Recent freeware releases

It has been some time since I last posted on this blog. In that time there have been a number of major new software releases. These include version 4 of the Firefox web browser, version 11.04 of the Ubuntu family of Linux operating systems, and version 4.8 of the XFCE desktop environment for Linux.

Firefox v4
The latest version of this web browser sports a new look, more similar to that of Google Chrome. According to Mozilla the latest Firefox is much faster than previous version, making better use of the graphical processing unit to lessen the load on the computer's CPU. I have been running the Linux version (which doesn't have the fancy new look) for a couple of weeks and it does indeed seem to be quicker.


Ubuntu v11.04
Codenamed Natty Narwhal, version 11.04 of this Linux operating system makes use of a new default shell interface called Unity rather than the GNOME shell. This move has annoyed some users and according to some reviews the release has a number of bugs. This may induce some Ubuntu users to switch to derivative distributions: the Kubuntu with the KDE interface, Lubuntu with the lightweight LXDE interface, or Xubuntu that uses XFCE desktop environment, all of which are also now version 11.04.

XFCE v4.8
Speaking of XFCE, it has received it's first major upgrade in over two years. This is my desktop environment of choice and I looked forward to experiencing the new features including a fancy new panel. While v4.8 still has a few minor bugs, it is still usable.

If you would like to share any other recent free software releases with other readers then feel free to leave a comment with a link.

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How to fix Firefox backspace function

I recently installed Ubuntu 10.04, and found that pressing backspace no longer takes me to the previous page in Firefox. Thankfully, there is a way to fix this.

Type about:config in the address bar and press the Enter key. A warning page will open. Click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.

In the filter type browser.backspace_action and then right-click on the entry and click "Modify". Enter 0 (zero) in the box and click OK.

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How to open a non-linked web address in Firefox

While most web addresses on sites are clickable links, you will have noticed that some are just text that you have to copy and paste into the address bar of your browser. Alternatively, Firefox offers you the facility drag and drop these into a new tab. Simply highlight the address, click on it and while holding down the mouse button drag it up onto the tab bar. Firefox will then automatically open the page in a new tab. I have included a video of this function to show you what I mean.

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Can't save an image on a web page?

A number of websites are set up in such a way that you cannot save imagesthat they include. Some of these include scripts to disable right-clicking, meaning that you can't bring up the pop-up menu that includes 'Save Image As...'. There are a variety of ways of getting round this, such as disabling JavaScript on your web browser. Other sites are set up in such a way that images are layered, making it difficult to select the right image to save. One solution that works in both cases is to save the entire web page and then delete all the files that you don't need. Firefox offers a simpler alternative: the 'Page Info' window.

When you right-click on a website you will see an entry on the pop-up menu that reads 'View Page Info', which you can click on to open the 'Page Info' window. This window has a number of tabs, including one called 'Media' shown below. If you go to that tab, you will see a list of all the images on the page and a 'Save as...' button that you can use to save any image from the page.

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Open new tabs on the right in Firefox 3.6

Mozilla have changed the way that new tabs operate in Firefox 3.6. When opening a new tab from a link on a web-page, the new version of Firefox will place it to the right of the current tab, rather than at the far right of the list as it did in previous versions.

To revert to the old functionality type about:config in the address bar and then click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button if it appears.

In the filter type tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent and then right-click on the entry and click "Toggle".

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Linux Applications: Part 3 - Web Browsers

There are many different web browsers available for Linux. These include Firefox and Opera, but not Safari nor Internet Explorer; however, a Linux version of Chromium (the open-source browser on which Google Chrome is based) is in the pipeline. A number of less well-known browsers are also available for Linux. In this post I will list a few of these.

Epiphany
This is the web browser for the Gnome desktop environment. It uses the WebKit layout engine, as used in Safari.






Flock
This browser specialises in social networking facilities and is based on Mozilla Firefox.



Konqueror
This browser also doubles up as the file manager of the K Desktop Environment (KDE). It uses the KHTML layout engine from which WebKit was developed.




Midori
This lightweight web browser also uses the WebKit engine. It is now part of the XFCE desktop environment project.




Swiftfox
Like Flock, this is based on Firefox and is my browser of choice. It is a lightweight browser optimised for various processors that supports Firefox extensions and plug-ins.

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Print the web and save the world (again)

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are notoriously bad at printing. You can end up with many disparate pages with sidebars and parts of images on, you have no idea how many pages are going to come out, and you use more paper than you need; which, can't be good for the environment - let alone your finances.

