FVD Speed Dial With Online Sync for Firefox and Chrome

All new web browsers utilizes the empty space on a new tab to display a row of thumbnails of your most recently and frequently visited web sites. Opera calls this the Speed Dial, after the speed dial feature found in most phones, while other browsers simply call it the ‘new tab page’. In Firefox and Chrome, the new tab page is not very customizable. The extent of customization that is allowed on the new tab page depends on the browser you are using. In Firefox you can arrange the order in which the thumbnails appear and pin select sites so that they are always available. In Chrome, you can arrange the thumbnails but you cannot pin sites. This is why third-party speed dial/new tab page extensions are very popular among Chrome and Firefox users. However, they still lack the ability synchronize your speed dial across all your computers and devices. Currently, the only speed dial extension that supports this is FVD Speed Dial.

The ability to sync online is just one of the many perks of using FVD Speed Dial. This add-on is highly customizable and supports a range of features like custom backgrounds, custom dials, organized groups, most visited dials and more.




Initially, FVD Speed Dial will display your most visited websites, but you can replace the tiles with your preferred websites. The extension also lets users group sites into multiple speed dial pages and quickly switch from one page to another. For instance, you can create groups for social networking sites, blogs, news and whatever you find useful. Also available is a list of most visited sites, a list of recently closed tabs and a recover session button that lets you recover your last browsing session, that is, the pages that were open when you closed Firefox the last time.

Options for customizing the appearance of the speed dial page are plenty. You can set everything from dial size, dial opacity, background colors, background images, fonts, font size, and even minute things like whether or not to show the URL below each speed dials.

FVD Speed Dial for Firefox

FVD Speed Dial for Chrome

Other Features

• Block by URL or Domain. This feature allows you to exclude unwanted URLs from appearing in your most visited Speed Dial group.
• Background templates (similar to wallpapers in Windows) in browser window.
• Mouse gestures for switching between sped dials and various viewing modes.
• Four thumbnail sizes: Big, Medium, Small, List (just a list for those who prefer a compact view)
• Several modes for setting the background image: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center same as in Windows.
• Activate or deactivate Flash, Silverlight and Java Script when creating a screenshot for the Dial.
• Customizable page opening mode in the Speed Dial: in the current tab, in a new tab (Hotkey: Ctrl+Click), in a background tab (Hotkey:Ctrl+Shift+Click).
• Customizable number of rows in the Speed Dial. Auto mode available.

How to change Facebook login screen background with using of Chrom extension

I know that currently Facebook have no option for change or customize login screen of Facebook. But if you are feel boring with old style Facebook login page then you can change or customize its look with one Chrome extension. FB Login Screen Changer  can do this job for you. After installation of this extension you can change your Facebook login page like our own background as your FB login wallpaper.

Currently you can choose any background image from url option means first you need to upload your favorite images on internet and then use direct url in settings of FB Login Screen Changer Chrome Extension. If you have small image for set then you can also set X and Y repeat position for login page. It is good idea that search any good wallpaper from internet and then use hotlink in this extension.

For open FB Login Screen Changer in Chrome you can go Tools >> Extensions and click on options if this extension. During entering url in options make sure you are using image hotlink and url must start with http not https. Each time you make a change in either the link or the tile (repeat) options, you will need to refresh the Facebook login page for take effects.

[Install FB Login Screen Changer Chrome Extension]

Solution to Chrome Blocking Installation of Extensions Out of Web Store

Recently, the Dev, Canary and Beta channels of Google Chrome started blocking installation of extensions originating from outside the official repository, that is, the Chrome Web Store. Attempting to install extensions from third party website produces a notification message that says “Extensions, apps and user scripts can only be added from the Chrome Web Store”. As noted in the message, Chrome also disallows installation of user scripts, which are almost always third-party. This is not a good thing for users wanting to install Greasemonkey scripts or Stylish scripts or any other type of scripts.


Installation of off-store extensions were always blocked in Chrome to protect users from malicious scripts and extensions. But previously, users could click on a link to a *.crx file, and Chrome would offer to install the file after a few warnings. Starting in Chrome 21, it has become more difficult to install extensions, apps, and user scripts from outside the Chrome Web Store. By default, all extensions outside the Chrome Web Store are blocked and can only be installed by dragging the downloaded .crx file onto the Chrome Extensions page.
In order to install off-store extensions, the user must download them to a directory and drag them onto the chrome://extensions/ page, which is the same page that opens when you click Extensions under the Tools menu.

