Month: May 2010

If you visit the same websites regularly, it’s a good idea to bookmark them so that you don’t have to enter their address in the browser every single time. You can then add these links to the bookmark bar, and open those websites with just one mouse click.

But there’s a trick to open websites up in your browser that’s even faster and easier than clicking an icon on a toolbar: adding a keyword – that is, an alias – to each web page you bookmark in Firefox. Simply open the Bookmark Manager in Firefox (Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks) and search for the website you want to create an alias for.

Highlight the selected bookmark with the mouse and click the black arrow button besides “More” at the bottom of the window. This will display more text fields, including one that reads “Keyword“. Enter the alias for the website here – you can use a word or just a single letter.

Close the Bookmark Manager and you’re done! Now every time you enter that letter or word into the address field in Firefox, you’ll be immediately taken to the associated website.

It seems that now more than ever, when the markets speak, the world listens. And what the markets said yesterday is that Apple is now the biggest IT company in the world.

Apple’s market valuation of $221.4bn passed Microsoft’s $218.3bn on the New York stock market yesterday marking a depressing new low for Microsoft and firmly drawing the battle line between Google and Apple – Microsoft is set to be nothing but a footnote in the IT world.

The decline of Microsoft is all the more amazing when you consider that at the beginning of 2000, the company was worth $556bn compared to Apple’s paltry $15.6bn. Then, Steve Balmer took over Microsoft while Apple co-founder Steve Jobs returned like a prodigal son to Apple which almost went bankrupt in 1997 and started the long road to Apple’s recovery. As a result, much of the blame for Microsoft’s decline has been laid at the feet of Balmer who has been helpless in the face of Job’s ingenuity and innovation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc[/youtube]

To add insult to injury for Balmer, even more spectacular has been the rise of Google which was nothing but a loss-making search engine back in 2000. It’s now worth $115.bn making it bigger than Hewlett Packard and only a shade smaller than Cisco and IBM. Google is very much in the ascendancy and it’s surely only a matter of time before it leapfrogs Microsoft on the stock market over the next few years.

But even though Google may still lag a few places behind Microsoft financially, it’s already miles ahead in the software world. While Apple has destroyed Microsoft in the hardware stakes with iPods, iPads and the increasing popularity of Macs, Google has destroyed it in the online advertising business courtesy of Google AdSense which has outstripped Microsoft’s loss making Live services. Even in the mobile industry, Microsoft Windows Mobile can’t compete with either Google’s free Android operating system or the iPhone.

Microsoft’s saving grace remains Windows and Office, the two most widely used computer applications in the world. Courtesy of these two products alone, Microsoft still makes more profit that Apple or Google even if its market valuation is plunging. However, the writing is on the wall for these two flagships too. As in the mobile world, why should consumers and manufacturers pay for a license to use Windows when operating systems such as Google Chromium and Google Docs offer a competent free alternative?

Microsoft’s failure to innovate and embrace open source or free software has been its ultimate downfall. In an increasingly competitive and desperate economic climate, both consumers and businesses will ultimately end-up ditching expensive options such as Windows and Office thus finally consigning the company to the history books.

[Header image from Hooray for Change]

You may have been using Photoshop for a while now, but you may have not noticed all the possibilities hidden behind one of Photoshop’s most powerful tools: the brush.

Brushes in Photoshop are much more than just a tool to draw. They can be used to create decorative frames, add pre-made shapes and customize your images in many different ways. But if you want to make use of all the potential in this tool, you need to know how to configure and use it properly.

Like all other tools in Photoshop, brushes have their own settings in the top toolbar: Size, Mode, Opacity and Flow. Continue reading “All you need to know about Photoshop brushes”

In case you hadn’t noticed, summer is on its way (at least, it is here in the Northern hemisphere). This means barbecues, beaches and burnt bits. Or at least, that’s what we hope.

If you want to make the most of the good weather then you can turn your PC or laptop into a personal weather station so you know exactly when to plan your outdoor pursuits. There are scores of weather forecasting programs available for Windows, and some are more reliable than others. Here’s our top five:

The Weather Channel Desktop is a comprehensive desktop weather station with a bevy of prediction tools. You can get hour-by-hour, weekend or 10-day forecasts, including information about ambient temperature, air pressure, humidity and wind direction. The Weather Channel Desktop minimizes to the taskbar, displaying just the current temperature. You can then open it by double-clicking, or right-clicking to navigate the menu.

Meteo Fusion is an altogether simpler weather forecasting tool. The widget-style application stays open on your desktop at all times, showing you the current conditions outside and giving you an up-to-date outlook for the coming days. You can pimp the app with different themes and change the transparency of the interface, so Meteo Fusion looks really cool even when it’s baking outside.

YoWindow is by far the most attractive weather app on the block. YoWindow features a colorful, fully-animated window that displays jaw-dropping landscapes, and changes according to actual weather conditions. It displays the current situation, plus temperature, wind, pressure, and humidity. All these conditions are reflected in an customizable animated background – which you can replace with your own photos.

My Free Weather allows you to view the sky in any city in the world and track local weather. You can track a moving storm & weather patterns via satellite and radar. Naturally, you can also view daily and detailed forecasts, local time and date for any location worldwide, plus alerts for severe weather. It also shows other information such as wind speed and direction, humidity and visibility.

Global Weather 3D is the most scientific-feeling application out of the bunch. Instead of displaying the usual geographic map with weather symbols, the program makes use of an attractive, zoom-able, three-dimensional Earth to show the current position of clouds on our planet, marking their density with a color code. You can display geographical textures, day and night zones, and countries’ names.

Paint it Red 2 is an extremely relaxing art game where the objective is simple: paint the screen red!

Guiding a cursor around to spread paint, which is sometimes red, sometimes mixed with other colors, and behaves in many different ways, is both addictive and relaxing. Losing an hour with Paint it Red 2 isn’t difficult! Every level works slightly differently, and there are no instructions, you just have to experiment.

Every level has a Red percentage to aim for before you can move on, while your current percentage is displayed. This draws you right into the game, and playing through the many levels on offer is good fun. Paint it Red 2 just requires Flash and your browser.