Hasta La Gadget!

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

Web Browser Wednesday

As we’ve shown before, Opera is an extremely customizable browser, but it does so much that it can be difficult to remember it all. Then again you would have to know what it does in order to remember it. 🙂

Today we want to walk you through a dozen tips and tricks that will inch you closer to becoming an Opera grand master. So lets go ahead and jump into it, and as always, hit us up with your tips in the comments!

–Bookmark & Folder Nicknames–

Opera has a nickname feature for bookmarks that I’m guessing most people use. With it you can enter in an abbreviation for a bookmark that can quickly be typed into the address bar to pull up a particular site. One thing that you may not have realized is that the nicknames can also be assigned to entire folders of bookmarks, and entering that into the address bar will open every site within that folder:

–Bookmark & Open Multiple Links–

Let’s say you’re on a sight such as Digg, and you’re trying to quickly go through all of the news. Enter Links Panel! The Links Panel (a.k.a. sidebar) will let you handle hyperlinks throughout the page in bulk. You can Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple links from the current page. Then just choose the bookmark or open the option from the right-click menu.

–Click to Save Images–

Do you find yourself frequently saving images from websites? Instead of right-clicking on an image to save it each time, just Ctrl+Click on it. You’ll immediately be prompted with a Save As dialog box for you to enter in the name, or you can just press Enter to use the image’s current name.

[via Opera Watch]

–Customize the Browser’s Name and Icon–

Did you know that you change the name of the browser, and even replace its icon with your own? Yep, that’s all built-in. To change the icon you’ll need to enter opera:config#UserPrefs|ApplicationIcon into your address bar, and then provide the location of the icon you want to use.

To change the browser’s name, just enter opera:config#UserPrefs|Title into the address bar, and in the box type the name you want to appear. Additionally, you can use these combinations to insert dynamic items:

• %t for page title (entering just %t in the box will remove the browser’s name all together, which is what I currently do)
• %s for build number
• %v for version number

In this example I choose to display the browser’s name before the title of the page:

[via Tamil]

–Detach/Move a Tab–

Want to open a tab up in a new window? Just drag it onto the title bar of the browser. You can also move tabs between multiple windows simply by dragging and dropping them from one tab bar to another.

–Fast Navigation–

If you’re trying to open several links on a page, you should try using Shift+Arrow keys to move between the hyperlinks on the page. The nice thing is that this doesn’t jump back up to the beginning of the page where the first hyperlink appears. It starts with the first hyperlink in the area that you are looking at.

Shift+Ctrl+Enter will then open the currently selected link in a background tab.

–Fit to Width–

When you come across a site that requires horizontal scrolling, why not try and enable the Fit to Width feature (located in the View Menu, or press Ctrl+F11). The site will be adjusted so that no horizontal scrolling is necessary, and for the most part it won’t look all that bad.

–Hide the Menu Bar–

I hardly ever need to use the Menu Bar, and it takes up more room that I’m willing to part with. So what I do is I add a button that will remove the Menu Bar, and at the same time provide all of the menu options in a single condensed drop-down list. Just click here to add that button, and for more menu buttons visit the Opera Wiki.

–Hide the Tab Bar for a Single Tab–

In Firefox when you only have one tab open, the tab bar is not visible, and there is an option in Opera to do the same thing. Just right-click on the Tab Bar, choose the Customize option, and then check the box that says “Show only when needed.” The tab bar will now be hidden anytime only one tab is open.

–Right-Click Address Mapping–

It’s super easy to map any address on a site using your favorite map service. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Open up your favorite map service (ex. Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps).
2. Right-click in the service’s search box, and choose the Create Search option. Enter in a keyword (it’s required by Opera, but isn’t used in this trick), and then press Save.
3. The next time you see an address on a site just highlight it with your mouse, right-click, and then go to “Search with.” You’ll see a list of all the possible search engines that you’ve added to Opera, and all you have to do is select the mapping service.

–Promptless Downloading–

If you’re like me you probably save all of your downloads to the same folder so that you don’t end up with things scattered all over your computer. In Opera you can set your default download location in the Options, and then when you right-click on a file or image, there will be a “Save to download folder” option. Clicking on that will initiate the download without prompting you for any information.

