The biggest change to the Safari app is tabbed browsing, but it’s only available on the iPad where it has the landscape to pull lit off. This very much emulates the same tabbed browsing that you’ll find in the Mac version of Safari. Instead of having to flip back and forth through websites that you currently have open, they can now be left open in tabs. New tabs can be initiated by touching the plus sign next to the current tab. For anyone that does a lot of browsing, it’s a a definite advantage. With the iPhone version, however, you still need to flip back and forth between open sites.

Another big change to Safari under iOS 5 is the Reader. Reading articles can now be much cleaner and simpler. If it’s bothersome and too much of a distraction to have sidebars and ads surrounding and interrupting the article you’re reading, you can now eliminate them temporarily. Tapping the word “Reader” in the address bar brings up a clean version of the article with just the necessary text and pictures. All other ads, links, etc. are removed. Tapping the word “Reader” again takes you back to the regular web page. This option is available on the iPhone as well as the iPad, but it doesn’t show up with every page on the iPhone, unlike the iPad.

Similarly named, Reading List is actually quite different than Reader. Reading List allows you to save articles to read later when you have more time. Instead of having to bookmark everything you want to read, then either deal with numerous bookmarks or end up deleting them after you read them, you can simply mark it to be read later on this list. It can be accessed through the Sharing option to the left of the address bar on iPad and on the bottom of the screen of the iPhone by tapping “Add to Reading List.”

Items that have been added to the reading list, as well as bookmarks and history, can be accessed in the Bookmarks option that is on the bottom of the screen on the iPhone and to the left of the Sharing button on the iPad. Additionally, Safari will keep updated between devices. Items added to the Reading List, Bookmarks, and History will read the same on all devices. This is helpful if you leave off reading an article while on your iPad, then are out and about with your iPhone and want to finish reading the article.

Additionally, clicking on links now gives you an option of either adding the page to your Reading List or simply opening the page. This is also now an option in the Settings. You can choose whether to always open tabs in the background, or whether they should be opened up in a new page.

These changes should make it easier to bounce back and forth not only between devices, but also between mobile devices and the Mac. However, Safari on the Mac still has issues with certain web page elements, making it very accessible, but not always practical to use. If Apple were able to fix part of the Safari environment, and combine it with the practical uses of the mobile Safari, they could end up with a lion’s share of the browsing world.

How it works

When you have several tabs open in Firefox, you can use one of the menu options to start the action. Here is a before and after of 4 tabs open pressing Grid option under Tile all tabs.

Before

After

See how much easier it is to see all of the tabs?

Settings

There are some options you can modify when you first start. These will let you add tile more quickly and make Tile Tabs easier to use.

F Keys

By default, the F2, F8 and F9 buttons are set to basic functions.

• F2 – expand tiles
• F8 – Sync scrolling
• F9 – View normally

You can also choose change the F key to active a function or to replace any of the functions to something more useful to you.

It is a good idea to add a modifier key so you can keep this extension separate from other global hotkeys you may already have set up.

Add Shift or Crtl to make it a keyboard combination to activate the Firefox add-on.

Using the tiles

While having several tiles open, there are options to change the configuration, scrolling and other neat tricks. The more you know about the add-on, the more productive it can be when you are using it.

Simultaneous scrolling

This instantly stood out to me. By pressing the F8 button (default) when you have the tabs tiled, the option to scroll all of the tiled windows at the same time. That was a great feature to add.

Tile configuration menu

There are multiple ways to access the tile configuration options. All of which bring you to the same options.

From the menu bar.

The navigation toolbar.

And the right click menu.

More than one option at a time

You are not limited to just Grid or horizontal tiles. you can combine, mix and match the different options. Here is an example of different combinations used in the same window.

As you close the tabs, the grid or the separations disappear. If you want to focus on one tile, you can choose the F9 option to see just the one window. Think of how amazing this could be on a really large monitor.

