LostInTechnology » Browsers

5 Excellent Chrome Extensions to Manage Your Google Accounts

Umar.Anjum — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:00:28 +0000

I am an avid Google fan. From its search engine, to Gmail, to Calendar, I have used many Google services and have always noticed Google’s motto of improvement in action. Nowadays, the Google product I use most is Chrome. I like how quickly it responds to my actions and how it takes less time to load up webpages.

Recently, I started searching for Google-related Chrome extensions. I cannot think of a more fitting way to use Google’s services than through its very own browser. I came across many extensions, picked out the best 5, and decided to share them with all of you.

If you are looking for a Chrome extension for any Google product (from Gmail to Voice, from Reader to Gtalk), take a look at my list below, read each entry, and see which extension best suits your needs.

Google Mail Checker

The most used online Google service is undoubtedly Gmail. If you are looking for a way to be notified of your unread Gmail emails as you browse, then Google Mail Checker is for you. The icon it places in Chrome’s address bar carries a number indicating the number of unread messages. We can click this icon to get to your inbox instantly. This extension performs a basic task in a user-friendly and straightforward manner – many Chrome + Gmail users will benefit from it.

Google Reader Notifier

Google Reader Notifier performs the same task for Reader as Google Mail Checker performs for Gmail. The number of our unread messages can be seen right next to the extension’s icon. One difference is that when we click on the icon, a dropdown window appears in which we can preview the unread Reading messages. We can also use the icon to open Reading in a new tab. By viewing the preview of the Reading message before heading on over to our main Reading page, we can save quite some time.

One Number

A user comment for this extension states “This is greatest extension ever!” Chrome users who use other services of Google will find One Number to be a great all-in-one extension. It reports the unread messages over four Google services: Gmail, Reader, Voice, and Wave. The number with the extension’s icon shows the collective number of unread messages; to break them down for each service all we need to do is hover our mouse pointer over the icon. In order to reach a particular service, we need to click on the icon which drops down a window from where we can select a particular service and reach its page.

Submit to Google Buzz

Google Buzz is a great networking and sharing service which is getting increasingly popular. Submit to Google Buzz makes it easier for us share the currently open webpage on Buzz. With the webpage open, we simply click on the extension’s icon; this brings up a window where we can choose to add a short message with the Share. If we want, we can leave this field empty and click on Post Item to just share the URL of the webpage. Google Buzz users who share links often via Buzz will greatly appreciate this extension.

Squawk

Squawk is a quick and easy way to exchange messages with your Gtalk friends. A great Gtalk client for Chrome, this extension cum messenger has a great interface. The extension’s icon lets us quickly pop out the chat window. Through the built-in Message Counter feature, we are instantly notified whenever a Gtalk friend sends us a message. In addition to those features, Squawk supports voice chat, making it more than an instant messaging client. Gtalk users who want to stay connected to their friends within their browser will find Squawk very useful.

(By) Umar is a full time blogger who loves discovering and reviewing news and online services that are valuable to his readers. He blogs at www.techcityinc.com.

Related Posts

How To Access Google Services in Chrome with One Number

Umar.Anjum — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:52 +0000

Google is constantly trying to better their products. To enhance the functionality of their internet browser, Chrome, Google has released a number of extensions that complement the browser. Many of these extensions integrate many of Google’s existing services into Chrome. For example, there is a Google extension for Gmail which places an icon in the address bar showing the number of unread messages. A similar Google extension exists for Google Reader.

These extensions are quite helpful for a person who is using one of these services. But if somebody is using both services, then installing these extensions can create an unwanted clutter in the address bar.

Recognizing this, a third-party developer has combined the functionality of these extensions, added a few more functions, and created what is called One Number.

Overview

One Number is a great Chrome extension which is a must-have for internet users who use multiple Google services. This extension places an icon in the address bar which shows the collective number of unread messages in Gmail, Google Reader, Voice, and Wave. For a breakdown of unread messages (i.e. which service has how many unread messages) all a user has to do is hover the mouse pointer over the icon and a text cloud appears with the details.

