Googsystray Notifies You of New Activity Across Google Services in One System Tray App

Windows/Linux only: Google has so many different services these days that installing a notification app for each one gets cumbersome quickly. Free system tray utility Googsystray watches Gmail, Google Voice, Calendar, Reader, and Wave so you can set it and forget it.

After installing Googsystray, you can configure which services you want it to watch and what you want it to do for each—upon receiving a new email, SMS, calendar alert, RSS article, or wave, you can have it play a sound and even run a command. The icon of the given service will also pop up in your system tray. Right clicking on it gives you a Growl-style popup with more detailed information about the notification, such as email subject or SMS content. You also have limited actions you can take depending on the service.

Google Voice is the most feature-filled, allowing you to send SMS messages with a hotkey and read voicemail transcripts. You can have Gmail monitor your inbox or specific labels for new messages, as well as mark messages as read, spam, or delete them. Google Calendar support is limited to alerts on upcoming events, and Google Reader can notify you of new RSS articles, although you can tell it to stop notifying you when the number of unread articles reaches a certain point. Google Wave support merely notifies you of new and unread waves, along with a preview.

Googsystray is a free download, works on Windows and Linux (Python and pygtk required for Linux).

Googsystray [Sourceforge]

The best firefox extensions list:

Blogging:

• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting WebPages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• Clipmarks – With Clipmarks, you can clip the best parts of web pages. Whether it’s a paragraph, sentence, image or video, you can capture just the pieces you want without having to bookmark the entire page.
• Sage – Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t.
• Jeteye – Jeteye is a unique Web-based application and service that is designed for the next generation of enterprise and consumer use of the Web. Jeteye changes how we interact with the web, in an era where communication and social computing are more powerful than ever.
• Performancing – Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog.
• TorrentBar – BitTorrent File Search Toolbar for Firefox. Allows to search numerous sites in a matter of minutes for needed torrent files.
• Wizz RSS News Reader – A fairly good RSS and Atom news reader.
• MeasureIt – Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.
• Show MyIP – Displays your current IP address. If you have a static IP (Internet Protocol) address, this number will stay the same each time you visit. If you have a dynamic IP, the number will change each time you log on to the internet (or your ISP assigns a new IP).
• NewsFox – RSS/Atom News Reader.

Developer Tools:

• FireFTP – FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
• IE Tab – IE Tab – an extension from Taiwan, features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.
• Web Developer – Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
• Firebug – Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
• Greasemonkey – Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.
• Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
• Image Zoom – Easily zoom in, zoom out, fit image to screen or set custom zoom on individual images within a web page. All this can be done by using the context menu or a combination of mouse buttons and scroll wheel. Handy to see the finer details of smaller pics or to make very large pics fit within your screen.
• ColorZilla – Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.
• IE View – Lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to *always* load in IE. Useful for incompatible pages, or cross-browser testing.
• iMacros – Automate your web browser. Record and replay repetitious work.

Editing and Forms:

• Performancing – Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog.
• Gmail Skins – Skins and other extra features for Gmail.
• InFormEnter – InFormEnter adds a small, clickable icon next to every input field in a web form, from where you can select the item to be inserted – no typing required. You can configure it to display your frequently used information such as name, email, address and whatever else you want to be available from the form menu.
• Snipshot – Edit any picture on the web with one right-click. The picture will be brought into the online image editor Snipshot where you can crop, resize, rotate or recolor it, then save it into a variety of formats (JPG, GIF, PNG, PDF) or to Flickr or a free image host. For faster workflow, you can optionally enhance the image as it enters Snipshot or resize it to fit a set of custom dimensions.
• JSView – All browsers include a "View Source" option, but none of them offer the ability to view the source code of external files. Most websites store their javascripts and style sheets in external files and then link to them within a web page’s source code. Previously if you wanted to view the source code of an external javascript/css you would have to manually look through the source code to find the url and then type that into your browser.
• Password Exporter – This extension allows you to export and import your saved passwords and rejected sites between computers. Your passwords will be exported to an XML or CSV file and can be encrypted.
• AI Roboform Toolbar – Add RoboForm Toolbar to Firefox.
• DejaClick – DéjàClick is a web recorder and Super Bookmark utility designed exclusively for Firefox. You can record and bookmark your browser activities, then with a single click, replay the entire sequence all over again. Got a package or an order you want to track? Have a favorite category at an online auction site? Tired of going through the steps to log into your e-mail? Use DéjàClick by AlertSite to automatically access any final URL. Also works great for quickly producing web application test scripts.
• Unofficial Myspace Toolbar – Automatically login to Myspace, instantly access your messages, view hidden comments, create styled comments/bulletins and more with this intuitive and customizable toolbar!
• FireFoxMenuButtons – Adds 41 new Buttons (duplicating of menu strings) from Firefox Menu on the Toolbar!

Image Browsing:

• FlashGot – Download one link, selected links or all the links of a page together at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.
• DownThemAll – The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!
• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.
• Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery – Organizing and sharing your pictures is easier than ever with Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery. Upload photos directly to your Kodak EasyShare Gallery, all within your browser. Drag, drop and arrange pictures adding photo titles, and create albums by multi-selecting photos – all of this without interrupting your Internet browsing. Co-developed by Kodak, it also includes other popular photo services.
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.
• DownloadHelper – DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.
• Firefox Showcase – Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.
• Image Zoom – Adds zoom functionality for images.
• Send 2 Cellphone – Send2Cellphone provides a simple way to send images from web pages directly to mobile phones via free Send2Cellphone service. Simply right click any image on any web page and select "Send2Cellphone" from the context menu. After transferring the picture to your cell phone you can view it, use it as a wallpaper or send to a friend via MMS.

