GUIDE: How to import Contacts when Gmail Import Fails

So you want to import that CSV file into gmail contacts, and it does absolutely nothing when you try? Me too.

Here’s my workaround.

1. Log into your probably now unused Yahoo Mail account.
2. Import your CSV file there.
3. Export to vCard Single File
4. Email that file to your Gmail Account
5. On your Android device (phone or tablet), import the .vcf file you just emailed.

I still don’t have a solution for a unified contact list between Outlook and Gmail, but I’m trying.

GUIDE: Favorite WordPress Plugins

Do you have your own beloved WordPress blog? Here’s my fav. plugins. Please share you own.

Last Update: 08.29.2012

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GUIDE: Safe, effective online shopping

There are many steps to finding and purchasing items at the best price online.  And there are a growing number of great tools to help.  Here are my tips for safe, effective, online shopping.

Last Update: 03.26.12

• Added decide.com, metacritic.com, slice.com

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GUIDE: Autosync Android Media to PC / iTunes / AppleTV

Let’s face it – Apple has a superior ecosystem – if your phone, computer, and media extender are all Apple, everything syncs right out of the box.

But what if you don’t want a child-sized screen on your phone, and have an Android phone? And what if you run iTunes on a PC, and maybe have an Apple TV? Well, then your ecosystem is broken. Here’s how to cobble something together for free.

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GUIDE: Best iPad Apps

Yeah, everyone and their mother has a post like this, and I’m not Engadget. But I keep this list for me, OK? Essential apps have a * and red font. Please note that I am still on an iPad 1, so no really cool movie or photo apps listed here.

Last Update: 04.24.12

Changes: Added a bunch of games

App Management

1. * AppShopper – best way to keep a wishlist of apps you would buy if the price changed – it notifies you. Also, good way to see on a daily basis what is hot, what is discounted (many apps go on sale for FREE for a day only). There are others like HotApDeals, AppAdvice ($2), but you might not need them.
2. AppStart – this has a nice list of Best of Apps for you.
3. Discovr Apps ($2) – great way to find apps related to ones you already know about.

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Guide: Roku Channels and Help

I recently purchased a ROKU XD for my bedroom. I’ve got a 1st gen AppleTV downstairs. I don’t love the ROKU, but am trying my best to configure it to my liking. Here’s what I’ve found.

Last Updated: 9.3.11

1. Private Channels

In addition to the official Channel List, there are many third party channels, called “private channels,” which you can add. Check out the pretty up to date lists below:

• Private Roku Channels List at AlmostAccurate
• Roku Channel Database (roku-channels.com)

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GUIDE: Favorite Google Chrome Extensions

I have moved off of Firefox for Google Chrome, for now.  If you load the DEV version (5.x), you finally have an almost worthy browser from Google.  Here's my favorite extensions.

Last Update: 05.17.10

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GUIDE: Favorite Firefox Extensions – Updated

