Tag Archives: Tips

Resize and Style Google Chrome Scroll bar without Extension

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Styled Chrome Scroll barThere are various extensions available in the Web Store to decorate their Chrome installation. [See 5 ultra-useful new tab extensions]. One extension that I found really good to stylize my chrome’s default scroll bar and that give me that little bit of extra screen space or just for the joy of personalizing is Simple Scroll Bar X. This looked good but while installing it chrome warned me that it can access all my websites data. Moreover, if you’re like me and don’t like installing extensions for every small thing, you can easily achieve the same result by simply editing Chrome’s Custom.css file.

You can find it at the following location:

Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User StyleSheets\Custom.css

Mac:
/Users/YourUsername/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/User StyleSheets/Custom.css

Ubuntu:
~/.config/chromium/Default/User\ StyleSheets/Custom.css

Once located, open it in a text editor and add the following code:

::-webkit-scrollbar-track-piece{
	background-color:#fff;
	-webkit-border-radius:0;
}
::-webkit-scrollbar{
	width:8px;
	height:8px;
}
::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb{
	height:50px;
	background-color:#999;
	-webkit-border-radius:4px;
	outline:2px solid #fff;
	outline-offset:-2px;
	border: 2px solid #fff;
}
::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb:hover{
	height:50px;
	background-color:#9f9f9f;
	-webkit-border-radius:4px;
}

Save the file and reload your tabs to see the change.

As you can see it’s basic CSS so, if you wish, you can easily modify the code to your liking. For example, if you find the scroll bar too thin change its width by editing this part:

::-webkit-scrollbar{
	width:16px;
}

You should be able to see this styled scroll bar on all pages, including scroll bars within a page.

Manually customizing your browser by editing style sheet, instead of installing extensions, eradicates the risk of someone tracking your browsing history and it is also less intensive on system resources.

If you’d like to further customize Chrome, check out this post on styling the Web Inspector. 

20 Handy Tips for Organizing your Gmail Inbox

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organize gmail

It is obvious that you are using Gmail as your primary mail (else you won’t be reading this article) and though you may or may not be getting hundreds of mail daily, then too it becomes extremely important to organize it. Why? Because it would help us in the longer run. As we all know, Gmail is the most feature-rich web-based email application on the planet. With Gmail, you can save all of your email in the same box, label them and do things which are absent in others. Here are some 21 useful tips to help you on your way!

1. Integrate multiple email accounts
Take all of your email accounts and put them together under the Gmail umbrella so you don’t have to switch back and forth.

2. Choose the ‘Send Mail as’ option
You can pick what email address you’re sending your emails out from. You never have to leave Gmail.

3. Create multiple email addresses
Gmail only recognizes the letters in an email address. You can place a period (.) anywhere on the left side of the @ sign and it will still go to the primary email address.

4. Backup your messages
Set up your filters and rules to forward important emails to another account so you can keep track of them.

5. Star your important emails
Place a star on the important emails that you receive so you can easily find them later.

6. Use labels (a lot)
You can create custom labels to easily sort your email. Make a label for mailing lists so you can have all of the threads in one place.

7. Archive your messages
You can move email out of your inbox without deleting it by moving it into the archive.

8. Use notes
If you have a note or list of instructions that you need to refer to often, write a draft email and it can be easily found.

9. Use filters
A filter is a rule placed upon incoming email. If you receive lots of email from a list, you can use a filter with a label and put that email into its proper place even before you see it.

10. Add a picture
Let people know who you are by adding a picture to your Gmail. This is a great feature to use when you are trying to be consistent with your branding.

11. Set a personal level indicator
Gmail offers a feature where you can quickly tell which emails were sent to you and which ones were sent to you and others.

12. Set up standard responses
Become more automated by creating standard automatic responses to emails instead of typing the same thing over and over.

13. Show previews
With Gmail, you don’t have to leave the application to investigate a Youtube video or Picasa picture. You can receive a preview right there.

14. Adding a plus
Instead of johndoe@gmail.com, your address can become johndoe+blogspot@gmail.com. That way, you can more readily track where your email is coming from.

15. Muting conversations
You can mute conversations if you have no interest in them by pressing ‘m.’ You will still be able to see the email in ‘all mail,’ but you do not have to see the follow ups if you don’t want to.

16. Use the search feature
The search feature allows you to find anything in your inbox quickly and easily.

17. Make sure you’re attached
Gmail searches for the word ‘attached’ within your outgoing email and makes sure that you are sending a file with it.

18. Use keywords
If you want to make your email easy to find, add some searchable keywords to it.

19. Add a custom signature
With Gmail, you can add a signature to all of your outgoing email.

20. Use the keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are essential for any Gmail power user. C is for compose, j and k for moving up and down, / to search and z for undo.

21. Color your labels
Add custom colors to the labels that you place on your email to make it stand out.
Integrate these tips into your repertoire and you will soon be a master of all things Gmail.

