How to Unclutter a Webpage

Some webpages are crowded with so many graphical elements that it can be hard to locate the text you went there to read in the first place.

The latest version of Apple’s Safari browser might hep clear things up. When visiting a busy page, check the browser’s address bar to see if a small gray Reader button is visible.

Click the button to get a version of the page that is free of everything except the text and accompanying photographs.

In the Reader view, you can zoom in and out of the page, email it or print it in its simplified form using controls that appear on screen when you move the cursor over the page.

To return to the regular webpage, click the Reader button again.

An add-on for Mozilla Firefox, Readability (bit.ly/ffbUWQ). offers a similar function, as does the Readability Redux Extension for Google Chrome (bit.ly/almy4U)

The iReader extension (bit.ly/dD8tkM) is another option for Chrome users.

Instead of frequent method of retrieving list of dialled numbers, just press the Send key will bring up a list of your most recent calls. Just use the list to quickly re dial the number you called previously.

Shrink Tab in Chrome

The Pin tab feature of the Google Chrome browser reduces page tabs to just the site’s icon which makes it easier to switch between open sites.

To shrink a tab to its icon, right-click on it and choose Pin Tab. This makes room for plenty open tabs but also hides the number of unread messages that is displayed on the full tab of an open Gmail page.

Developers in the Gmail Labs have created a special icon that displays the number of unread messages on the small tab’s Gmail logo.

To turn it on, log to Gmail and click on the Gmail Labs small green beaker icon at the top of the page.

Click on the Enable button next to “Unread Message icon” and click on the Save Changes.

This setting also works in recent versions of Chrome and the Firefox browser.

How to stream movies smoothly.

Your computer hardware, softweare used for watching video and the speed of your internet connection can all affect the streaming quality of movies, so mae sure your gear meets the video site’s system requirements.

Traffic congestion on your internet service provider’s lines can also affect the playback of the video stream and cause skipping and stuttering.

In addition, a weak WiFi signal and lots of activity on your home network can cause problems.

If possible, you might try temporarily switching the computer’s internet connection from wireless to a wired Ethernet cable to your router.

While watching online video, make sure nother network users are not transferring large files or doing other bandwidth-intensive activities.

Deep Linking YouTube Videos

Want to share just the good part of a long YouTube video with a friend and share your pal from having to sit thorugh the boring stuff at the beginning of the clip?

You can email an URL tht takes the recipient directly to a specific time within the video

1. Copy the YouTube video’s URL into your email message.
2. On the end of the address, add on the time code for the place you want to start in the clip

eg;  If you want  to direct the viewer to section 4 mins and 30 secs
Type - o#t= at the end of the URL before the timecode

www.youtube.com/watch?uprjmoSMJ o#t4m30s

One of the best kept secrets of Internet Explorer and Firefox is the caret browsing feature.

Caret browsing essentially makes web pages more keyboard friendly and web surfing a lot more productive, particular if you spend muchh time selecting and copying text and graphics from a website.

With caret browsing activated, a text cursor appears within any web page, and moving the cursor around and highlighting text and graphics are similar to performing the same actions in a word-processing docuemnt.

In caret mode, the Tab key moves you from one major section of a web page to another, and the Enter will activate any linek on which the corsor is positioned.

You can activate (and de-activate) caret browsing by pressing the F7 key in both IE and Firefox. Google’s Chrome has a version that involves first selecting some text and then using the Shift and arrow keys to select more.

Home page - Hold down Alt key and tap Home (alt-Home)

To find something on a web page - using Ctrl-F will activate the Find box.

For new tab - Ctrl-T

To switch among open tabs - Ctrl-Tab

Most elements of web browsers 0 menus, toolbars, status bars and the like - are useless clutter once yo uhave landed on a page that you want to read.

To get rid of the clutter, simplye tap the F11 key. All of the major browsers will launch into “full screen” mode, showing you just your web page. Press F11 again to return to the browser’s previous state.

With Internet Explorer, you can still access your menus within full-screen mode. Just use the keyboard shortcuts (Alt-F, Alt-E etc), and the menus will hover over the web page.

“140-character status updates to a network of followers.” That makes Twitter sound simple. But in fact, the social information platform has grown to be much more complex than its 140 character-limit suggests. The site not only connects people, but has also become an intricate information resource for everything from news to shopping deals.

Yet in many ways, the site’s actual functionality hasn’t exactly kept up with user interactions. Twitter’s interface has remained simple, which is why a lot of tweets take place through third-party sites and applications that make the experience more useful.

We’ve compiled a list of the top 20 third-party websites for making your Twitter experience more useful and easier to manage. Although this does not include the many desktop or mobile applications that are available for Twitter, we hope that it will make your browsing experience more enjoyable as you dive into the Twittersphere. Also, as a one-stop shop for Twitter apps, check out OneForty. We’d love to hear what’s missing from this list, including sites that you find useful in the comments.

You’ve probably heard people talking about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and wondered if it would help your business. The answer, in short, is absolutely!

Search Engine Optimization is the process of fine-tuning your website code and content to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The basics of the SEO process are to:

- Choose keywords and keyword phrases that describe what you do and that your target market will use to search for your services.

- Use those keywords throughout the code and text for your website.

- Place links back to your site, containing those keyword phrases, on other websites. The search engines look at incoming links from other sites-not at outgoing links from your site-to improve your rankings

There’s a whole field of consulting built up around Search Engine Optimization, mainly because the search engines are constantly changing how they work, to discourage unethical or unfair Search Engine Optimization processes, such as loading a page with invisible keywords or using code in the page that specifies words that have nothing to do with your business.

Given the rate of search engine changes, you might wonder if SEO is cost-effective for your small business, or if your limited marketing budget would be better spent elsewhere. The benefits of SEO are:

- You’ll get more visitors to your website. It naturally follows that if more people visit your site and learn about your fabulous products and services, then more people will buy from you.

- You’ll get more inquiries. You get the thrill of getting calls and emails from clients you otherwise might never have met. Imagine, the phone rings, and it’s a new potential client on the other end! You ask them how they found out about your services, and they say “Oh, I found you on Google.” High search engine rankings will make finding new prospects easier.

- Your leads will pre-qualify themselves. Before the phone call or email even comes through to you, it’s likely that the new prospect will read through your site and determine whether your services or products are a good match for their needs. This saves you time and effort in the sales cycle.

- SEO opens the doors to doing business internationally. There is no “Global Edition” of the Yellow Pages, but the Internet makes your business information available to everyone around the world… if they can find you. Being ranked well in your business category in the search engines is the first step towards a building a global business.

- Higher rankings give you more credibility. Google is a particularly respected search engine. Many buyers have consumer confidence in the companies that Google returns at the top of its results.

- Ranking well increases your visibility. Coming up in the search engine rankings is one more way to get noticed by your target market.

A caution on getting your site optimized for the Search Engines

Beware of SEO companies that offer optimization that sounds too good to be true-it probably is. If they offer to get you top-ranked search engine positioning in a short amount of time or for a small sum of money, then they are probably not going to use effective or ethical methods, and you won’t get the positioning you want. Some of these companies even use methods that will result in your site being banned from Google, which will take you out of its index entirely, and it’s very difficult to be allowed back in.

But don’t let this scare you; using a little discretion, you will be able to find the perfect SEO company for your small business. And with its help-increasing your website’s traffic and credibility-you just might take your small business to the level of big business!