Firefox has MANY many features and hidden functionality. The average mortal just doesn’t have the time to find or learn them all. But some are useful enough to add to our daily routines because they save us time and energy while browsing… which, in turn, makes our time more fun and productive. Today we’re going to cover a few nifty tricks you can use for managing your tabs inside of Firefox.

 Do you know of some other cool tricks? Let us know about them in the comments below this post!

Part 1:

• Getting an Account
• Finding Friends
• Customizing Your Profile
• Adjusting Privacy Controls
• Communicating with Others

There was just no way for me to cover Facebook in one 10 minute video though, so I’m releasing it as Tech-Bite’s first ever FREE Mega-Bite!

Under normal circumstances, I probably would have put this hour-long episode together as a DVD and made it available for purchase, but this Mega-Bite is going to be available to everyone and at no cost! Just subscribe to the Tech-Bites newsletter using the form below and you will be given immediate access to my full Mega-Bite tutorial on Facebook! Subscribers will also know when new videos or Mega-Bites are available in the future.

Here’s what we will be covering in the 2 additional Facebook videos (altogether totaling about 1 hour in length!) :

Part 2 (subscribers only):

• Reading the Newsfeed
• Personalizing the Newsfeed
• Adding Applications
• Joining Groups
• Becoming a Fan

Part 3 (subscribers only):

• How to Get Your Email Inside Facebook
• Adding RSS
• Working on Office Documents (like Word docs, Excel, Powerpoint, and more) together with friends on Facebook
• Adding your Twitter
• An Overview of Desktop Applications for Facebook

Just type in your Name and Email below to watch the next two videos in my Facebook Mega-Bite series. (Already a member? No Problem! Either click the link that came to you in the most recent newsletter, OR type your previously registered name and email here. My system will recognize you and let you through!)

Wizz RSS is a “feed reader” for anyone who doesn’t like RSS programs or can’t remember to check online readers (like Google Reader or Bloglines). It’s a very accessible alternative and keeps things very simple for the user.

It’s not immediately intuitive, though, for those who are still new to the use of feeds to keep track of their favorite sites. In today’s video, we’ll cover the basics to get you started with Wizz RSS.

If you aren’t using any RSS reader yet, pay attention: You are missing out. If you use your feeds right, it can be one of the greatest time savers you can take advantage of. So please give it a try, for your own sake!

-Garrett

Piclens is an addon for Firefox that allows you to browse popular sites in a fluid 3D context. This may not sound real practical right out the door, but wait ’til you see it in action… if you’re not sold on Firefox yet, you may be after seeing this! This addon is available for both Windows and Mac.

Piclens currently supports:

Get Piclens!

Oh, and let me know how you like the video format, or if you prefer the Youtube.com videos instead. This one is BIGGER!

-Garrett

Twitter is one of the best Social Networks on the internet mostly because of how SIMPLE it is! Today’s video shows you how you and your friends can get started twittering each other ’til the cows come home.

Twitter asks you one question: What are you doing?

Will you answer?

Go Sign Up for Twitter

Know of a better way to update your friends than Twitter? Let us know in the comments below!

• Manage a shared calendar
• brainstorm
• make a class worksheet
• make a page of favorite youtube videos
• use as a personal information manager
• and more!

Now, it is true that this isn’t the only service that can do these things, but I found it exceptionally easy. I’m using it as a personal information manager… and it doesn’t even expressly say that it’s for that! With a little bit of creativity, you can use it to do almost anything.

Just head to http://pbwiki.com to make your own website (wiki) today!

Just had to pass that along today

PS: Hope you like the new site design. I really just wanted to simplify things and improve navigation… and the search function actually works now! Thanks for visiting!

Yahoo! Answers is one of my favorite networks and a great place to find answers to questions that have been in the back of your mind for days! Learn the ropes in this new video! Click here to go to Yahoo! Answers.

Technorati Tags: tech-bites, yahoo answers, ask questions, social network, how to, how do I

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  Today we look at one of the best free music sites around. Last.fm let’s you listen to music that you like for as long as you want from any platform. You don’t need an account and you don’t need to download any files. Perfect for work or listening to some music on a whim from any computer.  

 DON’T Buy a Computer this year!

Unless you listen to my special message on this important issue. 

Click To Play

If any acronym can boast full penetration from geekdom to the rest of the world… it’s “RSS”. Everyone has a “feed” these days and they expect you to know what to do with it! Feeds -be they RSS, Atom, or XML- allow us to “pull” information from the web without having to visit the sites ourselves. It also prevents us from having to go “check” a site for updates because their feed would alert us of any updates.