Message Reading:

• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Mouse Gestures – Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.
• Gmail Manager – Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.
• ReminderFox – ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a fat calendar application.
• NewsFox – RSS/Atom News Reader.
• Yahoo! Mail Notifier – This extension notifies you when new messages arrive in your Yahoo mailbox.
• Gmail Skins – Skins and other extra features for Gmail.
• WOT – WOT helps you avoid disingenuous Internet content by allowing you to learn from others’ experiences. WOT shows you website reputations on your browser, telling you how much other users trust a website. This helps you make better decisions while browsing and avoid phishing, malware, and other types of fraud. Reputations can also be added to web search results, Gmail, Wikipedia, and other selected sites.
• Temporary Inbox – This extension generates random disposable email addresses. You can use these email addresses for registration in forums, adult sites or whereever.
• infoRSS – Displays RSS, Atom, parsed HTML and NNTP feed in a scrolling area the status bar. Compatible with podcasting RSS which can be downloaded directly.
  It’s also a good Gmail notifier.

News Reading:

• Forecastfox – Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable and unobtrusive extension.
• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Sage – Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t.
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.
• TorrentBar – BitTorrent File Search Toolbar for Firefox. Allows to search numerous sites in a matter of minutes for needed torrent files.
• Wizz RSS News Reader – A fairly good RSS and Atom news reader.
• ReminderFox – ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a fat calendar application.
• Forecastfox Enhanced – Enhanced version of the popular Forecastfox extension (forecastfox.mozdev.org) by Jon Stritar and Richard Klien. This adds 12 improved radar images for US locations and 4 for international locations and the ability to supply a URL to use images from other sites.
• NewsFox – RSS/Atom News Reader.
• 1-ClickWeather – Because weather is important to you everyday… weather.com offers you instant local weather conditions, alerts, radar in motion, satellite maps, and forecasts all within your Firefox browser.

Tabbed Browsing:

• IE Tab – IE Tab – an extension from Taiwan, features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
• Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
• Firefox Showcase – Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.
• Colorful Tabs – The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.
• Session Manager – Session Manager saves and restores the state of all windows – either when you want it or automatically at startup and after crashes. Additionally it offers you to reopen (accidentally) closed windows and tabs. If you’re afraid of losing data while browsing – this extension allows you to relax.
• Tabbrowser Preferences – Enables enhanced control for some aspects of tabbed browsing.
• Advanced Dork – Advanced Dork: gives quick access to Google’s Advanced Operators directly from the context menu.
• ChromaTabs – Colors browser tabs based on the site loaded. For example, visiting mozilla.org will make the tab blue, and cnn.com will make the tab green.
• Tab Catalog – Shows thumbnail-style catalog of tabs.
• Tab Control – Take control of your tabs!

XUL Applications:

• FireFTP – FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
• FoxyTunes – Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? Now you can control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser and more.
• DownThemAll – DownThemAll is all you can desire from a download manager: it features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time!
• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system. The interface will make your Gmail account look like a FTP host.
• ChatZilla – A clean, easy to use and highly extensible Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.
• Jeteye – Jeteye is a unique Web-based application and service that is designed for the next generation of enterprise and consumer use of the Web. Jeteye changes how we interact with the web, in an era where communication and social computing are more powerful than ever.
• Performancing – Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog.
• AllPeers – Share your files privately and securely. Chat with your friends.
• Wizz RSS News Reader – A fairly good RSS and Atom news reader.
• ReminderFox – ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a fat calendar application.

Bookmarks:

• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – If you use Firefox on more than one computer, you’ll want Foxmarks. Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized. As a bonus, log in to my.foxmarks.com from any computer anywhere to access your bookmarks.
• del.icio.us Bookmarks – This extension integrates your browser with del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/), the leading social bookmarking service on the Web. It does this by augmenting the bookmarking functionality in Firefox with an enhanced experience.
• Clipmarks – With Clipmarks, you can clip the best parts of web pages. Whether it’s a paragraph, sentence, image or video, you can capture just the pieces you want without having to bookmark the entire page.
• Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
• Yoono – Yoono instantly suggests similar sites, blog notes and people sharing the same interests while you are surfing, for each page you open. Zero effort required – no more tagging, typing keywords or changing interface. Let Yoono bring you the best that others have discovered.
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.
• Jeteye – Jeteye is a unique Web-based application and service that is designed for the next generation of enterprise and consumer use of the Web. Jeteye changes how we interact with the web, in an era where communication and social computing are more powerful than ever.
• Firefox Showcase – Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.
• iMacros – Automate your web browser. Record and replay repetitious work.

Entertainment:

• FoxyTunes – Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? Now you can control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser and more.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.
• Fast Video Download – Fast Video Download can save embedded video files from video-hosting servers.
• MediaPlayerConnectivity – Allow you to launch embed video of website in an external application with a simple click.
• Torrent Finder Toolbar – Torrent Finder Toolbar is a torrent search toolbar for Firefox, which enables users to search over 100 top torrent sites and trackers from their Firefox browser the same way they used to search using http://torrent-finder.com form. It allows users to search a single site, search all sites on one page, or open the sites in Firefox tabs.
• TorrentBar – BitTorrent File Search Toolbar for Firefox. Allows to search numerous sites in a matter of minutes for needed torrent files.
• FoxGame – Enhance user experience with O-game (now works in every o-game version)
  Adds a lot of features to the webgame O-game. It also integrates Database features inside the game. O-Game, is a real-time spacial browser game.
• Wizz RSS News Reader – A fairly good RSS and Atom news reader.

Kiosk Browsing:

• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.
• All-in-One Sidebar – All-in-One Sidebar (AiOS) is a sidebar control, inspired by Opera’s. Click on the left edge of your browser window to open the sidebar and get easy access to all your panels. It lets you quickly switch between sidebar panels, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source or websites in the sidebar.
• Dictionary Tooltip – Press ctrl+shift+D (or) double-click (or) right-click after selecting a word to see its meaning. This extension is ideal for those who doesn’t like to switch their window to see the meaning of a word.
• FireFoxMenuButtons – Adds 41 new Buttons (duplicating of menu strings) from Firefox Menu on the Toolbar! Look for this buttons (after installing) on the "Customize toolbar" (Menu/View/Toolbars/Customize…).
• Public Fox – Tired of cleaning stuff people download? Use this to limit file downloading. Prevent browser changes, block unwanted Web Sites.
• Firefox Google Bookmarks – Creates a menu to access google bookmarks from any computer. Needs Google Account to use this extension.
• Personal Menu – Feel tired of the conservative menus, and have tried to put them into a single menu but never want to waste time on one more click?
• Full Fullscreen – Hides remaining toolbars that the normal fullscreen functionality does not. Hiding the tab bar, as well as starting up on fullscreen, are configurable from the settings dialog. Licensed under MPL.
• gladder – Get over Great Firewall with Great Ladder!
• R-kiosk – Real Kiosk is a Firefox 2.0 extension that defaults to full screen, disables all menus, toolbars, key commands and right button menus. Alt+Home still takes you home.

