Are you frustrated with having to reopen your menus for each website that you need or want to view? Now you can keep those menus open while opening multiple websites with the Stay-Open Menu extension for Firefox.

Stay-Open Menu in Action

You can start using the extension as soon as you have installed it…simply access your favorite links in the “Bookmarks Menu, Bookmarks Toolbar, Awesome Bar, or History Menu” and middle click on the appropriate entries. Here you can see our browser opening the Productive Geek website and that the “Bookmarks Menu” is still open. As soon as you left click on a link or click outside the menus they will close normally like before.

Note: Middle clicked links open in new tabs.

The only time during our tests that a newly opened link “remained in the background” was for any links opened from the “Awesome Bar”.

But as soon as the “Awesome Bar” was closed the new tabs automatically focused to the front.

A link being opened from the “History Menu”…still open while the webpage is loading.

Options

The options are simple to sort through…enable or disable the additional “stay open” functions and enable automatic menu closing if desired.

Conclusion

If you get frustrated with having to reopen menus to access multiple webpages at one time then you might want to give this extension a try.

Links

Download the Stay-Open Menu extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

• 0 Comments

Anticipation has been building for the new Windows Phone 7 Series ever since Microsoft unveiled it at the Mobile World Congress in February.? Now, thanks to free developer tools, you can get a first-hand experience of the basic Windows Phone 7 Series devices on your PC.

Windows Phone 7 Series represents a huge change in the mobile field for Microsoft, bringing the acclaimed Zune HD UI to an innovative phone platform.? Windows Mobile has often been criticized for being behind other Smartphone platforms, but Microsoft seeks to regain the lead with this new upcoming release.? A platform must have developers behind it to be useful, so they have released a full set of free development tools so anyone can make apps for it today.? Or, if you simply want to play with Windows Phone 7, you can use the included emulator to try out the new Metro UI.? Here’s how to do this today on your Vista or 7 computer.

Please note: These tools are a Customer Technology Preview release, so only install them if you’re comfortable using pre-release software.

Getting Started

First, download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below), and run the installer.? This will install the Customer Technology Preview (CTP) versions of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, Windows Phone Emulator, Silverlight for Windows Phone, and XNA 4.0 Game Studio on your computer, all of which are required and cannot be installed individually.

Accept the license agreement when prompted.

Click “Install Now” to install the tools you need.? The only setup customization option is where to save the files, so choose Customize if you need to do so.

Setup will now automatically download and install the components you need, and will additionally download either 32 or 64 bit programs depending on your operating system.

About halfway thorough the installation, you’ll be prompted to reboot your system.?

Once your computer is rebooted, setup will automatically resume without further input.

?

When setup is finished, click “Run the Product Now” to get started.

Running Windows Phone 7 on your PC

Now that you’ve got the Windows Phone Developer tools installed, it’s time to get the Windows Phone emulator running.? If you clicked “Run the Product Now” when the setup finished, Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone should have already started.

?

If not, simply enter “visual studio” in your start menu search and select “Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone”.

Now, to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator, we have to test an application.? So, even if you don’t know how to program, we can open a phone application template, and then test it to run the emulator.? First, click New Project on the left hand side of the front page.

Any of the application templates would work for this, but here let’s select “Windows Phone Application”, and then click Ok.

Here’s your new application template, which already contains the basic phone application framework.? This is where you’d start if you want to develop a Windows Phone app, but for now we just want to see Windows Phone 7 in action.

So, to run the emulator, click Debug in the menu and then select Start Debugging.

Your new application will launch inside the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator.? The default template doesn’t give us much, but it does show an example application running in Windows Phone 7.

?

Exploring Windows Phone 7

Click the Windows button on the emulator to go to the home screen.? Notice the Zune HD-like transition animation.? The emulator only includes Internet Explorer, your test application, and a few settings.

Click the arrow on the right to see the available applications in a list.

Settings lets you change the theme, regional settings, and the date and time in your emulator.? It also has an applications settings pane, but this currently isn’t populated.

