Another great Firefox Add-on if you link images in forums

I love this little add-on and use it frequently.

• CoLT

It basically allows to me copy a link with either html or bb code (for forums.)  Then I create pretty links in the forums instead of those long ugly links that include the http.  You know what I am talking about.

In addition, you can customize so you can quickly create linkable images but that is a two step process.

I’ll show you how but first go install the CoLT add-on and restart firefox.

First simple BB Code & HTML links:

1. Find a text link on the webpage and right click on it.
2. Choose Copy Link Text and Location As -> BBCode
3. 
4. Now the following code is in your clipboard:  [url=Example.
5. Same goes for HTML code if you choose Copy Link Text and Location As -> HTML Link.   You will get the code in the clipboard and then paste it in:  Firefox add-ons, the Digital Scrapbooking Collection for a nicely formatted link.

More advanced to link images..

One time only, you need to add on 2 special formats.

1. 1. Go to Tools | Addons.
   2. Find CoLT and choose Options.
   3. Click on New Separator to add a spacing line.
   4. Click on Add…  and add this:
      1. Menu Label:   CopyImageLink BBCode
      2. Format: [url=%U][img][/img][/url]
   5. Click OK
   6. Click on Add…  and add this:
      1. Menu Label:  CopyImageLink HTML Code
      2. Format:  <a href=”%U”><img src=”" alt=”%T”/></a>
   7. Click OK
   8. You should now have something like this:
   9. Click OK

To Use for Forums (bb code)

1. Find an digital kit preview that links to its details.  (This is how much digital scrapbook stores are setup.)
2. Right click on the image choose Copy Link Text and Location as -> CopyImageLink BBCode
3. 
4. Then paste this code into the forum message:  [url=http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1][img][/img][/url]
5. Then return to the image, right click and choose Copy Image Location
6. 
7. Paste this code right between the [img] and [/img], so it looks like this:
8. [url=http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1][img]http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/thumbs_cache/armina_blackbeauty-ps-0.jpg[/img][/url]  This will create correctly formatted linkable image in a forum Example.

To Use for HTML Code, the process is almost identical:

1. Find an digital kit preview that links to its details.  (This is how much digital scrapbook stores are setup.)
2. Right click on the image choose Copy Link Text and Location as -> CopyImageLink HTML Code
3. Then paste this code in:  <a href=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1″><img src=”" alt=”Black Beauty Kit”/></a>
4. Then return to the image, right click and choose Copy Image Location
5. Paste this code right in the “” for img src.   Like this: <a href=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=18335&cat=0&page=1″><img src=”http://prettyscrappy.com/xcart/thumbs_cache/armina_blackbeauty-ps-0.jpg” alt=”Black Beauty Kit”/></a>

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Firefox add-ons, the Digital Scrapbooking Collection

Use Firefox?  Want to customize it with some great add-ons specific for digital scrapbooking?

All the add-ons are compatible with Firefox 3.5.  By the way, have you tried the latest version of Firefox?

Do you have additional add-ons that you think need to be added to this list, leave a comment?

Here is collection of add-ons in an already premade list:

Digital Scrapbooking Collection

Visit the list and pick and choose which ones you like to install.

And here is description of add-ons in my collection and why I find them useful.

DownThemAll!

I love this add-on for downloading digital kits.  It allows me to keep track of what I have downloaded and still need to download as I get those mega-kits.

I download all kinds of zip files (besides digital kits) so I have list of where I like to save things..   but clicking on this dtaOneClick it will automatically save in that folder..

along with a progress popup:

Detailed directions

Colorful Tabs:

Makes your tabs all different colored:

IE Tab

If a site isn’t working right in Firefox, quickly switch to IE or back to Firefox by clicking on the Firefox icon or IE icon in the bottom  status bar.

Cooliris

View images in a whole new way.

Try it out in the DigiScrapFinder Gallery

Look for these links in the gallery:

Show me these digital kits in a Slideshow!

Cool Previews

How to Use:

• Click Icon to see the next page in a pop-up.  A great way to see the larger images of digital kits without leaving the list of digital kits you are looking through.
• 
• CoolPreview Detailed Directions

Morning Coffee

How to use:

1. On the first day, visit the sites that you do daily.
2. As you visit each one, find Morning Coffee and choose add to my morning coffee:
3. Then each morning, click on Morning Coffee and it will load all your daily sites in one click.

