Make Typing URL’s Easier and Be More Productive

So this might be old but I don’t care, I had never heard of it. This hack works in Firefox, IE and Opera and more than likely others as well.

1. Take the name of a website and type it into the address bar
2. Hold control and hit Enter
3. The missing parts of the address are filled in for you

If you happen to need a .org or a .net:

.org = Control + Shift + Enter

.net = Shift + Enter

This does depend on your browser, some experimentation  might be required.

That is if you type a lot of addresses, I am as lazy as crap. I actually type stuff into Google and click the result… how lazy is that! Should start doing this though.

Source: Daily Cup of Tech

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Free Photoshop Plugins

I personally don’t use Photoshop, but it seems to be the most popular. I have been thinking that I would like to try it at some stage. Yup, I’ll just slot that in… Anyway for those of you that do have Photoshop and use it a lot and are always looking for plugins and custom effects, borders, filters and manipulations then you will be interested in what is on offer.

The Plugin Site offers plugins for Photoshop under three main categories. There are ones for both Mac and Windows. All of the offerings are rated as to their usefullness and free. There are 111 in total. The descriptions are good and make it easy to see if it is what you are after. The good descriptions make using the “find on this page” feature of your browser a useful tool if you are in a hurry.

The homepage also has other offerings of tools and some links to tutorials. Simple site but looks very useful. Who said you have to pay for everything, free is good. I can not speak as to the quality of these plugins, but if you happen to use them drop a comment on the post.

I’ll have to get a copy of Photoshop someday and see what I might be missing out on. But I must admit that these days the main things that I use my photo editing software for is optimising images for the web. Such as converting them to .png and resizing/scaling etc. Maybe there is a market for a photo and image editing client that is specifically made to accommodate such a user? I know I would appreciate a small footprint program that did the things that I have just mentioned, it would be very useful. Perhaps one that uploaded it to your hosting server as well, now that would be cool! Does anyone know of such an application?

Closing Tabs in Firefox

I don’t understand this, even the Scobleizer is saying it. Firefox 2 RC2 was released yesterday and I see Scoble is saying that it is much faster and:

“(it has the improved tabs that IE 7 has, where the close box is on the tab itself, much nicer).”

I agree the tab thing has been a long requested feature, but I still don’t know why. Comparing Firefox to IE, Ugh!

I have had the ability to close each tab that I open from the tab itself for as long as I can remember in the current version! As you do! I can not remember where I read it but I think it was something entitled “Power User Tips for Firefox” or something like that. I would not have a clue of the URL so please don’t ask. But I remember having the same issue with closing tabs being new to Firefox at the time. In this document I read that for those with a three button mouse – hover the tab and click the wheel, tab now closed. For those that did not know the wheel is a button as well; it is.

At least one commenter has said it related to Scoble’s post, smart cookie “Woody” says:

““Middle-click” has always closed tabs. There is no need for the close icon. Middle click on a link opens the url in a new tabs. I imagine must people don’t realize the power of the “middle click”. And if you using an old Mac mouse you never will.”

I have done this for ages and it still surprises me that people are still unaware of this feature, especially self confessed geeks! I just hope that the feature remains in Firefox 2, otherwise I will have to get used to left clicking the now included close icon!

Another Potentially Stupid Statement

I could not pass this up, the guys that are at the wheel of MySpace are really quite full of their success and are trying very, very hard to look stupid. Although this statement from the CEO of MySpace might not be on the scale of his colleague, he runs the risk of being wrong – in a big way.

This from Mashable:

“News Corp. CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch says that he expects MySpace Video to overtake YouTube in 60 to 70 days. The statements, made at the Communacopia XV conference in New York…”

Now that is a big call. Sure not entirely beyond possibility but a big call all the same. If he is wrong it just makes him look stupid. He should have read CEO Tip Number 1 before sprouting that statement.

The statement was made with reference to a YouTube like service being introduced to MySpace. As I have said before I think that users have made their choice and it will take something really special and big to make a difference. Good luck Mr Murdoch… I hope you don’t end up with egg on your face. Which given my opinion is highly likely.

Mashable has the take on the whole statistics being very confusing and contradictory, so only time will tell in the long run.