Readers offer their best tips for getting Netflix working in Chrome, using scripts on multiple computers, and posting links to Facebook.
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About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments, share it here, or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.
Get Netflix Working in Chrome with a User Agent String
Justin shares a fix for when Netflix doesn't cooperate with your browser:
I use Chrome to watch Netflix using Instant Play. It worked last night, but would not work this morning - it redirected me to a page that said I'm using an unsupported browser when I attempted to play a
movie. I called up Netflix, who told me that there was a new change in Chrome that prohibited it from launching Netflix. You and I both know that's not the case, Netflix simply added browser identification to their page. It is especially curious, since Chrome uses the same rendering engine that Safari does, and Netflix tech support stated that Safari is a supported browser.The fix is to change your user agent string. This is super-easy with Chrome: just make a new desktop shortcut, and add the following to the target:
--user-agent="agent string goes here"So, in my case, the target looks like this:
chrome.exe --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1;en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12"You can obtain your user agent string for another browser by visiting Useragentstring.com.
You can use this shortcut to launch a new Chrome window even if it's currently open, so there's no need to interrupt your bazillion open tabs to fire up your netflix stream. I prefer to use Chrome to view
Netflix, since it uses a lot less memory than Firefox or IE does (after loading Silverlight). Your miles may vary, of course.
This process is also described here, if you need more information on how to set flags in Chrome. Also note that, since my Netflix account is currently paused, I couldn't test this one myself, so let us know how it goes for you in the comments.
Set Your Bashrc Path to Dropbox for Cross-PC Script Running
Pishposh.mcgee shows us how to more easily run scripts from your Dropbox folder on multiple Linux PCs:
I have a small collection of short scripts that I use on my multiple Ubuntu installations. I keep these in a folder in my Dropbox called "scripts" and add the following two lines to the end of the .bashrc file in my home directory (usually
/home/[username]/.bashrc)
PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Dropbox/scripts/export PATH
What this does is make it so you no longer have to type out the full path to those scripts, nor do you have to cd into your Dropbox folder before running them. You can just type the name of the script and go. Pretty handy for folks running scripts on multiple PCs.
Edit Link Titles and Text When Sharing on Facebook
Jupiterthunder shares a lesser-known feature of Facebook link sharing:
When sharing a link on Facebook (using a bookmarklet or share link), when the "Post To Profile" box pops up, you can change the title of the link by clicking on whatever title is already provided.
You can also use this if you share a link directly from you feed. It doesn't work if you click link and type the URL, but if you click "Share" and type in a URL, the box will expand to give you a preview of the post and you can edit the title accordingly.
This will be handy for those times when FB share fails to give the title of a webpage and only gives the URL instead.
Format iPods on Windows Computers for Easier Library Restoration
George lets us know a quick tip for making Mac users' lives easier:
Everyone has gone through one of those situations where you have to transfer your library from your iPod to your computer. Maybe you've gotten a new computer, or maybe your hard drive died and you lost everything—either way, the iPod_Control method is far better than the unnecessarily expensive pieces of software out there that do the same thing.
The only problem is that this method is a bit more difficult (for non-tech savvy users) on a Mac than on Windows, since it takes a Terminal command (or third-party software) to show hidden files in OS X, whereas Windows users can just go to Organize > Folder Options. So, when my friends or family members get new iPods (or erase them for some reason), I usually suggest they restore them on a Windows computer rather than a Mac—even if their main computer is a Mac. Since Windows-formatted iPods still work on Macs (and Macs will always show Windows' hidden folders by default), their lives will be much easier when that inevitable day comes—and I won't have to try to explain to them how to type in a Terminal command. Simple, but it's come in handy more than once for me.