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Feb 21

MediaFire: Way Better Than RapidShare For Sharing Files

This article was written on October 30, 2006 by CyberNet.

MediaFire

File sharing can be a huge burden for webmasters which is why RapidShare has become such an overwhelming success. People go there, upload their file, and let RapidShare worry about hosting it and the bandwidth cost. However, RapidShare has all kinds of things that people hate such as the 60-second delay before you can download and a 100MB filesize limit.

MediaFire has removed all of those rules and can’t get much more perfect than it already is, which is amazing since the site has only been available for around a week. There are no file size limitations which means you could upload a whole ISO image of Linux without any problems! Man, I would love to see some Linux distributions start using this instead of making you use Torrent files, even though those are fast too. You can also download/upload as much as you want AND you can be doing multiple files simultaneously! Best of all is that there are no wait times!

I created an account with them because it allows you to keep track of the files you have uploaded, which makes it easy if I ever need to go back and get the URL. Here is an example file that I uploaded so that you could see what the download page looks like. There are just a few Google Adsense advertisements which are definitely not as obtrusive as some of the other file sharing sites.

I think the best thing is the clean interface. I mean look at how nice their uploader looks:

MediaFire Uploader

Any future files that I post to this site I’ll probably just use MediaFire as the host because they seem to really be on top of things. I contacted MediaFire regarding how long they will keep the file available if it hasn’t been downloaded. RapidShare will keep a file on their servers as long as someone downloads it every 30 days, otherwise they will delete it. The MediaFire team promptly (within minutes) responded saying:

While there is currently no time limit on the storage of uploaded files, in the future if the need to delete data should become necessary you will receive an email to the account holders email address notifying you of the impending deletion so that you can manage your files accordingly. Currently any file deletion will be on an as-needed basis and will apply to older and less frequently downloaded files first.

I think RapidShare better keep an eye on what their competitors are doing otherwise they could be headed for a decline!

Feb 21

My Yahoo Leaves Beta, Old Version Retires Soon

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on July 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

Yahoo has decided that now is the perfect time to drop the beta tag from My Yahoo! Over the last year or so, users have had the option of using the new My Yahoo with a completely new look, feel, and features. It was still in the “beta” phase which meant that Yahoo was requesting feedback and tweaking things to make it just right. On the My Yahoo! Blog, they made the announcement that they were out of beta, but also announced that they were changing the way they used advertising on the site.

Probably the biggest and most welcomed change is the simple fact that that there are less adds and the ones they do display are less intrusive. They are also providing more custom-designed modules and new Yahoo! modules that will integrate content from some of Yahoo’s other services like Flickr or Movie Showtimes. If you’re new to the new My Yahoo, it may be worth it to take a look at some of the tips they provide for making the most of it. Tips for the new My Yahoo! can be found here. Customization is everywhere which is necessary these days, for a true personalized homepage.

My Yahoo! beta.png

The other last bit of information worth noting is that with the New My Yahoo out of beta, Yahoo is ready to drop support for the original My Yahoo! That means the original version is retiring. This is scheduled to happen on July 14th (Monday). They say, “at that point, access to the original My Yahoo! will no longer be enabled. The new version of My Yahoo! was built for you and similar to our recent advertising change, we will remain committed to improving the product based on your feedback.”

Feb 19

Demonoid is Back Online!

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on April 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

demonoid

The title says it all! Demonoid, a BitTorrent tracker, has been down since November 2007 when the Canadian Recording Industry forced them to close their doors. TorrentFreak reported today that the site would be resurrected under a new administrator, but I don’t think anyone was expecting that it would happen so quickly.

While it’s sad to report that Deimos is no longer in control of the site I’m definitely pleased to see it back up and running. I went to see if I could still hand out invites, but it looks like that system hasn’t been put back in place. I’ll keep an eye out so that when we do get some invites we can give a few out to some of our readers.

Other than that the site seems to be running pretty smooth. There haven’t been that many torrents uploaded thusfar today, but I’m sure in no time it will be re-populated.

