This is a really subtle one, but Google Chrome improves nicely on the “find” function for finding text within an open page. As in other browsers, pressing <ctrl><f> brings up a find box, however its overall functionality is just a bit different. Read on to see the differences….

First, the find box is integrated unobtrusively in the upper right corner of the page into which you type your search text. It’s clean and looks good. I never liked how Internet Explorer pops up a dialog box. It just gets in the way. Firefox, Safari, and now Google Chrome implement this well with Google Chrome behaving similarly to how Safari does it.

As you type your search text, hits are highlighted in real time and the number of occurrences is displayed in the box. Clicking the Up and Down arrows in the find box will step you through all occurrences highlighting the current one in a bolder highlight.

So far, this is all pretty standard, but look at the scrollbar on the right of the page. The relative locations of the hits is visually indicated by little lines in scrollbar in the same color as the highlight color within the text. This makes it quick and easy to tell at a glance where within the page you will find all of the occurrences.

Its subtle, but surprisingly useful!

Google Chrome Tips browser, find, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, tips

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Google Chrome Tips is here to provide some tips and tricks for Google’s new Chrome browser. I will also post some articles related to Chromium, the Open Source version of Chrome. While my browser of choice is still Firefox, Google Chrome offers some exciting features and performence enhancements that really makes it worth a look.

Google Chrome Tips browser, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, tips

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Having quick and easy access to information is one of the strong points of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. With their online capabilities, the Internet is at your fingertips, and just about any piece of information is just a few taps away. One group of applications that provides news information is the “RSS Reader” category. These programs provide news feeds in a (typically) organized and concise manner, allowing you to catch up news from your favorite sites wherever you are. But what if you are not online? What if an iPhone user is on a subway or in an area that has marginal or no coverage. What about an iPod Touch user who is not within range of a WiFi connection? Providing offline access to RSS feeds is a worthy endeavor, and AppStore has a dozen or so RSS readers that may fit your needs, however they all currently miss the mark in providing a complete offline reading experience. Read on to find out why….

All of the RSS Reader apps in AppStore provide pretty much the same content, however their method of presentation and execution spans a wide spectrum. Some apps require a network connection to display anything. With these apps, news feeds are loaded in real-time so you are always up-to-date, however if you are offline, you simply will not see any content. (I personally question this approach as I may as well just use a decent WebApp.) Others provide excellent offline reading capabilities with articles organized by feed, folders, date, etc.

The feature set is growing in this line of apps. Some have lots of eye candy (at least one uses the CoverFlow concept in presenting the feed list) and some provide synchronization to online accounts such as Google Reader and NewsGator ensuring that regardless of how you access these accounts, they will always be up-to-date. But despite the host of features and ease-of-use, there’s still one key feature that is missing from every application in this category: The ability to pre-fetch and cache embedded images within articles.

As an iPod Touch user, I don’t always have network connectivity, so offline functionality is essential. AppStore applications like WeDict, Acro Bible, and Bookshelf, and Jailbreak applications like Wiki2Touch provide incredible acces to amazing content that is always available online or offline. As of this writing, every RSS reader in AppStore lacks the ability to provide full offline content–both article text and associated embedded images. There are excellent applications that provide an intuitive, fast, and comprehensive reading experience, but if you want to see embeded images in articles, you must be online, or you must have at least viewed the article once while online. Omitting the images removes a significant part of the reading experience.

Now I do realize that syncing dozens, if not hundreds of images could amount to a much longer sync session, but that’s a tradeoff I would welcome if I could have offline access to all of the content. So here is my plea to all developers of RSS Reader applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch: Please add the option to pre-fetch and cache embeded images for offline reading. And to stand out ahead of the competition, provide more granular control so that the user can really tailor what gets updated. For example, let the user toggle pre-fetching on a feed-by-feed basis. Have a setting to only pre-fetch images for the n-number of articles or articles received within the last n-days, etc.