Final thoughts

If you are sick of having too many tabs or windows open and you aren’t really sure what is on them until you click on it, this Tile Tab wants to be your new best friend. If you get into the habit if using Tile Tab to manage several tabs, I am pretty sure you will find them much easier to manage.

What add-ons do you use to manage tabs?

image credit: Lauren Manning

Read on to find out more about Chrome Web Store and how to get the best out of it.

What is Chrome Web Store?

Just like the iPhone’s App store where you can install third party apps to increase the functionality of the phone, the Chrome web store allows you to install web apps that you can run within the browser. From instant messaging, music player, twitter client to office suite, plenty of stuff that you can do in the desktop can now be found in the web store. These applications are mainly web apps, built with HTML, javascript and Flash. This is Google’s effort to bring your everyday computing to the cloud and pave the path for the upcoming Chrome OS.

Other than web apps, it is also the unified point where you go to install extensions and themes for your Chrome browser.

How to Enable Web App in Google Chrome?

The only way to access the web store and install web apps is via Google Chrome version 8 and above. If you are using Firefox/Opera/Internet Explorer, you will have to switch your browser to enjoy the benefits.

To enable Web App, you just have to append the parameter --enable-default-apps to the Chrome application launcher.

In Windows, right click at the shortcut icon and select Properties. In the “Target” field, append the parameter --enable-default-apps to the end.

Once this is done, launch Google Chrome and open a new tab. You should see the Web store icon (Note: If you are using extension like Speed Dial, you have to disable/uninstall it to see the Web store icon).

How to Install Web App

On a new tab, click on the Web Store icon to go to the Web Store page. Search for the apps you want and click the “Install” button. If you are not logged in, it will prompt you to login to your Google account. Once installed, the app icon will appear on your new tab page.

How to Uninstall Web App

Open a new tab. You should see all your installed applications. Right click on the app that you want to uninstall and select “Uninstall”. That’s it.

Getting the best out of the Web Store

1. Pin the app

If you use an app regularly, the best way is to pin it to the tab bar so that you can access it quickly. All pinned tab will be moved to the left of the tab bar and only the favicon is visible. To pin it, simply right click at the app tab and select “Pin tab”.

2. Sync your Google Chrome account

If you are working on several computers, you can setup Google sync to sync all your extensions, theme settings and web apps across the various computers. This will ensure that the web apps you installed in one computer will be ready for you to use in another terminal.

To setup Google Chrome sync, go to “Wrench -> Options“. Under the “Personal Stuff” tab, click “Setup Sync”

3. Create Application Shortcut

Google Chrome allows you to create an application shortcut on your desktop so you can click on it to launch the app instantly. On your app tab, click on the Wrench and go to “Tools -> Create Application Shortcuts“.

That’s all for now. We will bring you more tips and tricks when the Chrome OS is launched, or when we got our hand on the Cr-48 notebook.

Chrome Toolbox is a Google Chrome extension created by Google. It is an enhancement and quick access tool combined into one.

After the installation, you will see a new icon on the toolbar where you can click to reveal a dropdown menu containing various useful tools, including the mute tabs option.

The dropdown menu also allows you to save form data for the existing site and quickly fill it up next time you visit the same site. You also can get it to open closed tab and toggle Show Bookmarks Bar. (Note: Some of these features have long been available in the form of shortcut keys, but are now grouped together to provide a faster access)

Toolbar/Tab option

The option page is where you can find more interesting things.

You can activate the floating toolbar option for images and videos so that every time you hover your mouse over an image or video, you can magnify it, set it as wallpaper or open the video in a new standalone window. For the video, you even have the ability to pin it “always on top” of all other windows.

By default, when you close the last tab, the browser window will close too. With this extension, you can now configure it to open a new tab when the last tab is closed.

Quick Launch Bookmarks shortcut keys

If you have organized your bookmarks into various folders, here is where you can assign shortcut (Alt + #) to open the links in a specified folder all at once.

