Nov 14

YAPM: Process Manager with a Ribbon UI

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on August 20, 2009 by CyberNet.

yet another process manager.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Most computer power users probably open up the Windows task/process manager at least a few times each day. Maybe it’s to close down an app that isn’t responding, to see what’s eating your system resources, or maybe even a bit more advanced like making sure you’re aware of everything that’s running on your PC.

Yet Another Process Manager (YAPM) will help feed your addiction. It’s a .NET based application that elegantly uses the Office 2007 ribbon UI to put a lot of valuable data at your fingertips. There are two features that really made this stand out to me though. The first is the ability to identify the process that is associated with a particular window using a simple drag-and-drop motion. It can sometimes be tough to figure out which window belongs to which process, but YAPM makes it painless to figure it out.

The second thing I really like is being able to remotely monitor and manage all processes on another machine. In a business environment having a powerful process manager like this that can access dozens of other PC’s is extremely valuable.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some of the other features the developer highlights:

  • Module and thread management
  • Handle management (keys, files…)
  • View of TCP/UDP connections opened by the processes
  • Window management (opacity, position, show, hide…)
  • Emergency Hotkeys feature: allows to associate a custom shortcut to a custom action (for example: Ctrl+Shift+Suppr to close the window which is on foreground)
  • Privilege management: allows to view and modify the privileges of processes
  • Build-in hex editor to view memory of processes
  • “Log mode” to monitor all actions made by a specific process
  • Hidden Processes feature to detect basic rootkits
  • Local and remote shutdown
  • Dependency viewer

The app itself is pretty lightweight, but that’s mostly because it leverages .NET libraries for most of its tasks. If you’re okay with that then I’d say this is definitely worth checking out.

Yet Another Process Manager (Windows only; 32-bit only; Freeware)
[via Download Squad]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Nov 13

Google Kicks Offline Apps Into Gear

Posted in: Google, Today's Chili

This article was written on May 31, 2007 by CyberNet.

GooglegearsGoogle is taking applications offline with a new project called Gears. It’s an open source browser extension that’s available for Internet Explorer or Firefox that enables online applications to come offline. The first example of this is Google Reader. For Opera and Safari users, they’re workin’ on it, but it’s not quite ready yet.

Once you install the Gears plug-in, you can try out Google Reader in an offline mode. The last 2000 items are then downloaded so that they can easily be viewed offline. The entire process of downloading 2000 items was surprisingly fast. I was expecting it to take at least a few minutes, however it was done in less than a minute. The offline mode is perfect for those situations when you don’t have an Internet connection – like an airplane.

Gears is an open source project, so expect other online applications to be made available offline in the near future. Gears uses JavaScript APIs to do the following:

  • Store and serve application resources locally
  • Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
  • Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness.

After I installed the plug-in and I went to Google Reader, this is what I saw:

Gearswarning

Just a word of caution: be sure you know the site that you’re giving access to because I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be giving access to just any old site.

Once I clicked to allow Google to use Google Gears, I was brought to the Google Reader page where it pointed out the new logo at the top of the screen, right next to the “Settings” link which you click to go offline.  Once I clicked the logo, the download process began.

Gearstatus

After the download was complete, it displayed a message telling me that I was now in offline mode and if I needed to, I could disconnect from the Internet. To return to the online mode, all you have to do is click the same Icon you used to go offline.

When I clicked the icon to return back online, Google Reader did a quick synchronization. When I was back online, all the articles I had starred remained starred. Nice. One of the only down-sides is that images are not downloaded, so for articles that reference images, you’ll have to do without.

Users have been asking for the opportunity to take their Google applications offline, and now they’ve got it. I’m excited to see what other applications will come offline to join Google Reader.

Install Google Gears here.

