7 Must-Know Tips About Managing Your Google+ Circles

Google Plus isn’t dead. In fact, it’s been growing. Some people even think Google Plus will prevail big time in 2013 and they have solid arguments. This should make those happy who are already using Google Plus and are seeing its value in one way or another.

Circles is the part of Google Plus that lets you organize people you know in, well, Circles. When it comes to managing Google+ Circles, there are a few things you should know. Well managed Circles mean that you share the right things with the right people and get to see the posts you care about.

The Basics of Managing Google+ Circles

On the Circles page you can see an overview of people you have in your Circles, who have you in their Circles, you can find people based on contact data, and you can search by name. Depending on which tab you are viewing, you can sort the list by different criteria.

Below the lists of people, are your Circles. You might just have a few default ones or maybe you already created custom Circles. To create a new Circle, you can drag and drop people into the top left circle or you can click on it.

Note that you can add multiple people to one circle at the same time. Just select everyone you want to add from the list. When you then move one of the contacts, you are automatically moving everyone you selected.

To select a whole list of people or a Circle, expand the Actions menu and click on Select all.

Now that you know the basics of creating Circles, let’s look at this process in more detail. Here are the things you must know to create better Circles faster and use them to your benefit.

1. People Can’t See To What Circle/s You Add Them

When you add someone to a Circle, they do get a notification, but it only tells them that you added them on Google Plus. They can not see what circle/s you added them to. View your own Google Plus Circle adds notifications to see what a notification looks like.

2. You Can Add People To Multiple Circles

This might not be obvious for everyone, but yes, you can have one single person in several of your Circles. And knowing that they neither see where you add them, nor that you add them to more than one Circle, should put you at ease with trying different combinations. It goes without saying that people can also not see who else is in one of your Circles with them.

3. Organize Circles Based On How You Want to Interact

You should by all means experiment with Circles and see which ones work best for you. Instead of creating Circles based on how you know people (friends, family, colleagues etc.) create Circles based on what you want to share with them or how you want to interact with them.

Remember that Circles are not only shown on Google Plus, but also as labels in Gmail. You can even search mail in Gmail by circle, e.g. circle:friends. Moreover, if you regularly use Hangouts with a specific set of people, you can use Circles as Invite lists.

4. Manage What You See In Your Home Stream

In your Home stream you can see what your Circles are sharing with you. However, you decide that is shown in the All tab and you can choose a different setting for each of your Circles.

From the menu on top of your Home stream, select one of your Circles. As you view the stream from a specific Circle, you will see a slide control in the top right. When the slider is in the left-most position, none of the posts from people in that Circle will be shown on your Home stream. In the right-most position, all posts will be shown and you will be subscribed to notifications.

5. Mute Posts & Remove People

Posts on Google Plus show up based on activity, rather than the chronological order in which they were originally published. Thus it might happen that you see posts popping up in your Home stream that you no longer care for. Likewise, you may get tired of a particular person’s updates. To get rid of posts you no longer want to see, mute them or remove the respective person from the Circle.

Click the arrow head button in the top right of the post and select Mute this post to not see it pop up again or Remove from circles to see no more content from that person.

6. Lock Posts To Prevent Re-Sharing

Sometimes there are news you don’t want to spread. To prevent people from sharing a post, lock it.

Before sharing your update, click the arrow head in the line of who you are sharing with and select Lock this post. Here you can also disable comments. A lock symbol confirms that the post can not be re-shared.

7. Find Out How Your Contacts Share

Are you a little bit curious in which Circles your contacts may have you? Every post shared on Google Plus has a link that indicates how it was shared. It sits in one line with the date and time of the post and will either say Public, Extended circles, or Limited. Clicking on the link will reveal who a post was shared with or at least a selection of people it was shared with.

If you are curious how many people are following you, enter your Google Plus profile URL on CircleCount. The site also shows your follower history and your ranks among other Google Plus profiles.

