Do you have a favorite Yahoo! E-mail account or services that you like to keep up with throughout the day? Then join us as we take a look at the Yahoo Mail for Google Chrome extension.

Accessing Your Yahoo! Account

If you are not already signed into Yahoo! in your browser then you will need to login when accessing the drop-down window.

As soon as you are signed in the first thing that you will see will be your “Inbox”.

Note: The only problem we noticed during our tests was the slowness of the “Toolbar Button” to display the “Unread E-mails Count”.

Before going further one of the nice things about the extension is the ability to have the drop-down window pop out into a new but small separate window (use the “link” in the upper left corner). For our example we chose to use the pop out window.

The pop out window is much easier to work with in comparison to the drop-down window.

When viewing your e-mail it will be displayed in a mobile format with a clickable link to view the letter in full HTML if desired. You can use the “Up & Down Arrow Buttons” to easily navigate through the letters in your “Inbox”.

You can use the “Actions Menu” to sort your e-mail in an appropriate manner such as marking as read, marking as spam, adding a flag, etc. If needed you can access letters in your “Folders” using the “Folders Button”.

Looking very nice.

Composing and sending e-mails is also very easy to do.

Time for a look at the Yahoo! Services available…simply click on the “Home Link” in the upper right corner to get started. Clicking on “Home” will take you to the “Today Tab” where you can conduct a Yahoo! Search or view the latest news headlines.

A “Desktop Format” is available but definitely not recommended.

The “My Favourites Tab” lets you add your location, have quick access to your “Inbox” or messenger, links for connecting to Yahoo! Updates or Buzz, and add additional items to your Favourites.

Want to access other Yahoo! Sites & Services? Just click on the “All Sites Tab” and choose your favorite.

Settings

The only settings available concern mobile video playback.

Conclusion

If you like keeping up with your Yahoo! E-mail and favorite services throughout the day then the Yahoo Mail for Google Chrome extension will make a very nice addition to your browser.

Links

Download the Yahoo Mail for Google Chrome extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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If you use experimental add-ons in Firefox then you have experienced the frustration of having to manually check for updates to them. Now you can be notified of updates for experimental add-ons alongside the Mozilla approved add-ons with the EAVE extension.

Accessing EAVE

There are two methods for accessing EAVE after installing the extension. The default is the “Status Bar Icon” and the second method is using the “Toolbar Icon”.

Note: If you choose to use the “Toolbar Icon” you will need to select for it in the “Options”.

EAVE in Action

There are four things to keep in mind about EAVE:

• You can manually check for updates as often as desired
• The auto-check feature for detecting updates is set at a default of 7 days but can be easily changed
• If a new version of an experimental add-on is detected you will see a slider alert with a clickable link for that add-on’s AMO page
• If an add-on you are monitoring graduates from the experimental stage you will be notified and that add-on is automatically removed from the tracking list

Whether you use the “Status Bar Icon” or the “Toolbar Button” the right click menu is the same.

To get started with EAVE you will need to visit the webpages for any experimental add-ons that you want to monitor. Keep in mind that you do not have to have a particular extension installed in order to monitor it. Here you can see the four extensions that we chose for our list: autoHideStatusbar, App Tabs, PermaTabs Mod, & EAVE. To add an extension to the list left click on the “Toolbar Button” or the “Status Bar Icon”.

You will see the following confirmation window asking if you want to track that particular extension. Click “Yes” to add it to your list.

Once you add an add-on to your list you will see a small popup window in the lower right corner of your Desktop like this with the name and current version of the add-on.

This is what our list looked like after adding all four add-ons: Title, Version Number, & Update Status with the ability to delete one or all add-ons on the list.

If you decide to manually check for update just access the “Context Menu” and select “Check For Updates Now”.

The “Bell Icon” will disappear while the “update check” is in progress. During our tests the countdown always started at “4” and closed when “1” was reached.

Options

If you chose to use the “Toolbar Button” you will need to select for it in the “Display In” category here. You can also change the frequency for checking on extension updates, choose the “Host Site” checked, and decide which side the “Slider Alert” will appear on.

Conclusion

If you have been wanting to automate the update notification process for experimental add-ons in Firefox then this is the perfect extension for you.

Links

Download the EAVE extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

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Remember when previous versions of Windows would remember the size an location of Explorer windows when you opened them? For some reason Windows 7 no longer does this, but today we take a look at a neat utility that will fix this annoyance.