This is not the fault of the browser programmers, but rather, it is 'the nature of the beast'. One of the advantages of web pages is that they are not subject to the limitations of the printed page. Many web programmers are kind enough to supply a printable version of their pages. If there is no link to a 'printer friendly version,' then the best thing to do is to copy what you want and paste it into a word processor, which will then bypass all the problems mentioned above.

You can select the information you want by clicking and dragging with the mouse, although, this can be an irritating process, as your selection often randomly includes images that you don't want. When pasting into your word processor, you can make your life easier by using 'Paste special', which you should find in the 'Edit' menu. This will give you a selection of text formats.

If you just want the plain text from the web page and not the images, then select 'Unformatted text.'

If you wish to print both images and the formatted text, that is, keeping the same font used on the web page as well as any text formatting such as bold or italic, then select 'Rich text format'. Unfortunately this option is not available for text copied from the Firefox or Opera browsers, the latter of which does not support 'HTML format' either.

Avoid 'HTML format' as this will attempt to reconstruct the web page as a word processed document, often recreating the problems that you were initally trying to avoid. This option often takes a while to complete too.

You are then free to edit the text to your heart's content. You can change font sizes and remove 'white space' to save paper. You also have the option of adding your own notes to the text. So, reduce your printer output and save the world today.

This article is an edited and updated version of one originally published on Bloody Computer! on 1st October 2007.

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Where has all my hard-drive space gone? - Reloaded

Just as you can never have enough cupboard space in your home, you can never have enough hard-drive space. Nevertheless, occasionally we all have to sort through our storage and throw out a few things to make some more room. This is often easier said than done when it comes to your PC as it is not always clear what is taking up all the space.

The free version of TreeSize provides a graphical representation of how much hard-drive space your folders are using. Simply right-click on a particularly bloated folder and click on 'Explore' from the menu. This will open up that folder so you can set about deleting any files that are surplus to requirement. Remember to empty the recycle bin when you are finished. I would suggests that you leave the 'Program Files' and 'Windows' folders alone unless you know what you are doing.

If you use Internet Explorer you may want to delete its cache of temporary files. From the 'Tools' menu select 'Internet Options.' If you use IE version 6 or earlier, click on the 'Delete Files' button. For later versions click the button marked 'Delete...' in the 'Browsing History' section. Click the 'Delete Files' button on the box that opens. You will then be asked whether you are sure, click 'Yes.' Deletion of all the temporary internet files may take a while.
In Firefox, go to the 'Tools' menu and select 'Options..' Click on the 'Advanced' icon. Click on the 'Network' tab. There you will find a button labelled 'Clear now', pressing this will empty the cache.
Also, the save files of many computer games can be quite large. You may want to delete a few of these and the best way to do so is within the game. Usually this facility is located on the 'load game' screen. See these related posts for more ways to recover drive space:-
Spring Cleaning: How to clear out temporary files
Time for a purge: reclaiming hard-drive space

This post comprises amended information from two earlier posts Where has all my hard-drive space gone? and Keyboard shortcut of the week: refreshing changes both posted on 30th August 2007

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Chrome

Regular readers will know that I have recently started falling out of love with Mozilla Firefox (but not enough to switch back to Internet Explorer). The latest version does not seem to have addressed any of my gripes, and actually appears to have made many of matters worse. Not only is Firefox's memory handling still very poor but it can hog the CPU and frequently locks up for seconds at a time. I have also had problems with staying logged in to Netvibes and other password protected sites.

Consequently, I was excited by the news that Google had released their own browser, called Chrome. It is still in beta testing at the moment and is somewhat lacking in features but it appears to be quicker and more efficient than Firefox and IE, although this may be because of the aforementioned lack of features. Chrome does include an 'incognito' function that allows you to browse pages without your actions being recorded by the browser.


Time will tell if it will be a serious challenge to Firefox and IE. There are a number of reviews of Chrome on various blogs, and I have no wish to add another one. Instead, I have found a list of the keyboard shortcuts work on Chrome.

As you will see, these shortcuts match those that already work on Firefox and IE, but I did notice that this page does not mention the following:-

Increase text size: Ctrl & roll mouse wheel up
Decrease text size: Ctrl & roll mouse wheel down
Open link in new tab and maintain focus on current tab: Click with middle mouse button

If you have reviewed Chrome on your blog, feel free to leave a comment with a link to the appropriate post(s).