PermaTabs Mod

Make a tab permanent and you can’t accidentally close it.  Will stick around too between opening and closing Firefox.

How to use:

• Right click on a tab and choose Permatab
• 

Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)

If you work on multiple computers and want the same bookmarks on both, then install this add-on.

Kaboodle

If you are a kaboodle fan, use this one to quickly add things to your shopping list.

Adblock Plus

Stop or reduce the number of ads.

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Gift guides for DSLR Owner, Techies & more from Degeeked.com

DSLR’s are getting more and more popular, as prices continue to drop, so this list should come in handy for some.  All kinds of accessories to make better use of that DSLR:

• Top 10 Gifts for DSLR Owners – 2008

In addition DeGeeked has some more lists for gift ideas:

• Top 10 Tech Gifts under $200 for 2008
• Top 10 Gifts under $100 for the Techie in Your Life
• Top 10 Tech Gifts for Boys
• Top 10 Tech Gifts for Girls

If you want more gifts lists, visit Degeeked at: 

• Tech Gift Guides

Thanks Degeeked for the ideas!

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Degeeked offers list of cameras if you are on a budget

With the economy going a bit crazy lately, we know that getting new photography equipment might not be tops on everyone’s to-do list. But sometimes you just need to get new stuff. Maybe your old camera broke,or you’re thinking ahead to the holidays. Whatever the reason, finding a good deal on photography equipment is always a top priority.Once again, DeGeeked comes through with recommendations for top-quality photography gear that’s easy on the wallet.

• What’s the best point-and-shoot digital camera for under $100?
• What’s the best digital camera for under $200?
• Top 10 Digital Point-and-Shoot Cameras Under $200

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Stop AutoPlay on EHD’s

What I want to do?  stopping that annoying autoplay on EHDs.

Sometimes autoplay is useful. You insert in a CD or DVD and your computer recognizes it and asks what you want to do.

But everytime I turn on my EHD, it also starts scanning that EHD and asking what to do with it. I don’t want to do anything with it, I want to use it.   So there are a few ways to turn it off. I’ll start with the simplest.

All these instructions are for XP.

Simplest Option:

1. Click on Start | My Computer
2. Right click on your EHD
3. Select the AutoPlay tab
4. Select 1 of the 4 file types and then browse down and choose No Action. 
5. Repeat for the other 3 types.
6. Click on OK

The second option is using Microsoft’s Tweak UI tool.  It requires you to download the tweak ui tool but its still easy to do.  For full directions visit:  Stop the Annoying Auto-play Dialog

I have done this both ways and the best part is it stops scanning that EHD when it is turned on and stops asking me what I want to do with it.

And if you have Vista, visit this page for a long in-depth instructions.  Although as I browsed through the directions, I saw no options for EHD.

Disable AutoPlay in Windows Vista

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Cool little unzip tool, Extract Now

One day, I was on a mission to find a zip tool that I liked. 

My mission was to find:

1. A zip tool that I could dump a bunch of zip files into and watch their progress as they unzip as I do something else (I’m a multitasker.)
2. It couldn’t pop up extra windows (I hate those.)
3. It had to create a folder with the name of the zip so I don’t mix the zips together.  (downfall of ACDSee’s unzipper)
4. A bonus would be to do something with the zips when they are done.

The reason was sometimes I get behind on my digital kits that I downloaded and want to do a whole batch at a time.  

• I have been using the free version Zip reader from pkware.  But I hate the pop-ups.
• I tried the latest version of Winzip, but it didn’t do much of the above.  That was really a pain to uninstall too. 
• and 7-Zip
• TugZip
• and I think another one too. 
• and none really handled the batch processing well.

Until I found ExtractNow.  This is a little program that is cool and met all my above standards.   First, I had to play with the settings of the tool:

On the General tab, I didn’t change much. I don’t have it start on startup and you can turn off the sounds if you want.

On the Destination tab, I changed these settings:

The first two, extract the file into the current folder and create a folder with the name of the zip file.  I also said overwrite existing files (just in case I unzip the same file again.)

