Resize and Move the Sidebar in Firefox

The sidebar in Firefox is an area on the left side of the screen that you can use to view items such as bookmarks or history. It is also useful for running web applications. However, there are some limitations of the sidebar. This post discusses two tweaks that allow you to resize and move the sidebar.
By default, you cannot change the width of the sidebar, widening it for items that do not fit in the default width. The sidebar also displays on the left side of the Firefox window, by default. You may want to move it to the right, making it more natural to view websites if you use a language that reads left to right.
Both of the tweaks to remove these limitations need to be applied to the userChrome.css file, which is located in the the chrome folder for each profile in the Profiles folder, as listed below. Open the userChrome.css file for the profile for which you want to remove the limitations of the sidebar in a text editor. As an example, we opened the userChrome.css file for the default profile.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to one of the following folders, depending on which version of Windows you are using.
For Windows 7 and Vista:

C: \ Users \ [username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Mozilla \ Firefox \ Profiles \ 9pjrzgo3.default \ chrome

For Windows XP:

C: \ Documents and Settings \ [username] \ Application Data \ Mozilla \ Firefox \ Profiles \ 5ufmvdw2.default \ chrome

NOTE: Replace “[username]” with your user name in the path name to access the userChrome.css file.
If you only have a userChrome-example.css, copy it and rename the copy to userChrome.css and continue with the steps in this post. We suggest you copy the example file so you can preserve the example.
Right-click on the userChrome.css file and select Open with | Notepad from the popup menu.

Add the following line to the end of the userChrome.css file to move the sidebar to the right side of the Firefox window.

#browser {-moz-box-direction: reverse;}

Add the following line to the end of the userChrome.css file to remove the maximum width limitation from the sidebar so you can resize it.

#sidebar {max-width: none !important;}

If you want no minimum width for the sidebar, you can use the following line, rather than the #sidebar line mentioned above:

#sidebar { max-width: none !important; min-width: 0px !important; }

To save your changes, select Save from the File menu.

To close Notepad, select Exit from the File menu.

You must restart Firefox for these changes to take effect. Once Firefox is open again, and you open something in the sidebar, you will see a double arrow when you put your mouse over the border between the sidebar and the viewable web page space. Click and hold on that arrow and drag it either way to resize the sidebar.

Now, when you open web pages, links, or images in the sidebar, you can widen it to allow for wider content. There is an extension for Firefox, called Open in Sidebar, that allows you to easily open a web page, a link, or an image in the sidebar using the context (right-click) menu.

OTT Explains – Is It Better to Log Into Websites using Facebook, Google or Twitter Accounts

Over the years, you may have noticed that a lot of websites let you use your Facebook, Google or Twitter account to log into their websites. You don’t have to create a new username or password and a lot of the sites will automatically share your activity on Facebook if you give authorization.
This makes logging into those websites very convenient because you don’t have to create another set of usernames and passwords that you have to remember. For example, you can log into sites like rottentomatoes.com, sears.com, citysearch.com, stackoverflow.com, friendfeed.com, getsatisfaction.com and a million other sites using Facebook, Google or Twitter.

By far, the most popular option is Facebook. Facebook released a set of APIs in 2008 called Facebook Connect that changed how people log into third-party websites. Just about every major sites now lets you use Facebook Connect to log into their websites.

The idea has exploded in popularity and you might be logging into a lot of websites using Facebook without even thinking about it. However, like with everything in the world, there are advantages and disadvantages to this type of login.

Advantages

The advantages of logging into multiple websites using the same credentials are fairly clear. Here’s what I find to be most useful:
1. No need to remember multiple sets of usernames and passwords for each site.
2. Credentials are less likely to be hacked since they are securely stored with Facebook, Google, or Twitter.
3. Sites are customized to use the Facebook API and therefore make it super easy to share your activity on those sites with your friends and family.
These are the three main advantages to using your current Facebook, Google or Twitter account to log into a third-party website. One of the main benefits I see is the fact that your credentials are more secure with the likes of Google and Facebook. There are a lot of websites that have great services, but don’t follow strict security procedures and can lose your information to hackers. I’ve gotten many emails over the years from companies that had their databases hacked and therefore my account was compromised.

Disadvantages

You probably have heard the phrase “Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket” and you’ve probably read online at least once not to use the same password for every website you log into. There are reasons why you hear these statements over and over again.
The disadvantages to using Facebook Connect to login to every website you visit or comment on also are pretty clear:
1. Facebook, Google, Twitter become a single point of failure. If you lose access to any of those accounts, you lose access to all of the sites that rely on that account.
2. Similarly, if your account is hacked, the hacker could potentially see what apps you use on Facebook, etc and then log into those websites as you.
That’s basically the only disadvantage, but it’s a really big one. The fact that you are entrusting that much information to one particular site or service could cause privacy issues later on. Does Facebook, Google and Twitter get to keep all of that information about your activity forever? What happens if they sell it to someone else later on? It’s definitely risky if you don’t like one company to have access to so much information about you.

