Facebook has rolled out a Google+ style photo viewer that displays user comments and ads next to the picture in an overlay window. Thus, you don’t have to scroll the page to read the comments and the photo viewer adjusts itself as you re-size the browser window.

Switch to the Old Layout of Facebook Photos

If you are viewing any photo in Facebook and would like to use the classic layout – where photos are displayed on a separate page and not inside a pop-up – you can do that in a couple of ways:

• While the photo viewer is active, press F5 on your keyboard (or hit the “reload” button in the browser) to refresh the Facebook photo page. This should open the photo without the overlay.
• Or go to address bar of your browser, remove the string “&theater” from the photo URL and hit Enter.
• Or the easiest option is that you hold the CTRL key while clicking the thumbnail of any photo on Facebook and this should open the corresponding photo in a new tab but without the lightbox effect.

Please see the following screencast for details.

This story, How to Get the Classic Photo Viewer in Facebook, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 08/02/2012 under Facebook, Internet.

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Amazon today launched Junglee.com in India today and, in its current form, Junglee is more like an online marketplace where you can quickly compare prices of books, electronics, music, apparel and other products offered by hundreds of online and offline retailers in India.

Several shopping stores in India – including Homeshop18, India Plaza, Shoppers Stop, Fabindia, Microsoft Store, Future Bazaar and many others – have added their product catalogues to Junglee so it becomes a little easier for the consumer to research product prices from one central place.

Is Junglee Cheaper than Flipkart or Infibeam?

As you may have noted, the two most popular shopping sites in India – Flipkart.com and Infibeam.com – are both missing from Junglee.com. These sites might have better deals to offer than Junglee so I have a written a simple bookmarklet that lets you compare prices of books on Junglee.com with that of Flipkart and Infibeam in one go.

Is Junglee Cheaper

To install the bookmarklet, simply drag the “Is Junglee Cheaper” button from this page to your browser bookmarks toolbar. Then open any book page on Junglee.com and click the bookmarklet to instantly know the price of that book on Infibeam and Flipkart.

The first version of the bookmarklet works for books only though I might expand it to other product categories later. Here’s a quick video that demonstrates how the Junglee bookmarklet works.

This story, Compare Junglee Prices with Flipkart and Infibeam, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 02/02/2012 under Amazon, Bookmarklets, India.

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1. A Good Site for Comparison Shopping in India
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5. Amazon Online Store is Live in India

This is helpful is most cases because you can safely avoid writing http:// in your tweets and Twitter will still convert all the included web addresses into hyperlinks.

However, if you want Twitter to display URLs in plain text and not convert them into hyperlinks, here’s a simple trick – just replace the period (or dot) symbol in your tweet with its ASCII equivalent (.) and Twitter would display your message without conversion.

For example, if I were to tweet – “is twitter.com down?”,  the modified tweet will read like “is twitter.down?” and Twitter will show that link in plain (non-clickable) text.

It’s a simple trick but the only problem is that some apps, like the Twitter app for iPad, do no correctly handle ASCII codes correctly but that should get fixed with time.

This story, Prevent Twitter from Auto-Converting Words into Hyperlinks [Trick], was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 31/01/2012 under Twitter, Internet.

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And the same rectangular box can even help convert casual visitors to your site into regular ones. That’s because the photo pile inside the box will show visitors pictures of their friends who are already fans and when they seen a known face, it could increase their relative interest in your site.

Customize the Facebook Like Box with CSS

Facebook offers a simple Like Box plugin that you can easily integrate into your website using either JavaScript or IFRAME. You can customize the border color, the height and the width of the Like Box but, officially, nothing more.

That said, if you would like to add a background color to the Like Box to better match your site’s color theme or if you would like to completely remove the Facebook logo and other branding from the box to make it less crowded (see demo), you can easily do that with the help of CSS.

To get started, copy the code below and paste it anywhere inside your website template. Change the URL in Line19 to point to your own Facebook page and you’re done.

