Archive for the 'Browser' Category

Google Chrome Plugin – Download You Tube Videos.

Published on November 11, 2008 in Browser, Chrome and Google. 0 Comments Tags: , .

This is actually a bookmarklet.

“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.” – Bookmarklet as definded by Wikipedia.org.

1. In order to use the bookmarklet you will want to make sure that your “bookmarks bar” is tured on. This can do this in the “Customize and Control Google Chrome Menu”. That’s the long name for the little wrench icon in the upper right hand corner of the Chrome browser. Once you click on the little wrench, theres an option to “always show bookmarks bar”. Turn it on.

2. Now right click somewhere on the bookmarks bar and select “Add Page” from the download menu that appears.

3. The “Edit Bookmark” window will appear. In the “Name” field, write a descriptive name for the bookmarklet. I named mine “You-NOW-BE-My-Tube”.

4. Here’s the magic part. In the “URL” field, paste the following code:

javascript:window.location.href = ‘http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=’ + swfArgs['video_id']+ “&l=” + swfArgs['l'] + “&sk=” + swfArgs['sk'] + ‘&fmt_map’ + swfArgs['fmt_map'] + ‘&t=’ + swfArgs['t'];

5. Click “OK”. There should now be a link in your “Bookmark Toolbar”.

6. Visit YouTube.com and find a target. My first download was the Obama Victory Speech.

7. Once the video starts playing, click the bookmarklet. At this point you should notice the download starting in Google Chrome’s download status bar at the bottom the the Chrome Browser window.

8. If you haven’t changed the Google Chrome download location, once the download is complete, you will find the video in your “MyDocuments\Downloads” folder.

9. The format of the file is “.flv” (Flash Video File), so you will need a viewer capable of playing .flv files to watch your new acquisition. One of my favorite FREE players out there is the “VLC Media Player“. It plays the .flv extension along with just about anything else. Another option is “PlayFLV” that enables Windows Media Player to playback FLV files.

Cool Google Chrome Tricks.

Published on September 11, 2008 in Browser. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I was hunting for a way to use my Google Bookmarks with Chrome when I ran into a couple of cool Google Chrome tricks and a couple of things I really don’t like about Chrome.

First off, I learned that Google didn’t build in support for very many of it’s own features.  I’m not sure if they just wanted to avoid the accusations that they just built a browser to promote their own products, or they just haven’t gotten around to it yet. In any case, I use quite a few of Google’s offerings, so I would like them more integrated into Chrome.

1. There is no way to sync the Google Chrome bookmarks with Google Bookmarks.  This kinda stinks because I don’t ever use browser bookmarks.  Bookmarks belong on the cloud, so I have all of mine stored with Google. So, Google, please eliminate the “in browser bookmarks” and let me have easy access to my bookmarks stored on the cloud.

You can still add bookmarks to Google Bookmarks withing Chrome.  You have to select “always show bookmarks tab” from the little wrench icon in the upper right corner of the browser, or you can just hit “ctrl-b”.  Then you have to drag the Google Chrome bookmarklet to the browser bar (You can find the bookmarklet here). Any time you visit a webpage that you want to save to your Google Bookmarks page, simply click the bookmarklet in the bookmarks bar.

2. I HATE the backspace button being used as a shortcut for the “Back” button to go the previous page in the browser history. I have navigated backwards in my browser SEVERAL times when I was just trying to delete the text in a form field. 

3. Have you ever closed a tab by accident? I’ve done it several times, usually while cleaning up the browser space and getting rid of the dozens of tabs I’ve opened throughout the day. Here’s the fix, just press Ctrl+Shift+T to open the last closed tab, or open a new tab and check the “Recently closed tabs” section on the right side of the page.

4. If you ever need more space in a text area, you can resize it by grabbing and dragging the lower right corner of the text box.  I find this really useful when you’re blogging.  The text box in blog tools never seems to be the right size, so you can easily grab it and make it bigger or smaller. I really enjoy this one, and am actually making use of it RIGHT now while authoring the post.

5. Interested in using Chrome, but you don’t want to be all “look at my Google browser.” Then check out Chromium, Google’s open-source version of the browser. Google is either very sincere in helping the open-source browser project movement to help “move the web forward,” or at least they want to make you believe they are. Anyway, check out the Chromium homepage here, or click here to see the latest snapshots for windows to install it. You’ll probably want the directory closest to the top of the page, and download mini_installer.exe to install it. Enjoy having a browser that lacks Google branding, or jump in an help make the internet a better place to surf. Be wary, the open-source browser may be less stable than the Google Chrome version.

6. In Firefox you can drag tabs from one browser session to another.  This was pretty cool, but I always wanted to drag a tab right out of the browser into it’s own browser session. Well, you can’t do it with Firefox, but you can with Google Chrome. I’m a browser spawning fool, and I love it.

Browsers Browsers Everywhere.

Published on September 5, 2008 in Browser. 0 Comments Tags: .

I recently installed Google Chrome and have been using it fair amount to see how well I like it.  So far, I’m a big fan of the increased screen area, and I haven’t had too many problems with surfing.  There are several small features that are absent, but what can you expect from the beta release of a new browser. I’m really looking forward to seeing where they go with this thing, and how they implement it with their other tools (GMAIL, GOOGLE APPS, YOUTUBE, PICASA, etc.)

So, I added the Google Chrome icon to the browser party in my quick launch menu. The choices, the choices, I can now choose from Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Flock.

Sheesh, who’s next?

Google Chrome Browser Launches (Finally!)

Published on September 2, 2008 in Browser. 0 Comments Tags: , .

We’ve been waiting years to hear that Google would finally launch it’s own browser. The time is finally here.

Click Here to read about it.

Click Here to read the comic about it.

Click Here to download it.