On the Post Extraction tab, I selected that after the software is done unzipping my unzip file, move it into this unzipped done folder.  That’s where my zip files are stored until I know that backups have been done on the digital kit that I unzipped.

And on Explorer tab, I checked the following for various reason that aren’t really that important to explain.

Apply all those settings.

In the following video, I am going to drag the files from windows explorer into the ExtractNow and then click Extract.  Once done, the zipped files will be automatically moved to my UnzippedDone folder.

Click here to watch video

Some other notes:

• I could of checked “clear” in the post extraction tool, but I decided for right now, I will clear the files from my list manually.
• I can right click on a zip file or select multiple files and “enqueue” (put in the extractnow list) to be unzipped later. (Like when I leave for lunch then I click on the Extract)
•  

Here’s where you can get this tool:

ExtractNow – Extract multiple archives easily

It’s freeware and read before you download.  Their FAQ states there is no spyware in it and my virus checker & spyware haven’t complained about it.  So I think its okay but you are on your own.

This little tool works very well for me in my digital scrapbooking process and does step 2 & 3 for me with many zip files.  My steps are:

1. Download the digital kit into my Downloads folder
2. Extract the digital kit into a new folder in my Downloads folder
3. Move the zip into my UnzippedDone folder
4. Then organize my digital kits with ACDSee and move them to their final destination in my folders.

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Friendly reminder to backup!

So yesterday, I noticed my backup of my files (I use a synchronization) to Backup EHD didn’t work.  I didn’t have time to look into yesterday.  Today, the backup fails again.   Two failed backups in a row is not a good sign.   During the backup today, I started getting I/O errors.  I can browse my Backup EHD but it still looks okay.  So far so good.  So I use Western Digital diagnostic to do a quick check.  It has a big red failure on it.   Hmm, that’s not good.  I tried to run Western Digital’s repair tool and it hung.  Uh oh.  Ran ChkDsk and it reported bad sectors (bad spots on the disk) and tried to fix them and hung.  Definitely looking bad.  In the meantime, I start shopping to see the latest deals.  I am now in the process of reformatting the EHD and hoping to salvage the drive itself  (during a reformat it can detect the errors and stop using them)  that’s assuming that more bad sectors aren’t created.   We’ll see.  I am not very optimistic.

Did I lose anything?  Nope.  The EHD that is failing is my Backup EHD.   Which means it only contains the copies of everything from the my main EHD and my laptop.  What it does mean is right now I am not currently backed up.  Now that scares me!  If the format fails, I will be being a new EHD tomorrow. 

Because of this, I do want to share a few things. 

Pay attention to your computer errors.  I noticed one failure and then a few I/O errors.  If this was a hard drive that had important things on it, I would be busy copying files off of it.  In this case, I actually could browse the drive and could have gotten all my files off if I wished.  I am guessing that complete utter failure wouldn’t have happened for a few days.  (By formatting I am pushing it to work or fail.)  Of the hard drives that have failed in our household, most have been a slow death (start getting more and more errors) and I was able to get files off that I wasn’t sure were backed up. Only one drive failure was a spectacular crash of it just not working that day or ever.  So pay attention to those errors and you might just have a chance to salvage something.

Backup, Backup, Backup!  If this was my main EHD drive or my laptop drive, I wouldn’t be quite as calm but at least I know I would have backups and it would just take some time to resort things out. 

Shopping

Oh and I just had to share, check out these colors from Western Digital:

They must know that there are digital scrappers that love EHD’s.

All my EHD’s have been Western Digital with 2 of them failing now.  So I think I am going to branch out and try a different brand.  I saw a 500 GB Seagate EHD for sale for $99 at Office Max and I have in store coupon for $15.  That’s a nice deal! 

I haven’t checked out the rest of the sales, so I gotta go do that. 

As for how that formatting is going??  Well, let’s just say, it sure looks like I am going shopping tomorrow for a new Backup EHD.

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a Timesaver that’s also my Lifesaver

How many times have you went looking for something on your computer & didn’t really know where to begin?

• an email that you know you received or sent? with the person’s name or topic?  but you have 5+ accounts)
• a document & you can’t remember if it’s an email attachment or on your hard drive?

I just don’t have the patience or time to spend looking for those types of things anymore.

