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Mar 10

Quicksilver Source Code Available

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

The developer of the famed Quicksilver application (Macs only) has decided to open up the source code for the program. Is it a big deal? A lot of people are excited about the news, but Quicksilver was already designed to be an extremely extensible system via plugins. The real benefit of this being open source is that users may submit bug fixes themselves, thereby easing the burden placed on the Quicksilver developer.

There was also some thought as to whether this could be ported over to other platforms, such as Windows and Linux. I looked through the source code for Quicksilver, and I noticed that it uses Cocoa (Apple’s object-oriented programming language) quite often. To put it simply it would be a chore to port Quicksilver over to Windows or Linux, so I don’t expect to see that happening.

It looks like for now Windows users will still have to choose from one of the other several application launchers available, with the most popular probably being Launchy (review).

Quicksilver Source Code
Quicksilver Homepage
[via Ars Technica]
Thanks for the tip “S”!

Mar 09

Maps & Directions in Your Firefox Sidebar

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on September 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

Click to Enlarge

I find myself frequently mapping sites to figure out how to get from point A to point B, and today I’ve got an extension that will speed up the process even more. The extension is called Minimap Sidebar Extension, and it’s entire purpose is make viewing a map an unobtrusive and efficient process.

After installing the extension I found a site that had an address listed, and then dragged it over into the "drop zone" located in the sidebar. From there it mapped the address, and in just a few clicks I could get directions to that location. And you don’t have to worry about which mapping service it uses because it supports all of the big ones out-of-the-box: Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live Local.

Here’s a list of the features it has:

Drag and drop addresses, KML files (for Google Earth), or links that you want to be mapped
Maps can be open in the sidebar or in a new tab
Stores a list of addresses for future access
Get the coordinates of a map
Embed the map
Automatically discover geoURL’s and in-line geotags
Three views: Map, Satellite or Hybrid
Works with Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live Local mapping services to get directions to/from an entry and/or set a locally stored ‘Home Address’

This extension is really only for people who use maps frequently…if you hardly map anything you’ll probably forget to use the extension the few times it would probably come in handy. One thing that came to mind when seeing this is that it would really be useful when planning out vacations and looking for hotels/attractions.

Minimap Sidebar Extension [via Google Operating System]

Mar 08

CyberNotes: Snap Windows to the Edge of the Screen

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 08, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

One feature that I’ve always wanted in Windows was the ability to have windows snap to the edge of the screen. Some people see that feature as an inconvenience because the operating system is trying to do something that the user may not have intended, but it can be useful when trying to quickly arrange windows.

Today I’m going to show you how to unobtrusively snap windows to the edge of the screen using a free program called FreeSnap! There are no options to configure, and there isn’t even a System Tray icon. The only way you’ll know the program is running is by the splash screen that’s shown when it starts. There is a predefined set of keyboard shortcuts that you can use to increase/decrease the size of a window, move it to one of the corners of the screen, or snap it to an edge of the screen.

–Keyboard Shortcuts–

Keyboard shortcuts are what make FreeSnap so wonderful. When I first started getting used to the program the shortcuts seemed unnatural, and nearly impossible to remember. It wasn’t until I visually drew a box around each set of keys that I began to understand why they were laid out the way they were (well, at least the ones for snapping and moving are intuitive). To help you visualize the keys I’ve color coded the groups and mapped them to a keyboard layout below.

Snap…
to top: Windows Key + I
to bottom: Windows Key + K
to left: Windows Key + J
to right: Windows Key + L
Move…
to top-left corner: Windows Key + T
to bottom-left corner: Windows Key + G
to top-right corner: Windows Key + Y
to bottom-right corner: Windows Key + H
Center window: Windows Key + C
Grow window: Windows Key + Z
Shrink window: Windows Key + X

Keyboard

–Snap Windows–

The snapping feature is definitely my favorite part of the program. Naturally you would think that this would create some sort of “magnetic edges” on the program windows so that when you come in contact with another edge it is attracted to it. That’s not the case at all, and therefore it is much less likely to annoy you.

Instead when making a window snap to the edge of the screen it will extend the window to that edge. So let’s say you want a window to span from the top of your screen to the bottom, all you would have to do is press the Windows Key + I and then the Windows Key + K. To make it a little clearer I’ve created an animated image that shows what happens when I snap an application to the right side of the screen:

FreeSnap Snap to Edge

–Resize Windows–

The grow and shrink (Windows Key + Z or X, respectively) feature will resize windows to the most common sizes. This is really handy for website and program developers to see what their work will look like on computers running at various resolutions. Here are the five preset resolutions that FreeSnap will shuffle between:

640 x 480
800 x 600
1024 x 768
1152 x 864
1280 x 1024

–Move Windows–

Moving a window is different than snapping it because the height and width of the window remain untouched. When you initiate a move it will be sent to the respective corner, such as in this case where I sent the window to the upper-right corner of the screen:

FreeSnap Move to Corner

The shortcut keys, Windows Key + T/G/Y/H, makeup what appears to be a box on the keyboard. You can see this in the keyboard layout I posted above, and each letter corresponds to a corner of the box. That is important when it comes to remembering what key does what.

–Overview–

I think this program kind of provides the best of both worlds for users. You don’t have to worry about magnetic edges on windows which can get annoying after awhile, but you are still able to send a window to the edge of the screen. The only thing that takes some getting used to are the keyboard shortcuts. 😉

FreeSnap Homepage (for Windows only)

Mar 07

CyberNotes: Sync Files Between Remote Computers

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on December 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Have you ever had two or more computers that you wanted to synchronize files between that weren’t all located on the same network? Maybe you have one computer at work and another one at home, and you want some of your more important documents or reports accessible from both locations. No problem!

Back in 2005 Microsoft purchased a service called FolderShare, which is used to keep files on multiple computers all in sync with each other. And we’re not talking just Windows computers, but Mac’s, too! There aren’t many free tools out there that are capable of syncing files on multiple platforms, so this is definitely something to treasure.

–Why FolderShare–

There are a lot of reasons why you should use FolderShare if you have more than one computer, but here are my favorites:

None of the files are hosted on FolderShare, which means you don’t have to worry much about privacy. It’s just like sending a file to someone over an instant messenger, except it is automatic.
Files up to 2GB can be shared.
There is no limit of any kind on how many files you can transfer.
Any files, regardless of filetype, can be transferred.
The web management screen works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera.
Sync files, share folders with friends, or access all of your files almost as if you were using an FTP.
It’s fast! Files will often be synchronized to your other computers within minutes.

Note: After you download and install FolderShare it will have you setup an account within the program.

–Syncing Files Between Computers–

One of the best features about FolderShare is its ability to sync files (even large ones) between multiple computers. You can set it up so that the folders are automatically synchronized, or only when you tell it to. It’s simple to setup:

Go to the My FolderShare page and select the Sync My Folders option:
Click the Specify folders to sync option, pick one of the available devices from the left side of the screen, and browse for the folder that you want to sync. Click Next after selecting the folder.
Now select another computer from the Available Devices column located on the left side of the screen. The folder that you just selected in Step 2 should be one of the options immediately available, but you may choose the Specify Folder option if you want to select a different destination to sync to.
Choose whether you want the files to be automatically synced, or just synced when you tell it to. Then hit Next:
That’s it! Now you’re files will be synced between computers faster than you know it.

–Sharing Files with Friends–

Not only can FolderShare keep your files in sync, but it can also help share files between friends. You can create a folder, or select an existing one, and share the contents with your friends. Each time you change the folder’s contents FolderShare will update the files on all of your friends’ computers.

Here’s how that works:

Go to the My FolderShare page and select the Share With Friends option:
Select the device that you want to share files from on the left side of the screen, and then choose the Specify a folder option:
Browse your computer to find the folder that you want to share. All system folders and folders you don’t have access to will be blocked from sharing. Just fill in the bubble next to the folder that you want to share and click Next:
Your folder will be validated to make sure it exists, and that you have the correct permissions to share it. Then you’ll be prompted to add the email address of your friends. They’ll need to create a FolderShare account and install the software if they have not already done so.

Now you and your friends can share all of the files that you want, without the need to email them to each other. Just drop them in the shared folder and let FolderShare take care of the rest.

–Web Downloads–

FolderShare can also act as a web-based FTP, and it doesn’t require any additional action other than installing the FolderShare application. Once that is setup you’ll have access to all of the files on the computer that you have permission to. If you need to download a bunch of files, however, it could take quite awhile. Here’s what you have to do:

Go to the My FolderShare page and select the Access My Files option:
Select the device that you want to get files from on the left side of the screen, and then browse for the file that you want to download:
Clicking on any of the files will download them straight from the remote computer to yours.