Once you drop a downloaded extension (.crx file) to the Extensions page, the installation will begin as usual.
GHacks shares another way to force Chrome into accepting extensions and scripts from third party websites. This can be done by launching Chrome with the parameter --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install.
To add the startup parameter, right-click on the Chrome shortcut in your desktop and click on Properties. In the target filed, append the path with the above parameter. Notice the space before the two dashes.

When you start Chrome using this shortcut, you should be able to install extensions and userscripts from third party sites as before.
Source: Chrome help

Chrome has been Gets Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts for Extensions

Chrome has been Gets Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts for Extensions

The latest Chrome 22 Developer comes with a very handy new feature - configurable keyboard shortcuts for extensions buttons. What it allows you to do is assign keyboard shortcuts to different buttons added to the toolbar by installed extension. So instead of clicking on a button press the associated keyboard shortcut. This is a great way to get rid of buttons clogging up your toolbar as you can simulate button presses with a shortcut key.

To set up custom keyboard shortcuts open Settings > Tool > Extensions. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Configure Commands. A popup box will display the extensions that support this feature. You can then enter a keyboard combination in the box against each extension.

The usefulness of the shortcut will depend entirely on the extensions. For example, they're useful for the "Google +1 Button" extension because you can quickly +1 pages, but they're not useful for the LastPass extension because it only displays a long list of options.
There's an experimental Chrome API for extension developers that allows them to add keyboard shortcuts that trigger actions.
Some shortcuts that work: Ctrl+Letter, Ctrl+Digit, Ctrl+Shift+Letter, Ctrl+Shift+Digit.
[via Google Operating System]

Enable/Disable Chrome Extensions on Specific Websites

Google Chrome extensions can be very powerful, but they can also be a resource hog. They load into memory and wait until you use them. While some extensions like FlashBlock or NoScript work universally, there are many that are useful only on certain websites, for example, the YouTube Ratings Preview is only useful on YouTube or Amazon extensions that work only on the shopping site. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could selectively disable them until you actually need them? Thanks to Extension Automation, you can.

This Chrome extension allows you to enable your installed extensions only on specific websites and thereby cut down memory consumption by the browser.

Install Extension Automation and head directly to the settings page. From the drop-down menu select the extension you wish to disable and then under Filter type the URL of the website where you want the extension to work. For all other sites, the extension will remain disabled and unloaded from memory. You can type multiple URLs using commas to separate them. You can also enter keywords. When Extension Automation find those keywords in a page, it will automatically enable the chosen extension. 

You can test whether Extension Automation is working by using the built in Task Manager (Shift+Esc) to inspect which extensions are running. Just open the webpage where the extension(s) is filtered to run and check the Task Manager, then open any other page where the extension is not meant to run and check the Task Manager again. You will notice a drop in memory usage.

If you’ve installed plenty of Chrome extensions, Extension Automation is a must have.

Vimium Adds Plenty of New Keyboard Shortcuts to Chrome

Vimium is an extension for Google Chrome that provides around 40 new keyboard shortcuts that allows navigation around a web page from the comforts of the keyboard. Of course, keyboard or mouse is a personal choice and whether or not the user considers the keyboard a comfortable replacement for the mouse depends solely on the user. But for people who have grown accustomed to the keyboard, such as programmers and Unix/Linux users, Vimium is a big improvement for Chrome. The extension was developed in the “spirit of Vim”, the most keyboard efficient text editor in existence.

Vimium adds the following keyboard shortcuts to Google Chrome.

