Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft published an interesting patent on July 12th that details what could very well be a Windows Taskbar replacement. The images associated with the application can be viewed in this PDF that I put together, otherwise you need to have a TIFF image viewer (or QuickTime) installed to view the images in your browser.

The patent details what Microsoft calls Clipping Lists, and the details at this point are pretty slim. The Microsoft Research group working Clipping Lists say that it will offer:

• Significantly faster task completion times
• Significantly fewer task switches
• Adding change detection is even better!
• Faster task resumption after switch

As with all patent applications the mockups are in black & white with poor quality, so it’s hard to make out what Microsoft is really trying to get across here. For comparison sake this is what the patent demonstrates as the current state of the Taskbar:

The new Clipping List will let users group and order applications in a sidebar in whatever fashion they would like. Here’s a mockup of what that might look like:

To make it easy to monitor the progress of running applications you could expand them to contain a thumbnail. For example, at a glance you would be able to see when your presentation software is done loading a video:

Looking around I came across a presentation that was given on the Clipping Lists, and it had screenshots that were a little more colorful but still lacked any elegance:

There you can see what two "categorized" items look like with some live previews of the running application.

It’s still not clear whether Microsoft has intentions of replacing the Taskbar in the next version of Windows (due out in 2009), but I definitely welcome something that is more productive. I think that Microsoft is on to something with their ideas here, and with the increasing popularity of widescreen monitors it is inevitable that the Taskbar will move into the sidebar.

So what do you think of the idea? Do you think that this is more productive than the current Taskbar and Mac OS X’s Dock?

Source: I Started Something

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on June 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

Speculation is now over as to what the new Opera Mini 4 feature is…PC-like Web browsing! When I first saw this feature I was wondering how well it was going to work, but it is actually really incredible. Just like the iPhone you get a zoomed-out view of a website, and then you can zoom into certain areas of the site by navigating around with the cursor.

The cursor is kinda intelligent because it will snap to the content and hyperlinks as you move it around, which makes it a lot easier to pull up the content you want. Not only that, but Opera Mini arranges the content on the site in a way to minimize the amount of horizontal scrolling that you have to do. For example, on our site our large content area in the middle is shrunk down so that when you zoom in it fits the width of your phone’s screen perfectly.

Here’s a quick video of this feature in action:

Just like before Opera Mini still works by sending your website request to a remote server that pre-processes the content before sending it to you. That way they can ensure that it will look good, and in the case of Opera Mini 4 it creates a thumbnail which is what you see when you’re "zoomed out."

You can download the new Opera Mini 4 Beta by visiting this site, or you can play with it all you want with this interactive demo that they have setup. Opera Watch also has a bunch of screenshots from different sites which demonstrates how well they are rendered.

Now I just can’t wait for them to release their Flash replacement for Opera Mini.

Oh, and here is a video of Opera Mini vs. the iPhone…it’s pretty funny:

Source: Opera Watch
Opera Mini 4 Features

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on March 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has spoken up on his personal blog what he feels about the recent happenings with Dell, and the possibility that users will be offered the chance to have some distribution of Linux (such as Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, or Fedora) pre-installed on a new PC.

His article explains a lot of things that is important for some people to realize. I’ll recap a few of the things that caught my attention:

This means that one of the biggest issues a computer manufacturer or reseller faces in considering Linux pre-installations is the impact it will have on the Microsoft relationship, and hence bottom line.

That is very true, and I’m sure Microsoft gives discounts to OEM’s who sell a large quantity of their products such as Windows and Office. If Dell pursued the Linux PC’s then Microsoft might increase the pricing of Windows which will cause Dell to have to increase their prices. I think that the impact might not be as drastic initially, but I’m sure Microsoft isn’t too fond of Dell offering Linux systems.

Here’s another quote:

The worst-case scenario is a customer who buys a computer at the lowest price off your website, assuming it’s a Windows machine, and then calls, infuriated, because it “won’t work with the game they are trying to install”. One customer who accidentally gets Linux without knowing what that means is an expensive proposition for a company that makes relatively little on the low-end product range.