–Overview–

As you can see FolderShare is an extremely versatile application that should be used by anyone who finds themselves away from their computer(s). I’ve used this service for a long time, and when the service was down for a few days in November I found out how much I really missed it. Other than that one time the service has always been available when I needed it, so it is also reliable.

Mar 07

Stop Paper Junk Mail with Paper Karma

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on September 13, 2012 by CyberNet.

Stop junk mail

I hate junk mail regardless of whether I get it via an email or through the paper mail that arrives at my house each day. What’s bothered me for a long time is how efficient email filters have gotten at being able to filter out the spam/junk mail before it hits my Inbox, but that same luxury doesn’t apply to the mail that I get at my house.

A new mobile app called Paper Karma is trying to save trees… and your sanity. There are a couple of things I want to point out upfront about the app. First, it’s a free app that is available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. Second, it will take a little effort on your behalf before you actually start to reap the benefits of what it has to offer, but it could be worth it.

To use Paper Karma you simply have to snap a photo on your mobile device of the junk mail you receive. They don’t need a picture of the whole thing… just enough info to recognize who sent it to you. In most cases that means a snapshot of a popular logo is sufficient, but they also recommend trying to get the companies name and address in the image as well. In my tests it took a couple hours for it to finish analyzing my snapshot, but it has correctly recognized every one that I’ve done.

I’m going to keep using this rather religiously in an attempt to battle the dozens of credit card offers and other junk I get in the mail every week. It will take some time before I know for sure whether it is actually working, but if I can save some trees by reducing the amount of mail I get then I find that to be a win-win situation.

Paper Karma Homepage

Mar 06

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 Released

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

Firefox After several delays, Mozilla was finally able to roll out Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 today. The release of Firefox 2.0.0.2 is a pretty big one with 158 bugs being squashed: 21 fixed crashing issues, 4 fixed privacy bugs, and 2 fixed memory leaks. Not only that but Vista users will recognize a huge difference in the way that Firefox handles itself. Here are some of the Vista-related bugs that were fixed:

Automatic Updates now works with users who have limited account privilege and User Account Control (UAC) enabled.
Uses the Vista Default Application API which means Firefox should now be able to set itself as the default browser without having to be run as an administrator.
Before Firefox would remain elevated (a.k.a. running as an administrator) after an update was performed, but that has been fixed.

The remaining bugs relate to under-the-hood work that won’t be visible to you. You will, however, be running a more secure and stable browser by upgrading. The official release notes page has not been posted for either version, but they should be available later on today (1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2).

Download Firefox 1.5.0.10:

Download Firefox 2.0.0.2:

Firefox 1.5.0.x will continue to receive security and stability updates until April 24, 2007 so I highly recommend that you upgrade if you haven’t done so already.

I also put together a portable version of Firefox 2.0.0.2 and that can be downloaded from here. That is great for anyone who wants to take Firefox wherever the road takes you. Of course, if you already have Firefox Portable installed you should just be able to go to the Help menu and use the “Check for updates” option to upgrade Firefox. Note: As Max mentioned below in the comments the upgrade option won’t work until Mozilla activates the Update, which will probably be tonight or tomorrow.

Now I’m just waiting for the new Firefox Addons site to be launched. It was supposed to happen last week, but they ran into some unexpected issues (here, here, and here). They now say that they’ll be doing some additional testing over the next week and a half to help create a list of things that need to be fixed before they ship the new addons site. After that is completed then they’ll make a release schedule. Oh, and don’t worry, it is probably more frustrating for them than it is for us:

It’s embarrassing and frustrating to miss deadlines (as I know from very extensive experience!), and painful to not be able to put your hard work out into the world where it can help people. The entire Remora team has been working almost literally around the clock for the last few weeks, and very hard for half a year before that, and we would like nothing in the world more than to deliver it to the world.

Good Luck Mozilla at getting that rolled out!

Thanks for the tip Alfredo!

Mar 06

Digg Given Preferential Treatment on Add-ons Site?

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

Windows XP Professional.png

Yesterday Digg decided to launch their first Firefox 3 extension, and being a Firefox extension developer myself one of the first things I noticed was the preferential treatment they apparently received. Before I get into that let’s take a look at their well-designed extension.

The top toolbar aspect of the extension is nothing new as we’ve already seen other extensions offer similar functionality. Basically the toolbar provides a quick glance at how many Diggs and comments the page you’re currently visiting has.

The real power, however, comes from the notification system that it includes. When a new story is posted you’ll see a popup notification window in “near real-time.” Similarly you can also receive notifications for when your friends post new articles. Here’s an explanation by Kevin Rose on how it all works:

My only pet peeve is that when I click the “Digg It” button I shouldn’t be taken to the Digg page. The action should happen instantaneously without the Digg site having to load. If I wanted to go to the Digg page I’d just click the link for the comments.

–Eliminating the Need for the Digg Toolbar–

I don’t need another toolbar in my browser, and I’m sure that will be addressed in a future version of the extension. There’s an easy work around though. Go to View -> Toolbars -> Customize, and drag any of the objects from the Digg toolbar onto another toolbar. Here’s what it looks like when I dragged the two primary items up onto the Menu bar:

digg toolbar moved.png

I don’t recommend dragging the Digg menu item from the Digg toolbar up there, otherwise it will stretch out the images a lot on those buttons. They still get a little stretched out, but it’s not as bad as it would be if you dragged that button up to the top.

–Digg is “Above” Other Firefox Developers–

There’s just one thing that I, as a Firefox extension developer myself, find a bit frustrating. Digg is apparently being given special treatment on the Mozilla Add-ons site considering that their extension has been out less than 3-days, and it is no longer experimental. Extension editors/moderators are supposed to examine user reviews to determine whether an add-on should make it out of the Sandbox. Interestingly enough the Digg extension was made publicly available before they even had a single review.

Yet our extension, CyberSearch, has 47 reviews (thanks everyone!) than theirs and it is still stuck in the Sandbox after over a month. I know the editors are overloaded, but I think they need to keep a fair playing field. Stuff like this is pretty discouraging for developers.

Mar 05

New Tab Mix Plus Uses Firefox’s Built-In Session Restore

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on December 07, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tab Mix Plus

For awhile I stopped using the Tab Mix Plus Firefox extension because I didn’t like the session restore feature that it had and there was a significant memory leak. It was always unfortunate because once the extension was installed it wouldn’t let me use the session restore feature that was built-into Firefox 2. That’s a thing of the past with the newest version that was just released a few days ago.

The session restore in Firefox 2 will actually bring back all of the Web pages from the cached versions when the browser gets restarted and that includes any forms you were in the process of filling out. So if you were typing an email to someone and the browser crashed, it would automatically retrieve the content when the tabs are restored in the browser. Other session restore extensions don’t do this and will instead re-open all of the tabs (which is what Tab Mix Plus used to do). Not only does that method take longer to load but it also erases all of the form data that you had filled in.

I am happy to say that Tab Mix Plus now offers an option to use the built-in session restore feature that Firefox 2 already offers. They even go as far as to let you change some of the advanced settings that you wouldn’t have touched otherwise. I’m hoping that this will also keep the memory usage at a minimum because that is very important to me. I’ll cross my fingers but it is looking good for the last hour that I have been using it.

Mar 05

Microsoft Pro Photo: Geotag Photos By Address

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

microsoft pro photo-1.png

Microsoft offers a lot of free apps, but the problem is that finding the programs isn’t always easy to do. We’re always on the hunt for free programs put out by Microsoft, and when we stumbled across Microsoft Pro Photo we definitely had to look into it.

After you download Microsoft Pro Photo you’ll quickly realize that the sole purpose of the program is to manage the metadata attached to the photos you take. You can do things like adjust the date/time a photo was taken, assign categories, view information about the shot (aperture, focial length, etc…), and more. The really handy part of the program is the geotag capabilities.

Once you have Microsoft Pro Photo up and running you’ll want to open some images located on your computer, which can be done through the File menu. After that select one or more images from the thumbnail section, and then click the Location option in the left sidebar. This is where you can adjust the geotag information that is associated with a single or group of photos. The best part is that you don’t need to fiddle around with latitude/longitude… just enter in the address of the location and click on the Get GPS Info button. That’s it, you’re done.

With Microsoft Pro Photo you can also geotag photos by simply browsing a map. It will give you a pin on the map that you can drag around, and it will automatically determine the coordinates based upon where you drop the pin. This is a nice option for anyone wanting to more precisely geotag their photos.

While the program is really nice there are a few things that I’d like to see in a future release:

You should be able to browse the photos in your pictures folder instead of having to open each image.
Instead of being able to geotag by address the user should also be able to geotag according to points of interest. That way you don’t have to lookup the address of, for example, the Eiffel Tower. You can kind of do this when using the “Map Browse” feature, but it should be as simple as it is when entering in an address.

