Monday, June 22, 2009

Top 10 Firefox 3.5 Features [Lifehacker Top 10]

Top 10 Firefox 3.5 Features [Lifehacker Top 10]

Firefox 3.5 is a pretty substantial update to the popular open-source browser, and it's just around the corner. See what features, fixes, and clever new tools are worth getting excited about in the next big release.

UPDATE: A previous version of this list had Taskfox, an integrated version of Ubiquity, included as a Firefox 3.5 feature. It's still in the experimental phase, in fact, as readers pointed out, and we regret the confusion (and false optimism!). This new list includes an additional item, and the rankings have been shifted slightly.

10. Undo closed window

If you accidentally close a tab you'd meant to keep open, Firefox 3, at least through extensions like Tab Mix Plus, can bring it back. Update: To clarify, Firefox can resurrect closed tabs without Tab Mix Plus (just hit Ctrl+Shift+T, for example); the extension simply adds more fine-grained control. If you accidentally kill a separate window full of tabs, though, you've been pretty much out of luck. Firefox 3.5 implem! ents a r estore feature for both tabs and windows from the History menu, which would (hopefully) also restore any text you've typed into them.

9. Forget this site

Tools like Private Browsing Modes and history wipers are good for what they do, but sometimes it would be great to have just one site wiped off your history—either because it's hogging your quick address bar results, or because you'd rather your coworker be unaware of your workday LOLcat browsing. Firefox 3.5's history browser offers a convenient "Forget this site" option, erasing your browser's memory of particular domains. It doesn't cover subdomains, and your network traffic and Flash memory would still hold some details, but it's a handy tweak however you cut it.

8. Tab tearing


Google Chrome (Update: And Safari, as our readers note) somewhat stole the thunder out from under this feature, but it's still a nice one: Grab a tab and drag it out a bit to create a new browser window from it. Drag windows into tabs again, and open any tab in a new window from the right-click menu, if clicking and dragging isn't your style.

7. Keyword AwesomeBar filters

Firefox 3's AwesomeBar/address bar offers a speedy list of suggestions to complete whatever you're typing. That's great, but that list comes from your page history, bookmarks, and tags, and can be matched by URL or name, leaving some results almost uselessly cluttered. This gets fixed with special character filters in the next Firefox. Restrict a search by typing "life *" for just yo! ur bookm arks with the words "life" in them, or just your tagged "lh" items with "lh +". Anything that really makes getting back to importantly web destinations quickly is a welcome upgrade.

6. Smarter session restore

What good is it to bring back all the tabs you just lost to a crash if the tab that brought everything down comes back too? Firefox's developers took a cue from the users and turned the session restore feature into more of a crash recovery tool, allowing users to select which tabs should come back. If you don't know who's the culprit, here's a hint: It's probably the one with Flash on it.

5. Private browsing mode

The snarky types (i.e. my editor) can call it "Porn Mode," but this feature, already in a number of competing browsers, has uses beyond the prurient. Beyond obvious situations, like gift buying and sensitive research, logging onto a friend's browser for a quick email check or bill pay is made a lot more secure if you can get to the private mode. Likewise, anonymizing some of your searches and cookie collection on your own machine isn't a bad idea, and a private mode can do that too. You don't need it all the time, but you might be glad it's available.

4. Color profiles that pop

Different cameras, monitors, and capture devices grab and set colors in different ways. On the web, most colors look the! same, t hough, because they're filtered and optimized for quick viewing in every browser. Firefox 3.5 introduces dynamic color profiles for each picture, meaning that whatever the graphic designer or photographer saw when they were doing their work, you'll see it on their web page.

3. TraceMonkey JavaScript engine

Months ago, Mozilla said its still-in-development JavaScript engine, TraceMonkey, was "20 to 40 times" faster than the SpiderMonkey engine installed in Firefox 3. That hasn't shown up in our speed tests, which themselves rely on a Mozilla-assembled testing suite, but JavaScript testing suites are often like drag races—they don't really tell you what a browser runs like in a real daily sense, just pure timings. Even if TraceMonkey is ultimately outpaced by Chrome and/or Safari, its innovations push the whole browser market forward and give us all a bit less load time to complain about.

2. Geo-location

If you type post office into a maps site, you probably don't want the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office, or post office listings from two towns over. Integrated geo-location, powered by Google's Wi-Fi triangulation and simple IP address information, looks to know roughly where you are and help you when you're looking for something local. You can disable it if you'd like, but, realistically, signing on from any IP address reveals a bit about where you are anyways. If! a good number of sites pick it up, geo-location could bring to the browser what a lot of people are already enjoying on their phone.