Conclusion

Managing your Circles well is the key to using Google Plus efficiently. And you might first have to figure out how you actually want to use it. If you would you like to learn more check out our Google Plus guide.

How do you use Google Plus and how are you with managing Google+ circles?

The post 7 Must-Know Tips About Managing Your Google+ Circles appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Absolute Uninstaller: Don’t Settle For The Default, A Better Solution For Software Removal [Windows]

When was the last time you wanted to uninstall something from your computer? Was it easy to do? Could you find the program to uninstall in the default Windows software removal tool? Could you even find where the uninstall tool in Windows is? I don’t mean that to insult your intelligence. But the fact is, finding it isn’t the easiest thing to do if you don’t know where to start. And even if you know how to uninstall a program with the native Windows tool, it isn’t always the best way.

First, there aren’t many options. Second, program files are often left behind and not completely erased from your computer. However, Absolute Uninstaller fills this void and that is why it is on our Best Of Windows Software List for uninstallers.

The Installation Is Easy – Bonus: No Added Programs

Absolute Uninstaller is an easy to install program (as it should be). You simply need to click “next” and “accept” all the way though. Now, you may do that already with all your other programs and if so, you should probably stop. Many free programs come with additional software packaged into the setup of the program you want to install. Now, you can always opt out if it’s a legitimately good program. However, some are still sneakier than others as I complained about in my review about IObit Smart Defrag.

That said, I was impressed that there were no additional programs packaged with Absolute Uninstaller that you need to worry about accidentally installing during the setup.

Exploring Absolute Uninstaller

After the installation, go ahead and run Absolute Uninstaller to see what it can do – I think you’ll be impressed. It has quite a few useful features, including:

• Batch Uninstall


• Searching for programs


• Removing entries


• Restoring removed entries


• Modifying properties


• Viewing program support info


• Command line


• Showing Windows updates


• Autofixing invalid entries


• Backing up and restoring uninstall info


• Exporting application list

Most of these features are pretty self explanatory, but we’ll briefly touch upon a few.

Batch Uninstall

It’s quite cumbersome to remove program after program. Often you want to just scan through the list first. But if you have several programs to be removed, what are you to do? Write them all down? It’d be nice if you could just check a box of each program and then uninstall one after the other. Well, Absolute Uninstaller can do that.

Modifying Properties

If for some reason you want to change the name or command line of a program in the list, you can do so by clicking Modify Properties.

Viewing Program Support Info

This is often helpful in finding out a little bit more about the program and where it is installed.

Command Line

The great thing about this feature is it is always being displayed – no extra buttons to click. Of course, if you prefer to disable it (enabled by default) you can by going to View and unchecking Show Command Line.

Showing Windows updates can also be controlled under the View menu.

AutoFix Invalid Entries

This option is under Edit and is excellent if there is ever an error with a program entry in Absolute Uninstaller.

Backup/Restore Uninstall Info & Export Application List

These options are under File. Backing up and restoring uninstall info isn’t a feature you’d think of needing, which is nice that it’s included. Before going through and making any changes to the programs (such as removing entries), take the time to quickly back up. It saves it as a registry file. Then if you make any mistakes, you can easily restore the list back to the prior settings.

Exporting the application list can definitely come in handy when migrating to a new computer and you want a list of all the programs you previously used. You can then save the list in a text file.

Ease Of Uninstalling Programs

The uninstallation process goes quite smoothly and quickly. If there are other program files left behind from the uninstaller, Absolute Uninstaller will detect them and prompt you to remove them.

Other Notable “Features”

One other feature that’s nice is that recently added programs are marked with the label, “New!”

Some Needed Improvements

Although Absolute Uninstaller, overall, is solid, there are some things that should be changed and added. In the bottom left corner the total number of programs is displayed. However, nowhere is the amount of total space used by the programs displayed.

Also, the sizes of the programs aren’t visible in a column, but only once you click on a program. In addition, you can’t sort by size either.