<div class="facebookOuter">
<div class="facebookInner">
<div class="fb-like-box"
data-width="245" data-height="290"
data-href="http://www.facebook.com/digital.inspiration"
data-border-color="#F4F4F4" data-show-faces="true"
data-stream="false" data-header="false">
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div id="fb-root"></div>

<script>(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
</script>
[/sourcecode]

Now the boring technical stuff.

The default background color of our Facebook Like box is #F4F4F4 but you can use any other web color (change values in Line 03 and Line 20). Similarly, if you want to have a more wider or taller Like box for your website, you can need to change the width and height values defined in lines 4, 6, 10 and 18.

The above example uses the JavaScript version of the Facebook Like box though the same can be applied to the IFRAME version as well. In that case, you need to replace Line # 17-21 with the IFRAME tag.

This story, Add a Facebook Like Box without the Branding, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 30/01/2012 under Code, Facebook, Internet.

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A quick tip. If you want to position windows more accurately on your desktop, you should use the arrow keys on the keyboard instead of the mouse. Here’s how.

While the program window that you want to move is in the foreground, press Alt + Spacebar to open the menu and then hit the “M” key. Now use the arrow keys to move that window around on the desktop. The window will move by 11 pixels in the direction of the arrow key per click.

You can then hit the Enter key to place the window at the new position or hit the Escape key to return the window to its previous location.

This shortcut has been around since XP and is especially handy during screencasting when you have to align windows perfectly inside the limited recording area.

This story, Position Windows on your Desktop using the Mouse, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/11/2011 under Keyboard Shortcuts, Software.

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When you type a few characters in the search box of your favorite web browser – be it Firefox, Internet Explorer or the Omnibox of Google Chrome – Google tries to predict your search query and offers search suggestions in a drop-down. These predictions are often very accurate and thus you rarely have to type the full search query in the browser.

The problem is that this useful “autocomplete” feature isn’t available in most of the other search engines that are installed in your browser. Just look at Twitter, Amazon, or even YouTube search in your browser – none of them offer autocomplete like Google.

That said, it is actually very easy to integrate Google search suggestions in any other search engine with the help of OpenSearch. To get started, just go to ctrlq.org/search and install any of your favorite search engines by clicking on their name. These are compatible with Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Next go to your browser’s search box, or the address bar depending on what browser you are using, change the default search engine to the one that you just installed and type something. You should see get search suggestions in a drop-down just like Google Search.

The idea is simple. If you have set YouTube+ as your default search engine in the browser, the autocomplete suggestions would still get served from Google but when you press enter, the actual search will happen on YouTube. See video demo:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Digital Inspiration</ShortName>
<Description>Search Digital Inspiration</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image width="16" height="16" type="image/x-icon">http://www.labnol.org/favicon.ico</Image>
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?output=firefox&amp;q={searchTerms}"/>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.labnol.org/?s={searchTerms}" />
<SearchForm>http://www.labnol.org/</SearchForm>
</OpenSearchDescription>

This story, Add Google Autocomplete to other Search Engines, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 23/11/2011 under Google, Internet.

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FreeMake for Windows sits in the latter category. It is an extremely easy-to-use software that can grab Flash videos from all the popular video sharing sites with one simple click. Just paste the video URL into the FreeMake window and the tool will do the rest.

FreeMake Video Downloader offers two modes – the one-click download mode will save the video offline using the default settings without pestering you while the standard mode will offer you a choice of video formats before starting the download (see screenshot).

There’s a built-in video converter so you can easily extract the audio from the video files or convert them to smaller formats suitable for playing on your mobile or tablet.

The new version can resume broken downloads which could be handy if you are downloading a large video file on a flaky connection. And it now supports nearly all streaming video sites including Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Flickr and YouTube.

FreeMake is free software but if use the default installation options, it might add a Facebook toolbar to your web browser. The toolbar is however optional and you can easily skip it by choosing the Parameters mode, and not Quick Installation, in the setup wizard. The offline installers for the Video Downloader are available at FreeMake.com.

Related guide: How to Convert File Formats

This story, A Better Tool for Downloading Videos from the Internet, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 17/11/2011 under YouTube, Software.

