website - If you want to know the email address and other contact details of the owner of a site, the whois record of that site can sometimes help. To view the whois details of the current site, type whois.domaintools.com/ in the address bar (just before the http:// part) and there you have all the information - see example.


7. Send yourself notes - Futz.me is a free service that lets you email text notes, hyperlinks and even images from the right the address bar of your browser.



Go to the address bar, type futzme.com/xyz followed by a space (xyz is your unique username) and anything that’s after the space will be sent to your email address. If you use Futz.me with a URL that points to an image, the image will be sent you via an email attachment or even through MMS (if you are in the US). Thanks Veronica.


8. Mobile friendly web - If you are reading web pages on a mobile phone, you can easily convert the current page into a mobile friendly version by adding http://mopwn.com/ in front of the URL in your address bar as in this example. Internally, the mopwn service will simply forward your request to Google Transcoder but it’s still very handy.


Related: Browse the web faster on a slow Internet connection


9. When the default is not Google - When you type a search phrase in the address bar of your browser, the query gets executed using the default search engine which is Google in both Firefox and Google Chrome (factory settings).


Now if you are using IE with Bing or have manually changed the default to something else, here’s how you can still query Google from the address bar without changing any of the current settings. Go to the address bar and type gog.is followed by the search terms. For instance, gog.is/digital,inspiration will show Google pages for “Digital Inspiration”.


*if your address bar queries are getting redirected to OpenDNS, here’s a quick fix.


Do More From Your Browser Address Bar - Published at Digital Inspiration (RSS)

"
--

Monday, February 09, 2009

PrintWhatYouLike.com {beta}: Save money and the environment printing only what you like.

 

Have you ever come across a site or application that works exactly like you imagined or visualized? PrintWhatYouLike.com is like that. I was looking for a (web)app which would enable me to select parts of webpage and print. This would avoid site navigation, ads etc as well as save on paper :-)

This is exactly what the site enables you to do. A very helpful video is available to walkthrough entire process. Highly recommended.  (via gHacks.net)

PrintWhatYouLike.com {beta}: Save money and the environment printing only what you like.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Google Tools for your Office

Check out some cool ideas for running office infrastructure on the net

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Kissing pop-ups goodbye

New way to popups using AJAX

read more | digg story

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Possible Google-Killer?

Seek search engine could have some possible advantages over Google. Some features include a sidebar of sorts that further refines a search, say, if you were searching for "Gears of War" the sidebar would display "Previews" or "Movies" for that game. Also, each site comes with a thumbnail and the option to preview the website in a new frame.

read more | digg story

Digg Just Might Bury Slashdot

Digg Just Might Bury Slashdot
Reading this story on Wired, reminds me of the difference between Google News and Yahoo News. The story talks about how Slashdot is human editor driven whereas Digg is community driven. Obviously, community is more scalable, viz. can capture more stories and is more responsive to events. Compare this with the fact that Google News is machine driven and Yahoo News is again human editor driven. The pace with which Google News tracks news vs. Yahoo News is for everyone to see.

Monday, December 13, 2004

The Desktop Search war continues

Yahoo joins in the battle with the help of X1

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Mozilla releases Firefox 1.0 | CNET News.com

K. I am late on this but Firefox is released !!!! All clicks lead to Get Firefox
Mozilla releases Firefox 1.0 | CNET News.com: "Firefox, a browser based on the Mozilla Foundation's open-source development work, was made available for free download at 1 a.m. PST Tuesday. (Later in the morning, the site was responding very slowly.)"

blogger templates 3 columns | Blog Template from WebTalks