Miscellaneous:

• Adblock Plus – Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. Right-click on a banner and choose "Adblock" from the context menu – the banner won’t be downloaded again.
• NoScript – Winner of the "2006 PC World World Class Award", this tool provides extra protection to your Firefox. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site.
• Forecastfox – Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable and unobtrusive extension.
• IE Tab – Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
• FoxyTunes – Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? Now you can control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser and more.
• Fasterfox – Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Map+ – View a map of a selected address in Firefox without changing windows or tabs using the right click command.
• Clipmarks – With Clipmarks, you can clip the best parts of web pages. Whether it’s a paragraph, sentence, image or video, you can capture just the pieces you want without having to bookmark the entire page.

Privacy and Security:

• NoScript – Winner of the "2006 PC World World Class Award", this tool provides extra protection to your Firefox. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site.
• Fasterfox – Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Torbutton – Torbutton provides a button to easily enable or disable the browser’s use of Tor.
• Flashblock – Never be annoyed by a Flash animation again! Blocks Flash so it won’t get in your way, but if you want to see it, just click on it.
• FoxyProxy – FoxyProxy is an advanced proxy management tool that completely replaces Firefox’s proxy configuration.
• SwitchProxy Tool – SwitchProxy lets you manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations
  quickly and easily. You can also use it as an anonymizer to protect your
  computer from prying eyes.
• iMacros – Automate your web browser. Record and replay repetitious work.
• Firefox Extension Backup Extension – FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up – it will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files. Now you can easily synchronize your office and home browsers.
• CustomizeGoogle – CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhance Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam).

Web Annoyances:

• Adblock Plus – Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.
• NoScript – Winner of the "2006 PC World World Class Award", this tool provides extra protection to your Firefox. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site.
• IE Tab – Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
• Fasterfox – Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
• Greasemonkey – Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.
• Cooliris Previews – Cooliris Previews for Firefox gives you the power to browse faster and send links instantly.
• Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
• PDF Download – Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.

Contacts:

• JAJAH – Web-Activated Telephony – The JAJAH extension for Firefox integrates call functionality into your browser. Phone numbers on web pages are automatically detected and highlighted. When clicked, JAJAH initiates a phone call from your phone – landline or mobile – to the desired destination.
• LinkedIn Companion – LinkedIn is an online network of more than 7.5 million experienced professionals. LinkedIn helps you be more effective in your daily work and opens doors to opportunities by helping you develop and manage your network of business contacts.
• ReminderFox – ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a fat calendar application.
• Email This – Email This! (formerly known as GMail This!) will send your recipient the link, title, & highlighted text of the page you are viewing using GMail, Yahoo, and Stand-Alone Mail Clients like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, & More!
• FireFoxMenuButtons – Adds 41 new Buttons (duplicating of menu strings) from Firefox Menu on the Toolbar! Look for this buttons (after installing) on the "Customize toolbar" (Menu/View/Toolbars/Customize…).
• GTDGmail – GTDGmail discreetly integrates into Gmail making it even more suitable as a GTD tool.
• Facebook Toolbar – Integrate your Facebook life into your browser.
• WataCrackaz AutoSMS – Watacrackaz AutoSMS toolbar. Send and receive SMS text messages to and from cellphones around the world.
• Skype Sidebar – Skype Sidebar allows you to call, add, find, chat, and voice mail other contacts without even leaving your browser. Skype Sidebar lets you see the status of your contacts and quickly chat with them. It saves you time, allows you to quickly send files, and also view contacts information. You can even start conference calls. You can customize the width of the Skype object.
• SMS Send – ABC SMS Send is a toolbar that allows you to send SMS text messages to over 170 countries.

Download Tools:

• Download Statusbar – View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.
• FlashGot – Download one link, selected links or all the links of a page together at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular, lightweight and reliable external download managers.
• VideoDownloader – Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion, Pornotube… and other 60+ video sites! And all embedded objects on a webpage (movies, mp3s, flash, quicktime, etc).
• FireFTP – FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
• DownThemAll – The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!
• PDF Download – Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
• Media Pirate – The video downloader – More and more websites publish their videos in those neat flash players. But if you want to download a video there is no download link. This doesn’t mean that you can’t download it. Media Pirate creates a download link for you!
• Gspace – This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (2.8 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.
• Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery – Organizing and sharing your pictures is easier than ever with Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery. Upload photos directly to your Kodak EasyShare Gallery, all within your browser. Drag, drop and arrange pictures adding photo titles, and create albums by multi-selecting photos – all of this without interrupting your Internet browsing.

Humor:

• Tab Effect – Add effects when current tab is changed.
• Splash – Adds a splash screen to most Mozilla and Mozilla Based products.
• Firefox Google Bookmarks – Creates a menu to access google bookmarks from any computer. Needs Google Account to use this extension.
• President Bush Countdown – A timer that counts down the number of days remaining in George W. Bush’s term as President of the United States. Clicking on the countdown shows a more detailed timer and enables people to air their grievances on newprez.com. An icon shows when there is a new topic for discussion or a vote.
• Usage Counter – Tells you how much time you have spent using Firefox and browsing sites. (Previously known as Wasted Time Counter).
• Bork Bork Bork – View web pages or mail as spoken by the Swedish Chef like this: "Feeoo veb peges oor meeel es spukee by zee Svedeesh Cheff."
• Anglais – This extension provides proverbs and jokes to better learn English.
• STOP! Hammer Time – Adds ‘STOP! Hammer Time!’ functionality to Firefox – Simply go to "view -> toolbars -> customize" and swap your stop button for the ‘STOP! Hammer Time!’ button. Now you can hear MC Hammer whenever a page needs stopping!
• Sun Cult – Worldwide Sunrise, Sunset, Twilight, Moonrise and Moonset Times.
• ghostfox – Stylises Firefox into Ghostzilla (The Invisible Browser) style. Move your mouse away and firefox disappears. Then move it towards the left edge of the screen, back to the right and again to the left and voila – firefox is back again, discretely blended with ur original application to appear like a part of it.

