Browserland » Giovanni Panasiti

Goodbye, Steve.

Giovanni Panasiti — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:15:43 +0000

Thank you for the example of dedication, passion, strength you’ve given to us.

And for making our computing time more easy, fun, productive for so many years, continuing to innovate so much.

This page is a tribute to you, your incredible personality and your valuable work.

Thank you Steve. The thought of you will always inspire us.

How To Create Your Own Firefox Skin

Giovanni Panasiti — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:22:10 +0000

The Internet browser is the user’s vehicle to all online information. Whether we are checking email, managing accounts, facilitating business, or watching movies, without a browser we would be stuck.

Most of us do not give the browser the credit it deserves and this is probably because most of us are not really interested in our browser itself; we are instead interested in what our browser provides us.

Firefox brings us the best of what a browser has to offer the user. Here, you will not only find a vehicle for online information, you will also find a vehicle for personal interests.

Firefox creates personalized browser themes that are tailored to the individual user. There are a couple key things to keep in mind when creating and designing Firefox skins.

The Dimension of the Firefox Browser

First and foremost, you must know your motivation and identify your audience/end user. Firefox has the largest platform for themes and can support 200 pixels in height with versions 3.6 and below showing 85 pixels and Firefox 4.0 showing 110 pixels. Below, is the design template Brand Thunder uses for Firefox.

When designing a theme, it is important to know that only certain visual elements are going to be visible in the theme. For example, both the top and bottom of the screen are not going to be available visual space for the user and less than half of the image is going to be viewable. The horizontal size of the image is going to require some design work.

The width of the image is a shifting landscape and is 3000 pixels. When looking at a browser that is expanded at 1024 pixels next to a browser expanded at 1920 pixels, you will notice how very different the pixels are from the background perspective of the image.

Split images are less weighty than single images which slow down performance. A great way to get a fully styled background with less file weight is to use screened elements and tiled textures/partial images. You want the design to be minimal and clean and patterned backgrounds are a key ingredient for good design.

Image Placement for Firefox Themes

Simple backgrounds are best for creating Firefox personas and these are usually a single 3000×200 pixel image. Brand Thunder lets you surpass this in Firefox where the creation of Enhanced Personas is possible. Enhanced Personas enable a variety of CSS background traits and let you have more color control.

You can layer a background image with solids or tiles. Images can be stacked either left or right, with the left image layered above the right. Logos work well when they are square shaped and placed into the background of the design at 50px tall. Stay away from rectangles and wide images.

The move away from horizontal lines and horizontal design elements can be seen when looking at the old and new versions of the College Humor browser theme. College Humor’s original browser theme had both a wide logo and horizontal line. The most recent theme design by College Humor is cleaner and more efficient in that it uses the space wisely, and there are less alignment complications throughout the browser.

When creating a successful browser theme, it is important that designs do not depend on the exact placement of these horizontal elements.

Crucial design components should keep a small margin from the title-bar this way they will not get misplaced in the title bar.

Where to Begin

The browser theme will be utilized a great deal by the user and therefore should not be visually overpowering. The design needs to be minimal and clear, yet also bold enough to stand out from other elements within the design. There is obviously going to be a lot going on within the theme (tabs, URL bar, etc.) and the main design elements need to be strong yet subtle. Design should not too visually complicated for the viewer/user.

Browser design is an interesting and challenging endeavor and here are a couple of user-friendly wizards to get you started. For example, BT:Engage is a platform that is currently used in private beta that allows you to create your own browser themes. Below, are some helpful tutorial sites:

BT:Engage: Firefox and IE theme creator
Firefox: How to Create Your Own Persona for Firefox
Firefox: Create and Host Your Own Personas Gallery with Personas Interactive

Author Bio:
Patrick Murphy is the founder and CEO of Brand Thunder (BT). You can follow him on Twitter @brandthunder or Facebook. The team at Brand Thunder creates persistent engagement between major brands and their online consumers with extreme makeovers for Internet browsers. BT’s new platform, BT:Engage, gives everyone the tools to build and share their own browser themes.

Restore Default Search Engine In Firefox 5

Giovanni Panasiti — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:05:15 +0000

By default Firefox 5 browser location bar is associated with Google search.

This is a wonderful feature of Firefox which I love. But this feature disappeared after installing some software that hijacks this feature by replacing Google with Yahoo, Ask.com, or other search engines without our consent.

Apparently you have no options to restore this modification.

How to reset your Firefox default search engine or modified it:

Open Firefox browser

Type about:config in location bar and press enter

Search for configuration key keyword.URL and select it

Right click on the configuration key keyword.URL and choose Reset from the shortcut menu.
- If clicking on “reset” nothing happens just write this string:
  http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&cp=4&gs_id=i&xhr=t&q=
- Otherwise if you like Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky feature you have to write this line:
  http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

That’s all.

