View previews of Google search results with GooglePreview
When we run a search through a major search engine such as Google, we want as much information as possible as we don't really have the time to visit every site to determine if it meets our requirements. To make a decision on the sites we think are worth visiting, we read the description, usually provided by the person who designed the site. You could easily end up on a rogue site or simply a site that isn't as described by the developer.
GooglePreview 2.1.4 is a lightweight extension for Firefox that enables you to see previews of the websites that are recommended to you, via Google, when you enter a search string. By seeing a visual representation of the destination site, you make a better decision on whether it is worth visiting.
Designers and professional photographers have their favourite image editing tools, but these commercial tools get updated rarely and we often have to wait 1 to 2 years before we see any new features. Ok, this means that our favourite software is stable for production use, but it also means that new technologies take time to be implemented and supported within your software.
When it comes to office software, as we want to fit in with everyone else, we just go with what we think everyone else will be using: Windows, Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Internet Explorer. We lack individualism and we're somewhat scared that the projects or work we create won't be accessible by other companies and our company will be embarrassed as a result. Very unlikely. Most rival office suites enable you to read and write to Microsoft Office documents.
If you're an 
As recently as last week, analysts were stating that the new Mac OS X, Leopard, would be delayed because Apple wanted to support Windows Vista within Bootcamp. Bootcamp enables Intel Mac owners to create a Windows partition, install Windows XP SP2 and run Windows, natively, on their Mac. It works like a charm, too. I purchased a refurbished Apple iMac 20ยจ from the Apple UK online store, installed Bootcamp and run Windows XP without any issues. It flies, too.
Developers speak a universal language and a person coding a game in the UK could easily be joined by another developer based in India, Poland or another territory. However, sharing a project, the files related to the project, managing the elements required to finish the project, is the difficult part. The more users you add to the project, the more likely it will spiral out of control. You need project development software and you need to be able to share the development plans with the other users.
Sharing a hobby or an interest is a great way of making use of the Internet. You can find web pages dedicated to your interest, blogs, the latest news and, of course, talk to other net users and share your thoughts and plans. However hard your tried, you'll only ever touch upon the the edges of the Internet and probably never find some of the more obscure blogs or web pages based around your interests. The easiest way to find them, is to ask another web user.
Back in the 80s, coders developed their skills looking at the hex format of code written by other developers. Some users would regard this as 'hacking', but delving in to the hex code enabled coders to make low-level changes. This art seems to have disappeared somewhat and there are few advanced-level hex and similar editors. Hex editors also enable you to examine corrupt data, compare code and much more.
If you're anything like the majority of computer users, you'll have music you've sourced from all locations. This audio may have been purchased through an online music store, extracted from your CDs, recorded from your old cassettes and live or other tracks downloaded from the Internet. These tracks are probably stored in different formats, making the management of all tracks difficult within one application.
Why do most users own a webcam? I mean, really how many times do you sit in front of your computer and 'chat' live with other users? Some do, many do not. If you're the latter, why not make use of your webcam by using it as a surveillance and security device? For instance, if your computer is facing a window, you could use a webcam to keep an eye out on anyone trying to break in to your apartment. Sure, you're not going to probably see this happening live, but there's a good chance you'll have recorded the pictures and might catch the thief.
Working with various media types can be bad enough, trying to figure out how they've been encoded can be even more difficult. Worse, if you want to use video encoded in the late 90s, it will have been encoded with various Intel codecs that have long-since been dropped. Playing media encoded with this video is impossible on some systems. You might hear the audio, but not be able to see the video.
Managing your digital photos is a relatively easy process. You can categorise, rate them depending on the quality and search for duplicates. However, getting the most from your digital photos isn't always easy. You need to find a way of getting the photos to your friends and family, without having to post them on a CD or print the photos and send them in the old fashioned way. There must be a better option.
Some of the features within Mac OS X are both innovative and rather exciting. Some are based on previous technology and Yahoo Widgets were one of the first suppliers (Konfabulator) to produce a widget-based system for both the Mac and Windows platform. Widgets enabled software developers to produce code that enabled the end-user to search for information, use an application through the system-friendly widget and much more. Most widgets were cross-platform, so could be developed for both the Mac and Windows.
