Browsers
WWW Is Not A Child-Friendly Zone But Kido’z Makes It Safer Than Ever
Today many jobs require employees to operate computers. If you want your children to success in today’s world of extreme competition, then it is best to have them learn computer usage from an early age. Of course you will need a safe way to do this because children might delete your important files and because the internet is not exactly a child-friendly zone.
A solution to all this is presented by a wonderful tool named KIDO’Z.
KIDO’Z is an installable application based on AIR hence cross-platform – you can run it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. After you download and install KIDO’Z you set up a parent account; while you set up this account you assign KIDOZ a password which will required whenever the settings need changing. The final step is to add your child’s name to the KIDO’Z interface. Having done all this KIDO’Z will be ready to be used by your child.
The browser covers up the entire screen thus things on the desktop and outside the browser will not distract your son / daughter. The main controls of the browser are located at its bottom. The first button is for games.
A number of interactive and enjoyable games are available. All your child has to do is click on them to play them. “Websites” is the next button.
Through this button children can access websites of their favorite cartoon characters by clicking on their thumbnail shortcut.
The “Videos” button brings up a similar thumbnail view.
Over here children can watch their favorite cartoons.
The buttons “Mail” and “Places” contain interactive features which let children better familiarize themselves with the mouse and keyboard.
Overall, KIDO’Z is a great freeware targeted at very young audiences. You can get KIDO’Z from Here.
13 Google Chrome Extensions To Simplify Web Designer’s Life
You might have been using Chrome for a quite some time now but there is a good chance you are not taking its full advantage. Chrome’s maximum potential lies in the power of its extensions. Below We have gathered 13 Chrome extensions that will enable you all to realize Chrome’s full potential if you are a web design expert. You will not find these extensions in similar lists on other websites; I hope you find them to be useful to your computer usage.
Give the list a thorough reading, try out any extension you are interested in, and let me know in the comments how they worked out for you. You are welcome to share if you know more useful chrome extension which our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter.
Speed Tracer
Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux).
Chrome Editor
With this extension, you can edit HTML easily, right inside your browser. You also have the ability to save a code reference for later use. It saves it to your computer locally.
Resolution Test
Resolution Test changes the size of the browser window for developers to preview their websites in different screen resolutions. It includes a list of commonly used resolutions as well as a custom option for you to input your own.
Web Developer
The Web Developer extension adds a toolbar button to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Google Chrome and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
BuiltWith
BuiltWith is a web site profiler tool. Upon looking up a page, BuiltWith returns all the technologies it can find on the page. BuiltWith’s goal is to help developers, researchers and designers find out what technologies pages are using which may help them to decide what technologies to implement themselves. The BuiltWith Chrome Extension lets you find out what a website is built with by a simple click on the builtwith icon.
MultiSwitch
Whenever you have the need to simply switch between development, test and productive hosts you should use MultiSwitch. You are now able to customize the title of your environment.
Inline Code Finder
Inline Code Finder is a tool to traverse through all elements in a web page, and when it finds a HTML element with any of these, it will highlight them: Inline JavaScript events, Inline style, javascript: links.
IE Tab
Some sites can only be displayed using IE, and with this extension you can now see those sites without leaving Chrome. Great for web developers who want to test the IE rendering engine, users who use sites with ActiveX controls, and users who want to use the explorer view for local files
PlainClothes
This extension styles — or rather “unstyles” — the web. Just imagine: text is black, backgrounds are white, unread links are blue, visited links are purple, all links are underlined. Or any other colors you like. And all text is rendered in your default fonts (as defined in “Options” > “Under the Hood” > “Change font and language settings”). Everywhere. Automatically. You can control the extent of the “unstyling” via the Options window (“Extensions” > “PlainClothes” > “Options”), and you can toggle the “unstyling” on a per-site basis by clicking the icon in the location bar.
CSSViewer
CSSViewer shows the css parameters of any element in a web page, to enable/disable
it simply click the toolbar icon.