Thanks for the tip Chris!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Nov 12

Best Antivirus (Retrospective Tests)

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

ESET Superman Just yesterday we wrote about how some of the best antivirus apps were having troubles passing the VB100 test. In that scenario the apps were only tested against viruses that had already been released to the wild. That’s the most basic of all tests since the antivirus apps just have to look at the virus signatures to see if it matches something in their database, but that only tells one side of the story.

Another important aspect of finding the best antivirus program is how well it can detect those viruses that have yet to be created. I mean face it, several hours pass before even the best antivirus companies update their virus definitions, and in that period of time you are susceptible to fresh attacks.

That’s where retrospective testing comes into play. As I’ve said before this puts the heuristic engine to the test by using an old version of the antivirus software’s database against some of the most recent viruses. For example, I would use an antivirus application that was last updated October 15th, but I would only scan for viruses that were created after October 15th so that the software knows nothing about the existence of the viruses.

The last time I wrote about this test in June 2007 NOD32 took home the gold medal, and they did it yet again. To determine the most highly ranked apps they look at both the percentage of detection versus how many false positives there were. False positives play an important role because any antivirus can be overprotective and flag things that “might” be suspicious, but in the end it will just be annoying for the user.

So how did the programs fair this time around? I’ve created two different lists, the first of which is sorted purely based upon what percentage of viruses it detected. The next list is sorted based upon the rating given by AV-Comparitives.org, which takes into account the number of false positives.

Note: The antivirus applications were tested against more than 25,000 viruses.

Best Antivirus (Detection Rate)

  • AntiVir PE Premium (81% with many false positives)
  • NOD32 (71% with no false positives)
  • TrustPort (56% with many false positives)
  • BitDefender Pro (44% with many false positives)
  • Kasperksy (40% with few false positives)
  • Dr. Web (39% with many false positives)
  • AntiVirusKit (39% with few false positives)
  • Avast! Professional (37% with few false positives)
  • Norton (35% with very few false positives)
  • Microsoft OneCare (35% with few false positives)
  • McAfee (34% with few false positives)
  • Norman (33% with few false positives)
  • F-Prot (33% with many false positives)
  • AVG Anti-Malware (25% with few false positives)
  • F-Secure (14% with very few false positives)
  • eScan (14% with very few false positives)
  • FortiClient (3% with few false positives)

Best Antivirus (Detection Rate & False Positives)

Note: Listed from best to worse.

Advanced+:

  • NOD32 (71% with no false positives)

    ESET - Download NOD32 Here!
  • Kasperksy (40% with few false positives)

Advanced:

  • AntiVirusKit (39% with few false positives)
  • Avast! Professional (37% with few false positives)
  • Norton (35% with very few false positives)
  • Microsoft OneCare (35% with few false positives)
  • McAfee (34% with few false positives)
  • Norman (33% with few false positives)
  • AVG Anti-Malware (25% with few false positives)

Standard:

  • AntiVir PE Premium (81% with many false positives)
  • TrustPort (56% with many false positives)
  • BitDefender Pro (44% with many false positives)
  • Dr. Web (39% with many false positives)
  • F-Prot (33% with many false positives)
  • F-Secure (14% with very few false positives)
  • eScan (14% with very few false positives)

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Nov 11

ShellExView: Disabling Context Menu (e.g. WinZip) Entries and More

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on May 13, 2010 by CyberNet.

shellexview.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
There are a lot of integration points in Windows that developers can take advantage of, and many of them do. For example, if you have a program like 7-Zip or WinZip installed you may see related entries when you right-click on a file or folder. A lot of times context menu entries like these are done for your convenience, but at some point you may see something that you aren’t sure how it got there… that’s when you’ll turn to the free (and portable) ShellExView app.

With ShellExView you’ll be able to see all of the shell extensions that are currently enabled and disabled on your system. This includes things like the context menu entries described above, Internet Explorer toolbars, and much more. What’s even nicer is that any non-Microsoft extensions will be highlighted (like the 7-Zip ones in the screenshot) so that you can think twice as to whether those entries should actually be there.