If you notice an ERROR message then it either means that you have zero unread messages for that service or you are not using that particular Google service.

Users can also click on the icon and be presented shortcuts to these services in a drop down window.

Amongst other adjustments, we can access the extension’s options to reduce the number of services checked by One Number or change its color scheme.

Conclusion

One Number is truly a greatly creative extension that will facilitate countless Google users. Try it out today and personally experience how it makes managing all of your Google services that much easier.

(By) Umar is a full time blogger who loves discovering and reviewing news and online services that are valuable to his readers. He blogs at www.techcityinc.com.

Related Posts

Top 5 Safari Plugins

srikanth — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:58 +0000

Safari has been one of the best browsers in the market, known for its speed, rich look and feel and standards support. Safari allows you to install plugins in order to customize your experience with the browser. The following are my five favorite plugins that take my browsing experience to the next level.

The List

Glims

Among all the plugins in Safari, Glims is one of the best. It adds many features, thereby enhancing your browsing experience. Glims lets you open links in a new tab instead of new window. It also lets you to choose whether a new tab should be opened to the left or right. Glims adds thumbnails to Google search results, and it allows you to change the search engine and configure search results.

FLVR

Have you ever wanted to download some of your favorite YouTube videos? There are many applications which lets you download videos from YouTube. FLVR lets you do it in just one click. With one simple click on the FLVR button present on the toolbar, you can actually download the video directly from video’s page right within the browser. You can download the trail version, and if you are impressed you can buy this plugin for $15.

TabExpose

TabExpose brings the power of Expose to the Safari browser. TabExpose exposes the contents of all the tabs in one screen in a grid format with just a simple click. It is really helpful when you want to switch between multiple tabs.

RedSnapper

Most of the time bloggers include screenshots while writing tutorials, guides and just about anything else. RedSnapper is one of the best plugins that lets you take screenshots with ease. RedSnapper comes with a price-tag of $8 and a 14 day free trail.

Saft

Saft is a competitor of Glims. It also provides many features which enhance your browsing experience. Some of the features provided by Saft are Adblocking, enable full screen mode, URL shortening, TabExpose feature and many more. This is the best alternative for Glims. Saft can be purchased for $12.

What are your favorite Safari addons? Let us know in the comments.

by Srikanth AD from Techonaut. Contact him by email at adsrikanth[at]gmail[dot]com

Related Posts

Top 5 Google Chrome Extensions

UzEE — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:00:36 +0000

About 16 months ago, Google took the world by surprise, when it announced its intention of launching a web browser of its own. Touting it as the web browser for the next generation, Google made several innovations and modifications to the architecture and style of the existing web browsers.

Google Chrome is based on the Webkit layout engine, which is known for its excellent rendering speeds. Besides that, Google introduced a number of other features and enhancements such as the JavaScript processing engine V8, and insanely fast loading speeds along with other improvements such as sandboxing and private browsing mode for improved security. Even though Chrome had all the ingredients for a perfect browser, it still lacks when it comes to add-ons or extensions.

While Google Chrome is still no where near Mozilla Firefox when it comes to extension support, there are still some pretty good add-ons out there which can greatly enhance your browsing experience. Here’s my list of the top 5 extensions that are a must have if you are a Google Chrome user.

IE Tabs

IE Tabs is neat extension that can open Internet Explorer tabs right inside Google Chrome using the native Trident engine built into Windows. Now most of you may be wondering, “why would I need to have anything IE when I got Chrome?”. Well the answer is pretty simple.

IE is still one of the most dominant web browsers in the world, and therefore, a lot of new and legacy web applications are designed specifically for Internet Explorer, like the new Microsoft Office Web Apps. These apps simply don’t run in Google Chrome, so if you don’t have IE Tabs installed, you’d have to launch Internet Explorer separately to use them.

