Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Windows only

Have you ever been working on a project where you wish you had a copy from a few hours or days ago before you made some changes? Most people never think about being able to setup a system that manages revisions of files (a.k.a. version control) because they think it’s too complicated, but it takes only minutes to do using the free Cobian Backup software.

I’ve been a huge fan of Cobian Backup ever since I wrote about it back in April. It has a number of features that truly makes it one of the most complete backup solutions I’ve found, and today we’re going to demonstrate how it can also serve as a revision management system for you’re most precious files. What it will do is make a copy of a file every time it recognizes that a change has been made. As you can imagine this type of system can be priceless for programmers, writers, designers, and more.

How do you set it up? Here is the step-by-step guide on what you need to do:

1. Download and install the free Cobian Backup 9. You should see a screen like this when you run it the first time:
   
2. Click Task -> New Task. Give the new task a useful name, and choose Differential as the backup type:
   
3. Click on the Files section along the left side, and in the upper-half of the window choose the files and/or directories you want revisions kept for. After you’ve done that move down to the bottom where you’ll choose the location you want the revisions to be placed.
   
4. Now switch over to the Schedule section. Change the type to Timer, and then at the bottom of the window enter in how many minutes you would like between each backup. If you’re working on something where having lots of revisions is very important you can have it check every minute, otherwise every 15 to 30 minutes should be suitable. Alternatively you can set a specific time/day for the backups to occur, but generally a timer works better for keeping track of revisions.
   
5. That’s it! Press the OK button to have it start creating your revisions. Any file(s) that get changed will be copied over into a new folder that is labeled with the date/time that the backup was performed:
   

Now that you have everything setup you can rest easy that you’ll have revisions available for your most important files and folders. I know what you’re probably thinking now. What do you do when you want to see all of the revisions for a particular file? Do you have to navigate through each folder individually? Nope, you just need to perform a search in your backup folder for the particular file. This can easily be done by right-clicking on the backup folder, and choosing the Search option.

One thing that you want to keep in mind when doing all of this is that duplicates are made of a file every time a change has been made to them. So if you’re working with large files (movies, music, etc…) these backups can really start to eat away at your disk space.

–Other Configuration Options to Consider–

If you’ve followed the steps above your backups should be working just fine, but there are a few things that you may discover that you want to configure:

• Changing the Timestamp Format
  Each time a new folder is created to hold your revisions the name is assigned to the current date and time. The format of the time can be changed by going to Tools -> Options -> Advanced and altering the value in the Date/Time Format field.
• Disable the Popup Alert
  Whenever a backup starts a little popup is shown down by the System Tray telling you what’s going on. If your backups are frequently getting executed this can get quite annoying, but they can luckily be disabled. Just go to Tools -> Options -> Functionality, and uncheck the Show backup hints option.
• Archive Each Backup
  If you’re frequently doing backups they can quickly start to take up a lot of room. One thing you can do to help conserve space is archive/compress the files each time they are backed up. When you’re configuring your backup you should see a section along the left side labeled Archive, and clicking on that will let you choose your compression method. I recommend using 7Zip since it will save the most room, but the standard ZIP format might be the easiest for you to work with since Windows includes built-in support for it.

–Overview–

As a programmer and writer I’ve found revision systems like these to be incredibly useful, and that’s largely because everything doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Being able to revert back to a file’s previous state can save a lot of frustration. If you’re working on a report, project, or anything else that’s extremely important I’d recommend setting up a revision system like this so that you don’t regret it later on.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on November 24, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free For All Friday

Blogarithm, an alternative to RSS is another great way to keep track of the online content that you are interested in. When one of the blogs that you read changes, you’ll get an email in the morning that lists the blogs with all of the new content.  They will even include an excerpt of the new content if it is available. If you prefer email over RSS aggregators, this is an excellent option (especially because it’s free!).

Using the service is easy and quick. All you have to do is enter the web address for the site that you’re wanting to follow, and your email address, and you can expect to receive your updated emails from there. If you have several blogs that you keep track of on a daily basis, you’re able to subscribe to them all at once by creating an account.

Another feature added more recently is a categories page.  If you keep track of multiple blogs covering a variety of topics, this will help keep things organized. You can arrange your subscriptions however you’d like to. Additionally, you can choose which subscriptions will be left public, and which ones you’d like to keep private.

To keep up with CyberNet News, we have two different options available.  The first is by subscribing to our RSS feed, and the second is by email which you can sign up for on the right side of the toolbar. 

Happy Friday, and enjoy your weekend!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on November 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

Fun Friday

It’s the day after Thanksgiving here in the United States which means hopefully those of you living here were able enjoy friends, family, some turkey, and of course football yesterday! Many of you are probably still in bed recovering from eating too much food while others are out in the craziness of what we call Black Friday. For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., or didn’t want to put up with lines and pushy people, not to worry, we’ve brought Black Friday to you! Here’s a look at the day after Thanksgiving in images.

Sleeping outside to be the 1st (or one-hundredth) in line

Tents are put away about 2 hours before open, and the line forms!

On your mark, get set….GO!

It’s like a stampede!

When everybody wants the same thing…

Wall-to-wall deals People!

Waiting in yet another line to pay for your purchases…

Haulin’ out the loot…

Oh, and don’t bring weapons… (people do!)

Loading up the goods…

In case the car isn’t big enough for all of your purchases…

Hooray! (How employees feel when their shift is over…)

How you feel when it’s all said and done…

How your wallet looks when the day is over:

What you’ll be eating for the next month…

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

Last week we covered some of the unfamiliar features and terms that were introduced with Windows Vista like the UAC (User Account Control), ReadyBoost, and SuperFetch. That was just the start of the new terms, so this week we’ll be covering three more.

What is Fast Sleep and Resume?

You may have also seen this labeled “Fast Boot and Resume.” It’s Vista’s new way of powering down and starting up so that you’ll be using your computer sooner. In other words, the initial “wait” is shorter.

The reason for this is that when you turn off your computer, it will save your current session to memory and enter into a low power state. Then when you turn your computer on, it’ll only take a few seconds before you see your desktop just as you left it.

What’s great is that there are no settings that you have to change because this is the default “off” state. When you press the bower button, it will automatically go in to “sleep” mode (very low power) and then quickly resume when you press the power button again to turn it back on.

What is Sync center?

The Sync Center is perfect for those of you who need to keep multiple devices synchronized. The Sync center in Windows Vista will be your centralized location where you can monitor the progress of the devices that you have synchronizing.

Here’s what you can do in Sync Center:

• Initiate a manual sync
• Stop an in-progress sync
• View status of current sync activities
• Receive notifications

You can get to the Sync Center by clicking start > control panel > Sync Center.

What is Shadow Copy?

Shadow Copy is for those of you who copy over files accidentally. It’s available in Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista, and is described as a feature that “automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted.”

To use this feature, all you have to do is right click on a file or a folder and click “restore previous versions.”

Keep in mind, this will work with single files, even whole folders! After clicking to restore previous versions, you’ll see a pop-up window that looks like this:

It will display the different previous versions that are available for a file or folder, and then you can select which one you’d like to restore.

Wrapping it up:

While the three features mentioned today, Fast Sleep and Resume, Sync Center, and Shadow Copy aren’t all going to be something that everybody will use, at least one of them should come in handy for you at some point.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

We have a terrific application that we are going to take a look at today called Videoraptor. Prior to writing this article I had never heard of the program, but I have to say that many of you will find it to be as useful as I have. And what’s even better is that we have 500 licenses to giveaway so that you don’t have to fork out $25 for it! Yes, that’s over $12,000 in software that we’re giving out.

So what is Videoraptor? It’s a tool that you can use to scour the Internet looking for music and videos that have been posted. It reminds me a bit of the music search engine called BeeMP3, except that Videoraptor comes back with an even wider array of results. The real gem is that you can specify a different format that you would like your media in, and Videoraptor will convert it for you once the download has completed.

–Using Videoraptor Search–

Once you get the application up and running you’ll be able to search for music or videos on the Internet. It will list them in a friendly format, and in parenthesis next to each result you’ll be able to see exactly what domain the song is coming from:

(Click to Enlarge)

Before starting a download you’ll want to ponder what format you would like your media to be in. Videoraptor can convert any of your downloads into a variety of formats which we’ve listed below. That way you can begin a download, walk away, and come back to find that your media is ready to go.

Now you’re ready to download a song. After you’ve found what you are looking for and have set the conversion format, just double-click on a result to begin the download process. Once the download is completed it will be moved into the folder that you specified in the options.

Videoraptor even comes with an integrated media player that is capable of playing the songs and videos that you download. To listen to a song or watch a video just double-click on the one you want in your completed downloads list.

–Using Videoraptor Surf & Catch–

Videoraptor not only lets you download music and videos by searching, but it will also monitor popular media sites such as YouTube and Last.fm for media that you might be playing in Internet Explorer. It will then give you the option of downloading the song or video, and having it converted on-the-spot.

(Click to Enlarge)

As soon as a video starts to play it will show up in the Videoraptor’s play list under the Surf & Catch tab. If you’re listening to a song on a radio station such as Last.fm the song will automatically begin downloading. I’m not quite sure why the songs don’t show up in the list like the videos do, but it may have something to do with session expiration times that prevent a song from being downloaded at a later time.

Note: I had some issues getting the radio stations to work in Internet Explorer 8 Beta, and so you may want to use Internet Explorer 6 or 7 to ensure that you have as few issues as possible.

–Music Sources & Formats–

Music is searched for on beemp3.com, miaskcom.com, mp3realm.org, projectplaylist.com, seeqpod.com, songza.com, spoolfm.com, and tagoo.ru. Any of these sources can be disabled in the options.

Any music that you download can be instantly converted into the following formats:

• M4A (128kbps, 192kbps) – iPod
• MP3 (128kbps, 128-192kbps VBR, 256kbps)
• Ogg (128kbps, 192kbps, 96-160kbps VBR, 128-192kbps VBR)
• WAV (uncompressed)
• WMA (128kbps, 192kbps, Q75 VBR, Q98 VBR)
• WMApro (128kbps, 192kbps, Q75 VBR, Q98 VBR)

–Movie Sources & Formats–

Videos are searched for on aol.com, clipfish.de, cnettv.com, myvideo.de, yahoo.com, and youtube.com. Any of these sources can be disabled in the options.

Any videos that you download can be instantly converted into the following formats, in addition to the music formats listed above:

• 3GP (176×144 @ 96kbps, 320×240 @ 528kbps, 320×240 @ 608kbps, 320×240 @ Q80 VBR, original @ 96kbps)
• AVI (320×240 @ 608kbps, original @ 128kbps, original @ Q95 VBR)
• MP4 (320×240 @ 384kbps, 320×240 @ 608kbps, 320×240 @ Q95 VBR, 384×288 @ 608kbps, original @ Q95 VBR, original @ 96kbps)
• WMV7 (320×240 @ 608kbps)
• WMV9 (320×240 @ 608kbps, 320×240 @ 704kbps, original @ 96kbps, original @ Q95 VBR)

–The Giveaway–

We currently have 500 serial numbers for Videoraptor sitting on our desktop waiting to be sent out. Normally we would just have you comment on the article if you wanted a license, but since we have so many that would be a lengthy process.

What we’re doing this time is requesting that you send us an email so that we can simply reply with your serial number. Send the email to [REMOVED SINCE GIVEAWAY IS DONE], and put Videoraptor somewhere in the subject line or body of the email. That way we’ll quickly be able to search through any spam for valid entries. First come first serve.

We’ll send out the serial numbers for however long it takes to give them all away, and just so you know what kind of chance you have of getting them we’ll keep a running count below of how many we have given out. This will be updated each time any invites are sent out:

Number of licenses sent out: 500 of 500 (as of 03/26/2008 @ 10:29AM CST)

Videoraptor Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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