Navigation:

• IE Tab – Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
• Fasterfox – Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• Map+ – View a map of a selected address in Firefox without changing windows or tabs using the right click command.
• Tab Mix Plus – Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
• Yoono – Yoono instantly suggests similar sites, blog notes and people sharing the same interests while you are surfing, for each page you open. Zero effort required – no more tagging, typing keywords or changing interface. Let Yoono bring you the best that others have discovered.
• PDF Download – Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!
• BlueOrganizer – The blueorganizer is smart browsing and personalization technology for Firefox. It makes the browser aware of everyday objects like books, movies, wines, restaurants and much more. The blueorganizer helps you automatically collect these object from many popular sites, manage them and instantly find related information.
• Firefox Showcase – Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.
• Mouse Gestures – Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.

Website Integration:

• VideoDownloader – Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion, Pornotube… and other 60+ video sites! And all embedded objects on a webpage (movies, mp3s, flash, quicktime, etc).
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon lets you "channelsurf" the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.
• del.icio.us Bookmarks – This extension integrates your browser with del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/), the leading social bookmarking service on the Web. It does this by augmenting the bookmarking functionality in Firefox with an enhanced experience.
• Greasemonkey – Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.
• Yoono – Yoono instantly suggests similar sites, blog notes and people sharing the same interests while you are surfing, for each page you open. Zero effort required – no more tagging, typing keywords or changing interface.
• Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery – Organizing and sharing your pictures is easier than ever with Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery. Upload photos directly to your Kodak EasyShare Gallery, all within your browser. Drag, drop and arrange pictures adding photo titles, and create albums by multi-selecting photos – all of this without interrupting your Internet browsing.
• DownloadHelper – DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.
• Performancing – Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog.
• LinkedIn Companion – LinkedIn is an online network of more than 7.5 million experienced professionals. LinkedIn helps you be more effective in your daily work and opens doors to opportunities by helping you develop and manage your network of business contacts.
• Fast Video Download – Fast Video Download can save embedded video files from video-hosting servers.

Official Gmail Blog: One button to merge all duplicate contacts

Official Gmail Blog: One button to merge all duplicate contacts.

Windows 7 USB Download Tool Lets You Install Windows from a Thumb Drive

If you’re trying to install Windows 7 on a netbook (or are having issues with your PC’s optical drive), the free USB Download Tool from Microsoft allows you to take a .ISO image and turn it into a bootable flash drive.

This was created not only for netbook users, but for anyone that opted to download Windows 7 from Microsoft in lieu of ordering an installation DVD. Windows 7 USB Download Tool can create a bootable flash drive (or DVD, if you prefer) from the downloaded .ISO file in quick fashion—just install it and follow the on-screen prompts. Note that if you opt to use a flash drive, it must be 4GB or larger to hold all the files.

The coolest part: Microsoft has open sourced this little app. Why, you ask? They got a bit of flak early on in the project for re-using open-source code and improperly documenting it (as well as making the program itself closed source), but true to their word that it was only a mistake, it’s been brought back and declared open source for all to use. So if you still haven’t gotten Windows 7 installed on that netbook of yours, head on over to CodePlex, Microsoft’s open-source repository, and download the tool now.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool [via Download Squad]

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School

With classes, homework, and projects–not to mention your social life–time is truly at a premium for you, so why not latch onto the wide world that Google has to offer? From super-effective search tricks to Google hacks specifically for education to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time.

Search Tricks

These search tricks can save you time when researching online for your next project or just to find out what time it is across the world, so start using these right away.

1. Convert units. Whether you want to convert currency, American and metric units, or any other unit, try typing in the known unit and the unknown unit to find your answer (like "how many teaspoons in a tablespoon" or "10 US dollars in Euros").
2. Do a timeline search. Use "view:timeline" followed by whatever you are researching to get a timeline for that topic.
3. Get around blocked sites. If you are having problems getting around a blocked site, just type "cache:website address" with website address being the address of the blocked site to use Google’s cached copy to get where you are going.
4. Use a tilde. Using a tilde (~) with a search term will bring you results with related search terms.
5. Use the image search. Type in your search word, then select Images to use the image search when trying to put a picture to your term.
6. Get a definition. If you want a definition without having to track down an online (or a physical) dictionary, just type "definition:word" to find the definition of the word in your results (i.e.: "definition: serendipity" will track down the definition of the word "serendipity").
7. Search within a specific website. If you know you want to look up Babe Ruth in Wikipedia, type in "site:wikipedia.org Babe Ruth" to go directly to the Wikipedia page about Babe Ruth. It works for any site, not just Wikipedia.
8. Search within a specific kind of site. If you know you only want results from an educational site, try "site:edu" or for a government site, try "site:gov" and your search term to get results only from sites with those web addresses.
9. Search for a specific file type. If you know you want a PDF (or maybe an MP3), just type in "filetype:pdf" and your search term to find results that are only in that file type.
10. Calculate with Google. Type in any normal mathematical expressions to get the answer immediately. For example, "2*4" will get you the answer "8."
11. Time. Enter "what time is it" and any location to find out the local time.
12. Find a term in a URL. This handy trick is especially useful when searching blogs, where dates are frequently used in the URL. If you want to know about a topic for that year only and not any other year, type "inurl:2009" and your keyword to find results with your keyword in URLs with 2009 in them.
13. Use Show Options to refine your search. Click "Show Options" on your search result page to have access to tools that will help you filter and refine your results.
14. Search for a face. If you are looking for a person and not just their name, type "&imgtype=face" after the search results to narrow your results to those with images of faces.

Google Specifically for Education

From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school.