Most of the current AppStore RSS Readers are very well thought-out, well executed, and provide great information both online and offline. Just don’t stop short when the user goes offline.

iPod Touch Tips, iPod Touch Tips - The Complete Collection AppStore, find, Google, iPhone, iPod Touch, jailbreak, news, RSS, tips

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I’m always looking for decent cases for the devices I carry, and I have found another case for the iPod Touch that I just love. The Belkin Silicone Skin Case is a molded case made of silicone rubber that stretches to fit snugly around the iPod Touch. It provides cut-outs for the screen, top power button, brightness sensor, Universal Connector, and headphones. There is also a recessed portion over the front Home button giving it a great look and nice tactile feel. The case nicely protects the chrome back from scratches, and it provides the iPod Touch with a great grip. It only adds just a fraction of an inch to the overall size, so your iPod Touch remains slim and sleek.

This case is simple, yet elegant in design, but like similar “skin” cases it does not provide any protection for the screen, so a modest screen protector is included. (I personally use some left-over Palm PDA screen protectors, though the supplied protector will work just fine.) This setup makes the iPodtTouch very “front-pocketeble”, and I am much more likely to regularly carry it with me because of the small size and confidence in the protection. After all, what’s the point of having a device that contains your favorite content if it is too bulky to take with you? Currently, this is my case of choice.

iPod Touch Tips, iPod Touch Tips - The Complete Collection Belkin, case, iPod Touch, review, tips

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Text entry on the iPod Touch's on-screen keyboard is surprisingly easy, but sometimes, it can be tedious to enter numbers, symbols, or special characters. But did you know that there are a few "shortcuts" that you can use to make this kind of entry quicker and easier? Read on for some tips on "shifting" letters, inserting numbers, symbols, and International characters, and making a quick entry correction….

Quick Shift

While typing on the Alphabetic keyboard, press and hold the Shift key, then slide your finger over to the letter you want to shift then release. The letter will be shifted.

Quick Number and Symbol Entry

While typing letters on the Alphabetic keyboard, sometimes you want to quickly insert a number or a symbol such as a comma or period. Just press and hold the Symbol/Number key (.?123) then slide your finger over to the symbol or number you want to insert then release your finger. The symbol or number will then be inserted and the keyboard will revert back to the Alphabetic keyboard for you to continue typing.

International Characters

If you want to enter special letter characters such as those with an accent or grave, press and hold the Alphabetic key you want to accent and a popup showing all the available choices will display. Slide your finger over to the desired choice, release, and the special character will be inserted.

Quick Correction

While typing, if you find that you have entered an incorrect letter but have not yet released the key, you can always slide your finger over to the correct character and then release. The correct character will be inserted.

I hope you find this tip useful in improving your keyboard entry!

iPod Touch Tips, iPod Touch Tips - The Complete Collection find, iPod Touch, keyboard, shortcuts, tips

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iPod Touch Tips is a new section on JimsTips.com to provide Tips, reviews, and other information about Apple’s iPod Touch . The iPod Touch, originally marketed as media player, is capable of so much more. With WiFi, Web Browsing, and the addition of a few new applications, the iPod Touch is much improved with some new and extended capabilities.

The domain iPTTips.com redirects to this page, so you can always get to iPod Touch Tips by pointing your browser to http://iPTTips.com.

Apple’s AppStore has hundreds of applications for the iPhone & iPod Touch, so stay tuned as I give my thoughts and reviews of my favorite apps!

iPod Touch Tips, iPod Touch Tips - The Complete Collection Apple, AppStore, browser, iPhone, iPod Touch, review, tips

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Going away soon!

Zonbu Support stated specifically that due to financial reasons, Zonbu will not provide any OS updates for the Zonbu Mini.

In light of this, I am letting the domain ZonbuTips.com expire since I will not be adding or maintaining any tips for this device or service.

It was a great concept of a product that just couldn’t effectively get off the ground.

Zonbu Tips review, tips, Zonbu

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Gmail now lets you define colrs for specific labels.

In the message list, any label that has a color assigned will display in that color. Labels with no color assigned will display as they always did. Here is an example:

To assign colors to a Label, click the Label selector on the left of any Gmail page to display the Labels. Hover your mouse to the right of the Label, and a small triangle will appear. Click it, and a color selector will appear. Select a color, and all messages with that Label will display the Label in that color.

As an added bonus, you can quickly and easily rename the Label using the new "Edit name" menu selection. Just be careful to double-check

Gmail Tips, Gmail Tips - The Complete Collection Gmail, tips

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