MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [July 9th]” plus 4 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [July 9th]
- 3 Tips To Make A Firefox Active Tab Stand Out From The Others
- 4 Hilarious Blogs You Can Also Learn Something From
- Quickly & Easily Manipulate HTML5′s Canvas Element With jCanvas
- Bing Introduces Typeless Searching – Does It Work? [News]
| Cool Websites and Tools [July 9th] Posted: 09 Jul 2011 08:31 PM PDT
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Hey Facebookers, make sure to join MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already! Cool Websites and Tools [July 9th] is a post from: MakeUseOf More articles about: cool web appsSimilar articles:
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| 3 Tips To Make A Firefox Active Tab Stand Out From The Others Posted: 09 Jul 2011 06:31 PM PDT
But our tab advice is not solely focused on Firefox. Why not try the 10 best extensions for Google Chrome tab management? Or learn how to how to manage tabs in Opera like a pro. Today we’re not really going to be talking about managing your tabs. It’s about making your browser more usable by making the active tab in Firefox stand out. 1. Make the Active Tab Bigger
One way to make your active tab stand out is to make it wider, compared to inactive tabs in the background. To get started, install the Stylish FireFox addon and then use this user style to increase the size of a currently active tab. You can select the size for an active tab while installing (the default tab size in FireFox is 100, so I have found that the biggest size -150 – works best with me). Tip! You can also customize the minimum width of your Firefox tabs with this FireFox addon):
Note that the user style will enlarge your current tab even if they are minimized by addons like “Faviconize tabs”. 2. Highlight The Font On The Active Tab
Another fun tweak that doesn’t really interfere with your user experience is using your FireFox profile userChrome.css to somehow change the look of your active tab (in terms of color and font). Here’s a great guide on locating your Firefox profile folder under various OS types.
After you’ve found your profile folder, open the folder /chrome, open your userChrome.css (or userChrome-example.css) and edit it to contain the following:
This code should color the font in the active tab in blue (unless there’s any addon installed that will interfere). Now, save the file and re-start the browser. You can also make the active tab font bold:
Playing with this code, you can color the whole active tab in a different color of course, but that was just too bright for me. I wanted something less intrusive. 3. Darken Inactive Tabs
Here’s another user style to somehow fade the inactive tabs. Just have it installed (again, you’ll need Style addon installed for that) and you’ll see your inactive tabs much darker. Bonus! Easily Close All Inactive TabsClose other tabs does not change your browser tab look in any way but it makes it much easier to control all *other* tabs around it with your keyboard. With it installed, you can close inactive tabs using the following four keyboard shortcuts:
(use Command instead of CTRL if you are using MAC OS). The addon supports grouped tabs (Firefox Panorama) and app tabs. Do you have any other tips to make the active tab in Firefox stand out? Are you aware of similar tricks for other browsers? Please share them in the comments! Hey Facebookers, make sure to join MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already! 3 Tips To Make A Firefox Active Tab Stand Out From The Others is a post from: MakeUseOf More articles about: firefox, firefox addons, firefox tips, tabsSimilar articles:
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| 4 Hilarious Blogs You Can Also Learn Something From Posted: 09 Jul 2011 12:31 PM PDT
Let’s take a look at four such blogs. I’ll tell you what lessons I think they hold, then let’s start a discussion. Tell me what you think the blogs mean, or recommend similar sites. Literally UnbelievableYou think your beliefs are true. As such, you’re willing to believe outrageous things if they back up your viewpoint. Case in point: “Literally Unbelievable“. This is a blog that, using real Facebook reactions to Onion articles, points out just how insane we perceive those who think differently than us. The Onion, in case you didn’t know, is a satirical newspaper; everything printed in it is a fabrication. The intention of many Onion articles is to point out that we all hold exaggerated versions of reality. Some people don’t get that part of the joke.
Hilarious. Of course Nascar doesn’t reward homophobic comments. Yet, in a way, it’s understandable that people think things like this are true if they have a low opinion of Nascar. Check out Literally Unbelievable right now. You’ll laugh. If you like you can also read more about the backfire effect over at the “You Are Not So Smart” blog. It explores Literally Unbelievable and other examples for The Backfire Effect. Not Always RightWe’ve all done it – treated someone in the service industry like crap. Maybe we were having a bad day, or perhaps we just wanted to deal with our problems quickly. If you have done this before, you might unwittingly be featured on Not Always Right. This site is a collection of hilarious stories shared by people in the service industry.
I always find a laugh, and the posts are rarely mean spirited. The lesson here is that people in the service industry are human beings. They laugh, they cry, and they post stupid stuff you say on the Internet. Treat them as such! Also be sure to check this article for some similar sites. The “Blog” Of “Unnecessary” Quotation MarksPunctuation is important, as placing them in the wrong place can change the meaning of what you’re writing. Putting words in quotation marks, for example, can make certain words sound sarcastic. Think air quotes.
That doesn’t leave you with a lot of confidence in the beer, does it? Read The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks and learn to keep your punctuation in order, lest you be misunderstood. You Suck At CraigslistWhen classified ads were expensive, people were careful to get their money’s worth. Craigslist is free, and some people are less than careful on it.
