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45 Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for Firefox

People are just getting more and more enthusiastic to set Firefox 3 as their default web browser - including Mac users. And you should be one of them, which most of the time spend your time surfing around the web.

This surfing activities could be really frustrating if you heavily depend on your mouse. I highly recommend you to get your hand away from your mouse and start to practice mouse-less browsing with your keyboard, i.e. using keyboard shortcuts.

It won't spend you more than an hour to have a glance and practice some of these Firefox shortcuts that I've compiled. I also include keyboard shortcuts for Windows Firefox to emphasize on the idea that it's not that hard to adapt yourself to new Mac environment, especially for new Mac switchers.

You will also want to see my previous keyboard shortcuts compilation :

Continue reading and you will see a list of 45 Firefox shortcuts!

20 Killer Firefox Extensions

As Firefox community is getting more and more crowded by developers, it's even harder for us to filter out the best extensions to enhance our browsing experience.

Last time, I've written an article about 8 Essences Power Browsing with Safari which focused more on increasing the browsing productivity while using Safari web browser. This time, I will expose you to the world of Firefox, where the beauty of its extensions can save your soul from being eaten by boring working routines.

Let's see what are these killer Firefox extensions.

Mac Dictionary, Secret Words

No much things to show for now, just a bit of fun that you can get with your Mac Dictionary.

First of all, open up your Mac Dictionary, choose to display Thesaurus and type in one of these secret words:

Apple

"Varieties of apples: Ambrosia, Baldwin, Braebum, Cameo, etc."

I don't know there are so many varieties of apple. Surprisingly, there is also a variety of apple called McIntosh, which I think, from where the name Macintosh comes into use.

Democracy

"A democracy in Irag is quite unlikely for now or any time soon."

Metal

"Metals and Alloys: Aluminum, Antimony, Brass, Bronze, etc."

But now Google has use Chrome for its web-browser name. Maybe next time we can expect other company to have their browsed code-named Pewter?

Maybe you got other interesting Hidden Dictionary Words to show us? The comment box is always there for you :)

Categories: Applications, Misc
Tags: Dictionary, Fun, Word

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Comment and Win: TranslateIt! for Mac

When I'm exposed to the chance of learning new language, I feel extremely excited, really. And I feel even more excited when the developer of a program called TranslateIt! approached me, stating that he really loves to share us some free license keys for 4 months.

The Lucky Draw

As usual, the winner will be decided with lucky draw. This time it's quite different, the quality of your comments will determine how much chance you will have during the lucky draw.

Anyway, you can put your comment with any languages, I got TranslateIt! here, I can translate your comment to the language that I am familiar with… :)

The comment box will be closed on 20th October 2008, one week after the Contest to Win Duplicate Image Detector. The result will be announced soon after that.

25 Useful Shortcuts for Safari

In most applications, there will be a bunch of shortcuts to help you boost your productivity. Especially in Mac, you will see more shortcuts than when you used Windows, it's just because Mac users are meant to be more productive and used less hand-mouse movement.

Some of the shortcuts, however, are not usually used, some are even not widely known. Today, I'd like to compile some of the useful shortcuts for Safari that you will probably use in the future, including the less-known but highly useful ones.

iPhoto and Mosaic Screensaver

With Mac OS X Leopard and installed iPhoto with a bunch of imported images, you will be able to perform really cool screensaver called mosaic screensaver.

Photos to be transformed as mosaic will be chosen from either your whole library of iPhoto or from one of your selected iPhoto albums.

The Settings

Setting Up iPhoto Library

In case you haven't had your iPhoto Library set up, what you need to do is Open your iPhoto and Create Library…. Or if you have created your Library before, you can Choose Existing… library.

iMovie'08 - The Quick Shortcuts

Contribution of: Kelly Swee.

Ever felt that dragging the clips from the Event Library to the Project Library seems to be such a pain?

Add Selection to the Project

Select desired clip in the Events Library
Press E

The clip will be automatically copied down into Project Library from Event Library as it "flies" into it.

The orange line would appear at the bottom of the clip, showing that the clip is being used in the particular project.

