Thumbnail Zoom Plus Firefox Add-On

If you would like to be able to see large versions of pictures on all sorts of pages on the Internet when you hover your cursor over a thumbnail, this is the Firefox add-on for you.

I bumped into this add-on today and am loving it. I was using it on Google Image Search results, and later on an artist's blog. For pages like a Google Image Search result page, I found I had to hover for a few seconds on some pictures for the large version to pop up, but, considering the amount of pictures loading on these search result pages, it is a minor annoyance.

Go here to get it.

Google Image Search Freezes In Firefox - Solution

When you run a Google Image Search and the results freeze for a number of seconds before Firefox responds, you may have a problem add-on installed. 

Checking

First, try the search in any other browser. If it runs fine in the other browser, then it is something going on in Firefox.

Next, run Firefox in Safe Mode. To do this, in Firefox, click on Help, then Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

Now try the image search. If it runs fine, then one or more add-ons are the culprit. 

Go to your Add-ons page in Firefox (Tools, Add-ons or Firefox button, Add-ons). 

• Write down all the enabled add-ons
• Disable a bunch (make sure to mark down which ones you disabled) and restart Firefox
• Test an image search. If it doesn't work, re-enable the ones you disabled before and disable a bunch more (marking those ones down) and restart and test again. Repeat this process until you get the image search working
• Once the image search is working, you will know that the problem add-on is in the most recent bunch you disabled.
• Re-enable one add on at a time, restart Firefox and test until the search freezes again. This way you will find which add-on is causing the problem
• Once you find out which add-on is causing the problem, disable it and re-enable the others you want enabled, restart Firefox and do a final image search test. If all is working, remove the problem add-on.

I recently had this problem and found that Linkification was causing the problem, so I removed it and all was well again. If you read up on this add-on at the link, it may seem obvious why this would cause a problem. It was a useful but not necessary add-on.

Windows 8: Boot to Desktop option coming in Windows 8.1

http://blog.gsmarena.com/boot-to-desktop-option-coming-with-windows-8-1/

It's not clear if this is going to be in a service pack or if it will be a whole new version of the operating system.

But why wait? If you have Windows 8 and don't like/want/use the touch interface and just want to use the Desktop interface, get the Classic Shell Start Menu, that also includes a default setting to boot straight to the desktop (along with some other useful tweaks). It's free. If you like it, they accept donations.