Aviary Screen Capture
This quick screen capture addon is a must-have for designers. It will perform a screen capture of the visible portion of any webpage and then open the capture INSTANTLY in a basic image editor where you can do markup (draw arrows and rectangles), edit (crop, rotate and resize) and get the exact pixel colors of the image. A perfect companion tool for designers.
Lorem Ipsum Generator
Chrome Extension that generates random “Lorem Ipsum” text. It uses a minimalist and well looking design. Many other extensions of this type – in other browsers – simply complicate this task, using really extensive code, XHR, etc. The main purpose of this one, is to use the less amount of code (and also memory) and help the developer/user to get the job done.
JavaScript tester
This extension adds a small & usefull shortcut to your browser “Alt+J”. To run and test pefromance of JavaScript code. When you press “Alt+J”, new textarea is added to the bottom of the current page. In this textarea you can write your JS code and press “Ctrl+Enter”, to run the code.
Top 20 Features Of Firefox 4 (Beta) That Make It Stand Out
The beta for Firefox version 4 was recently released and it has already created a buzz on the web. While many of its features will already demonstrated in its nightly builds, the beta more widely showcases these new features.
Release notes for Firefox v4 outline all the features which web developers and ordinary internet users will find helpful. To know what exactly these features are, read on:
- Tabs are now on top by default on Windows only – OSX and Linux will be changing when the theme has been modified to support the change.
- On Windows Vista and Windows 7 the menu bar has been replaced with the Firefox button.
- You can search for and switch to already open tabs in the Smart Location Bar
- New Addons Manager and extension management API (UI will be changed before final release)
- Significant API improvements are available for JS-ctypes, a foreign function interface for extensions.
- The stop and reload buttons have been merged into a single button on Windows, Mac and Linux.
- The Bookmarks Toolbar has been replaced with a Bookmarks Button by default (you can switch it back if you’d like).
- Crash protection for Windows, Linux, and Mac when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.
- CSS Transitions are partially supported.
- Full WebGL support is included but disabled by default at this time.
- Core Animation rendering model for plugins on Mac OS X. Plugins which also support this rendering model can now draw faster and more efficiently.
- Native support for the HD HTML5 WebM video format.
- An experimental Direct2D rendering backend is available on Windows, turned off by default.
- Web developers can use Websockets for a low complexity, low latency, bidirectional communications API.
- Web developers can update the URL field without reloading the page using HTML History APIs.
- More responsive page rendering using lazy frame construction.
- Link history lookup is done asynchronously to provide better responsiveness during pageload.
- CSS :visited selectors have been changed to block websites from being able to check a user’s browsing history.
- New HTML5 parser.
- Support for more HTML5 form controls.
As you can see, many interface changes have been made to make usage a lot more user friendly. At the same time, great web development features have been added with a special focus on HTML 5. For a full list of features for developers, you can click here.
Firefox enthusiasts, who are interested in what else Firefox has to offer, can get the unofficial beta 2 of Firefox v4; this beta is available from FTP server and is a follow-up to the current publicly available beta. Beta 2 offers even more features however has addons disabled by default, to prevent addon-related browser crashes. To enable addons support in Firefox v4 beta 2, install the “Add-on Compatibility Eeporter” addon, then restart Firefox twice. Type in “about:addons” in the URL bar which will open up the Addon Manager and let you use addons.
Let’s Make Learning Fun For Young Chidren With Zoodles
Your children are growing up in the age of computers. Many jobs today involve computer usage thus familiarity with computers is a key element in the succeeding at the workplace. You need to help your children understand computers while they are still at an early age. Since the web has content of every kind, it would be unwise to leave children alone with a computer and let them learn for themselves. Also a few accidental file deletions by your children could really mess up the operating system and loss of your important data.
Keeping all these things in mind and recognizing the need of a good computer-learning tool for children, Zoodles was created.
Zoodles is a unique web browser comptabile with both, Windows and Mac running computers. The browser is intended to be used by children between the ages of 2 and 8. The browser serves as a learning tool for children. Web elements have been greatly simplified to ease the learning.