Shortcuts and menu

Google Chrome comes with plenty of keyboard shortcuts that you probably don’t even know their existence. This is where the Shortcuts and Menu option is useful. You can find all the keyboard shortcuts of the browser here. You can even compare the shortcuts with other browser and which one is the same and which is different.

For those keyboard shortcuts that you don’t use, you can also deactivate them.

Google Chrome is already well known for its speed and simplicity. With this extension, it is now even more user-friendly than before. What other features do you hope to see in the extension?

Note: The above extension was tested on a Windows machine. Some of the features are not available in the Linux version of Google Chrome.

Download Chrome Toolbox

The “about:labs” page has been around for the Linux build for quite some time, but unlike the Windows version, nothing was available. In the latest update of Google Chrome, the “about:labs” now comes with several features like Tabbed Settings, Remoting, Page Info Bubble, Disable outdated plug-ins, XSS Auditor and Background WebApps.

Here’s a short breakdown of what each feature does:

Tabbed Settings

Instead of a new window, the Chrome Settings is now opened in a new tab.

Remoting

Allows Remoting Client support.

Page Info Bubble

The page info is now shown as an info bubble instead of a dialog window.

Disable outdated plug-ins

As its name implies, disable outdated plugins to reduce security vulnerability

XSS Auditor

Enables WebKit’s XSS Auditor (cross-site scripting protection). This feature aims to protect you from certain attacks of malicious web sites. It improves your security, but it might not be compatible with all web sites.

Background WebApps

Run installed web apps in the background at system startup and even after all windows are closed.

Activating about:labs features

1. Ensure that you are using a dev build of Google Chrome (you can get the deb file here)

2. Open a new tab and type “about:labs” (without the quotes) in the URL bar.

3. Choose the feature you want and click the “Enable” link.

4. Restart Google Chrome

That’s it.

Here’s what happen: Let’s assume that your Firefox browser is opened with plenty of tabs, but it is not currently your active application (you might be doing some work in Ms. Office). When you hover your mouse above the Firefox icon in the taskbar, it will show a preview of all the opened tabs. This is good and fine as I can now pick the tab that I want to go to. The bad part is, I don’t want to manually select the tab everytime. When I click on the Firefox icon, I would expect it to switch to the browser immediately and load my last active tab, not to make me select the tab.

Imagine if you have 10 or more tabs opened and you need to manually select your last active tab before it would switch to the browser, how counter-productive it has become.

If you are experiencing the same annoyance as me, here’s how you can fix it.

Open a new tab and type “about:config”. You will see the void warranty page. Just click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.

In the Filter field at the top, enter the term “taskbar” (without the quote).

Scroll down to find the entry “browser.taskbar.previews.enable”. Double click on it to toggle it to “false”.

Close the tab. That’s it. the Tab Preview feature is now disabled.

Update: There is actually an easier method to disable the tab preview. In Firefox 4, go to Options page. Under the Tab tab. Uncheck the box “Show tab preview in the Windows taskbar”.

Thanks to @liamjdavison for providing the tips.

Compare this usage with tabbed browsers – you can open a link in a new tab or in the existing tab. But Windows explorer fails to provide this user convenience.

The second drawback is – there is no quick access list. Yes, you have a sidebar at the left but users should have the ability to create a quick access list – quite similar to browser bookmarks. This will allow them to open important files and folders quickly, without having to repeatedly open the hard drives and navigate to the folder all along.

Due to these reasons, I have made a switch and now use a full featured explorer for Windows – called Explorer ++ and it has some unique features which you will love using.

How Explorer ++ is a Better Explorer for Windows

First of all, Explorer++ is a portable tool, you can copy the package in your USB drive and use it on any computer without having to install anything. Following are some of the unique features of Explorer++ which makes it a strong alternative of Windows Explorer:

1. Tabbed Navigation Pane:

When you open Explorer ++, you see the following interface:

Looks much the same as Windows explorer with a sidebar at the left and the main navigation pane at the right. But there are a lot of options in the menu bar which make it more useful.

