Hasta La Gadget!

There’s an update for the app called Cinemagraph out there this week that allows the user to export the media created by the app through the camera of the mobile … Continue reading

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 November 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

If you live in the Silicon Valley area, you have a chance to be one of the first to get Windows Vista SP1 (pre-release version) installed on your computer. Microsoft is holding their second install fair (the first was in Redmond, Washington) which they’re doing so they can gather performance data from multiple computers with different applications installed. There are a few requirements that your computer must meet, but if you show-up to get the service pack installed, you’ll be thanked with a pretty decent gift.

Here’s the requirements that your PC must meet:

• 1GHz or higher processor
• 512 MB of RAM
• 4X or 8X AGP video adaptor with 64MB of RAM
• 6GB of free hard drive space
• DVD-ROM drive

You’ll need to register in advance to do this, and the dates are December 8-9 from 9 AM to 4 PM at their Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View. Both laptops and desktops are wanted, just be sure to bring your power cord. Another important this is to backup all of your data before you go! As I said, this will be a pre-release version which means it may not be smooth sailing from the start.

Oh, and that gift I mentioned… you’ll get a free copy of Office 2007 and a “special gift”! If only they came out to the Midwest to do this, I’d definitely be willing to have SP1 installed if I could walk away with a free copy of Office!

Source: Download Squad

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

There’s a bit of technology being introduced this week by the folks at Folded Space that they suggest will allow “Deep Color Content Encoding” that’d be fully backwards-compatible with existing … Continue reading

This article was written on December 29, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free for all Friday!

If you’re looking for nice, simple, but useful photo and image programs, you’ll love the freeware that VicMan Software has to offer. As of December 22, 2006, all of the graphics software that they offer is free. They’ve got some great products that you can use to easily enhance your photos. Their software is inspired by the idea that “most casual photographers need a photo processing solution, but do not want to learn sophisticated graphic applications.” I’m sure most of you fit into that “casual photographer” like I do, which makes their technology perfect to meet your needs.

My Pictures 3D

Out of all of the software on the site, one of my favorites is My Pictures 3D which I installed and played around with for a while.  Given the name, it is pretty self explanatory.  My Pictures 3D allows you to view your pictures in 3D as a screensaver and as a 3D album.  The 3D screensaver is great. I typically don’t use a screensaver anymore, but after playing around with the 3D screensaver, I may revert back. The idea is to display your pictures in a 3D format in “realistic” types of environments, like an art museum, a park, or a castle. They offer 13 different galleries that you can download to use, along with the 2 default galleries that are automatically installed with the program.

After I selected the folder that I wanted it to use, I tested it out.  My picture folder contains literally hundreds of sub-folders, which My Pictures 3D loaded without any problems.  Once your pictures have loaded, your 3D walk begins in a setting where all of your photos are displayed.  For example, the “Showroom” gallery appears as any Art gallery would. On the wall you’ll find your pictures hanging, and your tour begins.

There are other extras to the program that make it stand out.  First, you can add sound to play during your 3D walk.  One option is to have the music randomly selected, or you could also have the music loop. Another important feature is desktop resolution; You’re able to select the resolution so that your pictures will fit appropriately. Other options include the stop frequency which gives you control over how often the program will stop and zoom in on a full-sized picture.  You can also select whether or not you want full-screen pictures.  Occasionally, while you’re on your walking tour, it will zoom in to one picture and then show a full screen picture. This can easily be turned off.

To give this yet a more realistic experience, there are options to change the walker height and speed so that you’re comfortable while browsing the gallery.  There’s also a free-move mode so that you can wander around the space using the mouse. If you’re in the auto mode, the computer will do all of the moving for you.

One of my favorite galleries is their new ‘Neon Maze’ that’s available to download. Some of the other galleries include a Moon Observatory, Lopsided Room, and an Exhibition Hall, all of which are new additions to the gallery.  Other options include a Christmas theme gallery, Greek, and an Armory gallery. Really, any of the galleries will make a 3D walk interesting. They also note on their site that they continue to create new galleries!

You can download My Pictures 3D here.

My Picture 3D is not the only program available, there are lots of others which I’ll briefly mention here.  If you find it useful, I’ll also include the download link for easy referencing.

• Red Eye Remover Pro – Red eye correction tool automatically detects and instantly corrects red pupils in photos. You can even perform this check in a batch of pictures!
• Mobile Phone Enhancer – Most phones these days have cameras on them, and now there’s software to enhance those photos too!
• Color Correction Wizard – Adjusts brightness and contrast.
• Cartoonist– Warp images of your friends and family into cartoons!
• JPEG Enhancer – Restore images that were damaged by saving a picture as a low quality JPEG compression.
• Light Artist – Add realistic lighting to your photos.

 If you’re a casual photographer and you haven’t taken the time to play around with your photos to enhance them, give any of the listed freeware a try.  You’ll be amazed at what a simple program can do to your pictures, and how easy it is to actually add some fun and excitement to your photos.

VicMan Software

Thanks for the tip Radu!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com