Plus there is an added bonus for developers as well – you can test how your layout looks and works under Webkit and Trident from the same browser. It goes without saying that this extension is Windows exclusive.

Google Wave/Mail Notifier

These two extensions, as the name suggest, show notifications if you have a new email or wave on your Google Account. Pretty basic functionality but very useful so you don’t have to keep mail and wave open in separate tabs all the time. You can also configure them to use with Google Apps for Domains.

AdThwart

Tired of those annoying ads plastered all over the internet? Well then, AdThwart is for you. It’s a very effective ad blocker extension that can detect and hide advertisements from a number of sources including Google Adsense, Facebook, and most types of Flash advertisement.

Xmarks Bookmark Sync

Previously known as Foxmarks, when this was a Firefox exclusive extension, Xmarks brings cloud based bookmark sync to your browser. As the name suggests, Xmarks is cross-platform and cross-browser meaning that all your favorite bookmarks stay in sync on all the browsers you have on all the operating systems and computers you use.

Facebook for Google Chrome

If you don’t use Facebook, then you probably live in a cave. Second thought, even cavemen probably have Facebook profiles now. Anyways, Facebook for Google Chrome is a handy extension that pulls your Facebook live feed, wall, notifications and do some regular stuff like updating your status.

Of course, the above list is based mostly on my personal selection (besides AdThwart because bloggers never use ad-blockers) and your opinions and taste may vary. Just be sure to share your picks with us too in the comments below.

Article By Uzair Sajid (UzEE), a technologist and a freelance blogger who also authors The Technopath.

Image by ansik

Related Posts

How To Recover Stored Passwords from Opera, Firefox and Chrome

Chinmoy.Kanjilal — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:46 +0000

Browsers are really becoming more and more user friendly with loads of features to take our browsing experience to new heights.The password wand, the password vault or whatever the name be, is an integral part of any browser nowadays. A browser without a password manager feels extremely dull.

The password storage feature allows us to login into any website without entering login details manually. This comes in very handy as entering login details, specially in cyber-cafe is not at all secure.

Now, lets say you visit a site after a long time and suddenly want to know the password you used to login. The password is there in the password manager, but it does not allow us to see the password. Or, say you forget the master password somehow.

In these terrible situations, we can use password recovery tools for various browsers. These password recovery tools come in very handy and are totally safe and legal.

Opera

The Opera browser has a password recovery tool that is not free. It is priced at $27. The tool is called Opera Password Recovery or simply OPR. The software is released under a shareware license. The tool can help you recover all types of passwords including the master password. Although there are no guarantees in recovering the master password, the recovery of other general login passwords is guaranteed.

The software is compatible with Windows 7 and can recover 3 characters if unlicensed. Thus, if you are using the software as a free version without buying, you can still recover the first three characters. This works as good as a hint for the lost password even though the complete password is not recovered.

Firefox

password-fox

Firefox has many password recovery tools and all of them are free unlike Opera’s OPR. One such tool is passwordFox. With passwordFox, we can recover any Firefox password, in full length. passwordFox can also display Firefox passwords from many profiles and not just the current user profile as done by other Firefox password recovery tools. The application displays the username, password, username field and the password field for the password being recovered.

Chrome

chromepass

Chrome, like any other popular web browser has a password recovery tool called Chromepass. This password recovery tool can be used to recover passwords saved in the Chrome browser and it displays username, password, original URL, action URL and the time of creation of the password. The software is compatible with both Windows XP and Windows Vista and 7.

Conclusion

We hope that these tools will allow you to recover your lost passwords and take a little stress out of your life. Of course, you could always use LastPass to manage your passwords.

(By) Chinmoy Kanjilal is a technology, web2.0 and Linux enthusiast and evangelist. He has an in depth knowledge of working of Softwares, Operating Systems, Hardwares and Computer Networks. Blogging is his favourite pasttime. He blogs primarily at Techarraz. You can find him on Twitter @chinmoykanjilal.