You can quickly open a new explorer pane in the same explorer window by using the keyboard shortcut ( Ctrl + T) or by selecting “New Tab” from the file menu

This is very useful when you are working on multiple folders at the same time. You can open folders one by one and switch between the tabs using Ctrl + Tab. To close an explorer tab, use Ctrl + W. The keyboard shortcuts are just the same as tabbed browsers.

2. Bookmarks list:

There is a Bookmarks link at the menu bar which lets you bookmark a folder so that you can access it quickly without having to open your hard drive. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + D

3. The Options Toolbar:

There is a sleek little options toolbar located just under the file menu. You can perform a lot of file operations using the buttons on the options toolbar.

The most useful options are copy to folder, move to folder, cut, copy and paste. This adds to easier file management, you can copy a file or folder to another location in your computer from the same explorer window.

There are more options which include opening the control panel and command prompt directly from the explorer window, searching for files and adding custom colors to the folders ( from tools > options).

Overall, Explorer++ is a great freeware utility for power users who need better file management in Windows explorer. Once you get used to it, you will start loving this app.

What do you think about Explorer++? Do you use any tabbed explorer for Windows? Share your ideas in the comments section.

Download Explorer ++

We have earlier discussed some Chrome extensions which help you spice up your browsing experience. Today we are going to see how to customize the new tab page of Google Chrome and add features that make it more useful.

The Default New Tab Page of Google Chrome

The default new tab page of Google Chrome lists the thumbnails of sites that you frequently visit. You can choose the Grid or Thumbnail view or choose a minimalistic list view to show the links of your favorite websites in the new tab page of Chrome.

Here is how the default new tab page looks:

This is cool, you can access the frequently visited websites with a click. There is also another bar in the page footer, which shows a list of recently closed tabs.

That’s it and nothing more. What if you want to customize the look and feel of the new tab page ? What if you want to add some sites or may be bookmarks as thumbnails in the new tab page ?

Speeddial

To Install the extension, go to the Speeddial extension page and hit the “Install now” button. Once the extension is installed, you will see your new tab page has changed to something as shown below:

The thumbnails are empty by default, however you can add your favorite sites one by one. Just click a thumbnail and enter the Title and URL of the site which you want to add to the new tab page

Continue the same process to add up all your favorite sites one by one. When you are done, you will see a much better and attractive start page in Google Chrome, as shown below:

Furthermore, you can tweak the start page settings by clicking the options button placed at the left top of the start page. The options page of Speeddial looks like the following

There are 7 different themes available, picking a theme color instantly changes the background of your new tab page. If you want to show a background image in the new tab page – pick the default theme and enter the URL of the image in the “background image” text box. Make sure the image is publicly accessible and then hit the “Set” button.

You can also adjust the number of columns and rows of thumbnails which appear in the new tab page of Google Chrome. This is useful, in case you want to add more sites in the quick access list. The size of the thumbnails can be adjusted using the slider named as “Dials Distance”

Other settings include showing or hiding the Google Search box from the new tab page, displaying the bookmarks toolbar and the page titles.

After you have tweaked all the settings, the new tab page is all set to take it’s place. Here is an example from my computer:

Now, is your Chrome new tab page more attractive and useful than the one shown above? I am sure, it’s not.

Incredible Startpage

Another extension which does a similar job is Incredible startpage. The extension lets you write notes in the start page and these notes can be synched with your browser bookmarks using Google Chrome sync.

After the extension is installed, here is how your Chrome startpage looks:

The bigger panel on the right shows a folder from your Bookmarks toolbar. You can choose which folder is shown in this area, just select the folder in the smaller pane and choose “Show as main”. It might be a good idea to create a new folder in your bookmarks toolbar and drop the frequently used bookmarks in that folder. Then show this folder as the main folder in the right panel.

