Firefox Developer Toolbar: Taking screenshots and uploading to Imgur in seconds

I used to use an add-on to take a screenshot and either save it to my desktop or upload it straight to imgur, what caused me to stop using it was I recently found out that this add-on decided that it would insert ads on pages! Now I’m not 100% certain it was causing my Firefox crashes, but lately I was experiencing them and that was the last thing on my mind, as it was just to take screenshots, not effect pages!

In an effort to replace this add-on I stumbled upon the Firefox developer toolbar, and how this exact process can be done with a simple command. One negative to this is I don’t think you can select a certain area that such add-ons can do.

How is it done?

First thing is you hit Shift+F2, which should bring up the developer console at the bottom of your page. FYI it stays on even as you switch tabs, so you can close the console again either by pressing the keys again or simply pressing the x on the right side.

Next you type screenshot (or you can type “s” and press tab). Then hit “-” and the options to either save it to your download folder or copy it to clipboard or upload it straight away to imgur.com (so you would type -i and press tab and enter and that’s it, a new tab with your screenshot is provided).

I do see the CSS selector so you could in fact inspect the elements and type out the exact div that you want to take a screenshot of, however not as easy as simply dragging to your preferred area, but may be useful if you find yourself taking regular screenshots of a certain page.

Copy paste option: “screenshot --imgur” and that should do it all for you. Later on, if you open the console again, just hit the up arrow key and press enter, thus you don’t need to repeat.

The downside to this is the screenshot, once uploaded to imgur seems to link you to the raw/direct image, skipping the page that gives you the delete URL, this may be bad if in the event the screenshot is wrong or contains information that you wish to not make public. I think once this gets adjusted and also adding maybe a selection area, then this would be perfect to replace any addons that do this.

To read more about the Firefox developer console, look here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/GCLI

What else is useful?

Ever closed a tab by accident? Well use Ctrl+Shift+T to recover it.

 

Software Review: MyPhoneExplorer

Let me introduce you to MyPhoneExplorer, a piece of software that allows you to smoothly transfer files between your computer or laptop and Android device(s). Perfect for someone looking for a more user friendly, less time consuming and powerful way to sync, backup and move files to and from your phone.

The software allows you to connect via WiFi, Bluetooth or your USB connection. There’s even extra features like screen mirroring (being able to see your phone on your computer, useful for projecting things to your screen). A powerful contacts management, backing up your SMS messages.

How does it work?

Once you install MyPhoneExplorer on your phone then the client software on your computer, the application asks you to set a PIN, this will later be used to match and allow your computer to gain access to your phone, so not anybody can use this with your phone, even when on the same network, a nice security feature.

You can go through your phone directories just as if you were going through your folders on your computer. Transfer files to or from your computer, delete things you don’t need on your phone, rename, etc.

You can set up synchronization jobs so a certain folder such as your pictures folder can be copied to your computer straight away, with one click once you connect.

Is it free?

In 2015, the developer decided to remove ads, it’s 2017 now as I write this and there is still no ads. The application is free, the only thing the developer has done is ask for a donation if you want to as you close the program on your computer – completely understandable and respectful, I think people should donate too so his hardwork is paid off and actually one of the reasons why I write this review, because he’s done a good job and does it for free.

Link to MyPhoneExplorer on Google Play.

Link to the website to download the software or more.

Macro Recorder

There’s a program called Macro Recorder by Jitbit Software, it pretty much does what it’s called and I can’t say I’ve fully tried all macro recorders out there, but this seems to be nicely done, not abandoned and not very expensive – relative to the others I found which had one of these flaws.

What it does is it allows you to record keyboard strokes and mouse movements (also clicks/presses). If you have a repetitive task that you do not wish to waste time and effort doing over and over again, also wearing out your keyboard or mouse, that’s when a macro program comes into play.

Macro Recorder

This is what it looks like, pretty much. It has this user-friendly and basic look, though I wonder if this basic attribute might cause some people to shy away assuming it wouldn’t meet their needs? In terms of needs, I think it still needs more work and the last update was in March so it the development is still present. Which is a good thing! http://www.jitbit.com/macro-recorder/versionhistory/

As for my suggestions. The only way to really improve it is to listen carefully to the requests and suggestions of the users as that’s how you can really improve functionality, because they’re the ones that will come up with every crazy situation possible, in a real environment – in my view at least.

Personally one of the issues I have with it is when you require it to press Shift+F4 or Alt+F4, those two lines ends up being 6 as it wants you to Shift DOWN then press that F4 then Shift UP, same for the Alt and others. Yes that’s exactly what you’d be doing on a keyboard and if you wanted to do that, then that’s perfect, but if we’re trying to keep it as clean and compact as possible, that’s making this a lot longer than it has to be if your macro is getting a bit too long. And that’s the whole objective, to cut out the clutter and get straight to the point.

Also I still have yet to fully understand what the “EXIT LOOP” statement does and how you would use it. The speed settings could be a bit more advanced than the simple slider. For example, giving the choice of going in real time or half fast/slow or x2, etc for me is a bit more understanding.

The company itself seems down to earth with some of what they say, which I like so I will continue to watch this and I get a little excited when I see it update! Jitbit Macro Recorder.

qBittorrent (v3.1.9)

I’ve started using qBittorrent to replace μTorrent, due to their pestering ads that really shouldn’t be there to begin with, but what makes it mostly annoying and worse is the fact that even though you can turn it off, it keeps turning on again after every update. It’s not even a simple process of turning it off in the options, but having to search for the correct command lines to actually disable them all properly.

I wasn’t sure if I’d find a good replacement, because what made uTorrent so popular simply because it was miles ahead of the other bittorrent clients. This post is to say; indeed I’ve found a good enough replacement that does the job and maybe even better.

qBittorrent is cross-platform, available on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD. It’s free and under the GPLv2+ license. This means that the software is not indirectly or directly supporting an operating system and you’re free to download the source code and change it the way you prefer or if need be, adapt it to your needs. This encourages development, but else why is this important? Well if a lot more software, including games considered this, we would have the option to change our operating systems depending on our needs too.. Just like the same way I’m not happy with uTorrent, I can choose to change my OS if it’s also acting up..

Anyway, qBittorrent has all the features you would expect from uTorrent and personally, I’ve customized it the way I like it, which is turning off all the extras as much as possible and clearly seeing what’s downloading, what’s finished.

qbittorrent

As you can see, I’ve removed the top bar, side bar to make it look like a basic downloader, which is how I like it. Here’s what the wiki says:

It aims to have a small foot-print, to be powerful, intuitive and visually attractive going beyond the current functions widely provided by other applications. qBittorrent is an attempt to provide a μTorrent equivalent that is open-source and multi-platform adding a streaming-like function to let users download-and-play video files.

Here’s what it looks running on Windows, default settings compared to what I’ve done above:

qbittorrent
Source from softonic.com

Here’s what it looks running on Ubuntu:

qbittorrent
Source from wikipedia.org

So if you’re looking for a replacement, this my suggestion.