The columns also can’t be adjusted or customized. They are the way they are and that is what you get. It some aspects it makes it simple and gives the program a clean look. In other ways, it’s nice to have that control and just be able to make some minor adjustments.

Conclusion

Overall, Absolute Uninstaller is an excellent alternative to the default Windows program. It isn’t the only uninstaller available, as we’ve reviewed other applications such as Revo Uninstaller, GeekUninstaller and IObit Uninstaller. How does Absolute Uninstaller compare to those? Just like most programs it has its strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately it is up to your personal preferences and that is why it’s great that we have choices available.

If you’ve been looking for an alternative to Windows uninstaller, do give Absolute Uninstaller a try. Do you use it? How do you feel it compares to the Windows default? How about to the other alternatives if you’ve used those?

The post Absolute Uninstaller: Don’t Settle For The Default, A Better Solution For Software Removal [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Laugh Till You Burst With The Onion’s Video Content [Stuff to Watch]

The Onion is one of the longest-running satirical news organisations, and remains to this day a continuing source of ridiculous news, subtle comedy and political commentary. Founded in 1988 as a parodic newspaper and successfully making the jump to the current online format, The Onion now enjoys around 8 million unique visits per month.

In addition to well-written content and occasionally being mistaken for a real news source, the website has broadened its satirical horizons and since 2007 has been publishing video and audio content too. The Onion’s YouTube channel is full of references and parodies of online trends, 24/7 rolling news channels and dummy reports which quite literally make up some of the service’s finest content.

If you’ve not explored this side to America’s most popular satirical rag then you’ve been missing out.

Onion Talks

Over the last few years a trend for publishing discussions online has emerged in a big way. While organisations like TED have existed for a long time, the popularity of these materials has really taken off and made headlines, from TED itself to Google Tech Talks and whole courses provided by universities. Who better to parody this movement than The Onion?

There have been 12 Onion Talks so far, each poking fun at various traits shown by celebrated speakers. The series kicks off with “Compost-Fueled Cars: Wouldn’t That Be Great?” which mocks ideology without practical basis, and vastly exaggerates the egotism shown by a few speakers.

Also worthy of a mention is the incredible “Ducks Go Quack, Chickens Say Cluck” in which a so-called celebrated animal behaviouralist examines the wildly differing philosophies between two feathered egg-borne species. The deliveries in this one are absolutely spot-on.

Used and abused to the point of ridicule is the term “social media” and this is tackled in the talk entitled “Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought“. Some of the points raised are ridiculous to the extreme yet make complete sense. Scary and very, very clever.

Finally “Quit Whining And Put On A Goddamn Coat: My Journey” is a sweary parodic look at one, quiet woman’s triumphant journey toward raising her body temperature and should serve as an inspiration to anyone else out there feeling a bit chilly.

You can watch the whole playlist of talks by clicking play on the embedded video below.

Trouble Hacking

Trouble Hacking is a series of videos designed to help you conquer everyday problems, and is somewhat of a poke at sites like Lifehacker (and to an extent MakeUseOf) in general. That’s just fine because we should all be able to laugh at ourselves not to mention the ridiculous solutions brought about in these videos below.

First up is a problem affecting many iPhone owners – white mold covering the entirety of their smartphones. Time to hack it!

Sometimes websites offer up solutions to problems that don’t exist, an issue this next video addresses – how to opt out of the unlimited breadstick offer at the Olive Garden chain of restaurants.

Last up here’s a tip for anyone looking to lose weight: have you thought about weigh loss throat worms? Apparently these little critters set up home in your throat, absorbing food before it hits your stomach so you can eat whatever you want without piling on the pounds.

Check out the full playlist of Trouble Hacking videos embedded below.

Horrifying Planet

You know those Planet Earth-type shows that examine the incredible examples of evolution, geography and survival in nature? Horrifying Planet is The Onion’s very well executed take on that, complete with a voiceover that David Attenborough would be proud of.

