Jan 05
LaCie has rolled out the red carpet for the Fuel, a sporty external hard drive designed specifically for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac. In addition to being wireless, the Fuel … Continue reading
Jan 04
Some apps do one thing, and they do it well. Others have a host of clever, hidden uses that you might have never thought of on your own. Here are our favorite clever uses for popular apps.
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Jan 02
Add Folders to the Mac Menu Bar
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on January 21, 2011 by CyberNet.
I’ve always added some of my most used folders to the Mac OS X Dock, but at the same time my menu bar has remained fairly empty. I came across a pretty nice app called XMenu that will let you add up to 6 different icons to the menu bar, and each one represents a different folder on your machine.
As you can see in the screenshot above there are some nice settings you can configure, but the focus is basically on selecting the directories you want to include. Unfortunately you can’t create an unlimited number of icons pointing to whatever directories you want, but the pre-defined directories should be sufficient for a lot of your needs. For myself having the Applications, Home, and Documents folders will cover most of the files I need to access on any given day.
There are also some tricks based on whether you’re holding down a “modifier” key when selecting an item. Here’s a list of what the various keys do:
- None – Open file or launch application
- Control – Show item (open parent folder in Finder and select file)
- Shift – Show original (open parent folder of original in Finder). If the select item is not an alias, this reveals the item.
- Option – Show original and hide current application
- Command – Show info in Finder
It took me a minute to realize what the field was for next to each of the folders listed in the preferences. It’s actually for those of you who choose to display text in the menu bar rather than the icon, and those names will be what shows up.
XMenu Homepage (Mac only; Freeware)
Note: A readme file is included with the download that explains some of the features
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 02
The latest numbers were recently published by Net Applications looking at the overall computer operating system market around the world. The report shows that the newest versions of Windows, Windows … Continue reading
Jan 01
This article was written on July 22, 2008 by CyberNet.
Time Saving Tuesday
Flickr is a photo sharing service that has around for over four years, and in that time it has grown at an astounding pace. Thousands of images are uploaded to Flickr every minute, and it was just last year that they had over two billion photos uploaded to their site. The good news is that with the increase in popularity also comes an increase in the number of free tools available.
Personally I’ve been a Flickr Pro subscriber for a little over a year now, and the amount of features you get for the $2 per month is well worth the money. I currently have over 6,000 images uploaded on my account that I share with friends and family, and I’m always looking for tools that make the job even easier. So what I’ve got for you today are my favorite free applications that help me upload photos to my Flickr account.
–iPhoto Plugin (Homepage)–
Flickr makes an application for Mac OS X that is easy to use, but the problem is that it doesn’t integrate into Apple’s flagship photo management application called iPhoto. This is a big deal because many Mac users will probably be using iPhoto, and using the standard Flickr uploader means that you’ll need to add tags, descriptions, and titles to all of your photos twice: once in iPhoto and again on Flickr. Yuck!
No problem. The Free Flickr eXporter iPhoto plugin works inside of iPhoto, and preserves all of your descriptions, tags/keywords, and titles while uploading your images. You can also adjust privacy settings, resize images before uploading them, and choose which set(s) you’d like the images placed in.
–Windows Live Photo Gallery (Homepage)–
Windows Live Photo Gallery is one of the best ways to not only manage your photos, but also to upload images to the Yahoo-owned Flickr. What’s interesting is that Microsoft ships Windows Live Photo Gallery with Flickr support, and that means there’s even less you have to do to get it running.
To upload images to Flickr all you have to do is go to Publish -> More Services -> Publish on Flickr to have the wizard walk you through the steps needed. After authorizing the application you’ll be able to choose which set your photos should be uploaded to, select a maximum image size, and also change the permissions. The application will automatically grab any tags and descriptions you’ve added to the photos and include those with what gets uploaded.
One of the things that is rather unique with Windows Live Photo Gallery’s implementation is that you can queue multiple uploads. After you get one set of photos uploading just switch back to Photo Gallery to start uploading more. The program prevents multiple uploads from going on simultaneously, and will add any other batches to a queue. Most Flickr uploading apps will just block you from trying to upload more than one batch at a time, which can be a pain if you just want to walk away from your computer while the uploading is going on.
Here is a step-by-step walkthrough of the Flickr support in Windows LIve Photo Gallery.
–Picasa Plugin (Homepage)–
Google’s Picasa application is an excellent way to manage your photos, and all hope isn’t lost if you don’t want to use it with Google’s online photo services. There’s a handy plugin called Picasa2Flickr that adds a “Send To Flickr” button to the Picasa toolbar near the bottom of the window. When you click on the button it will add the selected photos to Flickr Uploadr 3.0 where you can then finish the upload process.
It’s a bummer that in order for this to work you need to have both Picasa and the Flickr Uploadr installed, but it is more convenient this way. The button keeps you from having to find your photos on your computer, and then drag them into the Flickr Uploadr.
–Send To Flickr (Homepage)–
I’m thinking this has to be one of the fastest and easiest ways to get your photos on Flickr. After you get it installed you’ll be able to select any photos from Windows Explorer, right-click on them, and in the “Send To” menu you’ll see a Flickr option (pictured to the right). The images will immediately start uploading themselves to your account, and you’ll see a preview window that includes the status of your upload.