1. Google Scholar. Use this specialized Google search to get results from scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, and academic publishers.
2. Use Google Earth’s Sky feature. Take a look at the night sky straight from your computer when you use this feature.
3. Open your browser with iGoogle. Set up an iGoogle page and make it your homepage to have ready access to news stories, your Google calendar, blogs you follow in Google Reader, and much more.
4. Stay current with Google News. Like an electronic clearinghouse for news, Google News brings headlines from news sources around the world to help you stay current without much effort.
5. Create a Google Custom Search Engine. On your own or in collaboration with other students, put together an awesome project like one of the examples provided that can be used by many.
6. Collect research notes with Google Notebook. Use this simple note-taking tool to collect your research for a paper or project.
7. Make a study group with Google Groups. Google Groups allows you to communicate and collaborate in groups, so take this option to set up a study group that doesn’t have to meet face-to-face.
8. Google Code University. Visit this Google site to have access to Creative Commons-licensed content to help you learn more about computer science.
9. Study the oceans with Google Earth 5. Google Earth 5 provides information on the ocean floor and surface with data from marine experts, including shipwrecks in 3D.
10. Learn what experts have to say. Explore Knol to find out what experts have to say on a wide range of topics. If you are an expert, write your own Knol, too.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a great replacement for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, so learn how to use this product even more efficiently.

1. Use premade templates. Use these 50 pre-made templates to track spending, keep up with your health, and much more.
2. Collaborate on group projects. Google Docs allows for real-time collaboration, so make easy work for everyone next time you have a group project due.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts. Use this handy list of keyboard shortcuts to save lots of time while using Google Docs.
4. Create online surveys for research projects. Quickly and easily create online surveys for any research project that requires feedback from others. The answers are saved to your Google Docs account.
5. Add video to your presentation. Learn how to seamlessly add video to your Google Docs page to really give your presentation or project a boost.
6. Use the school year calendar template. Have an easy to use school year calendar through Google Docs by following these instructions.
7. Create graphs from spreadsheets. Once you have populated a spreadsheet with data, you can easily create a graph. Google Docs allows for pie, bar, line, and scatter graphs.
8. Create a new document with shortcuts. Learn two ways to open a new Google Docs page with these tricks.
9. Right click to use save-as. Use the right click save-as option to save a Google Docs document on your computer.
10. Send invitations. School shouldn’t be all about work. Find out how to send party invitations using Google Docs.

Gmail

The super-popular Gmail is full of fun and fast ways to make your life and communications easier.

1. Use the Tasks as a to-do list. Use the Tasks available in Gmail as a way to stay on top of assignments, exams, and project due dates.
2. Use the Archive feature. One of the great features of Gmail is that it allows you to archive emails to get them out of your inbox, then you can use the search feature to find them if you need them again.
3. Highlight mail with labels. Use labels to mark your messages. You can find them easily while in your inbox and do a search for all the messages with that label after you archive them.
4. Never forget to attach a file. By signing up for the Labs, you can select to have the Forgotten Attachment Detector. This feature notices if you have typed something about an attachment in the body, but are sending without actually attaching anything–a great tool to save time and embarrassment.
5. Use keyboard shortcuts. Go to Settings and enable keyboard shortcuts so you can perform common tasks at the touch of just one or two keys.
6. Add multiple attachments. Use the Control (or Cmd on Macs) and Shift keys to select more than one file to attach to your email at one time.
7. Use the https option. Google recommends using this option if you use your Gmail in public places like a dorm or coffee shop to add an extra bit of protection to your Internet activities.
8. Incorporate Google Calendar and Docs on your Gmail page. Have access to recent documents used in Google Docs and get an agenda of upcoming activities you have on Google Calendar with small boxes added to your Gmail page. Go to Labs to select this option.
9. Add a "Waiting for Response" label. If you have emails in your inbox that you are holding until someone gets back to you, creating this label keeps you from forgetting to follow up on it later.
10. Use Canned Responses. If you find yourself writing the same type of email over and over, use the Canned Responses feature in the Labs to create a template that you you can use without having to type out the entire email every time.
11. Consolidate email accounts. If you have a Gmail account, an account through school, and any other account you are juggling separately, combine them all into Gmail to cut down on time spent checking all those accounts.
12. Use AIM in Gmail. If you use AIM to IM friends or partners on projects, add it to the chat feature already in Gmail to have access to both.

Google Calendar

Save yourself some time by keeping track of appointments, assignments, and more with Google Calendar.

1. Sync up with others using iCal or Sunbird. Google lets you sync your calendar with others using Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird.
2. Customize reminders. Set reminders in your Google Calendar so that you never forget an appointment again. Choose from email, pop-up, or SMS reminders and even set when the reminder comes.
3. Learn some basic keyboard shortcuts. Change from daily to weekly to monthly view, compose a new event, and more with these simple shortcuts.
4. Use Quick Add. Click on Quick Add and type the day and time and what you are doing to have the calendar create the event with the correct time and date.
5. Use multiple calendars. Create separate calendars for school work, personal information, important due dates, and more to stay ultra-organized.
6. Get a text message with your daily agenda. Keep up with all that you need to do for the day without ever having to log on to your Google Calendar.
7. Set weekly repeats for any day. The drop-down menu only offers M/W/F or T/Th options for repeating events. Go to "Every Week" and customize which days you want the event to repeat.
8. Get upcoming events while away from the computer. Check out #8 in this list to learn how to access your upcoming events via your phone.
9. Add events from Gmail. If you receive an email with event time and date information, you can easily add this event to your calendar by clicking "Add to calendar."
10. Invite others. If you have events on your calendar that you want to invite others to join, just add their email address under Add Guests within the event.

Google Mobile

Whether riding the bus or walking to class, use Google Mobile to stay productive while away from your computer.

