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September 2014

Firefox for Android gets Chromecast, Roku support. Here is how it works

I bought a Chromecast some time ago just to see how it works and how useful it can be. I don't really watch a lot of TV but do watch Internet streams from time to time. While I do not have any issues watching it on the computer screen, I sometimes prefer to watch it on the larger TV screen instead, especially if I'm not the only one watching.

Mozilla has integrated Chromecast and Roku support to Firefox for Android. To be precise, the feature is enabled in the Nightly and Beta version of the mobile browser right now.

Save eBay searches for fast future access

I'm currently researching video game listings on eBay for a new project that I'm writing a project plan for right now. The searches that I run are targeted and use several of the filters that the site makes available.

I may filter results by platform for instance or change the sorting order of the results to only display buy it now offers or items sorted by recency.

These filters are not saved by the site automatically so that you have to reapply them every time you want to run the same search again.

The best audio and video information programs for Windows

Depending on how you use your Windows PC and where videos that you want to play on it come from, you may have no troubles doing so or notice that some video or audio files won't play correctly on your system.

You may see a black screen when you load a video in your favorite media player, have no audio while the video plays fine, or notice other issues such as slow playback or files that cannot be played at all.

How to manage muted accounts on Twitter

If you spend time on Twitter regularly, you may know that tweets by users that you don't follow may appear in your timeline.

This is the case when a message gets retweeted by a user that you follow and also when it is promoted (read commercial).

One of the options that you have to cope with this, other than to unfollow users who retweet messages that you don't want in your timeline, is to mute specific users on Twitter.

How Tribler aims to improve the privacy of Bittorrent users

Direct connections between users are used by the Bittorrent protocol by default. This means that whenever you load a torrent in a client like uTorrent, seeders and users downloading the torrent as well connect to your device directly to transfer data.

Once you start to receive data your device is being used to deliver these parts to other users who download the torrent as well.

Xwidget is a lightweight desktop widget program for Windows

Microsoft introduced a sidebar for gadgets in the Windows Vista operating system, removed the sidebar restriction from it with the release of Windows 7, and pulled the whole thing with the release of Windows 8.

Windows users who want to display gadgets, or widgets as they are called this as well, need to use third-party solutions to do so.

One of the first that gets mentioned usually is Rainmeter, an excellent program offering many customization options.

Spell Bee for Chrome adds auto correction to the browser

Most web browsers ship with one or multiple dictionary files that are used to indicate spelling errors. These errors are usually indicated by a red line underneath the word and a right-click on it displays spelling suggestions and options such as adding a word to the dictionary to avoid future issues.

These dictionaries don't support automatic correction of words on the other hand which some users may prefer since it can save time.

If you misspell a word over and over, you may prefer auto correction to speed things up.

How to keep files in sync on multiple devices without Internet storage

The introduction of cloud hosting services such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive have made it fairly easy for computer users to synchronize data between multiple devices.

All that is required is to install and run the sync client on these devices to do so, and even if no client is available, it is always possible to use a web service instead to access files.

While that is great for many purposes, it means that the data is stored on the Internet on servers of the selected company.

You can launch Chrome OS Mode in Chrome on Windows 7 as well now

When Google released the Chrome browser for Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system it included a basic version of Chrome OS in the browser.

Whenever you would run Chrome in Windows 8 mode, it would display a Chrome OS-like bar at the bottom of the screen that acts as a taskbar in the operating system.

The developers at Google have added a similar option to Chrome for Windows 7 in the most recent Chrome Canary builds.

I noticed the change in build 39.0.2144.2 and while I did not have time to check, it is likely that Chrome Dev users can access the feature as well.

DuckieTV brings TV show tracking and torrent searching to Chrome

Keeping track of TV shows can be quite the daunting task if you like to watch several of them. While it may be easy to keep track of some air dates, you may have troubles remembering exact air times or networks the show airs on.

DuckieTV is a new Chrome extension that you can use to keep track of TV shows you are interested in. The extension is available in two versions with the first replacing the browser's new tab page with a calendar view while the second makes the calendar available after you click on a button that it adds to the browser's interface.