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: a few for Firefox

Here are a few keyboard shortcuts for Firefox to mark the release of version 3 of that browser (which I express my initial opinions about at the bottom of this post). These should all work in Windows and Linux, for Apple Macs simply substitute the Ctrl key with the Cmd key.

Full screen mode
To hide the menus, toolbars and status bar press the F11 key, press it again to go back to windowed mode.

Text Size
To increase the size of text on a page, either hold down the Ctrl and press the + key or, if you have a wheel mouse, hold down Ctrl and roll the wheel upwards. Unsurprisingly, to decrease the size of text on a page, either hold down the Ctrl and press the - key or, if you have a wheel mouse, hold down Ctrl and roll the wheel downwards. To restore the text size to normal hold down Ctrl and press 0 (zero).

Select the search box
To move the cursor to the search box, either the built in one or the first one on a toolbar, hold down Ctrl and press K (I am not sure of the significance of K here - so probably not that easy to remember)

I have already published posts that detailed other keyboard shortcuts for Firefox:

Quickly open link in a new tab - without losing focus on current tab
Opening the Find box - near the bottom of this general post
A previous selection of shortcuts - for navigating between tabs, opening new tabs, closing tabs, opening bookmarks and selecting the address bar.
How to refresh the page

My initial feelings about version 3

I have been using Firefox v3 for a few days now and don't have much to report. It has crashed twice in that time, but the 'Restore last session' feature means that this is not such a disaster. It does not seem particularly quicker and I have yet to find any new features that have excited me. On the downside it still seems to 'Not respond' a little too often and memory management is still far from perfect.

For Entrecard users there is a problem with the way that it handles cookies. If you switch between Entrecard accounts you will keep being told to login again. I have posted a workaround solution on the Entrecard forums here - rest assured the boffins at ecard are working on it.

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Firefox 3 Download Day two hours away

We are about two hours away from the start of Firefox Download Day, which is either an attempt to bring people of all (or at least most) nations together in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in a day, or a shameless promotion of the latest version of Mozilla's web browser. Either way I will be trying to download Firefox 3 over the next twenty-four hours, assuming that their servers don't fail and that the Internet can endure the strain.

So far 1,700,069 people have pledged to download. You can click here to join them, although the web site is already showing signs of pressure.

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Quickly Open Link in New Tab

This tip should be of interest to all the Entrecard chain-droppers out there (you know who you are). It works in Internet Explorer (version 7 and later), Firefox, and Safari.

If you hold down the Ctrl key when you click on a link on a website the browser will open the linked page on a new tab, saving you having to right-click on the link and selecting 'Open Link in New Tab' (or 'Open in New Tab' on IE).

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Password problem in Firefox

My recent post on new releases of web browsers provoked a number of comments from people who have been having problems with Firefox remembering to stay logged on to various websites and forgetting passwords. I looked into the issue, mainly because I was having problems with this myself, and have come up with a fix that seems to have sorted the problem for now. It is a little extreme because it involved deleting all password information from Firefox.

The first thing to do is to export all the passwords that you have set up on Firefox, unless you are one of the few people who is confident that they can remember every single username and password they use on websites that require them to log-on.

To export these details this you need to install an add-on, called (unsurprisingly) Password Exporter. After Firefox has restarted, you can run the exporter by pulling down the 'Tools' menu and selecting 'Add-ons'.


Click on the 'Options' button in the Password Exporter entry to open up the add-on. Click on the 'Export Passwords' button. The first time you run it you will be given a warning message.


I chose to export the password information into a CSV (Comma Separated Variable) file because this is easy to open using Excel. To do this pull down the 'Save as type:' list and select CSV. Save the exported file somewhere that you can find it - it may also be worth backing up this file somewhere else too.

Once you have all your password details saved you can clear the password information out of Firefox. To do this pull down the 'Tools' menu and select 'Options...' to open the settings dialog box.


Open the 'Privacy' page and make sure that the 'Ask me before clearing private data' setting is ticked. Click the 'Clear Now' button and untick all the options except 'Saved Passwords', which needs to be ticked. Click the 'Clear private data now' button and then click the 'OK' button to close the 'Options' dialog.


Now you will have to enter your usernames and passwords again for every website that requires them.

This process has dealt with a few of the issues I was experiencing with Firefox. I make no promise that this is a complete solution.

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A Safari through Windows and a new Firefox

Safari
Apple's web browser is now available for Windows XP and Vista. Safari had previously only been available on Macintosh operating systems. The browser is certainly quick and uses about as much memory as Mozilla Firefox; however, Safari takes up more hard drive space than Firefox: around 60Mb. Nevertheless, Safari is yet another alternative to Internet Explorer.

