Hasta La Gadget!

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

One of the things that the Opera browser does way better than Firefox is skinning. In Opera you can go to their skin site, find a theme that you want to install, and preview it immediately in the browser. No restart is required.

Mozilla looks as though they are experimenting with a similar method via an extension called Personas. With Personas you’ll be able to perform basic skinning operations in Firefox without ever needing to restart the browser.

All of the goodness happens in the bottom-left corner of the Status Bar. That’s where a little icon will appear once you’ve installed the extension, and clicking on that icon will immediately present a list of themes that can be chosen. They’re organized according to the most popular, newest ones, and also broken up into categories. As of right now there are a few dozen different themes available for Personas users.

It’s important to note that these themes are not the same as the ones you download from Mozilla’s add-on site. The Personas themes do not skin any of the buttons or the Control Panel area, and the only changes you’ll really see is a new background image behind the Menus, Address Bar, Bookmarks, Tabs, and Status Bar. Despite being such a basic skinning alternative I did find that the themes give Firefox a refreshing appearance.

Now one can only hope that this will result in full skinning capabilities down the road, and that they’ll apply a similar technology to extension installation. Maybe Mozilla will be able to make restarting the browser a thing of the past!

Get Personas [via CyberNet Forum, Firefox Guru, and Ars]
Thanks to Richard and “S” for the tips!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

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

Internet Explorer 7 was just released late last week and now Mozilla Firefox 2 is here! It was just placed in the releases folder on the FTP so it is time for you to come and get it!

Like always the downloader that I have put together below uses Mozilla’s load balancing so that one specific FTP server does not get all of the hits.

Firefox 2 is expected to be made officially available tomorrow according to Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler:

Lots of folks have been sending me emails asking if the Tuesday release reported at various places is accurate. Yes. Unless something unexpected happens, we’ll be shipping Firefox 2 on Tuesday.

From the looks of it everything has gone smoothly and it should be officially announced tomorrow…even though they typically announce it the same day that it hits the FTP. So don’t be surprised if some kind of announcement comes tonight around 5PM-7PM PDT.

When browsing through some of the links on the Firefox site I also noticed that they have started to update some of their screenshots with Firefox 2 builds. The one page that has definitely been refreshed is the Getting Started which couldn’t make it any more obvious. I can’t wait to see everything switch over and I wonder if there will be any kind of facelift to the site?

Firefox 2′s Future Home

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on August 22, 2008 by CyberNet.

With Windows XP there were several PowerToys that added awesome features to the operating system, such as virtual desktops. Unfortunately with the release of Vista many of those free applications no longer worked, and users were left trying to find alternatives.

Sysinternals, who is part of Microsoft, took it upon themselves to develop a virtual desktop application that is compatible with Windows Vista. It’s not quite as fancy as the Vista Virtual Desktop application we reviewed last year, but the original Microsoft PowerToy wasn’t exactly busting at the seams with eye-popping features either.

At this point all you can do with the program is see a preview of up to four virtual desktops by clicking on the System Tray icon. You can also customize the keyboard shortcut used to switch between each desktop, but other than that there isn’t much else it’s capable of. The one feature I am really looking forward to is dragging and dropping windows from one desktop to another, but there’s no mention as to whether they intend to add something like that.

Judging by all of the hard work that Sysinternals has put into Process Explorer (review) this virtual desktop manager will probably get the attention it deserves.

Get Desktops for Windows [via Digital Inspiration]

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

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

MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems today (also here and here) for a whopping $1 billion. I can’t say it was something I was expecting after MySQL has remained independent for over 10 years, but in the end I think it will be good for both the companies involved and the users.

The MySQL blog feels that users of the popular database software have little to worry about:

Given Sun’s proven track record as the largest contributor to Open Source, I think MySQL users have plenty of reason to feel happy about the acquisition. There are many companies that attempt to ride the wave of positive attention towards Open Source, but in my judgement, Sun gets it right.

The 350+ MySQL employees will be joining Sun’s 34,000+ employees, creating what I hope to be a remarkable team. The good news is that MySQL is currently available under the GPL license, which essentially means anyone can fork it off into their own product if they so desire. If Sun drops the ball it’s likely that someone else will pickup where the project left off.

Like most acquisitions we have to ride this one out to see if the end result is better or worse than what we would like. Sun is a good promoter of open source software though, and I would have to believe that they will not let us down.

Read more on the MySQL blog or on the Sun blog
Kudos to Mohan for the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

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

Time Saving Tuesday

Our daily lives continue to become more and more overwhelmed with information. The problem that most of us face now is finding an efficient way to keep all of that information organized in a fashion that makes it easy to find what we’re looking for.

Evernote has got to be one of the best solutions for taking notes for just about everything imaginable. Whether it be creating to-do lists, shopping lists, or clipping stuff from the Web…Evernote does it all. Check out some of the amazing features that it includes, and it’s all free:

• Note Formats: Create notes in multiple formats, including text, Web, email, handwriting, image clips and custom templates.
• Multiple Categories: I’m not sure if categories is really the right name for these because they behave more like tags. Basically you can add as many categories to a note as you want.
• Powerful SmartSearch: Multiple methods for finding notes: visually, by time, categories, automatic labeling and keywords, complete with matching note count.
• Web & Email Clipper: Instantly add web pages and emails into EverNote from Internet Explorer, Outlook, Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird using an ‘Add to EverNote’ button along with context menus.
• Drag & Drop files: Drag & drop or paste text with images from any applications into EverNote.
• To Dos and Note Templates: Create and monitor To-Do lists, expenses, contacts and other common note templates. Here are some examples of the different templates (click to enlarge a screenshot):
     
• Embedded To?Dos: Click Ctrl-Shift-C or right-click and select “Insert To-Do checkbox” anywhere in your notes to place a checkbox at the cursor position in any note. This means the note will automatically appear in the To-Do category until all of the boxes are checked off.
• Send notes via IM: Drag-and-drop your notes into Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype and other IMs to instantly transfer interesting bits of info to your buddies.
• Keep Your Sensitive Info Secure: Encrypt notes you want to keep private or protect from accidental changes or deletion. You can also password protect an entire EverNote database.
• Backup: Automatic and manual backup are available via the Tools>Options>Backup tab.
• Spellchecker
• Note History: All changes to edited notes in “History Notes”.

One of the cool things with Evernote is that you never have to think twice about saving your notes because it is done automatically while you work.

The Web Clipper is a very integral part of Evernote for myself. In Firefox it just adds a small icon next to the address bar, and clicking on that button will automatically create a new note from any of the content highlighted on the page. This is a very quick process and doesn’t require any other interaction. Once the note is saved you’ll see a little popup in the corner of your screen that you can always click on to edit the newly created note:

There is also an experimental feature that they currently have available called the Universal Clipper (pictured to the right). This is a separate download and once installed you will be able to quickly note just about anything by using double-clicking on the Universal Clipper icon in your System Tray. As seen in the screenshot, you can even specify an area on your screen to store in a note.

There is also an EverNote Plus version available for those who need synchronization capabilities or handwriting recognition features. I think most people will be content with the free version of Evernote since there is no time or note limitation, but Tablet PC users may find those more advanced features useful.

Visit the Evernote Homepage

Thanks for the tip JavaSharp!

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