While using Zoodles, you can have the browser run in full screen so that children are not distracted by out-of-the browser files and documents. This will help prevent those accidental deletions. In addition to surfing the web, children can take advantage of the educational content and games available within the Zoodles browser. All this content is age appropriate and varies according to age group i.e. more advanced page element with an elder age group.
Parent who are concerned about adult and inappropriate sites will be happy to know that browsing in Zoodles is only possible on sites pre-approved by the browser. In line of the same goal, the browser blocks many ads, provides advanced parental controls, and parental monitoring.
In conclusion, Zoodles is a must have application for your computer if you want to teach computer usage to your young ones.
Check out the details and different plans of Zoodles HERE.
Opera 10.6: 10 Strong Reasons To Switch Over To Opera
Opera has always been ahead of the browser curve. It was the first browser to introduce the startpage-like new tabs, a feature it calls Speed Dial. Despite all that Opera has to offer, it is not the first browser preference of many computer users. This is something Opera hopes to change with the release of its new version.
Opera 10.6 is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The new version has a number of notable features which will tempt users in making Opera their default browser.
Below you will find my breakdown of these features. Read why Opera should be your first browser choice:
Geolocation
Version 10.6 comes with geolocation, a feature which other browsers are also incorporating. This features communicates your location with any web app that needs it (after your permission). Opera also has a map of all its users on the globe, thanks to geolocation. You can view this map and see other Opera users nearby.
WebM
WebM is believed by many to be the future of online videos. Basically it comprises of VP8 video and Vorbis audio. Opera 10.6 comes with WebM support.
Speed Dial
The Speed Dial feature of Opera inspired other browsers to add a startpage-like feel to each new tab. Unlike some other browsers, Speed Dial can be configured in Opera to match the users’ preferences.
Opera Link
Opera Link is Opera’s data syncing solution. It allows you to synchronize you Opera bookmarks, Speed Dial, Notes, and other useful browser data between your computers and smartphones running Opera.
Opera Widgets
While addons and extensions in other browser depend entirely on the browser, Opera’s widgets are independent software solution which can be run outside Opera as independent programs. They set a new standard for browser addons.
Opera Unite
Opera Unite lets you stream data from your computer through the internet. You can share pictures, songs, and videos with your friends instantly and securely.
Opera Turbo
Turbo speeds up browsing on slower connections. This is done by compressing every webpage before loading it up using your internet. A compressed webpage takes lesser time to load up.
Mouse Gestures
I think Opera is the only browser that supports mouse gestures without aid from addons. You can perform common browser actions easily with quick movements of your mouse.
Content Blocking
While Chrome and Firefox users employ tools like AdBlock to block ads and other content, Opera has built-in feature that lets you choose what you see; you can easily remove annoying images, animations, and other content.
Multilanguage Support
Opera comes in 42 languages to cater to its global audience.
In addition to all that I have mentioned above, Opera features a wonderful JavaScript engine that is noticeably faster than other browsers. In short, even if you are perfectly with your current browser, Opera 10.6 deserves to be taken out for a test drive. You can it from http://www.opera.com/
Favitt Lets You Create Your Own Multi Search Engine In Minutes
Everyone knows how important search is. You search Google, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Flickr, Last.fm, Amazon and plenty of other sites for different products, content, images, videos etc. Unfortunately, none of these sites lets you customize the search interface as good as Favitt does.
Favitt lets you simplify the search experience by bringing all these search engines in a customized start page.
The idea is very simple. You head over to Favitt.com and create a free account. Once your account is created, you add all the sites where you frequently search for content, images, videos, products etc. This could mean adding Cars.com or Techcrunch.com or your personal blog
Next, You can search all these sites from the same page and do not have to open multiple browser tabs, open the URL’s of all these sites one by one, type in the keywords and perform a search separately. This is very useful, saves a lot of time and above all – you get a very customized search experience.
Lets quickly see what are the main features of Favitt:
Features of Favitt
Multiple Search Engines, One Browser Window: Favitt lets you add multiple websites as tabs on it’s homepage. Say you are a fan of Bing, YouTube and Flickr and want to search all of them from a single page. Just use the more button placed at the right of the search box and you can add your favorite search engine as a new tab on the Favitt start page.
