Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

Usually our Weekend Website article features a site that’s worth checking out whether it be an awesome online service or just a site that offers something useful.  To change things up, we thought today we’d “feature” five different web sites that you should avoid! Now, we didn’t come up with this list ourselves — Time Magazine actually came up with this list and published it as their list of the five worst web sites. Any guesses as to which ones made the list?

1. eHarmony.com
   About eHarmony: If you haven’t heard of eHarmony before, I don’t know where you’ve been living! They have commercials on TV all the time where they show all of the happy couples that have found true love.  In a nutshell, they’re an online dating service. While they may have a handful of success stories under their belt, and they claim 90 eHarmony members get married every single day, there’s got to be something about them that would land them on Time magazines list, right?
   

   According to Time, their main issue with eHarmony is their “power to cause utter despair.” They talk about the fact that every member of eHarmony ends up answering 436 compatibility survey questions which means people tend to have more “invested” into the site than other dating sites out there.  Combine that with the fact that users pay anywhere from $21-$60 a month to be a member, and they’ll feel like they lost out on quite a bit (money and time) if they don’t find a match.

2. Evite.com
   About Evite: Evite considers themselves to be “the top online destination for invitations.” They offer a lot of great planning tools like checklists for every event, a budget estimator that will help you calculate how much the event will cost, and more. Additionally, they offer themed planning pages and even have recipes that you can sift through. They offer so much, so what’s the issue?
   

   Time says that their problem is that it’s in need of an overhaul! It’s such a useful site but they’ve apparently put more focus into all of the features that they can offer instead of concentrating how they can present those features in an “easy-on-they-eyes” type of way. They also say that it would be nice if you could upload photos before the party (instead of just after) and the option to include music and video would be nice as well.

3. Meez.com
   About Meez: Meez, as the name suggests, is about expressing yourself online and creating an avatar.  Having an avatar to represent yourself on the Internet has become a fad over the last few years.  Meez helps you create the perfect avatar and you can do all of the typical avatar creating things like add a skin tone and body type, add a hairstyle, put on different outfits and add accessories. It’s simple, and Meez helps you get the job done.  So what’s the problem?
   
   According to Time, it’s not so much just Meez that is bad, it’s the “digital doodads created with the help of Meez and other sites” like it that are annoying to them.
   
4. MySpace.com
   About MySpace: Do I really need to tell you about MySpace? I think not. We all know that it’s one of the most, if not the most popular social network.
   

   Time’s issue with the site is that not only do most of the pages have terrible design, it’s also become invested with spammers and marketers who try to make friends with you.  They say that “Of course, there have always been loads of MySpace profiles of fictional characters, created to help market a movie or promote some other brand.  But it’s the bait-and-switch tactics from these leeches that have taken things to a whole new- and sad- level.”

5. SecondLife.com
   About SecondLife: SecondLife is an Internet-based virtual world that launched back in 2003.  It’s become a rather popular place for people to go on the Internet, and more than 20 million accounts have been registered.
   
   Time Magazine actually has several issues with the site which include:
   –  It’s notoriously slow to load
   –  It’s difficult to navigate
   –  Creating and personalizing the must-have avatar for the game is tedious
   –  Movements feel clunky and there can be a terrible lag
   –  The learning curve is simply too high

There you have it, five sites that you could do without visiting. What sites. if any, would you add to the list?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Tutorial Thursday

Microsoft has made some good efforts to make Vista a lot more secure than previous versions of Windows by locking down files and folders on your system. They must have figured if it’s verging on painful for you to move or delete the files then it would probably be difficult for viruses to do the same. What if you wanted to modify or delete a system file for one reason or another?

This can be done by taking ownership of the file or folder. Taking ownership will not only let you manage the file or folder, but it can also be used as a way to avoid the User Account Control (UAC) prompt. For example, if you take ownership of the “Mozilla Firefox” folder in the “Program Files” you’ll never see the UAC prompt when dealing with that particular folder.

Important: It should be noted that whatever files you take ownership of could become more vulnerable to attacks.

–Manual Steps–

There are two ways to do this manually, and neither are much fun. The next section of this article offers a one-click solution, but I’m sure many of you are curious as to what taking ownership of a file or folder actually entails.

• GUI (Graphical User Interface) – As expected being able to take ownership of a file can be done through the file properties window. We’ve already put together instructions on how to do this before, but it can be a rather daunting 5-step process if you have to do it repeatedly.
• Command line – The How-To Geek has a great set of instructions as to how you can use the command line to take ownership of a file. It’s pretty much a two-line job, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to remember.

–XdN Tweaker (Homepage)–

So how can we make taking ownership a little easier? There are all kinds of registry hacks floating around out there, but I’m going to point you to one of my favorite tweaking utilities for Vista. It’s called XdN Tweaker, and not only is it free but there is also a version that requires absolutely no installation.

After you get the program up and running the first thing you’ll want to do is jump to the Files & Folders section in the sidebar. In the lower-half of the screen you should see the Take Ownership option, and all you have to do is click the Add Option button:

(Click to Enlarge)

There’s no need to restart your computer once the option has been enabled. You can see the new menu item that was added whenever you right-click on a file or folder:

Clicking on the Take Ownership option will essentially duplicate the tedious manual steps that we mentioned above, but it is a lot faster than going through it all yourself. If for some reason you decide that you don’t want the Take Ownership option to show up anymore it can be removed by simply running XdN Tweaker again and choosing the Remove Option button.

Now if only Microsoft would fine tune UAC so that it is a little easier to use, but that won’t be happening anytime soon. I guess it’s a tradeoff you have to make for the added security.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on December 05, 2006 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

All over the Internet you see things that say MD5, SHA-1, or even CRC. All of that jibber-jabber is in reference to hash values which verify the integrity of a download. Basically, if I wanted to send you a file I would calculate one of those values, send you the file, and then you would calculate the value for the same type of hash that I used. If it matches the value that I calculated then the odds are pretty good that there wasn’t a problem with the file transfer.

How do you go about calculating these values? I have no idea why Windows doesn’t have some sort of right-click menu to do this because they could just hide it like they do with the “Command Prompt Here” for Vista. Luckily there is plenty of software that will do the grunt work for us and the few that I tested even work in Vista (despite them being several years old). Here is a rundown of the solutions I found:

digestIT (Freeware Download)

This is my favorite program for calculating and comparing hash values. It works with MD5 and SHA-1 hashes by providing a simple-to-use right-click menu for any file(s) in Windows. The reason this is my favorite is because it will not only calculate the value but you can also input a hash value and see if it matches the file’s value. That way you don’t have to sit there comparing two long strings of letters and numbers. Here is a screenshot of what digestIT looks like for the whole comparison process:

The verification feature is pretty important to me because that is primarily what I need to do. This just makes the whole process a little easier and means I have to think less…which is always a good thing.

HashOnClick (Freeware Download)

This one is pretty similar to the one above except that it doesn’t have the verification option. It will only generate the hash value for you and then you’ll have to manually compare it. HashOnClick works with MD5 and SHA-1 but also does CRC hash values. Here is a screenshot of the program being used:

MD5 Column Display (Freeware Download)

This one only does MD5 hash calculations but it is unique in the way it presents itself. You don’t ever have to make an extra click to see that MD5 value because you can set it up to display a column in Windows Explorer for it. Here is what it looks like:

MD5Sum Utility (Online Calculator)

That is a site that can calculate nearly all of the different has values: haval, MD2, MD4, MD5, ripemd128, ripemd160, SHA, SHA-160, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, tiger, and whirlpool. So why wouldn’t you use this? The first reason is that you have to upload the file to their site in order for it to calculate the hash value. It is required (for logical reasons) that the PC doing the calculation has the file on the computer…which brings up another point. If you are having to upload the file to them there is no guarantee that there wasn’t an error in that process. Therefore the file that you have on your PC might be completely intact but when you upload it there is an error which results in a miscalculated hash value. Online hash generators are convenient but not something you should completely trust.

Overview

There are all kinds of ways to calculate the hash values but hopefully you’ll find one of those alternatives to work well. There is also a Firefox extension, called MDHashTool, that hasn’t been updated in years that can do the verification of the hash values all from within the browser…but you won’t be able to install the extension in a version of Firefox greater than 1.0.6 without overriding the extension compatibility check. For some reason I thought that Opera had this feature built-into their transfer manager but I looked all over and couldn’t find it. If you have a better/easier alternative for doing this please let me know!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

Fun Friday

Without a doubt, The Big Bang Theory is my new favorite sitcom this season. It’s one of those shows where you’ll catch yourself literally laughing out loud. You could say the 30 minute show definitely has quite the entertainment value. The show is centered around two geeks in their 20′s who are both physicists and both hold PhD’s. Somehow the writers are able to incorporate obvious humor, subtle jokes, science, geeks, and girls all into one show that can actually make people laugh. If this show doesn’t survive it’s first season, I know I’ll be disappointed, and I’m sure some of you will be too. Today I thought we’d look at some of the best quotes and video clips from the show.  Before we get into some of the quotes, here’s a quick overview of the main characters from Wikipedia:

Leonard – he rooms with Sheldon in a rundown apartment building. He keeps a whiteboard in their living room on which he works on theoretical physics. While Sheldon’s genius seems to be focused primarily in math and science, Leonard is insinuated to be proficient in literature and history as well as the sciences. He’s interested  in Penny, a girl who lives across the hallway and is described by another character as “cheesecake-scented goddess” because she works at the Cheesecake Factory.

Sheldon – is best friends with Leonard and is also his roommate and colleague. He too is a physicist and like Leonard, keeps a whiteboard in the living room for all of his scientific theories. He tries to stop Leonard from chasing after Penny, and tends to have some obsessive compulsive behaviors.

Penny – is the girl that Leonard is falling for! She claims to be a vegetarian but will eat fish and “the occasional steak. I love steak!” That should give you an idea of Penny’s personality which sometimes makes you question her intellect.

Quotes

Leonard: We need to widen our circle.
Sheldon: I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on myspace.
Leonard: Yes, and you’ve never met one of them.
Sheldon: That’s the beauty of it.

–

Penny: I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.
Sheldon: Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.
Penny: (puzzled) Participate in the what?

–

Sheldon: Okay, look, I think you have as much of a chance of having a sexual relationship with Penny as the Hubble telescope does of discovering that at the center of every black hole is a little man with a flashlight searching for a circuit breaker. Nevertheless, I do feel obligated to point out to you that she did not reject you. You did not ask her out.

–

Sheldon: I’ve spent the past three-and-a-half years staring at greaseboards full of equations; before that, I spent four years working on my thesis; before that, I was in college; and before that, I was in the fifth grade.

–

At a restaurant:

Sheldon: We don’t eat here, I don’t know what’s good…
Penny: Well, it’s all good.
Sheldon: Statistically unlikely.
Leonard: Just get a hamburger, you like hamburgers.

–

Sheldon: Leonard! Leonard!
Leonard: What, what’s the matter?
Sheldon: My equations! Someone’s tampered with my equations!
Leonard: Are you sure?
Sheldon: Of course I’m sure. Look at the beta function of quantum chromodynamics–the sign’s been changed!
Leonard: Yeah…but doesn’t that fix the problem you’ve been having?
Sheldon: Are you insane? Are you out of your mind? Are you–hey, look, that fixes the problem I’ve been having!

–

Talking about Penny staying the night…

Leonard: Are you suggesting that if we let Penny stay, we might succumb to cannibalism?
Sheldon: No one ever thinks it’ll happen until it does.
Leonard: Penny, if you promise not to chew the flesh off our bones while we sleep, you can stay.
Penny: What?

–

Leonard: What are you doing?
Sheldon: Every Saturday since we’ve lived in this apartment, I have awakened at 6:15, poured myself a bowl of cereal, added a quarter-cup of 2% milk, sat on this end of this couch, turned on BBC America, and watched Doctor Who.
Leonard: Penny’s still sleeping.
Sheldon: Every Saturday since we’ve lived in this apartment…
Leonard: You have a TV in your room, why don’t you just have breakfast in bed?
Sheldon: Because I am neither an invalid nor a woman celebrating Mother’s Day.

Other “interesting” facts:

• Leonard and Sheldon havea combined IQ of 360, making the average IQ 180.
• Leonard and Sheldon own Dell XPS computers
• Leonard and all his friends play Halo 3 every Wednesday
• Leonard as an iPhone
• Sheldon has 212 friends on MySpace
• Sheldon is allergic to bees and cats, and also has asthma
• Sheldon cannot detect sarcasm
• Sheldon showers twice a day and washes his hands as often as he can
• Sheldon has to sit on the left side of the couch

Source

Videos

Talk Nerdy to me…Beautiful Minds

Science of Superman…

Heavy Lifting…

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 15, 2008 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

Our Tuesday CyberNotes articles have always been a favorite of mine because they focus on applications and tips that can help make you more productive. For the most part everything that’s featured in these articles is freeware, and that means almost all of our readers are able to take advantage of our tips. Plus it goes to show that making a good free application will earn itself the attention it deserves.

Here are our favorite Tuesday CyberNotes articles from over the years:

Keyboard Shortcuts for your Programs
We assembled a rather long list of where you can find keyboard shortcuts for your favorite applications. Included are web browsers, operating systems, office programs, and much more.

QTTabBar Adds Tabs to Explorer in Vista and XP
Some file managers have found it to be in the best interest of the users to offer a tabbed navigation system, but not Windows Explorer. QTTabBar takes care of that by incorporating an excellent tab system right in Windows Explorer. Now you don’t need to have 10 different windows open for navigating through your files.

Free Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Firewall Downloads
It took a little while but we assembled a rather long list of free antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall applications. We even made sure to point out which operating system(s) each one could run on (at the time the article was written). Then for each category we left it up to our trusty readers to let us know which ones were their favorites by voting in our poll.

Bigger Thumbnails for Vista’s Alt-Tab
Windows Vista introduced a new way to switch between running applications called Flip-3D. It’s cool and all, but I still find myself using the classic Alt-Tab combo for getting the job done. With a little bit of work you can enlarge the thumbnail previews shown in Alt-Tab so that they make better use of the screen space available.

Photoscape Makes Image Editing Effortless
This is an image editor that is brimming with features to dazzle up those photos you have lying around on your computer. You can create collages, animated GIF’s, bulk rename files, and much more.

Revo Uninstaller Cleanly Removes your Apps
When I first stumbled across this application I was thoroughly impressed with how well it worked. It was able to cleanly remove several of my applications without leaving much of a trace, and for that reason it will always have a home on my computer.

Top 15 Ultra Tiny Apps
Most of today’s applications are becoming exceedingly large, and this article celebrates those programs who have found a way to offer something useful without compromising their size.

Best Application Launchers for Windows
Sometimes it’s hard to find an application on your computer because you have so many different ones installed, but these application launchers aim to ease the process. The articles covers various types of application launchers ranging from docks to widgets/gadgets.

Free CD, DVD, & Blu-ray Burning Software
I used to be a big fan of Nero because it was an advanced CD/DVD burning application, but it has evolved into a bloated monster over the years. The reason they’ve had to include to many new things in Nero is because free applications like these were creeping up on their territory, and they had to do something to distinguish themselves. If all you’re looking to do is burn CD’s or DVD’s then these free programs are just what the doctor ordered.

Powerful Free Backup Software
One thing that people don’t do enough of is backing up important data. External hard drives are becoming fairly inexpensive these days which means backing up your data is pretty affordable. Cobian not only makes it easy to do this, but it also has many advanced features that would even appeal to power users.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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