Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on October 05, 2010 by CyberNet.

One of my favorite features in Vista/Windows 7 is the built-in search utility. It makes finding things a lot faster, and in some cases it can even search the content of a file. By default, however, it supports a limited number of file types when it comes to searching a file’s content, but that is where the MariusSoft File Searcher comes in.

This application doesn’t require that you index the files on your computer before hand, and it is surprisingly fast. For example, I was searching for some code in ASPX files and it took just a few seconds to sift through a few thousand files spread out across hundreds of different directories. Granted only about 30% of them were actually ASPX files, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Here are a list of features for File Searcher:

• Search multiple locations at once
• Filter file by name/extenstion using simple text or regular expressions
• Filter file creation/access/modify dates within date range
• Search files for multiple content criteria
• Search for simple text or regular expressions
• Support for popular formats including PDF, Office, HTML, RTF, TXT, and many more
• View results in notepad, open containing folder, or open file in native program
• All results are sortable
• Multi threaded to take advantage of multi core CPUs

If you’re simply looking to search filenames I’d stick with the built-in searching capabilities of Windows 7, but between the speed and file compatibility I’d say this blows away all of the native content search capabilities. Take it for a spin if you find yourself looking for some text inside of files.

MariusSoft File Searcher (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on November 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Have you ever thought to yourself that it should be possible to do a double right-click the same way that you can do a normal double click? No? Me neither, but it turns out that it can be pretty useful.

A tiny free app called ClickZap (does require installation) will let you choose from a variety of commands to assign to the double right-click. You can set it to:

• Lock the computer
• Logoff the computer
• Shutdown the computer
• Minimize active window
• Minimize all windows
• Close active window
• Close all windows
• Mute the sound

One of the options I was hoping that this would have is the ability to perform a middle-click, but it doesn’t. Guess I still have to use the AutoHotKey script that I made to simulate the middle-click action. I’ve actually decided to set ClickZap to close the active window which seems to be saving me quite a bit of time, and to my surprise I haven’t accidentally closed a window yet. 🙂

ClickZap Homepage
Source: Shell City

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

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

A year ago the BumpTop virtual desktop software left many people in an "I want it" frame of mind. I was surely one of those people as the demonstration showed files being thrown around the desktop just as you would in real life. You could crumple icons up like a piece of paper, sprawl pictures across a desk, and organize everything into tidy stacks with just a few clicks.

So now here we are, a year later, and we don’t have this in our hands. Don’t worry, the project is still very much alive as we saw at at the TED conference:

I still have a hard time comprehending whether this would be useful for me when organizing the things on my desktop. It’s one of those things that has an amazing demonstration, but can it be put to practical use?

One thing that bothers me a little bit is that you have to identify your files by the icons, since there are no filenames being displayed for them. I guess that they could go the route of a real desktop and allow previews of files, for example, if you hover over them with your mouse. Most operating systems now have the capabilities of generating these previews so that shouldn’t be too horrible to integrate.

The other thing that I would like to see is an option to create multiple rooms. Each demonstration that I’ve seen only includes one room that the user has to organize files, but it would be nice to have a separate room for photos, another for videos, and then one for my files. That way I have even more organizational power.

So now that you’ve seen another demo of BumpTop, what do you think? Is this something that can really takeoff or is it doomed to failure?

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Fear not, all you users looking for another update to iOS 7 nary a month after you’ve seen the first, there’s an iOS 7.1 coming your way sooner than later. This week there’s an iOS 7.1 beta appearing for developers only, looking to see prime-time for the rest of the world likely before the month […]

A retracted bit of code in the newest version of Android (4.4 KitKat) has appeared this week with Google looking to boost the software-based camera functionality of mobile devices. One part of the equation in making a smartphone take high-quality photos is in the camera’s lens itself, while another is in the image processing provided […]