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New browsers to improve efficiency

Generally help one access various on-line services directly

NETSPEAK EXPLORES some browser toolbars/plug-ins, meant for improving your on-line efficacy.

Browsing the Net has become an essential daily routine for most of us and it does involve a significant share of working hours. Being aware of tools developed for facilitating this activity and using them intelligently enhances one's productivity. Browser toolbar is one such tool category meant for this purpose.

A browser toolbar generally helps you access various on-line services directly from it. For instance, Google toolbar, as mentioned in the past, helps you access different Google services such as Google Search, Google News, Google Images and so on without having to visit them. Like Google, other search services (Yahoo and MSN) also offer toolbars. Naturally, installing each of them not only makes life tedious but also clutters one's browser. In this context, the free search toolbar from Groowe (http://www.groowe.com/) becomes useful.

Groowe comes bundled with toolbars containing several popular search services that include Google, Yahoo, MSN, Amazon, Del.icio.us, Digg, Wikipedia and so on. Once connected to your browser, Groowe can be easily converted to the toolbar of your favourite search service. For instance, if you choose Google, Groowe converts itself into Google toolbar and if you select Yahoo the toolbar will turn into that of Yahoo. Another distinct feature of this product is the facility for invoking search on several search engines simultaneously with a single mouse click. You can enter a string on Groowe's input box, select the option to invoke a search on three, five or seven search engines specified in your favorite list and get the output from each of them on separate tabs.

Web 2.0 toolbar

At present we witness an explosion of different types of Web 2.0 applications with features for social networking, user-created content and so on. We have Web 2.0 applications for storing/sharing bookmarks (like Del.icio.us), blog search engines (like Technorati), social news services (like Digg) and so on.

Obviously, different services are needed for meeting varied requirements. For instance, to store general bookmarks you may be using Del.icio.us, while for storing complete web pages your favourite service could be Furl. For keeping abreast of the latest technology news you could be scanning Digg or Tailrank or some such service. Naturally, we need some easy means for accessing these services without having to visit them in the usual manner. The Web 2.0 toolbar (http://www.web20toolbar.com/) seems to be a product developed with these user needs in mind. Once linked to your browser (IE or Firefox), many of the popular Web 2.0 services can be accessed right away. Without moving from the current page, you can post on to your favorite social book marking services and read the latest postings on them as well.

Yoono toolbar

While on a subject-specific site, if we get a list of sites similar to the one being viewed, it may help us find relevant materials with minimum effort. The toolbar Yoono (http://www.yoono.com/) has this feature built-in. When you visit a site, you will find similar sites (or the ones Yoono considers similar to the current one) moving through Yoono's sidebar.

Let us assume you invoked a Google search for Word/PowerPoint documents and found some useful links. To edit/read the documents thus found, you need to bring them to your machine and start the relevant desktop application. If you don't have the application installed on your machine or are not keen to bring them to the local storage, it becomes a little tricky. The latest tool, Zoho QuickRead, the browser plug-in for MS-Office, from the web based office suite service, Zoho (http://writer.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp), helps you easily solve this riddle. Once installed, the plug-in lets you read/edit a Word document or PPT file on the browser itself. Just right-click on the link and select the option `Open with Zoho...' After reading/editing, if you wish, you can save the document on to your local storage. Zoho also features a plug-in that enhances the power of MS-Office on your desktop. This plug-in lets you save Word/Excel documents on to your folder in Zoho's server, directly from the corresponding packages, running on your desktop. Yet another means to keep your files on a remote location.

FaviconizeTab

A Modern browser (like Firefox) allows you to open multiple sites on different tabs in a single Window. Though this feature is very handy, it clutters the menu bar when you open several web pages together. Firefox users can counter this shortcoming by installing the extension FaviconizeTab (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3780/).

This extension helps you decrease a tab's size to the site's favicon. A site's favicon, as mentioned in an earlier column (http://www.hindu.com/biz/2004/10/04/stories/2004100401 801500.htm), is the small icon displayed on the browser's address bar at the left end, next to its URL. So, if you are familiar with a site's favicon, reduce the tab width by right clicking on the tab and selecting the option `Faviconize Tab.'

New TLD

Gone are the days when we had only a handful of TLDs (top level domains) like com, org, gov, edu etc. A new TLD noticed by this author is `mobi', the one meant for mobile devices and sites supporting them. We already have several sites in this domain (like BusinessWeek — http://businessweek.mobi/). For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Mobi.

On-line versions of a wide variety of desktop applications are now available. Besides applications aimed at ordinary users (like on-line office suite, web based database and so on), several specialised ones are also being released.

The JavaScript based on-line application, JS/UIX (http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/), is one such product. This service lets you run a UNIX shell in your browser. So, if you want to test a few UNIX commands from your browser, just jump over to the JS/UIX site. While on this service, you can even run the text editor Vi.

Free Software magazine

The availability of free/open source programs makes the Net an affordable place for a large majority of netizens. But for such programs/services, the Net would never have gained its current popularity. That is, to make your Net life more comfortable/productive, knowledge of the latest developments in this sector becomes imperative.

J. MURALI

He can be contacted at: jmurali@gmail.com

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