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Towards a better Web navigation experience

This edition of NetSpeak discusses some new additions in the realm of web navigation tools/services.

The web browser is certainly one of the most frequently used tools by netizens.

The recent entry of Google with its open-source browser, Google Chrome, announced through a comic book describing its features ( http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/), in the browser space has made this segment further competitive and exciting.

A notable feature of Chrome (http://gears.google.com/chrome) is its simple interface — a few tabs with a long input box, which functions both as address and search bars.

One significant advantage of Chrome is its independent tabs that run as separate processes. As each of the Chrome tabs is a separate process, the browser would continue to remain live even if one of its tabs crashes — this makes it a more stable browser. Also, the tabs can easily be grabbed/dragged to anywhere on the desktop.

Another feature worth a mention is Chrome’s task manager that lets you view/manage the tab processes (similar to the Windows task manager).

And, if you wish to prevent the browser from recording your browsing details in its history and other files, you can opt for an ‘incognito’ mode. In addition, Chrome helps you create desktop shortcuts to on-line applications (with a couple of mouse clicks) so that you can invoke/manage them like any other desktop application.

One shortcoming noticed by this author is its inability to identify RSS feeds automatically (something available in Firefox, which has a RSS auto detection/live-bookmark feature).

Besides selecting a fast/secured browser, one should keep on enhancing its potential by integrating new add-ons.

In fact, the great browser, Firefox, draws its strength from the plethora of add-ons or extensions available.

The newly released Firefox extension, Ubiquity (http://la bs.mozilla.com/2008/08/int roducing-ubiquity/), which is in the experimental stage, is a wonderful one packed with lots of built-in commands to automate many on-line activities.

Suppose you stumble on a web page with an interesting article containing several graphs/pictures and you wish to convert a part of it to a PDF file.

The task could be done simply, provided (after selecting the specific part) you can make the browser do it through a command. Ubiquity-enabled Firefox allows you to do exactly this.

Apart from the command to convert web page content to PDF, Ubiquity comes bundled with several other useful commands (meant for accessing different on-line services) as well. For example, if you are on a web page with an alien language (say Chinese) text, Ubiquity’s translate command helps you obtain its English version. A great feature of this tool is the facility that enables anyone to create new commands and share it with public.

To use Ubiquity (following its installation), invoke its command interface by clicking the Ctrl and Space keys together. Now, you can start typing in the command required to do the task. For instance, if you want to invoke a Wikipedia search on a specific word/phrase (say India), select it, type in the command ‘Wikipedia India’ and press the enter key. Immediately the browser will load the Wikipedia page with the title India. To get a list commands available currently with Ubiquity, use the command: ‘command-list.’

Though IE still has a large following, it is no longer the favourite of tech savvy netizens. To prevent further erosion of its market share, MicroSoft has packed the latest version of IE (IE8 Beta 2- http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx) with a few useful features.

A beautiful feature of this version of IE is the ‘Accelerator’ tool that allows you to access your favorite on-line services with text selected directly from the current web page.

Assume you wish to e-mail a few lines from the current web page to a friend with Gmail. If Gmail accelerator is integrated with IE, you can invoke the Gmail compose window directly from the current web page. For this, visit the IE Accelerator gallery ( http://www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators/), navigate to the Gmail accelerator section and install it (this is similar to installing extensions in Firefox). Now, select the text to be e-mailed and immediately the Accelerator blue icon will appear. From among the ‘Accelerator’ options, select the one meant for Gmail. At this point the browser will load Gmail compose window with the selected text on the message body.

Privacy conscious users may find the InPrivate browsing feature (similar to Chrome’s ‘Incognito’ mode), which lets one browse the Net in a more private/secured atmosphere, really valuable.

Another feature worth a mention is the facility that automatically groups all the tabs generated from a page with a specific colour. When you load a link from the current page on a tab, both the current page and the new tab will gain a specific colour. In addition, all the tabs generated from this group will also acquire the same colour. If you wish, you can close all the tabs with a single click.

As mentioned in the past text books on a wide array of subjects are available on-line for free (example: http://www.archive.org/details/texts). ‘Collaborative Statistics’, a freely downloadable book recently stumbled on by this author, is yet another great effort that should excite free/open text proponents. Global Text project (http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/node/21) is another place, where you can locate a good collection of links to free open text-books.

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