Navigating the current page:

?       show the help dialog for a list of all available keys
h       scroll left
j       scroll down
k       scroll up
l       scroll right
gg      scroll to top of the page
G       scroll to bottom of the page
d       scroll down half a page
u       scroll up half a page
f       open a link in the current tab
F       open a link in a new tab
r       reload
gs      view source
i       enter insert mode -- all commands will be ignored until you hit esc to exit
yy      copy the current url to the clipboard
yf      copy a link url to the clipboard
gf      cycle forward to the next frame

Using find:

/       enter find mode -- type your search query and hit enter to search or esc to cancel
n       cycle forward to the next find match
N       cycle backward to the previous find match

Navigating your history:

H       go back in history
L       go forward in history

Manipulating tabs:

J, gT      go one tab left
K, gt      go one tab right
g0         go to the first tab
g$         go to the last tab
t          create tab
x          close current tab
X          restore closed tab (i.e. unwind the 'x' command)

Additional advanced browsing commands:

]]      Follow the link labeled 'next' or '>'. Helpful for browsing paginated sites.
[[      Follow the link labeled 'previous' or '<'. Helpful for browsing paginated sites.
<a-f>   open multiple links in a new tab
gi      focus the first (or n-th) text input box on the page
gu      go up one level in the URL hierarchy
zH      scroll all the way left
zL      scroll all the way right

Vimium also supports command repetition. For example, hitting '5t' will open 5 tabs in rapid succession. ESC (or <c-[>) will clear any partial commands in the queue and will also exit insert and find modes.

Vimium provides ways to remap or unmap any of the default key bindings, as well as override Chrome’s default keyboard shortcut. For this, open Vimium’s options page and expand the "Advanced Options" section.

Enter one of the following key mapping commands per line:

• map key command: This maps a key to a Vimium command. For example: map <c-d> scrollPageDown will map ctrl+d to scrolling the page down. Chrome's default behavior of bringing up a bookmark dialog is suppressed.
• unmap key: This Unmaps a key and restores Chrome's default behavior. Example: unmap <c-d>
• unmapAll: Unmaps all bindings. This is useful if you want to completely wipe Vimium's defaults and start from scratch with your own setup.

To see available Vimium commands click on the "Show Available Commands" link near the key mapping box. The command name appears to the right of the description in parenthesis.

Additional options include, the ability to exclude URLs where you do not want Vimium’s shortcuts to work, for instance, Google Reader which has it’s own keyboard shortcuts; and the ability to define previous/next page patterns in web pages.

[via Chrome Story]

Get Now Playing Notifications for YouTube Videos on Desktop [Firefox and Chrome]

Some media players show pop-up notification on the desktop whenever the track changes even if the media player is minimized or not in focus. I’m not particularly fond of those, but if you are, you will love the Now Playing notification for videos playing in YouTube. If you are wondering why one should need notification when they can see for themself which video is playing, you are forgetting that YouTube is the most popular destination for listening to music.

Most users will load a video album playlist, click the play button and minimize the browser or otherwise carry on surfing. With YouTube notification, these users get the same functionality they get from their desktop media player. And here is the interesting part: these notifications are displayed on the desktop, out of the browser.

 

Now Playing YouTube Notification in Chrome (left) and Firefox (right).

Whenever a new video loads from the playlist, a small window pops open near the notification tray displaying the title of the song. The notifications stays just long enough for you to notice and disappears on it’s own.

Want these notifications? Get them for Firefox and Chrome.

Related: How to Download All YouTube Videos in a Playlist

20+ Chrome Apps for Google Drive

This is an exciting week for personal cloud storage. We saw the official release of Microsoft SkyDrive, an update from Dropbox and the long awaited Google Drive.

Google Drive was a bit disappointing. Only 5GB space for free users (we expected more) and functionality wise only little more than Google Docs. In any case, third party apps for Google Drive are coming hard and fast. Here are some of the most interesting ones available for Google Chrome right now.

HelloFax

HelloFax makes it easy to sign documents and send faxes online. Put in a fax number and HelloFax will send your document to a fax machine. If someone sends you a fax, HelloFax will forward it to your email as a PDF. Now with Google Drive integration, you can send and receive fax directly to your Google Drive account. After installing the HelloFax app, you’ll get a HelloFax folder in your Google Drive account. This folder will be automatically populated with your inbound and outbound faxes, as well as your signed documents and signature requests.

Gantter

Gantter.com is an online project scheduling application that allows you to easily save and share your project schedules with others anytime and from anywhere.

