clipperz

Detaching Tabs in Firefox

The ability to detach tabs in Firefox so that they are in their own window has long been a thorn in my side. Especially when using an application like Clipperz and Firefox is set to open everything in a new tab.

Opening in a new tab is generally my preference since I am researching one subject. With applications like Clippez that provide single sign on to various web sites that I don’t necessarily want grouped together and not being able to detach the tab to a new window is a real pain.

This morning I had had enough of opening up Clipperz, which is my home page, several times just to use the single sign on and keep the tabs separated. I prefer to do this rather than rack my brain trying to figure out which password some sites want. Here lately it seems like they all want something different, 6-16 alphanumeric, 8 with a special character and number, 8 that don’t have anything in them the remotely resembles a dictionary word and so on.

Back to my story. I went on Firefox’s add-ons page and began my search. After several searches using different terms I finally came up with Duplicate Tab 1.0.2. This does exactly what I want and is highly configurable.

With this little jewel you can copy or clone a tab complete with it’s back and forward history. You can merge windows so that all tabs are in one window and detach tabs that make a single window out of a tab.

Have you ever found yourself with different windows and several tabs open and each of them contained one or two tabs of your current research or information gathering? Those days are over! Simply detach the appropriate tabs and then merge them into one window.

The developer for this project has done a fantastic job of giving you the ability to manipulate your tabs in any way you see fit. Go and download it now-you will be glad that you did!

-j

Single signon with Clipperz

Clipperz provides single signon capabilities using a web browser for all of your web based sites. Clipperz is an open source project started in 2005 by Marco and Giulio Cesare. I have been using Clipperz now for about six months on a daily basis.

From an end user perspective the process is quite simple. Go to Clipperz and register. After registering you can then start adding the sites that you visit that require a password.

Once you are on the logged into Clipperz click on the Tools link on the orange tool bar on the right hand side. Once on that page scroll down and drag and drop the Add to Clipperz widget to you book marks bar.

Now browse to a web site that requires that you login. While at the login page click on the Add to Clipperz link in the bookmarks toolbar. A small pop-up window will open with some code inside. Copy this code and click on the tab (you are using tabbed browsing aren’t you?) where you are logged into Clipperz. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the radio button next to Direct login. Now paste the copied code from the pop-up window into the box title Direct login configuration and then click the create button.

After clicking the create button a new text box will show. This is where you put in your login and password information for the web site that you are adding to Clipperz. After you put this in and create it the web site will show on the middle and left hand side of your screen.

Click on the web site link listed on the left hand side of your screen. This will open up a new tab and automatically log you into the site. If you want to edit the title or change the pasword (or if you got it wrong when creating the link) click on the link in the middle of the page. This will allow you to edit your login information. It even has a facility to decrypt your password if you want to see what it is or just make sure that your are typing it correctly.

For the more technical or paranoid among us Clipperz uses Ajax and JavaScript technologies built into your browser to encrypt your passwords. The encryption takes place locally on your computer before being sent to the Clipperz servers. Thus the only thing sent over the internet or stored on their servers are the scrambled bits of your password.

With the advent of SaaS and Cloud Computing you need a secure single signon solution for your web based sites where you store photos, financial data and other electronic data. Clippez fills this need as well as working as a password manager and a vault for confidential data. Give it a spin today!

Full disclosure: I have no affiliation with Clipperz other than being a satisfied user.

-j