Firefox Skins, they fascinate me.

This is the beauty of an Open Source software like Firefox browser, that there are thousands of independent developers like you and me, who develop their own source codes, which can be seamlessly integrated with the main program. And this feature gives the flexibility to the main software to suit every requirement and taste.

With the release of Firefox 3 RC1, more and more developers are concentrating on creating firefox addons specially mozilla Firefox 3 skins.

Here I am listing three of the recently created (updated) fire fox 3 skins (also known as firefox 3 themes), which I fell in love. Hope you may also be linking them.

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 Phoenity Modern

Updated May 22, 2008 | 4,010 weekly downloads | 908,907 total downloads

It is based on the extremely popular SeaMonkey Modern Firefox theme. There are a lot of other versions available on the Modern Theme. I specially liked the soft touch and smoother buttons on this firefox skin. However this skin is only for Firefox 3 RC1 and NOT compatible with Firefox 2.0.0.x and Nightly Builds.

 Metal Lion – Andromeda

Updated May 21, 2008 | 8,809 weekly downloads | 33,560 total downloads

Clean, professional firefox 3 theme that uses ‘native’ backgrounds, which are typically based on the OS theme in use. In the latest update for Firefox 3 RC1, new images for bookmarks, sidebar/findbar close buttons and Bookmark Organizer navigation have been added.

 Nautipolis for Firefox

Updated May 25, 2008 | 2,833 weekly downloads | 655,623 total downloads

Based on icons from art.gnome.org, this forefix 3 theme includes support for personas, stumbleupon, chatzilla, download manager, TabMixPlus, fission/fusion, forecastfox, googlebar, googlepreview and many other features. I like its elegance and refineness.

Use them, you might fall in love with these latest Mozilla firefox 3 skins.

Selecting Multiple files from taskbar is often a necessary requirement.

If you are like me, you must be having many windows open in your task bar at a time. And many times, you must be requiring them to open side-by-side in order to work on both of them simultaneously.

One way is to resize them, and place them side-by-side manually.

But, there is a simple solution.

Hold down the CTRL key, and now you can select multiple windows from your task bar. Right click on any of them, and you will have many options for the placement of these windows. You can Cascade, Stack or place them side-by-side.

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Try it, it is super quick way, and saves your precious one minute.

As a webmaster, I often need to change the layout and designs of my blog so as to keep it interesting and easily accessible to my visitors. But howsoever care you take, there are always chances, that what your visitors see is not exactly what you are aiming at.

The reason being different people use different browsers, and although following one common language, are sometimes not able to exactly decipher the language, and hence organize the data in a different manner. Thus it is always possible that what you are seeing is not exactly same as what I am seeing, although we both may be on the same web page.

So, as a webmaster, it is extremely important for me, to test my website in all most of the browsers available.  So here comes the nest question.

How to test your web design in different browsers

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One way is to load different browsers. Well it is technically possible, but it is not practical. I have four Browsers, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera, but there are virtually hundreds more. What to do then.

Welcome to Browsershot.org.

It is a useful web tool, where you just have to enter the URL of a website, and it will give screenshot of that URL in as many as 60 (YES 60) popular browsers.

Yes, it is a powerful web tool.

Windows Vista was touted to be the biggest disappointment of 2007. And now, Microsoft also indirectly admits it. That is the reason why it is seriously considering extending the life of Windows XP, which was scheduled to die on 30th June of this year.

Well, we are talking about the Save XP Petition Campaign, which is being run by InfoWorld to request Microsoft to extend the deadline of 30th June. IT is the day, after which Microsoft will not be shipping Windows XP anymore. This is not being liked by many of the XP fans, who just refuse to embrace Vista no matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade them.

They always keep on complaining that Vista has

• Hefty hardware requirements
• Less-than-peppy performance
• Occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices, and
• Frequent, irritating security pop-up windows, to name a few.

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The count is already claimed to have crossed more than 2,00,000.

And what is the reaction of Microsoft. They are not sleeping. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday that the company may reconsider its decision to stop selling Windows XP on June 30. At an event in Belgium, Ballmer told reporters, “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter,” according to an Associated Press report.

Don’t go by the headline of this post. This is my personal thinking.

Microsoft Windows Advisor BETA is the recent system maintenance tool (Do we really need that ?) from Microsoft at MS Connect. It continuously runs in the background on your PC and claimed to be checking for potential errors and problems. Whenever it encounters such a problem, it notifies you about it and gives you some simple to do solutions for your problem.

At least, what it is meant for. Right now the service is in BETA, and you need an invitation to use that service.
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“Windows Advisor is an easy-to-use self-help tool that notifies users about problems on their PCs and helps fix them. Windows Advisor scans users’ PCs continuously, notifies them about important issues, and, when possible, suggests easy fix solutions. The program also provides users with self-help solutions, such as including a one-click checkup function that enables them to check their PCs whenever they like; tips and tutorials that teach users how to perform certain actions on their PCs; and a toolbox that concentrates the important tools that are found in the operating system into one easy-to-find location.”

Download Windows Advisor Beta for Windows XP and Vista [13MB] from here [Microsoft site]

Frankly speaking, I have not yet tested the program, so I am not in a position to speak on its pros and cons. But two quick thoughts come to my mind. One is the huge vulnerability you are exposing your system to. Although it is Microsoft, but will you take such a risk even with Microsoft. I am a bit hesitant. And secondly, the error messaging and reporting ofall Microsoft products is so pathetic, that I thought it would be better to let it go.

What do you think ?

Online File Sharing of large files is a thriving business these days. This segment is getting hotter and hotter these days with more and more companies getting their feet wet.

One such file sharing service, which I have been using, is Pando.

Pando is free P2P software that makes downloading, streaming and sharing of large media files fast. It allows you to share files upto size of 1GB FREE (pro version allows 2GB). You can also publish these files, photos, videos or audios to any web site.  No registration is required and you can use your existing email. And the best part is that you don’t have to be online when recipients download.

There are lots of reviews of Pando on the  web. One thing, which bother me about Pando is the Ads, coming with their FREE version. No, I accept their need to generate revenue, but the kind of ads – I mean those smileys, making different noises when you keep mouse over them, is just irritating.

Besides Pando, there are lots other services, which you can use for large file sharing. They have their own pros and cons. Some of them are mentioned below.
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• Box.net: Provides direct links to files. So you are not required to go to a landing page to get their download. Although they allow you to share files upto 1GB, but their FREE account allows only 10MB.
• Drop.io: [See my review on Techie-Buzz.com] Offers built in previews. A simple and impressive interface. Doesn’t require any registration. Newly added features include free sending and receiving of faxes and voice recording. The free account has a 100MB storage limit.
• Foldershare: [See my review here] Although it is primarily a File-synch utility from Microsoft, but it can easily be used as a file sharing service. Simple and easy to use.
• File Dropper: Only two steps to using File Dropper, upload your file and share the URL. But not as feature rich as Drop.io. You cannot edit your files and you cannot allow others to add files or notes to your URL. But they allow you 5GB, capacity.
• FileMail: Allows upto 2GB. No need for any registration.Facility of multiple file uploads. You can send URL from the same interface to the recipients email.
• Windows Live SkyDrive: A service from Microsoft, huge 5GB of free storage space. It works on a folder-based system, and you can categorize the files in different folders like personal, shared, and public folders. But you need to have a WIndows Live ID in order to use SkyDrive.

RSS is one of the most important tool in a Blogger’s arsenal. Whether it is being used to distribute your content to those not directly visiting your site, or reading others’ content without actually visiting them, RSS is a tool, which is truly indispensable in today’s online world.

There are lots of RSS Readers, but Google Reader is the preferred RSS Reader for most, including me.

And there is now yet another reason, behind it.

Welcome to AideRSS.

Despite tremendous usability of Google Reader, one thing, which I have always lamented about it is its inability to differentiate between good and bad, bad and worst..

There are hundreds and thousands of feeds available, and when you come across a new feed, you are always puzzled, whether to subscribe to it or not. Believe me, at one point of time, I was subscribed to about 200 of tech blogs, and it was quite a task to actually prune that list to fifty odd or so.

But now AideRSS provides a simple solution, at least for the first level screening.

AideRSS is a Firefox addon, [Get the invitation here http://gr.aiderss.com/?techcrunch ]which rates the feeds on a scale of 1 to 10, based upon several factors. They call it PostRank. It is actually based upon several factors like Diggs, comments, stumbles, reactions and a few more. So, now you have an option. If you find a feed with low PostRank, you can presume it to be not that good as a post with high PostRank. I know that the system is not foolproof, and the quality of a post is sometimes a personal observation, but still it is a decent tool to quickly screen the better ones from the average ones.

Besides, that, AideRSS also allows you to categorize different posts within a feed in different categories of Good, great and Best. Choose your option, and the posts matching your selection will only be visible to you. Rest will be hidden.

So, in nutshell,

• Read What Matters: Identify best content with the help of PostRank™ in GoogleReader.
• Filter Any RSS Feed: Adjust and filter any RSS feed – reclaim your time.
• Hide Filtered Content: Find the needle in the haystack and boost your productivity.
• Join the Conversation: View social statistics and join the best conversations with ease.

It is a real cool web tool. Use it to believe it.