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Feb 13

Mockups of the Firefox 3 Safari Theme

This article was written on September 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the goals of Firefox 3 is for the Mac version of the browser to feel like a real Mac application. Mozilla tried to show a little bit of love to the Mac fans in Firefox 2 by making it fit in a bit better, but all the Mac users I know are still running it with a Safari-like theme.

Mozilla is looking to resolve any and all of the Mac complaints that are currently out there with the upcoming Firefox 3, and one of the major areas they are looking to overhaul is the theme. There are a few different mockups pictured above that were attached to the bug report for the new theme. Now I’m not a Mac user, but I have to say that it looks pretty darn good…especially the search box.

I know that there was also talk of delivering a different theme for both Vista and XP, but I haven’t heard any updates on that. Trying to create several different high-quality themes for the browser is probably going to be a difficult task, and we’ll have to see whether it actually happens in time.

Feb 12

Selectively Backup Your Opera Profile

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

Microsoft Windows Vista-1.png

One thing that I’m always careful about backing up is my browser’s profile. There is a lot of information stored in there, and it would be a real shame if I lost it all. If you’re running Opera then you’re in for a real treat with this backup utility. OperaFly is a nifty little free program that runs on Windows. You can get a version that does or doesn’t require installation, and the beauty is that it takes what could be a daunting task and turns it into something that is very user friendly.

When you startup the program it will automatically find the files and folders that it needs to access. Then you can select what parts of your profile you would like to back as seen in the screenshot above, and this is where the true customization comes into play. If you were wanting to start with a clean profile this would be a quite handy tool to have. You can selectively backup the areas of your profile that would be difficult to replace (bookmarks, mail, etc…), wipe out the Opera profile (which OperaFly can also do), and then restore only the portions of the profile that you just backed up. It pretty much does it all from a single interface.

Yeah yeah, I know… the problem is remembering to backup your profile. OperaFly has got you covered there as well. It includes a tool called OperaFly Watch that will sit in your System Tray. From there you can create a backup on-demand, or you can have it automatically create a backup each time you close the browser. Just tell it the location on your PC where you want the backups stored, and it will make sure it gets done. This is automation at its finest!

Get OperaFly
Thanks for the tip Mark!

Feb 12

Calgoo Gets an Update/ Download iPodCALsync

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on January 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

We’ve mentioned Calgoo here and there; first in August when their “First Draft” was released, and more recently in October when their “Second Draft” was released. It’s a desktop application for your Google Calendar. We were skeptical of Calgoo for privacy reasons that were outlined when we wrote about their first draft. Since then it appears they have spent a considerable amount of time working on improving, and establishing themselves. Synchronization is a big key these days which appears why Calgoo is attempting to enter the desktop synchronization market. It interacts with your Google Calendar so that you can check your calendar on your computer as well as online. This makes it simple to check from anywhere.

Three weeks ago, we got an email from them letting us know that their Third Draft has been released. The big new feature with this release is that the new Calgoo will allow you to “collect, aggregate, view and share calendars from multiple sources, including websites, Google and Outlook. At last you will be able to manage all of your schedules in one place and Calgoo will be able to take the next big step forward.” If you’d like to download their latest version, click here. It appears they’ve put quite a bit of work into this next release. We’re still not completely satisfied with their user interface, so hopefully that will be something they focus on for their fourth draft.

Calgoo may not be right for everyone, and if you’re an iPod user, you can take advantage of the built-in calendar without needing Outlook. One of our users pdedecker has put together an application called iPodCALsync (screenshot to the right) that you could use to synchronize your iPod with Google Calendar. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to edit your calendar from your iPod, it would be “view-only.” It’s not 100% stable yet, but definitely worth the try. You can enter up to 5 calendars to be synchronized on your iPod. I’m sure pdedecker would appreciate feedback, so if you decide to download it, let him know what you think (or if you come across any errors)in our Forum for this topic. You can download iPodCAL sync here or here.

Feb 11

Free Photo Sorting Software

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on April 14, 2010 by CyberNet.

photo sorter.png

Like many things in life the art of taking photos can be a lot of fun, but the aftermath of organizing the images isn’t always that exciting. It’s especially daunting if you have thousands of photos scattered around in obscure locations on your computer that you always meant to sort, but never quite got around to.

The free Adebis Photo Sorter program wants to help you get your photos organized. This handy tool lets you define a folder structure for your photos based on the season and/or date they were taken. It will crawl all of your photos organizing them into folders so that you can quickly find them again in the future. Here’s an overview of what the app is capable of:

Sorting and structuring of the entire photo collection on the user’s system
Batch renaming of photos with the help of user-defined masks
Creation of chronologically sorted photo series from multiple source folders
Inclusion of EXIF data into filenames during batch renaming

Overall I’d say this app is useful for anyone that is behind in photo organization, or anyone wanting to take the stress of managing photos off their shoulders.