Feeds are especially useful in the context of blogs, but other popular ways to use feeds include news updates from major news sources, new products at your favorite shops, weather forecast updates, or alerts for when your friends have added pictures to their online collections. It’s like having a private “digest” version of the internet, tailor-made for you. It eliminates time sinks like surfing and allows you to consume information much more quickly than you might have without it.

Although there are many readers, Google Reader is possibility the fastest and most accessible. It’s part of your Google account and can be accessed from any computer online. Not only that, but thanks to Google Gears, you can use it offline too (to read feeds you have already downloaded) and you can integrate it into Gmail using the “Better Gmail” firefox add-on from Lifehacker.

Get Your Google Reader Account Set Up Here

Add/Remove Feeds

Perhaps the most basic and important part of using site feeds is knowing how to add and remove them from your reader.

Add-

To add a feed to your collection (once you have your Google Reader account set up) simply visit the site you want to add in your browser and look for one of these icons (or a similar variation):

Generally, feed icons are orange and look similar the the examples above. Some browsers will “automagically” detect feeds. I discourage using this feature of your browser because many sites use multiple feeds or several versions of one, so it is better to use the feed they display on their page.

Clicking a feed will bring up a page that looks like this (in Firefox).

Just choose “Google” from the list and check “Always use Google…” so that you won’t see this screen again.

Finally, click “Add to Google Reader” and you’re done!

Remove-

In the event that you should like to “unsubscribe” from one of the feeds you added, click the “Manage subscriptions” link at the bottom of the reader.

Then simply click the little “trashcan” icon next to the feed(s) you want to remove.

Browse and Star (using shortcuts)

One of the most important things about a feed reader is how quickly and easily you can process your feeds each day so that you don’t become a victim of “information overload”. In relation to most online readers, Google Reader is exceptionally fast and one of the few that uses keyboard shortcuts.

I use the following method for reading my feeds each day. It takes two passes.

Pass 1 (filtering)

1. Open Google Reader and click “All Items” (also set reader to show new items only, next to “Show:” at the top)
2. Use “j” and “k” to browse my unread feeds (j=next and k=previous)
3. If I think a feed item is worth reading I “Star” it by pressing the “s” key (same as clicking the “star” icon, it toggles the star “status” on/off)

Once I’ve completed steps 1-3 -which should only take a few minutes- I can make my second pass… either right then, or later that day. Sometimes I do not have time to read anything for several days. This is why I use the “Star” tool. I can go to “Starred Items” from now on to find the feed items worth reading. When I go to actually *read* my items, it looks like this:

Pass 2 (reading)

1. Open Google Reader and click “Starred Items”
2. Use “j” and “k” to open each item and flip through them
3. When I’m done with the current feed item I press “s” to remove it from my “Starred Items”

Sharing

Sometimes, while I am reading an item I enjoy very much, I use the email function to send the item to a friend. It’s much faster than composing a new email myself and integrates with my Gmail account which means it’s saving me time!

Beyond This

Google Reader is highly flexible and there are numerous things you can do to enhance your experience. Here’s some you may find useful:

• Better Gmail – Are you a Gmail user? With the excellent “Better Gmail” Firefox Add-on from Lifehacker.com, you can have Google Reader integrated right into Gmail! It feels very natural and helps me consolidate all my data (emails and feeds) into one online interface.
• Better GReader – That’s right… Lifehacker.com again. These guys are somethin’ else. This makes “some welcome GReader tweaks like maximizing the viewing area, skipping Google’s default subscribe mechanism, and adding keyboard shortcuts.“
• Go Here to add your Gmail inbox as a feed to Google Reader (could be good if you use your reader more than email).
• Google Reader Search – Funny though it may seem, Google Reader has no search function! Thanks to Greasemonkey scripts, you can get your search box here.
• Google Gears – If you use a laptop and frequently need to be away from an internet connection, you can use Google Gears to read your feeds while you are offline (plane trip, bus ride, etc).

Stay tuned for my next article and video episode. For more tips and tricks, sign up for the Official Tech-Bites.com Newsletter! You will be the first to know whenever I release new articles and videos and receive special subscriber only articles and product reviews.

Sign-up today!

Click To Play

Anyone who has lost their bookmarks from a computer crash or accidental deletion knows the pain of losing those “blazed trails” on the Internet. Bookmarks help us keep our bearings in the very big world that is the Internet. So, it makes sense that we should not only back them up, but use them to their fullest in today’s web world.Welcome to the world of social bookmarking.You’ve probably heard of “Del.icio.us” and wondered what it was and whether it could be useful for you.