Did you know that the humble robin, a common and often overlooked garden bird, is a cold blooded killer on a par with war criminals for the atrocities it commits on a daily basis? Find out why in the video below.

The desert, a barren wasteland where little can survive is an easy target for this Horrifying Planet video which takes a good hard look at “nature’s hospice”.

Unlike the aforementioned examples which subscribe to the Horrifying Planet mantra quite nicely, deer apparently break the mould. That is because deer are fine, existing everywhere and doing nothing out of the ordinary.

Once again you can watch this whole series in the embedded player below.

Today Now!

Daytime television is probably the worst kind of television, filled with vox pops, pretend news, awkward subject transitions and topical nonsense. Today Now! is all of those things embodied into a faux morning television show from The Onion, and it’s great.

Here’s some fine Internet satire – the discovery of the ruins of former social networking “civilization” called Friendster. According to the report, the site has been abandoned since 2005.

What would happen if an ill child exploited a loophole in the Make A Wish Foundation’s rules that would allow for unlimited wishes? They’d go bankrupt, of course. Poor taste? Probably. Funny? Definitely.

Imagine if this year’s must-have Christmas gift was Chinese paint. Actually don’t because it’s ridiculous and The Onion already went there.

Check out the full playlist over more than 40 videos below.

Do you have any favourite Onion coverage? Any similarly over the top parodies? Share your thoughts in the comments, below this post.

The post Laugh Till You Burst With The Onion’s Video Content [Stuff to Watch] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Brief: The Simple RSS Feed Reader You Were Always Looking For [Firefox]

Recently, after using the Google RSS feed reader for years without second thought, I started looking around at other readers. It’s not that I’m not loyal or even that I don’t like Google Reader, but using only Google Reader has been like eating only vanilla ice cream for years, and let’s face it, who wants to eat only vanilla ice cream when there’s so much goodness to be had?

Last week, I found a simple RSS feed reader for Firefox called Bamboo Feed Reader. I instantly liked its simplicity, but it still wasn’t perfect. One of the things that makes Google’s products so popular is how easy they are to use and how little thought you have to put into them. Bamboo made me realize that I’m not in Mountain View any more, and that I might need to work a little bit if I want a good reader. It also made me realize that my search was not over – I still haven’t found the perfect reader for me.

So my quest continued, and the next reader I found was Brief. I found Brief on our Best of Firefox page, and according to its screenshots, it looks even simpler than Bamboo, which to me meant it might require less work to be perfect. So can it really be that coveted Google Reader replacement?

Setting Up Brief

Before you start, there’s one crucial thing to know about Brief: it integrates with your bookmark system. If you hate Firefox’s bookmark interface, or if you don’t want to use it for any other reason, Brief might not be the right solution for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for ways to use bookmarks more often, and like the idea of your feeds and your bookmarks intermingling, you’re going to love what Brief can do for you.

The first thing to do after installing Brief, is importing your feeds into it. This can be done either by exporting your feeds from your current reader and importing them into Brief, or, if you’re using Live Bookmarks, my pointing Brief to their location. To import your feeds into Brief, find the wrench and screwdriver icon on the top left, and on the feeds tab, choose “Import” or find your Live Bookmarks folder.

Before closing the options window, take a look at the Main tab to set up refresh times, storing options, and other behaviors. Take a look at the Shortcuts tab as well, to learn all the keyboard shortcuts you can use with Brief. Unlike Bamboo, Brief supports J and K for browsing articles, which is a huge relief for those coming off Google Reader.

Bookmarks Integration

Brief’s interface is pretty straight forward, with one major difference from most readers: your feeds are actually Live Bookmarks. When you import your feeds into brief, they automatically become Live Bookmarks, and you can find them in your regular bookmarks library under “Subscribed Feeds”. Any change you want to make, such as adding a feed, changing a feed’s position in the list, or adding tags to articles, is done through Firefox’s bookmark’s manager.

