June 19, 2008

Free PDF book: Firefox 3 Revealed

The much anticipated update to everyone's favorite internet browser, Firefox, was released earlier this week. Firefox 3 contains may great new features and improvements, but do you know what they are and how to take advantage of them?

If you want to learn more about the new browser, here's your chance. SitePoint is giving away a free PDF book titled Firefox 3 Revealed. [Download link]

Posted at 7:27 AM | Comments (1)

August 20, 2007

Firefox tweak: Spell check any text field

Here’s an easy Firefox tweak to enable spell checking of single-line text fields. (By default, only multi-line text boxes are spell checked.)

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and press enter
  2. In the filter field type layout.spellcheckDefault
  3. Double-click on the entry and in the pop-box enter 2
  4. Click OK
  5. Restart Firefox

Source: Firefox 2.0: Spell Check Tweak - Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog

Posted at 9:43 AM

November 3, 2006

Free phone calls with Skype using your regular phone!

Lately, it seems that there’s a new VOIP service coming out every other day.

Earlier this year, Skype announced that, at least until the end of this year, anyone could make free SkypeOut calls to regular phones in the U.S. and Canada. This was very exciting and finally convinced me to buy a headset for my computer so that I could use Skype. I’ve tried to pass this tip along to many of my friends and family, but have found that most of them can’t take advantage of it because they don’t have a microphone for their computer.

Just the other day I found out about another VOIP service called JaJah. They describe themselves as “web-activated telephony”. From their website, you can enter in your home phone number and the number of the person you wish to call. Their system then rings both phones and initiates a conversation between the two of you. And what’s more, it’s free—as long as both you and the person you’re calling are regular JaJah users and you’re both in each other’s contact books. On top of that, they also require that you don’t exceed their “fair-use” policy. That’s great and all, but what if you want to make free phone calls without the limitations of JaJah?

Yesterday it occurred to me that you can use Skype to make free “computer-activated” phone calls between two regular phones. This way there aren’t any of the restrictions imposed by JaJah’s service. The secret? Use Skype’s conference calling feature to initiate a conference call between your computer, your home phone, and the phone you wish to call! Your home phone will then ring and you’ll be connected to the person you wish to call.

Posted at 6:40 AM | Comments (1)

October 30, 2006

OpenDNS makes your Internet work better

Today I found a great new (at least to me) free service called OpenDNS. They provide free DNS servers that anyone can use.

Why would you want to use their DNS servers instead of the default ones assigned by your ISP? OpenDNS offer cool features not found in most other DNS servers, such as:

And best of all, their service is free and only takes about two minutes to set up!

Posted at 5:55 PM | Comments (1)