“First, you can get to your bookmarks from anywhere, no matter whether you’re at home, at work, in a library, or on a friend’s computer.

Second, you can share your bookmarks publicly, so your friends, coworkers, and other people can view them for reference, amusement, collaboration, or anything else. (Note that you can also mark bookmarks on del.icio.us as private — only viewable by you — if you like.)

Third, you can find other people on del.icio.us who have interesting bookmarks and add their links to your own collection. Everyone on del.icio.us chooses to save their bookmarks for a reason. You have access to the links that everyone wants to remember. You can see whether two people have chosen to remember a link, or whether it was useful enough for a thousand people to remember — which may help you find things that are useful for you, too.” – Del.icio.us

This method of bookmark-management is quickly becoming the defacto/preferred method for millions of people. Del.icio.us has already provided extensive information in getting set up with your browser (however, I’ll show you a quick visual of the sign up process on the video) so we will move on to the different things you can do with it once you’re ready to go:

Del.icio.us Registration (this will get you set up with an account, browser buttons, and import your bookmarks -if you want-)
Del.icio.us’ Help Page (great information source)

Also, watch the video to see how I prefer to situate Del.icio.us in Firefox (I prefer to use Firefox’s Quickbar and hide Del.icio.us).

What Now?

So, let’s talk about some of the practical uses for Del.icio.us. I will be using the Firefox version for this article, but the IE version is similar.

Tagging a new site:

From now on, when you want to bookmark a site, you will use the tag button.

• URL: Shows the current address.
• Name: The clickable name that will show up in Del.icio.us and in your bookmarks.
• Notes: Good for communicating the nature of this page to others or simply to remind yourself why you liked it.
• Tags: Important! Separated with commas, you can use these keywords to help yourself and others locate this bookmark later.
• Do Not Share: If you check this box, you are the only Del.icio.us user that can access/search this bookmark. Good for private links.

To sort and browse through the bookmarks you have tagged, just click the . More on using this tool can be found here.

Using Del.icio.us to Find New Sites

This is, perhaps the most important function of Del.icio.us, in my opinion. It pulls everyone’s non-private tags, notes, and links together to create a user-based search engine. It won’t replace Google for most types of research but it is perfectly suited for discovering popular sites.

Method 1:

Go to Del.icio.us and type something into the search bar at the top (or just use the quick search in firefox).

I typed in “learn italian” and these were my results:

The “Best” Match is the bookmark that has the best combination of relevance, recency, and number of saves (others who have bookmarked this site).

Further down the list, however, I see a page that has 1,790 saves. While it may not be the “Best” match, it’s probably worth checking out because so many people considered it worth bookmarking.

In this case, it seems that the numbers were right. The BBC site is very cool. The LearnItalianPod “Best” Match was also cool, though.

It’s usually worth checking at least both the “Best” Match and the result with the most saves.

Method 2:

If you simply go to Del.icio.us, on the front page you can see the hottest pages. These pages are recent and have been rapidly accumulating saves, so it’s a good “buzz” board.

To the right of the “hotlist” you can see some of the tags that are experiencing unusual activity:

On both the “hotlist” and the “tags to watch” areas, simply click one of the tags to get instant results for just that topic. Here’s what I got after clicking “gtd” (“get things done”):

This is a great way to discover new and useful sites or pages on the net.

Sharing Your Links With Others:

Although all your non-private links are shared with everyone already, I’m assuming you might like to specifically share some links with friends or family. Here are the two most common ways to share your links.

Go to Del.icio.us and click “your bookmarks” to see all of your bookmarks. You can link someone there simply by copying the address at the top of your browser. For instance, mine is http://del.icio.us/justaleaf. Anyone can view this page and see my non-private bookmarks.

If you’d rather link someone to a specific set of links, just click the tag that contains those links (ie: “design”) and copy the new address instead. http://del.icio.us/JustaLeaf/design <— the tag is appended to the address.

Whether you are on a account page or looking at a specific tag in that account, you can also add it to your RSS reader (or your friends could) which will alert you whenever new links are added to this list.

Beyond This

Del.icio.us is a very powerful service and there are many, many, ways to utilize it. You can have your links dynamically display on your blog or website, streamline del.icio.us (adventurous only!), view cloud views of your bookmarks, and more. You can also make the interface easier on the eyes, as in the screenshots above, by using this greasemonkey script.

Stay tuned for my next article and video episode. For more tips and tricks, sign up for the Official Tech-Bites.com Newsletter! You will be the first to know whenever I release new articles and videos and receive special subscriber only articles and product reviews.

Sign-up today!