No matter which browser you prefer, there’s a plethora of ways to customize the way you surf the Web. There are countless plugins, extensions, toolbars and more. Some of these are easy to install while others require a little more effort.

We’ve put together a list of some of the best instructional resources for the most popular browsers today, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and even the still wet behind the ears rookie, Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer

ie Tips - Shares a ton of quick tips for customizing Internet Explorer.

Official Browser Settings - Overview provides plenty of useful information on all of the settings for IE that most users never touch. Learn what they do and perhaps fix some problems you’ve been experiencing.

Official IE Developers Blog - Shares new tips and tricks all the time on their official blog for Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer Toolbar - Tutorial covers what you need to know about IE’s toolbar.

Top 11 ie Add-ons - Covers a list of cool tools you can add to the IE experience.

Firefox

Customize Firefox themes - Provides a large collection of new themes for changing your Firefox look and feel.

Mozilla’s Official Way to Customize Firefox - shows undocumented features and ways to customize their browser.

How to Use GreaseMonkey - A must-read if you truly want to take your browsing to the next level.

Office Firefox Add-on Library - Contains an amazing amount of add-ons that you can install with a simple click.

Mashable’s List of 30+ Firefox Extensions - Extensions that enhance your browsing experience.

Safari

How to Customize Safari Beyond All Reason - Offers up a bunch of solutions to common annoyances with Safari as well as other cool tips. Funny title too.

How to customize the Safari Toolbar - Covers everything you need to know about the toolbar.

SafariStand - Adds dozens of extra features to the Safari browser.

eHow’s How to Customize Safari covers the basics of Safari preferences here.

YouTube video - Shows you how to customize the Safari Toolbar.

Opera

Opera Mini - How to install and configure Opera Mini for your mobile device

Official Opera Tutorials - Tutorials on how to customize the Opera browser.

Opera Widgets - Shows the best ways to customize Opera Widgets.

Extending Opera - Demonstrates several ways to get the most out of Opera.

Opera Mail Tutorial - A nice visual tutorial on the Opera Mail system.

Chrome

Google Chrome Forums - Has a tremendous amount of ways to trick out your Chrome browser

Digital Streets - Shares some cool tips for customizing your Chrome experience.

Custom Search Engines - Covers how to change the search engines in Chrome

Customized Chrome Themes - Gives you ideas on how to change Chrome’s skin.

GreaseMetal - The Chrome equivalent to Firefox’s popular GreaseMonkey.

Whether it’s just to save time or make your browser more visually appealing, there’s an amazing amount of options for any browser that you choose to use. What are some of your favorite ways to trick out your browser? Are there any unusual things you do that others might like to try? Share your secrets in the comments area.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:30+ Skins For OperaAOL Is Really, For Real Ending Netscape NavigatorVertagio Launches Social NetworkThe Daily Poll: What Was Your First Web Browser?AllPeers Launches Firefox Bundle PackageNetscape’s Final Resting PlaceGoogle Chrome: The “GBrowser” Comes to Life

Source:Mashable!

JAJAH, a VoIP service provider that manages connections for social network users and mobile and non-mobile phones, has teamed up today with Momail, a free mobile mail operator, allowing users to make VoIP phone calls by simply sending an email.

All it takes for Momail users to implement this new option is to register with JAJAH under Momail’s “On Demand” feature page, located within a user’s member page. Once complete, you simply send an email to JAJAH with a phone number you intend to call. JAJAH will subsequently initiate a call to your handset, followed by a call to the intended party.

Momail alone is an interesting invention. Along with popular third-party webmail recognition and push mail for phones - which support the technology - Momail claims to compress data received by users by up to 99 percent its original size. For those operating on metered data plans or simply for phones that cannot consume large file sizes (or whose owners simply don’t have to patience for such transfers), this is handy indeed. Now with JAJAH’s VoIP feature on board, Momail is able to provide extra power with little or no extra investment on the user side.

Note: Momail is still in beta in some countries, including the United States. You’ll have to request a password in order to gain entry.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Jajah Launches Free Phone Calls GloballyJajah Enables VoIP Calls on iPhoneJajah Introduces Buttons: Widgets for Toll-Free CallingJajah Going Ad-SupportedeBay Deletes Listings with Jajah VoIP ButtonsJajah Expands VoIP Offerings with CallWave PartnershipJajah Chosen to Power Gizmo5 VoIP Services

Jaxtr is unveiling premium memberships this evening, making it easier for users of the web-based VoIP service to make long distance and international calls. The service – which includes widgets that users can put on their social networking profiles to enable friends to call them – previously employed a credits system, requiring users to reload their account each time it emptied.

While the credit system isn’t disappearing, the new premium memberships will offer most users a better value according to CEO Konstantin Guericke. In an interview last week, Guericke noted that “in exchange for users committing to us, they will get rates that are 20-30% lower than buying calling credits a la carte.”

