Leo Babauta from weblog Zen Habits keeps his home clean by following two simple rules: 1) Clean as you go, and 2) Clean in bursts. While the ideas are relatively common sense, they bare repeating:
Burst cleaning. In my house, we call this a 30-minute cleanup, and it’s something we do on a Saturday when we don’t have much time for cleaning (which is almost every Saturday). The concept is to do a quick clean, in addition to the little cleaning you’ve done throughout the week, leaving your house (fairly) spic and span.
All platforms running Firefox: The Resizeable Form Fields extension makes textarea, text input, iframe and dropdown list sizes adjustable. With the extension installed, hover over a corner or end of a form field and click and drag to resize it. Adam mentioned this extension in his Safari features in Firefox rundown, but it’s so good it deserves a post of its very own. Mac users, beware: Resizeable Form Fields doesn’t work as consistently for you as it does on Windows. Instead you could try this Greasemonkey script or bookmarklet. Resizeable Form Fields is a free download for Firefox only. Thanks, Ben!
Resizeable Form Fields [Firefox Add-ons]Windows only: Tweak system settings in both Windows XP and Vista with lightweight freeware application Xdn Tweaker. We’ve looked at several Windows tweakers lately, especially following the release of Vista, but Xdn Tweaker offers a nice change of pace, offering a strong set of simple yet useful tweaks that you don’t see in a lot of similar applications (like removing Windows Media integration with the right-click menu or the always-annoying “Shortcut to” text before all new shortcuts). Xdn Tweaker is freeware, Windows only.
Xdn Tweaker [via FreewareGenius]Windows only: Paste the contents of your clipboard to any text area with your middle mouse button with True X-Mouse Gizmo. True X-Mouse works very similarly to previously mentioned AutoCopy Firefox extension except it works globally—that is, it automatically copies any selected text in any program to your clipboard. You can then paste the text to any text area by clicking your middle mouse button. True X-Mouse also automatically focuses the window beneath your mouse so you don’t have to click it to activate it. In all, it’s actually got a lot of really great functionality, but there are a few problems. More »
You can roll your own ad-blocker with just a plain text file. Tech site MVPs.org introduces the idea of a host file. The file is plain text and contains a long list of web addresses that are blocked. Gina introduced this type of file a while back. However, rather than using it to block web sites that waste time, the file is filled with web hosts that are commonly used to feed ads. Whenever you visit a web site that throws an advertisement at you, it will appear as a “server not found” error. It’s definitely not the prettiest way to block ads, and you can use an extension like Ad Block Plus to accomplish the same thing. However, if you’d like a little more control, and a cross-browser method of blocking ads, try rolling your own ad-blocker.
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [MVPs.org via Little Ubuntu]These military-designed field tweezers—made with the precision to remove shrapnel and be carried on dog tags—collapse into a small, flat package you can take with you anywhere. The field tweezers could be the perfect companion for your key ring or—oh I don’t know—maybe your killer go bag, and according to the Cool Tools weblog, they’re excellent for your run-of-the-mill splinter.
Field Tweezers [Cool Tools]The Appletell weblog demonstrates several freeware apps and themes that give your Mac the look and feel of the yet-to-be-released Leopard. More »
You already know you can use Ctrl+Enter to avoid typing http://www or .com when entering URLs in the Firefox address bar. Along those same lines, you can even go to a web site’s subpages without typing the protocol or top level domain. Try it: type apple/trailers into the Firefox address bar and press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter for Mac users). Her Foxiness will fill in the http://www and .com in all the right places and zip you right along to Apple’s Trailers section of the site. Same works for lifehacker/software/downloads, too. Nifty!
A trick for jumping to sites’ sub-pages [Mac OS X Hints]Make the most of your Firefox sidebar by loading mobile or other small web apps directly into the sidebar. Weblog CyberNet has the details on how to load any bookmark into your Firefox sidebar:
1. Right-click on… the URL… and then bookmark it. 2. After you have saved the bookmark, go back to the Bookmarks Menu and right-click on the bookmark. Choose the Properties option. 3. Now check the box that says Load this bookmark in the sidebar. 4. The next time you open that bookmark it will popup in the sidebar!
Gmail’s collaborative video—which asked Gmail users to contribute videos of Gmail messages traveling the world—is out in the wild. More »
