KeyConfig is a handy Firefox add-on that power users will just love. One of the features I liked in Opera is the integrated keyboard shortcuts (a lot of them) that are packaged by default. The first thing I do after a fresh Opera install is to configure the following keyboard shortcuts:

• z - Go Back
• x - Go Forward
• a - Go to previous tab
• s - Go to next tab
• c - Close tab

Below is a step-by-step tutorial on how we can set the above quickkeys in Firefox:

1. Install KeyConfig Firefox add-on from here. At this time, it is in experimental section. So you will need to create a free account at Firefox add-ons site to download.
2. Install functions for keyconfig from here
3. Restart Firefox. Note that there are no options for this add-on
4. Go to Tools -> Keyconfig (or press Ctrl+Shift+F12)
5. Click on ‘Add a new key’

   

6. Type in ‘Go Back’ for the name and BrowserBack(); in the text field. Press OK.

   

7. Now select the new entry you just created, click inside the text box below, type in your hotkey, ‘z’ in this case and hit Apply.

   
   So you should have the entry like so:

   

8. Clicking on any other pre-existing entry in the list will show up ‘Add a new key’ button. Now create other keyboard shortcuts similarly. Below are the codes you need:

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There are software programs like Launchy using which you can launch applications by typing the first few letters of the program name and hitting the return key. Once you start using these, you’ll realize that we can save the space that start menu takes up. So we started looking for a small program that will hide the start menu button yet makes menu itself available upon pressing the windows key. A free program called Start Killer by Tordex does the job.

Here’s how we hide the start menu and yet easily launch any desired program:

1. Set up FARR
2. Run Start Killer

Find And Run Robot

Find And Run Robot or FARR in its short form is a free program by DonationCoder that will display a small floating text box in which you type the name of the program you want to launch and press a number on your keyboard or use your arrow keys to move up/down and press the return key. We find it better compared to other similar solutions like Launchy because:

• We can press a number from the results list to launch a program
• It makes available a newly installed program much faster
• It has more advanced features

To get started with FARR,

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Did you know that it’s possible to embed an image besides plain text as a comment in a Microsoft Excel cell? Here’s how:

1. Right click on the cell and select Insert Comment
2. Then right click anywhere on the bounding box of the comment and select Format Comment…
3. Go to Colors and Lines tab
4. From the Color dropdown under Fill section, select Fill Effects…
5. Go to Picture tab
6. Click Select Picture… button, browse to and select the picture that you want to insert in the comment. You might want to tick Lock picture aspect ratio before clicking on OK. This (theoretically) ensures that when you resize the comment bounding box, the picture gets sized proprotionately. However, we noticed that this option really didn’t have its intended effect and whether or not it was checked, the end size of the image when the comment box is resized is always the same
7. Press OK once more

There you have it. Play the video below to see this in action.

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How often do you find yourself wanting to search in Google when the active application is not your browser? If you too find that copying the text, switching to browser and searching is tedious, read on.

I use FeedReader a lot and found myself always doing Google searches of text in it a lot by manually copying word(s) and pasting them in the search box of Firefox. So I thought about a way to quickly perform Google searches by simply pressing a hot key (keyboard shortcut) with text selected in whichever windows program it is in. It’s just 4 lines of code using AutoHotKey.

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The IBM mouse that I use at my work place is hard to click. My fingers would get tired at the end of the day with all the clicking. So I requested for a small program or script that will click whenever ‘Ctrl’ key is pressed. jgpaiva over at DonationCoder wrote a 3 line .ahk file that does this.

Here are the steps:

1. Install Auto Hot Key.
2. Save the following as LeftClick.ahk:

   Ctrl::  send,{lbutton}  return

3. Double click on the new .ahk file.

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