Firefox shortcuts

Image via Wikipedia

I know browsing online is usually a one handed activity with most people blissfully unaware that there are more than a few ways to hasten processes. Granted browsing faster isn't the goal here, it's browsing more efficiently. We all know how draining it can be in most cases, especially when the time frame extends to more than an hour or so. 

Here are some shortcuts that I stumbled upon and thought i'd make it into a limited, non-exhaustive, compendium and add to it from other sources and my own trials in the future. **** I've only tried these out on Firefox 3.6.13 so don't know if they are valid on other versions or browsers. ****

In the address bar, which is where you type in the website's address or URL (pronounced Earl) you can just type the name of the site without the prefix and suffix and press the following for a few different domain extensions:

• Control + Enter - inserts the site name within www and .com
• Shift + Enter - inserts the site name within www and .net
• Control + Shift + Enter - inserts the site name within www and .org

If there are multiple tabs open, then holding down the Control key and pressing the Tab key will successively cycle through the open tabs. Control + 'T' will open a new tab.

To navigate between web pages, Control + Left arrow will take you the previous page you were one and Control + Right arrow will take you to the next latest page opened.

Happy [efficient] browsing folks. And happy holidays.

Related articles

• FireFox and the Back button (edugeek.net)

Blogging Tools

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve come to use a few tools when it comes to the task of blogging. It’s not usually hard to find information online when it comes to most anything but one thing that happens is loss of focus when dealing with the topic you might be free-writing or incubating. 

There are a plethora of tool available as add-ons for firefox that enable many features. The problem is just that, there are countless add-ons. Finding one that adds just the right type of functionality  to improve productivity or increase information or aesthetics without overwhelming features or crowding is crucial for me.

With that in mind Zemanta, is such a tool that helps to add a bit of colour to any blog. It scours sources of images which are usually available freely without licensing issues to insert into your blog. This is done on the fly and presents images in relation to the content being typed. Another feature is text links which you can select as well as tags based on content. Usually the links are a bit too much, highlighting almost every other word which Zemanta deems pertinent. Otherwise it offers a very simple system to link to other sources that might be of interest.

It is available for blogs as well as email and I’ve only used it on Firefox but it’s available on other browsers as well.

disclaimer: previously posted on my other blog.