Image by Freddy the Boy

Related Posts

Create Your Own Toolbar with Conduit

Aminul Islam Sajib — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:00:53 +0000

Do you have a website or blog? What things do you constantly do to stay in touch with your readers and make readers stay in touch with your site/blog? You provide an RSS feed, you create a twitter account and several other things. Well, now you can easily create your own toolbar.

To help you create an awesome and useful toolbar for your own community, Conduit is here.

Conduit

By getting registered with Conduit, you can start creating a toolbar for your own community. This toolbar may contain anything you can imagine like the RSS feed of your blog or website, online radio, podcasting, search box, email notifier, community conversations, news tickers and lots more. You can also add additional buttons or items — such as weather — to your toolbar to make it more useful so that your readers consider it worth downloading and installing to their browsers.

Why Conduit?

Traditionally, only the biggest websites could afford to develop a toolbar to promote their website. Conduit lets you make your own toolbar, and you don’t need any professional-level experience or knowledge to create it. All you need to do to create a toolbar is use Conduit’s tools to drag and drop the things you want on your toolbar.

Once your toolbar is created, it can be distributed among over 200,000 publishers in the Conduit network. This way you can bring viral traffic to your website.

Why Will People Download My Toolbar?

First of all, you need to make sure that you site or blog is worth staying in touch with. Once it’s assured, your readers will generally want to download a toolbar provided by your website or blog. Plus, you need to make your toolbar worth installing. This all depends on your creativity, really.

Additional Features

Thousands of additional gadgets are available for your toolbar. Those include weather, pop-up blocker, chat, etc.
Whenever any change or modification is made to your toolbar, all the installed toolbars on different browsers will automatically be updated.
Compatible with any operating system and almost all browsers of latest releases.

There’s a lot more than I can state here. Go have a look on the Conduit website, start creating a toolbar for your community, and keep your community members/visitors together — all the time they are online.

(By) Aminul Islam Sajib is a 16-years-old young enthusiastic blogger and technology writer from Dhaka, Bangladesh who usually blogs in his technology blog Life with Technology . He is a technology reporter of a national daily newspaper and an online news agency of Bangladesh. You can also connect with Aminul on Twitter or Facebook.

Related Posts

Discover New Websites with iWeavr

Aminul Islam Sajib — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:57 +0000

Every Internet surfer has their own preferences. For instance, I don’t really go to websites or blogs related to cars, pets, churches or religions. What I’m interested in is technology, gadgets, fictitious stories, news and a few other topics.

Most of us enjoy finding new websites and articles about the things we are interested in, but it can be hard to find these new articles. We often get stuck in the rut of going to the same websites over and over. What if you had a handy tool that would allow you to find some similar websites to the page you’re currently browsing?

Well, here comes today’s topic: iWeavr. iWeavr is a nice browser-bookmarklet that will help you find similar websites to the one you are currently browsing.

Add iWeavr

Simply visit the iWeavr homepage and drag the bookmarklet from the upper right corner of the screen and drop it in your bookmarks toolbar which by default sits right below the address/location bar in Firefox.

You will click the button when needed.

Use iWeavr

While visiting a page of your interest, simply click the “iWeavr” button from the bookmarks toolbar and you will see a box at the right side of the screen.

The box from iWeavr will contain four different tabs. They are:

Similar – This will search Google for some similar websites.
Referrer – Sites linking to the web page being viewed currently will be shown under this tab.
RSS Feeds – Feeds of the current page. This will help you get the most recent posts of any blog you are viewing.
Share – This tab will let you share the page with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, as well as Email.

Here’s a screenshot of what we’ve got from iWeavr while on the frong page of LostInTechnology.com:

iWeavr active on Lost in Technology front page.

Conclusion

This is a great bookmarklet that helps you discover more of the web in a fast way. What methods or tools do you use to find new content around the Internet?