So, copernic has become one of my ESSENTIAL desktop app’s. And it’s free as most are that I bring you!

What it is:

It’s a desktop application that you download, install, and then it catalogs your hard drive. My sister was suspect of this, but she’s heard me rave about it enough that I think she may be using it. (She reads more email accounts into Thunderbird than I do).

How to use it:

Copernic installs a little search bar in the bottom right of your window

Type in your search term. In this case I’m going to look for email from Robin (from Rakscraps).

A pop up window comes up when you start typing.

The search results for Robin show 65 emails, 32 files & 3 contacts.

From here click on the “Open Main Window” & a full window opens with a bottom pane showing the details of the email or file that you choose.

The choice to Reply or Forward email from Copernic doesn’t work.

But you can open files from it, which is very handy!  This handy little app saves me a LOT of time!

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Windows Liver Writer Updated for Blogger

The power of blogging is so amazing to me. Heidi & I are enjoying our blog’s ability to teach & share information. The feedback from our readers is fabulous & motivates us to provide more! So I’m really excited to share some news that I received today. The significance is that as blog readers you can make a difference!

Remember when I blogged about Windows Live Writer & everyone agreed it was THE BEST blogging tool?!! Well, some people asked me for help with troubleshooting & some of you provided your comments. I posted a culmination of that information, which was noticed by Sean O’Driscoll, GM of Marketing from Microsoft. He forwarded it to the development team.

Today I received a personal note at Facebook from Joe Cheng, a Microsoft software developer on the Live Writer team saying:

Hi Connie, I wanted to let you know that Beta 3 of Windows Live Writer was released yesterday. Two things I want to make sure you’re aware of. 1) Images can now be automatically uploaded with Blogger blogs, via Google’s Picasa service. I know a lot of scrapbookers are on Blogger and have been waiting for this. 2) Beta 2 and earlier made screenshots pretty blurry; I noticed you have a lot of screenshots on your blog lately.
As always, let me know if you have any questions/comments! Thanks!

Isn’t it nice that Microsoft is worried about scrapbookers and takes the time to send a personal note to us?!! especially scrapbookers using Blogger?!!! like my techie friend Hummie! And I can’t wait to see the improvement on the screenshots. Heidi & I enjoy throwing up tutorials here quickly in Live Writer. It’s a great tool. I also compose our newsletters in Live Writer and copy/paste into the software because Word kind of mungles it. So a big thanks to Joe & your team!

What are you waiting for? go get the 3rd beta of Window Live Writer! Here are the new features:

So dear readers, give it a whirl & let us know how it goes! Microsoft is paying attention & looking forward to your feedback. That’s pretty exciting, don’t you agree?

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Screenshots of Windows Live Writer

I’m so excited about this that I wanted to show you some screenshots! None of these are hosted by the way. They’re embedded. I’m using SnagIt. Can someone try it out & see if it will embed screenshots by other ways? And I just added a photo (because I wanted to try it) – MAN! this is the easiest way to add images to a blog post!

You can manage multiple blogs!

And put text wrapping on the left or right of the image.

There is a pane on the right that offers all the options (much like ACDSee Photo Manager). And it changes depending on what you’re doing. Pasting in an image gives other options. This is the main one.

These are the image properties to choose from:

Text wrapping

• Inline (the only option I had in Wordpress)
• Left (great to be able to text & not just have wasted space!)
• Right (good for certain situations like now maybe?)

Under borders – there’s an option for photo paper. I put it on the photo below. Kind of cool, eh? (I was playing with the macro on my camera – it’s a hydrangea if you’re wondering.)

This is the Open screen. It allows access to all drafts and online blog posts for editing. Slick, eh?

The FUNKIEST thing is that you can preview the post in Live Writer without publishing it. And it looks like the real thing! but it’s not published yet. Check it out! See the little blue shapes in the corners? That must indicate that it’s not live yet.

So give it a try, I think you’ll MORE than really like it!

Edited – So I just adjusted a couple of the images because our blog is fluid & I see that each image has a URL with a Wordpress address… hmmm, I always like know why! I wonder how they’re doing this? Maybe they’re hosting the image on Wordpress somehow? Does anyone know? Heidi – do you have any ideas?

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