Here’s the welcome back message that has been posted:

Since a few months ago, Deimos, the site administrator, lacks the necessary time to take care of the website, because of personal matters he’s been needing to attend to. For this reason, he has decided to leave the site staff.
Before leaving, he assigned a new site administrator from among his friends to take care of the site. The old moderator team will continue helping with the site, unchanged. We will try to keep running everything just as it always has been.
The trackers and website seem to be working properly, and should any issues arise, they will be taken care of as soon as possible. The site might be going on and offline over the next days as we work out any problems.
Welcome back, and enjoy your stay!
– Umlauf
Demonoid Site admin

It’s really hard to believe that what’s often claimed to be the best private torrent tracker ever is once again active.

Feb 19

Use the New Spotback Widget to Rate our Articles

Posted in: Today's Chili

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

I’ve known Spotback for quite awhile to be a great news aggregation service with a slight twist. It is setup so that users can rate articles, and based upon that, they will be shown news that Spotback thinks goes along well with the news that they rate as good.

Spotback has now begun the process of making their rating tool available to the rest of the web! We are lucky enough to be part of their Alpha program, and right now you can use the rating tool at the bottom of our articles as a way to let us know which articles you like the best. They look something like this:

Spotback

It is really easy to use because you use a slider to do the rating. Moving it all the way to the left will give the article a rating of 1 (bad), and moving it all the way to the right will give an article a rating of 5 (good). Once you let go of the slider it will automatically submit your vote using AJAX, so there is no need for a screen refresh to take place. Once your vote is placed, the circular object on the slider turns from grey to gold and also shows the numerical value of your rating right next to it.

You’ll also notice the “tags” button where users can submit their own tags for articles:

Spotback

Why is this useful for you? By tagging articles yourself (and also by other people tagging) Spotback is able to offer other related content from the site you’re currently visiting. I originally thought that it may be used to pull in similar articles from other sites around the web, but this is not the case. You’re able to find the highest rated articles, popular tags, and even related content by clicking the “like it? get more” link located next to the tag button:

Spotback

Website owners can also place the “like it? get more” popup in the sidebar on their page so that visitors always have quick access to the best articles as well as tags.

I have also seen some people, such as Go2Web2, get a more customized version of the widget which blends in more with the site. I’m going to look into doing this with our site as well which will definitely be cool.

One thing that I am anxious to see is some sort of profile page so that both site administrators and even visitors can see top ranked articles from the whole site. That would be extremely beneficial to website owners so that they can see what articles appeal the most to their audience. It could also be helpful for visitors because they could be allowed to search a site for text and sort the results by the most highly rated articles…therefore returning the best content (assuming all votes were legitimate).

You can sign-up to be notified when Spotback launches this tool for everyone to use, but in the meantime you should kick it around a little on our site to see how it works!

Feb 18

Omnidrive Opening To The Public Tomorrow – 1GB Storage

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 08, 2006 by CyberNet.

Online file storage is becoming increasingly popular and a highly talked about service called Omnidrive will be bringing down the barriers so that anyone can register for a free account. This will happen tomorrow at 12:01AM PST which is about 14-hours from now.

Like other online file storage solutions Omnidrive has a software application that will let you easily share a folder with another user and even access your files right from your “My Computer.” This takes the hassle out of pulling up the web page every time that you want to transfer a file.

The well developed program has earned a lot of praise around the web over the last few months but the 1GB of free storage is a bit meek. Even AOL is offering a free 5GB of storage with their recently acquired service called Xdrive. If you need more space on Omnidrive it will cost you $40 a year to receive 10GB and their FAQ’s page says that you can get up to 500GB “at a very reasonable price.”

I’ll probably try out the Omnidrive when it does launch so that I can accurately compare different services to see what is best for me, but I wish Google would come out with some kind of service to blow everyone else out of the water. We all keep saying to ourselves that it will be soon but then it never comes. 🙁

Feb 18

QuickTime Bug Affects Java-Enabled Browsers

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on May 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

I don’t think that anyone likes to hear about security-related bugs because they can get you all worked up. This new bug, however, is the very critical one found by Dino Dai Zovi at the recent Mac Hacking contest. It affects almost anyone that has QuickTime installed, on both Mac OS X and Windows, which is just about everyone with an iPod.

Secunia tracks vulnerabilities very closely, and according to them the bug affects both Firefox and Safari on Macs. Another researcher said that this also affects Windows Vista through IE7, and probably any Java-enabled browser that also has the QuickTime Java extension installed.

The bug can compromise a user’s computer by simply visiting a malicious website. The temporary work around for this is simple…disable Java. I’m sure Apple is scrambling to get an update issued for QuickTime due to the bug’s widespread and cross-platform nature, but disabling Java is the best way to keep yourself safe at this time.