Whether you are planning a complex project like a large construction project, rolling out a new website, managing a big IT project, or simply need to manage your next home renovation project Gantter is the tool for you. Gantter even provides you a gallery of project templates to help you build your schedule in a fraction of the time. Gantter also allows you to import your Microsoft Project files. Google Drive users enjoy Gantter's seamless integration which allows you to easily save and open schedules directly to and from Google Drive.

Lucidchart

Lucidchart is an HTML5-based visual collaboration tool which allows users to collaborate and work together in real time to create flowcharts, organizational charts, website wireframes, UML designs, mind maps, software prototypes, and many other diagram types. Lucidchart features a drag-and-drop interface with hundreds of shapes to choose from. Results can be exported as image files or PDFs. Lucidchart is also one of the first web-based application to offer compatibility with Microsoft Visio.

With the new Lucidchart app for Google Drive installed, you can create, open and share Lucidchart documents as well as Microsoft Visio documents from Google Drive. Exported Lucidchart documents can be stored directly in Google Drive. You can also initiate daily or weekly backups of all of your Lucidchart documents to be stored in Google Drive.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet is an online project management and crowdsourcing tool that lets you turn your Google Spreadsheet, Excel or MS Project file into an online project, complete with file attachments and threaded discussions on any row. The seamless integration with Google account allows users to open Microsoft Project and Excel files in Google Drive with Smartsheet and attach files from Google Drive to any row in Smartsheet. The service also syncs with Google Calendar and Google Contacts.

Smartsheet is not free, but 30-day trial plans are available. Paid plans start at $15.95/month.

SlideRocket

SlideRocket is one of the best online slideshow creation tool. With the latest integration with Google Drive,
you can now save and share your presentation directly from Google Drive. Google Drive users can also create new presentation using SlideRocket from within Google Drive. Whenever a Google Drive user is invited to collaborate on a presentation, it can be automatically opened for use in SlideRocket.

From within a SlideRocket presentation, users can collaborate with Google Drive users and manage presentations and applications from a single location to access documents and materials, including presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, photos, videos and presentation resources on the web.

Pixlr Editor

Popular online image editor Pixlr, that looks a lot like Adobe Photoshop, is now available on Google Drive. This means that now you can open any image saved on your Google Drive account directly on Pixlr Editor for editing. Finished images can also be saved directly to Google Drive.

Pixlr Editor provides some fine filters including mimic HDR, glamor glow, tilt-shift, Gaussian blur, vignette, noise and lots of more. Advanced adjustments tools like Levels and Curves are available aside from basic tools like Auto levels, Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast. The editor is also capable of opening PSD files, but with limited support.

Aviary

Another popular photo editor tool that recently upgraded to add support for Google Drive is Aviary. Just right click on any photo in your Google Drive and select Open With > Aviary for Google Drive. The Aviary editor will open in a new window where you can edit your pictures. When you're done, just click save and your photo will be updated in Google Drive. And because Google Drive saves previous versions of your photos, you can always revert or compare your newest version with the original photo.

WeVideo

WeVideo is an online collaborative video editing tool that enables you to create your own movies by simply dragging and dropping videos to the timeline. Once you install the WeVideo for Chrome app, you can import videos on your Google Drive account to WeVideo’s editor and then join, clip or split them, add effects, music, transitions, graphics, slides and more.

WeVideo includes more than 30 effects and 50 transitions, and much of the functionality found in Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro X, and other desktop editors, with additional capability for collaborative editing.

WeVideo's subscription packages start with a free version that offers 1GB of workspace and limited editing and output, with premium levels up to $79.99 a month for 100GB of storage, 720p output, and priority processing, among other features.

MindMeister

MindMeister is an online collaborative mind mapping application that allows you organize brainstorming sessions with your team members over the Internet. You can plan projects, manage meetings and sketch out business plans online with partners and colleagues, all in real time.

Google Drive integration allows you to open, view and edit mind map files from Google Drive and synchronize entire maps list including folders with Google Drive. Sharing is also easy as MindMeister can access your Google contacts. Maps can be exported to Google Drive as image, text, PDF, and many other formats. You can also backup all maps to Drive in bulk.

Checkout more Google Drive apps at the Chrome Webstore.