For example, the lowest level Jaxtr plan, priced at $2.95/mo, gets you 350 minutes of calls per month, while when buying a la carte, 400 credits will cost you $5.00. Jaxtr is also introducing two other membership levels – $7.95 for up to 1,000 mins/mo and $19.95 for up to 2,500 mins/mo.

In turn, Jaxtr gets more predictable subscriber revenue, which it projects will make the company profitable in the second half of 2009. Jaxtr currently claims more than 10 million members, and also generates revenue through advertising via its Café Jaxtr social networking product.

Overall, Jaxtr is emerging as one of the better positioned companies in the social networking space amidst the current economic slowdown. The hybrid business model of subscriptions and ads is akin to that of LinkedIn – where Guericke was a co-founder – and provides Jaxtr with flexibility should advertising revenue slow down significantly. Meanwhile, the service saves customers money through its low cost international calling – something more and more businesses will be looking to do as budgets get trimmed.

On the other hand, web-based VoIP hasn’t been a slam dunk for everybody. Earlier this year, we witnessed the implosion of one of Jaxtr’s biggest competitors – Jangl – the team of which has since been absorbed into Jajah. Nonetheless, Jaxtr appears to be executing well, and adding premium memberships is a logical step in the often elusive march towards profitability in the social networking space.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Jaxtr Reaches 500k, Expands to 18 More CountriesJaxtr Grows 10x; 5 Million Users in 5 MonthsJaxtr Makes International Calls Cheap and Easy; Raises $10M to Go GlobalJaxtr Raises $10M in Series A Round: Reaches 1 Million UsersWhere Does Ribbit Fit in the Web-Based VoIP Universe?Jajah Introduces Buttons: Widgets for Toll-Free CallingRibbit to Launch Flex Developer Tools for Voice & Contact Management

It wasn’t that long ago that Ribbit was acquired to become part of BT’s larger plans to make voice applications more prominent in main stream use cases, and not surprisingly Jajah has begun to respond with a new feature that makes your PC “act more like a phone.” In partnership with Intel, Jajah is able to enable a smart, connected life for PC users, starting next month.

Taking advantage of Jajah’s telephony, built on its own infrastructure and the Intel Remote Wake technology, PCs can accept phone calls from the sleep mode in order to receive a call. This partnership can also be used to make phone calls, using Jajah’s global IP-based network. So how important is this particular feature? Depending on how regularly you use your computer for phone calls, this could be quite important. Especially if you’re living the life of an always-connected blogger, ensuring that you never miss a tip for a new post while you’re sleeping (and your computer is sleeping too).

In the larger scheme of things, this new feature speaks to the ongoing initiatives for voice to become more of a centralized factor in computer usage benefits, as well as the computer “competing” with the mobile industry. We’ve seen new product releases coming from the mobile industry in response to the iPhone, but we’re also seeing some developments for computers in terms of competing with the web-based functionality that mobile devices provide, which compete (on some level) with the desktop and notebook industries that have historically provided primary access to email, web and calendar applications.

In making the PC operate more like a mobile device, as far as voice-applications go, we’re seeing a furthered merging of PCs and mobile devices especially for business use. While this has been going on for some time, it’s clear that the PC market is more active in finding ways to integrate itself into this larger movement, which is evident in Jajah’s latest release, which takes advantage of the Intel Remote Wake technology.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Jajah Launches Free Phone Calls GloballyJajah Enables VoIP Calls on iPhoneJajah Introduces Buttons: Widgets for Toll-Free CallingJajah Going Ad-SupportedIntel To Launch MashMakereBay Deletes Listings with Jajah VoIP ButtonsJajah Expands VoIP Offerings with CallWave Partnership

Jajah has had a pretty serious year, and the new features it’s releasing just won’t stop coming. The latest on the scene may not be so huge as a new telephony platform, but it will impact users all the same. What is it? A speech-activated translation tool that lets you speak in English and translate into Mandarin (and vice versa). If you’re wondering why Jajah Babel went with Mandarin as its first language released through its translation service, just think of all the folks that will be bumbling around Bejing for the Olympic games.

To find out how this new translation tool actually works, I had a quick call with Jajah CEO Trevor Healy. We did a three-way call to Jajah’s new translation service, which is accessible through its own separate dial-in, offered on a local basis around the globe. Once you’ve dialed in, just speak a phrase into the phone for translation. Jajah’s translation service will repeat this phrase back to you, in order to make sure it heard you correctly. This will also help offset some of your fear as a non-Mandarin speaking user. Once you’ve confirmed the phrase, you can then have Jajah translate it.

So now what?

Hold the phone up to the person you’re trying to communicate with so they can hear the translated phrase in the language they understand. Should they need to, they can immediately use your phone in order to translate another phrase, or they can use their own phone and have a phrase translated from Mandarin back to English. Now you’ve got a traveling translator while in Mandarin-speaking areas of the world. As with all other Jajah applications, the new translation service will be offered as an integrated application for social networks and business applications, to name a few.