Microsoft Pro Photo Homepage
Microsoft Pro Photo Direct Download (No WGA Check)

Mar 01

CyberNotes: Is Safari the Best Browser?

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on June 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Safari for Windows The new Safari on Windows is boasted as one of the fastest browsers available for the Windows operating system. Well, that might be a little biased considering that it is according to Safari’s homepage, but I’ve tinkered with it over the past day and it is among the fastest browsers that I’ve used. It also has some shortcomings though…

First and foremost there have been a number of security concerns with Safari on Windows, which is something I definitely expected. Apple released Safari saying that their “engineers designed Safari to be secure from day one.” We all know that talk is cheap, and the vulnerabilities are something that I expected since Apple doesn’t make Windows software very frequently. Not only that, but this is also a pre-release application, so they have time to correct things before anyone can really start criticizing.

All browsers have their security woes, so in this review I’m going to set that aside and look strictly at the features. I’m going to give a bulleted list of the things that Safari includes, and then I’ll provide a short screencast where I’ll point out some of the cool features as well as the things that it lacks.

–The Features–

Here are the more notable features in Safari (for Windows) that you should be aware of, as specified on the Safari homepage.

Performance – As the Safari homepage points out, this browser is very good at loading Websites quickly. I was able to notice a significant reduction in page load times as I was browsing the Web, but that’s not the only kind of performance that is important. The Safari site fails to say what the memory usage is like for the browser, and I’ll be the first to say it’s horrible. At any given time, it is twice what Firefox, Opera, or even Internet Explorer is using up even when visiting the same sites.
Interface – Ahh, this is something I don’t really know that I can touch on. Apple made sure that they gave people the feeling that they are using a Mac computer by preventing the Windows operating system from controlling any aspect of the appearance. I think it is safe to conclude that people will be able to easily see when you’re using Safari on a Windows computer. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Bookmarks – This is something that I cover more in the screencast, but overall this is one of the biggest downfalls in Safari. I’m a right-click/drag-and-drop freak and the Bookmarks Bar hardly allows for any of that. You can’t arrange your bookmarks by dragging them around in that bar, instead you have to use the Bookmark Collections which is a hassle. Oh, and did I mention that there is no Bookmarks sidebar for you to use?
Searching – The searching in Safari is almost its best feature. They have done a great job of making the results stand out, and that is something I very much appreciate.
Tabbed Browsing – Come on, all of the cool browsers have tabbed browsing these days. The only thing cool about Safari’s is that you can drag a tab off of the tab bar and it will open in a new window.
SnapBack – This is pretty nice as well since many of us perform a lot of searches. After doing a search and clicking on a result there will be a little orange icon in the upper-right search box in Safari. That will always be there as a means to take you back to the initial search that you performed.
AutoFill Forms – Meh, it’s a form filler and nothing more.
RSS Reader – The built-in RSS reader is a nice cross between the Live Bookmarks that Firefox has and a full RSS feed reader. It even has a cool slider that instantly lets you adjust the length of the articles being displayed. It’s important to note, however, that they do not let you configure an external feed reader for subscribing to the feeds though.
Resizable Text Fields – This seems to be the hot new thing since Netscape 9 Beta also has this feature. All it does is let you resize text boxes on a site, such as the one we have below for commenting.
Private Browsing – With Private Browsing enabled, Safari won’t store your Google searches, your cookies, the history of sites you’ve visited, your download history, or information from online forms you’ve filled out. With the increasing concern over privacy, this is a feature some users will appreciate.
Security – I think I said enough about this up top.

So that’s how I feel about the features Safari has in it that is supposed to make it the browser for you to use. Some of them are cool, but a lot of them have already been seen in existing browsers which makes them far from spectacular.

–The Screencast–

Latest take a more hands-on look at how I feel about the features in Safari:

–The Overview–

As you can see, Safari has several cool features that I would like to see available in other browsers. There is nothing in it that makes it better than Firefox, Opera, or even Internet Explorer in my opinion, so there will probably be few people actually using it. The only way that it will benefit me is allowing me to easily test my site to make sure it renders properly in the Safari browser.

Download the Safari 3 Preview

Hasta La Gadget!

Quicksilver Source Code Available

Maps & Directions in Your Firefox Sidebar