Adebis Photo Sorter Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Feb 10

CyberNotes: Create a LightBox Photo Gallery

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on October 25, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

One of the hot new ways for viewing photos is using a JavaScript technique called LightBox. I’m sure you’ve seen it before on sites where you click on a thumbnail, and a fullsize version of the image is superimposed on the page that your viewing. It then grays out the background so that it’s easy for the viewer to focus on the image. Here’s a working example of LightBox that demonstrates the feature.

Personally I’ve never been a big fan of LightBox, but there are a lot of people who swear by it. When I came across a free program called LightBox Web Gallery Generator, I knew it would be an extremely handy tool for many of you.

What’s so great about it? Not only is it open source, but you also don’t have a thing to install. Once you download the LightBox Gallery Generator you can start working with it immediately!

–Basic Settings–

When you launch the app for the first time, you’ll notice that it’s extremely simple, and there isn’t much you can configure. It’s important to know that the LightBox Gallery Generator will only work with JPG images, but that’s the format that most cameras use so you shouldn’t have any problems.

LightBox Web Gallery Generator

You’ll want to select the folder with the images, and the folder that you want to output the gallery to. The program will generate thumbnails for all of the images and align them to a grid with however many columns and rows you specify. If you have more photos than can fit on the page it will show next/previous buttons on the generated site as well as page numbers.

The “Image” section in the program is used to specify what the dimensions are of the photos that are shown when the thumbnails are clicked on. By having them resized it helps cut back on the bandwidth needed especially when the original image is gigantic! You can always provide a link to the original image by checking the “Add link to hi-res image” option.

–Advanced Settings–

At first I didn’t really realize that the program had any advanced settings because the text links at the bottom looked like they were hyperlinks for a website. When I clicked on one of them it actually expanded the program’s window to show more settings that you can change to truly customize the look and feel of the gallery that is generated.

The “CSS” option is used to specify your own custom styles to the site. This is where you can customize border, background colors, font types, and more:

LightBox CSS

At the top of the gallery is a breadcrumb trail that visitors can use to navigate to other pages on your site. This is where you can specify your own custom homepage link or turn it off all together:

LightBox Link

The “Master Page” option is truly the heart and soul of the LightBox Gallery Generator. You can create your own custom HTML template to be used with the galleries that you generate. How’s that useful? It means you can put your own header, footer, and sidebars on the site with the gallery being placed in the center of it all.

LightBox Master Page

–The Result–

**drum roll** The end result is what you’ve worked so hard for, well, I use the term “work” loosely. The screenshots below are from a gallery that I generated in under a minute after starting the program up for the first time. The one on the left shows what the thumbnail gallery looks like complete with navigation links, and the one on the right is the “fullsize” image that visitors are shown when a thumbnail is clicked.

If you chose to include a link to the high resolution images you’ll see that next to the title of each photo:

LightBox Hi-Res

This program doesn’t quite stack up to the JAlbum software in terms of configuration options, but this is definitely the simplest gallery generator that I’ve ever used. If you need to quickly create a photo gallery with some pizzazz I don’t think there is a better option.

LightBox Web Gallery Generator

Feb 10

Excellent Twitter Client for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

I’m not a huge fan of Adobe Air apps as I have stated countless times in the past, but it seems as though some of the best Twitter clients are all powered by it. The one I am talking about this time around is called DestroyTwitter, and while the interface looks extremely simplistic there are actually a fair number of options that you can customize. Even the theme selection that’s available is impressive given how well each of them were thought out (including ones made specifically for Reddit, Facebook, and Vimeo fans).

if you’re just going off my screenshot above you might be thinking that this is a single-column interface, but you’d only partially be right. You can get to the other columns (Mentions, Search, and Messages) by clicking the appropriate tabs, or you can make the window wider and as it expands those sections will each start to come into view. For most monitors if you made the app full screen you should have no problems viewing all four columns at the same time.

Here is a rundown of some of the other features as highlighted by the developer:

Powerful and Lightweight
DestroyTwitter packs in a ton of features while leaving an unbelievably small footprint. How does memory usage as low as 25mb sound? What about an installer under 1mb?
Filter the Noise
Tired of reading where your friends are? Filter Foursquare/Gowalla and you’re good to go. Someone on a tweeting spree at an event? Filter them or the event’s hashtag.
Auto-Complete Usernames
Anyone who can remember all of their friends’ usernames deserves a trophy. Lucky for you, you only need to know the first few letters.
Preferences Galore
Font too small? Try medium or large. Don’t like icons? Get rid of them. Hate the notification sound? Choose from the five others. Need to read 200 tweets every 30 seconds? Done.

DestroyTwitter Homepage (Windows/Mac/Linux; Freeware)

Feb 09

MyColors Caters to Sports & College Fanatics

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on April 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

Stardock has released a new application called MyColors that will really appeal to college students/alumni and sports fanatics. The program itself is a free download, and it’s goal is to completely skin your Windows XP or Vista operating system. It changes the theme, background, icons, gadgets, media player, and more.

There are two themes that that you can get for free with MyColors: Diamond and Quest. Diamond appears to be their signature theme as it’s also bundled with WindowBlinds, and Quest is pretty sleek despite the overwhelming amount of gold. Since the program is also free those are the two themes that you can get without dropping a dime.

The really cool themes, however, will run you about $20 each. From the looks of it MyColors is really focused on themes for the NBA, NHL, and college teams. I was extremely pleased to see the university I attended, Iowa State, was in the list. A screenshot of what it looks like running on Vista can be seen above, and Stardock does a terrific job of providing high-quality screenshots of each theme so that you know what you’re getting.

A video demonstration of MyColors is available, but I recommend just diving in and start checking out all of the themes available. There are over 50 that are college-specific, 30 NBA, 30 NHL, and dozens more. Also, you’ll notice that some are easier on the eyes than others. 😉

Feb 09

Graph and Solve Equations with Microsoft Mathematics

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on August 17, 2011 by CyberNet.

Solve algebra equations

Students these days have a lot of resources available at their disposal thanks to the Internet. In fact there is so much out there that most students will never even use a lot of the tools available, and a good example of that is Microsoft Mathematics. This free app covers everything from basic math to precalculus, and can even provide step-by-step explanations for solving math problems. The screenshot above demonstrates what the problem solver looks like including the explanations that are provided for every step. Pretty amazing.

Here’s a rundown on some of the things Microsoft Mathematics is capable of:

The step-by-step equation solver
Students can use this to learn how to solve difficult math problems.
Graphing calculator
Its full features and large two-dimensional and enhanced three-dimensional color graphs can better illustrate problems and concepts.
Formulas and equations library
Students will find more than 100 commonly used equations and formulae to help identify and apply equations.
Triangle solver
This graphing tool explains triangles and their parts.
Unit conversion tool
Students can use this handy tool to quickly and easily convert units of measure, including length, area, volume, weight, temperature, pressure, energy, power, velocity, and time.

Neat, huh? Imagine doing your homework with this at your side!

Microsoft Mathematics Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Feb 09

Monitor CPU, Memory, and Disk Usage in the Mac Menu Bar

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 15, 2012 by CyberNet.

There are various ways on a Mac that you can keep track of your system’s CPU, disk, memory, and network usage. One of the popular options is the iStat Menus which displays some pretty graphs and stats in your Mac menu bar. It sucks that it isn’t free, but there is an alternative that I bet a lot of you will enjoy almost as much called MenuMeters.

With MenuMeters you can heavily customize how you want the data to appear in the Mac menu bar for your CPU, storage, memory usage, and network throughput. If you don’t have a lot of space available in your menu bar you can configure it to use a minimal amount of space, and yet you’ll still be able to uncover a lot of the information by clicking on the respective items in the menu bar. As you can see in the screenshot above you can get more details about the CPUs when you click on the menu bar item that shows the usage of each core.

Information like this can be extremely useful when troubleshooting issues, and you can quickly toggle them on or off using the MenuMeters preference pane that appears in your Mac’s System Preferences. So you can always get it installed so that it is ready and waiting for when you need it.

MenuMeters Homepage (Mac only; Freeware)

Feb 08

Clementine is a Free Cross-Platform Music Player

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on July 08, 2011 by CyberNet.

Clementine music player

Many of you have likely heard of Amarok which is a popular cross-platform music player, and Clementine is a cross platform player that is benefiting from its open source nature. To me it has a clean interface the features people are looking for, such as iPhone syncing. It also includes a slew of other features most people will never even use, such as controlling the player with a Wii Remote.

Here are some of the other features they highlight:

Search and play your local music library.
Listen to internet radio from Last.fm, SomaFM, Magnatune, Jamendo and Icecast.
Create smart playlists and dynamic playlists.
Tabbed playlists, import and export M3U, XSPF, PLS and ASX.
CUE sheet support.
Visualisations from projectM.
Lyrics and artist biographies and photos.
Transcode music into MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Speex, FLAC or AAC.
Edit tags on MP3 and OGG files, organise your music.
Fetch missing tags from MusicBrainz.
Download missing album cover art from Last.fm.
Cross-platform – works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Native desktop notifications on Linux (libnotify) and Mac OS X (Growl).
Remote control using a Wii Remote, MPRIS or the command-line.
Copy music to your iPod, iPhone, MTP or mass-storage USB player.
Queue manager.

Clementine Music Player (Windows/Mac/Linux; Freeware)

Hasta La Gadget!

Mockups of the Firefox 3 Safari Theme

Selectively Backup Your Opera Profile

Calgoo Gets an Update/ Download iPodCALsync

Free Photo Sorting Software