Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on June 26, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Mac only
For me using a computer without keyboard shortcuts would be like trying to cut the grass with a pair of scissors. Sure it could be done, but it would take a lot longer to accomplish a task that should take no time at all. One thing that I’ve come to notice is that keyboard shortcuts seem even more important on a Mac than on a Windows machine.

What’s nice is that Apple has not only made it simple to edit many of the built-in keyboard shortcuts, but they also let you create your own keyboard shortcuts. Of course many of the application-specific shortcuts are terribly difficult to remember because the system-wide shortcuts have all of the easy key combinations. Since you’re able to create your own keyboard shortcuts, however, you might be able to get around that.

The first thing you’ll want to do is browse through all of the universal shortcuts that Apple has already created for the operating system, and then disable/change the ones you don’t think you’ll ever use. That way we can try to free up some of the easy to remember shortcuts for our own use later on.

1. Open the System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse. Then choose the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
2. You can double-click on any of the shortcuts listed to change the key combination used, or uncheck the box next to a shortcut to completely disable it. You can always return to the factory settings by clicking the Restore Defaults button in the lower-right corner.

Now we’ll get to the good stuff! What we want to do now is create our own keyboard shortcut(s) that can execute any menu item from within one or all applications. For example, using this method we could override the “New Tab” shortcut in Safari to be Command+N instead of Command+T. Here’s how you can do that:

1. Open the System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse. Then choose the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
2. Click the plus sign located in the lower-left corner to add a new shortcut.
   
3. From the popup choose an application from the list, or leave the All Applications option selected if you want the shortcut available throughout the entire operating system. Remember though, the shortcut will only work if there is a corresponding menu item available.
   –Example: Choose Safari from the list of applications.
4. In the Menu Title box you’ll need to enter the menu item exactly how it appears in the menu.
   –Example: Type New Tab into the box.
5. Assign a shortcut by pressing the corresponding keys on your keyboard.
   –Example: We’ll use the Command+N shortcut, which will remove that shortcut from the “New Window” option in Safari.
   
6. Press the Add button to complete the process.

What’s the end result? In our example we set out to replace the new tab shortcut in Safari with the shortcut that is normally used to open a new window. If you followed the steps outlined above it should have worked, and you can easily tell whether it worked by opening up the File Menu in Safari:

Did you notice how the “New Tab” shortcut is now assigned Command+N, while the “New Window” shortcut has been removed all together? That’s a good sign that the new shortcut should be working.

Now you know everything that’s needed to modify, create, and override keyboard shortcuts on Mac OS X. Don’t forget that you can also create shortcuts for items in the Apple Menu, which includes the ability to sleep, restart, and shutdown the computer.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on October 31, 2006 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

A few months back I gave Kororaa Linux a shot because it installed XGL automatically on my system without me needing to do a thing. Heck, the 3D goodness that Kororaa brought even worked flawlessly on the Live CD that they offered. It didn’t take long for ATI and nVidia to go after them for distributing the drivers with the kernel which forced Kororaa to remove XGL from its CD.

It has been several weeks since Mandriva 2007 (formerly known as Mandrake) was released and it has received some pretty amazing reviews because of the built-in XGL/Compiz. I love trying new Linux distributions and this one seems to be very popular on the list at DistroWatch (located in their right sidebar).

The first thing that I did was download the free version of Mandriva and burned it to a CD. Before I installed it I decided to boot it up and see if I like it. Well, I didn’t have much of a choice because you have to boot it up in order to install it anyway (the installation shortcut is located on the desktop).

It didn’t look very promising because the first two computers (both have ATI graphics cards) that I tried it on couldn’t even get the CD to finish booting. It would get an error halfway through loading and then throw in the towel. The hours of troubleshooting didn’t help and I was beginning to believe that it was a bad download/burn. Then I popped the CD into my Dell laptop with the integrated Intel graphics card and it loaded up just fine.

With Intel graphics cards, however, Mandriva uses AIGLX instead of XGL for performance reasons I would imagine. At any rate it looked superb and ran smoother than my XGL installation under Ubuntu, which is on a laptop with an ATI graphics card. This is the closest thing to a Mac, based on graphics, that I have ever experienced! There is even an Exposé clone that is nothing short of remarkable.

I put together this quick video to show you Mandriva 2007 (free version) in action:

Sorry about the poor quality but I had to use a camera since I couldn’t find any good screencast software for Linux.

The Exposé is no doubt my favorite feature and is actually available for all Linux distributions. Its real name, which bears no resemblance to Exposé, is Komposé. Combining this feature with XGL/AIGLX makes it look and feel like a retail operating system that you would expect from Microsoft or Apple.

I don’t think that I’ll be using this as my primary Linux installation because I am still a big openSUSE fan, but Mandriva definitely sets the bar very high when it comes to the expectations that other Linux distributions need to reach. The reason I chose this for the “Time Saving Tuesday” article is because there are many of you who are looking for a way to play with Linux and XGL…and this is by far the easiest/quickest!