It can be very annoying having to move your folder windows every time you re-launch them in Windows 7. Here we take a look at Vista with a bunch of different folder screens open, and when we close them, they will come back to the same location and size when we open them again.

In Windows 7 it seems to remember the last one you closed and you’ll need to adjust them again. So they can end up stacked on top of each other, all full screen, or end up in an inconvenient location on your screen.

ShellFolderFix

ShellFolderFix is a handy utility that corrects this annoyance and will remember the size and position of the windows you have open. Just unzip the files into an easy to access location like C:Users.

Then you can pin it to the Taskbar for easy access…

After you launch the app, it sits in the system tray and will remember the size and location of all your open folder windows.? You can go through the options and configure it to best suite your needs.

Other Features

There are some other cool benefits as well that we’ll take a look at here. If you have a task you do regularly and always open the same folder windows, you can save it as a workspace. Just right-click the tray icon and select Save Workspace. In this example we have three explorer folder windows open that we want to save as a workspace.

Just right-click the tray icon and select Save Workspace.

Give it a name…

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Now that the workspace is saved, right-click on the icon again and you can click Close All Folders… which is similar to the Close All Windows app we covered previously but it doesn’t close actual program windows…only open folders. Notice you can select to Minimize All Folders as well.

It will give you a verification screen when you select to Close All Folder Windows.

Then when you need to open the windows for a certain task, right-click the icon and select Restore Workspace.

And there you go! All the windows are restored exactly how you saved them.

ShellFolderFix will handle a maximum of 200 open folder windows and has a configurable database size from 300 to 10,000 folders.There are a couple of caveats to this app though. It doesn’t work with your program windows and doesn’t restore special folders like My computer, My Network, and some network locations. But overall, this is an excellent way to manage folder windows positions and size. It’s a project that is in constant development and so expect more updates in the future.

Hopefully Microsoft will fix the annoyance of Windows 7 not remembering folder window size and positions. Even if they do, the extra addition of creating workspaces might make this utility a keeper. It is available in 32 and 64 bit versions too.

Download ShellFolderFix from Seven Forums

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Do you prefer visually browsing through your open tabs as opposed to using a tab list? Then the Visual Tabs extension for Google Chrome just might be the “visual tool” that you have been looking for.

Visual Tabs in Action

As soon as you have installed the extension you are ready to go. To browse through your open tabs simply click on the “Toolbar Button” to open the drop-down window. You will see thumbnails of your open tabs and a “background color chooser option” in the lower left corner. Use your “Middle Mouse Button” to scroll through the tabs and click on the one that you would like to view. That is all there is to it…

Switching over to the “Blue Background Theme”…

Then the “Green”…

Followed by the “White”. Between the six colors you should be able to make a good match with your browser’s theme.

Conclusion

If you love using a visual approach for browsing through your open tabs then this extension should be a lot of fun for you to use.

Links

Download the Visual Tabs extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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A lot of business email servers only allow 5-10MB attachments, but today it’s not uncommon to need to send a much larger file to a friend or colleague.? Thanks to drop.io and their new Outlook plug-in, you can now send up to 100MB attachments for free.

Drop.io offers a unique file-sharing and collaboration platform.? With their Outlook plug-in, you can use this system to send larger files directly from Outlook.? Drop.io is free for up to 100MB of storage; if you need to send larger files than that, you can upgrade to a professional account.

This plugin is still in beta and for this article, we ran the plug-in in Outlook 2010 64-bit version.? We have tested it on Outlook 2007 as well and it works fine in both versions.

Let’s get started

First, download the Outlook plug-in and install it.? The installer is very simple, and the setup only took a couple seconds. The installer will have to download the rest of the plugin, but even still it was very quick.? Please exit Outlook before running the installer.

Once this is finished, open Outlook and click New Email to check it out.? To attach your files, click the new “Attach Files with drop.io” button.

This will open an Explorer window.? Add any files you want, and compose your message.? Simply send as normal, and all of the files will be included in the email.? There is no third step; it’s as simple as sending attachments with a normal email.

Here’s how the email looks when the recipient receives it.? It shows the files I attached, and has a download link for each one.? It also has a download link for all the files, so the recipient can quickly get all the files we sent.

The download link takes them to a page where they can either just view the file online or download it.

