Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

A couple of weeks ago we were able to give out 16 Pownce invites to the first 16 people that commented.  This week we’ve got 18 invites to give away! Remember, Pownce is used to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends, and the only way to get involved is with an invite.

As last time, Chris over at Learn Firefox has volunteered to give his six invites to our readers, and Ryan and I each have six as well. So with 18 invites to give away, go ahead and leave a comment below.  Be sure that you leave your email address in the “email field” of the comment section.  If you don’t provide an address, we won’t be able to send it to you.

For those of you who read this after the 18 have been given away, feel free to leave your email address in plain sight in the comment (versus only including it in the email field which is visible only to site administrators) and there might be someone who has Pownce and will be willing to send you an invite.

If you have Pownce, you can go ahead and add Ryan and I:

• Ryan – www.pownce.com/ryanwagner
• Ashley – www.pownce.com/ashleywagner

Enjoy!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on July 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

About a week ago we gave you some insight as to what you can expect from the new CyberNet design that we’re preparing to launch. We’re almost completely finished with it, there’s just a few little details left. It’s been tested in Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox 2 & 3 Alpha, Opera 9, and Safari 3 Beta and works beautifully. Our goal is to give our visitors an experience unlike any other blog out there, and we think that this new design will deliver on that.

Of course it’s not just a new design…we also have several new features that we are going to be bringing to the table. I don’t want to spill all of the details quite yet, but it is safe to say that you won’t be disappointed. Many of the new features that we implemented came from requests that our readers have made, and this is our way of saying “we hear ya!”

And to relieve some of the shock from the drastically different color scheme, we thought that we would provide you with this screenshot which was taken from our Beta design:

Hmmm, looks like most of the page got cut off in the screenshot…oops. 🙂

As it stands right now we will be taking CyberNet down on Thursday at 11PM Central Time to perform the upgrades. I would like to think that it would take less than 15 minutes to do, but there are several database modifications that I have to make including the conversion of all existing CyberMarks over to the new system. Yep, that’s right, a completely rewritten CyberMark system that you’re sure to love.

One thing that we would like to note is that we considered implementing a nested comment system, however, most of the feedback we received was in opposition to it. People thought that a nested system is too complicated and made it difficult to follow conversations, so we strayed away from the idea.

For more information on what to expect in the new design you can read this post.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on June 26, 2007 by CyberNet.

When DivShare launched their last big update I was a little skeptical about them ditching their Premium plan in favor of their new DivShare Direct. With the DivShare Direct you are able to link directly to the files that you upload as well as put your own logo on the DivShare Flash video player (as seen to the right). The downside to the plan was that your account had some new limitations added to it:

• $4.95/month – 5GB of storage and 50GB of data transfer
• $9.95/month – 10GB of storage and 150GB of data transfer
• $19.95/month – 25GB of storage and 400GB of data transfer
• $49.95/month – 75GB of storage and 1,000GB of data transfer

They limited both the amount of data transfer and the storage you had on your account, both of which are unlimited for free users. They did, however, say that once you data transfer limit was exceeded that your account flipped into "free mode" so that visitors would still be able to download your files, but they would be taken to the DivShare site just like a free account does.

At the time there was no way to get around the storage limitation that they imposed on you though, which was a frustration that I had. The whole point of me using DivShare is that there is no limit, but "upgrading" my account would change that. I gave them some feedback saying that I should be able to choose which files get applied to the storage quota, which would overall mean that my account has unlimited storage.

They apparently liked my feedback and implemented the new system this afternoon. Now you can choose which files or videos are applied to the DivShare Direct plan that you pay for. The best part is that you will still get the FTP access and a 2GB upload limit for all of your files, which is exactly what I wanted!

I was going to purchase a DivShare Direct plan today, but then they also announced that starting tomorrow (and tomorrow only) they will be offering a free month of their DivShare Direct plan. There is no word on whether you will have to make a purchase in order to get the free month or which plan they will be offering for free, but I’ll be keeping my eye on their site to see what they have to say about it.

DivShare Homepage

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on November 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

There are big changes over at PollDaddy with the launch of version 2 of the popular poll service that works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, and more. The biggest changes are the addition of surveys, and the option for two different pro accounts. Pro accounts are offered at $20 per month and $99 per month, and we’ll explain the benefits of those accounts in just a minute. They’ve also added reporting tools which can provide users will a lot of helpful information about where their poll/survey takers are coming from. The overall appearance of the site has changed too, and it looks great.

First things first, they still offer the free account which we use. It’s worked well for our needs, and includes the option create unlimited polls with a link to Poll Daddy on each, and the new option to create surveys.  If you decide to create a survey, you’ll be limited to 10 responses per month and 10 questions per survey. Other than the limitations with the survey, the free service will work for most people.

If by chance the free account won’t work for you because you need to create larger surveys, you’ll want to look into a Pro option.  For $20 per month, the link back to PollDaddy is removed from your polls and surveys and you have access to vote analysis.  If you decide to create a survey, you’ll be allowed up to 1,000 responses per month and unlimited questions. With the $99 per month plan, you get the link removed and vote analysis, but you’re allowed 10,000 survey responses per month and support if needed via phone.

Anybody who loves statistics and likes to know where people are coming from will love the new reporting tools. Think of it as a “Google Analytics” for PollDaddy.  The online reporting is in real time, and they display the information in all kinds of cool charts and graphs. As Webware points out, this can be helpful for detecting any fraudulent votes by IP address and cookie manipulation. If you were using a poll for something where the results need to be accurate, this would be great.

Nice work PollDaddy, the services you offer are clean and easy to use, and the addition of surveys and pro accounts has just taken you to a whole new level and a new way to monetize the site.

Note: If you are currently have a Poll posted from PollDaddy, there area few bugs that may cause your poll to stop working like ours did. PollDaddy has acknowledged the problem as says they’re working on fixing it, but in the mean time, try editing the poll and saving it again. We did this, and it worked.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on June 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

Today marks the day that Evernote emerges out of an invitation-only private beta and into the public. We’ve been fans of the service for quite a while because it allows you to easily capture all kinds of information. Because of their text recognition capabilities, the information you capture whether it’s a receipt or a business card, for example, is searchable at any time. Evernote allows you to capture pretty much anything no matter if you’re on the web, on your desktop, or on your phone. Another big draw is that it’s available for both Mac OS X Leopard, Windows XP and Vista, Windows Mobile, or the Web (with Web Clippers).

Starting today, anybody is able to sign-up. There are both free and premium accounts available. A free account will give a user 40 MB worth of new notes per month while a premium paid account for $5 per months will give users 500 MB worth of new notes per month along with a few extra features. Some people have been confused thinking users were capped at 40 MB and 500 MB for the various accounts, and that you didn’t get more storage each month.

We mentioned that premium account users get a few extra features/benefits. One of them is that they get priority image recognition, and the Evernote team says this means even turing peak times when they’re busy. If you decide you want a premium account, you can either pay $5 each month or pay $45 for the whole year (a savings of $15). If once you have a premium account, you decide you want to go back, you’ll still be able to keep all of your notes, you’ll just go back to the 40 MB per month limit.

Some of you are already using Evernote, so to you, do you plan on getting a premium account, or do you intend to just stick with the free account? There have been some complaints in the past that the service just isn’t able to recognize text as well as it should, so hopefully they’ve improved that aspect of it.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com