This also means that your feeds are actually stored as bookmarks, and you can keep them there indefinitely, or for as long as you set up in the options.

Any change you make to your Live Bookmarks is immediately reflected in Brief. Try adding tags, moving a feed or a folder around or deleting a feed, and see what happens in Brief.

Adding New Feeds

Considering the bookmarks integration mentioned above, how do you go about adding a new feed? Don’t look for any such button on Brief’s interface, you won’t find it. To add a new feed, you need to visit the blog or website you want to add, and from the Bookmarks menu, choose “Subscribe to This Page…“.

You will then have to choose how you want to subscribe, and here you need to choose Live Bookmarks. When you click on Subscribe Now, you’ll get the chance to add the feed to the rest of your feeds by adding it to the “Subscribed Feeds” folder, where you can later change its location by dragging it around, placing it in a folder, etc.

The Reading Experience

All in all, Brief is a simple RSS feed reader. For some, this simplicity would be welcome, while for others it will seem more like a lack of features. Truth be told, there aren’t too many options to play with when reading feeds. You can view your feeds in list view or full view, you can bookmark articles for easy access, you can mark items as unread or delete them, and view only unread items or all items. That’s about all you can do when it comes to articles.

Looking at whole feeds, you can update them, mark them as read, empty them, or delete them. You can also set sophisticated per-feed preferences such as update frequency, storing duration and more. This means you can have some feeds update every 2 minutes and store them forever, while other, less important feeds, are updated once every 2 hours and stored only for 30 days. This can help you set clear priorities in your feeds.

Brief doesn’t come with changeable themes, and there’s no control over font size, spacing, or anything like that. Don’t like the way it looks? You’re welcome to change it. If you know your CSS, that is.

Something else you’re not going to find on Brief are sharing options. There are none of these to speak of. Want to share an article? Click through to the website and share from there.

Conclusion

If you know how to use bookmarks, you know how to use Brief. You have feeds, you read them, end of story. This is a great little reader that can work for anyone fed up with Google Reader, and even for those who find Google Reader too hard to manage.

Looking for an RSS feed reader that’s down-to-earth, simple, lightweight and manageable? You’re going to love Brief. Looking for something more? Keep looking, but don’t forget to tell me in the comments what you find!

The post Brief: The Simple RSS Feed Reader You Were Always Looking For [Firefox] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Create an Un-guessable Passcode for your iOS Devices

It is easy to type accented characters (like ä, the letter “a” with two dots placed over it) using the virtual keyboard of your iPhone and iPad. Just tap and hold a key and it will show you a list of related characters that have accent marks. →

Use accented characters as passcodes on your iPhone and iPad – like strâtégý

Strong Passcode for your iPhone & iPad

The passcode of your iPhone /iPad is generally made up of digits but if you would like to use a more strong and un-guessable passcode, consider using one or more of these accented characters. For instance, a word like Äpplë is much more difficult to guess than just Apple.

If you do not see the option to use alphanumeric characters as the passcode for your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock and turn off Simple Passcode.

Also see: Keyboard Shortcuts for iPhone & iPad

This is an iOS specific feature. Android devices support alphanumeric characters for screen passwords but accented characters aren’t allowed. And in the case of Windows Phone 8, you can only use digits to lock /unlock the screen.

The tip was originally shared by @ade494 on Reddit.

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This story, Create an Un-guessable Passcode for your iOS Devices, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 21/01/2013 under IPad, IPhone, Password, Software.

How to Continuously Monitor your Internet Connection

The internet connection has been flaky for the past few days. It works fine for 10-15 minutes, breaks for about a minute and the connection is then automatically restored. This erratic on/off cycle repeats itself throughout the day. →

It is most likely an ISP issue as the modem, the router, the DNS server, and the network connections seem perfect. Even power cycling the hardware failed to fix the problem.