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Google now routinely highlights author information in search results. For instance, if you are looking for gadget reviews on Google and one of the search results is pointing to a column by David Pogue, you might also see a thumbnail image of Pogue – picked from Google Profile – next to the snippet. Google may also display the circle authority in case that author has a presence on Google Plus.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how you may display your own profile picture in Google search results next to articles that you may have written on your website or on someone else’s website. You need to create a Google+ profile and then link it your website using the rel=”author” markup.

It takes some effort to implement the authorship markup and the other big hurdle is that it requires you to edit the HTML code of your website. Some authors may find it too technical while others, think guest contributors, may not have access to the site template at all. Fortunately, there’s now a simpler option as well.

Setup Google Authorship using Work Email

Instead of modifying HTML templates, you can just include your name and email address on a web page (using the mailto syntax) and Google will automatically connect it to your Google Profile. Here’s how:

Step 1: Go to your Google Profile, page, click the Edit Profile button and then add a Work email. Make sure that the visibility of this email address is set to “Anyone on the web.”

Step 2: Click Verify to verify your email address. You’ll then see a little “tick mark” next to your email address in Google Plus – see example.

Step 3: Next open any of your web articles that you would like to “claim” in Google Search and add either of these two lines in your article:

Option 1: Use both email address and name together
<a href="mailto:david.pogue@nyt.com">David Pogue</a>

Option 2: Link the author’s name to his Google+ page
Send <a href="http://plus.google.com/1158131688984505">David Pogue</a>
an email at <a href="mailto:david.pogue@nyt.com">david.pogue@nyt.com</a>

The important point is that all web pages, that you have authored, should include your name and your “work” email address that you previously verified in Google Plus. That is the only signal Google can use to verify your content ownership.

This story, An Easier Way to Implement Google Authorship, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 16/11/2011 under Google Plus (Google+), Internet.

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My favorite is Wall Machine – a service that lets you you create fake screenshots of Facebook walls and other Facebook related activity – like X is now a friend of Y or Z changed their relation status on Facebook. Every part of that screenshot can be customized including the conversation text, the profile images and you can have as many comments on a Facebook post as you like.

Another service – iFakeText – lets you make screenshot images of text messages exchanged on an iPhone. Just enter the text of the SMS conversation in a proper format and generate the screenshot – see example.

I also like Fake Tweet Builder for creating screenshot images of Twitter conversations that may or may not have happened. The screenshots of individual tweets look extremely real – see example – and you may also use customize the profile pictures, the name of the Twitter client and how many times a particular tweet has been retweeted.

Ticket-o-Matic lets you print boarding passes of any popular airline, Fodey generates newspaper clippings while Expense Steak creates PDF receipts of restaurant bills and office supplies for a given amount. When you print these receipts on paper, they’ll look real but there’s little potential for misuse as they carry old dates.

Finally, if a web form makes it mandatory to fill the street address or the phone number, use this website to generate random data for putting into that form.

Also see: Create iPhone Siri Conversations

This story, The Internet of Fake Screenshots, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 05/11/2011 under Screenshots, Internet.

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Like Amazon, you can now use the Google Alerts service to keep track of new books from your favorite authors or upcoming titles that are around your topics of interest. It is also possible to track books from a particular book publisher.

Go to google.com/alerts and set the type of alert as Books. Then use one, or a combination, of the following queries to set up your book alert.

inauthor:"david pogue"

Get an alert when there’s a new book from your favorite author – example, David Pogue.

intitle:"google chrome"

Get an alert when there’s a new book with a particular title – example, Google Chrome.

inpublisher:oreilly 

Get an alert when your favorite book publisher releases a new title – in this case, O’Reilly.

subject:"Microsoft Office"

Get an alert when there’s a new book around a particular topic – in this case, Microsoft Office. This is different from the intitle search operator as the book title many not always have the topic name.

Once the alerts are setup, you will get an email as soon as any new matching book enters the Google Books database. Found via the Google Books blog.

This story, Keep Track of New Books with Google Alerts, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 20/10/2011 under Books, Google Alerts, Internet.

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