The Time settings shows a unique Windows Phone UI.

You can return to the home screen by pressing the Windows button.? Here’s the Internet Explorer app running, with the virtual keyboard open to enter an address.? Please note that this emulator can also accept input from your keyboard, so you can enter addresses without clicking on the virtual keyboard.

And here’s Google running in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone 7 supports accelerometers, and you can simulate this in the emulator.? Click one of the rotate buttons to rotate the screen in that direction.

Here’s our favorite website in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7 in landscape mode.

All this, running right inside your Windows 7 desktop…

Developer tools for Windows Phone 7

Although it may be fun to play with the Windows Phone 7 emulator, developers will be more excited to actually be able to create new and exciting apps for it.? The Windows Phone Developer Tools download includes Visual Studio Express and XNA Game Studio 4.0 which lets you create enticing games and apps for Windows Phones.? All development for Windows Phones will be in C#, Silverlight, and the XNA game framework.? Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone includes templates for these, and additionally has code samples to help you get started with development.

Conclusion

Many features are still not functional in this preview version, such as the search button and most of the included applications.? However, this still gives you a great way to experience firsthand the future of the Windows Phone platform.? And, for developers, this is your chance to set your mark on the Windows Phone 7 Series even before it is released to the public.? Happy playing and developing!

Links

Download Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP

Windows Phone Developer Site

• 0 Comments

Everyone has a favorite text editor that they like to use when viewing or working with source code. If you are unhappy with the default choice in Internet Explorer 8 then join us as we show you how to set up access to your favorite text editor.

A Look at Before

Here is Internet Explorer on our test system ready to help us view the source code for one of the pages here at the site.

Perhaps “Notepad” is your default source code viewer…

Or in the case of our test system where “EditPad Lite” was the default due to choices we made while installing it.

Choose Your Favorite Text Editor

Chances are you have your own personal favorite and want to make it the default source code viewer. To get started go to the “Tools Menu”? and click on “Developer Tools” or press “F12” to access the “Developer Tools Window”.

Once you have the “Developer Tools Window” open go to the “File Menu”, then “Customize Internet Explorer View Source”, and click on “Other”.

Once you have clicked on “Other” you will see the “Program Directory” for the current default app. Here you can see the “Program Files Folder” for “EditPad Lite”. To change the default app simply browse for the appropriate program folder.

On our test system we decided to change the default to “Editra”. Once you have located the program that you want to use click on the “.exe” file for that app and click “Open”. Once you have clicked “Open”, all that is left for you to do is close the “Developer Tools Window”…everything else is already taken care of.

And just like that you can be viewing source code with your favorite text editor.

Conclusion

If you have been unhappy with the default source code viewer in Internet Explorer 8 then you can set up access to your favorite text editor in just a couple of minutes. Nice, quick, and easy the way it ought to be.

Thanks to HTG & TinyHacker reader Dwight for the tip!

• 0 Comments

Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of.

Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of.? They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them.

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information.? Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7.

Mozilla Firefox 3.6

Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer.? It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability.? It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative.

Google Chrome 4

Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language.

Opera 10.50

Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements.

Apple Safari 4

Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility.? Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface.? It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools.

Flock 2.5

Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out.

Maxthon 2.5

Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6.? Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager.

Avant Browser

Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online.

Sleipnir

Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer.

?

FlashPeak SlimBrowser

SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box.

?

K-meleon

This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you.

?

GreenBrowser

GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources.

?

Conclusion

The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from.?

If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it.

Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE

Windows Update KB976002

• 0 Comments

There are a lot of iTunes users out there, but unfortunately you can’t use it with all of your portable devices. Today we take a look at doubleTwist, which allows you to sync your media with a multitude of portable devices and easily share it as well.

Note: You can run doubleTwist on Windows or Mac, and here we take a look at the Windows version.

Install & Setup doubleTwist

Download and install doubleTwist using the defaults in the wizard…

Installation takes several moments and you’ll see the progress while it finishes up.