Image by mikebaird

Related Posts

Zotero Helps You Easily Manage All of Your Internet Research

Prasanth Chandra — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:00:56 +0000

Finding the required information from Internet for a research project is never as irritating and time consuming as collecting and managing all the information you find. Suppose that you are looking for some information on the Egyptian Pyramids. Then how would you collect and catalog your information?

You would follow the conventional way of copying it and pasting it into a document or text editor. This whole activity can get confusing and isn’t always the best way to manage your research if you are working on a large project. Under such situations, Zotero proves to be a very useful tool and its offerings seems to be incomparable.

What is Zotero?

Zotero is actually a Mozilla Firefox extension which enables you to collect, save and manage your research material from the browser itself. Zotero changes the whole procedure of Internet research. Once you start using Zotero, you need not remember the web sites where you found your required information. You do not even need to have a text editor open in parallel to copy the required information.

Why is Zotero Useful?

Zotero enables you to move away from this conventional way of information gathering, copying and pasting to your open document. With Zotero, you can save the complete web pages from all the sites around the Internet. Just a few clicks and the whole web page will be saved in its library. Zotero is capable of capturing bibliographic information from all the saved web sites as well.

Now, you could say that capturing information is not a big deal, because its management is the toughest task. Zotero neutralizes this difficulty and provides amazing features that make the whole process very simple. The user interface of the Zotero library is simple and easy to use.

Managing web pages in Zotero is very easy. It enables you to create numerous collections that allow you to save related information in the same place. And once you save web pages using Zotero, you can simply select and drag those pages and drop them into the proper collection. It’s basically your own little filing system that’s built into the extension.

You can further enhance and categorize your information storage by adding notes, attachments and tags to them. Once you save your web page, you can attach all the extra information you want, so you will know exactly what that webpage was for. Zotero also allows you to save your web pages as PDFs and easily search through all of your saved pages.

Conclusion

Now, you can spend a whole day on the Internet, but you won’t be able to find a comparable program that’s free as well. If you use internet for educational purpose or information gathering, then Zotero is highly recommended to you.

Get Zotero

By Prasanth Chandra from PCs Place which has articles about Firefox, recently started Review Unit , a blog about Gadgets, Software, Web apps. Catch him on Twitter @pcsbox

Related Posts

Glue Firefox Addon – Share and Get Suggestions

Prasanth Chandra — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:00:56 +0000

Internet users have lately been very occupied by this thing called social networking. Social Networks enable people to get in touch with their friends even with their busy schedules. These web sites act as a great platform to share thoughts and opinions.

Glue is a tool and actually a Firefox Plug-in, which enables you to share your opinions and tastes with your friends. It also serves as a tool to discover books, music, movies and many other things through your friends as you browse popular sites.

What is Glue?

Glue is basically a Mozilla Firefox plug-in which is designed to make social networking more interesting and informative. Using this tool is very easy. It appears at the bottom of your browser window, where you can share your opinion on movies, music and other things by marking Thumbs Up and by adding comments to that respective item.

Then, you can share your tastes and opinions with your friends on Facebook and Twitter by asking them to visit those things. This small little plug-in will let your friends know about all the things you like, and you can even discover the things that your friends like.

How to Use Glue?

Using this tool proficiently does not require any skill, and it doesn’t take very much extra time to use. Glue is designed to discover many things like books, gadgets, games, movies, movie stars, music, recording artists, restaurants, TV shows, Topics, wine and lot more. Glue works on the leading websites in these areas like Abebooks, Amazon, Answers, Audible, LastFM, Walmart, NY Times, Freebase and the list covers almost all the websites that we visit on regular basis. Glue is striving to make this list never ending.

Once you open a web page containing the information about any particular thing, then the Glue toolbar appears. Using that wonderful tool, you can mark it “Thumbs Up” if you like and can share your tastes with the friends in Facebook and Twitter. You can directly add comments to your Facebook and Twitter accounts by using the toolbar itself.