6 Smart Tips for Using Laptop During Power Failures

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isolated-laptop
Have you lately facing quick power discharges from your laptop? Well, if its getting old, its time to replace batteries. However with few techniques available on internet like this or this, you can prolong the battery life. But do you know what is best for your lappy during power outages?

Here are the 6 smart tips that you can use to get maximum usage during power failures. Its recommended to act on them as soon as you come to know about power-cut so that you can work long enough till the last drop of battery drains out.

6 Things to do during power outages

1) The very first thing you should do is to reduce brightness. It significantly improves drain time.

And if you find difficulty on reading at laptop screen with low brightness , try to close all windows or curtains and make room darker to increase screen contrast.

2) Next, switch off Wi-Fi. Why make laptop search for signals when there is no network around and waste power. If you are using wireless keyboard and mouse, I would recommend to turn them off too and use inbuilt keyboard and trackpad.

3) Then remove whatever you can for laptop i.e. external hard-disk, CD/DVD from DVD slot, USB mouse or other devices. These USB powered devices consumes much power than you think.

4) Next, turn off anti-virus software. As you would not be using internet (no power, remember) there is no sense letting anti-virus scan your files in real time and waste processor power.

Similarly, you could close all other applications that you won’t be needing for the duration.

5) DO NOT play games if you want your battery to last forever. Heavy graphic usage games like CS/COD/GTA will drain all battery power in 30 minutes max. Light games like chess /solitaire will have little effect.

6) Now if you choose to work on Microsoft office, don’t forget to turn on autosave feature. Though it takes resource but it also makes sure that you don’t lose anything when battery is completely drains.

And if you choose to watch movie, then watch it in full-screen with optimal sound, not too loud so that you wont loose energy. And the best would be to use earphones which consumes very less power than Laptop speakers.

Tell us what else do you do during long power-cuts in your comments.

Related: Eye Strain Reducing Tips

10 Power Tips for Gmail Attachments for Search and Everything

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Very often, we receive files as Gmail attachment and presuming that Gmail never runs out of space, we never download these attachments. But as time follows, it becomes difficult to keep up with millions of attachment and searching these files becomes nightmare.

gmail attachment iconThe biggest mistake we make here is, assuming Gmail as online file storage service. In reality, Gmail is only a fantastic mailing service. Nevertheless you can also use attachments as file storing or transporting between different computers. Now if you get lot of attachments (pdf, docx, jpeg, txt) it becomes really messy to keep track of these files. More ever, there is no sorting facility in Gmail to sort messages by size or attachments. But, Search facility can come to little use here. Here is a collection 10 power tips to keep track of Gmail attachments and make your life easy and productive:

  • Gmail’s attachments maximum size limit is 25 MB. For storing and transferring larger files, consider Gdocs, which allows you to upload any file up to 250 MB.

    • Gdoc-gmail-upload-limit-exceed

  • Sometimes Gmail treats large size attachments as spam and without users knowledge, it sends them to spam folder. So the last strategy to search for missing file or mail would be in:spam or in:trash along with other search operator. Because by default Gmail does not search in spam folder or for deleted mails. As a protection, you can alwayswhite list expecting senders.
  • Gmail doesn’t not allow uploading and sending dot(.)exe files as attachment. The best way, however to send them is to rename them by any random extension and then upload them in Gmail.

  • Most of the times, we forget to attach some file and then we follow up with a sorry mail. For such conditions, try “Forgotten Attachment Detector” from labs tab in Gmail settings. If this lab feature finds word attach in the text body of the mail, then it will notify you with a reminder dialog box.

    • Gmail forgot attachment lab feature

  • Gmail’s HTML version allows uploading only one file at a time. However, with Gmail’s, latest JavaScript standard version, you can upload multiple files at a time. To upload multiple file, just hold down Ctrl key while selecting files.
  • To search for all attachments use has:attachment in search box.
  • To search for only PDF attachments, use has:attachment pdf in the search box. Similarly, for other file formats. And if you know the name of attachment file use filename:latest-report.xls to search directly for that missing mail.
  • Use Operators after: and before: with has:attachment to search for attachments between specific dates.
  • To know the file type an email has without opening, install this greasemonkey script or this firefox addon. This will let you to see what kind of attachment is in your inbox.
Gmail attachment icons
  • Even if you don’t have Microsoft Office or PDF reader, then also you can use HTML preview feature to view these word attachments.

    The following file formats are supported by Gmail for viewing as HTML :
    .doc – Microsoft Word documents
    .xls – Microsoft Excel spread sheets
    .ppt – Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
    .sxw – OpenOffice 1 / StarOffice 6/7 documents
    .sxc – OpenOffice 1 / StarOffice 6/7 spread sheets
    .sxi – OpenOffice 1 / StarOffice 6/7 presentations
    .sdw – StarWriter documents
    .sdc – StarCalc spread sheets
    .sdd – StarImpress presentation
    .pdf – Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format)

    Note: You can only view the text in above files as Gmail does not support previewing images in documents yet. However, if images are send as separate attachments then you can easily preview them without downloading.