Shouts of Nothingness

The greatness of the net lies in the fact that it has something or the other to offer for people who find them really useful.Now this one (Connotea) is a fabulous app for any budding biologist.As biologists we always keep tabs on what is coming up new not only to keep our knowledge up to date but also expose oneself to the different schools of thought prevalent among contempraries.

We all read scientific papers or atleast abstracts(..this one’s me).Most often we come across literature that is very interesting/appealing and would like to include that in our writings,presentations.Ofcourse these days most of the journal content is avaialble online for ready reference.But how do you keep track of them once they increase in volume?.Answer - Connotea.

“Connotea is a place to keep links to the articles you read and the websites you use, and a place to find them again. It is also a place where you can discover new articles and websites through sharing your links with other users. By saving your links and references to Connotea they are instantly on the web, which means that they are available to you from any computer and that you can point your friends and colleagues to them. In Connotea, every user’s links are visible both to visitors and to every other user, and different users’ libraries are linked together through the use of common tags or common bookmarks.”

So whats special with Connotea when there is Furl,pluck and on…well…Connotea is scientific literature what Flickr is to photos!..got the idea..
Thats enough for a description,there’s more to connotea.Dont take my word for it..chek Connotea today.
“Organise your references. Share them with others. Discover new leads.”

Interested in getting your less than tech-savvy friends into alternative browsing?..(i meant the browser..;-) only) The Firemonger project is dedicated to providing an easy to use CD which contains the latest versions of Firefox™ and Thunderbird™, the completely free web browser and email-clien created by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. In addition to these amazing products, we’ve added a selection of plugins, extensions and themes and a beginner’s guide. In other words, this CD contains everything you need to start up with and get the most out of Firefox and Thunderbird.

Come answer the call of the Firemonger

What it is ..Hamachi…?

With Hamachi you can organize two or more computers with an Internet connection into their own virtual network for direct secure communication.

Hamachi is fast, secure and simple. It is also free.

What’s in it for me?(u)

Think - LAN over the Internet.

Think - Zero-configuration VPN.

Think - Secure peer-to-peer.

Access computers remotely. Use Windows File Sharing. Play LAN games. Run private Web or FTP servers. Communicate directly. Stay connected.

Ok i am compiling a list of a “the most essential” Firefox extensions that one should never venture into the net.

1.Ad-Block: Ofcourse i dont want ads distracting me..!

2.PDF Download:
Allows to choose whether you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML) or you want to download it! Install Now

3.Save Link in Folder 0.7.1:
Easily save links in personally customized folders. Install Now

4.Tabbrowser Preferences:
Enables enhanced control for some aspects of tabbed browsing.
Install Now

5.StumbleUpon:
StumbleUpon lets you “channelsurf” the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for browsing, reviewing and sharing great sites with like-minded people. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for. Install Now

6.Flashgot:
Download one link, selected links or all the links of a page at the maximum speed with a single click, using the most popular external download managers for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD (25 currently supported products, see http://www.flashgot.net for details). FlashGot offers also a Build Gallery functionality which helps to synthetize full media galleries in one page, from serial contents previously scattered on several pages, for easy and fast “download all”.

Main good news in 0.5.9.7: Experimental “Custom Download Manager” support, “Compact context menu” option, “FlashGot Tabs” command. Read the whole story here: http://www.flashgot.net/changelog Install Now

7.Download Statusbar 0.9.3.1:
I would not recommend this if your using a download manager like Flashget but if otherwise..this addon for the Firefox download manager..rock!..who want keep peeping if the download has stalled or slow..etc.

“View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar - without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.” Install Now

8.All-In-One Sidebar 0.5:
One of the things that i like about Opera is the compact sidebar that it has…i was immediately downloading this extension once i saw..as expected it was an easy way of changing themes,extensions etc..right there from the sidebar.And thats not all…

“All-In-One Sidebar is an Opera-like sidebar. Click on the left edge of your browser window to open the sidebar and get easily access to all your panels.

You can set the orientation to left or right, set the minimum, default and maximum width and the behavior on browser startup.

AIOS has a special support for Translation Panel, ScrapBook, Sage, Enhanced History Manager, Advanced Search Sidebar, QuickNote and others.”…more Install Now

9.SessionSaver .2 0.2.1.028:

This is again a very handy and sometimes irritating feature from Opera…its used to save all the windows/pages as it is..so that next time you can restore that entire session(set of websites or windows).

“SessionSaver restores your browser -exactly- as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it. Windows, tabs, even things you were typing — they’re all saved. Use the menu to add + remove sessions; right, shift, or middle-clicking will delete. “Simple mode” for peace of mind, or “Expert mode” for advanced flexibility. Just Click. Install.

10.gTranslate 0.2:

Does what its name suggests “translates” with Google ofcourse.
“With gTranslate you can translate any text in a webpage just by selecting and right-clicking over it. The extension uses the Google translation services to translate the text.

gTranslate is not affiliated with Google Inc. in any way.

Features:

* Translates from:
English to German / German to English
English to Spanish / Spanish to English
English to French / French to English
English to Italian / Italian to English
English to Portuguese / Portuguese to English
English to Japanese / Japanese to English
English to Korean / Korean to English
English to Chinese (Simplified) / Chinese (Simplified) to English
German to French / French to German …. more

Get it! Install now

This list is by no means conclusive…i will be adding more to this list as when i find better/newer extensions that i feel are very “useful”

Updates:(07/08/05)

Themer:

This one’s simple..”Themer adds a button in the Themes section of Mozilla’s Preferences or Mozilla Firefox’s options, allowing installation of .jar packaged themes previously downloaded from the web.”
Install now!

Citations:

“The Citations project is a simple extension that allows the user to select a text in a Web page and put it in a special bookmark file. Citations are stored in a RDF file and can be browsed in a HTML view.”
More info. Install now
Extension Homepage
Requires jslib

Super Drag and Go 0.2.4: Similar to the MyIE2 feature
Similar to myIE2’s “super drag&drop”. It allows you:
1) Drag

* link (e.g. google )
* text-link (e.g. http://www.google.com )
* text-uri (e.g. abc.com )
* picture

and throw it anywehere blank on your webpage and open it on a new tab.

2) Drag a word or a phrase and throw it anywhere bland on your webpage to search it on your default search engine.

What’s new:
- Made Compatible with Firefox 1.0
Extension Homepage Install now