–Speed Dial Homepage Button–

This is something that I was yearning for, and luckily the Opera Community came through. For reasons unknown to me, the Opera developers never associated an address to the Speed Dial page. That meant you couldn’t assign it as your browser’s homepage, but dragging this button onto the address bar will do the trick. It will take on the look of the homepage button, but it will actually open the Speed Dial page.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on November 11, 2009 by CyberNet.

I love the fact that Microsoft gives users a free 25GB of storage for files through SkyDrive, but I think they’re able to do that because they don’t provide an easy way for people to upload things. That way most people will never come close to hitting their 25GB limit, but that may change with the free SkyDrive Explorer app.

As the name implies this will make your SkyDrive account accessible right there in Windows Explorer… exactly what I’ve been wanting. From there you can drag-and-drop files into any of your SkyDrive directories, or copy down files that you’ve already uploaded. Once you’ve uploaded a file or folder you can then right-click on it to grab the URL that can then be used to send to other people you want to share it with. This is perfect for sharing music or photos with friends and family! It’s fast, simple, and makes it so that you never even have to visit the SkyDrive site.

Here’s what you can do with SkyDrive Explorer:

• View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive
• View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format)
• Create new root folders and subfolders
• Copy files into the storage
• Delete files and folders
• Copy files from the storage to the computer
• Copy folders and subfolders from the storage to the computer keeping their structure
• Use Drag & Drop for files operations
• Rename files and folders
• Create links to SkyDrive folders on your computer
• Copy URL of the selected object(s) to the Clipboard

The one downside is a limit of the SkyDrive service itself… and it’s that you can’t upload files larger than 50MB. What would be cool is if a future version of SkyDrive Explorer would automatically split files up into 50MB chunks! It’s an awesome app even without that functionality though.

SkyDrive Explorer Homepage (Windows only; 32-bit or 64-bit; Freeware)

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on May 01, 2012 by CyberNet.

Yesterday we covered how to install new skins in XBMC, and today we are going to show you how you can customize the backgrounds skins use for each of the entries on the main home screen menu. When I hover over the movies menu, for example, mine will rotate through over a dozen photos that I downloaded of my favorite movies. You can tweak these settings directly from the XBMC interface, but I actually found it to be faster to change the settings in the appropriate configuration file. So I’ll show you both methods and you can pick the one you find to work better.

Sources for Images:

If you are looking for somewhere to get images for your favorite TV shows and movies, I recommend heading over to TheTVDB or TheMovieDB. Each has a vast selection of 1920×1080 backgrounds that can easily be downloaded to your machine.

Update Backgrounds in XBMC:

In XBMC navigate to Settings -> Skin, and there should be an option related to backgrounds or backdrops depending on the skin you are using. Select the menu item you want to modify, and then choose whether you want to set it to a single background image or multiple images:

Now just save the settings, go back to the home screen, and you should see that the changes have already taken effect.

Update Backgrounds Through Configuration Files:

If you are updating all of the various menu items it might be faster if you work directly in the guisettings.xml configuration file. Before making any changes to this particular file make sure you close out of XBMC first. After that go ahead and navigate to your profile folder:

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/XBMC/userdata/
• Windows: %appdata%\XBMC\userdata\

And then open up the guisettings.xml file.

Now you need to know what to look for. There is a lot of data crammed in the guisettings.xml file, and the setting names will change based upon the skin you are using. I’m going to provide the names you need for the Confluence skin (the default skin) as well as the Aeon MQ 3.

The portions of the XML file we will be looking for are going to be in this format:

<setting type=”string” name=”SKIN_MENU_ID“>FILE_OR_FOLDER_PATH</setting>

The SKIN_MENU_ID is what you’ll search for in the guisettings.xml file, and the exact name will depend on the background image you’re looking to modify:

Confluence Theme:

• Weather: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Weather_Folder
• Pictures: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Pictures_Folder
• Videos: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Video_Folder
• Movies: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Movies_Folder
• TV Shows: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_TVShow_Folder
• Music: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Music_Folder
• Programs: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Programs_Folder
• Play Disc: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_PlayDisc_Folder
• Settings: skin.confluence.Home_Custom_Back_Settings_Folder

Aeon MQ 3 Theme:

• Videos: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomVideos_Background
• Music: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomMusic_Background
• Movies: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomMovies_Background
• Disc: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomDisc_Background
• TV Shows: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomTVShows_Background
• Live TV: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomLiveTV_Background
• Games: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomGames_Background
• Pictures: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomPictures_Background
• Weather: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomWeather_Background
• Shutdown: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomShutdown_Background
• Music Videos: skin.aeonmq.3.CustomMusicVideos_Background