After installation is complete, sign up for an account if you don’t already have one. If you do have an account you can login right away.

Enter in your username, email address, and password then click Sign Up.

?

You’ll get an confirmation email and need to activate the account before you can sign in.

Once you’re all signed up, launch doubleTwist and you’ll be ready to start using it.

doubleTwist Music

The default music store is Amazon MP3 store which might appeal to those of you who are tired of the iTunes music store. A lot of times the music is cheaper and available at higher bit rates.

You can start searching for music in the Amazon Music Store and previewing songs.

To purchase anything though you will need to sign into your Amazon account.

?

Under Playlists it allows you to import your playlists from iTunes and Windows Media Player, which is a handy feature if you don’t want to set them up again.

Of course you can play your songs through the music player on your desktop.

Devices

One of the coolest things about doubleTwist is that it supports a lot of different portable media devices including iPod, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, PSP, Smartphones, and much more.

Unfortunately for Zune users…there isn’t any support for the Zune of Zune HD yet.

Here we have a Creative Zen attached and can sync songs, pictures, and podcasts.

An HTC-S620 Smartphone running Windows Mobile…

Even a simple USB drive will be recognized and you can transfer your media to it as well.

?

Podcasts

Finding your favorite audio and video podcasts is easy with the search feature.

You can easily manage and subscribe to podcasts in the subscriptions section.

?

You can watch the video podcasts directly in doubleTwist.

Sharing Media

Also you can share digital media with your friends or add it to Flickr and YouTube.

You can send any pictures, videos, or music in your library to other people by dragging it over. You can email users individually…

Or access contacts from your Gmail and Yahoo accounts.

There is a limit to how much you can send of video podcasts… only the first 10 minutes.

The person you send it to will get a link in their email that points to your My Feed page on the doubleTwist site.

?

There they can access the media you sent…in this example it’s a video podcast but you can share any media.

Other Features

Under My Profile you can change your avatar and personal information.

?

In Preferences you can choose where media is stored, its startup actions, podcast subscriptions, and manage device syncing.

Conclusion

It’s still in beta stage so expect some bugs, but overall doubleTwist is a solid media player that is easy to use with a clean interface. It’s simple and doesn’t try to do too much so is fairly easy on system resources. The main annoyance is it tries to catalog all of your media out of the box. Which may be alright for some users with smaller media collections, but very irritating to advanced users with large collections. Also there is currently no support for the Zune, but according to their forums, it’s on the way.

At the time of this writing it’s in public beta and can be downloaded for XP, Vista, Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit), and Mac OSX. If you’re looking for an iTunes alternative that works with several different portable devices, you might want to give DoubleTwist a try.

Download DoubleTwist Public Beta

See If Your Media Device is Supported by doubleTwist

• 0 Comments

The default balloon tooltip in Firefox does well at times but then there are instances when a person finds that more information would be much better. The Tooltip Plus extension for Firefox will give your browser that nice extra information boost.

Before & After

For our example we have placed the “before & after shots” together for better comparison. First off we started with the How-To Geek logo.

Note: Does not display the original URL behind shortened URLs.

Next we moved on to a permanently linked article title.

The “Reviews Tab” in the How-To Geek website toolbar.

The article tags listing just beneath the HTG website toolbar.

And the link for subscribing to our RSS Feed. In each instance you could actually see the address behind the links.

The Tooltip Plus extension will also help out with images in webpages (including “Alt Text” if present). Notice that the link for the image is now available for you to view.

Options

The options are extremely simple to work with. Decide if you want a document icon to display, the size of the icon, and if you would like “Alt Text” for images to be displayed or not.

Conclusion

The Tooltip Plus extension does one thing and does it very well…it gives you that extra bit of information when you need it.

Links

Download the Tooltip Plus extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

• 0 Comments

We’ve shared some of our best tips for dealing with malware over the years, and now it’s your turn! Share your favorite tips for protecting against, or getting rid of viruses and other types of malicious software.