What’s interesting about this extension is the Notes section, placed at the left top of the start page. You can write notes, to do lists or anything you want and all these notes are saved locally in the extension settings. Moreover, these notes can be synced just as you sync the browser bookmarks in Chrome, using your Google account.

Customizing the start page is again very easy, just go to the extension options by clicking “Theme options” and you can customize the background colors and choose a wallpaper for your new tab page’s background. There are 6 different backgrounds available, sadly you can’t specify an image of your choice.

I think the extension does a fair job, considering the ability to sync notes with your Google account. If your preference is the look and feel, I would suggest going for the Speeddial extension. If you want a more productive approach, use the Incredible start page extension for Google Chrome.

Don’t miss our round up of useful Chrome extensions for social media addicts and RSS ninjas.

Which extension are you going to use for the Google Chrome Start page? Share your ideas and thoughts in the comments section.

1. TooManyTabs

If you have used TooManyTabs in Firefox, you will love this similar extension for Chrome too. They are from the same developers, but this TMT for Chrome is much more visually pleasing than the Firefox version.

When clicked, TMT will show a window containing all the opened tabs in your current session. You can then click on any tabs that you have currently no use for to move it to the suspended tabs section. The tab state will be saved and memory will be released for other usage. At any point of time, you can easily retrieve back your suspended tabs (and its saved state) by clicking on it in the right column.

2. QuickTabs

When your tab list get longer and longer, you no longer can see the favicon and the title of the tab. When such things happen, Quick Tabs will come in handy. Quick Tabs lists all your tabs in a vertical dropdown fashion and you can easily scroll down to locate the tab you want. In addition, it also comes with a search bar for you to search your opened tabs.

What I really like about this extension is the availability of keyboard shortcuts and the option to choose how many tabs to display in the list. I can easily press Ctrl + M to open the popup window or Ctrl + d to close a tab shortcut.

Personally, I have not reached the tabs nirvana stage where I need to search for my opened tabs, but for those who are into tabs surfing, this is a really useful extension. Another similar extension is Tab Menu.

3. Sexy Undo Close Tab

For those who are tired of going to the History section to retrieve your closed tabs, this extension is going to be very useful. What it does is to show you a list of tabs that you have previously closed so you can retrieve it quickly and easily.

In the settings, you can choose how many closed tabs to display. One thing though, the closed tab list is only valid for the current session. If you restart your Chrome (or start a new session), the previous closed tab list will be gone.

4. Tabs to the front!

In usual situation, when you click a link to open in a new tab, you will still need to click on the new tab to make it the active tab. Tabs to the front! automatically make the newly created tab the active tab and it saves you the effort to click on it.

5. TabJump

When working with many tabs at the same time, it’s hard to remember which one you want to go next. TabJump highlights frequently used tabs and related tabs so you can easily jump between them. In addition, TabJump store your recently closed tabs in the same list so you can easily retrieve them.

For your info, the developer of TabJump is the same as TooManyTabs.

6. TabsPlus

Usually, when you click to open a new tab, it will open itself in the right side of the current tab. It will also open in the background and you have to click it to make it active. Now, if you want to change the behavior of the tab opening, then TabsPlus is the one for you. With TabsPlus, you can select whether to open the new tab as the first tab (extreme left) or as the last tab (extreme right). You can also choose to open in the background or foreground.

7. Session Manager

This Session Manager extension allows you to save your current session (opened tabs and windows) and restore them later. You can save multiple sessions.

8. New Tab Redirect!

With New Tab Redirect, you can now set a custom URL to load in new tabs.  You can choose from Chrome’s about pages, a few popular URLs, or provide your own. Your custom tab can also be a local file, allowing you to create your own new tab page.

Of course, if you are using extensions like Speed Dial, this extension won’t work.