Once you’ve found the one you want to update, then you need to put in the FILE_OR_FOLDER_PATH. As you might guess that is the path to a single image or multiple images (if a folder is provided). You can use files that are stored locally on the computer or any one of the remote protocols that XBMC supports, such as SMB, FTP or AFP. Here are some examples of what the paths might look like:

• Local (single image): C:\XBMC\Backgrounds\movies.jpg
• Local (multiple images): C:\XBMC\Backgrounds\Movies\
• SMB: smb://192.168.1.10/XBMC/Backgrounds/movies.jpg
• AFP: afp://192.168.1.10/XBMC/Backgrounds/movies.jpg

After you’re done making your changes you should save the file, and then start up XBMC. You’ll see the result of your hard work:

CyberNet’s XBMC Guides:

• XBMC: Introduction to Our Upcoming Guides
  Our introduction provides some of the deciding factors for switching from Windows Media Center to XBMC.
• XBMC: Build Your Own HTPC
  Our extensive guide on the hardware we chose for our home theater PCs (HTPCs), the cost, and some tips on choosing the hardware for your own HTPC.
• XBMC: Prepare and Optimize Windows 7
  A helpful list of tips to optimize the performance of Windows 7 so that the system is able to offer as many resources to XBMC as it can.
• XBMC: IR Receiver and Remote (Harmony, Xbox 360, and More)
  If you want your HTPC to operate like a set-top box you’ll definitely want to get a remote control configured, and for me this was a critical step so that I wouldn’t have to be concerned about less tech-savvy users trying to use my TV.
• XBMC: Share and Sync Media/Settings Between Multiple XBMC Installs
  Configuring XBMC to share settings between multiple instances means you’ll be able to stop a show in one room, and seamlessly pick up where you left off in another room.
• XBMC: Fit the Picture to Your TV with Overscan
  If XBMC doesn’t fit your TV screen perfectly there are a couple of steps you can take to get it just right.
• XBMC: Installing Skins
  How to tweak the appearance of XBMC so that it looks the way you want it to.
• XBMC: Custom Home Screen Menu Backgrounds
  Make the backgrounds of your chosen skin/theme a little more interesting by having it flip through artwork from your favorite TV shows and movies.
• XBMC: Dynamic Weather Backgrounds
  If you’re using the Aeon MQ 3 theme you can have it use dynamic wallpapers that change based on the time of day and current weather conditions.
• XBMC: SMB on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)
  I use a Mac to serve up files to my XBMC instances running on Windows, and so my preferred protocol for sharing files is SMB. This guide explains how you can get a XBMC-compatible version of SMB running on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• XBMC: Adding Media Sources
  Learn how to add your media to XBMC and turn on the appropriate content scrapers.
• XBMC: Troubleshoot Buffering Issues
  Trying to troubleshoot buffer issues in XBMC can be quite a pain, and so I lay out some of the most common culprits.
• XBMC: Test Your HTPC with High Bitrate Sample Videos
  Want to see how well your HTPC performs? Throw some of these high bitrate 1080p sample videos at it.
• XBMC: More Advanced Settings
  Configure some of the settings that you won’t find anywhere in the GUI.
• XBMC: Stream Hulu, Food Network, and More
  Thanks to add-ons you can stream videos from some of your favorite sources including Hulu, Food Network, HGTV, TWiT, and more.
• XBMC: AirPlay on Windows
  Send videos from your iOS device to any XBMC instance with very little configuration.
• XBMC: Web Interface and Chrome Extension
  As long as you are on the same network as your XBMC box you can control it from any browser using the built-in web interface, or you can install a Chrome extension to make it even easier.
• XBMC: iPhone and iPad Remote
  If you own an iPhone or iPad you can enjoy one of the best XBMC remote control experiences I’ve seen, and it will only cost you a few bucks.
• XBMC: A List of Our Guides, Plus Helpful Wiki and Forum Posts
  A recap of all the guides we’ve written as well as useful wiki and forum post from the official XBMC.org site.
• XBMC: Free and Official iOS Remote for XBMC Released
  This is the free and official XBMC remote control iOS app (optimized for both the iPhone and iPad). It will let you easily control all of the XBMC instances in your house as long as they are all on the same network.
• XBMC: Running XBMC on Startup in Windows 8
  Learn how you can make XBMC start automatically when Windows 8 boots.
• XBMC: Send YouTube Videos From Chrome to XBMC
  Send YouTube videos from your PC to any XBMC instance in a single click.
• XBMC: Aeon MQ 4 Skin
  If you’re looking for one of the best and most popular XBMC skins the Aeon MQ 4 is a great choice.
• XBMC: Android Widget Remote Control
  Control multiple instances of XBMC without ever having to open an app on your Android device!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on March 22, 2011 by CyberNet.

