Noah loves our laptops. He sees us using them and he thinks he should too!
Check out Toddler Keys. Lots of great options in this free program to protect your computer, and you can set it with pictures and sounds so your kid can press buttons. A great way to teach your kid to be gentle with the computer, too.
Noah likes to type, click the mouse, and even grab my hand and make ME type for him. See what your kid does! =D
I posted about Add-ons and Plugins (FF and WP), but how about some great free programs? Many of these are well known and commonly recommended, but maybe this list will help somebody.
Avast! Antivirus: Free for home use. There are other free antiviruses out there, and I’ve tried them but Avast has been the best for me. The free version includes their on-access scanner to catch viruses as you surf or download, while other antivirus programs only offer this in the paid version(s).
CCleaner: Great for cleaning up your computer! Get rid of old temporary files, clear your cookies, clean up your registry, and more! The same company also puts out a few other useful programs.
Pidgin: Do you get tired of having multiple messengers? I did. I tried trillian and meebo, and didn’t like either one. I found Pidgin back before it had the current name and I’ve kept it ever since. Tabbed messaging is very nifty.
FireFox: Most people know about this one already but I had to include it in the list. This is the best browser on the internet. Period.
Twhirl: If you use Twitter, this is a great way to keep up! I’ve tried several different programs for Twitter, including a few FireFox Add-ons and this has been my favorite.
File-Zilla: A wonderful and free FTP client.
foobar2000: There are a lot of music players out there, but this one doesn’t use many system resources. Very customizable, and even gives you tabbed playlists. Very nice.
GIMP: Free graphics program. I prefer GIMP over any of the paid programs I’ve tried.
OpenOffice: Free program compatible with Microsoft Office.
Spybot Search & Destroy: Anti Spyware program.
These are just a few programs, so watch for more posts like this in the future!
I was playing with some new add-ons I downloaded for Firefox and thought I’d share a few of my favorite plugins for WP and add-ons for FF.
Firefox Add-ons:
Favicon Picker 3: I really utilize my bookmarks toolbar, but there were several sites I’d add that didn’t have a favicon. I went hunting and found this nifty add-on to put favicons on bookmarks that didn’t have their own.
MeasureIt: Measure the size of something displayed on a page. Image, spacing, you name it. Very useful in designing say, a blog. =P
Smart Bookmarks Bar: Did I mention I utilize my bookmarks toolbar? This one gives you all sorts of options for your bookmarks toolbar, such as hiding the names of the bookmarks to allow for more bookmarks. =D
ColorZilla: You can pick out the color of anything on the page you’re viewing. This is helpful for picking out a color scheme, among other things.
AdBlock Plus: There are filters you can subscribe to that make this very useful for browsing. Block ads, images, and even block out rickrolls using the rickroll filter available on the Rickroll Database. Just make sure you turn it off if you are doing offers on GPT sites (blocking ads can prevent offers from crediting).
I might list more in a later post. =D
Wordpress Plugins:
Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu: This plugin is great. Instead of having that clunky wordpress menu on the left side while I’m in the dashboard, I have a very useful drop down menu at the top of the page. Customizable and user friendly.
Twitter Tools: I enjoy using Twitter, so when I post I like having the option to tweet about it right from my post page. There are a lot of options with it, including a twitter widget for my sidebar.
Wordpress.com Stats: One thing I really enjoyed while on wordpress.com was the ability to see detailed stats for my blog. Now I have those detailed stats for ngwoosh.com!
Wordpress Admin Bar: I looked and looked for a plugin that would allow me to see my admin bar from anywhere on ngwoosh.com so long as I was logged in. This one is great!
Live Comment Preview: I hate not being able to preview my comment on blogs. This gives you a live preview of your comment (as you type it). Love it!
@ Reply: Gives the ability to reply to comments (like Twitter) with @user by clicking the reply arrow on comments. Very convenient.
I might list more in a later post. =D
There are still several plugins and add-ons that I’m testing and getting a feel for. Look for more posts like this in the future.
There’s a chance that I might go back later on and update this post with authors and links, but they’re pretty easy to find by searching for their names if you’re interested in trying them. Enjoy!