Make a Clip as Favorite

Select desired clip
Press F

A green line would appear on top of the clip, showing that the clip has been marked as favorite. I would definitely recommend you to use this function as you could, at anytime, refer back to the best selected clips with minimal effort spent and it saves you from the trouble of renewing the clips again to find a particular clip that you want.

Exporting Keynote Presentation to QuickTime Compatible Movie File

Keynote - the most elegance, well-built application suitable for transforming ordinary slides into extraordinary presentation - maybe sounds unfamiliar to Windows users' ears. In most case, it's due to the fact that Keynote has its own extension; The slides and effects created in Keynote can be opened only with Keynote. However, Keynote is quite popular among Mac users; Perhaps, Steve Jobs also used Keynote for his presentations.

But, as I've experienced, presentations and/or movie effects made on Keynote can surely wow your friends who own only Windows. And for the sake of saving the trouble, I've found a way to export Keynote presentation into QuickTime Movie file (.MOV).

Let's assume that you've got your presentation slides and gorgeous effects ready and set. And now, you want to export your Keynote presentation into movie file, these following steps would be required.

Wallsaver, Simple Widget to Turn Your Screensaver into Moving Wallpaper

Screensavers are initially used for protecting our precious screens from burnt. Eventually, that function starts to fade away and now the one that got the most attention is the ability to make Screensaver as eye-candy.

If you haven't heard before, there is an application for Mac called Wallsaver which can transform your Screensaver into moving desktop wallpaper.

The fun thing is that, now you don't need to download the big application to turn your Screensaver into moving wallpapers, what you only need to do is Downloading 56K of Wallsaver widget here.

Whenever you want to start/stop your moving wallpaper, simply open your Dashboard with Wallsaver widget installed, click on the button once and you're set.

There are many interesting Screensavers that can be set as your moving desktop wallpaper, such as:

Addictive iTunes 8 Built-In Visualizer

I've been too careless to overlook this new addictive iTunes 8 visualizer. I don't know what it's called, but I know how addictive it is for me.

Here is the video of iTunes 8 visualizer that's depicted from Beowulf soundtrack: Hero Comes Home.

Lucky for Windows users, I think iTunes 8 can be installed on Windows. So what you're waiting for, quickly Download iTunes 8 and Install it.

What Can You Show Me Right Away?

Friend of mine, which is a window user, suddenly asks me to show him what are the things that are really stunning on my Mac. Since it comes in sudden, my brain was locked to ground.

After few ticks, my brain began to work properly and I came up with these stuffs:

Coverflow View

One of the mind-blowing feature inside Mac OS X that can really stun your friend to his feet. This view can be selected by going inside Finder and select coverflow view (keystrokes: Command-4).

Secret Images, Hidden Inside Keynote

Playing around with my Keynote, I realized that when choosing our theme for presentation, there are several images attached to the theme. Out of curiosity, I try to seek for those images.

As expected, I discovered those hidden images, unindexed by Spotlight (with dimension of the image remains uncalculated) right inside my Keynote package contents.

And surprisingly enough, there are more than 30 gorgeous images spotted inside; Some of those can even be used as Desktop wallpapers. Seriously, this is my best finding up to now.

Those hidden images are located inside: Macintosh HD ▸ Applications ▸ iWork'08 ▸ Keynote ▸ Contents ▸ Resources ▸ Themes ▸ Shared. You need to take note that in order to access the contents of Keynote, you need to Control-Click on the Keynote icon and choose Show Package Contents.

For you who don't have Keynote installed, here are several hidden images that can be used as your desktop wallpapers.

Basic of Quitting Application

Unlike Windows, we couldn't quit opened Mac application by simply clicking on the cross arrow located at the corner of the window pane. I believe this is meant to help Mac users boost their productivity by saving time used in launching applications ~~that is neglected by Windows~~.

As I've experienced using Windows before, I used to accidentally killing all opened windows while closing application, which I didn't want to, and that's really stressing me.

So, if you're already switching to Mac, be grateful and …

How to Create Steve Jobs' Keynote

Apple Special Event for September 2008 has ended. Steve Jobs has done his good job on presenting the new products. Nothing is really mind-blowing here. But from his keynote slides, I can see several interesting effects. For sure, we can employ those cool effects to work for our presentation slides.