1. Sync your calendar. Never be far from your Google Calendar when you sync it to your phone.
2. Check your email. Keep your email right at your fingertips with Gmail for mobile.
3. Access your blog subscriptions. Keep up with your blogs and news feeds that you subscribe to through Reader right on your phone.
4. Use Google Voice to consolidate phone numbers. If you have a phone in your dorm or apartment, a cell phone, and any other phone numbers, consolidate them into one number with Google Voice.
5. Easily find friends. Find out where your friends are and even get a map with directions for how to get there with Google Latitudes.
6. Find out information easily while on the go. Whether you are looking for a great place to eat dinner, wondering what the weather is like, or want to know what the Spanish word for "bathroom" is, just text your information to Google (466453–spells Google on your phone) to get the answer texted back right away.
7. Access iGoogle. Get your iGoogle page formatted just for the smaller screen size of your phone.
8. Read your Google Docs. Have access to all your Google Docs items right on your phone.
9. Keep a to-do list on your phone. Use Google Tasks for mobile so you can access your to-do list any time–and check off what you’ve finished, too.
10. Never get lost again. Google Maps is an interactive program for most smart phones that offers tons of features so you will never have to be lost again.
11. Do a quick search anywhere. Find information with a Google search from your phone to impress your professors and your friends.
12. Access Google Books. Android and iPhone users can access Google Books on their phones.
13. Post to your blog. Use your mobile to post to your Blogger blog.

Google Chrome Tips and Extensions

If you are using the Google Chrome browser, then you will love these time-saving tips and extensions.

1. Use a "Pin Tab". If you have multiple tabs open, use a "Pin Tab" to make the tabs the size of the little icon on the left side.
2. Don’t overlook Paste and Search and Paste and Go. These two features are available when you right-click to add a word or URL to Chrome and will save you an extra step.
3. Reopen a closed tab. Oops! If you didn’t mean to close that tab, just press Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen it.
4. Use the Chrome shortcuts. Open a new tab, see your history, maximize your window, and much more with these shortcuts.
5. Take advantage of the address bar. With Google Chrome, you can use the address bar to perform a Google search, quickly access pages you’ve already visited, and get recommendations for places to go.
6. Go incognito. If you don’t want to leave traces of where you were browsing, use incognito mode instead of having to go back and delete your history and cookies.
7. Use the bookmarks manager. Stay organized, rearrange bookmarks, search for bookmarks, add folders, and much more with the bookmark manager.
8. ChromePass. This tool will give you a list of all the password information stored in Google Chrome.
9. Save as PDF. Save any page as a PDF with this bookmarklet.
10. ChromeMailer. If you’ve lost valuable time when having to manually enter email information from a website because Google Chrome doesn’t support the mailto: function, then you will love this extension.
11. Google Chrome Backup. Back up your personal data, bookmarks, and more with this simple tool.

Google Books

Learn how Google Books can save you time and trips to the library with these tricks.

1. Search full text. Google Books offers full text for over 10,000 books, so look here the next time you are researching something at the last minute.
2. Use "About this book". At the top left of the page of a book, clicking this link will give you helpful information such as the table of contents, related books, and a map of places mentioned in the book.
3. Create a personalized library. Click on "Add to my shared library" to start your own personalized library where you can label books to keep them organized for each class or project.
4. Find books in your college library. Each book in Google Books has a link to find the book in a library. It can tell you exactly where to look at your own school.
5. Use the Advanced Book Search. If you can’t find the book you are looking for, try the advanced search, which provides you with many more detailed options.
6. Access text books. Many text books are available on Google Books, so see if you can save a trip to the bookstore next semester.
7. Search for magazine content. Select Magazines in the Advanced Book Search to locate information from magazines.
8. Read the blog. Google Books is constantly evolving, so stay on top of all the latest news with the Inside Google Books blog.
9. Find books to supplement your assigned texts. Search by subject to see what books you may be able to read to get the extra leg up in your classes.

Handy Google Services and Apps

These other Google products will help you save time by offering you everything from alerts to online collaboration to help working with data sets.

1. Google Alerts. Sign up to get email notifications any time a topic you designate shows up in Google search results. This is a great way to stay current with a project or news story.
2. Google Desktop. Keep a clock, weather, news stories, Google search box, and more all within easy reach when you use Google Desktop.
3. Google SketchUp. If you need to draw 3D figures for class, use Google SketchUp to do so easily and free of charge.
4. Google Talk. This versatile app is more than just for IMs. You can switch to voice, do a video chat, and send texts, too.
5. Google Images. Google has an incredible image search feature that will provide you with tons of high-quality images you can use in presentations.
6. Google Translate. Don’t spend time looking up stuff in books, use Google Translate to get foreign words translated right away.
7. Google Wave. This brand new Google product shows great promise for anyone collaborating, but especially for those in school. Communicate, create documents, and more–all in real-time.
8. Google Finance. Business students can keep track of markets, news, portfolios, and more in one place.
9. Google Toolbar. Have easy access to Gmail, Google search, bookmarks, and more with this toolbar available for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
10. Picasa. Manage your photos and even incorporate them into your blogs and emails with Google’s streamlines photo manager.
11. Google Squared. Find facts and organize them with this search feature from Google Labs.
12. Google Fusion Tables. If you are working with data sets, then you will love this program that will allow you to upload data, create visual representations, and take part in discussions about the data.
13. Blogger. Create a blog as a part of a project or just to stay in touch with friends and family in an easy way.

Jolicloud Netbook OS Is a Bit Like Chrome OS with Awesome Desktop Applications

Chrome OS is a promising cloud-based operating system, but the big complaint most people have about it is that Chrome OS is entirely browser-based. New netbook OS Jolicloud is a lot like Chrome OS, but with the addition of killer desktop apps.

Before you even consider Jolicloud, you may want to look at their big list of compatible devices. It’s pretty huge, and I’d also suspect not complete. I’m actually testing it in a virtual machine and it’s working just fine, and it would probably work on a fair amount of other hardware.

Think you’d like to try it out? You can install it easily from Windows using a simple installer. Rather than wipe out your Windows installation, it simply carves out some partitioned space on your hard drive so you don’t have to worry about ditching Windows altogether just to try it out. Ready to give it a try? The installation is pretty straightforward, but if you want a little hand-holding, check out the gallery below.

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Once your Jolicloud installation is complete, you’ll end up at the login screen.

Enter the username and password you created during installation, and when you log in, you’ll end up staring down the Jolicloud netbook launcher screen.

You’ll also be prompted to set up your Jolicloud account at this point, but unfortunately the specialized Jolicloud accounts—which is part of what makes Jolicloud so cool—requires an invitation code, so you’ll probably want to sign up for one ASAP. If and when you do sign up with a Jolicloud homebase, you’ll get access to the Jolicloud App Directory pictured below.

