How to Shut Down Websites That Distract You

You sit down on the computer to complete that urgent sales report but you are distracted by an email from a colleague asking you to check the most disliked videos ever posted on YouTube.

You open that video on YouTube, watch it for five minutes and then switch to Facebook to check for any updates. The cycle continues and you soon realize that you wasted an hour at work Wilfing while the task at hand (the status report) remains incomplete.

Sites like Facebook, Google News or Twitter are certainly not bad for health but our constant urge to check sites for new content certainly distracts us from actual work leaving us less productive and at times, inefficient.

There's help at hand. You can either temporarily block websites or you edit the HOSTS file in Windows and permanently block websites that you think waste your time.

Then there are extensions like LeechBlock that will prevent you from browsing websites that you alone specify. It's like a self-imposed restriction to help you concentrate on work. You can specify the time periods and even the days of the week when access to particular sites should be restriced.

Sites to block can be specified using wildcards (e.g., *.blogspot.com) and exceptions (e.g., +labnol.blogspot.com).

How to Download Contacts from Facebook To Outlook Address Book

Facebook users are not too pleased with the "walled garden" approach of Facebook. The reason is simple - while you can easily import your Outlook address book and GMail contacts into Facebook, the reverse path is closed. There's no "official" way to export your Facebook friends email addresses or contact phone numbers out as a CSV file so that you can sync the contacts data with Outlook, GMail or your BlackBerry. Some third-party Facebook hacks like "Facebook Sync" (for Mac) and "Facebook Downloader" (for Windows) did allow you to download your Facebook friends' names, emails, mobile phone number and profile photo to the desktop but they were quickly removed for violation of Facebook Terms of Use. How to Download Contacts from Facebook There are still some options to take Friends data outside the walls of Facebook wall. Facebook offers the Takeout option allowing you to download all Facebook data locally to the disk (include

Digital Inspiration

Digital Inspiration is a popular tech blog by Amit Agarwal . Our popular Google Scripts include Gmail Mail Merge (send personalized emails with Gmail ), Document Studio (generate PDFs from Google Forms ) and File Upload Forms ( receive files in Google Drive). Also see Reverse Image Mobile Search , Online Speech Recognition and Website Screenshots , the most useful websites on the Internet.

Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts for Power Users

All features in Mozilla Firefox browser are accessible through the use of the keyboard. You can use shortcut keys to view and save Web pages, search the web, open new webpages, work with bookmarks, or find text on the current webpage. Some of the most common keyboard shortcuts in Mozilla Firefox are Ctrl+N (to open a new Firefox window), Ctrl+T (to open a new tab), Ctrl+F4 (to close the current tab) and Ctrl+S to save the current webpage. Mozilla Firefox supports many more powerful keyboard shortcuts. For instance, by pressing a simple key combination, you can manually delete autocomplete entries from the Firefox location bar or Web forms. I am sharing a list of my favorite Mozilla Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts that make web browsing with Firefox even more fun . And you also save your precious time as navigating through several layers of Firefox Toolbar menus is no longer necessary. 1. Web Search Ctrl+K moves the cursor to the Search Bar. You can then type in the terms you wish to fin

Digital Inspiration

Search This Blog