Drop.io also allows offers free conference calls through their platform.? You can add a conference call number to your email so you and your colleagues can talk about your project.? Simply click the “Conference Call” button to add a unique conference call number to your email.

Here we take a look at it in Outlook 2007…

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Other features include:

• Adding Special User Permissions
• Use SSL and a Guest Password
• Customize design colors, backgrounds, logos … and more

Summary

The Drop.io plugin gives you an easy way to send larger files directly from Outlook, and then helps you collaborate on them.? This can be very helpful in situations where you need to send large attachments. Even though it’s still in beta stage, everything worked very slick in our testing.?

Link:

drop.io Outlook Plugin

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If your family uses Windows 7 Media Center to watch a lot of Movies and TV, you might want to block certain programming from your younger ones. Today we take a look at the Parental Controls feature in Windows 7 Media Player which will let you block certain TV and movie ratings.

Setup Parental Controls

To setup Parental Controls in Windows 7 Media Center (WMC), scroll to Tasks in the main menu.

In the Settings section click on General.

From the General Settings list click on Parental Controls.

Now you’re prompted to create a 4 digit access code. Make sure it’s something you remember and that you kids won’t be able to easily guess.

Now in Parental Controls you can start selecting what you want to block your kids from accessing. Here we’ll start with TV Ratings.

Select the box to Turn on TV blocking, select the Maximum allowed TV rating, then save your choices. From here you can also select Block unrated TV programs for content.

Click on Advanced to get more detailed choices in what you want to block or allow. You can choose between Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Dialogue, Offensive Language, Sexual Content, and Violence.

After you’ve saved your choices you can go back and decide to block Movie/DVD Ratings. Choose a maximum allowed Movie Rating, select if you want to block unrated movies, then save your selection.

From the main Parental Controls Menu you can change you access code or reset the controls which will put them all back to the defaults.

After you’ve set up Parental Controls, you’ll need to enter your access code every time you want to make any changes. This prevents your kids from going in and changing the settings.

After you have everything setup, when you try to watch something that is blocked, you’ll see a message indicating the level has been set by Parental Controls.

If you press Yes to continue, you’ll see the program has been blocked.

To watch the show you’ll need to enter in your access code. So unless your kids got a hold of your code somehow, they won’t be able to watch the content.

Of course you can watch whatever content you want by entering in your code. It may seem like a bit of an inconvenience, but if you want to help keep your children’s eyes away from inappropriate content, it’s a small price to pay. If you want to control the applications and Internet content your children access, make sure to check out our article on how to use Parental Controls in Windows 7.

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Spotify is arguably the best streaming music service available online. Spotify is available under Windows and Mac. However, by using Wine you can install Spotify to run on Ubuntu as well.

Note: Spotify is not available in all countries or the United States. Here we look at installing Spotify on Ubuntu 9.10 using Wine 1.2.

To begin with we’ll need to install Wine on Ubuntu. If you already have Wine you can easily skip this step. To install Wine on Ubuntu 9.10 first open synaptic package manager by going to System Administration Synaptic Package Manager.

You’ll be prompted for your password. Enter your admin password and this will open Synaptic Package Manager.

Select the package wine 1.2 and click apply. This will install Wine on your Ubuntu and it’s available under Applications Wine.

Now that you have Wine installed. All you need to do is download the Windows version of Spotify and install it over your Wine. To do so download Spotify (windows version). Once downloaded, navigate to the download folder and right-click the Spotify installer and click Open with Wine Windows Program Loader.

This will install Spotify on your Ubuntu machine.

Now you can enjoy Spotify on your Ubuntu machine if you live outside of the US. Also, make sure and check out our review of Spotify.

Links

Download Spotify

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Looking for a way to get access to more content through Windows 7 Media Center? Maybe you’d like a good way to jump back and forth between Boxee and Media Center with just a click of the remote? Today we show you how to get access to Boxee through Media Center with Boxee Integration 1.0.

Installing Boxee

Download and install the current version of Boxee. (See download link below) The install is very straightforward, just take the defaults. You’ll also need to register for a Boxee account, if you don’t already have one.

If you have Windows Firewall enabled and this is the first time you’re running Boxee, allow it to access your network.

Boxee Integration 1.0

Close out of Windows Media Center, then download and install the Boxee Integration application. It’s also a simple install. Just take the defaults and click “Finish.”

Restart Windows Media Center and you’ll see a Boxee tile on your main interface.