Here are the various types of shell extensions that are supported:

  • Shell Folder – Provides special system folders like “Printers”, “Fonts”, “Recycle Bin”, and more…
  • Context Menu – Provides the ability to add new items to the context menu of particular file type.
  • Drag & Drop Handler – Provides the ability to add new items to the context menu that appears when you drag a file with right mouse button.
  • Icon Handler – Provides the ability to dynamically assign icons to file objects.
  • Copy Hook Handler – This type of shell extension is called when a file is moved, copies, renamed or deleted.
  • Drop Handler – Provides the ability to control the “Drop” behavior of files.
  • Data Handler – Provides the ability to copy files/objects to the clipboard.
  • Property Sheet – Property Sheet dialog boxes.
  • Search Handler – Provides the ability to create a system search engine (Like the standard “Search For Files or Folders” module)
  • Column Handler – Provides the ability to add new columns to the details view of Explorer window.
  • Thumbnail – Provides the ability to display images in “Thumbnail” view.
  • Browser Helper Object – Provides the ability to customize and control the Internet Explorer browser.
  • IE Toolbar – Provides the ability to add new toolbars into Internet Explorer (like Yahoo! Toolbar)
  • Explorer Bar – Provides the ability to add Explorer bars to Internet Explorer.
  • URL Search Hook – Browser extension stored under Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\URLSearchHooks.
  • System – All other types of shell extensions that ShellExView utility cannot recognize are categorized as “System” type.

Use this app to get rid of those pesky toolbars and/or context menu entries you don’t want hanging around anymore. Or, at the very least, you can use it just to verify that you don’t have any shell extensions installed that you weren’t already aware of.

ShellExView Homepage (Windows only; Freeware/Portable)

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Nov 08

Simplicity at its Finest: Quintessential Media Player

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Music, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on February 26, 2009 by CyberNet.

qmp media player.jpg
(Click to Enlarge)

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Media players are becoming an increasingly important part of our daily lives. Many of us listen to music while we work, study, or just browse the Internet. The chances are pretty good that you’re using a media player such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp, but there’s one more that’s worth checking out.

Quintessential Media Player (QMP) is a completely free Windows application that brings back simplicity to your music, and version 5.0 was just pushed out the door last week. It comes in two different flavors: one with a media player and one without. Neither of them will cost you a dime, but the “lite” version focuses more on playing music and assembling playlists rather than trying to keep a library organized.

Here are some of the features QMP has to offer:

  • Rip CDs or convert music into your favourite format
    Insert your favourite music cd into your computer and click the record button to start ripping! You can also use the encoder to convert files to other digital formats. Select the files you want to convert and drag them into the encoder window or click the convert button on the playlist.
  • Keep your music files clean with the track editor (Media Library version)
    The track editor allows you to edit single tracks or groups of tracks at the same time. It will also rename your physical files, import filename to use in tag and if your tags are still incomplete you can use the autotag feature which is powered by Gracenote CDDB.
  • Play the track you want with a click of the mouse
    With Quintessential player’s Quick Track feature you have your entire playlist at your fingers tips. Place your mouse over the track name or over the icon in the windows tray and right click to reveal your playlist. This feature is heavily customizable so you can get at the music you want with no delay!
  • Organize the songs you’ll hear with the Playlist Editor
    One of the most powerful features in Quintessential player is the Playlist. Quickly organize what you want to hear by dragging, blocking, pruning or adding tracks to your playlists. Right clicking tracks on the playlist opens up more options to help you to organize your collection. Simply tell Quintessential Player where your playlists are stored and have your entire collection at hand.
  • Save your desktop space when using the Remote
    Get all the power of Quintessential Player but with 1/10th the desktop space. Using the new skinning engine the remote can stretch revealing as much information as you want to see.

