Tip #31: Custom searches from the Google Chrome address bar

If you are using Google Chrome, then by now you should have probably noticed that you can immediately begin a Google search by typing directly into the address bar (aka "Omnibox"), instead of going to www.google.com and searching from there. But did you also know that you can perform custom searches, i.e. search using other search engines or websites, from the address bar too?

For instance, I can search for an article on Wikipedia, just by typing "wiki", followed by the search terms into my address bar and pressing Enter, like this.

Tip #30: Use Wikipedia to find rare characters instead of using the Character Map

The Character Map hasn't changed much since
it was introduced.

From time to time we occassionally need to type a seldom-used character which is not on our keyboard, be it Greek letters such as alpha α, beta β, omega Ω for maths, or some weird symbols or letters for wonderful screen names like ––––•(-• ¥øµr ¯|¯îÞ Jã® •-)•–––– to put on MSN. The usual drill would be: go to the Character Map in Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools, look for the character you want and then copy and paste it whereever you need it.

But browsing through the grid of characters is quite a pain for the eye, and sometimes you might end up not finding what you need. There is a simpler way than torturing your eyes with the Character Map, and this is when Wikipedia comes to the rescue! Wikipedia has articles for so many things, they have individual articles for symbols like the therefore sign ∴ and even every single letter in the Roman alphabet.

Introducing: Blogger's new Template Designer

Notice something different around here?



You probably wouldn't believe me, but to switch to this new template involved only point-and-click - no need to search for a template file on another template website, download, copy and paste into the Edit HTML page in Blogger. Nor did I need to manually type HTML or CSS code (okay, I did type a bit to modify some things). Strange that you can't recall seeing this template I currently have (or even this one) in Blogger's set of default templates, no?

Tip #23: More ways to create Wordles

If you can't get enough of those arty word clouds Wordle has been creating for you, here are some ways to make creating Wordles easier.

First of all, you might have noticed that Wordle treats each word in a phrase as seperate words, so long as they have a space in between. Suppose you wanted to create a Wordle of things to do when you grow up:

get a job, buy a car, marry someone, become your own boss, live on a golf course, retire early

To us, the commas make sense in that they divide the words into items or phrases. But when we try to create a Wordle by pasting the above text... we get this on the right.

Tip #22: Create fancy word clouds for anything

Tags on Your Tip Jar so far, created using Wordle.

Word clouds (like the one shown here on the right) are fun, simple and artistic ways to convey a message. Creating a word cloud manually though, isn't really fun, and does require a certain degree of artisticness as well as computer drawing skills to achieve. Luckily, I've stumbled upon this online tool, Wordle, which lets you easily create nice-looking word clouds (called Wordles) like the one I created here, without needing much effort nor artistic capabilities.

The great thing about Wordle is that word clouds created using it are free for any use, as long as you attribute it to www.wordle.net (meaning, if you use a Wordle on your blog, you should have a link back to the website like in the caption on the right).

Tip #21: Get Dropbox

1. You have more than one computer (e.g. desktop and laptop), and you often find it troublesome to move files between the two.
2. You are working on a team project, and you want to share files with group members and keep the files always up to date.
3. You want to share some files for downloading from your blog, using a public link like this, but your file is too big for certain online file hosts. (e.g. Rapidshare has a limit of 200MB per file)
4. You just want to store your files online so you can access them away from home.

If any of your needs look like the ones listed above, you need Dropbox. Dropbox is an online file storage service which gives you 2GB (up to 5GB via referrals) for free. You can use this 2GB to store any of your files, synchronise them among your computers (and iPhone), and share them with others who may or may not be using Dropbox.

Tip #17: Become a tabmaster

Remember the old times when you had to do this?

Now that you can handle forms easily, today I'll show you how to master tabbed browsing. Back in the days of Internet Explorer 6, we would have to open one window for every single webpage, unless if you were using Firefox, Opera or Safari then. With the introduction of IE7 a few years back, tabbed browsing became mainstream. Yet, there are still some people around me who don't know how to use tabbed browsing!

Just in case anyone here is still not aware of what tabs do, tabs let you open multiple pages in a single browser window, so that you don't clutter your taskbar (the long bar with the Start button below) with lots of instances of your web browser. Having multiple instances of your browser open slows down your computer during heavy browsing. Of course, this doesn't quite apply in Mac OS X, since there is only one icon of the running program shown, but still you would have to right-click on the dock icon to pick which Safari window to show, like how Windows XP grouped similar taskbar items together.

Tip #16: Master the art of filling up forms

What if you could jump from field to field?

We spend most of our time on the Internet, and often we need to fill up forms online, especially when logging in to websites. Some websites' registration forms have tens, if not more fields for you to fill up. As mentioned in this previous tip, shifting one hand back and forth between the mouse and keyboard slows you down. To be able to fill forms more quickly, we will need to eliminate this inter-keyboard-and-mouse switching.

This tip should apply to any browser on any operating system. If something doesn't work for you, please let me know so I can help you find a solution for it.

For you to follow along, I have created a dummy form right here for you to try out the keyboard shortcuts as you read!

Tip #12: How fast is your Internet, really?

Have you ever heard broadband reseller agents (the people who stand at booths promoting Streamyx / P1 / Celcom Broadband etc) say that you can subscribe for "one megabyte per second" download speed? And when you bring the modem home and managed to get on the Internet to download something, you notice the fastest you can download is at around 100-120 KB (kilobytes) per second. Why, why, why?

If you look at the piece of brochure or promo material (the one on the right is taken from P1's website), you should see that the speed is quoted as 1 Mbps or 1 Mbit/s (note that the 'b' is not capitalised). The reseller agent was wrong for sure, to have said "one megabyte per second" - it is actually one megabit per second.

Tip #10: Add multiple-persona-disorder to Firefox

Firefox version 3.6 was released almost 3 weeks ago, but I just discovered one of it's new (probably the best) features - Personas. They're like themes, but simpler, since they only change the background of the menu bars.

Notice that I now have Totoro in my Firefox!!

Tip #5: Download videos from webpages

If you wanted to save an image on a webpage to your computer, you can just right click on it and choose "Save Image". That's easy. How about videos, or perhaps songs? And by that I don't mean links which you can click on to download them, I mean those which are streaming in a Flash player (like on YouTube and other sites). For this, you will need a thingy, called a "download grabber".

Tip #4: Do more with Google

Yesterday, I mentioned that Google isn't your address bar. Today's tip is more or less a continuation of the previous one. Here are some things which only Google's search box can do, while your address bar can't, apart from searching the web.

1. Check the weather

Just type "weather" followed by the name of a city or town, and you will be shown a 4-day forecast as well as current conditions.

Tip #3: Google is NOT your browser's address bar

I don't like to say this, but whenever I see people who have Google set as their homepage, and they just type whatever address (URL) they want to go to into the search box, it just ticks me off.

Google is a search engine; it is not your browser's address bar. There is a reason why all browser developers put a long text box on the top of this window.

Let me demonstrate to you, why you should use the address bar in your browser, not Google's search box, to type in the URL of the website you want to go to.

Tip #1: Surfing the web IS downloading

Here at "How To Be Computer Un-illiterate", my mission is to point out to people who claim themselves to be computer illiterate, ways that they can un-illiterate themselves, by providing them with tips and hints on what to avoid, which makes them appear to be illiterate.

To kick start this blog today, I present to you Tip #1.

Most people regard downloading as "downloading a file" off the Internet, be it a song, video, photo or an application. The truth is, anytime you're using the Internet, something is being downloaded.