I’ve been getting at least a dozen emails a day asking when the CyberSearch extension would be getting updated for Firefox 4, but I have some bad news for everyone. Our extension was made possible thanks to Google’s Web Search API, but they deprecated it back in November 2010 in favor of a new JSON Custom Search API. From a developer’s point of view this kind of thing happens all the time… old technologies are replaced with new technologies. Generally these improvements are for the better, but in this case they put some restrictions in place for anyone using the new API:

Usage is free for all users, up to 100 queries per day. […] Any usage beyond the free usage quota will fail if you are not signed up for billing. Once you have enabled billing, you will be billed for all requests at the rate of $5 per 1000 queries, for up to 10,000 queries per day. If you need additional quota, please request additional quota from the console.

The CyberSearch extension basically performs a query every time you pause for a second while typing in the Firefox address bar. I’d estimate that the 100-query limit they are imposing will be hit by our extension every second given that there are over 80k daily users. So it would likely cost us thousands of dollars a day to keep this running… assuming Google would even approve a rate limit as high as what we’d need. Since we don’t make any money off the extension you can see how that isn’t really feasible.

So why is CyberSearch still (intermittently) working for some people? Google’s blog post from last November says that they are in the process of phasing out the older APIs, and as a result they are “tightening up the enforcement of the rate limits” as time goes on. Unfortunately that means you will likely see the extension inconsistently working, and that has been the root cause of 99% of bug reports being submitted to us. In my tests about half of all requests being made would return an error saying the extension exceeded the rate limit quota.

Thanks to everyone who provided support and troubleshooting during the development of CyberSearch! It was a fun ride, but unless Google changes their policy this will have to be the end of the road.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on October 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the new things in Ubuntu 7.10 is the one-click enabling of restricted drivers (a.k.a. proprietary drivers). This is important because it will give users the best experience possible, and I’ve received several inquiries in our Ubuntu 7.10 from people wondering how they are supposed to enable these drivers in Ubuntu.

After you install Ubuntu 7.10 it will check to see if there is any hardware on your computer that has a corresponding restricted driver. If a match is found, you should see a little icon and balloon pop up in the tray notifying you of the available drivers:

If you happen to close out of the balloon, or you lose the icon there is still an easy way for you to get it back. You’ll find a menu option for enabling the drivers by going to System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager:

From there you can enable restricted drivers in Ubuntu, or you can also disable them by using the checkbox next to the respective device. When I tried to do this for my ATI X1400 graphics card I got hung up with an error message saying “xorg-driver-fglrx is not enabled“. I didn’t really have any idea what this meant, but I quickly found out that I had to enable a few more settings before I would be able to proceed. If you go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources you will see a checkbox that you can tick for “proprietary drivers for devices (restricted)“. I checked that box, and then I started receive an error “Could not apply changes, Please fix broken packages first“. So out of desperation I checked all of these boxes:

• Canonical-supported Open Source software (main)
• Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)
• Proprietary drivers for devices (restricted)
• Software restricted by copyright or legal issues (multiverse)

Low and behold I was able to go back to the Restricted Drivers Manager, and enable the proper drivers for my ATI graphics card (click screenshot to enlarge):

There were multiple reasons that I wanted to get the proprietary drivers installed, but the biggest one was that Ubuntu doesn’t recognize my native widescreen resolution without them. The other reason was to get the 3D support so that I could have some fun with Compiz Fusion, but that opened up another can of worms! I ended up getting Compiz Fusion to work, but I’ll save that story for another day.

Hopefully this solves any issues you may be having with trying to install the restricted drivers on Ubuntu. I was hoping that it would be a one-click solution, but it didn’t quite turn out to be that way. Luckily the workarounds necessary were not all that tedious.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com