Last Update:  05.19.12

————————

1. Download them all at once

All my Essential extensions in one package. Download ffext_20120622.xpi

2. ESSENTIAL

• Adblock Plus – does what it says
• Booly -
• Copy as HTML Link – awesome for copying a page ref for blog comments
• Craigslist Image Previewer – very nice – lets you see thumbnails in search results rather than having to click into each one.
• Download Statusbar – don’t use the awful download window, use this sleek status-bar toolbar.  Awesome.
• Email This! – adds ability to “email this URL” to email client of your choice.  Nice.
• Google Redesigned
• - this advanced skin for Gmail is awesome!  Some people think it slows
  down the browser, but I love it.  It started out as a Stylish template,
  but then grew up to be a full extension.
• Greasemonkey- naturally – here’s my fav scripts, not sure if some overlap with the Better Google extensions (below in TRYING)
  • AmazonBookCover – adds button to Amazon to view full sized image, not the “Search inside” image – good if you want to save the image for a blog post, or if you want to find a big image for iTunes artwork
  • Auto Add Feed – If you use Google Reader, this plugin allows you to skip that intermediate page when adding a new feed, and you end up directly in Google Reader.
  • Gmail Persistent Search – allows you to build and save searches you do all the time (no longer works?)
  • Google Reader Print Button – allows better printing of items from GR.  (may no longer be working…)
  • Mouse Rocking – if you don’t need lots of mouse gestures, just rocking, this works great.
• IE Tab – allows you to emulate IE in a Firefox tab for apps that require IE (like Sharepoint or OWA)
• Image Toolbar – nice floating toolbar like in IE
• It’s all Text – tired of typing up your comments in some puny comment box? Automatically launch your text editor of choice. Just click the ‘save’ icon to copy your text back to the original text box.
• LastPass Password Manager – I really like this password manager, a bit more than Foxmarks/FF because LP is encrypted. Also has a form filler (I’ve tried and liked both the Google and Roboform fillers, but I’ve already got LP, so will stop using the others).
• OpenIT Online – allows you to open all kinds of docs online, without local installs of apps like Word, etc.  Love the open image option (use Pixlr)
• Package Mapping – select the routing number, right click and map it – mashup of shipping status and google map.  Nice.
• PDF Download – enhances PDF features in FF
• PriceAdvance – when on supported sites (Amazon, Walmart, J&R, Target, etc.), shows prices for item on other sites.  (See also Guide to safe, effective online shopping)
• Print Preview – Print Preview button for your toolbar.  Toolbar Buttons also has a print preview button, so this extension might be redundant, except that it has a better icon for the button.
• ScreenGrab – simple screenshot util.  You may alternatively like FireShot
• Traktor -
• TabMixPlus – add advanced tab control – really essential
• Toolbar Buttons – awesome to add to your toolbar.
• Xmarks – bookmark sync

3. COOL BUT NOT ESSENTIAL

• CLEO – great way to package up your extensions into one .xpi file
• ColorZilla – allows you to sample and get hex/RGB for any onscreen color.  Very nice.
• Cooliris – a cool image search tool – lots of eye candy, not sure how useful
• * CuteMenus – adds nice icons to menus
• FEBE – nice way to back up your extensions – can even backup online now. Use with CLEO
• RetailMeNot – finds coupons for you automatically when visiting various vendor sites.  Coolness.
• Stylish- provides alternate styles for various sites – indispensable for frequently visited sites like digg and youtube (and maybe gmail and greader too).  The styles are updated often, but my favorites now are:
  • Beautiful Digg – nice layout and dark theme for digg – though main nav color hard to read
  • Check marking visited links – this is very cool, although on my home machine, the checkmark was somehow replaced with a small box with four numbers in it.  Not sure what’s up with that.
  • Digg – Fluid, Ad and Spaceing Remover (Updated) – widens it out for higher resolutions.
  • Digg.com – comment tweaks 2.0 – really nice changes, with up/down ratings buttons
  • Google Calendar – colorize Sat/Sun (start on Mon) – adds color to the weekend, and starts the week on Mon.  They also have one that starts the week on Sunday.
  • Google Maps Max Updated! – maximizes use of space on google maps.  Nice.
  • My Yahoo Cleaner – removes ads from my.yahoo, but I wish it did a little more
  • OS X Style Google Reader – makes google reader look awesome!
  • Stylish customized toolbar button – nice functional button for stylish,
  • Very clean lifehacker – no ads, no wasted space
  • Wikipedia – Grey Lady – a nice simplification of wikipedia
  • Website: cleaner – Yahoo! Mail Beta – removes ads
  • YouTube No Comments – hides comments on youtube
• Twitterbar – simple toolbar implementation – one click tweets
• WebDeveloper – great all around tool for looking at what’s under the hood.

3. TRYING

• View image links – generate album view for image links. all button has access key (the first letter).
  eBay Hacks – Show only negative feedback Mod – adds two new tabs to ebay – Complaints Received and Complaints Left
• MR Tech Toolkit – extension and theme manager with lots of options.
• OPIE – backs up file extension preferences ().  Probably just as good as other extensions by Chuck (FEBE/CLEO).

4. RARELY USED BUT OK

• Aardvark – allows some tweaking of pages before printing, etc. – just never used it
• AideRSS – this GReader plugin gives you a numberic value of each article’s popularity – but it slows down the process too much, and I didn’t really need that info after all.
• AutoPagerize -
  similar to the AutoPager GM script, but works on more sites than just
  google. Not perfect, but nice – but I don’t use it because it messes
  with my blog posting by adding code automatically to the exteneded
  entry.
• Badges On Favicon – Adds item counts (like how many unread emails) to the tabs – nice, but not really necessary for me.
• Better Gmail 2 – compilation of GreaseMonkey scripts to make gmail work better.
• Better GReader – bunch of GM scripts to enhance Google Reader
• Better YouTube – automatically loads higher res videos if available, and other GM scripts to enhance YouTube
• Bookmark Previews – gives you a visual way to flip through your bookmarks.  Cool.
• bookStack – advanced bookmark management capabilities (experimental)
• Boost for Facebook – skins for facebook, nice, but easily replaced with a Sytlish skin
• BugMeNot – I still haven’t figured out how this works for bypassing mandatory registration for sites like the NYT – whatever, never used it.
• BuyLater – amazon price drop notifier (see also my Guide to safe, effective online shopping).  Works fine, but I like using PricePinx better.
• Configuration Mania – shows lots of FF3 config items without having to go to about:
• Copy Link Text – right click on a link and choose from drop down
• Custom Buttons 2 – custom buttons for the toolbar.
• Delicious Bookmarks – you know what this is
• Digg Firefox Extension – nice if you want to digg pages that don’t have the icon
• *** DragDropUpload – allows you to drag and drop attachements onto gmail – Causing some problems lately
• drop.io – a file upload widget.  There are so many of these popping up, but this one seems pretty usable.
• Dugged – firefox ‘mirror’ app – just not useful to me.
• EditCSS – works fine, but not as nicely as the tools in Web Developer toolbar
• Extended Copy Menu – has ‘save as html,’ but doesn’t really do what I want.  Blah.
• FaviconizeTab – minimizes tabs to their favicon.  Good if you have lots of tabs open.
• Feedly – basically, a social bookmark start page.  Meh.
• FireBug – web development info.  Nice program, but I like WebDeveloper toolbar more.
• FireGestures – same as MouseGestures, I think – but I only need the ‘rocker’ function, so I just use the Greasemonkey script.
• Firefox Activities – experimental, adds ie8 Activities functions – not too many yet, so not that great.
• FireShot – screenshot util – lots of options, but I use Screengrab instead.
• Fission – adds progress bar to address bar, like Safari
• Flash Killer – Cutemenus button or Flashblock do the same thing
• Flashblock – a nice button for your toolbar that toggles flash objects – works perfectly.
• Fuller Screen – an improved full-screen experience
• GA? – Is Google Analytics Installed
• Glue – a bookmark organizer on steroids, with some sort of widget creator for bloggers too.  Hmmm.
• Greasemonkey Scripts
• • Clean TheFreeDictionary.com – for when I get this page when searching for a definition.  No more ads.
• GSpace – use your gmail accounts like disk drives to store files
• InstaClick – for laptops or mice without center button – can open link in new tab by right clicking.  Works great, but not good for desktops.
• Interclue – I had some technical problems with this, not sure if they ever cleaned up the code.
• Kiobo Toolbar – Similar to stumble, but suggests sites you might like based on your browsing history.
• Krumlr – bookmarklet that marks things to tag site Krumlr, plus tweets in one shot.  Nice, but I use instead a combo of Diigo, Digsby, Twitterbar.
• Mouse Gestures Redux – there are about three different gesture packages, this one was my old favorite.  However, if all you need is rocker functionality, use the greasemonkey script Mouse Rocking
• Nuke Anything Enhanced – Temporarily remove anything from a page before printing – if you refresh page, nuked items return.  Nice.
• OpenBook – adds advanced features to bookmark add dialog
• Pencil
  - Pencil is a Firefox add-on to do GUI prototyping and simple
  sketching.  Works very nicely, nice substitute for using Visio for
  screen mockups.
• Personal Menu – does the same as TinyMenu, but with buttons.  Too much learning curve for me, and TinyMenu does enough.  But for the uberTweaker, this is a cool app.
• Phoenity Aura (theme)
• PMOG – the Passively Multiplayer Online Game you play from a FF toolbar.  Neato.
• Print/Print Preview – Replace the default “Print” button with the Mozilla Suite style “Print/Print Preview” toolbar button/menu
• RAMBack – supposedly lets you clear Firefox memory.  Didn’t make much diff in my use.
• Remove It Permanently (RIP) – selectively removes any element from a web site.  Didn’t use much, and seriously goofs up some pages, and undo didn’t work.  Had to uninstall to get pages to load properly.
• Sxipper – password manager, but the built in one seems good enough
• Smoothwheel – makes scrolling in firefox much more smooth and pleasurable.  But YetAnotherSmoothScroller works better.
• StumbleUpon – find related sites to ones you visit and like
• Tabgroups-Plus – groups tabs – a little clumsy, or maybe it’s just me
• TabScope – popup image when you rollover tabs.  Works great, but gets annoying.
• Translator – allows you to translate any web page into nearly any language at the click of a button.
• Twitkit – nice but don’t need – use a combo of Diigo, Digsby, and Twitterbar
• Twitbin – nice but don’t need – use a combo of Diigo, Digsby, and Twitterbar
• TwitterFox – nice status bar popup, but needs URL shortener and multiple login.
• Update Scanner – scans for updates on pages that don’t have RSS, or that you would like to monitor for changes (like this one!)
• VeriSign’s OpenID SeatBelt – one of many OpenID tools.  I like theirs best, but honestly, OpenID is just not taking off.
• Video DownloadHelper – there are plenty others that do the same
• WOT -
  community-feedback based evaluation of sites, measures
  trustworthiness.  Although I never rate sites, it has caught some evil
  sites for me.  AVG Security bar does well for this.
• Zotero – helps you save online references.  Might help w/ blogging, we’ll see.

Guide: Blackberry Curve Software Resource Links

Here's my list of useful Blackberry links.  See other Blackberry Guides in Guides.

Last update:  08.13.09

Added

• BlackBerry OS Super Page

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GUIDE: Blackberry Curve Tips, Tricks, & Troubleshooting Guide

OK, this is not a comprehensive guide, just things I have had to look up to solve.  I’ll add to this as I solve problems.  Here’s a current list:

• Added Making Google Voice your main voicemail

Last Updated: 04.18.09

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Blackberry Curve – My Favorite Software and Accessories

Last Update:  09.21.09

• Added Viigo News

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Essential Products for Babies III – Furniture, Climbers, and other large things

In Part I, I covered medicines and ointments.  Part II – Transportation.  Now, on to furniture and climbing toys I think are essential for the new parent.  This list is woefully incomplete, but here’s the things we found incredibly useful.

1.  Changing table with a drawer or two – we didn’t have one of these for our first child, but putting one downstairs in the living area was a huge help – upstairs, we change on the bed, but down, there is only the floor or the kitchen table.

2. Graco Baby Einstein Discover & Play Saucer – Will keep your baby happy for hours, and keep you hands free too!  Note that reports show that these are better for children than the walkers with wheels, which seem to delay walking.  Go figure.  We have this one (cause we found it cheap on craigslist), but just about any will do, I suspect.  Bilingual too (Eng/Sp).

3. Musical Table – Toddlers and almost toddlers love these.  Hours of activity when they are learning to stand.  My infant/toddlers have ALL loved this and spent a lot of time playing with it.  It’s also bilingual (Eng/Sp).

4. Climber – they’ll be using it before you know it – this one is great because it’s not too tall, so when they fall off of it, little harm done.  Good up to about age 4.

5. Gliding Rocker ($160) – mom’s best friend for midnight feedings.  You can actually sleep while nursing!  These are grossly overpriced at places like Babies R Us, but Walmart has a decent one for $160 (goes on sale for $99 sometimes).  We liked the Denim one, but comes in other colors.