Mandriva One 2007 Free (KDE) Torrent (XGL capable)
Mandriva One 2007 Free (Gnome) Torrent (XGL capable)
Mandriva Free 2007 DVD (NOT XGL capable)

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on October 10, 2006 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

Everyone hates having to provide their email address to sites because they just aren’t sure what kind of spam they’ll receive. That’s why we have spam filters but you know those don’t always work (GMail does do a pretty amazing job though).

I have a few different sites that I am going to tell you about that all offer temporary email addresses for you to use. Each one operates in a different way which means you might find one that you like more than the others.

–Dodge It (homepage)–

Dodge It is close to my favorite solution out of the three that I have listed. There is no setup process that you need to go through before hand…just send the email to any address that you want.

There is no password protection or security features which is something you should keep in mind. You can view almost any email address simply by typing it into the homepage. I say almost because users can choose to make a small donation and in return they can get a password protected account. For those RSS junkies out there you can subscribe to any address’s Inbox!

It is also important to note that you cannot delete emails that you receive at any address. They will automatically delete any emails after 7-days, which can be a little long for most people.

–Mail Expire (homepage)–

Mail Expire also has a unique approach to spam because they let you utilize your current email address without exposing it to spammers. All you have to do is enter in your current email address and how long you want the account to stay open. It also has a field for a reminder so that every time you receive an email it will remind you what the account was created for.

After you fill in all of the fields you just have to hit the “go” button and it will generate your temporary email address for you to use. Then just activate the account with the verification email that they send.

–Temporary Inbox (homepage)–

Temporary Inbox is no doubt the coolest solution out of the three. It is kind of a combination of the above two sites and brings the best features into one solution. You can have it randomly generate your email address or you can just start sending email to any account. Then, just like Dodge It, you can pull up the email for accounts that you never even bothered to setup. They will delete your emails after 6 hours so don’t expect them to sit there forever but they do also let you manually delete them if you choose.

The most unique thing about Temporary Inbox is the Firefox extension that they have available. You can pretty much do everything right from your toolbar so that you save yourself a few steps.

–Overview–

Even though all of the different email companies offer spam protection you should still make an effort to keep your inbox clean. I’m sure most of you probably use GMail as your primary email address and have a Hotmail or Yahoo account specifically designed to collect your spam. That’s another good solution but I actually think it is quicker to access the temporary email addresses than it is to log into an account to retrieve an email.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on May 13, 2008 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten some really tremendous deals on eBay before. The general consensus that I’ve found when talking with people, however, is that they normally make impulse purchases before they take the time to see if they are getting a real bargain. Today we’re going to walk you through a 5 step process that can save you a lot of money in the end.

Ashley and myself ran an eBay business for over a year, and it was quite an interesting experience. From it we found ourselves knowing more about eBay than we ever wanted to, and now our friends always poke and prod us for tips on how they can get the most out of the online marketplace.

1. Search eBay

The first thing that you’ll obviously want to do is search eBay to see what kind of prices they have. Don’t get sucked into the low-priced auctions… no, you’re not going to get a $1,500 laptop for $25. Many people wait until the last minute to bid (a.k.a. sniping), and we’re going to show you the best way to do that as well.

What may prove to be helpful is to checkout the completed listings. On the search page you’ll notice the “Completed listings only” checkbox which will show only those listings that have already ended. If the item you’re looking for is rather common then there should be a fair amount of listings that have already completed, and with those you should be able to get a rough idea of what future listings will realistically sell for.

When sifting through the completed listings be sure to also watch for people who are constantly relisting the same item… especially if it never sells. That’s normally an indication that they really want to get rid of it or they have a bunch that they need to unload. In situations like those you might be able to bargain with them even if all you may get is the shipping fee waived.

Believe it or not eBay actually has their own Deal Finder search engine. When you perform a search on there it will only show items that have zero bids, less than 4 hours left, no reserve price, and free/fixed price shipping. So it is actually different than the regular eBay search engine, and can be beneficial for finding those gems that no one else has come across.

2. Search for Misspellings

Ahhh, we’ve all been criticized at one point or another for not proofreading the things that we write. Well, here’s where you can really benefit from the mistakes that others make. Maybe it’s poor typing skills, a genuine mistake, or maybe they are just in a rush to get a listing done. Whatever it is there are quite a few people out there who like to misspell words in their listings.

So how can you capitalize on the mistakes of others? It’s rather simple actually. There are all kinds of sites, such as Fat Fingers, that will help you search eBay for misspellings of any word you specify. A really good example of this in action would be searching for Oakley sunglasses. You’ll quickly find quite a few different ways that people spell it, including Oakly and Oakely.

3. Shop Around

I definitely don’t see this happening enough with people who buy things on eBay. They naturally assume that if an item is on eBay that it’s gotta be a steal, but that’s surprisingly not the case for most items. Be patient and shop around at some other stores for goodness sake. You have to remember that eBay sellers have to pay rather excessive fees for every item that sells, and they will definitely make sure that those fees are recouped.

When it comes to shopping around I normally do a quick run through on Amazon, PriceGrabber, and Google Product Search to see if any of them point to a better deal. More often than not I can find an item brand new for nearly the same price as some used/refurbished items on eBay… so it’s definitely worth doing your homework.

4. Subscribe to Feeds

When Ashley and I were selling items on eBay for a full-time job one thing that we always tried to do was turnover the merchandise quickly. Ideally we wanted to get the things out as fast as we got them in, and to do that we had to slap low Buy it Now prices on them. What this meant is that the people who took the time to find the Buy it Now listings that still have several days remaining are normally the ones who get the best deals. Most people never look beyond the first page of search results, but that’s normally where you’ll find the most reasonable prices.

If you don’t need the item right away it will likely serve you well to hold out for the low Buy it Now listings. If you use RSS feeds I highly recommend subscribing to a feed for any particular search that you perform. That way you’ll be one of the first people to know when there is a new item listed. To do this just look for the orange RSS button at the bottom of any search results page:

5. Snipe the Auction

The art of sniping is becoming more and more popular on eBay. It’s where someone swoops in at the last second to place a bid, and often doesn’t leave enough time for you to counteract their offer. It’s sneaky, pisses a lot of people off, and sellers hate it. But you can do it with little to no effort thanks to JBidWatcher (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux).

We’ve already assembled a more detailed tutorial on how to use JBidWatcher, and it’s been getting some welcomed updates lately. It’s pretty much an automated sniping system that you can easily setup. With it you can even target multiple auctions for the same item, and it will continue to bid on them all within seconds of them ending. What’s nice is that once you win an auction at the price you specify it will not bid on any of the others! This can save a lot of hassle for people who have to work during the day, and don’t have an opportunity to check on their eBay auctions.

It is possible to snipe an auction without using any software, but I’ve ran into some problems when trying to do that before. When doing it manually I try to leave about 15 seconds left on the auction before submitting my offer, but one time I went to do this and eBay unexpectedly made me login before submitting my offer. Needless to say I wasn’t ready for that and ended up not getting my bid in on time. So software like JBidWatcher is definitely nice to have.

–Overview–

These are the five steps that I feel most people should follow when purchasing from eBay, and hopefully they will help you save some money. Be sure to share your eBay money saving tips in the comments below!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on June 22, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Some people go crazy with Firefox extensions and install them left and right. Extensions help to drive Firefox’s popularity but they can also start to clutter up your toolbars:

I limit myself to just one toolbar and the tab-bar. I say “if it isn’t something that you use each day then you don’t need it on a toolbar.” Now let’s get started on customizing Firefox’s toolbars.

You can move items, like the bookmarks found on your Bookmarks Toolbar, from one toolbar to another toolbar:

1. Install the Tiny Menu Firefox extension so that the Menu Toolbar takes up very little room (you can customize which Menu items are hidden and which ones are shown).
2. Right-click on a toolbar in Firefox.
3. Select Customize….
4. From the drop-down list on the Customize screen select “Icons.” Also check the box that says “Use Small Icons.”
    
5. Now start dragging items from one toolbar to another.
   • I drag all of my navigation buttons, search box, and address box up to the Menu Toolbar. Once I have those items on the Menu bar I can eliminate the Navigation Toolbar.
   • Next I target the Bookmarks Toolbar. Your bookmarks that are found on the Bookmarks Toolbar will show up as “Bookmarks Toolbar Items.” If you don’t have a lot of bookmarks on the toolbar then you can move this up to the Menu Toolbar as well. I only have two bookmarks that I use on the toolbar: GMail and Google Calendar. You don’t have to supply a name for your bookmarks and not supplying a name will save you a lot of room on your toolbar. It will only show the icon for the page and no text, much like how the Home button doesn’t say “Home” next to the icon.
      
   • NOTE: If you want to remove something from a toolbar you just have to left-click on the item and drag it into the Customize window. Items can always be added by dragging them from the Customize windows onto a toolbar.

Now that we have finished all of the customizations why don’t we see what kind of improvements we have made:

Before:

After:

There are two things that still might differ from my toolbars compared to yours. I am running Firefox 2.0 Alpha 3 which has a different search box. It is still about the same size as the one in Firefox 1.5 but does look a little different. Also, instead of using the built-in Firefox Bookmarks manager I have started using Google Bookmarks. I don’t use the Google Bookmarks because it is a space-saver, instead I use it because of the portability and privacy it gives my bookmarks.

I hope this has either helped you or has given you some ideas on how you can reclaim your toolbar space.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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