RefDesk.com

If you’re trying to find stuff on the web here’s a website that saves you time. It’s a really useful all-in-one reference resource called RefDesk.com. It contains links to search engines, news sites, telephone directories, maps and driving directions, homework help sites, dictionaries and encyclopedias, good news sites, fun sites, and more. Phew!

A few things that are helpful for me include the calendar, the link to check email, and the link to the time zone map. One link,  I just discovered, leads to the Copykat Recipes site. If you’ve tried something in a restaurant they might have the recipe for you to make it at home. I’m going to make the Mississippi Mud Cake.

One thing I don’t like about RefDesk.com is that most of the links open in the same window. To get them to open in a new window hit the Ctrl key while clicking on the link.

Google Cheat Sheet

Google’s Cheat Sheet provides some common tips for refining and improving web searches.

For example, if you want to search Stanford University’s website for admissions information enter “admission site:www.stanford.edu.” “Site:” tells Google to search only in the website address that follows it.

If you’re looking for an exact phrase such as “to be or not to be,” enclose it in quotes.

Do you need a quick math calculation? Just type it into your search box. For example, if you want to know what 38% of 125 is, enter “38% of 125″ and Google will calculate the answer for you.

Get more time saving tips from Google’s Cheat Sheet.

Retrieving Lost Passwords

Most of us have too many passwords to remember and like me you probably have a system for retrieving them. But sometimes the system doesn’t work. In that instance we can usually get a new password emailed to us.

Here’s another method for retrieving some passwords. If you have your password set to be automatically entered for you and you can see the asterisks that represent your password there’s a free tool that lets retrieve the password hidden behind some asterisks.

It’s called Asterisk Key and is available from Passware at
http://www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm.

Beware of Clicking on Shortened URLs

It seems like there’s always something new to beware of on the web. Although not new, spammers and others are using shortened URLs to their advantage.

About Shortened URLs
Shortened URLs can be created by using services such as TinyURL. They’re especially convenient for providing links to URLs that are exceptionally long. The service shortens a long URL, such as 100 characters, into something as short as 15 characters, making it fit on one line and short enough to  fit in messages, such as Twitter, that limit the amount of characters in a post.

The Problem
For example, if the URL points to Amazon.com, instead of being able to see that it really does point to a page on Amazon all you see is this.

http://tinyurl.com/n93tvz

The “http://amazon.com/” part of the URL is hidden and you don’t know if it really takes you to Amazon’s website.

A Solution?
TinyURL offers a preview option. Instead of taking you directly to the site the URL points to, the preview option takes you to TinyURL to view the original. Here’s the preview URL for the same page on Amazon.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/n93tvz

First it takes the surfer to TinyURL to view the original URL and provides a link to “proceed to this site.” It looks like a safer option but I imagine spammers will find a way to get around this.

Visit:
TinyURL.com
Information Week

Read More:
Information Week’s article Web Link Shrinkage Powers Spam Surge by Thomas Claburn .

WebNotes.net for Faster Research

Researching on the web and sharing the information can be a lot of work. For information I need to refer back to later I’ll either bookmark the page, or copy and paste the text and URL’s (webpage addresses) into MSWord. If I want to share the information I’ll email the URL with some notes about what the page contains.

Now I’ve discovered a much easier method for saving and sharing information using a new tool called Web Notes. With it you can highlight text on webpages, add notes to them, share the information, and save it for later. There’s no more copying, pasting, and opening multiple programs.

For easy organization and retrieval of all those notes and pages Web Notes provides folders and reports. The folder system is straight forward allowing for adding, organizing, and deleting notes. The reports tool provides full views of notes and URLs which can be saved and printed. I’ll be saving a lot of time with this tool.

Read the PC World review in the Washington Post.

Visit the:
Washington Post website
PC World website
Web Notes website

Opt Out of Online Ad Tracking

When we use the web advertisers collect data on where we go with a tracking device called a cookie. For the most part cookies are good because they store bits of data that makes repeat visits to websites smoother and faster. However, cookies are downloaded onto our computers without us knowing and we might not want them on our systems. If you want to easily opt out of ad tracking go to the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) Opt-Out page.

To learn more about opting out go to Kim Komando’s tip Opt out of online ad tracking.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Web Browsers

If you’re using Firefox or Internet Explorer to browse the web here’s a few keyboard shortcuts that will save you some time.

• This one’s my favorite. To open more than one tab in the same window hit Ctrl-T.
• If you want to switch between tabs without using you mouse hit Ctrl-Tab to go to the next open tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab to go backwards.
• If you’re still typing in “www” before at the beginning of a web address, stop. There’s no need to do the extra typing. For example, if you want to go to Firefox’s homepage just type “firefox.com” instead of “www.firefox.com.”

Note: This post has been edited to include Internet Explorer as another web browser in which these keyboard shortcuts can be used.

Windows Security Patches

If you’re running Windows and use Microsoft Office software make sure you have the latest updates from Microsoft.

From the WashingtonPost.com

Microsoft Issues Record Number of Security Updates

“Microsoft Corp. issued a record-breaking number of software security updates today, shipping patches that plug at least 31 different security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software.”

View this Washington Post article.
Go to Microsoft security updates for June 2009.

Screen Captures

Have you ever wanted to capture what you’re seeing on your computer screen and share it with someone else? It’s really easy to do.

To do this hit the Ctrl + Print Screen buttons at the same time. Now it is saved to your clipboard for pasting into another file such as Microsoft Word. To paste the image into Word hit the Ctrl + V buttons at the same time.

To learn more about screen captures go to Cal Poly Pomona’s resources page or copy this link and paste it into your Web browser.

http://www.csupomona.edu/~wcweber/resources/screensh.htm

Google Web History

Have you ever wanted to go back to a really great website but can’t remember its name or how you found it?

To solve the problem try Google Web History. It allows you to view all the webpages you’ve visited by date and time. For quicker browsing it breaks down your history into keywords searched for and the name and URL (uniform resource locator) of each site.

To prevent prying eyes from viewing your history Google provides tools for removing or pausing history. For users concerned about privacy it allows you to opt out of storing your history.

In addition to breaking down your history, Google’s “Interesting Items” page makes suggestions for other sites you might be interested in and, on the “Trends” page, summarizes personal Web History data.  For my purposes I find both of these pages useless because they appear to contain raw computer generated data that has no meaning for me.

If you want to use Google Web History sign up for a free Google account and use the Google search engine. Learn more about this resource at Web History Help.