Hasta La Gadget!

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

Web Browser Wednesday

Now that Windows Vista has been released it is time for software developers to start making their applications look a little cleaner with the Aero Glass interface. Right now most applications look alright, but many of them don’t take advantages of Vista’s new graphical capabilities…specifically browsers. Well, maybe not all browsers because Internet Explorer 7 sure looks sweet with its excess transparency (even the search bar has a little transparency):

Unfortunately the other browsers aren’t quite to the point where they can take advantage of those features because the operating system is still so new, but I’m sure it will come in due time. Seeing that I’m a Firefox/Opera user myself I began searching Google for some alternative skins for both of the browsers and managed to scrounge up some that will definitely look better for Vista users.

If you’ve seen Opera in Vista it really doesn’t look that bad so I don’t mind sticking with the default theme, but Firefox’s toolbars have a purplish glow that I just can’t cope with:

When comparing the appearance of that Firefox to Internet Explorer 7 in Vista, I would undoubtedly say that IE 7 wins. When I was searching Google for "Firefox Vista" I came across this skin made by a DeviantArt user. It still doesn’t offer the slick transparency that IE 7 has but I definitely like the look:

Using that skin makes Firefox blend in a lot more with the rest of the operating system. I’m hoping that at some point a skin will be made to utilize the "pixel shading" in Vista, which is what ads a blurry transparent effect so that text is still easy to read.

Now onto Opera! I think Opera’s default skin feels just right in Windows Vista without needing any change, but there is also a skin that makes the browser look a little more like what IE 7 offers. Of course, you’ll only be able to switch skins if you can pull yourself away from the PlayBoy skin, which is one of Opera’s most popular (safe for work screenshot, and borderline safe for work screenshot). Here’s what the LikeIE Opera skin looks like:

So those are the skins that I managed to find on my journey to making my browsers fit in a little better with Windows Vista. I’ve been contemplating how long it will be before developers actually jump on the Vista bandwagon and really go all out to make the applications look nice on the operating system, but I’m guessing it won’t be for more than a year. A lot of people are still using XP and I think that developers will hold off on spending more money on visual appearance until Vista starts to pick up more of the market share.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

About two weeks ago Mozilla made an attempt at a Guinness World Record shooting for the most number of downloads for an application in a 24-hour period. They managed to do it with Firefox 3, and the official number was 8,002,530 downloads! That’s about three million more than what Mozilla was hoping for, and six million more than Firefox 2 was downloaded in the first 24-hours. I think it goes without saying that they were successful.

The Spread Firefox site currently says that there have been more than 28 million downloads of the open source browser, and there are 160 million active users:

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. On June 18, 2008 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

Ever since Firefox was launched in 2004 we’ve relied on our community to help us spread the word, and thanks to projects including crop circles, newspaper ads, giant stickers, videos, blogs and more we now have 160 million+ users in more than 230 countries.

I’ve had at least a dozen people ask me how many downloads Mozilla needed to set the record, and the short answer is that there was no record like this that had ever existed. So they would have probably made it regardless of whether it was 1 million or 8 million. What matters now is whether they will make it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Either way Mozilla got what they wanted out of the record attempt, and that was to spread the word about the browser. Here we sit 28 million downloads later, and I don’t think there is much doubt that they succeeded in getting the word out about the new release.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apps, books or music? Looks like we just can’t get enough apps these days. Image: Asymco

Our appetite for downloading apps is tremendous, and just seems to keep on growing, and yet our need to download other forms of digital entertainment isn’t nearly as staggering.

Market intelligence blog Asymco found that the rate we’re downloading iOS apps at these days absolutely dwarfs iTunes music downloads, and crushes iBooks downloads. Only in recent months though have total app downloads exceeded mp3 downloads.

We’re downloading approximately 34 million iOS apps each day, weighing in somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 billion app downloads per month. Mp3 downloads, however, are relatively modest in comparison: We’re downloading 8.3 million songs every day. Up until around 2010, the rate of iTunes song downloads increased steadily, but has leveled off over the past year. In comparison, iOS users’ year-over-year appetite for apps is practically exponential.

Unlike music and literature, apps are relatively versatile. They’re a source of entertainment, they’re a way to discover new information, they’re a way to keep your life organized. While important, music and books are primarily consumption-based forms of entertainment and enrichment — wonderful cultural objects, though not immediately practical.

There’s another factor potentially affecting the number of songs we’re downloading from iTunes: The rise of streaming music services. There are a host of competing alternatives including Google Music Beta, Turntable.fm, Rdio and Spotify. Many of these are also available in app form, negating the need to download a bunch of songs onto your mobile device.

Before smartphones came into wide use, we were all obsessed with loading up our iPods and mp3 players with music. Now, smartphones are replacing the need for a dedicated mp3 player.

Similarly, we just don’t accumulate books the way we consume apps or music. They’re generally a more expensive purchase (in 2010, the average iBooks purchase was $12.31). Compare that to the App Store, where around 80 percent of the content is free, while the average paid apps price is around $1.44. iTunes song downloads generally hover around a buck.