When you perform a search for a specific keyword, you can simply switch between search engines and see the different results with a single click. All you have to do is select the search engine from the left sidebar in the search result page, as shown below:
Add a custom search Engine: Favitt lets you add your favorite sites as tabs in your Favitt start page. Just name the site you wanna search, add the URL of the site and you are done.
Now a tab will appear in your Favitt start page showing the site you just added.When you want to search that site, simply type the keywords in the search box and hit the tab. You will see results from the specific site as search results.
This is immensely useful, when you want to search your favorite sites without having to visit them over and over again.
Creating a custom search engine with Favitt has more advantages. Say you are a soccer fan and want to search all the popular Soccer blogs for the recent updates about FIFA world cup 2010. Just go to the Favitt user engines page and add the sites, blogs one by one. Then you can share the URL of your Favitt homepage with friends and family members so that they can search and find the latest soccer updates from different blogs, all at one place.
Here is an example of a Favitt page with the main search engines being Google, SmashingApps, and Techie-Buzz.
Preview Real time Results: When you do a search for any keyword and if there are any images, YouTube videos, news articles, or recent tweets about the same topic, you will see them on the right side of the search results page.
This is quite handy, when you want to track the recent buzz surrounding the topic you just searched for.
Upload Images and set them as Background: Favitt lets you upload images from your computer or from a web URL and stores these images in your account. You can use these images as the background of your start page.
What’s even interesting is that Favitt will automatically rotate the images on a daily basis and change the background of your start page, so you always get a refreshing search experience.
Here is an example of my Favitt start page, with a minimalist background:
Overall, Favitt is a great place to create a multi search engine and a customized start page for web browsing. There is nothing to download or install, and signing up is completely free.
Enlarge Facebook Photos By Hover Mouse Pointer (Firefox+Chrome Plugin)
I find Facebook’s picture viewing interface inconvenient. When I am viewing a friend’s album, I can view the pictures as thumbnails in the main album page. To view a picture’s true size I have to click it. Then I have to go back to the album (photo thumbnails view) and select another image to enlarge. The process can become quite time consuming. But thanks to two browser extension, I no longer have to click back and forth while viewing pictures on Facebook.
The first is Facebook PhotoZoom (there is no space between the words Photo and Zoom).
This is an addon for Mozilla Firefox and can be used while viewing Facebook photos. Its function is a simple one: it shows you the true size of an image thumbnail in Facebook. Whether that thumbnail is in a photo album or the thumbnail of an image shared on your wall or news feed, you simply place our mouse pointer over the thumbnail and view its enlarged version in a hovering view.
The second extension is Facebook Photo Zoom (there is a space between the words Photo and Zoom).
This tool is an extension for Google Chrome and works much in the same way. In addition to enlarging your Facebook photo thumbnails in a hovering window view, the extension places an icon near the bottom right of Facebook i.e. next to the Chat bar. You can toggle Facebook Photo Zoom on / off from this icon.
Hence it is up to you whether to use the hovering window photo enlargement or use Facebook’s original interface.
These extension are absolute must have for all Facebook accountholders using Firefox or Chrome. They have certainly saved me the umpteen clicks required to view a photo album. I am positive they will be as helpful to you as they were to me.
Click here for the Firefox Addon and here for the Chrome extension.
7 Insanely Cool Google Chrome Extensions
You might have been using Chrome for a quite some time now but there is a good chance you are not taking its full advantage. Chrome’s maximum potential lies in the power of its extensions. Below We have gathered 5 Chrome extensions that will enable you all to realize Chrome’s full potential. You will not find these extensions in similar lists on other websites; I hope you find them to be useful to your computer usage.
Give the list a thorough reading, try out any extension you are interested in, and let me know in the comments how they worked out for you. You are welcome to share if you know more useful chrome extension which our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter.
Mini Google Maps
Mini Google Maps is an extension for Chrome that makes it easier to use Google Maps whenever we are browsing the web. The extension adds a new icon to Chrome’s address bar which is a shortcut to using Google Maps.
Web of Trust
The WOT add-on is a safe surfing tool for your browser. Traffic-light rating symbols show which websites you can trust for safe surfing, shopping and searching on the web.
Google Dictionary
Google Dictionary extension is Google’s own extension for its own browser, Chrome. With the extension installed, Chrome users will no longer need to bookmark any dictionary websites. The extension simplifies looking up word meanings by eliminating the need to visit a dictionary website in a new tab.
IE Tab
Some sites can only be displayed using IE, and with this extension you can now see those sites without leaving Chrome. Great for web developers who want to test the IE rendering engine, users who use sites with ActiveX controls, and users who want to use the explorer view for local files
Webpage Decorator
Webpage Decorator is a browser extension for Google Chrome. The extension provides its users with a unique feature: it lets us create our own color scheme for any website.
Google URL Shortener
goo.gl url shortener is an extension which allows you to shorten the current website URL with the new Google URL Shortener service http://goo.gl/
TV Chrome
When I saw TV Chrome extension, I did not believe my eyes. Without paying anything, setting up anything, I was able to view hundreds of channels from around the world. TV Chrome is an extension for Google Chrome. It places an icon in Chrome’s address bar which we click to dropdown a window.
goo.gl url shortener is an extension which allows you to shorten the current website URL with the new Google URL Shortener service http://goo.gl/
Automatically Redirect To Print Pages On News Sites
The internet is not only used by people who like to store their media or connect with friends through social networking sites; it is also a great source of information and knowledge. Major newspapers and magazines have their online versions up as websites. These are accessible versions of their paper versions. There is only drawback: the extra things.
When you read a newspaper or magazine, the text is easily viewable and you can get the information you want quickly. However on the website of the same magazine you will find many advertisements and a layout that is not best suited for reading conveniently. A tool that solves this problem is “Fit to Print”.
Fit to Print is an extension for Google Chrome that makes it easier to read online articles of a number of reputable newspapers / magazines. The supported sites include nytimes.com, boston.com, thenation.com, washingtonpost.com, and alternet.org.
The extension sits neatly on your address bar. Clicking the extension turns it on / off. When you reach an article link on one of the supported sites, you are automatically taken to its print version which is much friendlier to read.
Here is the normal view of a recent article on nytimes.com:
And here is the print view:
(* The article can be read here.)
As you can see the print version is much easier to read than the ‘glossy’ version.
Safari 5 Improved The Way You Surf The Web
During the keynote at WWDC, Steve Jobs did not mention much about Safari. But Apple made up for it by releasing a press announcement centered on Safari.
The new Safari version is Safari 5. The browser’s new features includes Safari Reader, strong HTML5 support, better performance, Bing Search, Enhanced Keyboard Navigation, Acid 3 Compliance, Nitro JavaScript Engine, Hardware Acceleration for Windows, support for extensions, Geo-location service, Improved Web Inspector. Before discussing it further, I won’t mind to rate Safari 5 as smart, powerful, beautiful browser For Mac and PC.
Bing has been added one of the preloaded search engine options. This will obviously save Safari users a lot of time since they will be able to execute Bing searches from within a webpage. Google and Yahoo searches can also be used on the browser.
One of the most important additions is the support for extensions. Safari is finally jumping on the addons / extensions bandwagon. Hopefully it will attract developers the same way Chrome and Firefox did. 3rd party extensions will surely beautify and simplify the Safari experience.
Safari 5 is considerably faster than its previous versions. Apple boasts a 30% performance improvement over Safari 4. Apple also claims that Safari 5 is 3% faster than Chrome 5.0 and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6 when it comes to running JavaScript.
The new browser version will handle HTML5 in a better way. For example, full-screen view and closed captions for will now be supported for HTML5 video.
Safari 5 includes support for location services and whenever you visit a Geo-location website, Safari will ask for a confirmation before sharing your position (just like in Chrome).
The most hyped new feature in Safari 5 is Safari Reader. This feature allows users to exclude online ads from any webpage and obtain a simplified view for easier reading. Certainly this will speed up page loading times and be a convenience to users.
You can test all these features yourself because the browser is up for public download. Get Safari 5 by clicking here.
