What to print an article embebed on a webpage, or other online content, but what to reduce the paper consumption? Today I found out a nice online service that allow you to edit a webpage for printing really easily.
Sometimes web pages have printing style sheets, other times copy-paste to Word is really effective. But if the web page is messy, this is a great tool.
It is worth giving it a try! Go to PrintWhatYouLike.com and start printing in a ecologic and cheaper way.
As I have said before my favorite browser is Firefox. And my current operating system is Windows Vista Ultimate. They work well together, but visually I think that Firefox doesn’t fit that well. When you have Aero turned on it is even worse. I would like to make Firefox look a little bit more like IE7 on Vista. And now it does! The picture bellow shows how nice it looks now and it’s perfect fit with Windows Explorer.
How can you achieve the same result? By taking advantage of the great customization features of Firefox!
First of all I installed Glasser which is an experimental Firefox add-on that adds the Windows Vista glass frame to Firefox toolbars.
The next step is to customize other visual settings. I was surprised to find out the Firefox theming is based on CSS, so you can adjust a lot of the look’n'feel of your favorite browser like you were styling a webpage. A great add-on that can help you with this task is Stylish. It allows you to manage several stylesheets files, by adding new ones, activating/deactivating the existing ones (with preview) and even editing the files manually.
Obviously you don’t have do write your own stylesheets from scratch. There is a huge (or at least decent) database of stylesheet files for Firefox that can be found at userstyles.org. It has not only styles for your browser but also for specific websites like Gmail, Google Reader, etc.
Here’s a list of user styles that I used to accomplish the final result shown in the image above.
FF3+Glasser: Vista OS integration - Gives the IE7-like look to the address bar and back/forward buttons
Firefox 3 Glasser Padder - Just gives a little space to the main toolbar, not required.
Hide Home-button text on the Bookmarks Toolbar - If you want the Home button in the address toolbar without the “Home” text, you can use this style.
Native-looking progress meter for Fission ext - Makes the progress bar green and glossy like the Windows Explorer progress bar (e.g. folder search progress bar). You must use it with Fission add-on which puts the progress bar behind the address bar, otherwise it doesn’t have any effect.
I used an add-on in order to add a “New tab” button next to the last open tab, on the tab bar.
Personal Menu add-on allows you to transfer the main menu items to a single button that you can put in any toolbar. It is the last button next to my bookmarks. Using this add-on you can get rid of the main menu, but have it easily accessible whenever you need it.
The best of all is that since I am using a portable version of Firefox 3, I won’t lose any customizations even if I format my computer, or move into another one.
Feel free to ask any questions regarding the customizations I’ve done to Firefox.
About a week ago I read on Channel 10 that Live Mesh was available to everyone on the U.S. Sarah Perez even gave me a tip: I could try it too! I just had to change my Windows Regional Settings, to tell Live Mesh servers that I was from the U.S. Shame on me, lying in order to access Live Mesh. 
I wrote about Live Mesh some time ago. Now that I am using it I can say that is just as I was expecting. You can register your devices (just Windows-based computers, for now) in Live Mesh in order to sync files between devices and remotely control devices. The screenshot bellow shows the devices list page. It includes your registered devices, a special device called “Live Desktop” and an Add Device button.
That “special device” Live Desktop to which you can connect is a simple interface where you can access your shared folders, download stored files, create folders, upload files, etc. AJAX allows a kind of user experience that resembles to a real Windows desktop, so the name “Live Desktop” is appropriate. Since you can share files/folders with other people, in order to keep track on your Mesh you have access to a “News” panel where you can stay up to date with changes that have been made.
The client software that you download from Live Mesh and install in your computers has an interface that is identical to the panel that is available on Live Desktop. This application notifies you when any change happens, and takes charge of all the syncing-related tasks. Bellow you can see a “Programs” folder on my desktop. Folders that you have in Live Mesh are fully integrated with Windows Explorer, so you can browse them as any regular folder. You can even share a regular folder in Live Mesh just by right-clicking it and choose the context-menu option “Add folder to your Live Mesh…”.
I must confess that I haven’t used the folder sync functionalities. I just tried one time after I installed Live Mesh, but one great functionality that I have been using is Remote Desktop. Using Internet Explorer you can remotely control any of your Windows devices from anywhere in the world where you have an internet connections, without any particular software, just an ActiveX control that acts as an Internet Explorer plugin.
Remote Desktop works pretty well. I can even browse in the web, check e-mail, install software, etc, in the remote device using this functionality. You can only connect to a device that isn’t currently in use and has the Live Mesh application installed, so if you are like me, and what to control your home computer from work, don’t forget to leave if locked or logged off. I have been having some issues with connectivity. When I loose my connection to the web, I get a retry connection button from Live Mesh, but it almost never works… Another issue is related with copy/paste files between your local machine and your remote device. It is way too slow… And copying text from the local clipboard to the device doesn’t always work. Well… It is just a Tech Preview, not a final version.
The mobile version of Live Mesh has became available this week, it allows you to check the news on your Mesh and download files. It is available at the address https://m.mesh.com. A Mac version of Live Mesh is on development.
So far Live Mesh is a mashup and rebranding of several “old” Microsoft products like Folder Share for file sync, the Remote Desktop connections via web browser of Windows Server 2003, and since we have 5Gb of storage that can be used not only for sync but also for sharing with other people, has a little bit of Windows Live SkyDrive. But the kind of integration that Live Mesh brings is pretty great as an user experience improvement.
I’ll be expecting news from Live Mesh team.
Weave is an experimental prototype from Mozilla Labs that integrates online services with Firefox.
“As the Web continues to evolve and more of our lives move online, we believe that Web browsers like Firefox can and should do more to broker rich experiences while increasing user control over their data and personal information.”
Seems nice. But I’m pretty sure that I would not store all my passwords on the cloud in a service like this. But to store bookmarks, history, cookies (excluding the authentication ones) and tabs is pretty useful. I tried this service today, and it was toooo slow. I’ll way for a more efficient version of this experimental software.
I would prefer a browser independent solution, but that is too much to ask. Nevertheless it may be nice in the future. Meanwhile I’ll keep using Windows Live Favorites. If I used Internet Explorer as my main browser, it would be perfect, but it will have to do.
A equipa PizzaShoot continua o intrincado processo de desenvolvimento de um jogo de elevado nível!
Temos disponível mais um vídeo. Desta vez demonstramos com é possível ligar acessórios wireless da Xbox 360 ao PC através do Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows. Demonstramos também como utilizar o Input Reporter (disponível no XNA Creators Club) para testar o input não só do gamepad wireless, como também da guitarra que acompanha o Guitar Hero 3! Isto porque a guitarra não passa de um comando com uma disposição diferente dos botões (e com um acelerómetro mapeado nos triggers do comando normal).
Os developers de jogos em XNA ficam então com um leque de possibilidades ainda mais abrangente.
Video: Connect X360 Wireless devices to PC
———————– ENGLISH VERSION ———————–
Although the video is in Portuguese, I want to leave the main message to all the potential worldwide readers of this blog. If you connect your Xbox 360 guitar to your PC (a wireless or wired guitar) you can use it as a X-Box 360 gamepad. Use Input Reporter to find out the correspondence between each device buttons. Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows it the accessory that you need to connect Xbox 360 wireless accessories to your PC.
