Step 1 : Add the official Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu PPA by
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
Step 2 : Update the repository.
sudo apt-get update
Step 3 : Then, install Firefox 4 package.
sudo apt-get install firefox ubufox

Note : ubufox adds Ubuntu-specific modifications to Firefox.
That’s it !

The mozillateam is the group who maintains Firefox packages for Ubuntu. The stable release is in firefox-stable. Note, that this will upgrade your current Firefox version to 4.0. The packages in this PPA will not be parallel installable with the packages in the official Ubuntu archive. Installing Firefox from this PPA will provide Firefox 4 in English. For other languages you’ll have to install an extension.

Enjoy

1. Using Add2Run utility
Let’s start with the most simple way to launch applications from Run. Add2Run developed by Jitendra Bangani is a tiny standalone portable utility designed just to do this.

1. Download Add2Run (250 KB) and run the application.
2. Select the target application or program that you want to launch.
3. Select an alias name. You can launch the selected application from Run by typing this name. For example, in the following screenshot, whenever I type hex in Run and hit Enter, a Hex Editor application launches.


Add2Run

2. Creating an alias in Registry
This method involves creating a new alias by creating a new key in Windows Registry. This is the usual or the ‘official’ way.
1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App Paths
3. From the Edit menu select New – Key
4. Enter the name of the alias, e.g. hex.exe (.exe part is necessary)
5. Move to the new key and double click on the (Default) value (it is blank by default)
6. Set its value as the full file path of the program you want to launch, e.g. E:\PF\Hex Editor\XVI32.exe (path). Click OK
7. Close the registry editor

Note : To launch a programs from Command Prompt, just use the following syntax :
start aliasname
For example, start hex

3. Using Environment Variables
This method involves creating an environment variable. You can use this method to launch any file or directory. But, unlike the above two methods, from run, you need to enclose the alias name between % symbols. For example %AppData% is an environment variable used to access Application Data directory of the current user profile.

1. Right click on My Computer >> Properties
   ( or use the shortcut [Windows button] + [Pause/Break] ) to open System Properties.
   
2. Under the Advanced tab, click on Environment Variables.
3. Now you will see a list of variables that are already assigned. Click on New.
   
4. Type in an alias name in the Variable name field.
5. Type the full path of the file/directory you want to launch Variable value field.
   
6. Click OK.

For example, if you type hex as Variable name, then you can launch the target application by typing %hex% in the Run dialog box.

Here are some of it’s features :

• Drag and Drop GIF Images
• Set Frame Delay Time
• Automatic Interlacing
• Automatic Transparency Detection

Convert images to GIF
If you have source images saved in JPEG/PNG/BMP etc, you can convert it to GIF using any photo editing tool or image converter. You can also use the “Save As” in Paint to convert images into GIF. These individual files serve as GIF frames. It is recommended that the images have same dimensions.

UnFREEz

3 simple steps to create your GIF animation

1. Drag and drop GIF files to UnFREEz window. Please remember that your frames must already be saved in GIF format (UnFREEz does no converting). The images must have same dimensions to get good result. The order of input files will determine the order of frames in the final animated GIF.
2. Specify a ‘Frame Delay time’ which sets the time between frames. This time is in centiseconds i.e one hundredth of a second. Also you have the option to loop the animation or just play once and then stop.
3. Now, you can hit the ‘Make Animated GIF‘ and save the animation. If you think the animation that you created is too fast or too slow, just change the frame delay time accordingly.

Here is a sample GIF created from 5 individual frames using UnFREEz :



Download UnFREEz (27.5 KB)

]]> http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/make-simple-gif-animation-using-unfreez/feed/ 4 http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/make-windows-transparent-using-glass2k/ http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/make-windows-transparent-using-glass2k/#comments Sat, 23 May 2009 01:30:33 +0000 admin http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/?p=619 Glass2k is a small little program developed by Chime Softwares that can make almost any window transparent. It’s very tiny, takes up very little system resources and moreover doesn’t need installation.

Here are some of it’s features :

• Set transparency level for individual windows or programs.
• Remember each window or program’s transparency settings.
• Load on startup.
• Make taskbar transparent.
• Beep on glassification.
• Keep windows on top
• Sits in system tray.

And all this at just 55 KB !

Installation
The program is written in VB6 and hence needs VB6 Runtime Files. If you get a ‘Runtime DLL/OCX File error’, you’ll have to download and install the VB6 Runtime Files. To Uninstall Glass2k, just close the application from the system tray and then delete the file.



Glass2k Settings

How to use Glass2k ?
Once the program is running and the icon is shown in the system-tray, you can press the following key combinations:



Glass2k In System Tray

• Control + Shift + 9 : Least transparency
• Control + Shift + 8 : A little more transparency
• Control + Shift + . : …
• Control + Shift + . : …
• Control + Shift + 2 : Very high transparency
• Control + Shift + 1 : Maximum transparency
• Control + Shift + 0 : No transparency / Solid

You can also right-click on any window and select the transparency values from the Glass2k Transparency-popup menu.



Glass2k In Action

The only thing that I don’t like about this software is that, when the option ‘Auto-Load Glass2k every time Windows starts’ is selected, whenever the application starts during start-up, a splash screen appears. But it’s not a minus point. Anyways, it’s a great app to make windows transparent easily.
Note : Glass2k is no longer under development.

Download Glass2k (55 KB)

]]> http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/make-windows-transparent-using-glass2k/feed/ 3 http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/lynx-the-text-browser/ http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/lynx-the-text-browser/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 01:30:05 +0000 admin http://www.prashanthpai.com/blog/?p=450 What is Lynx ?

Lynx is a free open-source, text-only Web browser. Many search engines like Google recommend you to look at your site using Lynx browser as the search engine crawlers and bots ‘see’ your pages the way Lynx sees.

Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link’s number. Lynx cannot display various types of non-text content on the web, such as images and video, but it can launch external programs to handle it, like an image viewer or video player. The speed benefits of text-only browsing are most apparent when using low bandwidth internet connections, or older computer hardware that may be slow to render image-heavy content.

Why use Lynx now ?

Most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site. As a bonus, providing text-only alternatives to rich-media content and functionality will make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, and also make your site more accessible to users who use alternative technologies such as screenreaders.

How to use Lynx ?

Download and install Lynx. The first time your run Lynx, you would be having no idea of how to use it. Press k from your keyboard to display series of keys and their functions. Here are some keys that you will use most often. And be careful, these ARE case sensitive.

• g – Enter URL to open a web page or website.
• q – Quit Lynx browser.
• v – See a list of bookmarks
• a – Add the current webpage to bookmarks

To Open A Site, press g from your keyboard, enter the URL of the web site and press Enter.




Open a web page or URL in Lynx

When you open a web page, use the down arrow key in your keyboard to browse though the links on that page and press Enter on the highlighted selected link. Press q at anytime to quit Lynx.

This is how Google looks when viewed from Lynx.


And this is how this site looks from Lynx


Download Lynx

I had a hard time searching for Windows version of Lynx that comes with a setup and actually works. You can download it from here.
Download Lynx 2.8.5rel.1 installer (1.68MB)
Lynx Home Page
Lynx For Windows Homepage

Lynx Viewer (Browser Emulation)

The Lynx Viewer allows webmasters to see what their pages will look like when viewed with Lynx. One does not need to install Lynx at all.
Yellowpipe Lynx viewer
Delorie Lynx Viewer

Hope this post was helpful

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