With iOS and Android neck and neck in the mobile race, it’ll be interesting to see how these patterns play out over the next few years. Will we continue to download apps at increasingly astounding rates, or will we eventually hit critical mass and slow down a bit? Guess we’ll have to see.

via GigaOM

This article was written on May 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft is throwing their weight around once again, and this time they are going against free and open-source software (FOSS). The 235 patent infringements in question are largely regarding the Linux operating system. They don’t give details as to what the patents cover, but they did break it down a little:

The Linux kernel – the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware – violates 42 Microsoft patents. The Linux graphical user interfaces – essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up – run afoul of another 65, he claims. The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft Office, infringes 45 more. E-mail programs infringe 15, while other assorted FOSS programs allegedly transgress 68.

It’s almost as though Microsoft has been trying to build-up to this point because the graph seen above points out that in the past few years they have been going patent crazy. As you can see though, they don’t actually receive a lot of the patents that they apply for. I expect that the ones they do receive they are going to start fighting to protect.

Back in 2003 Microsoft executives decided that it was time to determine what they need to do to protect their patents. Here are the three choices that they had come up with.

1. They would do nothing, which basically means the patents would be donated to the community. This wouldn’t make shareholders very happy.
2. Sue everyone who is infringing on their patents.
3. Let others license the patents in return for royalties or access to their patents. This is the route Microsoft decided to take.

So now Microsoft wants royalties from all of the FOSS users, but in the end I think the FOSS community is going to be taking a different route. Obviously free and open source software is extremely popular for multiple reasons, but the biggest is that you don’t have to pay a thing. Don’t worry, I don’t think any of that will be changing, and one Slashdot commenter did a great job of summing it up:

Note: TCO = Total Cost of Ownership; OSS = Open Source Software; MAFIAA = Music and Film Industry Association of America; OSDL = Open Source Development Labs

This week press titles: “New Microsoft sponsored studies proves TCO to be higher for OSS because of patent fees“, “Microsoft to go after individual users MAFIAA style“

Next week press titles: “238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories“, “OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release“

Now not every company is in trouble by Microsoft. For example, Novell drew up a deal with Microsoft last year where they agreed to give Microsoft a percentage of its Linux revenue up to the year 2011 (or a minimum of $40 million) in return for immunity from their lawyers. Other companies, including Dell and Samsung, have also drawn up deals with Microsoft which prevent them from getting sued.

I’m going to venture a guess that this is not going to settle well with the FOSS community. It will be interesting to see the reaction as more information is provided, and we find out what the actual infringements are.

Source: CNN Money [via Slashdot]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on February 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

Feed readers aren’t for everyone, and if you only have a few different sites that you follow you’ll more than likely find most readers to be a little extravagant. If you’re one of those people that are just looking for a quick way to keep up on the news then I think Taskable is just the right program for you. It is a tiny freeware application that sits in your System Tray and when you click on it will bring up a menu with all of your feeds.

Actually, this reminds me exactly of the Live Bookmarks that Firefox has. All you have to do is supply the URL to the feed and give it a name to display in the menu. You can then go through all of your feeds to look for news that might interest you…all without having to open an application. One thing that you can’t expect from this program is any kind of content from the articles that are shown. However, when you click on one of the items it will take you to the articles page in your browser.

There are a few things that you can do to help get the most out of this application. First off, when providing the URL for the feed you can also enter in the location of an OPML file. That is the filetype that most RSS readers will be able to export your feed list as so that it can be brought into Taskable without needing to enter a ton of URL’s by hand. Almost all online feed readers, like Google Reader, support exporting your feed list as an OPML file so it should be no trouble getting your list of feeds into the application.

The next thing I wanted to mention was using the new Yahoo! Pipes to bring multiple feeds into one so that you can mashup all of your favorite sites. I tried the service for the first time today and it took some getting used to, but I figured it out in the end. That large feed that you see in the screenshot is a compilation of Digg and CyberNet that I made with the Yahoo! Pipes. It doesn’t do any special filtering because I was just trying to learn the basics, and Yahoo! Pipes can definitely be intimidating when you first start using it. There isn’t any documentation available at this time to help you understand how to setup your own pipes other than this simple overview, but the sample pipes they have will surely help you figure things out.

The other reason I wanted to add Digg is to demonstrate what happens when there are a massive number of feed items available. Taskable does not have any sort of option to adjust how many items are displayed so it is only limited by the feed itself. For example, in our feed we show the last 10 articles that were posted so that is how many will be displayed in Taskable, whereas Digg displays a lot more. There is really nothing that you can configure in the program except for what feeds you want to show up in the menu.

This isn’t something that I would really use because we are subscribed to hundreds of feeds, but for the casual user I think this will be great. If it sounds like something you would like make sure to check it out!

Download Taskable (our mirror)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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