There aren’t any of the advanced options that you might be used to, but if you’re not concerned with how your photos are organized this is probably one of the best Flickr solutions.
–Overview–
I’ve only begun to scratch the surface with the tools that you can use to upload photos to Flickr, but I only wanted to cover the ones that I’ve used. Let us know in the comments how you get your photos on Flickr!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Dec 31
This week the folks at iFixit have taken to the Mac Pro for 2013, and under the hood they’ve found some extremely favorable results. In addition to finding what iFixit … Continue reading
Dec 30
This article was written on July 31, 2012 by CyberNet.
Over a month ago I wrote about a Beta version of Dexpot that was packed with some very polished features that emulated the Spaces and Exposé features from the Mac OS. The developers have since put the finishing touches on the app, and have pushed it out the door after 3-years of development. The Spaces clone, pictured above, provides an interactive way to manage multiple virtual desktops. When you first enter this view, called the “Full-Screen Preview”, you’ll see all of your virtual desktops in a grid layout. Just start dragging windows between desktops to see how well Dexpot handles itself.
When in the Full-Screen Preview you can also tile the windows on any of the desktops by right-clicking on a particular desktop. Alternatively if you right-click in the space separating the desktops it will tile the windows in all of the desktops. If you find yourself tiling the windows every time you open the virtual desktop manager there’s a handy little trick to have that automatically happen. All you have to do is assign a keyboard shortcut to the “Window Catalog (all desktops)” option in the settings, and then use that shortcut for pulling up your virtual desktops. This is where you’ll find the setting:
While in the settings you should also check out the plugins section of Dexpot. I enabled the MouseEvents plugin which lets me specify actions to be performed when my mouse travels to the corners of my monitor. For example, I can have it execute the “Window Catalog (all desktops)” action that I mentioned above any time I move my mouse to the upper-left corn of the screen.
Aside from the virtual desktop management Dexpot also has a great Exposé clone built in. They call the feature a “Window Catalog” which may not make it immediately obvious what it does, but it’s basically the best Exposé clone I’ve ever used on Windows. If you’ve been itching for an alternate way to switch between applications Dexpot probably just became even more valuable to you.
Dexpot Homepage (Windows only; Free for Personal Use)
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Dec 29
One of the features that Google has installed on its Android operating system is the ability to automatically backup your photos taken on your phone to Google+, the company’s social networking website. In a way it is similar to Apple’s iCloud service although admittedly Google seems to be putting much more effort into getting users to use its Google+ services as we have seen in the past with YouTube, the removal of the Gallery app, and how would we forget the hilarious “Blackmail” video. In any case for those who feel that Apple’s iCloud pricing scheme is a tad expensive, or at least more than they’d like to pay for backing up photos, Google has launched a new Google+ auto-backup utility for Mac computers with the latest update to their Picasa software.
Interestingly enough this feature has nothing to do with Picasa whatsoever, although it does come exclusively with the app, which means that even if you don’t use Picasa but want the feature, you’ll have to download it anyway. The auto-backup utility will allow users to automatically save photos up to 2048px to their Google+ account, unlimited we might add, or alternatively one could always upload the full resolution to their Google Drive which could eat up whatever space they have available. For those who don’t necessarily need their photos at full resolution, we reckon 2048px is a pretty decent size, not to mention it is unlimited if you were to back it up to Google+ so there’s some money saved right there.
Google Launches Google+ Auto Backup Tool For Mac In Picasa Update original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Dec 28
The 2013 Mac Pro has a removable CPU, Other World Computing has discovered in a teardown. By “removable”, we mean the CPU can be pulled out of its socket by … Continue reading
Dec 27
When I first saw OpenEmu, it was already able to play games from different previous gen systems, but it had this experimental streak to it. Four years later, it has put its wild days behind. The new OpenEmu is a suave and streamlined application that looks and behaves like a native OS X program.
OpenEmu uses open source emulators for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, NeoGeo Pocket, Nintendo DS, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega 32X, Sega Master System, TurboGrafx-16 and the Virtual Boy. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to switch between emulators to play digital copies of games that you legally own (henceforth known as DCOGTYLO). Simply load DCOGTYLO into OpenEmu and it will figure out what emulator each one runs on, similar to how your computer automatically opens your other files in their respective programs (well, most of the time anyway).
Another great feature of OpenEmu is that it downloads game covers for your DCOGTYLO over the Internet, then presents it in interfaces that OS X users will be familiar with, such as Cover Flow. Those two features combine to give you an elegant way to organize and view your DCOGTYLO collection.
But OpenEmu really shines if you take the time to get to know its more technical features. For starters, it supports a wide variety of gamepads, from generic USB controllers to the DualShock 4. It also has a variety of video filters that can make you fell like you’re back in third grade, looking up at a 15″ CRT TV, when you’re actually playing a DCOGTYLO on your MacBook Air. At work. Here’s a great preview of OpenEmu by Lon Seidman:
You can download OpenEmu for free. The emulator’s developers also bundled a pack of homebrew games for those that don’t have a DCOGTYLO to play.
[via OS X Daily]
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