Only a few years ago, most companies stocked their cupboards full of miscellaneous stationary, including post-it notes that were often used, discarded and taken up by office staff who would pilfer the cupboard for personal use. The problem with paper-based sticky notes is that they can easily lose their stickiness and drop off your computer. At the end of the day, when the office is cleaned, these notes end up on the floor and are thrown away by the cleaning staff.
From time to time, it's actually easier to re-install Windows than attempt to fix the Registry, delete all the temp file contents that accrue on your system, defragment your hard drive and fix issues involving spyware that might have got on to your computer. However, re-installing Windows XP from your original install CD is a painful process. It may not have SP1, never mind SP2. It definitely won't have the latest drivers or security updates and it won't have been pre-configured with your personal information.
When you first register for broadband, you're given at least one POP3 email address and a limited amount of web storage which you can use for your own homepage. Designing a homepage isn't particularly difficult, but not everyone knows how to get the files on to their site. Indeed, you can also uploaded files, such as a ZIP archive to your homepage, then provide the link to friends and family. This is a good way of making files available to other people, at all times.
Most drives are shipped pre-formatted in one large block. If you add this drive to your computer, you'll often find you can use the drive without formatting. However, how do you reconfigure the drive so that you have partitions for your work, music and important documents? There are plenty of Windows-based partitioning tools, but as you're trying to partition your drive at the same time as using the files stored on the drive, it can go wrong. Partition-based disasters lead to unrecoverable data.
There are times when your favourite website has been updated, but you simply don't have the time to read the info and you want to get out of the office and back home with your laptop, where you don't have Internet access. One option would be to download the website to your computer, so you can read it offline, later. If you're a web developer, you might want to evaluate how a particular website has been developed and put together. Either way, you'll want to do this in your own time, offline.
One of the most frustrating aspects of Windows, is the installation. Not only does it take absolutely ages, but it includes OEM and basic drivers, none of the security updates you've installed over the last few months and, if you're one of the early adopters of Windows, your original install CD won't include Service Packs and other features. If you're a Vista user and you're one of the first to receive Vista, you'll find yourself in this situation within a year.
There are various ways of starting an application through Windows. Most people use the Start Menu or drop a shortcut on the desktop. However, your desktop can become cluttered and icons are easily deleted, often by mistake. If you're a fan of Mac OS X, you might have seen the animated dock, that enables you to launch applications from a self-contained dock of icons.
With the three big security releases this morning, you'll have just about all the security software you'll need to safeguard your computer. PC Tools 
You'd be surprised how long it takes to configure your web browser around your requirements. This has to be a key reason why people don't move to another browser, although there are plenty of tools that enable you to migrate your bookmarks and even your entire profile. If you're often on the road or need to access other computers, you'll have to put up with a generic web browser. Another alternative is to install your favourite web browser to a USB stick and then take this stick on the road with you.
Security is paramount, but what do you need to offer complete protection for your PC? Most of us don't have time to worry about trying to obtain separate anti-virus, anti-spyware, hacker prevention tools, so that we're safe whilst we browse the web. It's easier just to find and install and an all-in-one security suite. Remember that some anti-virus and anti-spyware tools can conflict with each other, so two rival products may do more harm than good.
There are various quick and easy ways of speeding up your old PC, without spending a huge amount of money. From a hardware perspective, an upgraded faster hard drive will mean your system boots quicker, applications launch more rapidly and general system use seems more effective. However, there are even cheaper options and they include using software to either defragment your hard drive, remove unnecessary items from system start up and registry cleansing tools to remove old entries from your Registry.
There's nothing more effective than showing another user how to perform a particular task, face-to-face. Anyone who works in technical support will know that talking a user through a problem can take longer, become frustrating for both parties and not achieve the required end result. If the tech support guy was in front of your computer, they'd be able to find the fault and show you a workaround, within minutes.
There are a few tools we'd regard as essential items that you'll want installed on your computer after you've re-installed Windows. One of these tools is an archive manager that will enable you to create and extract archives, quickly. Ideally your archive manager will be able to handle two of the most important file formats, ZIP and RAR based archives.
Skype's been around for a long while now and is arguably the premier VOIP application for chatting to friends and family, across the Internet. It's established technology and are few additional consumer-based features that could be included to enhance the software. With 
If you're an advice-based business, perhaps offering consultancy, a therapy service or similar, there are thousands of Internet users who may require your services. 