9. Tab wrangler

Tab Wrangler closes a tab if it has inactive for a period time. This is useful if you have the habit of opening many tabs and forget to close them later. The default time is 7 minutes, but you can change it in the settings.

10. JoinTabs

JoinTabs come in the form of an icon where you can click to combine the tabs from different Chrome windows into one window. It works also with popup windows, but not pinned tabs. For those who want this feature to run automatically in the background, you can try the JoinTabs No Icon.

Which extensions do you use to manage your tabs in Chrome?

TotalFinder is a free application that adds tabs to your native Finder. It is still in alpha mode only works in Snow Leopard.

After the installation, you will immediately see your Finder in a Google Chrome like interface. You will also notice a new icon for the Finder app. Yes, a sunglass wearing Finder. Look cool, isn’t it?

Add and manage tabs like Google Chrome

TotalFinder was coded using the Chromium codebase, so it is no surprise that it looks and functions like Google Chrome. You can open a tab (by clicking the +) and move your tabs around by clicking and dragging it. You can also drag the tab out of the Finder window to open it in a new Finder window. Similarly, drag the tab from one window to another to combine them into one window.

Keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl + Tab to cycle through the tab is also available.

One thing that is still lacking is the availability of a “Open in new tab” option in the context menu. In addition, middle-clicking of the mouse to open in new tab does not work as well.

Support for Visor

With the support for Visor, you can now assign a custom shortcut key and call TotalFinder up whenever you want. There are also several animations effects that you can play with.

.DS_Store support

Ever been frustrated that Finder create a .DS_Store file in almost all the folders in your Finder? Now you can have more control over this and send a redirect to the cache folder instead of getting it to create a .DS_Store file. You can also prevent it for creating a .DS_Store file in all remote network drive.

Tweaks - Toggling hidden files

Of all the tweaks, “Show Hidden Files” is my favorite. In the original Finder, there is no way for you to view hidden files. The only way is to go to the terminal and type in command line to edit the plist. With TotalFinder, you can now get it to show hidden files quickly and easily. One thing though, you have to restart your Finder to activate the “Show Hidden Files” function.

Uninstaller

This software also comes with an uninstaller that allows you to remove it easily.

Conclusion

For a product still in alpha mode, I would say it is pretty impressive. Of course it is not bug free, but I am sure that can be iron out when it reach the final release. One thing though, TotalFinder is currently free for its alpha mode. According to the developer, it will not be free anymore once it reaches beta (and final release). There is no mention of the costing at the moment. Meanwhile you can use and enjoy it while you can.

A highly anticipated release, KDE 4.4 has taken necessary steps to solidify the underlying Plasma technology of KDE 4 and add polish to the already shiny surface. This week, MakeTechEasier will take you on a preview of the upcoming KDE 4.4 release, scheduled for February 9. I recently installed Release Candidate 1 on my desktop computer and took it for a spin. I was not disappointed.

The following is a preview, not a review. KDE 4.4 is still under development and should not be used on production systems, nor should stability be expected. Having said that, I am typing this article within KDE 4.4 and loving all of it, especially the tabbed windows.

Default Interface

The default KDE interface continues to be the Oxygen Air Plasma theme. It has changed slightly, and I am not sure if what I viewed was the final incarnation or just a stepping stone. The colors and overall look are the same, but the circle art is not as prominent. Like most KDE visual features, however, the theme is fully customizable, and I am currently using a darker theme for my desktop.

The KWin (window manager) buttons are slightly different, smaller and rounder, but the most impressive improvement with the default Oxygen window manager theme is the incorporation of many of the features that were found in the Nitrogen spin-off. One of the features I have been waiting for is the ability to once again control drop-shadow color and size. I prefer slightly more prominent shadows of a darker color than the default. The Oxygen theme also includes “Window-Specific Overrides” right in its configuration.

The “Style” settings in KDE System Settings has a new tab for “Workspace” which has replaced the theme settings previously found in the “Desktop” section. This is where you can select and download Plasma themes.