While the ISP resolves the issue, I have to continuously monitor the Internet connection as certain actions – like submitting web forms – would fail if initiated while the computer is offline. Luckily, there isn’t a need to download another utility as the included ping command can itself help monitor the downtime.

Ping to Monitor your Internet Connection

Open your command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd). Now type “ping -t 8.8.8.8″ and hit Enter. The “-t” switch is important as it means that the ping command will run forever unless stopped manually by hitting Ctrl + C. (8.8.8.8 is Google’s DNS Server)

The output of the ping command, as illustrated in the above screenshot, shows the live status of your Internet connection. If the status reads as “reply from 8.8.8.8,” the machine is online and in all other cases, the Internet connection is down.

Read more ways to troubleshoot your Internet connection.

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This story, How to Continuously Monitor your Internet Connection, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 21/01/2013 under DOS, Networking, Internet.

Shareaholic Is A Must-Have Add-on For Social Media Addicts [Firefox]

If you’re a typical internet user, you’ve probably signed up for a handful of different social networks over the years. All of these social networks no doubt mean completely different things to you, as they each have a separate set of your friends subscribed, different uses and often hold unique interests at heart. In other words, the things you share with each social network are tailored individually to each network and audience.

Despite keeping these networks separate in your own head, the everyday browsing habits of internet users usually involve one main browser set-up, often with a bunch of extensions. But who wants to have a different extension for each social network you want to share to? Not me! Not when there’s a way of sharing to all your networks using the one extension, Shareaholic.

What Is Shareaholic?

Shareaholic is a browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer. It’s also available as a bookmarklet for use in any other browser. We’re going to focus on the Firefox extension for now.

In addition to these browser tools, Shareaholic also offers blog sharing tools and analytics for publishers. So, take a closer look around if that interests you.

Share To Anywhere

There are 100+ popular social networks and tools supported by Shareaholic, and it’s possible for you to choose which of these to list and in what order they appear. Because of this, you should be able to share directly to almost any social network or tool you like, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, WordPress, LinkedIn, Evernote, Hootsuite, Tumblr, Delicious, Bit.ly, Pocket, Gmail and many more. Since it’s entirely up to you, you can make this the most powerful and productive browser tool you ever use.

Keeping Things Neat

Since you only need one browser extension to share with multiple social networks, you can cut down on the total amount of extensions you have active in your browser. This will keep your toolbars neat and cut down on extension slowness.

How To Use Shareaholic

Shareaholic sits unobtrusively on your toolbar until you’re ready to share something. When you’re on a page worth sharing, simply click the Shareaholic button and choose the service you want to share to from the menu (which you will have already customized to show your favorite services). Shareaholic then pops up a window ready to share. Mostly, this window contains the correct page to share items directly to that service, with all the details of the page you were on filled in. This means that for any given service you can access all the bells and whistles available including delayed posting, choice of image, tagging and more.

Shareaholic Accounts

Registration is not required, but it is available as an option. For people who use multiple browsers, you’ll appreciate that you can sync your Shareaholic settings by signing up for an account. Any services added to Shareaholic via one browser extension (or the website) will be ready to use in other browsers immediately.

Recommended By Mozilla

The Shareaholic extension is loved by so many people that it now comes recommended by the Mozilla foundation itself.It was the Grand Prize Winner of Mozilla’s own Extend Firefox contest.

Also Read

If you’re a Chrome user and you want to give it a try, check out the Shareaholic review for Chrome. For Firefox users, check out the Best Firefox Add-ons for more great tools to try.

The post Shareaholic Is A Must-Have Add-on For Social Media Addicts [Firefox] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Enhance Google Services with These 5 Add-Ons

Most of us use at least one Google service each day – usually much more than just one. Search, Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Drive, Play, YouTube…. this is just a partial list of the services we use every day. And for good reason, too. Google’s services are not popular just because they have the name “Google” next to them – they’re actually very good, and constantly provide their competitors with inspiration and ideas.

