Take the awesome power of Wolfram Alpha; add the convenience and intelligence of Google's built-in calculator. Now mix them up and serve in a piping hot Chrome add-on: Chromey Calculator.

When you click the extension's humble button, it opens a quick prompt pane (you can also pop it out to its own separate Chrome window). You can then feed it with any expression Wolfram Alpha or Google Calculator understands, and even mix those expressions up.

Chromey Calculator decides whether to use Google or Wolfram Alpha. You can see what engine it used for your calculation by hovering over a result; clicking the logo takes you to the source page (handy mostly for Wolfram Alpha calculations, which usually yield interesting graphs).

The add-on even supports variables. One proposed example goes like this:

@Everest = height of Everest
@K2 = height of K2
@Everest - @K2 in meters

So this basically takes the height of Everest and of K2 (the world's second-highest mountain) and calculates the difference - all within your Chrome window, without opening any other sites or tabs.

This is very powerful stuff; the only limit is your imagination - I would love to hear any interesting examples in the comments.

Chromey Calculator combines the power of Wolfram Alpha and Google Calculator originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Back in 2008, Lee covered SiteLauncher for Firefox. It's a simple add-on that provides you with a customizable "shortcut panel" for your favorite websites. SiteLauncher for Chrome provides basically the same service, but for Google's browser. I've been using it for a few days now, and while it's not perfect, it's still very handy.

Cons: It doesn't always work. Sometimes I hit Ctrl+Space and nothing happens. That's mainly when the address bar ("Omnibar") is in focus, and I suspect it's due to Chrome's limitations. Still, it's annoying. It's one of those add-ons that takes some getting used to, but once you're addicted, you want to use it all the time. Having it work intermittently just keeps the habit from forming.

Okay, that was just one con -- but it's a big one!

Bottom line: Awesome add-on, if only it worked all the time.

SiteLauncher for Chrome lets you jump to sites using a single keystroke originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of my favorite Gmail features is the ability to drag-and-drop attachments onto email messages. That's so cool! There's no more browsing for files - the whole thing feels much more like a desktop app.

drag2up is a Chrome add-on that aspires to bring that same functionality to the whole Web. It's super-cool - when it works. I've selected the screenshot above for that exact reason. The imgur.com link is the result of a successful upload attempt. I dragged an image onto a text area, and drag2up uploaded it to imgur.com in the background, and then it populated the text area with the URL of the image. It even wrapped it in forum-friendly [img] tags for me.

The second line (the one starting with Error) is what happened when I tried uploading a ZIP file. No joy, but I guess that might be resolved in time.

When I tried using drag2up with another edit control (CKEditor running in a heavily-customized environment), it couldn't even modify the text shown in the control. But it did work with a simple text area control.

Bottom line: It's really, really cool, when it works. Let's hope it'll gradually start working with more and more files and editors.

drag2up for Chrome brings drag-and-drop uploading to the whole Web originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google's HTML5 e-book begins to appear in newspapers originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 06:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Firefox 4 UI update brings snazzy, new alert pop-ups originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Auto HD for YouTube is a fairly simple Chrome add-on, which has a similar function to the many Greasemonkey scripts that do the same thing: it makes YouTube default to high-quality playback. I've tried it out, and here are some quick thoughts:

• No auto buffering: Sadly, this add-on doesn't change YouTube's default behavior, which is to just start playing the video rather than buffer and wait for you to hit Play. So if you have a slow connection and still wish to enjoy HD, you might be better off with the Greasemonkey script called YouTube Auto Buffer & Auto HD & Remove Ads.
• Doesn't work well with channels: I've tried it out with the Pomplamoose video channel, and it just wouldn't work. The video played at 480p. Only when I clicked through to an individual video page did the add-on kick in.
• Handy options: You can have the player auto-widen, and you can set four different quality settings: "Preferred," "Secondary," "Fallback," and even "Secondary fallback." I must say, "Secondary fallback" sounds like a bit of an overkill to me, but it's available.

All in all, it does work. If you'd rather use native Chrome add-ons than Greasemonkey scripts, try it on for size.

Auto HD for YouTube lets you pre-set Chrome for 720p in YouTube originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Chrome Dev and Beta updates bring UI and Web Store tweaks, more functional print preview originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google's beautiful HTML5 guide to the Web originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple updates Safari, fixes annoying address bar behavior originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Not everyone uses Google Reader; some people (a dying breed, perhaps) like to consume their RSS feeds locally, using a desktop feed reader. Firefox has long had a Live Bookmarks feature that gave it some of those "desktop feed reader" powers: Live Bookmarks understands RSS, and it can always show you a list of a website's most recent headlines.

RSS Live Links brings just that sort of functionality to Google Chrome, along with a nice extra feature: instant notifications.