Unfortunately, if you’re a PC user it’s a given that you have to play defense against various forms of Malware. We’ve written several articles showing how to get rid of viruses and other forms of malware over the years using various strategies.

We have some excellent articles explaining how to get rid of Advanced Virus Remover, Antivirus Live, Internet Security 2010, and Security Tool – all of which disguise themselves as legit antivirus apps.

Now we turn it over to you to share your favorite tips and tricks for defending against malicious infections. If your computer has been infected, what steps did you take to get rid of it and clean up your machine?

Leave a comment below and join in the discussion!

• 0 Comments

If your computer crashes or you get a virus infection that makes it unrecoverable, doing a clean install can be a hassle, let alone getting your data back. If you’re backing up your computers to Windows Home Server, you can completely restore them to the last successful backup.

Note: For this process to work you need to verify the PC you want to restore is connected to your network via Ethernet. If you have it connected wirelessly it won’t work.

Restore a PC from Windows Home Server

On the computer you want to restore, pop in the Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore disc and boot from it. If you don’t have one already made, you can easily make one following these instructions. We have also included the link to the restore disc below.

Boot from the CD then select if your machine has 512MB or RAM or more.

The disc will initialize…

Then choose your language and keyboard settings.

Hopefully if everything goes correctly, your network card will be detected and you can continue. However, if it doesn’t like in our example, click on the Show Details button.

In the Detect Hardware screen click on the Install Drivers button.

Now you will need to have a USB flash drive with the correct drivers on it. It has to be a flash drive or a floppy (if you happen to still have one of those) because you can’t take out the Restore CD.

If you want to make sure you have the correct drivers on the USB flash drive, open the Windows Home Server Console on another computer on your network. In the Computers and Backup section right-click on the computer you want to restore and select View Backups.

Select the backup you want to restore from and click the Open button in the Restore or view Files section.

Now drag the entire contents of the folder named Windows Home Server Drivers for Restore to the USB flash drive.

Back to the machine you’re trying to restore, insert the USB flash drive with the correct drivers and click the Scan button.

Wait a few moments while the drivers are found then click Ok then Continue.

?

The Restore Computer Wizard starts up…

Enter in your home server password and click Next.

Select the computer you want to restore. If it isn’t selected by default you can pull it up from the dropdown list under Another Computer. Make certain you’re selecting the correct machine.

Now select the backup you want to restore. In this example we only have one but chances are you’ll have several.

If you have several backups to choose from, you might want to check out the details for them.

Now you can select the disk from backup and and restore it to the destination volume. You might need to initialize a disk, change a drive letter, or other disk management tasks, if so, then click on Run Disk Manger.

For example we want to change the destination drive letter to (C:).

?

After you’ve made all the changes to the destination disk you can continue with the restore process.

If everything looks correct, confirm the restore configuration. If you need to make any changes at this point, you can still go back and make them.

Now Windows Home Server will restore your drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depend on the amount of data you have to restore, network connection speed, and hardware.

You are notified when the restore successfully completes. Click Finish and the PC will reboot and be restored and should be working correctly. All the updates, programs, and files will be back that were saved to the last successful backup. Anything you might have installed after that backup will be gone. If you have your computers set to backup every night, then hopefully it won’t be a big issue.

?

Conclusion

Backing up the computers on your network to Windows Home Server is a valuable tool in your backup strategy. Sometimes you may only need to restore a couple files and we’ve covered how to restore them from backups on WHS and that works really well. If the unthinkable happens and you need to restore the entire computer, WHS makes that easy too.?

Download Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore CD

• 0 Comments

If your computer crashes or you get a virus infection that makes it unrecoverable, doing a clean install can be a hassle, let alone getting your data back. If you’re backing up your computers to Windows Home Server, you can completely restore them to the last successful backup.

Note: For this process to work you need to verify the PC you want to restore is connected to your network via Ethernet. If you have it connected wirelessly it won’t work.