Conclusion

In the end, you want to diversify. I personally have some websites where I login using Facebook Connect, others using Twitter, others via Google and the rest using the regular website login. This way you’re not relying on one service or company for logging into a bunch of different sites.
Also, note that using Facebook to log into other sites will reduce your privacy because of how data can be posted back and forth between the site and Facebook. If you log into a website using Google or Twitter, there is less chance of that activity being posted to your Twitter feed or on Google+. For whatever reason, Facebook apps that you authorize tend to collect a lot more information and also post that info to your Facebook account.
Even though you probably haven’t heard of many horror stories yet, there are bound to be cases of hacking, theft, outages, lost access, etc as this type of login option becomes more popular. As with everything, try to stay diversified and you’ll be safer on the Internet. Do you use Facebook, Twitter or Google to log into websites

How to Trace an IP Address

Website IP Address

1 . Open a command console. On a Mac, it's called Terminal and it's in the Utilities folder. On a PC, click on Start, then Accessories, and then Command Prompt. This will let us ping any website to find out the IP address of that website.

2 . Ping an address. This sends a signal out to a URL—like a sonar, hence the name—which then bounces back with the website information attached, and how long the round trip took. Type "ping [URL]" - example: ping www.facebook.com. 

3 . Press return. The IP address should appear beside the website name, followed by how many seconds or milliseconds the ping took. The format of an IP address is numeric, written as four numbers separated by periods. For Facebook, the IP address is 69.171.237.16.

Email IP Address

1 . Open your email client. To find the IP of an email sent to you, you can investigate the message's headers—that stuff that looks like a keyboard exploded on the message

2. Show headers. From the View menu, select the option that lets you view all or extended headers, and your To/From section will blossom with new information. From all that information, you only need a couple bits to search for. Next to the Received section you will see something like "from..... and an IP address as described above. Select one of those, and copy it to the clipboard. In this case, we'll select 66.220.144.152, and copy it. We can see that it says Received from mx-out.facebook.com, so we'll do a test to see if that's accurate.

3 . Open a command console. This is described above. Only this time, instead of doing a ping on a known address, we're going to run a whois check. In your terminal window, by the flashing cursor, type whois 66.220.144.152, and press Enter. The information will be sent out to a database, queried, and then returned with the registration information for that IP address.

In this case, we can verify that the message was sent through Facebook. Notice we also have their full address.

4 . Use an alternative lookup. You may not want to use the terminal, or perhaps it's not loaded on your computer. Instead, you can try using an internet lookup, such as ip-lookup, which gives you much the same information as a whois lookup, and in many cases, much more.'

Geo-location of an IP Address

1  Use the methods described above to obtain the IP number you wish to check.

2 . Go to a website that will allow you to look up IP address information. Google "IP Lookup" or "IP Geolcation" for a large list of sites that will freely offer this service.

3 . Understand what you can and cannot learn from the IP address:

• Which internet service provider (ISP) the user is using. In some cases this may be the user's company (e.g. Ford.com). In other cases it may be just one of the large ISPs such as ATT or Comcast.
• The approximate physical location of the user (e.g. Palo Alto, California.)
• Recognize that usually you will not learn the actual name of the person doing at that IP address (e.g. Joe Smith). ISPs will typically only release such information under a court order.

How to check the speed of your Internet Connection

when I first started Using Internet, broadband was not like now in India. Dial-up connections from mobile and by BSNL were the rage in those days and the fastest economically feasible connection available to a normal user was the 128 kbps (Kilobits per second) ISDN connection, while the dial-ups offered a measly 56.6 kbps. India has come along way since. Now, broadband connections offering atleast 7.2 Mbps (Megabits per second) are a must. It's time of 3G and 4G Now.

However, one thing has remained unchanged. Even then we never got the advertised speed, nor do we get it now. There are a few websites  which run a test on your internet connection and tell you your exact download and upload speed and your ping rate, which will be usefull to you to compare two connections.


You can Try the ADSL speed tester service offered to BSNL Broadband Users. Just go to speedtester.bsnl.co.in.

Just follow the link and start the speed test by clicking the link.

You can also try www.testmyspeed.com.

Click on Start speed test and wait for the Results. It tests the download and upload speed of your internet connection and produces the results

The next site is, www.speedtest.net.

Click BEGIN TEST to start the test.

The last site on our list is www.bandwithplace.com.

Click the START TEST to start.

Please Note that Speedtest & ISP’s use bits per second while download agents/programs use bytes per second. Because there are 8 bits to a byte, 1.2 megabytes a second sounds right. So, calculate wisely before blaming your ISP.
In simple language, you should get 1/8th of the advertised bandwidth means 2MBPS connection should give 0.25 MegaBytes / sec = 0.25 KiloBytes / sec.
With the help of these websites you can know exactly what speed you are getting. Do please share with us how many of you are getting the advertised 3 Mbps.