Click on the Boxee tile to launch it. You will be prompted to enter your username and password. Select the “Remember password” option if you don’t want to have to enter your login credentials each time.

You’ll be prompted to set screen calibration. You can do so now, or click “Skip.”

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Boxee will open up in full screen. From here you can enjoy all your favorite Boxee content.

When you exit Boxee, Windows Media Center will restart in Full Screen mode. It is not completely seamless. You will see the desktop and a command box flash for a few seconds before Media Center opens.

Conclusion

This a great way to get access to some popular apps that aren’t currently available in Media Center like Pandora, LastFM, and MLB.TV. Unfortunately, Boxee Integration does not work on extenders. If you like this Boxee Integration application, you might want to check out our earlier article on Hulu Integration in Windows Media Center.

Links

Download the latest version of Boxee

Download Boxee Integration 1.0

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Sometimes you need to use a printer connected to another Windows 7 machine and they’re not part of a Homegroup, but are on the same network. Today we show you how to share a printer between two Windows 7 computers on a home network.

Note: In this example we’re connecting a Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit computer to an HP PSC 1500 printer on a Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit bit machine. They are on the same home network, but not part of the same Homegroup. Keep in mind every printer is different so finding and installing the correct drivers will vary.

Share Printer

On the computer with the printer you want to share, open Advanced Sharing Settings and make sure File and Printer Sharing is turned on.

Next open Devices and Printers from the Start menu, right-click on the printer you want to share, and select Printer Properties.

In the Properties window click on the Sharing tab. Check the box to Share this printer and give it a name…in this example we used the location of where it is. You can name it whatever you want, it’s best to keep the name short and not use spaces.

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Connect Printer

Now on the Windows 7 machine you want to connect, click on Start and select Devices and Printers.

In the Devices and Printers window click on Add a printer.

Next select Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer…

Wait a moment while Windows finds the printer then click Next.

The printer has been successfully added so click Next.

Now you can print a test page to make sure everything is working successfully or click Finish.

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If you want to make it your default printer, go back into Devices and Printers, right-click on the printer and select Set as default printer.

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If that doesn’t work, make sure the correct drivers are installed for the printer and try again. If that still doesn’t work you can select The printer that I want isn’t listed…

Then browse directly to the printer on the other machine or just type in the path if you know it.

Conclusion

If you have an older printer, sometimes it can be tricky getting it to be recognized and you’ll want to make sure you have the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s website. If your printer is too old and you can’t find drivers that will work with Windows 7, you might want to consider buying a new one as they are pretty cheap these days. If both machines are connected to a Homegroup check out our article on Sharing Printers and Files in Windows 7 with Homegroup – it makes the sharing process much easier.

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Are you looking for an easy way to modify the “delay time” for Aero Peek in Windows 7 or perhaps want to disable the feature altogether? Then see how simple it is to do either with the Desktop Peek Tweak.

Before

The “Aero Peek” feature in Windows 7 is really convenient for viewing your “Desktop” if you have a screen full of apps.

The default time delay for “Aero Peek” is not bad but perhaps you want it to be quicker or slower based on your personal preferences.

Desktop Peak Tweak in Action

There are two things to keep in mind when using Desktop Peek Tweak

• You will need to log off and then log back in to complete any changes that you make
• The app does not run full time…only long enough to set up any desired changes

When you start the app for the first time this is where the default setting is located at on the “Time Delay Scale”. From here you can make the “Delay Time” shorter, longer, or disable “Aero Peek” altogether.

For our first test we decided to disable “Aero Peek”. Once you make a change and click on “Save Desktop Peek Delay” you will be prompted to log off and then log back in to complete the changes.

As you can see in the lower right corner we held our mouse over the “Show Desktop Button” but all the windows remained unchanged.

Note: You will still be able to view the “Desktop” when manually clicking on the “Show Desktop Button”.

For our next test we maxed out the “Delay Time” and went through the log off/log in process. Needless to say there was a very noticeable (longer) difference in the time it took to see the desktop.

For the final test we set the “Delay Time” for “Instant” and after logging back in this was our favorite setting by far. The desktop became visible very quickly.

Conclusion

Desktop Peek Tweak provides an easy “no fuss” way to change the delay time for Aero Peek or disable it altogether if desired. If you prefer to use Windows 7 settings to disable Aero Peek or would like to manually adjust the Aero Peek delay time using a registry hack then check out our article with details on doing both.

Links

Download Desktop Peak Tweak

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