It’s from this directory you can install your favorite programs—from Skype and Dropbox to Boxee and Spotify in a single click. When you’re logged in to Jolicloud, you’ve also got access to your social stream:

…and a convenient update manager:

In short, Jolicloud is a very impressive looking netbook operating system. Sure it’s just a specialized interface running on top of Ubuntu and powered by a lot of Mozilla Prism packages. The App Directory makes the operating system—as TechCrunch accurately put it—feel like an iPhonesque OS for netbooks. And unlike the current state of Chrome OS, the current alpha release of Jolicloud is actually pretty well supported.

It’s probably a little unfair to compare Jolicloud to Chrome OS, since they are ultimately very different in their approach, but they are both aiming for the same market—your netbooks. If you’ve given Jolicloud a try in the past or just want to weigh in on its looks from the screenshots, let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

Jolicloud

Boxee Beta Gets an Entirely New Look and Feel

The Boxee team unveiled its upcoming beta release tonight. From the outset, it looks a whole lot more pretty and user friendly. Native search powers, media queues, much improved looks, and easier navigation are coming to computer-connected TVs soon.

Boxee is based on the same core code as the XBMC project, but has differentiated itself with a different (and, in our opinion, not quite as appealing) look and a social, net-connected focus. The new home screen brings a new look and those social/feed aspects front and center.

It’s divided up into three columns of items on the bottom: friend recommendations on the left, featured media from Boxee and its partners in the middle, and items you’ve queued up on the right.

Anywhere you go in Boxee, you can quickly pull up the universal menu, which lets you rate, recommend, and queue an item, shut down or configure the system, and get access to the major media categories. The very bottom is a kind of bookmark bar, filled with shortcuts to your favorite media channels or files.

Whether you’re looking for a TV show episode you’ve downloaded or a show available for streaming anywhere in Boxee’s ecosystem, you can find it by doing a quick search from the sidebar. There’s a tiny keyboard built in for remote users, and quick filtering tools below. In general, Boxee treats your local media and streaming content as pretty much one and the same, in search and in handling.

Beyond being just a media player and Netflix/Hulu portal, Boxee’s photo, video, music, and even social networking apps set it apart. We’ve already thought about the possibilities of Clicker on Boxee, and more apps are likely on the way.

Want even more peeks at what the Boxee beta’s got inside? Check out Gizmodo’s screenshot gallery.

Under the hood, Boxee’s beta will feature a number of bug fixes from the alpha, and will switch from OpenGL to DirectX graphics on Windows, along with enabling DirectX video acceleration, allowing for much speedier and less resource-intensive playback. There’s also going to be baked-in support for NVIDIA’s cheaper-but-powerful Ion graphics chips, likely pointing to the pre-built Boxee box. Coincidentally, this also makes this editor’s homemade Boxee media center an even more badass investment.

Boxee’s beta is rolling out now to approved early access users (you can sign up here if you feel lucky). Next up will be those already using the alpha, and then, on Jan. 7, the general public. Tell us what you think of Boxee’s new look and direction, and what else you think it needs, in the comments.

The Boxee Beta [Boxee Blog]

 

A Day in the Life of the Internet

The Complete Guide to Avoiding Online Scams (for Your Less Savvy Friends and Relatives)

Never, Ever Click a Link to Your Bank or Financial Institution From an Email

Legitimate banks or financial institutions like Paypal will never email you asking you to click a link to verify your information, reset your password, or login to view anything. You should simply create a browser bookmark to your bank, and when you receive an email, use the bookmark or type in the bank name manually into the address bar.

Combined with training your parents to look for the special lock icon in the address bar, this should prevent them from giving away their bank login.

Never Give Out Your Email Password

It’s become a trend in "web 2.0" sites to ask people to invite your friends to join by entering your email address and password into their web site—but this is something you should always avoid. Not only will you most likely end up spamming all of your friends with invite requests, but some sites will keep that information and continue to spam your friends forever. Of course, that is secondary to the fact that all your password reset requests will go to your email address—so if the wrong people get your password, they can access your entire online life. You should simply never give that information out to anybody for any reason.

Use Strong Passwords (and Secret Questions)

If your password is as simple as your spouse’s name, it won’t even matter if you give your email password out, since it can be guessed easily by scammers or hackers trying to get in. You’ll want to make sure to read our guide on how to choose and remember a strong password—but your security lesson doesn’t stop there. The weak link in your email security is those secret questions and answers that most sites ask you to enter to help you reset your password. Even if your password is tough, often your secret question isn’t—so you should make sure to protect your email account with strong secret questions.

Do Not Buy Anything from an Email You Didn’t Ask For

The easiest way scammers get you is by dumping spam in your inbox for everything from cheap watches to fake male-enhancement products—which is not only going to be bogus but probably redundant. The easiest and simplest rule is to never buy anything from an email. Sure, you could probably make an exception for email newsletters from sites you trust, like Amazon, but remember—it’s relatively easy for scammers to pretend they’re Amazon, just like it’s easy for them to pretend they’re your bank. Just make sure that you aren’t buying, or even clicking on, anything from an unsolicited email. (You can always go straight to Amazon and search for the product they’re advertising.)

Watch Out for Job Postings That Look Too Good

If you’re out of work or just looking for a way to make some extra cash on the side, you should be very careful about the jobs posted on online sites like Craigslist, because there are scammers lurking there as well. It’s not that Craigslist isn’t a great place to look for jobs, but you have to be careful. Those jobs that say you can "Make $25+ / hour working from home!" or "Mystery Shopper Needed!" and promise tons of money for almost no work—yeah, they are completely fake.

The biggest thing to avoid is anything involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfers, money orders, or dealings with any financial transaction. The scammers will ask you to deposit a check or money order and wire transfer the money back to them—and it’s not until later that you find out it was a forgery. I personally know somebody who was scammed out of $12,000 this way.

