Smartsearch in Firefox

I wonder how many know that such a facility existed in Firefox. I know its listed in the main page of the firefox website, but still...

If you want to look at the site here is the link...

Let me first tell what smart keywords do in firefox.
If the location bar, if you type

dict "word of your choice"

you will be taken to a page where the meaning will be displayed... My browser takes me to answers.com site.

Now in the latest version (I use deerpark beta2) you can create your own smart search keywords. All you have to do is right click on the text box and click on "Add a keyword for this search". Now you have to do two things.

1. Add a title.
2. Mention the keyword.

Keep the keyword as short as possible. (No point in having a big one)

Related posts:
Answers.com
Learn to develop firefox extensions

Related firefox posts:
Disabling scripts
Firefox menu icons
Google extensions
Shortcuts in firefox

Tags:
Firefox, Browser, Shortcut

Answers.com

Answers.com

I dunno why many dont like this site, but usually a search with my firefox shows the following things and seems quite helpfull to me...

1. Any alternative meanings for the same word.
2. Dictionary. (with audio)
3. Encyclopedia.
4. Dial codes. (if the word is the name of a location)
5. Wikipedia entry.
6. Translations.
7. Related good page(s). (I think this section is useless)
   
8. and ofcourse lots of ads. :D

(if you think there are more sections displayed please do post them as a comment and i will add)

Atleast its better than opening one window for every thing that you want to find or running a search on google.

There are a few people who think Google scholar is better than answer.com. I would like to inform them Google scholar only searches educational material and not general encyclopedia entries...

Tags:
Review, Website

DomainKeys

I was looking at the Bulk mail folder of my Yahoo mailbox and guess what I found. Some mails were authorised by Domainkeys, but were being moved to the Bulk Mail folder. Thank god these were spam mails, but I was surprised that mails from my online music store were also being categorised as spam. This mail was not authorised by DomainKeys.
I then started looking at mails in the inbox, and guess what, the mails from eBay, etc.. were not authorised by DomainKeys at all...

Why dont organisations adopt this technology to sign the newsletters that they are sending?? If mail providers are going to use DomainKeys to differentiate spam from allowed mails, then many people are going to miss out on the mails that they need to recieve...

To know more about "DomainKeys" please visit this page provided by Yahoo.com
The project development page on Sourceforge.net

Whatever new technology comes to combat spam, the spammers find a way to get around it... The number of spam mails authorised by domain keys were too many, but they were in the Bulk Mail folder. I think the "Domainkeys" technology has achieved what it was supposed to do, but how come spammer are able to authorise their mails??

Tags:
DomainKeys, Spam, eMail

Disabling Scripts, Flash, Java, JavaScript in Firefox...

I found these few extensions for firefox to be very Interesting. Not many would like to have this but those who understand the basics of web would find these extensions to be very helpful.

NoScript
This extension blocks - Flash, Java, etc and other plugins too... The extension can be configured to do this on a site by site basis or just enable all the settings so that only HTML content will be displayed.

QuickJava
This extension places two icons in tha status bar, which enable the user to quickly (as the name says) disable Java or JavaScript and enable them back if needed. This extensions saves us the trouble of going to the options. This extension does not block Flash content.

FlashBlock
This extension blocks Flash content and displays a "Play" symbol. If the use clicks on this place holder the flash file is then downloaded and displayed.

Firefox menu Icons...

I am sure, most of you using Firefox would have wondered why the Menus in Firefox dont have icons, like most of the other Windows programs do... I found this new extension called "Cute Menus" which solves the problem... I dunno how many of you already use it, but thought I might mention it here.

Here is the link to mozilla.org page...
The latest and best according to me: CuteMenus - Crystal SVG (the best according to me)

Other related extensions:
CuteMenus Crystal
CuteMenus

This extension adds icons to the Menus and popups (right-click or context menus)...

Tags:
Firefox, Extension

Google extensions for Firefox...

Google has released a new version of their Toolbar. This new version runs with Firefox Beta 2 (or Deerpark).

The "SpellCheck" feature is amazing. (I know it was there in the previous version also, but I never noticed). It doesnt work with GMail but works in all other places (i tested with Yahoo mail). If a word is not spelled correctly it highlights the word and disables the editing mode. If you click on the word, the possible alternatives are listed with "Ignore" and "Add to Dictionary". I suppose "Add to Dictionary" will add the word to the local dictionary...

This new toolbar has inbuilt support for Google Suggest. Google suggest extension is available seperately also. (click here)

After installing the toolbar, some new buttons can be added to the Firefox toolbar. Goto View -> Toolbar -> Customise. The button which I liked was "PageRank".

Google toolbar is also available for the Blue E. (Yuck)
Google toolbar for IE

Tags:
Google, Toolbar, Firefox