Restore a PC from Windows Home Server

On the computer you want to restore, pop in the Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore disc and boot from it. If you don’t have one already made, you can easily make one following these instructions. We have also included the link to the restore disc below.

Boot from the CD then select if your machine has 512MB or RAM or more.

The disc will initialize…

Then choose your language and keyboard settings.

Hopefully if everything goes correctly, your network card will be detected and you can continue. However, if it doesn’t like in our example, click on the Show Details button.

In the Detect Hardware screen click on the Install Drivers button.

Now you will need to have a USB flash drive with the correct drivers on it. It has to be a flash drive or a floppy (if you happen to still have one of those) because you can’t take out the Restore CD.

If you want to make sure you have the correct drivers on the USB flash drive, open the Windows Home Server Console on another computer on your network. In the Computers and Backup section right-click on the computer you want to restore and select View Backups.

Select the backup you want to restore from and click the Open button in the Restore or view Files section.

Now drag the entire contents of the folder named Windows Home Server Drivers for Restore to the USB flash drive.

Back to the machine you’re trying to restore, insert the USB flash drive with the correct drivers and click the Scan button.

Wait a few moments while the drivers are found then click Ok then Continue.

?

The Restore Computer Wizard starts up…

Enter in your home server password and click Next.

Select the computer you want to restore. If it isn’t selected by default you can pull it up from the dropdown list under Another Computer. Make certain you’re selecting the correct machine.

Now select the backup you want to restore. In this example we only have one but chances are you’ll have several.

If you have several backups to choose from, you might want to check out the details for them.

Now you can select the disk from backup and and restore it to the destination volume. You might need to initialize a disk, change a drive letter, or other disk management tasks, if so, then click on Run Disk Manger.

For example we want to change the destination drive letter to (C:).

?

After you’ve made all the changes to the destination disk you can continue with the restore process.

If everything looks correct, confirm the restore configuration. If you need to make any changes at this point, you can still go back and make them.

Now Windows Home Server will restore your drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depend on the amount of data you have to restore, network connection speed, and hardware.

You are notified when the restore successfully completes. Click Finish and the PC will reboot and be restored and should be working correctly. All the updates, programs, and files will be back that were saved to the last successful backup. Anything you might have installed after that backup will be gone. If you have your computers set to backup every night, then hopefully it won’t be a big issue.

?

Conclusion

Backing up the computers on your network to Windows Home Server is a valuable tool in your backup strategy. Sometimes you may only need to restore a couple files and we’ve covered how to restore them from backups on WHS and that works really well. If the unthinkable happens and you need to restore the entire computer, WHS makes that easy too.?

Download Windows Home Server Home Computer Restore CD

• 0 Comments

Every so often we all need to look at a map for reference purposes or to get directions. If you are looking for a great quick reference app then join us as we look at the Mini Google Maps extension for Google Chrome.

Mini Google Maps in Action

While this may look like a rather basic map extension there is more to it than meets the eye at first glance. Here is the default view when you open Mini Google Maps for the first time. Things that we really liked about this extension were:

• Three different aerial views available (Map, Satellite, & Terrain)
• Three different viewing sizes available (and the extension remembers your chosen size)
• The ability to get directions in combination with a map

We decided to try each of the viewing sizes available…here you can see the “Medium Setting”. Notice that the scale stays the same but you get more territory included to view.

Then the “Large Setting”…which we infinitely preferred to the others. Once again look at the amount of territory included by default…very nice.

Switching over to the “Satellite View”…

Followed by the “Terrain View”.

For our first example we decided to peek at Vancouver, British Columbia. After zooming out a little bit we had a very nice looking map.

For the next test we asked for directions from Vancouver to Toronto. Both the directions and map turned out very well.

And just for fun we looked up Paris, France with the “Satellite View”.

Conclusion

If you find yourself needing to view a map or get directions often then the Mini Google Maps extension will be a very useful tool for you.

Links

Download the Mini Google Maps extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

• 0 Comments