Even Google isn’t perfect, though. In fact, it’s far from it. While Gmail, Reader and the rest are extremely useful, there’s always room for improvement, and thanks to some excellent browser add-ons, it’s easy to upgrade our favorite Google services and make them even slicker, more accessible, and, well, just better.

Google Redesigned [Firefox & Chrome]

Do you have a secret desire to have all your Google services look like this? Your dreams can come true with the help of a browser add-on called Google Redesigned. At first, I assumed Google Redesigned will let me control what my Google services look like, or at least offer several redesign options to choose from, but after seeing this new look on my Gmail, Reader, Calendar and Drive, I no longer wished for control.

If you’re a dark-theme buff, you’re going to love this redesign. If you’re a minimalist, you’re going to love this redesign. Actually, no matter who you are, you’re probably going to love it. Google Redesign can redesign Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader and Google Drive (which it still refers to as Docs). You can choose which of these services you want to redesign, and which you want to keep in the same old look by clicking on the add-on’s icon.

The only caveat: some services may be slightly less responsive, depending on the service, your browser, your computer, etc. Try it out to see for yourself.

Google Reader Mag [Chrome]

Google Reader Mag is powered by Feedly, and before you use if for the first time you’ll have to grant it access to your Google Reader. The add-on is different from the regular Feedly add-on – it automatically takes over your Google Reader and turns it into a Feedly-like experience. All your favorite feeds are already there, organized just the way you like them, and the only thing you need to do is start reading.

The interface is much nicer and cleaner than the native Google Reader, and you can choose to view your feeds in several visual ways such as magazine style, cards (seen above), mosaic, and more. When reading articles, you can easily share on Google+, Twitter or Facebook, save articles for later and add tags, and send articles to Instapaper, Pocket, Evernote, and others.

Google Shortcuts [Firefox & Chrome]

What better way to enhance your Google services than to access them easily? Google Shortcuts adds shortcut buttons to any Google service you can dream of, especially if you’re stuck sometime in 2010. Yes, the add-on is a little outdated, and includes services like Google Wave and the “Android Market”, but being completely customizable, you can add whatever service you see fit.

You can also choose between having buttons on the toolbar itself, as seen above, or in a configurable dropdown menu, as see below.

You can control the name, URL and position of each shortcut, as well as the browser’s tab behavior when a shortcut is clicked.

Integrated Google Calendar [Firefox]

Google Calendar really is a useful little service, but for some reason, it never felt truly accessible to me. This is not something I can explain logically, but to me, a calendar needs to be right there whenever I want to use it, and Google Calendar is always too many clicks away. Not anymore. Integrated Google Calendar is a simple little add-on that takes Google Calendar out of.. well, wherever it usually is, and brings it right to your Firefox toolbar. Want to see your calendar? Click the toolbar icon or use your designated keyboard shortcut, and voila, there it is!

You can change the window’s size, move it around and pin it so it stays always on top. You can even set it to delay its load when starting Firefox, so as to now slow anything down more than necessary.

+You Google Bar [Firefox & Chrome]

The Google bar went through several iterations in the past year, but for now, it seems that we’re settled on the thin black bar with its More and Even More options. The current Google bar is nice and unobtrusive, but it also decides for you which Google services are the most accessible. By default, you get links to search, images, maps, Google Play, and the rest you can see below.

But what if you don’t need a link to Google Search staring at you on every Google service? What if you’d rather have a quick link to Google Reader, or Google Translate? Google doesn’t ask you what you want or don’t want, but this add-on does. after installation (note that you’ll probably have to restart your browser to get it to work), you’ll find a new cog icon on the left side of your Google bar. Use this cog menu to start rearranging your Google services.

Note that you don’t drag items onto the bar itself. Use the cog menu to arrange the items as you see fit, and watch them change on the bar itself as you go. It’s a little unintuitive at first, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it.

So how do you make your Google services even better? Any favorite add-ons or plugins? Share them in the comments!

Image credit: shiny image via Shutterstock

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