Shuffle

There is Shuffle button on the Glue toolbar. If want to randomly view the opinions of other people, you can simply click on that button and you will be directed to an item which is liked by others on the network. So, you can instantly discover the latest bookes, music and everything else that your friends are into.

Suggestions

An icon of Glue appears at the rightmost bottom corner of Firefox, and by clicking on it, you can directly view the suggestions by various web sites which match your taste. Without visiting web sites, you can directly discover new books, music, movies and many other things. You an even search by browsing through categories, and you can directly view the most popular items of your friends and others.

Conclusion

Glue gives you lots of great ways to find new things around the Internet. It is a nice tool by itself, but it becomes even better when you add some of your Facebook or Twitter friends. Being able to share and discuss your favorite things easily makes Glue a nice addition to Firefox.

By Prasanth Chandra from PCs Place , who recently started Review Unit. Catch him on Twitter @pcsbox and Facebook

Image by Will Fuller

Related Posts

Use Ubiquity to Do More with Firefox

Chinmoy.Kanjilal — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:00:40 +0000

Are you really satisfied with the Firefox address bar? What it simply does is take you to a destination. Can it answer any of your queries? Can it understand basic spoken commands? Well, the answer might be no, but only till now.

This detailed guide will walk you and talk you through installing, using and enjoying Ubiquity. You are in for a revamped web experience. To start with, you need to install the Ubiquity addon for firefox or you can skip this and read on.

Getting Started

Ubiquity lets us do many things, but you will get the hang of it once you get how it works. To start, you bring up the Ubiquity panel by pressing ctrl+space. There is a text box where we type in commands. Off page results are shown on the panel itself, and on page results are shown in the browser. Off page results include word count, mathematical calculations and language translation. On page results are managing tabs, refreshing pages, zoom in/out etc.

Actions in Ubiquity

Here, I have covered the most basic commands which can do wonders to your browsing experience.

Twitter

This command lets you tweet directly from Ubiquity. With this command, you can send tweets up to the standard length of 140 characters. It also displays the number of characters remaining on the tweet. You need to sign in only on sending the first tweet.

Tinyurl

This tool lets us create a Tinyurl from a given URL. Tinyurl is one of the most popular URL shortener. On entering the URL, it also gives live suggestions for the shortened URLs which already exist for the entered URL.

Rotate Image/ Desaturate image

With these commands, we can easily edit our view of the image, rotate it to a custom angle by simply dragging an arrow around a circle, rotating the image relative to it. We also have options for rotating complete web pages in a tab.

Zoom

Zoom lets us quickly zoom a page to a custom zoom level. The zoom factor is expressed in a percentage, the current zoom being 100%.

Fullscreen

This command is used to toggle the full screen mode. Another notable thing here is that, as you type the command, a small suggestion for the possible command appears below the text-box. Similar functions are available for refreshing the page, printing the page, navigate back, forward and search on Google Yahoo, IMDB, Wikipedia and Youtube.

Translate

With translate command, you can translate text phrases, words and complete sentences into any language of your choice, and from any language of your choice. It comes really handy in a live chat with someone from another country, speaking another language.

To translate, type tr in the command box. The syntax is tr {text} from {language} to {language}, or the syntax is tr {text} to {language} from {language}.

Other Features

Ubiquity has something for webmasters too. You can select a text and find its length, word count and a lot more with other ubiquity commands developed by third party developers. It also provides us with the options of sending emails from the command box. This is only an overview of Ubiquity can do for us. The rest is what we can do with Ubiquity. For this, Ubiquity lets us create our own custom commands too.

The next thing you would probably look for is the download link. To remind you, it is provided at the beginning of the post. Ubiquity is one of the best things that happened to Firefox. With it’s innumerable possibilities and capabilities, it is a must have Firefox extension.

Related Posts