Addons

Add and remove Internet Explorer 8 add-ons

Like most Web browsers, Internet Explorer 8 has add-ons. But sometimes you may want to get rid of them, even if just temporarily. IE 8 has made it easier to disable and enable your add-ons. Here's how to do it.

Let's say you have the Google Toolbar running in IE 8. You should see an X to the left of the toolbar. It's the familiar X that usually means you can close something. In this case, you'd be right to guess that. Click that X and you'll disable the toolbar.

Now that can be dangerous … Read more

Needs a better algorithm

At the end of the day, Gwabbit's Outlook add-on application is a good idea that doesn't work as well as it should. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. When in top form, Gwabbit added contacts' names, titles, phone numbers, and Web sites to the Outlook address book using information gleaned from an incoming e-mail. When it failed, Gwabbit didn't recognize anything apart from the contact's name and e-mail address, which Outlook can also do. It then prompted us to fill in the rest by scrolling through the e-mail in a separate window … Read more

Gwabbit Outlook add-on is pwetty wame

Gwabbit (covered here and here) is one of those programs I sincerely want to like. The Microsoft Outlook add-on that can populate an Outlook contact field in a click has a catchy name invoking all manner of iconic "wabbit" images, and a concept applicable to the breadth of office employees. However, it also has a finicky algorithm, at least in my case. It required too much manual labor to finish populating an incomplete contact record, and a $20 price tag for a version 1.0 application that may only work half the time.

In Gwabbit's defense, when … Read more

Enhance online shopping

As brick-and-mortar stores close, the convenience and competitive pricing available through online shopping are becoming ever more important. This free Firefox add-on provides a simple tool to enhance your online shopping experience.

The buySafe Shopping Advisor installs two small buttons and a search field to your Firefox toolbars. Its searches connect to the buySafe Web site, which searches bonded merchants to provide reliable and safe shopping. This shopping search engine responded well during our tests, returning results quickly. Although it performed well on searches for apparel and shoes, pet items, woodworking tools, and electronics, we didn't have much luck … Read more

Gmail Labs: The great and the small

If you're a Gmail addict, as I am, you probably know that Gmail Labs is home to a bunch of good and bad add-ons that either extend the mail client's capabilities, change how it works, or make it a bit more entertaining to use. In the long (and growing) list of Labs apps, there something for almost everyone.

Which to use? Some of the apps are great. But, be warned: several are not.

The Great

Canned Responses Canned responses is Gmail's best function for someone who receives a lot of e-mail. I use Canned Responses often because it allows me to create a series of automatic replies and after clicking the "canned responses" link in a compose form, I can send responses to readers telling them I've read their message and will reply shortly, or to PR folks to ask them not to contact me in the future.

In essence, Canned Responses cuts down on the time you need to waste writing out the same reply for a bunch of e-mail queries, and makes it easier to sift through the important stuff. It's fantastic.

"Old Snakey" "Old Snakey" is Google's version of the age-old classic that, once enabled, will allow you to get away from your work for a while by pressing Shift + 7 while in Gmail.

Once you enable "Old Snakey," the game will be brought to the forefront, over your in-box, and allow you to move a "snake" that you control with your arrow keys over a block without hitting the walls and obstructions. It starts out simple with a short snake and slow speed, but it rapidly increases speed and the size of your snake as you pick up more blocks. That's when the game gets really fun.… Read more

The Real Deal 150: Road Test

We talk about the Kindle 2.0, Windows Home Server with a Mac, JungleDisk as a backup solution, an Addonics dongle for NAS, and the SBS 400 Flash.

Listen now: Download today's podcast… Read more

Safari 4 a big step up, but not as far as rivals

With Safari 3, I admired Apple's chutzpah for bringing its browser to Windows. With the new Safari 4 beta, I'm actually starting to admire the browser, too.

A big user interface overhaul makes Safari look polished rather than clunky on Windows, builds in better search abilities, and makes good use of the fact that people often visit the same sites over and over.

However, the lack of something like the extensions architecture that Firefox pioneered still means Safari 4 (download for Windows and Mac OS X) is better only than Safari 3, not the competition. … Read more

Simple search in Firefox

One cool thing in Firefox is the capability to highlight a word, right-click, and search your default search engine. But that just gives me a general search. I swear I've seen the woman who plays Charlotte on "Lost" in some movie. I'd rather be able to right-click and immediately search IMDB. Here's a Quick Tip for adding multiple search engines to the context menu in Firefox. Watch the video to see how it works.

Go to addons.mozilla.org and search for SimpleSearch. While it's still in the experimental stage, you'll have to … Read more

Videosurf's browser add-on gets better

If you had previously been using Videosurf's Greasemonkey script to preview videos from search engine results, the company has released a new Firefox add-on that does a bit more--and without the need for Greasemonkey.

Once installed in your browser, the add-on still lets you see previews of videos from search results on Google and Yahoo. However it now throws in video previews on FriendFeed pages, and adds a neat timeline view in YouTube that lets you skip to later parts of a video just like DVD chapter markers.

I had the Greasemonkey script installed on my machine last November, … Read more