Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.

But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.

1) More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View – Toolbars – Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.

2) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.

3) Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):

* Spacebar (page down)
* Shift-Spacebar (page up)
* Ctrl+F (find)
* Alt-N (find next)
* Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
* Ctrl+T (new tab)
* Ctrl+K (go to search box)
* Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
* Ctrl+= (increase text size)
* Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-W (close tab)
* F5 (reload)
* Alt-Home (go to home page)

4) Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there – like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.
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I was just thinking of writting some cool stuff on windows tricks and came acrosss this superb thisng while surfing would like to share with all of you.Enjoy the hidden movie of STAR WARS in windows.

This is a ASCII movie which is DOS based.

Here is what you have to do.

click ‘Start’, ‘Run’ and type in the following:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

How to Use Twitter to Increase Blog Traffic???

Twitter, a widely popular Web 2.0 client has many uses. Some think of it merely as a virtual water cooler, which allows you to talk to others, throughout the day via Twitter’s homepage or one of the several Twitter programs such as Twirl or Snitter. However, it can be a useful tool for your business or as a way to promote your blog or website.

Here are a few ideas for promoting your blog or website using Twitter, without being too spammy.

Ask questions. Once you have updated your blog why not cruise on over to Twitter and ask your virtual friends and colleagues what they think about the subject. Write a post about the state of the economy, ask, “What is your take on today’s economy?” and then link to your blog.

Use your comments. Maybe your blog has already received a few comments from your latest entry, peek interest from others by commenting on Twitter regarding the comments you’ve received.

Most importantly when using Twitter you want to make sure that is not just a means by which you promote your blog posts, but that you are also engaging in the virtual water cooler conversation with others. The more engaging and enjoyable you are to be around on Twitter itself the more likely those you visit with there will venture over to your blog to consume even more of your thoughts and opinions.

Another good idea is to always repay the favor. So you get visitors to your blog from Twitter, they leave comments, be sure to go and visit their blogs and do the same or reply when they too post links to their blog posts on Twitter.

Twitter can be a great place to get your thoughts out there and to drive traffic to your blog if you do it right.

You’re likely questioning what in the world can be so popular about a link! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your site by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. Therefore, you’re most likely speculating, how do I make my link popular? Search engines are discretionary, giving status in addition to ranking to websites that acquire links to their pages from closely related, quality sites. Google developed the process, and now virtually all the most popular search engines use it to rank your sites in their indexes. The more frequently used your keyword is, the tougher it will be to achieve link popularity, but without attaining this step, it is nearly certain your webpage may never rank highly on any search engine. Nonetheless don’t be frustrated; there are competent ways of accomplishing link popularity via the most competitive keywords.

The first is that merely linking up with a vast group of other webpages will not achieve link popularity. Search engines may well aggressively discriminate against your web page if you are interlinked with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The next thing to remember is the condition of the site you are linking to. In no way link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. Linking to websites of poor quality would certainly diminish your link popularity, if not essentially devastate it.

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An online form allows prospects to take a variety of actions: contact you, subscribe to your e-zine, request information and, of course, order something. A form is a communication tool for them and a marketing tool for you. You need an online form to collect contact information and to get permission to communicate with prospects. Otherwise, once they leave your site, they could be gone forever.

An online form itself isn’t effective marketing, however. In fact, if you’re committing the following mistakes, yours could be costing you customers.

• Requiring unnecessary information : Do you really need prospects to provide personal information such as a company title, phone number, mailing address and registration of a login name and password? If not, remove these fields or label them as optional.

• Restricting open fields : Ever type so many characters that a field ended before you finished? Expand the length of your fields to account for long names, e-mail addresses and other information you require.

• Forcing repeat work : If your forms are not completed correctly, are prospects forced to start over? They won’t. Be sure to retain the information already entered while pointing out the area that needs attention.

Don’t just fix your forms; optimize them. Try these time-tested tips to make your forms better marketing tools:

• Include your contact information. Give prospects the option to call you instead of, or in addition to, completing your online form.

• Offer your e-zine. While they’re already contacting you, invite them to subscribe to your newsletter.

• Ask how they found your site. This optional question could give you insightful marketing information without putting off prospects.

Your online forms get prospects to make initial contact with you. Make this process painless because your online forms won’t get a second chance to make a first impression.