Whenever one of the feeds you've subscribed to updates, you get a nice sound effect (a human voice going "Boing!"), the icon shakes, and an unread count appears. When you then click the icon, you can see a list of the unread items in each feed, and hover over them to see a preview. Naturally, clicking an item opens it in a new tab.

This is a powerful add-on; it has a very rich configuration interface, with no less than 20 different options (I counted!). You can also configure the color scheme, select one of several different notification sounds, and customize it in a myriad other ways. Slick!

RSS Live Links for Chrome lets you monitor news feeds in real-time originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've recently been spending more and more time in Chrome, and I'm very impressed. One of the things I needed was a way to execute arbitrary bits of JavaScript (bookmarklets and other tidbits) using keystrokes. This is useful because it lets me control Chrome using AutoHotkey, and do all sorts of other things.

The solution I found is called Shortcut Manager, and it's a Chrome extension that goes above and beyond what I need. It lets you assign hotkeys to execute existing browser operations (switch tabs, scroll, etc.), but also lets you paste in any bookmarklet code or other JavaScript for the hotkey to execute. You can also assign site-specific hotkeys -- meaning a certain hotkey would do something on one site, and something else (or nothing at all) on another site.

Last but not least, having worked so hard on your customizations, Shortcut Manager lets you easily export and import your settings (sync support would be a nice addition). This is a a must-have extension for me, and probably for other JavaScript-loving nerds as well.

Shortcut Manager for Chrome lets you execute JavaScript with hotkeys -- and more! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Internet Explorer 9 preview 7 available, takes SunSpider crown; Beta now downloaded 13 million times originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Camino 2.0.6 released, fixes security and stablility bugs originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's an operation I need to do quite often: copy both the page title and its URL. For some reason, neither Firefox nor Chrome provides a way to do this in one fell swoop. I need to activate the address bar in order to copy the URL, and I'm not even sure there's a way to copy the page title (I usually just type it out manually).

Copy Fixer is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that provides a simple and elegant solution. With Copy Fixer, if you hit Ctrl+C when nothing is selected, your clipboard is populated with something like this:

Download Squad
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/

That's it. It's just the page title and the URL and nothing more. I tried out the Chrome version, and it worked perfectly. It did require a restart to begin working, though, but maybe that's due to the Canary build I'm using.

The add-on is very minimalistic. There's no UI to speak of, and there are no preferences. One option that I wish the developer would add is a way to wrap the title and the URL with arbitrary strings and lose the line break. This way, the add-on could be used to produce Markdown-friendly links - page title surrounded by brackets, followed by the URL surrounded by parentheses. Maybe that will come in the future!

Copy Fixer for Firefox and Chrome lets you easily copy the URL and page title originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Browser Plus for Windows Phone 7 has tab support and incognito mode

Browser Plus for Windows Phone 7 has tab support and incognito mode originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Watch out, Inkscape! As Web browsers become increasingly powerful, it is only a matter of time until a free browser-based vector graphics editor pops up that is powerful enough to compete with a desktop application -- and SVG-edit may well become that editor. Currently in version 2.5, this open-source project was surprisingly responsive and powerful on my aging Firefox 3.6.8.

The one thing I couldn't get it to do was curves. The feature list does say that it supports "curved paths," but I couldn't figure it out, despite previously having worked with Inkscape, CorelDRAW, and Illustrator. Other than that, SVG-Edit gracefully handled just about anything that I could come up with. You can change opacity, set the fill or the outline to any solid color or gradient, align items on the canvas, shift Z-order (bring items to the foreground or send them to the background), and lots of other functions. In case you're wondering, that screenshot isn't blurry -- it's showcasing SVG-edit's built-in Gaussian blur functionality.

SVG-edit also supports layers and imports SVG files that were created in other applications. The whole thing is powered by HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, and your compatible browser's SVG functionality. It all runs in the browser itself, too - there's no server-side component.

One neat thing that you can do with SVG-edit that you can't do with other apps is resize the UI. When you use your browser's zoom functionality, the whole thing grows, including the buttons. And it all stays crisp, because the buttons use SVG icons. It's beautiful work.

SVG-edit is a surprisingly powerful in-browser vector image editor originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Limit Google Chrome history storage with an extension originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Chrome sandboxes Flash for more secure browsing originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Firefox 4 Beta 7 has been released for Windows, Mac and Linux

Continue reading Firefox Friday: a round-up of this week's Firefox releases and news

Firefox Friday: a round-up of this week's Firefox releases and news originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Browse to http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy;
• Right-click in some blank space and choose edit site preferences
• When the preferences window appears, click the network tab
  
• Change the browser identification drop-down to read identify as Firefox
• Reload the page and try a search!

How to enable Google Instant Previews in Opera originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.