Dino, the person who found the flaw, also said in an interview by MacWorld that Vista is more secure than the Mac OS X operating system:

I have found the code quality, at least in terms of security, to be much better overall in Vista than Mac OS X 10.4. It is obvious from observing affected components in security patches that Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) has resulted in fewer vulnerabilities in newly-written code. I hope that more software vendors follow their lead in developing proactive software security development methodologies.

Thanks for the tip CoryC!

Feb 17

Apple’s App Store to Introduce Beta Program

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on July 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

app store beta.png Ever since Apple’s App Store launched, we have heard from developers complaining for various reasons. One complaint is that when they (the developers) make an update, it takes Apple too long (there have been reports of developers waiting up to 10 days) to make the update available to the masses. Developers are left with little control over the distribution of their applications which makes it frustrating.

Another complaint from developers comes from the fact that there is no way for them to release their apps to a small group of testers to get feedback before it is available to everybody. If there’s a fix they make to an App, they have to submit it to Apple and have it released to the masses. That’s about to change here shortly with Apple getting ready to roll out a a beta program.

According to TechCrunch,this new beta program will allow developers to have 100 people test their app. Those who test an app will provide their iPhone serial number to the developer who will then inform Apple to “flag” an individual’s eligibility to test. Another important thing to note is that from the sounds of it, even those individuals who haven’t had their apps approved by Apple will still be able to put out their applications for beta users to test.

Slowly but surely it looks like Apple is starting to address the concerns of developers. The App Store is just as new to Apple as it is for developers, so with time, the system should work better…

Feb 17

Wikio: Like Digg, but better Features?

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on December 21, 2006 by CyberNet.

Wikio

So I had never heard of this site Wikio until I started to see a small amount of traffic start to trickle in from it. Like most sites that I see traffic from I went and visited it to see how they were referring people to my site. As soon as you land on their homepage your first thought will probably be that this is just another Digg-ripoff. I beg to differ, because while it does offer the same story promotion style of Digg there are still some unique aspects to it.

First off, to cast a vote on an article you don’t have to be a registered user. I definitely like that feature but as the site starts to become more popular it will probably receive spammers that try to take advantage of it. So this is nice but not a ground-breaking feature that should pull you away from Digg, but wait, there’s more!

Wikio has news, and a lot of it. Unlike Digg it automatically gathers news from a list of submitted URL’s which currently total more than 12,000! You can always submit a single article that you find but I’m sure there is a lot of appeal to having this “news aggregator” grab articles without putting you through the hassle of doing it yourself. To find out where I was getting traffic from I just typed “Cybernetnews” in the search box to see what results it came up with. As it turns out my URL must have been submitted because for the last week or so people have been voting on our articles…pretty cool. If you do a search and find out that your site is not already in their database then submit your URL here. Before submitting your URL you might want to read this post that they made regarding the addition of new sources.

So what draws people to using Wikio for finding news if there is so much that would have to be filtered through? Tabs are in our Web browsers and they are also in Wikio. you can create multiple tabs and choose what tags or categories you want to be displayed in that tab. I’m not completely sure how their automated tagging system works but looking through the articles that it has pulled from our site I would say that it did a great job of picking relevant tags.

Digg will surely continue to grow, but I think they need to start looking at what other users find beneficial when it comes to customizing their news. The whole tab idea is fantastic and tags are something that Digg needs as well, but I think they are pretty set on trying to establish unique features so that they stand out a little more. When you have as many news submissions as Digg does in one day (typically around 1,500) there needs to be an easier way for people to browse through them, and for me the categories just don’t seem to cut it.

Nice job Wikio, looks like you have a real winner here!

Feb 16

CyberNotes: Ever Wonder How To….?

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on June 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

About a year ago, we wrote about a site called Expert Village which claimed to the the World’s Largest How-to Video Site. They have a team of experts who contribute videos explaining how to do something in categories like automotive, beauty & fashion, and parenting. It’s a great site and they have all kinds of information available to their site visitors. Their only limitation is that videos have to be done by one of their “experts” which in some ways is nice because you know the information is likely accurate. Today we’re going to take a look at another “how-to” video site called “Wonder How To.” They allow anybody to upload videos which too has its benefits.