With Google offering over 2GB worth of email space, free of charge, to every user, it was only going to be time before someone developed an application to use this space for storing files, rather than just email. 2GB for email is rather overkill. Google are due to launch their own backup and file management tool in the future, but so far that hasn't surfaced.
System hardware generally lasts longer than the intended life-span of a PC. However, problems can occur, particularly with your hard drive, which is in use every day, writing files to and from the drive. We're all pretty bad at making regular backups of our important data and could easily find that one day our system may not start at all. If this is the case, the first thing we'll want to do is analyse our system and determine the problem. If the problem can't be resolved, we'll want to salvage data from our system.
When CDs were first developed, they claimed they'd last for years. We'd be able to throw away cassettes and keep our CDs for decades, without losing data or wearing thin. Lately this has been proved wrong as old CDs have faded in sunlight, become scratched so they constantly jump or simply become damaged through other means. CD-R's are even worse as they have no coating, so can get damaged more easily.
Life can be very task-orientated, trying to balance your work commitments, various personal projects, your home life and your friends and family. If you start a home-based project, you need to track the amount of time you think it will take, the materials you'll need to complete the task and various notes you might need to write down whilst you take on the project. You never know, at a later date, you might need to refer back to the dates, schedule and your notes.
If you live in house where multiple users share one Internet connection, you'll probably want to spread your bandwidth evenly across each user. A shared student house is a classic example. One student may be responsible for the Internet connection, and the other users chipping in when required. With some of them not always paying their way, bandwidth might be limited for their connection.
There was a time, not long ago, where viewing images and photos quickly was the key priority. However, many basic image viewing tools decided to get in to photo management, which meant that if you double-clicked on a photo on your desktop, you'd have to wait for the manager tool to open, and often for it to load in previews of your stored photos, before you viewed your intended photo.
There's a lot of development work gone in to Windows Vista, but some people think that the key new features are all visually-enhanced improvements. Partly true, some of the new features include the new Aero interface and so on. If that's all you want from Windows XP, short-term you might find that you're better off installing a customisation tool that will enable you to change the look and feel of your current user-interface.
It's not up to us to suggest
you should skimp on your computer security, but there are a wide range of free security packages on the market. You can find free anti-virus, anti-spyware and personal firewalls, most from leading security developers. You can quite easily build your own security suite, from collecting these free modules. However, should you really skimp on your security by refusing to pay for your updates? Surely with commercial software they're always on the case, seeking out updates against the latest threats?
Only a few years ago, if we wanted to find out information about the world, we had to look in a geography book to see how our planet was defined. Satellites were around in the 90s, taking pictures of our globe, but the end-user rarely got to see the results. These days things are very much different. Satellite images are made available on the web and various programs have been released to provide these images to your computer.
Trying to tell anther user how to use a particular bit of software isn't always easy. Hands on demonstration is always the preferred method. Load the software and show someone face-to-face how to perform a particular task. However, if the other person is over the phone or you need to show a group of people, perhaps through a presentation, you'll need to perform and record your actions to video.
Most large corporations tend to keep a similar configuration between the computers connected to their local network. They have the same software installed on the computer, the same security settings and the user has limited control over what they can do, install or the settings they can alter on this machine. However, some computers have to be individualised, depending on their use. This is where holes can appear in your network.
Some of us hate to think that we're not in control of our own destination, which will include not being in control of managing our music collection. DRM has both its advantages and disadvantages, in that you can only move tracks to a limited number of other computers (owned by yourself) and devices. Therefore you'll want maximum control over the audio tracks from the CDs you've purchased. You'll want to grab them in a format you control and with or without compression.
Only a few years back, you had to invest in expensive commercial software to produce a basic PDF document. A few freeware titles were developed, but these were all based around the opensource Ghostscript tool and weren't always good enough for producing commercial PDFs for printing-purposes. These days you need to be able to produce a PDF if you want your a printer to run off your poster or glossy newsletter. Of course, PDFs are a universal document, so you can produce a PDF so that just about any web user can download, read and print your literature, from your website.
If you have caller-ID on your phone line, you can see the number of the person who is making the call (well, unless they withold the number). If you have an advanced phone - and few offer this facility - you can assign a name to the number, so you can quickly note who is trying to call you. You get this from your mobile, but most landlines do not offer this facility. Why not use your computer to offer additional information about the incoming call?