If the application sounds a bit too simple there are always a wide range of plug-ins available. That way you’ll be able to do things like get Last.FM support, display the lyrics of the song being played, and much more. There are also dozens of skins available for those of you who want to customize the appearance a bit.

I myself am more of a fan of the lite version of QMP. I use it to fire up a quick playlist of songs that I want to listen to when I don’t feel like dealing with a “heavy” application like iTunes. It’s also handy to test out songs or media before you go adding them into your well-organized library. It does support all popular audio formats including MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and CD’s.

QMP 4.0 was released back in August 2003, and since then there have been a significant number of updates. Some people were beginning to think that the project had died off, but a long awaited version 5 seems to have reunited a lot of users with the media player they once loved. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

Get Quintessential Player 5.0 for Windows
Thanks nimicitor for the tip!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Nov 07

Get the Windows 7 Taskbar for XP

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Newly Released, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7

This article was written on September 23, 2009 by CyberNet.

viglance.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
One of my favorite features in Windows 7 has to be the redesigned Taskbar. The entire user experience is so smooth, and I think they really went down the right path with it. At work I’m stuck on XP, and I went looking for a way that I could get a lot of the same functionality as what Windows 7 offers.

That’s when I came across the free ViGlance. It’s a rather lightweight app (uses about 10MB of memory when running) that simulates the Windows 7 Taskbar. What I like is that it doesn’t replace the entire Taskbar in XP. Instead it replaces just the portion where the Taskbar buttons normally reside, and leaves the System Tray, Quick Launch, and other native sections untouched.

Here are some of the features:

  • Pin your favorite applications so that they serve as a shortcut when they aren’t running.
  • Hovering or clicking on an icon with multiple instances running will show thumbnails of each window, and you can then select the one you want. If just one instance of the app is running when you click on the icon it will instead minimize/restore the window depending on the window’s current state.
  • Drag and drop the icons in the order you want them to appear.

I expected this app to be nice, but I figured after using it for a week that I would have kicked it to the curb because of annoyances I would find. Surprisingly the features that are implemented are done pretty well. For example, I was wondering what would happen when someone sent me an instant message… how would ViGlance alert me? In a case like that the icon lights up orange as you can see in the screenshot above.

If you do decide to use this there’s just one thing that I want to give you a heads up about. When I first started using it none of the icons would show up, and I was rather perplexed. After some searching around I was finally able to fix the problem by switching my computer from 16-bit color quality to 32-bit in my display properties. I’m not sure why this prevents the icons from displaying, but it does. Aside from that I’d say it’s becoming a solid app, and a great solution for anyone who’s stuck using XP.

ViGlance Homepage (Windows XP only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Nov 06

Mozilla Makes Web Apps Easy

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on March 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

Mozilla started creating an application last year called WebRunner that would allow you to run certain websites in a standalone version of Firefox. Eventually WebRunner was renamed to Prism, and thus was born a great tool. Prism 0.9 is the latest release, and it is really starting to evolve into a handy little application.

To make things a bit easier Mozilla has created a Firefox 3 extension so that you can instantly make a Prism application for any website. Once installed head on over to the Tools menu, and click the “Convert Website to Application” option. Doing so will bring up this dialog:

prism firefox extension

You can pick where you want shortcuts to show up, and even customize the icon that is shown for the application.

What I really like about the new version is that each web app is given its own profile. That means you can create two different web apps for the same site, such as Gmail, but use each to manage a different account without needing to logout first. Because of this Prism has just become a lot more useful to me!

Prism Homepage
Prism Firefox 3 Extension
Thanks to “Trip” and “Change” for the tips!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Nov 05

Samsung Galaxy Tab can be made to run all apps in full screen, here’s how (video)

Posted in: Android, android market, AndroidMarket, apps, GalaxyTab, samsung, samsung galaxy tab, SamsungGalaxyTab, Software, tablet, Today's Chili, video

You might have noticed in our Galaxy Tab review that a number of pretty significant Android apps failed to scale to fully utilize its real estate, leaving an unpleasant black border surrounding their content. Well, you can now take that issue off your list of cons for this otherwise delectable tablet as our buddy JKK has figured out a way to overcome the scaling problemo. Using Spare Parts, a free app available in the Android Market, and a couple of reboots, he was able to convince the Engadget app to run in full screen on the Tab. He’s right in guessing that we’d be happy about that, though we imagine owners of Samsung’s slate will be the ones with the biggest grins on their faces right now. See the how-to video after the break.