Do Not Give Out Your Personal Info or Social Security Number

This should go without saying, but no legitimate site is going to ask you to enter your Social Security number unless you are applying for credit. You should be very careful not to divulge your personal information to anybody online. The same thing goes for sites that ask you to re-enter your personal information, even though in some cases, like your bank, they should already have that information.

Learn to Use a Modern Browser’s Security Features

The latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer have enhanced support for checking certificates from trusted web sites—you can click on the lock icon to see all the information about the certificate.

In addition, the latest browser versions maintain a list of phishing and malware sites, and will warn you any time you try and access a known bad site. Internet Explorer makes checking the URL even easier by highlighting the root domain name so you can more easily detect a new phishing site.

Ignore Web Site Popups Saying You Have a Virus

Last Friday half of my day was wasted removing a malware called Advanced Virus Remover from somebody’s PC because they clicked an ad that said they had a virus, and then installed the "recommended" software, which proceeded to hold their computer hostage. These "scareware" viruses are becoming commonplace, and there are so many different names that it’s impossible to keep track of all of them.

The simple solution is to pick a single antivirus app for your loved ones and train them to know exactly which one they have installed. My mom’s PC came pre-installed with Norton Antivirus, and I’ve trained her to ignore any other messages unless they come from Norton—and that if she isn’t sure, she should click the X in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, or even just turn the PC off entirely and restart it. It’s not a perfect solution, and I’d rather have her using Microsoft Security Essentials, but she’s used to it now and it’s a whole lot better than spending a day removing a scareware virus from her computer.

Aren’t sure which antivirus to choose? You’ve chosen your five favorites, and we’ve explained the virtues of the free Microsoft Security Essentials, so the choice is up to you.

Ten best free applications that you probably didn’t know about.

I’m a big fan of FREE STUFF, so it should be no surprise that I gravitate towards free software.  Sure much of it is junkie, but there are some realy diamonds out there that haven’t hit the mainstream yet.  Here’s my favorite 10.

1.  Logmein (https://secure.logmein.com)

Ever find yourself away from home and wishing you could e-mail yourself something?  Or maybe you have a mother-in-law who lives 4 states away and is always having computer problems, and instead of loading up the kids in the family trickster for a marriage-trying trip, you could just log in to her computer remotely….without her needing to do anything?  This is where Logmein comes in.  There are lots of products out there that will do this, but very few will do all these things as well as Logmein does for free.

2. Mesh (http://www.mesh.com)

Microsoft has a knack of not promoting some of the apps that they offer.  Mesh is one of those apps.  Another computer sharing application, but Mesh displays all the computers in a 3-D rotating ring and also offers a “Web Desktop” that syncs with all the computers on your Mesh.  There is a promise of making Mesh work on Macs, but I haven’t yet seen it work.  Mesh is super responsive and I really like how it feels while using it!  The interface is clean and intuitive and I think the reason Microsoft does not promote it is too many people would use it!

3. PhotoStory 3 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx)

Yet another non-marketed gem from Microsoft.  Photostory 3 is one of the easiest ways to create a very professional photo slideshow complete with background music (MP3 or you can create your own with the built-in music generator) and narration.  The application is super easy to use and the results are far superior that some softwares that I’ve paid to use.  The only downfall is that it doesn’t have a built-in burning application to burn the slideshow to CD or DVD.

4. Orb (http://www.orb.com)

Like many people, I don’t get to stay at home with my vault of audio and video goodness at my disposal.  This is where Orb steps in.  Orb allows a simple way to put your audio, photos and video online and accessible to your little antsy fingertips.  One of my favorite features is the ability to stream webcams live on the internet, so if I miss my dog, I can log in and see and hear him.  Very slick and very easy to set up!

5. Dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com/)

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a storage cloud of your own to store items and further more wouldn’t it be nice if it synced with your other computers?  That’s Dropbox.  I use it to store “keepers” or documents and small apps that I want in multiple places or to ensure I don’t lose it.  Dropbox installs easily and creates a folder on your computer.  Drag the files you want to sync into the Dropbox and dropbox takes care of the rest.  All the other computers you log into the dropbox with can now access and upload their own files.  A great solution for simple collaboration or small off site back ups.

6. MWSnap (http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html)
If you need to do lots of screenshots for websites or manuals, this is a great tool.  It has a nice zoom tool to enlarging parts of the screen to draw focus to it, a ruler for measuring the size of items in the shot, and can export in BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF.

7. Camstudio (http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/files/)
If you need to create a screencast, this a a great free tool.  Comparable to Camtasia or Adobe’s Captivate, it’s not as feature-rich as those, but it will get the job done.  It will record whatever you do on your screen and produce and AVI or SWF output.  Plus you can narrate as you go through a microphone.  This is the easiest way to convey complex techniques or just a way of communicating step by step instructions.

8. DimDim (http://www.dimdim.com)
A tool similar to WebEx, DimDim allows you to create free webinar-style sessions where you can share screens, whiteboards, presentation, web pages and even voice and video.  I have been super impressed with DimDim in that it supports up to 20 people, it doesn’t require any installation and it handles the voice and video, unlike some other pay-for softwares.  Sure, it isn’t as ubiquitious as WebEx (I’m certainly not going to tell someone to “DimDim me”, but for free, this is a wonderful offering.

9. Ning (http://www.ning.com)

If you’ve ever wanted a web site for your church group, scouting group, or maybe even class reunion, then Ning is the place to go.  It’s a DYI social networking site that allows you to roll your own blog/forum/event feed/calendar/whatever.  I’ve used Ning for several side projects to collaborate with large and small groups of people.  I also use Ning for a special interest web site-BisManPhoto.com, which is a site devoted to camera lovers in the Bismarck/Mandan North Dakota area.  The sites scale wonderfully and gives me the freedom to worry about content rather than functionality.

10. Qik (http://qik.com)

Everyone carries their cellphones with them all the time.  Ever wanted to stream live video from your phone?  That’s what Qik does and it does it beautifully.  Great for budding independent journalists wanting to stream live to the web (and post an alert on twitter simultaneously) and it’s equally great to share part of your vacation with people at home.  The stream is recorded from your phone and saved for posterity so people who couldn’t see the live stream can watch it archived on the Qik site.