Multiple instances of Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in XP

Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is the default application that opens up evertime you launch an image file like jpg or gif. But in Windows XP, you can have only one window of Picture Viewer open at a time. When you open a new image, the previous window closes. But what if you wanted to have two or more pictures showing in Picture Viewer? You can do this, but it’s not exactly feasable to do everytime.

1) Open one image.
2) Now click on Print icon. This opens up Photo Printing Wizard. Let it stay open.
3) Open another image of your choice. Note that previous image stays open.
4) Now just close the Photo Printing Wizard.

Now you have two instances of Windows Photo and Fax Viewer open!

(My) Top 20 Firefox Extensions

Here are my top 20 extensions for Firefox:

1. DOM Inspector – Inspect the DOM of HTML, XUL, and XML pages, including the browser chrome.

2. Adblock – Filters ads from web-pages.

3. Tabbrowser Preferences – Enhance control over some aspects of tabbed browsing.

4. Web Developer – Adds a menu and toolbar with various web developer tools.

5. FasterFox – Performance and network tweaks for Firefox.

6. SessionSaver – Magically restores your last browsing session.

7. NoScript – Extra Protection for your Firefox : NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice.

8. Right-Click Link – Opens selected text in a new tab.

9. Anonymouser – Open link anonymously with anonymouser.org.

10. Disable Targets for Downloads – Prevents download links opening a blank window.

11. Kill Google Ads – Remove Google ads from a HTML Page.

12. Mouse Gestures – Allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures.

13. Tab Mix Plus – Tab browsing with an added boost.

14. Paste and Go 2 – Past text and load/search it immediately.

15. Super DragAndGo – Drag a link or anything like a uri and throw it anywhere to open in new tab.

16. DownThemAll – The mass downloader for Firefox.

17. Remove Cookie(s) for Site – Adds right-click menu option and toolbar button to remove all cookies of currently opened site.

18. CookieSafe – Control cookie permissions.

19. FlashGot – Enables single and massive downloads using most popular external download manager.

20. VideoDownloader – Download embedded videos from more than 60 websites (including YouTube,Google, etc).

Cheers!

Vista Features alternatives for Windows XP

Windows Vista features numerous new features, which are exciting and useful too. So, for XP users, let me briefly mention alternatives to much talked about features in Vista for Windows XP.

1. Search.

– Windows Desktop Search (Microsoft) : Fast, well organised, nice UI.
Size : Just above 4MB
Click to Download.

– Google Desktop Search (Google) : Fast, Traditional Web-based Google layout for Searches.
Size : About 2MB
Click to Download.

2. Sidebar.

– Google Desktop Search (Google) : Comes with it’s own sidebar!
Size : About 2MB
Click to Download.

– Desktop Sidebar : High Customizability
Size : 10.8MB
Click to Download.

3. Picture Organizer.

– Picasa 2 (Google) : Great UI, easy to use and organize
Size : About 5MB
Click to Download.

4. User Interface.

– WindowBlinds 5.1 (Stardock)
Size : ?
Click to Download.

– Windows Vista Skins
Search them on DeviantArt.

Well, enjoy then! 😛

Make the Power button in Vista start menu to turn off computer instead of sleep

The Power button in Windows Vista’s Start Menu, if pressed, puts your computer in Sleep mode rather than turning it off. This guide shows you how you can set it to actually turn your computer off.

1. Goto Control Panel (Start->Control Panel). Switch to Classic View for this guide. (You can do so by clicking ‘Classic View’ from left Nav Panel.)

2. Double-click Power Options.

3. The page refreshes to show you the Power Options. By default, Vista is set to use Balanced Plan. Click the ‘Change plan settings’ link below it.

4. Now click the ‘Change advanced power settings’ link.

5. In the window that opens, navigate through : Power buttons and lid->Start menu power button by clicking the ‘+ ‘

6. Click on ‘Sleep’ and pull down the drop-down box. Select ‘Shut Down’ instead.

7. Click ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’. Now when you press the Power button in Start menu, it will directly shutdown the computer!

Disable the annoying dotted line on links in Firefox

When you click on links or buttons on websites in Firefox, you get this dotted line around the links.
I find it ugly. Well, you can get rid of it for good. To do this,

Open a new tab in Firefox and type about:config
Scroll down till you find an entry saying browser.display.focus_ring_width
Double-click it, enter 0 in the text box and click OK.

That’s all it needs. That dotted line thingy is gone forever (ofcourse, you can re-enable it by changing the browser.display.focus_ring_width’s value to 1)