Ditch Acrobat Reader With Foxit

Let's not mince words: Adobe Acrobat Reader is a slow piece of crap. So slow that most people assume it just crashes all the time (as opposed to just half of the time). And to make matters worse, when you close the application, it stays running in the background.

Foxit Reader is a full-fledged replacement for Acrobat Reader, and it's fast and works as well as the older Acrobat Reader.

I highly suggest uninstalling Acrobat Reader first before installing, but I promise it'll be worth the trouble.

My only quabble with Foxit is that it doesn't offer an in-browser plugin for viewing PDF's within the browser, which Acrobat Reader actually had. Running the Foxit app is still better than using Acrobat Reader from within a browser, but if it offered a browser plugin, it would damn near perfect.

Access Task Manager Without CTRL-ALT-DEL

This is something I stumbled upon randomly a week or two ago, which is funny because this is far after I'd put a concerted effort to get my background applications in order:

The way I'd always known to access the Task Manager (aka the window that shows you all the currently running programs) was to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL. But that tends to lock access to the rest of your desktop, and I know people who aren't comfortable hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL out of habit (it was, of course, what you'd hit to force restart way back when).

But did you know you can access the Task Manager by right clicking on an empty area of your taskbar, and clicking on "Task Manager?"

While I advocate using keyboard shortcuts whenever possible, this actually seems simpler, and for some reason, safer.

Change How Firefox Handles Downloaded Files

For some reason at some point in the past few months, whenever I download a torrent file to start a download, Firefox would always save the file to disk, instead of asking me whether or not I wanted to save it or just open it (don't ask me why I didn't just have it automatically open indefinitely, I guess I never got around to it). I guess I must've accidentally told it to always do that action.

Anyway, this lead to extra files on my desktop and an extra double click to start my torrent download, which was really annoying. Luckily the great site GHacks had the answer.

If you want to change the download actions for a specific file type, just go to Tools>Options>Content>Manage File Types, and alter accordingly.

Now my torrents are opened in UTorrent (my preferred bittorrent client) as soon as I click on them to download.

The GHacks article actually even goes as far as showing you how to reset all of the download actions, which personally felt like overkill to me, and required more effort than I was willing to spend, seeing as how the torrent file was the only one giving me a bother. But if you want to go ahead and do that, check out the linked article.

To-Do-List iGoogle Gadget: The Only One I Use

While I prefer to use a daily planner (in my case, Thunderbird's Lightning extension, more on that later) when it comes to appointments and intensive time management, on the days when I've just got too many little things to do (that don't need to be done in any particular order or in any amount of time), there's nothing better than having a to-do list to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. That's where Matt McCarthy's To-Do-List iGoogle gadget comes in.

The trick to to-do lists is that entering and crossing off tasks should take significantly less time than doing the task itself; if not, you're better off just doing the task right then and there. To-Do-List for your iGoogle homepage is perfect for that in that all you have to do is click on the gadget to add a new task. And then when you finish the task, you can either click on the task itself to cross it off, or click on the right end of that task's row to remove it from the list altogether.

Another touch that I really appreciated in this gadget is that you can specify how many rows high the gadget's window takes up. When you've got as many gadgets on your homepage as I do (currently 11, and I don't believe in using iGoogle's tabs... it's called a home page for a reason), being able to customize its size is really important.

And finally, because it's part of your iGoogle page, To-Do-List is accessible from any computer that has internet access as soon as you sign into your Google account. Perfect if you want to remind yourself in the morning to do something at the office.

Overall, To-Do-List is without a doubt the quickest, most convenient way to make sure all those tiny tasks get done!

Higher Resolution Youtube Setting

It's been making the rounds online that Youtube has started implementing a higher quality compression and resolution on its videos. They've been slowly rolling out the higher quality versions of videos (mostly on the newer submissions), and there have been several hacks that tap into this higher quality version right away.

Well, now that's not even necessary, at least if you're a registered user.

If you go into your account, there's a new menu at the end of the list called "Video Playback Quality." From there you can set Youtube to automatically play high quality videos based on current connection, always low quality, or always high quality.

Of course, forcing hiqh quality will run Youtube a little slower, so this is only recommended for people with cable modems or higher.

(From Cybernet via Lifehacker)

Blogrush isn't Really Working That Well for Me

I've been using Blogrush's widget (that's it there on the top right in the 2nd column) for about two months now and so far it's only really brought me two hits, after what it claims to be over 10,000 traffic credits. I don't really remember how the credits are generated, but it's based on traffic, and still, that kind of conversion rate is pretty laughable.

I'm sure I'm the one to blame, the pool's probably too wide and deep to stand out, and I'm probably not coming up with alluring enough titles. I know the service works, because I've clicked on interesting headlines from other peoples' blogs more than a few times now since I've installed it, and I'm the kind of person that would hardly ever click on an ad just by seeing it.

Still, my sidebars aren't clogged with info so I'm not too concerned about leaving it up there... I'd certainly be a fool to turn down even one visit this early on, so why not.

Don't Forget the Attachment with AttachmentReminder

I'm notorious for forgetting to actually attach files that I promised to send in the email itself. Searching my Sent Mail folder revealed at least 10 messages with subjects and messages something like "I'm an idiot... here's the file" inside.

AttachmentReminder is a Thunderbird extension that tries to save you from yourself by checking your message before it's sent, and reminding you that you might have meant to attach a file to it.


The screenshot above shows the preference box for the attachment. Note that you have to actually hit the checkbox enabling the feature before it starts working, which is annoying because shouldn't it work once you've installed it? I went through two weeks before I realized it wasn't doing its job (I noticed because, of course, I forgot to send an attachment and I didn't get a warning).

The extension works by searching the message for loaded words like "attach" and its various iterations, and then checks if there's a file attached when you try to send it. If there isn't, a dialogue box asks you if you meant to attach a file.

I'd originally left the word bank blank in hopes that AttachmentReminder would be smart enough to know without me coaching it, something like the adaptive intelligence of Thunderbird's spam filter. Alas, without me telling it what words to look out for (in my case, the word attach which includes attached, attachment, etc), it assumed any and all messages I tried to send without an attachment were done in error. Giving it the words to look out for solved that problem, but now if I don't use the word attach but still meant to attach a file (maybe I'd say, "here's the file..."), I wouldn't get the warning.

In my case, for now I'd rather it warn me some of the time, instead of wasting my time warning me all of the time. Either way, it's a worthy addition to your Thunderbird.