There are several keynote effects that I like from his presentation and hopefully, I've successfully clone those down to my keynote. These animations are as follows:

Flying Numbers
Image Transitions
Shining Numbers
Rainbow-Colored Nano-chromatic
Display Full iPod Nano Collection

Let's rock!

10 Most Practical Apple Photoshop Tutorials

As a Mac user, I'm sure you also have a good sense of design. But, having good sense of design alone isn't enough, it'll be much better if you can actually learn and master the way to design cool things like what Apple did in Photoshop. So if you haven't had a Photoshop, buy one?

I believe I'm lucky enough to discover these wonderful Photoshop tutorials, including creating Coldplay inspired portrait, designing shiny photorealistic Apple remote, creating Apple mighty mouse, etc. You can see the full list after the jump.

22 Useful Lists of Mac Applications

Maybe you will think that Mac applications are more expensive compared to those on Windows. However, it won't be the case if you really know where to download those free applications for your Mac. They're all around the web, the free applications.

Below, you will see 22 sources that will help you find applications that are essential for you.

Most Popular Apple Download

[20 Apps]

You can always check inside Apple official website under Downloads section to see what most of the people download from there.

Using Safari Browser Bookmark

Safari is the default web browser for Mac. Because of not only its speed performance but also its constant stability, it has become favourite web browser for Mac users, standing as high as Firefox browser.

In Safari, as well as other web browsers, you can find built-in bookmark service to help you surf the web and take your surfing result as reference easily. Today, I'm going to share you some of the tricks in using Safari browser bookmark.

Let's get started by familiarizing with two kinds of Safari browser bookmark.

Safari Bookmarks Bar and Bookmarks Menu

Bookmarks Bar is located just above your browser tabs. Bookmarks that are placed in this bookmarks bar are meant to be accessed quickly as future reference. I usually put my recent bookmarks on the bookmarks bar first before moving them to my bookmarks menu.

Tip: There is an easy-to-remember shortcut to access to bookmarks stored in bookmarks bar: Command-1, Command-2, Command-3, etc. These shortcuts are automatically assigned according to the order of your bookmarks from left hand side of the browser (exclude bookmarks folder).

Quicksilver - Quick Upload Photos to Flickr Uploadr

Although there is no any new released updates from Quicksilver development teams to solve its slowness while launching, I still stick to it until now.

The main reason is that I have used Quicksilver all the time and found it boosted my productivity. One example is when uploading photos to Flickr.

Flickr Uploader

We all know that Flickr has released its Flickr Uploadr for you to easily upload your photos separately from your web browser. It's such a good application but the only minus point is the upload window can't be closed. It can only be quitted.

So everytime you want to upload new batch of photos, you need to launch Flickr Uploadr first, before starting to drag and drop your photo files.

Preview Tutorial - Mark Up Tools

With Preview, you can open your PDF files and do some modifications to the files. Modifications can be done only when file isn't locked.

There are several useful tools in Preview that you can use. One of those is the Mark Up Tools.

Introducing Mark Up Tools

As the name suggest, this tool is useful for you to emphasize some parts of your PDF files. There are three mark up tools available: Highlight Control Command H, Strike Through Control Command S and Underline Control Command U. Don't worry about the shortcuts since they're easy to remember: take out the first letter and add Control Command in front.

If you still forgot what are they, you can always refer back to Preview menu Tools ▸ Mark Up. The tools can be seen there.

Firefox 3 How to: Store Bookmarklet in Bookmarks Bar

Last time, I've compiled an article about Bookmarklets for Mac Safari. Actually, those bookmarklets also can be used on your Firefox 3. Because those bookmarklets are running with javascript. As long as you have your javascript turned on, you can use them.

"A bookmarklet is an applet, a small computer application, stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page." ~ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's a bit tricky to store your bookmarklets on Firefox 3 Bookmarks Bar. Simple favicon drag and drop, unfortunately, cannot work in Firefox 3. You still can do simple favicon drag and drop to bookmark a certain page of your visited site. But I don't know why, it just can't work on storing bookmarklets.

Therefore, you need another way to store the bookmarklets on bookmarks bar. I have two alternative ways here and I will explain you the details on how to make it. This is the case if you're willing to read through the article though. You can also watch the short video tutorial at the end of this article.

Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users