You can download Safari for Windows for free from here.


Firefox
There is also a new version of Firefox in the offing. At present it is still in Beta, which means that it is being tested by users and should not be considered to be finished software. According to Mozilla, Firefox 3 uses less memory than the old version - a particular complaint of mine.

You can download the Firefox 3 Beta 5 for free from here. (But be aware this is far from bug free software).

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: search and find

If you wish to bring up Windows' file search minimise all your windows and press F3. You can also search within a certain folder too: open that folder up in Windows Explorer (the name for the program that opens when you double click on 'My Documents', 'My Computer', etc) and - you guessed it - press F3.

Pressing F3 opens search dialogs in many other programs as well: in Internet Explorer it opens (and closes) the vertical search bar; in MS Outlook it opens up the 'Advanced Find' dialog. Try pressing F3 when using applications that have some sort of search facility.

In a similar vein, you can open up the find facility in many applications by holding down the Control ('Ctrl') key and pressing F. To explain the difference between search and find, consider that you will search for a web page and when you have opened it you can find text within it. In MS Word Ctrl + F opens the 'Find and Replace' dialog. As with F3, try it out in any program that has a find facility.

Of course some programmers use slightly different standards. For example in Firefox both F3 and Ctrl + F open the find word dialog at the bottom of the screen.

Happy hunting.

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Print the web and save the world

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are notoriously bad at printing. You can end up with many disparate pages with sidebars and parts of images on, you have no idea how many pages are going to come out, and you use more paper than you need; which, can't be good for the environment - let alone your finances.

This is not the fault of the browser programmers, but rather, it is 'the nature of the beast.' One of the advantages of web pages is that they are not subject to the limitations of the printed page. Many web programmers are kind enough to supply a printable version of their pages. [I must find a way of adding them to this blog... maybe using the RSS feed...] Anyway, if there is no link to a 'printer friendly version,' then the best thing to do is to copy what you want and paste it into a word processor, which will then bypass all the problems mentioned above.

You can select the information you want by clicking and dragging with the mouse, although, this can be an irritating process, as your selection often randomly includes images that you don't want. When pasting into your word processor, you can make your life easier by using 'Paste special;' which, you should find in the 'Edit' menu. This will give you a selection of text formats.

If you just want the plain text from the web page and not the images, then select 'Unformatted text.'

If you wish to print both images and the formatted text, that is, keeping the same font used on the web page as well as any text that is bold or italic, then select 'Rich text format' (unfortunately this option is not available for text copied from Firefox.)

Avoid 'HTML format' as this will attempt to reconstruct the web page as a word processed document, often recreating the problems that you were trying to avoid. This option often takes a while to complete too.

You are then free to edit the text to your heart's content. You can change font sizes and remove 'white space' to save paper. You also have the option of adding your own notes to the text. So, reduce your printer output and save the world today.

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Firefox

This week's keyboard shortcuts are all for Firefox - some of them may work in Internet Explorer. Recently, Microsoft have started copying features previously implemented by Mozilla in Firefox, possibly including the keyboard shortcuts. Please let me know which ones work in IE.

To cycle through your tabs rightwards: hold down Ctrl and press the Tab key.

To cycle through tabs leftwards: hold down Ctrl and Shift and press the Tab key.

To open a new tab: hold down Ctrl and press T.

To close the current tab: hold down Ctrl and press W.

To jump to the address bar - where you type in a web address: Press F6 (thanks to glytch for this one).

To open and close the Bookmarks tab: hold down Ctrl and press B (Note: if you are in a rich-text editor on a webpage this will select bold text instead.)

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: refreshing changes

Need to refresh or reload the web page you are looking at? Press the F5 key.

If the web page still doesn't appear or does not look right you could try Ctrl + F5 (hold down the Ctrl key and press F5). This keyboard shortcut bypasses any copy of the web page that may be stored on your PC. Web browsers will keep a copy of web pages you visit in something called a cache, which they will access first when you return to that page.

See the last post on Bloody Computer! for information about clearing this cache in Internet Explorer. If you use Firefox you can empty the cache by following these instructions:

• In Firefox, go to the 'Tools' menu and select 'Options..'
• Click on the 'Advanced' icon
• Click on the 'Network' tab
• There you will find a button labeled 'Clear now', pressing this will empty the cache.
  

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