Restore Default Search Engine In Google Chrome

Giovanni Panasiti — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:53:10 +0000

Many people ask me how to restore Google as their default search engine.

Maybe you are one of those people who have installed something that changed their default search engine and now you don’t know how to restore it. I’m writing this guide to help you solving this, very common, problem.

How to restore Google Chrome default search engine:

First you have to click the “wrench icon” located at the upper right corner of your browser

Now go to “Options” (Preferences on Mac and Linux; Settings on a Chromebook)

Open the “Basic” tab

Click on the “Manage search engines” button

Now remove the search engine you wouldn’t use just selecting it from the list and clicking the “x” that appears at the end of the row.
Add a search engine: Scroll to the bottom of the dialog and fill out the following fields:
- Add a new search engine: Enter a nickname for the search engine.
- Keyword: Enter the text shortcut you want to use for the search engine. Use the keyword to do keyword searches.
- URL: Enter the web address for the search engine. Learn how to find this URL
Edit a search engine: Select the search engine from the list and click the field you want to modify.
Make a search engine default: Select the search engine you want to use as your default search engine and click the Make default button that appears in the row.

You have done! If you want to share your experience or if you found some problems following this guide drop us a comment and we will help you!

Firefox Profile Data Storage: How to Hack it – Ghacks Technology News

Giovanni Panasiti — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:05:24 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

Firefox Profile Data Storage: How to Hack itGhacks Technology NewsLike all browsers, Firefox stores your browsing history, saved passwords, form data, and preference values. Where exactly does it store it?
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Internet Explorer 9 – Poor Compatibility with WordPress

Giovanni Panasiti — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:04:35 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

I recently upgraded my version of Internet Explorer to the latest version, IE9. At first, I did not see any issues with upgrading from IE8 until I surfed over to one of my WordPress blogs. I noticed that none of my blogs were displaying correctly. I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress thinking that this may be an issue that WordPress was aware of and resolved. However, upgrading WordPress had no affect. After reading other posts about issues with IE9 and finding no easy method to correct the issue other than changing my theme to something less desirable or spending hours going through the theme code in order to alter the theme to display accurately in IE9, I decided to experiment with other browsers. What I found is that the only browser installed on my machine that displays my blogs inaccurately is IE9. I had no issues with IE8 and after surfing to my blog using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera, I discovered that none of these had issues with my blogs as well. They displayed correctly in all browsers I tested except IE9. I even tried Compatibility Mode in IE9, but this had no affect. This makes me wonder what changes Microsoft made to Internet Explorer in this latest version and what other issues I am going to discover. For now, I have decided to move to Firefox as my primary browser since Internet Explorer can no longer fulfill my needs. This is unfortunate as I have been an IE user since the first versions of IE. Microsoft needs to be more careful about ensuring that their browser is backward compatible with existing websites as not everyone has the time to change coding in their sites every time Microsoft decides to update their browser.
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Google Brings iPad-like Preview Panes To Gmail

Giovanni Panasiti — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:36:30 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

Google brings the Gmail Web interface for iPad to desktop computers and adds preview panes to its webmail service. If you have used Gmail on an iPad (or Android tablet), the new Gmail preview panes will look and feel familiar, with a few added perks for the big screen. You can enable the preview pane feature from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings. If you haven’t activated the Google+ inspired Gmail themes, the two features look good combined. Once activated, you can toggle the preview panes from the top right corner of your message list.
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Chrome Web Store Extensions for Teachers

Giovanni Panasiti — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:16:31 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

Some of you might have noticed that EdReach is focused on sharing tools this week. My first choice was sharing all the resources I use from the BBC. They have great activities for my social studies and language arts class, but it is a very specific tool that might not be pertinent to most. I finally decided to share some of the tools I use within the Chrome web browser. Google is the creator of Chrome and they make it very easy to integrate tools within their browser.
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10 Free Google Chrome Apps For Increased Productivity

Giovanni Panasiti — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:07:30 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

Since Google launched its Chrome Web store in December, extensions have sprung up to speed up and simplify the messy world of Internet browsing. If you’re a member of the club that spends more time looking at screens than people, some simple browser add-ons can streamline many of your daily processes on the job. We brought you a list of great Chrome apps for small businesses shortly after the store’s opening. Here are 10 new ones that are sure to increase your web productivity while at work: StayFocusd Large Document Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer Yast TabCloud Screen Capture Popchrom HootSuite Read Later Fast Google Calendar Checker
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Researchers Highlight Flaws In Chrome OS Security at Black Hat Conference

Giovanni Panasiti — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:05:37 +0000

Via Scoop.it – Browserland

While Google has billed Chrome OS to be one of the most secure operating system free from traditional security concerns, a couple of researchers from WhiteHat security revealed at the Black Hat conference that the operating system is prone to may…
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