KDE includes many animated graphical effects, many of which make use of the X.org composite feature. The “Fine Tuning” section in “Style” allows you set the level of graphical effects right for your system.

Plasma

Plasma is definitely slicker, and operates very smoothly. The “Add Widgets” dialog has been complete redone. Clicking “Add Widgets” now brings down a horizontal menu that encourages you to search before you decide to scroll. It is all very easy, and the search works as you type without any delay.

When you drag a widget to the desktop, it flashes a nice effect and looks very natural and smooth. Most of the widget resize and configuration tools are the same. The Dashboard widget layer is now fully configurable through the graphical interface and works much better than previous versions, although it still gets a bit confused on dual screens.

One FolderView improvement is that more Dolphin-like features are now supported, include the handy selection button that appears when you hover your mouse pointer over a folder.

The System Tray now supports widget integration so that certain system widgets can be placed within it. You can also configure jobs and notifications for any application running in the system tray.

The device notifier has added internal dialogs providing you with options on how to proceed when a device is inserted. Among the improvements is the ability to mount a drive without opening it in Dolphin.

Krunner and Dolphin

Krunner now drops down from the top of the screen, almost like a Quake console. This was a surprise to me, but it works very well and is an improvement over the previous versions, which popped up in the middle of the screen. When you search for commands or documents with Krunner, it will display appropriate icons next to the search results that you can use to configure the execution. With commands, it opens an internal dialog that allows you to run as another user. Selecting a document allows you to choose what application to use to open it.

Dolphin has added some new linking capabilities to its options menu, integrated searching, and a “timeline view” that allows you to view files by modification date (enter timeline:/ in the location bar).

Window Tabbing

I saved the best for last. I have long believed that applications like OpenOffice.org should have support for tabbed word processing. It just makes sense. Why should tabs be limited to web browsers or file managers? With KDE, you no longer have to wait on individual application developers. The KWin window manager itself supports tabbing.

Simply right click on a window’s title bar and select “Move to window group”. Then, select the window you want to group with it. Almost like magic, the two windows will become one, and there will be two or more tabs in the title bar. But this feature is not only limited within applications. You can group any application with any other. You could group a Firefox window with a Konqueror one and compare website rendering, which is useful for web design. KDE’s window specific features also now give you the ability to set how you want new windows of an application to group. For example, my OpenOffice.org documents now automatically open in new tabs rather than new windows.

Overall, KDE 4.4 looks very stable and promising. You can read a complete list of scheduled release goals at the KDE TechBase website. To install KDE 4.4, visit KDE.org.

Not anymore. With Tabulate, you can now easily add ‘load in new tab‘ function to your iPhone’s Safari browser, without any hacking. (it works in iPod Touch as well)

Things you need:

• Mac/Windows
• Safari browser (The desktop version of Safari, not the one in your iPhone)
• iTunes

Go to Tabulate website. Drag the bookmarklet to the Safari bookmark bar.

Connect your iPhone/iPod Touch to the computer and fire up your iTunes.

In your iPhone device options, click on the Info tab. Scroll down and mark “Sync Safari Bookmarks”.

Click on Apply to sync your iPhone.

Once it is done, in your iPhone, connect to the Internet and load your mobile Safari.

On the page that you want to open the link in new tab, tap on the bookmark icon at the bottom of the screen. Scroll to Bookmark Bar ->Tabulate.

You will now see a orange icon at the top left of your Safari browser. This indicate that the tabulate is active on the current page.

Now, click on a link. A toolbar of 3 icons will appear. The first one represents “open the link in current tab“. The second one (the one with a plus sign) represents “open the link in a new tab” while the last one means to flag the link to open later.

That’s it. You just have to click on the second icon to open the link in a new tab.

