Readers offer their best tips for downloading files temporarily, performing tasks from Windows’ Save and open dialogs, and getting a bit more vertical space out of Firefox.
About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons — maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in — the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites for your buffet-style consumption. Email it to tips at lifehacker.com.au.
Prefix Temporary Download Filenames with “Delete”
FrozenRosen makes it easier to clean your download folder with a simple filename tip:
I often download files just for the purpose of printing or quickly reviewing, and often don’t need to keep the file on my system. However I am not great about trashing these downloaded files right away, and often spend time cleaning these files up days (or weeks) later. Of course, by that time I can’t remember what the file is, so I have to open it and confirm that I don’t need it, and thus the cleanup process can often take some time.
Recently I started prefixing the name of these unwanted files with ‘DELETE’ when I download the file. Now when I perform my Spring Cleaning I can delete the files without having to spend time figuring out whether to file or discard.
Perform File Management Tasks from Open and Save Dialogs
Dustin shares some lesser-known functionality of Windows’ Open and Save dialogs:
Did you know you can perform just about any file-related task from a Windows Open or Save dialog? Copy/Paste/Rename are all available as well as anything in the right-click context menu. One timesaver here is when you’ve just downloaded a file and want to open it, you don’t need to open Windows Explorer and navigate to your download folder—just open the Save dialog back up (it should be at the same folder you just used) and open the file right from there.
There’s always someone here who will say, “Duh!” to tips like these, but I won a bet against a network administrator who didn’t know this was possible.
Save Space in Firefox by Converting Buttons to Text
Will_hopkins shares yet another vertical space-saver in Firefox:
There’s been a lot of talk about saving space (or not) in Firefox by using the top tabs, but I found a way to shave some pixels-convert your buttons to text. I have as few buttons as possible anyway, but using text will save vertical space and take advantage of a wide screen.
You can do this by heading to View > Toolbars > customise and picking “Text” under the “Show” drop-down menu, instead of “Icons”.
Double-Click Account Pictures to Refresh in Sparrow
Macmeister Cinnamonster lets us know of a hidden shortcut in the popular Sparrow email client:
If you use Sparrow, double-click your account icon on the left to refresh.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.