Google OpenSource Initiatives

Technorati Tags: google,opensource

There has been slew of open source initiatives from Google lately. These are the one’s I came across.

• Protocol Buffers, Google’s own message exchange format, released under Apache Licence.
• Browser Sync: A Firefox extension that synchronizes your browser settings across computers, released under New BSD Licence.
• Google C++ Testing Framework: Google’s framework for writing C++ tests on various platforms, under New BSD Licence.

Why is this so interesting to me? Well, this will give us an insight into the tools built by Google and their programming standards etc. Personally, I will try and learn as much as possible from these various tools.

There also one more cool thing I came across lately, Google C++ Style Guide. Do check it out. It is mighty useful if you, like me, work on C++.

Firefox keyboard shortcuts

Now that Firefox 3.0 is out on the tubes, here's a short list of keyboard shortcuts I compiled. Some of these are pretty straightforward, some are redundant and some are just basic windows keyboard shortcuts, but I will list everything just for the sake of it.

• ctrl+w - close a tab (close the window if there are no tabs open).
• ctrl+e - place the cursor in the search bar.
• ctrl+r - reload page.
• ctrl+t - open a new tab.
• ctrl+u - view source of the page.
• ctrl+i - open bookmarks side bar.
• ctrl+o - open file dialog.
• ctrl+p - open print dialog.
• ctrl+a - select all.
• ctrl+s - save.
• ctrl+d - bookmark a page(opens a mini bookmark dialog)
• ctrl+shift+d - bookmark all open tabs.
  
• ctrl+f - find.
• ctrl+g - find again.
  
• ctrl+h - open history sidebar(toggle).
• ctrl+j - open downloads window.
• ctrl+k - go to firefox search bar.
• ctrl+l - go to address/location/awesome bar.
• ctrl+z - undo.
• ctrl+x - cut.
• ctrl+c - copy.
• ctrl+v - paste.
• ctrl+b - open bookmarks side bar (toggle).
• ctrl+shift+b - opens bookmark manager.
  
• ctrl+n - open new window.
• / - quick find. (that should be handy)
  
• ctrl+tab, ctrl+shift+tab - cycle through tabs forward and backward.
• ctrl+enter - adds "www" as prefix and ".com" as suffix to anything you enter in the location bar and loads that page in the current tab.
• ctrl+shift+enter - same as above but, suffixes ".org".
• use "alt" along with the above two to load the page in a new tab rather than the current one.
• ctrl+shift+delete - delete browsing history.
  

If you know any shortcuts I missed out, please write them in the comments.
And hey! If you have participated in the Firefox download day, here's how you could flaunt it. Just visit this page, key in your name and print the pdf document that loads up.

A few Ubuntu & Firefox tips and tricks

Hello! Folks.

Here are some tips for the users of Ubuntu and Firefox.
Gnome 2.x: Supercharge your right-click menu with Nautilus Scripts
Gnome:Add screen actions with Brightside
Gnome/KDE:Dock any application to the system tray with AllTray
Gnome on Linux:Copy and paste without using the clipboard
Gnome:Embed the terminal on the desktop
Linux: Speed up Gnome menu
Ubuntu: How To: Give Ubuntu a speed boost
Ubuntu:Print to PDF in Ubuntu
Ubuntu:Encrypt CDs/DVDs in Ubuntu
Ubuntu:Load programs faster with Preload
How To: Create .iso disk images and generate MD5 checksums

Firefox: Tweak about:config options with Configuration Mania
Firefox on Ubuntu:Beautify Firefox web page forms on Ubuntu

Thanks Lifehacker.
Happy tweaking.

How to build your own Firefox Extension

Have you been planning to whip up your own Firefox extension? Well, here's something for starters. This Lifehacker post can get you started on your very own, pet extension for the browser you love. The post points to plenty of developer resources too. Wachoo waiting for? Go, put on creative thinking cap.

Good Luck.

RIP: Remove It Permanantly. FireFox Extension

Are you irritated by huge graphical ads smack in the middle of an article? Or maybe you don't want to waste bandwidth viewing the dozens of images in a review, or user icons in forum boards? You can remove them for good with a single click by using Firefox's RIP extension, which zaps anything out of a Web page, permanently.

RIP, which stands for Remove It Permanently, is inspired by the two popular Firefox extensions -- Nuke Anything and Adblock. Nuke Anything is designed to remove elements from a page to make it more printer-friendly, but the extension doesn't remember those changes. Adblock, on the other hand, focuses solely on removing graphical advertisements. RIP can remove a lot more.

In addition to graphical ads, with RIP you can also remove text ads, or even pieces of text such as tables or copyright notices. The best thing about the extension is that it doesn't leave empty spaces where the removed content used to reside; if you delete a horizontal banner between two paragraphs, the page will close up around the missing element.

Complete Article Here.