1) Tab Mix Plus (TMP)

Tab Mix Plus is probably the best, if not, one of the best Firefox tabs extension around. It extends your tab function in many way that you never think is possible. With TMP, you can duplicate tabs, control tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, and many more useful features. In fact, if you take a look at the database of Firefox extension, some of the tab extensions have long been included as a feature in TMP.

Alternative to TMP: Tab kit

If you don’t like TMP for the reason that it conflicts with some other extension, a great alternative will be Tab Kit. Tab Kit is another extension that gives you a great deal of control over your tabs. It allows you to group your tabs according to domain or parent tab and arrange your tabs in multiple rows. You can also shift your tab bar to the top/left/right of the window and also copy/paste/duplicate group of tabs by dragging. Tab kit is not compatible with TMP.

2) TooManyTabs

TooManyTabs is an experimental Firefox addon. It allows you store up to over 50 tabs without cluttering up your tab bar. TooManyTabs uses an extra rows just below your bookmark bar to store the tabs. Whenever you move a tab to TooManyTabs, the memory is freed up and can be allocated for other use. This helps to prevent your Firefox from consuming too much memory from idling tabs.

3) Quick Drag

Quick Drag is an extension of the popular SuperDragAndGo extension. You can easily drag and drop any images, highlight texts or links within the browser to open them in new tab. When highlighted texts are dragged and dropped, it will perform a Web search with the selected text on a new tab. Dragging and dropping an image will save the image to your Desktop.

4) Tab Split Tab

Opera users will know that you can easily split the browser into vertical, horizontal, cascade tiles for viewing of multiple tabs concurrently. Tab Split Tab is an experimental addon that aims to fulfill the same window splitting task in Opera. At the moment, you can split your Firefox browser into two and view multiple sites in one page.

5) Morning Coffee

Morning coffee allows you to bookmark your frequently visit sites and open them all with one click. What is unique about this extension is that it allows you to choose which bookmarks to open on each day. There might be some sites that are updated weekly and you don’t want to visit them every day. By defining the day that you want to visit the sites, Morning Coffee adds the sites to the appropriate day and load them all up when that day arrives.

6) Tab Catalog

Tab catalog displays a thumbnail of all the tab on a canvas so that you can choose and load up the tab you want. This is useful when you have too many opened tab and can’t make out which is which. There are several ways to display the thumbnail canvas, either press Ctrl + tab, mouseover the Tab-Catalog button or press the view all tab button at the right of the tab bar.

Alternative to Tab Catalog: Firefox Showcase

Firefox showcase is another extension that displays a thumbnail of all the opened tab. You can choose to load the thumbnail in a new tab, or in a new window. Though functionally the same as Tab catalog, Firefox showcase does provide you with more configuration options to personalize your thumbnail, such as setting the size, thumbnail caching, thumbnail updating time etc.

7) Aging Tab

This extension make the inactive tab fade as time passes and at the same time highlight the active tab making it more distinguishable. Custom colors can be configured for the aged and active  tab.

Alternative to Aging Tab: Colorful Tab

Colorful Tabs paints each tab with different color and make them easy to distinguish. The latest version comes with a default black background that many come to hate. Luckily, one can easily switch off the background from the Preferences page.

8) Fish Eye Tab

If you open too many tabs at one time (more than 20), you will find that each of your tab become barely visible. What Fish Eye Tab does is to zoom and expand each tab to display the tab label as you mouseover it. Fish Eye Tab is activated only when the number of tabs exceed the width of the Firefox window.

9) FaviconizeTab

This extension replace the usual tab with the site favicon, thus reducing the width of the tab. With FaviconizeTab, you can squeeze more tabs into the tab bar without it looking messy and untidy.

10) Source Viewer Tab (for web developer)

This last one is actually my personal favorite. Being someone who did a lot of coding, I find it a chore to switch between windows just to view the source of a Web page. This Source Viewer Tab is able to open the source in a tab rather than in a new window.

There are plenty of other tab management extension in the Mozilla database. Which one did you use to manage your tab?