The Network and Sharing Center in Windows 7

Windows 7 offers a very user friendly interface to connect computers to the network.  If you’ve previously set up a home network using computers running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you’ll find that setting up a network with a mix of computers running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 is similar.

By far, the easiest way to set up file and printer sharing on a home network is to create a homegroup. A homegroup links computers on your network so that you can share pictures, music, videos, documents, and printers. You can help protect a homegroup with a password, and you’ll always be able to choose what you share with the group. If all of the computers that you want to network are running Windows 7, creating a homegroup is the recommended method.
HomeGroup is available in all editions of Windows 7. In Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic, you can join a homegroup, but you can’t create one.
Sometimes you would want to see who is currently connected to your network. To do that, open the Network Map under Control Panel and you will see all the computers connected to your network.  In the example below there are 2 computers connected to my router, which connects to the Internet.

If you put your mouse over the computer, you will see more details like the computer name, IP address and the MAC address.

Besides the network map, you could also access more advanced network and sharing settings by clicking the advanced sharing settings.

With this panel, you can turn on/off network discovery, file and printer sharing, public folder sharing, media streaming and other settings.  I like this panel a lot because it lets me administer the settings without having to grapple with separate windows and/or registry entry hacks.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

Assign Fixed Static IP Addresses to Devices on Home Network

If you’re like me, you probably have 20 devices connected to your home network: phones, printers, network attached storage devices, TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, media players, and finally computers. Whew! With all those devices, you probably also like to share data and files amongst them. Well, normally that works fine as most of the time the DNS name of the device is used.
If the IP address changes, you can still use the DNS name to access the device. However, there are quite a few instances where you end up using the IP address to access a device and if that IP address changes, then you have to reconfigure the device. For example, I have a printer that also scans and will save the file directly to a computer. However, it uses the IP address instead of the name of the machine. Every time the machine reboots, it gets a new IP address and I have to type that new IP into the printer. What a pain!
In this article, I’ll show you how you can assign static or fixed IP addresses to the devices on your network without manually configuring each device. For example, you can always assign a static IP address to a Windows 8 PC by going to network settings, but it’s far easier to just assign the static IP address on your router. This saves you from having to configure 20 devices individually to easily managing all the static IP addresses from one central location.
Most modern routers have some sort of IP address reservation page or configuration option that you just have to find, usually under the Local Area Network or LAN section. Here I will show you how to do it on an AT&T U-verse router and a Netgear router. Hopefully, it’s pretty much the same on other routers like Belkin and D-Link.

Assign Static IP Addresses via Router

To get started, you’ll need to login to your wireless router via a web browser. In order to do this, you’ll need the IP address of your router. If you already know it, then you can skip this section. To figure out your router IP, you can simply look up the default gateway on your computer. Here’s how.
Open a command prompt on any PC by following this procedure:
Windows XP – Click on Start, click on Run and type in CMD
Windows 7 – Click on Start and type in command prompt
Windows 8 - Go to Start screen, right-click, choose All apps, then scroll right and click on Command Prompt
Now at the command prompt, type in the following command, which is just one word:
ipconfig
You should get a screen that looks like this:

Make sure you are looking at the correct network adapter. For example, you see the above screenshot says Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection, which is the IP address info for my Ethernet connection. If you are using wireless, it should say Wireless adapter. The ip address you want is the one listed under Default Gateway.
Now take this IP address and open a web browser. Type it into the address bar and press enter.

This will load the web interface for your wireless router. Note that you will probably have to enter the router username and password in order to gain access. If you never changed it, then you can check out a site called routerpasswords.com that lists out all the default ones for many routers. If you have the original packaging, it should be on there too.
http://www.routerpasswords.com/
Now that you’re in the router, you’ll need to find the section that shows the current IP addresses that have been allocated by the DHCP server. On my AT&T router, I had to click on Settings, then LAN, then IP Address Allocation.

To give a device a fixed IP address, just find it in the list and then click on the Address Assignment drop down. By default, it is set to Private from pool:IPRange.

From the drop down, you can choose a fixed IP address. Just make sure you don’t pick a fixed IP that is already taken by another device on the network.

For my Netgear router, the process was a little different. First, once you logged in, you have to go to Attached Devices to see all the connected devices and their MAC addresses.

Find the MAC address for the device you want to give a static IP address to and then click on LAN Setup.

Click the Add button under Address Reservation and then either choose from the radio buttons at the top or manually type in info yourself.

That’s about it! This is a much easier way to assign static or fixed IP addresses to devices on your network rather than manually configuring it on the device itself. If you have any problems or issues, post a comment and I’ll try to help. Enjoy!