Kill Evil for Chrome Removes Unwanted JavaScript Actions on Websites

Some websites perform annoying JavaScript tricks on you. One commonly encountered JavaScript action is disabling of the browser context menu (right-click menu). The website author feels that disabling the menu will prevent people from copying contents from the site, completely disregarding the fact that it pisses off a larger population of visitors who might want to perform legitimate action like access the context menu search or open in new tab and countless others. Some sites even take the liberty to resize and reposition our browser windows.

You can avoid such annoyances by disabling JavaScript or using a NoScript type of extension. But such a blanket ban on all types of JavaScript is hardly the ideal solution as it blocks not only the bad but the good scripts as well.

Kill Evil is a handy extension for Google Chrome that allows you to block unwanted JavaScript actions while allowing good scripts to run. A whitelist maintained by the extension allows you to specify sites where you do want Kill Evil to act upon.

Kill Evil removes the following annoyances on all pages:

• Right click action disabled (oncontextmenu)
• Print action disabled (window.print)
• Prevent copying, pop up floating window on links, or send back everything you select to a tracking server. (getSelection and onselectstart/onmousedown )
• Actions that interfere with your clipboard
• Resize, move browser window
• Open pages in new tab (the TARGET attribute on links)

Tabs Synchronization Available in Chrome Beta

Google Chrome has built in synchronization tool that allows users to keep all their data synchronized between different devices running Google Chrome. These include bookmarks, history, extensions, apps, typed passwords, autofill, themes and settings. Now with the latest Chrome Beta, you can sync your open tabs too.

When you’re signed in to Chrome, the tabs you have open on one device will be available on all your other devices. Just click the “Other devices” menu at the bottom on the New Tab page. You may not yet see it as it’s being rolled out to Beta channel users in the coming week.

With a click, you can find and open the tabs you accessed on another machine. If you use Chrome for Android Beta, the tab will also be available on your phone. The tab’s back and forward navigation history is also included, so you can pick up browsing right where you left off.

You can grab Chrome beta from here.

[via Chrome Blog]

Tab Notifier: Get Notification When Title of a Browser Tab Changes

People who access their email accounts or social networking and instant messaging application from the web browser, often miss real-time notification of incoming messages and notification about activities from their friends. The only indication of new messages received is a flashing tab icon, which can be easily missed if the tab is not in focus and not seen at all if the browser is minimized. The person at the other end will wait and wonder whether you are still at your desk. Half an hour later she will have logged out because you were too busy with an Excel sheet or some YouTube video perhaps to notice the tiny flashes.

There isn’t a good notification system for browser based applications, which is one of the reasons why some people prefer to use dedicated programs for email or social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. An email program has many more features than what Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo offers, and you are able to do things on a Twitter or Facebook client that you can’t on a web browser. This is nice if you are on your personal computer. In an office computer, however, you are usually not allowed to have these programs installed. The browser is your only window to the web.

The problem of missed notification can be quickly fixed with the Tab Notifier extension available on Firefox and Chrome.

This extension shows a desktop notification when the title of a tab changes while the tab is not in focus. A desktop notification is an alert window that appears outside the browser window, in a corner of your screen. Click on it to open the tab that triggered it. Tab Notifier works with any website that changes the tab title to indicate new messages, which includes Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and tons of other websites.

Tab Notifier for Firefox offers more control on which websites are allowed to display notification, than Tab Notifier for Chrome. In Chrome you can suppress notification from certain websites by setting up a list of websites to ignore. In Firefox, aside from an “Ignore list” you can also configure a “Watched list” which is the exact opposite of an ignore list, and optionally make Tab Notifier watch for a specific phrase in the title and notify you only when the browser tab displays that phrase.

To add websites to the ignore or watch list, open the website in question, right-click on an empty space and use the ‘Configure tab notifier for site’ action from the context menu.

From the window that opens you can configure each website individually.

Hate Icons? Get Text Buttons on New Gmail Interface

One of the many problems with Gmail’s new design is the lack of text on the buttons. A black & white icon on a black & white button conveys nothing. Does a square box with a downward pointing arrow say ‘Archive’ to you? Looks more like ‘Download’ to me. Does an octagon with an exclamation mean some kind of a warning? No. It is just spam.