1. Video superpowers with HTML 5


If you're viewing a page coded in HTML 5 with video in an open-source format like Ogg Vorbis or Theora, Firefox 3.5 treats that video like it's just part of the page, not a separate little island of Flash content. That means instant commenting on videos. It could also mean offering links from inside a tutorial video that offer more details on what's being shown—soldering tips on an iPhone repair guide would be keen. In general, it's just a promising step forward into a seamless melding of video and text on a future web.


Many thanks to the Mozilla Links blog, which covers Firefox news and updates like a glove.

Now that we've thrown out the 10 features that are getting us jazzed for a final 3.5 release, let's hear what you're most looking forward to, and what remains unrequited among your Firefox desires, in the comments.



Read More...

Make Natural Insect Repellent with Essential Oils [Outdoors]

Make Natural Insect Repellent with Essential Oils [Outdoors]

If you live in a climate without many summer pests, well, lucky you. For the rest of us, these essential oil repellents will make patio life less insect-filled. Photo by mccun934.

How-to-guide repository wikiHow explains the crafting of simple pest-banishing pots for your home and garden. You take a small rag or sponge, soak it with a diluted concentration of essential oils, then leave it in a small container like a glass jar. When you want to drive away mosquitoes, horse flies, and other annoying summer pests, you simply open the jar and place it near you to keep them away.

If you don't have any small jars on hand, this is also a great project for the versatile Altoids tin. For details on the project, including which oils to use—mosquitoes hate peppermint apparently—check out the guide at the link below. If you find that a dose of peppermint isn't driving away the mosquitoes as quickly as you'd like, lure them away from you with a DIY mosquito trap.



Read More...

Fotografix Sports Big Editing Power in a Tiny Footprint [Downloads]

Fotografix Sports Big Editing Power in a Tiny Footprint [Downloads]


Windows only: Portable software usually has to suffer a few through a few compromises to be compact and flash-drive friendly. If they compromised with Fotografix, you certainly won't notice.

The interface will be familiar to users of bigger graphics packages like Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. If you've never used either one, it won't take much to pick it up. Fotografix is astoundingly tiny—a mere 680k when unpacked—for offering features usually only found in bulkier and more advanced editors like image layer, custom brushes, and advanced color and image correction tools.

The advanced features of Fotografix cover enough ground that for anything short of having to deep massage an image in Photoshop, you'll likely not have to fire it up any time soon. Fotografix makes an excellent and ultra-lightweight addition to your portable software package. If you have your own portable software that accomplishes a ton with a tiny footprint, let's hear about it in the comments below. Fotografix is freeware, Windows only.



Read More...

Bookmash Searches All Your Multimedia Sources [Adobe AIR]

Bookmash Searches All Your Multimedia Sources [Adobe AIR]

Adobe Air: Bookmash is an Adobe Air application combining over a dozen search tools covering video, music, photos, news, and social networks you can search at once for new media material.

Bookmash has a Cover-Flow-like interface, similar in functionality to previously mentioned PicLens (renamed to Cooliris). You can search wide open, covering sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Lastfm, Seeqpod, Flickr, and more, or you can narrow your search based on the type of content you're looking for.

You can also add RSS feeds to Bookmash and media and articles from your feeds will become part of your searches. All the media you find can be easily bookmarked, downloaded, or shared with your friends via the simple menu available when you look at your search results in the detailed view.

Have a favorite search mashup of your own? Sound off in the comments below and let us know about how you scour the web for your media fix. Bookmash is freeware and works wherever Adobe Air does.



Read More...

Google Maps Adds Local Attractions with "What's Here?" Link [Google Maps]

Google Maps Adds Local Attractions with "What's Here?" Link [Google Maps]

Google Maps is a fantastic tool for getting directions and finding destinations. With its most recent update, it's a lot better at answering the question "What is here?" around any given point.

Click on a Google Map and choose from the context menu, as seen above, "What's here?" The left-hand panel is populated with information about that place on the map. Photos if available, information about buildings and businesses located there, landmarks and user created maps related to the area will appear if available.

If you're someone who navigates more by visual markers than by cardinal direction, knowing what things are on your route can be extremely helpful. You won't just be looking for 5700 West Avenue, but the Macy's next to the Coney Island. The information scales as you zoom in and out, giving you the most appropriate answers to "What's here?" based on your view, from the Rocky Mountains to the Rocky Mountain Oyster Bar.



Read More...