[Thanks, Mani]

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab can be made to run all apps in full screen, here’s how (video)

Samsung Galaxy Tab can be made to run all apps in full screen, here’s how (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink HDBlog.it  |  sourcejkkmobile  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , , , , , ,
Nov 04

LG giving away ten free Windows Phone 7 apps every two months

Posted in: apps, free, LG, Microsoft, Today's Chili, Windows Mobile, windows phone 7, windows phone 7 series, WindowsMobile, WindowsPhone7, WindowsPhone7Series, Wp7
Windows Phone 7 launched with a dizzying variety of handsets. On closer inspection though, all nine WP7 devices hitting retail space in 2010 feature the same processor and display resolution. So outside of a few notable hardware variations, software is going to be a big differentiator for consumers. That’s why LG has teamed up with Microsoft to offer a revolving portfolio of free, so-called “quality” apps to owners of LG Windows Phone 7 handsets. Ten free apps valued at more than $30 will be given away every 60 days via the LG Application Store — that’s 60 apps per year. These are in addition to the free apps already developed exclusively for LG handset owners like the PlayTo media streaming app we fawned over during our Optimus 7 review. Keep it up LG and your mobile handset division might finally pull itself out of the ditch. See the first ten apps listed after the break.

Continue reading LG giving away ten free Windows Phone 7 apps every two months

LG giving away ten free Windows Phone 7 apps every two months originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceMicrosoft  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: ,
Nov 02

Update Your Location with Yahoo’s Fire Eagle Platform

Posted in: Today's Chili, Web Sites, Yahoo

This article was written on August 13, 2008 by CyberNet.

fireeagle.pngYahoo has just launched Fire Eagle out of beta, a platform that makes it easy for people to share their location. It’s not a social network, rather they make it possible for existing services including social networks, to incorporate your location. They also have a mobile version available so that when you are on the go, you can easily update your location, or hide yourself which essentially means that Fire Eagle will not share you location with any service.

Examples of how Fire Eagle is integrated into services you may be familiar with include:

  1. Pownce – have your messages geotagged with your Fire Eagle location
  2. Rummble – location based social discovery tool to help you find people and places nearby
  3. Movable Type – display your location on your blog, automatically updated whenever you rebuild

Those are just three examples of how Fire Eagle is being used. Yahoo has a whole gallery of applications that make use of Fire Eagle. For those who don’t want anybody to know an actual location, you can make it up, although that then defeats the purpose of the platform.

The official Yahoo Blog, Yodel Anecdotal wrote about Fire Eagle and talked about how easy it is for developers to create location-enhanced applications. They described is being all about “making everything on the Internet more useful, fun or interesting by adding the element of location.”

For those of you who want to start using Fire Eagle, checkout the list of services and web apps that are already taking advantage of the platform to see if any of them interest you and then use your Yahoo ID, if you have one (or just sign-up) to get started. When you want to update your location you can manually do it, or use one of the following apps:

  • Dopplr – will tell Fire Eagle the city you’re in
  • Brightkite
  • Fire Widgets – update your location on your Mac OS X dashboard
  • Zone Tag, My Loki or Navizon – will broadcast your location automatically
  • Searchquest GPS for iPhone (get it from the App store)

The most natural thing for Yahoo to do would be to integrate the Fire Eagle service with Yahoo Maps so that you could track and view locations of your friends and family.

Checkout Fire Eagle

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: