Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One of the most valuable pieces of data your browser can hold are your bookmarks. For some people it’s not only important to access your bookmarks no matter where you’re at, but also from whatever browser you are using. That’s why today we are taking a look at some different ways you’ll be able to sync bookmarks between the different browsers.

Something I spent a lot of time doing was hunting around for a solution that would work in several different browsers, instead of just Firefox and Internet Explorer. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot I could find because some browsers, like Opera, don’t make it easy for third-party bookmarking services to be integrated.

Luckily Opera 9.5 (currently in the Beta stage) will include bookmark synchronization with Opera’s own servers. What I would like to see is Opera open up their bookmarking service and create an API that other developers could use. That way their service could become the one-stop shop for remote & cross-browser bookmark synchronization. But until that happens here are some alternative solutions:

–FavoriteSync & PlainOldFavorites–

PlainOldFavorites is a Firefox extension that gives users direct access to the Internet Explorer Favorites. With it you can access, add, and organize your favorites from within Firefox. Once installed this will add a new menu option that will be adjacent to your existing Firefox Bookmarks menu, and the two bookmarking systems are always kept separate from each other.

You can make the system even more powerful if you combine it with the free FavoriteSync utility. This will synchronize your Internet Explorer Favorites with a remote server so that the bookmarks can be accessed from any computer.

–Del.icio.us–

Del.icio.us is one of the most popular online bookmarking services, and they offer a variety of tools that integrate with it. There is an add-on for Internet Explorer, a Firefox extension, and bookmarklets that should work in the other browsers.

I’ve tried out Del.icio.us before, but for some reason it never really struck me as all that great. It’s nice that your bookmarks are accessible from any browser via their website, but I just don’t feel like I have the control over my bookmarks that I would like to have. I guess you could say that I’m more of a folder guy rather than a tagger.

–Diigo–

Diigo is really more than just a bookmarking service. In addition to letting you save and organize bookmarks, you can also clip text and images from websites. Just like Del.icio.us they have an add-on for Internet Explorer, extension for Firefox, and bookmarklets designed for the other major browsers.

Don’t shrug off the bookmarklet as a weaker version of the add-ons. Diigo’s bookmarklet is surprisingly powerful, and you’ll find almost all of the features contained within the add-ons. If you’re using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Firefox Diigo would be a perfect fit for you.

–Zinkmo–

We’ve previously written about Zinkmo and explained about how it works, so we won’t go too much in depth here. It’s an all-in-one solution for people who want to synchronize their bookmarks between Firefox and Internet Explorer…remotely! They’ll store your bookmarks on a remote server, which makes this an ideal solution for people who use one browser at home, and a different one at work.

–Google Bookmarks–

Google Bookmarks is integrated into the Google Toolbar for both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but Firefox users also have the GMarks extension for even more control. Google’s bookmarking system is similar to Del.icio.us in that it uses a labeling/tagging system for organizing the bookmarks. The tools used to display the bookmarks will transform these tags into a folder-like system.

If you’re using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Firefox just drag this bookmarklet into your bookmarks:

Google Bookmark

That bookmarklet will let you bookmark the site currently being viewed in the browser. Unfortunately the only way to view and manage your existing bookmarks is to visit the official Google Bookmarks homepage.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on September 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

Weekend Warrior

When you’re traveling for a vacation and you’ve brought your camera along, you may run into the problem of where to put all of your pictures. Sure you could get another memory card, or even a bigger one, but there are other solutions out there that may be worth investing in or looking into.

– Laptop –

The most obvious solution, and perhaps the cheapest solution is to bring your laptop.  This would be the cheapest option if you already have a computer for other purposes.  Purchasing a laptop just to store photos isn’t necessary.  Of course, even if you have a laptop you may not want to have to worry about carrying it, losing it, or damaging it, etc.  This is where the other alternatives come into play.

– Sony DVDirect MC1 –

Yet another solution is the Sony DVDirect MC1 (pictured).  With this device, you’re able to record digital images with the difference being that you don’t need a computer! Additionally, with the Sony DVDirect MC1, you can connect to a PC using USB 2.0. Prices are in the $200 range which may be worth it!

–Apple iPod –

It seems that everyone is getting in on the iPod craze.  If you have an Apple iPod (video version), you can purchase an iPod camera link connector that will enable you to transfer your pictures directly to your camera.  Using an iPod is a lightweight solution for storing your images.

– SmartDisk FCD20 FotoChute 20GB Portable Digital Storage Device –

This SmartDisk FotoChute is self explanatory with 20GB of room for portable digital storage.  It’s pocket sized which makes it easy and convenient to you, and with lots of storage it provides you with the perfect way to store your photos when you’re on vacation or away from your computer for extended lengths of time.  Its’ retail price is listed as over $400.00 but you can generally find them on sale (here) for $99.00.

 Whether you’re traveling for business or for fun, there are many different types of portable storage devices available to suit your needs. These devices range from your own laptop to an Apple iPod with varying prices as well.  With any of these devices, you’ll never have to worry about running out of room for all your photos again!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on February 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

 First things first: as you’ll notice, our Saturday CyberNotes feature has changed from Weekend Warrior to Weekend Website.  I scrounged up lots of stuff about technology and travel over the last 7 months for the Weekend Warrior feature and figured it was time for a change.  As the name suggests, Weekend Website will highlight a website that fits into the category of being super cool, unusually useful, unique, or all of the above.  If you know of a website that fits into any of those categories that would be a good fit for the Weekend Website selection, email us and we might feature it. Okay, now onto the good stuff…

Woot! Once you make your first purchase, you certainly won’t forget it, and you’ll probably find yourself making repeated visits throughout the week. There’s one word that can sum up Woot …. Surprise! There are so many surprise elements to Woot which is why it’s half the fun that it is.

Here’s how it works:  Each day, Woot will place a single product up for sale. The quantity that they have available is never disclosed during the sale. To give potential buyers an idea of when the item is almost gone, the “I Want one” button which you’d click to purchase the item, starts bouncing around the screen when the supply is low. The sale is done when the item has sold-out, or the time reaches 11:59 PM, whichever comes first. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and you’ll have to wait until the next day for a new product and the fun to begin all over again.Woot’s explanation is much more simplified, saying that they’re “an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap.” The image above shows their Woot item for today, the BOA Portable Remote Security System.

Occasionally, they will have a Woot-Off which means that there will be a succession of products available. When one product sells out, another one will appear. It will continue until they end the Woot-off which usually lasts anywhere from 24-72 hours, maybe even longer. Sometimes items will sell out within minutes, other times it will take hours. Thankfully they have an RSS feed which really helps out on these Woot-Off days! If you leave your reader open, you’ll quickly be notified of the new item instead of returning to the site constantly throughout the day.

Shipping no matter what the item is, no matter how heavy, how small, where it’s shipping to, etc., will always be a flat $5.00. You’re limited to a quantity of 3 of each item, sometimes less depending on what it is.  This keeps greedy geeks from walking away with the entire days stock. I say geeks, only because it’s typically gadget-type, technology items that people like you probably enjoy

 Just reading through their FAQ is entertaining. For example, the response to the question “Will I receive customer support like I’m used to” is:

No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don’t end up liking or you have what marketing people call “buyer’s remorse,” sell it on eBay. It’s likely you’ll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn’t work, find out what you’re doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it’s probably your fault.

There’s a lot of fun and humor to the site, but of course, if something is actually wrong with the product you pruchased, unlike what their FAQ answer is to the question above, they will rectify the situation. They’re not totally ignorant to customer service.

Going back to that ‘surprise’ element, once in a while, Woot will offer the “Bag O’Crap” deal.  It’s a bag full of random stuff like dollar store items, but possibly electronics items as well. You can purchase up to three craps, and if you buy three, you’ll have better chances of getting something good. Their forum for a recent “Random Crap” will give you an idea of what people received. There’s definitely a reason it’s called “Random Crap.” Anybody want an elephant puzzle? How about a Thermos Pub Glass? Anybody?

Besides surprise, and fun, Woot also has a community, quite an active community for that matter.  Yesterday’s Woot was an HP Photosmart M517 5.2 Megapixel Digital Camera which was selling for $89.99 plus $5.00 shipping.  This item alone just for yesterday had 251 comments. Their member forums are full of excited and/or knowledgeable shoppers or admirers who share insight, Woot! stories, and other conversation.

Okay, really I could go on and on.  Woot is a fun site that you could easily get addicted to.  The last thing I’ll mention is their list of Woots in the forum.  There you can see a list of the latest Woots and view/add to the discussion.  The first post for each item displays the stats.  It’s kinda fun to go back and see how many of each item they started with, how long it took to sell out, and what percentage of buyers have previously bought a product from Woot before. The image below shows what the statistics for yesterday’s camera looked like.

Getting started is easy and simple, and before you know it, you’ll be staying up every night until Midnight to see what the next Woot will be. And from there, you’ll be addicted Enjoy your weekend, and go check out Woot!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on September 08, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free For All Friday

Nowadays, many people own a digital camera. This means that  email, social networks, and blogs are becoming popular methods to communicate and share digital photos. With cameras taking high quality pictures that result in huge photos, it’s almost always necessary to resize the pictures you’re wanting to share. There’s several different options available; we’ll cover the free options, both downloadable programs and web-based versions.

– Downloadable Photo Resizing Options–

If you prefer to have a program installed on your computer that will give you the capability options of resizing photos, both Microsoft’s “Image Resizer,” and Xemi Computers’ “Photo Gadget Pro” are good options.

Microsoft’s Image Resizer can be found here. This gives you the option to right click on one or many image files to resize it. It’s pretty simple and basic and will work well for the average person.

Xemi Computer’s has a program called Photo Gadget Pro which isn’t a free download but they do have a slimmed down free version available.  It’s a shell extension that gives you an array of editing options. Some of these options include:

• Rotate, resize, and rename images (screenshots below)
• Add a caption and/or a frame
• Apply special effects and filters
• Format conversions.

Photo Gadget Pro is available at www.xemico.com/photogadget and works with JPG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, PCS, and TGA file formats.

– Web Based Resizing Options —

Shrinkpictures.com is one web based option that requires little to no skill to be able to resize an image.  The website was created by an Admin of an online forum who was frustrated with people asking how to resize images. Their process is completed in five steps (online).

1. Browse your computer and select your image/photo to resize
2. Select the new size for your picture – use a preset or choose a custom size
3. Optionally, add an effect to your image
4. Select output image/picture quality Lower quality means a smaller file
5. Click “Resize” and wait for the processed images to be displayed

The screenshot below gives you an idea of what to expect on the screen when using this online version.

Another online option is a website called resizepic.com which offers a simple, basic method to resize your pictures. With this option, you upload your photo and then select the width and height you want your image to be resized to.

–An Alternative Option–

Back in July, we wrote about a program called Preloadr which allows you to customize your Flickr photos without needing to download a thing! It takes your photos from your Flickr account (you must approve them access first) and gives you the capability to edit them.  This includes cropping, rotating, flipping, etc. If you use Flickr, this is a great solution.

–Overall–

Overall, if you haven’t taken the time to find out how to easily resize your images, this should point you in the right direction.  While I prefer a downloadable program that I’ll always have on my computer,  it may also be nice to have the resizing capabilities no matter where you go. Many of the options do more then just resize the photo. Now there should be no excuse for sending an email with  gigantic image attachments!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on March 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

While I have a tendency to use the Firefox browser most of the time, I do use Opera quite a bit as well. Opera is kind of my casual browser because it is slim, efficient, and yet powerful while Firefox offers the extensibility that I need when plowing my way through hundreds of different sites I visit everyday. I don’t really get around to playing with all the different tweaks that lie under-the-hood of Opera, but I think I have some that you may not yet know about.

I’ve already covered some speed enhancements for Opera in a previous article, so the focus here is is going to be a little bit different. I’m going to dive into the opera:config which is similar to Firefox’s about:config screen. In both browsers that is where all of the hidden gems lie that most people are afraid to tinker with, and as a result you could really miss out on some great tweaks.

In my opinion Opera’s opera:config screen is a little more formal than what Firefox has to offer. To get to the configuration screen you simply have to type opera:config in the address bar and there you’ll see a bunch of categories that can be expanded to reveal corresponding settings:

It’s easy to get the hang of, and if you ever mess something up you can always press the “Default” button next to an option to return that setting back to its original value.

A short description for all of the settings listed on the opera:config screen can be found here, and you’ll notice on that page that all of the settings are hyperlinked. Those links will only work in Opera because they will take you directly to the that option on the configuration page. The few tweaks that I mention below also use hyperlinks to help you find the setting quickly.

—Add Thumbnail Previews to Ctrl+Tab Window Cycle—

This is probably one of the cooler features for switching tabs, and for some reason it isn’t enabled by default in Opera. If you want to switch tabs in Opera you can use the Ctrl+Tab key combination to do so. It will pop open with a tab switcher that is purely text-based. The screenshot to the right was taken after I enabled a setting in opera:config to show thumbnails along with their corresponding titles.

The thing I like about this is that it only shows three thumbnails on the right-side of the list so that it doesn’t get too cluttered. The thumbnail in the middle is the one that you currently have selected, and the one above and below it are the tabs before and after it, respectively.

The thing that I don’t like about it is that there is no border at all around the tab switcher. It only has a white background that can make it a little more difficult for your eyes to visualize the boundaries.

To turn the thumbnail preview on for the tab switcher all you need to do is enter opera:config#UserPrefs|UseThumbnailsinWindowCycle into the address bar, and then check the corresponding box.

—Disable Opera’s BitTorrent Client—

I recently saw this configuration option over at Opera Watch, and many Opera users that I talk to say that it is nice having a BitTorrent client built-into the browser but it doesn’t work nearly as well as a standalone program. For that reason there is an opera:config setting to prevent Opera from handling BitTorrent downloads itself:

To disable the BitTorrent client in Opera:

1. Copy and paste the following into the address bar (the URL bar): opera:config#BitTorrent|Enable
2. Unselect “Enable”
3. Click “Save”

To use another BitTorrent client with Opera:

1. Go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Downloads
2. Unselect “Hide file types opened with Opera”
3. Type “torrent” in the Quick find box
4. Double-click the line that looks like this: application/x-bittorrent torrent
5. Select “Open with default application”
6. Click “OK”

—Opera’s Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts—

• Ctrl+H sends Opera to the System Tray.
• Holding down the right mouse button and using the scroll wheel will bring up the tab switcher that is mentioned above. This makes is really easy to switch between tabs!
• Going back and forward in Opera is really easy. To go back just hold down the right mouse button and then press the left one, or to go forward just hold down the left mouse button and press the right one.
• Pressing the period (.) key will initiate a Find As You Type search feature just like in Firefox.
  
• Shift+Left Click on a tab to close it.
• Ctrl+B will paste a URL an already copied URL onto the clipboard and press enter for you. Thanks for the tip ResearchWizard!
• Ctrl+Z will undo the last closed tab.

—Cascading/Tiling Windows—

This is one thing that Firefox will never be able to do because Opera is built using a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) that lets you cascade, tile, and minimize windows all from within the window. There is an extension for Firefox that tries to replicate this feature, but it doesn’t quite cut it for me.

Actually, this is one of the biggest reasons that I use Opera in my casual browsing. If I come across two items that I want to compare I can put them side-by-side very easily with tiling. To use this feature just right-click on any tab, go to the Arrange menu, and choose the option that you want to do:

Here is what it looks like when I tile a few different windows:

—Overview—

Opera is full of all kinds of tweaking goodness that is just waiting to be exposed. I’m sure some of you have used Opera more than me so if you know of any great tweaks please make sure to mention them in the comments so that we can all benefit from them! I’ll go ahead and leave you now with a few sites that may help you on your journey for finding more tips and tricks:

• Official Opera Tips & Tricks site
• Opera:config Settings Explained
• CyberNet’s Guide for Making Opera Even Faster
• Opera Wiki

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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