Sometime back I wrote about a bunch of useful Chrome extensions. Quite frankly one could have a separate Blog for the Chrome extensions because of the rate at which are coming up, and believe me some of them are very useful. This post is dedicated to some of the newer ones.

• Webpage Screenshot. This extension lets users take screenshots of the web pages they are viewing. The screenshots are taken in Jpg format. It is fast and simple to use. Users can choose the exact size before saving/capturing the page. This can also be done in offline mode, thus ensuring a user’s privacy. Download and install at the Webpage Screenshot page. 
• One Number. Remove the clutter on your Chrome toolbar with this extension which lets you have access to Gmail, Google Voice, Google Wave and Google Reader in one go. It also shows previews of unread items. One can can check the status of the desired service selectively or open up all unread items in all the four services. Can be downloaded from the One Number page.

The world at large downloaded and used Windows 7 RC innumerable times. some of us are still doing it. Well nothing comes for free and so the joyride is bound to end soon. From March 1, 2010 people using Win 7 RC will experience shutdowns after every 2 hours and sorry the documents they will be working on won’t be saved. As if this wasn’t enough the Win 7 RC will expire on June 1, 2010 completely.

If this wasn’t enough the wallpaper will also change to the default Black with a message urging users to Upgrade or face the wrath of Microsoft. This will be followed by frequent notifications telling users that their Windows 7 version is not genuine. This will off course mean no more Windows 7 updates.

Users therefore should either buy a Windows 7 or switch to their previous version of Windows. More information is available at the Microsoft Knowledge Base and the Windows 7 Blog.

A cluttered Desktop is what we usually have, in Windows I mean. Organizing it is difficult if not impossible. I can tell by experience that most of place files, folders and frequently used app shortcuts on the Desktop. It is easier this way to access them instead of looking deep in to the hard drive or even the Programs Menu. A utility called “Fences” makes it easy to organize those innumerous icons on your desktop. The idea is simple, put fences around folders, icons or whatever and organize the dreaded Desktop.

This makes it easy to access them since they are organized better, besides it gives a good look to the whole setup. The Fences can be customized and given names according to one’s choosing. The utility is free for personal use and works with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The Pro version costs $ 20.

Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions are supported on Windows 7 and Vista. The application has been developed by Stardock, a company that specializes in Windows experience software and games. The app can be downloaded from download.com. Check out the screenshot below.

A Desktop Organized with Fences

It’s a busy world we are living in. Technology was supposed to make it more easy for us, but now its getting more complicated, we spend more time with gadgets just to make our lives easier and end up wasting more time. But there’s nor escaping it now, either go to the stone ages or do the techie thing. All right enough of this rambling, lets get to the point. Today we talk about online reminders, how do they work, are they useful and finally which ones to use?

Ok first things first, What is an online reminder?. An online reminder is simply an utility that is available via the web for reminding oneself about any upcoming event like a birthday, meeting, anniversary or whatever.

How does it work? Quite simple, you register via web, you are sent an email for verification purposes and you verify it, finally you start getting reminders in your mail box. (Some services also offer reminders via SMS)

Are they useful?  Obviously, that’s why there are so many of them. In order to use them you have to check your mail on daily basis at least, because otherwise it won’t make much sense. Given that most of us have an E-mail address and we check our mails more than once a day so an online reminder is a very useful service and more importantly because it comes for free. Check out some of these, they will do you good.

Sometime back I wrote about 5 useful add-ons for Mozilla Firefox, the we also talked about creating a Persona for FF besides some easy and free tools for the world’s most loved browser. Firefox is gaining ground. I have now made a list of some useful add-ons for sharing with you guys, gals included The vary in category from getting updates on weather to finding a websites original location etc. Read on for some rich web surfing experience.

 1-Click YouTube Video Download. This add-on does exactly what its name says, it downloads the YouTube video that you are viewing with a single click in FLV, 3GP modes and saves it to the desired location on PC. The best part is its simplicity and ease of use. Upon installation a small button will appear on the left bottom window of the YouTube video screen, all one has to do is click it and Presto! Try it out, it is available here oh and watch the screenshot below.

Simply Click the Red Download button

The Mozilla Firefox RC2 is now available for download. As usual it is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 70 languages. The release notes can be accessed here and known issues are documented here. Some of the features of Firefox 3.6 RC2 are:

• Support for WOFF font format.
• Support for latest web technologies like DOM, CSS and HTML5.
• They say the browser performance has improved considerably at startup.
• Automatic alerts for out of date plug-ins.
• Off course Personas come supported and are just a click away.
• A lot of bug fixes and improvements in stability, security and performance.
• The usual add-ons are also supported.

By the way Mozilla Firefox just recently made available the release candidate of Firefox for Maemo. All those in possession of a Nokia N900 or N810 can also get it from the Mozilla website for Mobile devices.

If there is one E-mail service that competes with Google that is Yahoo and one search engine that dares to stare at Google well its Yahoo too. Yahoo has recently added a few applications that be used form within one’s mail box. Yahoo was previously offering a number of goodies in My Yahoo like a Calendar, weather forecast etc etc. But this thing is way ahead. this is something new and worth a try.

.io is an application that has been developed by drop.io. This lets users attach files up to 100 MB in size. But before you click the Allow just read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy which says that your email or files might be stored by the drop.io team! Anyways privacy issues aside it’s a nice utility to have.

Automatic Organizer is an application that scans one’s email inbox and after that organizes, prioritizes and summarizes the emails stored. This helps users prioritize their emails from real people thus making users lives easier. In order to use this service you will have to Agree to the sign in permissions. After that the system will scan your inbox for real emails, coupons, receipts, shipping notices etc and will send you an email giving the details.

Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor is  an advanced panoramic image stitcher which is available for free. Creating high definition panoramic photos using this tool is amazingly simple and does not require user input or advance image editing skills to modify images in Adobe Photoshop, All user has to do is to takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location and pass it to ICE, the program analyzes the pictures and creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all the source images at full resolution.

There exist many options for making a Collage of your favorite pictures but I found Shape Collage to be very easy and useful. It is a small, free application for making a Collage. All one has to do is point and click and in a few seconds a Collage can be created.

To begin with one can either add pictures by selecting the desired ones, a whole folder of them or even from the Web. After the photos have been added they will be displayed in the photos area as shown in the screenshot below.

We all love Firefox for its flexibility of doing all sort of browsing tasks using useful firefox add-ons and plug-ins, beautiful interface using themes and persona . But if we have to reinstall our operating system ( windows/linux/mac ) or want to move to a new PC/mac or laptop, moving all our personalized settings, add-ons and themes can be a real hassle and can cost significant time. Thanks to multiple utilities and Firefox extensions this problem is solved and we can create complete and partial backups of Firefox profile, add-ons, extensions and themes and restore it anywhere we like.

Let’s look at few automated tools for performing backups.