How to Clear AutoComplete Entries from Web Forms

Follow the steps below to clear AutoComplete entries:

1. Double click on Internet Explorer
2. Go to Tools-> Internet Options-> Content tab
3. Under the Personal Information category, press the AutoComplete button.
4. Press Clear Forms from the resulting menu.

View Full Sized Thumbnail Images on the Web the Easy Way

When browsing Facebook, Google +, Tumblr, Pinterest and the web in general, you likely run across thumbnail images quite frequently, as most websites now incorporate them into their design. These thumbnail images are great for their function in web design, but when you, the visitor wants to view the image in full size or greater detail, that is sometimes a pain.

For example, when you run across a thumbnail image that is unlinked, non-clickable, linked with restrictions or otherwise restricted, you might try right-clicking on the image and selecting view image from the context menu. Sometimes this simple trick does let you view the full-sized image, but many times, it simply brings you to a page containing the thumbnail with it’s same dimensions.

Here’s a quick tip for viewing thumbnails in full size the simple way. To get started, launch either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser. From there, proceed to install one of the following plugins, according to what browser you are using.

• Thumbnail Zoom Plus (Firefox)
• Hover Zoom (Chrome)

For this tutorial, we will be demoing the Firefox add-on. However, Chrome users can still follow along, as the Hover Zoom extension for Chrome does basically the same thing.
With the Thumbnail Zoom Plus Firefox add-on successfully installed, navigate the path Firefox > Add-ons > Extensions.

Next, click the Options button for the Thumbnail Zoom Plus listing. The following options will then be presented:

On this screen, you can of course setup the advanced zoom and thumbnail settings, but also note the Enable or disable per site listing, which allows you to toggle on/off websites which will be supported by the add-on. Proceed to check/uncheck the websites that you visit. Click the OK button to proceed.
That’s basically all there is to it for configuration, now let’s test this plugin out. You can of course test the plugin on any websites that you selected in the previous step, but for simplicity, let’s just try out how the plugin works with Facebook.
Now, whenever you hover over a thumbnail on a supported website, the zoom will automatically engage, displaying a more full-sized image.

As you can tell from the above screenshot, the image is rendered simply in a preview window next to the thumbnail. Additionally, the link to the page and the magnification level (percentage of actual image) is displayed towards the bottom of the preview image.
Thank you for stopping by the site for today’s post which provides a very simple way to make web browsing more effective and slightly less annoying. With the several, popular websites that these plugins support, they can make browsing your favorite social networks and websites more fluid. Although these plugins have a very simple function, they are most likely something you will install now, and later realize how much of a convenience and help they actually are

Add Flipboard Like Navigation to a Web Browser

Flipboard is one of the most popular iPad applications in the Apple AppStore. However, the app serves a very basic purpose. It simply aggregates incoming feeds and news sources and presents them to you in a nicely designed wrapper, while letting you customize the content and sources for your particular Flipboard. In today’s post, we will review how to get Flipboard like navigation directly from your computer’s web browser.

To get started, you will need either the Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome web browser. For this tutorial, we will be using the Firefox browser, although the process is very much the same for Chrome as well, as this Flipboard like functionality is accomplished via a plugin.
Launch your web browser of choice and navigate to the according plugins website using one of the following links:

• Chrome Web Store
• Firefox Add-ons

Once there, perform a plugin search using the term “feedly.” The search results should return the add-on Feedly.
Proceed to install the Feedly plugin as you would any other plugin for either browser. You may be prompted to restart your browser.

Upon successful plugin installation, you will be prompted with the Feedly homepage. Click the + sign to begin customizing your page.

From here, you will be presented with your Feedly homepage, in which you may instantly recognize the likeliness to Flipboard.

Alternatively, you can search for any website you’d like to add to your Feedly, using the search function.

Click to select the website from the search results and it should be instantly added to your Feedly. Here, we’ve added Online-Tech-Tips.

Whatever sites you decide to add, will be rendered in a similar, Flipboard like UI. However, you might also want to add a bit more customization to Feedly, particularly if you are considering using it as your browser’s start page/homepage.
Clicking the Create Account button in the upper, right side of the screen allows you Sign In to Feedly using your Google Account.

While signed in, you will have the additional options of setting up custom content, changing themes and setting up user preferences.



Creating an account with Feedly will as mentioned above allow you to customize more aspects, but it will also allow you to save any preferences if this is an app that you enjoy and would like to use.
That’s basically all there is to it. Most of the user reviews for this app back it as being a great web browser addition. Looking for a new homepage that isn’t filled with useless news that you don’t care for? Today’s tutorial helps you to create your own customized homepage that will not only let you customize the content, but also present the content to you in a nicely designed UI.
Thank you for stopping by the site for today’s post. If any of our site visitors have any other recommended plugins similar to Feedly,