This is going to be one of my biggest fears as well. People seeing this “great deal” on the Dell site and impulsively purchasing it. Then I receive the call one night asking why none of their Windows programs can be installed on the computer. I’m hoping in a case like this Dell would simply let users pay a little extra to get a version of Windows shipped to them.

And now for the last quote:

Second, we free software fans are a fussy crowd, and very hard to please. You know what you are like – you sit and configure that Dell system down to the finest detail, you want a specific model of HP laptop, you want the one that has the Intel graphics chipset not the other chipset because you prefer the free driver approach from Intel… you are in short an expert, demanding customer. This means, that in order to reach us with Linux, a reseller has to offer Linux EVERYWHERE, not just on a few select models.

Yes, Linux users in particular are often very knowledgeable about their computers and want to choose exactly what they are getting. In this case, however, I’m sure a lot of users will just build their own PC’s. By Dell offering computers with Ubuntu pre-installed I think it will possibly attract some new Linux users that may have not previously tried out Linux. The biggest benefit by Dell doing this is that a user is sure that all of the hardware in the system functions well with the operating system itself.

I’m still skeptical about the number of people who will actually purchase Linux PC’s from Dell, but maybe I’ll be surprised in the end. I think it also depends on how much Dell actually tries to promote Linux, and I don’t think that will really be done since their real revenue will come from selling Windows PC’s.

Note: The image used in this article is from DeviantArt, and is freely available as a wallpaper (1600×1200 resolution).

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on September 24, 2006 by CyberNet.

It has been about a week since Microsoft released the Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh and it is running great for me. By default Office 2007 is setup to use the new file format that Microsoft came out with which is much more efficient than the old format. I have noticed that my file sizes are typically 50%-75% less than the original file.

If you are unaware of the new file format here is a list of file extensions and what they represent:

Word

• .docx–Microsoft Office Word 2007 document
• .docm–Microsoft Office Word 2007 macro-enabled document

PowerPoint

• .pptx–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation
• .pptm–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled presentation
• .potx–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 template
• .potm–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled template
• .ppsx–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 show
• .ppsm–Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled show

Excel

• .xlsb–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 binary workbook
• .xlsx–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 workbook
• .xlsm–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 macro-enabled workbook
• .xltx–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 template
• .xltm–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 macro-enabled template
• .xlam–Microsoft Office Excel 2007 add-in

I didn’t start using the new file format until I noticed that Microsoft had released an add-on for Office 2000, XP, and 2003 and would let me open/save files with these extensions. Here are the direct download links for the add-on that you need to install (which can also be found on the converter homepage):

• English Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
• Japanese Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
• French Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
• German Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
• Spanish Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on August 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

Another day, another CyberSearch release. 😉 Over the weekend I had some time to work on a new CyberSearch feature that I’ve periodically received requests for. Like most features I had to think this one through to ensure that it wouldn’t interfere with the built-in Firefox keyword system.

So what have I added? In CyberSearch 1.0 you might recall that I added an entry onto the bottom of every search results list that would take you to the Google results page. Now we’re making it even easier for you to pull up the Google results page!

When CyberSearch recognizes that you’ve typed in a keyword or domain followed by the Enter key (or Go button) it will instantly take you to the Google search page that shows the same results you were looking at in the address bar. Obviously if you select a result from the drop-down list this feature will be ignored, but pressing Enter without selecting an item from the menu will pull up the Google results page.

This option comes enabled by default, but can quickly be disabled in the settings. You’ll find the option in the General tab:

Keywords that have already been assigned in the browser’s search box will take precedence over any of the ones from our extension. The extension, however, does not look at the keywords you’ve created in your bookmarks, which means CyberSearch will override any of those. For that reason we recommend transitioning your bookmark keywords over to the search box, and I’ve found that the Add to Search Bar extension is useful in doing just that since it will let you add any search box from any site.

Get CyberSearch

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