What is “Wonder How To?”

“Wonder How To” is a site dedicated to providing a directory of free how-to videos. They say they have more than 100,000 videos as of March of this year, so they do have a good collection of videos that will help you figure out how to do something. They’re adding thousands of videos each week which means their collection continues to expand greatly.

Anybody can upload a video but that doesn’t mean that it will be displayed on the site. They do reject some videos if they’re a “glaring self promotion” or if they are excerpts from for-sale DVD’s that “serve as a “sneak peak.” They also try to keep the site safe for a broad audience which means that they do censor clips as well. Users help with this process by flagging inappropriate content.

If you want to submit a video, just look for the “submit” tab at the top of the page. You’ll be able to provide a url for a how-to video and then choose which category and sub-category the movie should go under.

Searching for videos

One of the most important aspects of “Wonder How To” is their search feature because without it, you wouldn’t be able to find what you’re looking for. Because of this they’ve added options to refine your search so that you can find exactly what you’re looking for.

I decided to put the search to the test, so in the main search box I typed “Photoshop” to look for different tutorials on how to do things in Photoshop. Once I typed in my key word, it pulled up 1,0001 different videos that matched my query. Photoshop is a pretty broad topic though, so I decided to refine my search further which I could do in the left sidebar.

Because I was looking for information on Software, I chose that, and then once again I was given options to refine again. This time I clicked “Photoshop” and then I was given different topics that I could refine the search by again.

Another simple way to search for videos is just by browsing their home page. They’ve got all kinds of great videos featured on there including recently added videos, overlooked great videos, and today’s popular videos. You can also click on “Categories” at the top of the page to sift through videos divided into categories. Each day they also have a “clip of the day” to watch.

The Community/Building a Profile

If you decide that you want to get social, you can join the community and like other sites out there, create a profile for yourself. They compile some lists of the members on the community page like top submitters, top watchers, top graders (those who rate the videos), top commenters, top playlisters (we’ll explain Playlists in a minute) and most popular (those with the most profile visits).

wonder how to community.png

Make a Playlist

With how-to videos, you wouldn’t think that they’d offer you the option to create playlists but they do. People can put a bunch of their favorite how-to videos together in list form and they can be made public or private.

Wrapping it up…

If you ever need guidance on how to do something, definitely check out Wonder How To because they have an ever growing selection of videos that will guide you through the process on just about anything you could think of.

Feb 15

ISP Throttling Test for BitTorrent and Usenet Traffic

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on May 13, 2011 by CyberNet.

Test isp throttling

Do you have suspicions that your ISP may be throttling (a.k.a. traffic shaping) some of your Internet traffic? It’s easy to tell if your ISP is blocking something, such as BitTorrent traffic, since nothing will get through, but it is more difficult to tell whether they are just restricting your download/upload speeds. That’s where the free Glasnost service comes into play.

Glasnost is a Java-powered web service that lets you run various tests for checking whether your P2P, email, or web traffic is being throttled by your ISP. Here’s a quick list of the 9 different tests you can run as well as a brief description of what gets tested with each of them:

BitTorrent – Filesharing with BitTorrent.
HTTP – A file download from a webserver using HTTP.
IMAP – A download of an email with a large attachment from an IMAP email server.
POP – A download of an email with a large attachment from a POP email server.
Flash Video – Flash video over HTTP, as used by, e.g., YouTube.
SSH – A file transfer over the SSH protocol, as done by the SCP utility.
Gnutella – Filesharing with Gnutella.
eMule – Filesharing with eMule.
Usenet – Sharing Binary Files using Usenet Server (NNTP protocol).

I use Comcast for my ISP and I was happy to see that the couple tests I ran all came back saying that my traffic wasn’t being throttled. Of course this isn’t a definitive answer as to whether it is actually being done since they may only do it at specific times (e.g. during peak traffic periods), but it is a little more reassuring.

Glasnost Homepage

Hasta La Gadget!

MediaFire: Way Better Than RapidShare For Sharing Files

My Yahoo Leaves Beta, Old Version Retires Soon

Demonoid is Back Online!

Use the New Spotback Widget to Rate our Articles

Omnidrive Opening To The Public Tomorrow – 1GB Storage

QuickTime Bug Affects Java-Enabled Browsers

Apple’s App Store to Introduce Beta Program

Wikio: Like Digg, but better Features?