Be Lazier » Computer

Save Time Looking Up Words With The Dictionary ToolTip Firefox Plugin

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:00:17 +0000

Save time looking up words you type or come across in your browser by downloading the Firefox Dictionary Tooltip plugin. The plugin lets you look up the meaning of most English words without switching to a new window. You can do that by either using the key combination of Control + Shift + K or by highlighting and right-click the word in question.

The plugin will give you a pop up with the definition of the word in the language you select. It’s very convenient and can make you look smarter by using words like “defenestrate”.

Limit Firefox’s URL Suggestions To Get More Work Done

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:00:13 +0000

Firefox has a wonderful feature that suggestions about 10 sites in your url drop down menu to make it easier to surf the Web. Firefox learns what you click most and where you most often navigate to. The problem is that the suggestion bar can make it difficult to work since every time it drops down there are you favorite websites mocking you from your screen.

You can easily limit the number of suggestions or turn them off completely when you’re at work or really need to get a project done.

Type about:config in the url bar.
You’ll be warned about voiding your warranty. Good thing Firefox doesn’t have one, click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”.
Scroll down to browser.urlbar.matchonlytyped and double-click. Change the value to True and click OK.

That’s all you have to do to stop the suggestions and temptations of your favorite websites. You can also resize the AwesomeBar, move tabs between browser windows, and use HideTab when you are being lazy at work.

[photo by: Alex Hecht]

HideTab Firefox Extension A Good Way To Be Shady and Lazy At Work

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:00:22 +0000

Discretely waste time on the Internet by automatically hiding your time-wasting Firefox tabs with the great little plugin, HideTab. The plugin lets you select which (or all) of the Firefox tabs you want to hide so the next time your boss walks by he won’t notice you surfing science-fiction websites or reading the latest sports scores.

Clicking the HideTab button at the bottom right of the browser will hide any of the tabs with websites you’ve designated at time wasters. The little icon will turn red whenever there are any tabs being hidden. You can also set a default “kosher” page to open when you hide one or more tabs. HideTab is easy to use and a quick install for Firefox only.

Avoid Embarrassing Blog Title Spelling Mistakes With A Firefox Tweak

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:00:23 +0000

We’ve all hit ‘publish’ on great and not-so-great blog posts only to read them the next day with misspelled titles. The problem is by the time you’ve caught it yourself a bunch of people have left comments about it and your permalinks are all screwed up.

Luckily, Firefox makes adding spell check to input fields (like your WordPress blog title) an easy tweak.

Open Firefox.
Type “about:config” in the address bar.
You’ll be warned about voiding your warranty. Good thing Firefox doesn’t have one, click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”.
Scroll down to layout.spellcheckDefault and double-click. Change the value to 2 and click OK.

There, now you’re done. Your input fields will now have the helpful read line underneath them when you misspell words in both your blog text area and input titles.

Resize Firefox 3 AwesomeBar With A Click

Mr. Lazy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:05 +0000

Widen or shorten your URL bar real estate by placing your mouse in between the “AwesomeBar” and embedded Google search in Firefox 3.

Start by hovering the mouse arrow the right of the down arrow in the AwesomeBar as shown in the picture above. Your mouse should then flip to the horizontal <–> position and you can slide the AwesomeBar bigger and smaller as desired. Doing so widens and shortens the search bar in reverse at the same time.

Once your Awesome Bar learns your browsing habits well enough, this little hack will save you time by giving you better use of the embedded search tool rather than surfing over to Google or Amazon. Like one of those searches to save for later? Firefox 3, like its predecessor, lets you drag tabs between seperate browser windows.

Throw Data Thieves Off The Trail With Fake-Password Post-It Notes

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:00:59 +0000

An easy way to prevent your computer safe from unauthorized access is to leave a sticky laying around that says “Passwords:“.

Then, set your machine to lock itself out after 5 sequential bad password attempts. The lockout should be around 1 hour.

This might help protect your assets from the roving thief around the office from guessing a good password and instead selecting one of the 6 or 7 decoys on the list you left out. This little trick specifically protects you against someone who might think they know your computer passwords.

Remember, always lock your machine when you are not in front of it, or better yet, have it automatically put in sleep mode.

13 Easy And Cheap Ways To Go Green

Preview Firefox Tabs: Tab Scope

Mr. Lazy — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:00:27 +0000

The Tab Scope Firefox plug-in lets you preview tabs live just by hovering your mouse over them. The view is just like Vista’s, so you can see what’s going on in other open tabs without changing tabs.

Tab Scope also includes reload, refresh, and stop buttons in each preview window. When a preview is highlighted you can even scroll within the tab. Tab Scope can be downloaded for free.

Remember, you can move tabs in between separate Firefox windows.

How To Spruce Up Your Blog

Mr. Lazy — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:00:24 +0000

Many people often make common mistakes when starting their own blog and have trouble making the site and posts consistent once they get into the groove. Every beginner blogger finds themselves needing to clean out those random posts you had before you found a topic to write about, after your views change, or you realize that your boss is reading what you write.

1. Catagorize – Bloggers never give categories any importance until they realize it helps others (and themselves) navigate the site. Most blogging platforms throw posts in the “default” category, so chances are the you’ll have many “general” posts from when you first started.
2. Reduce the number of categories you have to a handful – Here’s an important one, if you have more than 20 categories, it’s probably too much. Start deleting those categories that have only a post or two. In general, by default, they’ll end up in the “general” category.
3. Move the posts in the “general” category to the ones they belong in - Once all of those random posts are in the oversized default category, start going through them one by one and editing them so they fall in their new, more specific categorical home.

4. As you move posts from the default category to new ones, delete the posts that really don’t have a place – As you start digging into the blog-past, you’ll encounter completely random, off-topic, or plain stupid things you wrote. Delete those ones that just don’t belong – chances are, if you don’t want to read it, then neither does anyone else.
5. Do a search of the keywords, people, or events you don’t want anyone seeing – When a new blog is created, we feel a personal touch with it. It isn’t until our BFF becomes our frenemy do we realize it might be time to remove touchy references.
6. Use plugins that provide links in posts for you – By now, it’s getting harder to place link backs within your own posts because you forget them or focus on the same ones. WordPress, Typepad, and the other big blogging platforms have “related posts” plugins. Use them and make sure a few links related to each post appear underneath ever new post. Have the technology help you our.
7. Link back to your own categories – Can’t find the exact old post, or don’t have one? Direct readers to your categories and link back to them instead from time to time.
8. Find out who links to you and show them some love – You need to find out what posts, categories, and interesting topics not to delete. Getting a second opinion from the online community is a must.

Most of these tips are for those bloggers who want to expand their readership and not personally attached to every little thing they write. Even those bloggers out there who write solely for themselves will appreciate some help navigating their own work after years of material piles up.

Who Links To Me

Mr. Lazy — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:00:22 +0000

Who Links To Me centralizes who is linking back to your website/blog, ranking among major search engines, and keeps a running total of total trackbacks. Who Links To Me also provides some HTML code to paste into your site for more information and to display results to visitors.

You can also look up information on other pages such as Myspace pages, stupid YouTube videos, and Johnny Depp fansites.