Undoubtedly, such translation options fit well with Jajah’s rather new telephony platform, which has already been adopted by Yahoo for integrated VoIP phone call services. There will also be a number of other languages for which Jajah’s translation service will work with, granting it a wide distribution across its existing and new user base. Given the development we’ve seen for integrating voice as an application across a wide array of third-party services (BT’s acquisition of Ribbit was only a week ago), I think Jajah’s new translation option will fit right in with this larger trend.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Jajah Launches Free Phone Calls GloballyJajah Enables VoIP Calls on iPhoneJajah Introduces Buttons: Widgets for Toll-Free CallingFacebook Launches Community-Driven Project to Add Foreign Language SupportJajah Going Ad-SupportedeBay Deletes Listings with Jajah VoIP ButtonsFacebook Adds 55 More Languages to Translations Application

Yahoo! reached an agreement with Carl Icahn: eight members of Yahoo’s current board of directors will stand for re-election; the board will be expanded to 11 members, Icahn will take one, and the other two will be chosen based on his recommendation.

Yahoo! co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang said this of the agreement:

“This agreement will not only allow Yahoo! to put the distraction of the proxy contest behind us, it will allow the Company to continue pursuing its strategy of being the starting point for Internet users and a must buy for advertiser.”

Icahn’s statement is more revealing: “I am very pleased that this settlement will allow me to work in partnership with Yahoo!’s Board and management team to help the Company achieve its full potential. While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole Company or the sale of its Search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo!’s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders.”

Bascially, Icahn backed down in exchange for three seats on the board; and will not be pushing for the sale of Yahoo or its search business…for a while. Does it mean that the Microhoo soap opera is finally at an end? Far from it: this is just one little (costly) victory for Yahoo. If there is a clear “winner” in this story when the dust settles in the end, I bet it will be a Pyrrhic victory.

Read the official statement by Yahoo here.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:The Microsoft-Yahoo Dream/Nightmare Lives On: Billionaire Icahn Makes a MovePushed By Icahn, Yahoo Jumps Back Into Ad Deal With Google?Yahoo Board Member Leaves; First Sign Of Disintegration?More Love Notes: Yahoo Responds to Icahn’s Master Plan@Yahoo is Twittering: @Microsoft: Sure, We’ll Consider an AlternativeIcahn Wants Yang Fired, Microsoft Chuckles EvillyYahoo Shareholders Claim Company Is Concealing Critical Documents

Source:Mashable!

Jajah, which has been on the fast track to expansion by way of several partnerships, has just teamed up with Pageonce’s Personal Internet Assistant service so users can keep track of their Jajah activity at any time. This comes with additional alerts from Pageonce for account updates like a low balance or other changes that have occurred to their account. As with all other service partnerships included in Pageonce, the Jajah account access and alerts are free.

This is different than most Jajah partnerships you hear about, as most announcements regarding Jajah integration involve the ability to make VoIP calls within a particular social network. But the remote access to your Jajah account activity through Pageonce is an important partnership as well. As I mentioned in previous coverage of Pageonce, through its virtual service you can access your various accounts securely, without having to log in, once your account has been confirmed.

We’ve seen several developments moving towards just this type of a partnership, with advances from Pageonce, LiquidTalk, SkyDeck, Chase and also Jajah, to name a few. So I’m not surprised to see Jajah make your account activity available through the Pageonce Personal Internet Assistant program, and extend it to all their users. Not only are more companies making their content accessible remotely through plug-ins and third-party services, but others like Pageonce are turning this into a highly personalized service that aggregates nearly everything in your life, from your cable service account information to your checking account balance, your Netflix queue to your airline mileage points.

Pageonce is one of the most comprehensive tool of its kind that I’ve used so far, and the company has worked hard to make as many services as possible available directly through its service. I think the next major step for this particular space is continued growth through user and B2B adoption, and we’ll likely see some indirect recommendations as a result, on a very personalized level.

As services like Pageonce become a platform for centralized custom content, we’ll also likely see some indirect marketing from third party services come about, as services find that Pageonce has the potential to become yet another way in which they can reach out to consumers, as well as an integrated service that can be offered as a perk for their existing customers. The beauty of it is that it works across a myriad of services and industries, even those outside of the Web-based service realm.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Pageonce Launches Virtual Personal Assistant–And it WorksCan the Web Be Your Personal Assistant? PageOnce + $1.5M Says Yes.Jajah Launches Free Phone Calls GloballyJajah Enables VoIP Calls on iPhoneJajah Introduces Buttons: Widgets for Toll-Free CallingJajah Going Ad-SupportedeBay Deletes Listings with Jajah VoIP Buttons