The lesson here is obvious – think through what you put on Craigslist before you put it there. Just because those ads are free doesn’t mean you don’t have to think through your posts before you submit them. Check out some of these posts over at You Suck At Craigslist. Can you think of any other funny blogs with implicit lessons? Suggest some in the comments below! Hey Facebookers, make sure to join MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already! 4 Hilarious Blogs You Can Also Learn Something From is a post from: MakeUseOf More articles about: comedy, fun, humor, offbeatSimilar articles:
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| Quickly & Easily Manipulate HTML5′s Canvas Element With jCanvas Posted: 09 Jul 2011 10:31 AM PDT
However, creating such interactive content is never as easy as pie, and that rule doesn’t exclude HTML5‘s main element that does all the work: canvas. If you’ve been following what the latest browsers have to offer, some of them may include a GPU-accelerated experience that makes the canvas element run a lot better. There are frameworks available that try to make the canvas element a little bit easier to develop for, notably jQuery. But even then, jQuery makes you type quite a bit. Web developers, here’s something better for you. About jCanvas
jCanvas is a little jQuery plugin written entirely in JavaScript that makes working with jQuery, and thereby HTML5′s canvas element, a lot easier. Web developers will get a lot of benefit out of using jCanvas. By using jCanvas, you get to work with much simpler code, in which the plugin will do the work and translate it into the relevant code for jQuery to run. Examples of Use
jCanvas can draw a large number of objects. For example, here we can see an ellipse that is filled in with a gradient. There are plenty of parameters that you can set and still keep the amount of actual code as small as possible. In this example, the gradient parameters were set first (distances, colors, etc.), followed by the drawing of the ellipse itself. For programmers, this should be a very eye-appealing way to write code with no over-the-top syntax.
In this example, a regular jpg image is being halfway inverted. The first function (or set of instructions) sets how the inversion takes place, while the second function draws the image and loads the inversion function onto it. When the code runs, you get a halfway-inverted image.
In our final example, different shapes are drawn by means of different functions provided by jCanvas. The green, unfilled rectangle was drawn by a simple function dedicated to rectangles. As always, you can customize your rectangle, even with parameters for the stroke width and corner radius (the amount that the corners should be rounded). The pentagon is drawn by a more generic function that applies to all regular polygons. You can also apply all the same parameters as with the other functions. The difference is important because you can draw a square with both the rectangle and polygon functions, but you can only draw rectangles with the rectangle function. (Squares are rectangles, but rectangles aren’t always squares!) Other Information & SupportThere’s a lot more you can do with each function, plus there are many more functions that you can use! You can download jCanvas by going here. If you need any help, the full, well-written Documentation page should clarify most if not all questions. If that still doesn’t work, you can contact the developer of jCanvas by checking out his information here. If you wish to try out jCanvas before playing around with it on your own site, the developer has set up a very cool-looking Sandbox page where you can enter code and watch the magic happen. Finally, if you would like to help contribute to the open source jCanvas project, you are more than welcome to do just that by going here. jCanvas is always being improved by the developer, and new releases are made available every few weeks. ConclusionjCanvas is a great web tool to use to make your programming experience much simpler, especially if you are a heavy user of the canvas element. Again, some of the highlight features are:
Internet users will thank you as well for using jCanvas, because you’ll have more time to completely develop your web app and make sure that it has all the functionality you want it to have while enjoying great performance. Are you a web developer who is involved in HTML5? Do you think jCanvas will help you with your development? What features would you like to see in jCanvas? (please check the documentation first for what’s already implemented!). Image Credit: Just Insomnia Hey Facebookers, make sure to join MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already! Quickly & Easily Manipulate HTML5′s Canvas Element With jCanvas is a post from: MakeUseOf More articles about: html, html 5, javascript, web design, web development, webmaster toolsSimilar articles:
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| Bing Introduces Typeless Searching – Does It Work? [News] Posted: 09 Jul 2011 09:31 AM PDT
In this new version, Bing introduces typeless searching, with the goal of reducing the amount of tapping, and copying and pasting that users of the iPad have to do to perform searches in a web browser like Mobile Safari. Does Bing accomplish its goal? Typeless SearchesThe most significant new feature of the 1.1 update of Bing is the ability for users to do typeless searches. When you come across a term, name, or phrase in Bing's web browser, you tap the search tool in the menu bar, and instead of copying and pasting the word, you draw a circle over the search term and release. From there, Bing will do the search for you.
In my test of about five different searches, I found that you don't have to circle in the entire word in order to initiate the process. However, if say your search involves two or more words, drawing the circle is not that easy. And when you're in search mode there's no canceling the process and starting over. Bing will search whatever word gets captured in your circle.
So basically the new feature is not all that nifty. In many cases I found that simply pressing my finger on a term and selecting it, and then dragging the blue handles to select one or more words near it, is much easier than the circle method. Bing also has voice search which is also probably faster than the new method. But try it for yourself and tell us what you think. Source: Gizmodo Hey Facebookers, make sure to join MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already! Bing Introduces Typeless Searching – Does It Work? [News] is a post from: MakeUseOf More articles about: Bing, news, search, search engineSimilar articles:
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Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool website round-ups delivered to your daily email, subscribe 
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