“Well, I am a literate person and it is easier for me to recognize the ‘Answer’ or ‘Archive’ and ‘Delete’ button with texts than trying to recognize and remember arrows and a great host of other stupid unrecognizable icons.” complained one user in Gmail’s support forum. He isn’t alone. Millions are enraged over the changes. If you are one of them, here are a few solutions, based on the browser you use.

Google Chrome

Gmelius is an extension for Chrome that does a lot more than add text button to the new interface. It makes Gmail’s new interface more usable by adding custom colored subtle row highlights, makes header auto-expandable, adds a scroll to top functionality, removes the "People Widget" and use the space left to read/write your emails, removes advertisements, removes chat box, and of course, inserts text into the iconized buttons.

All changes are optional so you get to choose the changes you want.

Firefox

If you use Firefox install the Stylish add-on and then install this userstyle. You can also install this as plain CSS or user JS. Aside from restoring text to the buttons, this userstyle will also colorize the icons on the buttons. So cool.

This userstyle is actually a combination of two different userstyles – one that adds text to the buttons and one that colorizes the icons. If you wish not to have the icons colorized, you can install this userstyle.

Opera

Opera users just needs to install the GMail-TextButtons extension and get this result.

Use Chrome to Play Music From Your Hard Drive

For most people, a web browser is all they need. Email, Facebook and a little surfing is pretty much all they do. Whatever documents they create or edit can be handled by Google Docs and Zoho. For playing music and video you have a bunch of streaming sites. You can also setup your own music streaming service to play your music collection from anywhere. Did you know, you can drag a music file and drop it inside Chrome to start playing? But you can’t keep dragging every file you want to play. You need playlists, and if possible, a library.

So, here are three Chrome extension that turns your browser into a full featured music player.

Achshar Player

Achshar Player is a powerful local music player built entirely of HTML5 and JavaScript. It can play MP3, WAV and OGG music, because that is all HTML5 audio supports. You begin by adding music to the player either by the drag-and-drop method or using the ‘+’ button next to ‘Music Explorer’. If you intend to use Achshar Player for some time, you might prefer building a library of your music. Achshar Player allows you to do that.

Once you add them, the music is automatically sorted by Song title, Artist and Album. You can play music directly from the library or add them to your playlist. Currently, the player will automatically progress to the next title only when played from the playlist, not when played directly from the library, which leaves some thing to be desired for. Shuffling the order of tracks within a playlist and repeating a playlist are supported. Achshar Player will also keep count the number times a title is played. It would have been nice if the player could utilize the stats to prepare a playlist of the most played tracks or something.

Achshar Player will show desktop notifications on track change, thanks to Chrome’s ability to show notifications out of the browser.

Achshar player is also a background app hence it will keep playing your playlists even after you have closed the app tab or even all the browser windows. This behavior is controlled by the ‘Background Apps’ settings in Chrome. You can switch this thing off, if it turns out to be annoying – I, for one, wouldn’t want the music to continue playing after I’ve closed the browser/player.

The app has multiple color themes. Along with predefined colors, you can paint the app in a the color of your choice by entering the HEX or RGB values.

Now what good is a Chrome app that can’t share what you are listening to your social network? Achshar Player allows users to share their current song along with album and artist info on twitter.

Drawbacks:

• Limited support for music format. 
• No equalizer.

Mew-Zik

Mew-Zik is a simple MP3 and OGG music player. It can’t play WAV files, so no music CDs for you. It supports music library and playlists. The library doesn’t group songs by artist or album, but there is a sorting feature. You can drag and drop to reorder songs within a playlist, but there is no auto-shuffle.

The player has an overall good interface, but feature-wise grossly inferior to Achshar Player. The only reason you might want to use Mew-Zik in place of Achshar Player is if you want to view the lyrics of the song that is currently playing.

Local Player

At the time of this writing, I’m not able to install Local Player. The developer may have recently updated the extension, but unfortunately uploaded a broken file. As such, I’m going to rely on the developer’s description of the app.

Usage: Drag mp3/ogg files from file browser into the window, or add music files from a file dialog, which appears when you click the '+' button. The player will automatically start to play the file.

This is the only Chrome-based media player that plays AAC, M4A and MP4 video files, over and above MP3 and OGG. There is no library feature, as far as I can tell.

Local Player supports keyboard shortcuts.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto