Want to check whether your name is still available at social networking and Web 2.0 sites? Just visit http://usernamecheck.com/, key in your name and click the ? button.

According to the site, ‘sridhar’ is available at Digg when it’s not. So YMMV.

It’s a good idea to go ahead and register at those sites (that you think might be worth creating an account at) where your desired username is still not taken up.

By the way, does anyone know if TinyURL allows user registrations?

Source.

Firefox 3.0.2 is out and it will probably break few of your favorite add-ons. The easiest way to make those work is to use the MR Tech Toolkit add-on. Visit the link and install MR Tech Toolkit add-on.

To install a new incompatible add-on and make it compatible

1. Click on the xpi file link

   

2. Click on Allow button at the top right
3. In the prompt to remove the extension installation delay, you may want to click Yes.

   

4. Tick “Override ‘maxVersion’ compatibility checking and click ‘Install now’ button.

   

5. Restart Firefox to complete your changes.

To make an existing incompatible add-on compatible

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A new update of Firefox, version 3.0.2 has been released. Before updating it’s a good idea to back up your Firefox using either MozBackup and/or FEBE.

Changelog

Firefox 3.0.2 contains the following updates:

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Official releases for Sinhala and Slovene are now available.
• Beta releases for Bengali, Galician, Hindi, Icelandic, Kannada, Marathi, Telegu, and Thai are available for testing.
• Fixed a number of minor issues with the layout of certain web pages.
• Fixed several theme issues that affected right-to-left locales.
• Fixed issue that caused some users with customized toolbars to have their Back and Forward buttons go missing (bug 426026)
• Add new Extended Validation (EV) roots to Firefox 3.0.2.
• On certain IDN sites, the password manager would not fill in username and password details properly.
• Fixed several hangs and crashes that occurred when using screen readers.
• Fixed Mac-specific issues:
  • Keyboard shortcuts would stop working in some cases.
  • Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indic characters can not be entered (using IME) into text fields in Flash objects (bug 357670)
  • Firefox 3.0.1 could not be used when the user profile is stored on an AFP directory (bug 417037)

To update your Firefox, go to Help –> Check for Updates….

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Widgetbox has launched a network for bloggers for traffic exchange. It is a good way of bringing targeted traffic to your blog while sending out traffic to others in the process. You can see the widget in action at the right side of this post and also in the sidebar.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select the channel (topic) of your blog from 29 categories. Ex.: Art, Autos, Business, Celebrity, Education, Tech Gadgets, Tech News.
2. Create a free account or log in if you already a Widgetbox member.
3. Click on the link to create a new Blidget (a fancy term for ‘blog widget’)
   
   Make sure that you provide an image/logo for your blog since it will appear to the left side (with the latest post title to the right) in the widget on others’ (in the same channel) blogs.
4. Once your Blidget is ready, click on the link to join Widgetbox network. Select the appropriate channel and click ‘Generate Network Widget’.
5. Install the Network widget on your blog by pasting the generated code in the sidebar template of your blog.

That’s it. It may take up to an hour before your blog will appear on other blogs in the network. The widget is live on this blog and can be seen in the first sidebar at the bottom.

In this article we will cover some services that will provide useful info on web sites. The post shall be updated as and when new resources are discovered.

Find out if a site is down just for you or everyone else

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ is a straight-forward site in which you enter the domain name and it tells you if the site is not reachable to just your or the entire world.

Find out the web host of a site

The aptly named http://www.whoishostingthis.com/ provides information on the web hosting company that’s hosting the domain entered in the box.

Find out the domain registrar of a site

CoolWhois lets you look up the registration information for any domain name including the generic top level domains (.com, .net, .org, .info and .biz) and the country top level domains (such as .uk, .de, .to, .ws, .at, etc.)

You can also embed domain lookup form on your own site like so: