Oct 16

sLife for Windows is Available

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Mac, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

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

Photoshop.jpgarrow Windows Windows; Mac Mac arrow
As you may recall sLife is a free application that you can use to monitor which applications you use on a regular basis, and then graph the usage on a pretty chart. Previously sLife 2.0 application was only available for Mac users, but after four months the Windows version has also been released.

Most of the features available in the Mac version are also available for the Windows version. This includes things like setting goals, managing activities, viewing computer usage according to application/document/website, and more. Here’s a quick overview of the primary features:

  • 5 visualizations to help you understand and manage your computer time and productivity: Day View, Applications View, Web & Documents View, Activities View and Goals View.
  • Activities let you group computer interactions according to a criteria that you define. You can call an activity anything that you want such as ‘Checking email’ or ‘Consulting for client A’. As an example, imagine that you create an activity called ‘Reading news’ and associate it with the web page titles ‘New York Times’ and ‘Google News’. Every time that you visit the web page of the New York Times or Google News, Slife will associate the visit with the ‘Reading news’ activity and track time against it.
  • Create a goal to help you spend less time performing an activity (i.e. ‘Watching YouTube videos’), or to motivate you to make more efficient use of your time.
  • You can easily disable all activity logging in Slife without quitting the app by going into “Private Mode”. To do so, look for the Slife menu icon in the system tray, right-click on it and select the “Private Mode” item.

If you’ve been looking for a good way to track your computer usage I’d say sLife is about as good as it gets for the price… free! It’s like having your own personal stalker. ;)

Get sLife for Windows or Mac

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 15

More Freeware Apps from DonationCoder

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

EvaluWeight
Click to Enlarge

Finding apps that make you more productive is always something that I look forward to, and DonationCoder is once again on top of that! Just a little while ago they started a Getting Organized Challenge to see what programmers could come up with.

My first thought was that this was going to be a roundup of existing programs, but instead they required that any submitted apps not be released prior to November 1, 2007. There are 10 programs in total, and all of them are offered completely free of charge. How can you beat that?

I think my favorite out of the bunch is Evaluweight (pictured above). It’s helpful when you’re wanting to compare, well, anything. All you have to do is specify the features you want in the left column, and assign an importance/weight to each of them. Then for each of the products you give them a score (out of 10), and the program will automagically calculate the overall score based upon all of the features. You can save all of the data to a file for easy retrieval, but what would have really been nifty is some sort of HTML export tool for people who post comparisons on websites.

Among the other programs are:

  • Interruptron – Helps monitor how much time you waste because of interruptions.
  • AnotherOneDone – Keeps track of how many tasks you have to do, and shows a progress bar displaying how many you’ve completed.
  • HowLong2It – Counts down to a date in the future, or even one in the past. If you specify a past event, such as a wedding anniversary, it will say how many days have passed since the anniversary.
  • Timer Assist – A timer that is designed to repeat at a specified interval.
  • Simple Multi-Alarm Utility – Create multiple alarms to alert you of upcoming events/tasks.
  • PlainTextWiki Toolkit – Lets you have wiki text support in several different text editors.
  • CFDButton – Provides more filetype filters in the Open file dialog box. You can also set your favorite directories so that they are just a click away.
  • MyHelp – A program where you can quickly store things that you often forget.
  • JRHourlyMarker – Adds hourly markers to mirc and xchat.

View all of the apps in DonationCoder’s Getting Organized Challenge

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 14

CyberNotes: PhraseExpress 4 Officially the Ultimate Time Saver?

Posted in: Apple, CyberNotes, Features, Freeware, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Time Saving Tuesday

We have raved about the free PhraseExpress software before, and we are going to do it again! They recently released version 4 of their application, and the enhancements it has will make you so much more productive that you’ll be wondering how you got by without using it!

The concept behind PhraseExpress is extremely simple: you type some text in an application and PhraseExpress will automatically replace that text with something else. When would that be useful? Well, I’m sure you use abbreviations all of the time without even thinking about it. Take for example a chat conversation where you type messages like BRB (be right back) or TTYL (talk to you later). You probably use those abbreviations because they are faster to type, but you can setup PhraseExpress to automatically kick the habit of sending abbreviated phrases!

The newest version of PhraseExpress has all sorts of enhancements that take the program beyond just being a simple text replacement utility:

  • Formatted text and bitmaps: This is great news for people who have signatures that they automatically want inserted when composing an email or document. I’ll explain more about this below.
    PhraseExpress
  • Automatic spelling corrections: This is just like Microsoft Word because PhraseExpress will automatically correct misspellings of thousands of the most common words. Having this feature when composing emails or typing comments in a browser is extremely handy!
  • Assign multiple phrases to an Autotext: With this feature you can essentially have multiple phrases assigned to a single “keyword.” Whenever you type that keyword you will be presented with a drop-down menu for you to select which phrase you would like inserted:
    PhraseExpress
  • Assign multiple Autotexts to a phrase: This is the opposite of the previous bullet because this lets you setup multiple Autotexts (or keywords as I like to call them) for a single phrase. This is useful if you have a hard time remembering what Autotext you assigned to a phrase. An example of this is seen below with the default “.com” auto replacement that is setup. If you mistype “.com” with any of the variations listed it will automatically correct it for you.
    PhraseExpress

There is a whole lot more that is new in PhraseExpress 4, but what I have listed above are the most beneficial for me. There are a few kinks that I have noticed with the formatted text and bitmaps addition though:

  • To copy a Bitmap image or formatted text into a signature you actually need to highlight it in either a browser or in a document. Then click on the PhraseExpress icon in the System Tray and select the “Create new phrase” option. This will prompt you with a dialog box to save the highlighted text, but you need to make sure the “Save text formatting” box is checked. Click here for more detailed instructions.
  • Saving formatting in Firefox doesn’t seem to work, so you’ll either need to use Internet Explorer or an application that supports text formatting/bitmaps if you want to save anything besides for a plain text phrase.
  • When originally seeing the image support feature I must have bypassed the word “Bitmap” in the description. I spent about 15 minutes trying to get a JPEG image to be saved in an email signature, but it just wouldn’t work. I’m guessing that the image must be saved in the Bitmap format for this feature to work properly.

There’s a lot more that you can do in PhraseExpress, which are all explained more in the manual. Here are a few of the tips that might be the most helpful for you:

Download PhraseExpress 4

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 14

Executor – Another Free Application Launcher

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Screenshots, search, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 04, 2007 by CyberNet.

Executer Application Launcher A few days ago we put together a list of the best application launchers, and as it turns out there were some that were mentioned by commenters which we had never heard of. FMsaziri mentioned one in particular, called Executor, that really caught my eye when I checked it out.

The main thing that I was really impressed with was the Keyword creation utility (screenshots are below). You can setup a keyword to do things like restart your computer, launch a program, open a website, or even have a single keyword perform multiple tasks (such as opening several sites and/or programs). Vista users will also like the fact that you can designate a keyword to always run a program as an administrator.

–Installation–

The download site has two different versions of executor available. One will install Executor onto your computer just like many other programs, but there is also a version available that doesn’t require any installation. I wanted to point out that this might appear to be a portable version at first glance, but it’s actually not. Your settings are stored in the Windows Profile, so your configuration will not carry over from one computer to another without copying the profile.

–Features–

  • Fully skinnable
  • Keywords have properties like shortcuts, and you can for example drag-drop a shortcut/file/folder/favorite to add it as a keyword
  • Auto-completion for keywords, file system and history
  • Enter URLs directly (for example, www.google.com)
  • Keywords support parameters (for example, “google [SEARCH PHRASE]“)
  • Executor can dynamically add matching start-menu items and control panel items to the drop-down/list
  • Keyword “find [TEXT]” for using Windows Instant Search (Vista) feature or Windows Desktop Search (WDS for XP)
  • Each keyword can be assigned a hotkey, so Executor can also perform like many popular hotkey managers
  • One keyword or text input can start multiple keywords, urls, programs, documents, and files (for example, one keyword opens three websites and/or programs)
  • All file-paths can be auto-completed
  • Option to override windows run hotkey (Win-R)

–Settings–

There are a ton of different options that you can configure in the application. At first the number of settings might be overwhelming, but just take a deep breathe and you’ll be okay. :)

The keyword configuration screen (pictured on the left) is extremely powerful. You should pay a visit to the Executor help site for more information on making the most of the keywords.

Executer Keywords Executer Settings

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 14

Deleting Locked Files (32 and 64-bit)

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on August 12, 2009 by CyberNet.

lockhunter.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
It seems like on Windows I always come across those pesky files I can’t delete because another process is using it. Up until a few months ago I had always used a program called Unlocker to get around this, and it has served me well. I had to stop using it, however, when I moved to Vista 64-bit since it only includes support for 32-bit versions of Windows.

LockHunter, on the other hand, is a similar free utility that works on Windows 2000 up to Windows 7, and comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Just like Unlocker it integrates into your Windows Explorer context menu to save some clicks each time you want to unlock a file.

Here’s a rundown on some of the features:

  • Shows processes locking a file or folder
  • Allows to unlock, delete, copy or rename a locked file
  • Allows to kill locking process
  • Allows to remove locking processes from hard drive
  • Integrates in to Explorer menu
  • It deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake
  • Supports both 32 and 64-bit Windows

There’s just one more thing that I’d like to see LockHunter do, and that’s add a command-line interface. I have some scheduled tasks that used to use Unlocker’s command-line functionality to ensure that a a file wasn’t locked before trying to perform an operation on it. Unfortunately automated tactics like this don’t appear to be possible in LockHunter, but I’m sure that’s something they could easily add. Oh, and a portable version would also be pretty cool.

LockHunter Homepage (Windows only; freeware)
[via Lifehacker & gHacks)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 13

Vista Computers Save about $75 per Year in Energy

Posted in: Features, Microsoft, performance, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on October 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

Vista Power Plan When Microsoft created Vista they realized that they had to do a better job with conserving batteries and energy. Laptops are getting to the point where they last as little as an hour when they are brand new, and that not only reduces productivity but it also means they consume more electricity.

In Vista you’ll see a completely revamped power management screen in the Control Panel, and with it you can choose between several different “states” you want your computer to run in. The best part, however, is that you can completely customize your own power plan, and that’s what I’ve done. In my power plan I have cut back my processor speed, screen brightness, wireless performance, and more when my computer switches into battery mode. Not only does that save my battery life, but it also reduces my PC’s CO2 Emissions.

Out-of-the-box Vista PC’s run in a “Balanced” mode that gives your computer the performance it needs when you’re doing intensive tasks, but reduces it when you’re doing simple tasks like word processing. This is a feature that Microsoft never put in XP, and it can make a real difference on the environment.

Below is a table that shows you what the cost and emissions are on computers running Windows XP and Vista (just the computer, no monitors). The results come straight from Microsoft, and I’m sure there is a little exaggeration but their tests are well documented (PDF). They tested three computers for all of their results, but I took the liberty of averaging them together and converting them into U.S. dollars:

 Windows XPWindows VistaVista Savings
(1) Computer Annual Cost$110.17$36.44$73.73
(200) Computers Annual Cost$22,033.37$7,287.59$14,745.78
(1) Computer CO2 Emissions259 kg85.33 kg173.67 kg
(200) Computers CO2 Emissions57.13 tons18.89 tons38.24 tons

As you can see there is a big benefit for corporations who run Windows to make the upgrade to Vista, in terms of energy savings and emissions produced. ;)

This article was written in part for Blog Action Day.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 12

DreamScene Clone for any Version of Vista

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, videos

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

SSDream
Click to Enlarge

One of the most anticipated Vista Ultimate Extras is the DreamScene application (currently in the preview state). It lets you use videos as your desktop background, and with the free DeskScapes you can take it to a whole new level. Of course to legally get this feature in Vista you’ll need to be running the Ultimate edition (it’s already been cracked though).

There is a way to take advantage of the more advanced desktop backgrounds in any version of Vista by using a free application called SSDream. It lets you set screensavers and images as backgrounds in addition to the typical videos. Intervals can even be specified, and SSDream will shuffle through the items you choose at the end of each time period. In a way you’re creating a playlist for your desktop background.

Here are some of the features of SSDream:

  • Shows screensavers, videos, and images as your wallpaper. Desktop icons remain visible!
  • All Versions of Vista supported.
  • Shuffle option to mix up your collection, or have a set order.
  • Set the number of minutes between changes to your wallpaper. Old item transitions away reviling new item instead of having the new item just pop up.
  • Preview window so you know what to expect from your screen saver, video or image.
  • Configuration button to configure a screen saver, video, or image.
  • CPU priority slider to set how much CPU to give to your screen saver or video.
  • Sleep mode that stops SSDream when your computer is locked or your monitors enter power save mode. No need to waste CPU if you can’t see your desktop.
  • Pause mode that pauses videos and lowers CPU priority of screen savers. SSDream will auto-pause if it detects a maximized window, but can be manually paused by pressing WIN-P.
  • Multi-monitor support allows a different screen saver, video and image on each monitor.

I really like the fact that you can use screensavers since some are pretty cool, such as those that rotate through pictures from your Flickr account. What I really look forward to is some of the features the developer would like to add to SSDream, such as XP support and transition effects. From the looks of it this is a project to keep your eye on!

Here’s a video of SSDream in action:

SSDream Homepage

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Oct 09

CyberNet Tour: Advanced Thumbnail Navigation

Posted in: Features, General, Today's Chili

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

It’s been a little over a week since we launched the new design of CyberNet, and along with the design came some mentioned new features. We want to make sure that those new features are explained to you so that you can make the most of them. The first feature that we’re going to explain is the Advanced Thumbnail Navigation called Highslide. It does require that you have Javascript enabled in order to use it.

The first thing that you need to know is that if you hover over an image and you see a grey border appear around it, this means that it is a thumbnail. We typically use thumbnails for tutorials or other times when a larger image is necessary.

Process

  1. To start the advanced thumbnail navigation, just click on a thumbnail. The full-sized image will take a second or two to appear.
  2. You’ll notice arrows on the top right of the thumbnail image.  Use these or your keyboard arrows to navigate through all of the thumbnails for an article.
    Highslidedemo
  3. You can click on an image and drag it around anywhere on the screen so that you can view the article at the same time.
  4. Note: Highslide wants to make sure that the image will display in your browser so that you can see the whole thing.  If the image is extra large, it will scale the image to a size that will fit. To view the entire image, just click the “expand” icon in the bottom right corner.
    Highslidedemo2

If you’d like to give it a try, this article will be a good example. It’s our Windows Vista review from back in January. Just click on the first thumbnail and then continue to hit the right arrow, and you’ll get a quick visual tour of Windows Vista while testing out the thumbnail navigation!

We wrestled with the idea of using Lightbox because it’s one of the most popular image previewers on the web. However, after testing out Highslide, we liked it better and thought you would too. If you have any questions, let us know!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 09

GnuCash: Free Accounting Software

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Linux, Mac, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on June 03, 2008 by CyberNet.

gnucash-1.png

arrow Windows Win; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
A common question that I get asked in emails is whether I know of any free accounting software that is any good. Some people don’t want to purchase applications like Quicken because it is way more advanced than what they are looking to do. All they want is a simple way to manage their finances, but at the same time something that offers more features than a basic spreadsheet.

GnuCash is a great solution, and it’s not only free but also open source. To make trying out the program even easier it’s available in a portable form, and switching from a different financial application is a breeze since GnuCash can import QIF and OFX files. Plus it’s available in 21 different languages, and supports using multiple currencies throughout your accounts. Now how cool is that!

Here’s a more complete list of features:

  • Checkbook-Style Register – The checkbook-style register provides a custom, convenient and familiar interface to entering financial transactions. The register supports common checking and credit-card transactions, as well as income, stock and currency transactions.
  • Double Entry – Every transaction must debit one account and credit others by an equal amount. This ensures that the “books balance”: that the difference between income and outflow exactly equals the sum of all assets and equity.
  • Reports, Graphs – GnuCash has an integrated reporting and graphing module, and comes complete with a full suite of standard and customizeable reports, such as Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, Portfolio Valuation, and many others.
  • Income/Expense Account Types – Income/Expense Account Types (Categories) allow you to categorize your cash flow. When used properly with the double-entry feature and equity accounts, these enable you to generate reports, such as Profit & Loss, that plain-vanilla systems cannot handle.
  • Multiple Currencies – Different accounts can be denominated in different currencies. Currency movements between accounts are fully balanced when double-entry is enabled.
  • Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios – Track stocks individually (one per account) or in portfolio of accounts (a group of accounts that can be displayed together).
  • Small Business Accounting Features – Simplify managing a small business with Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill Payment, and Tax and Billing Terms.
  • QIF & OFX Import – Intuit Quicken QIF files can be imported, and are automatically merged to eliminate duplicate transactions. GnuCash is the first free software application to support the Open Financial Exchange protocol that many banks and financial services are starting to use.
  • Transaction Finder – A powerful transaction query dialogue can help you quickly locate a needle in a haystack.
  • General Ledger – Multiple accounts can be displayed in one register window at the same time. This can ease the trouble of tracking down typing/entry errors. It also provides a convenient way of viewing a portfolio of many stocks, by showing all transactions in that portfolio.
  • Online Stock & Mutual Fund Quotes – Get Stock & Mutual Fund quotes from various web sites, update portfolio automatically. Additional pricing sources are added regularly.
  • Check Printing – Checks may be printed in standard formats on common check stocks. A customization GUI allows custom check layouts to be developed.
  • Scheduled Transactions – You can now create recurring transactions, including automatic reminders when a transaction is due, the ability to postpone a scheduled transaction without canceling it, and the ability to specify only a limited number of transactions.

Get GnuCash (Portable Version)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 08

Feedreader 3.13 Adds Article Editing

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

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

feedreader edit
(Click to Enlarge)

For those of you looking for a great desktop RSS feed reader I would put the free Feedreader 3.13 Beta at the top of my favorites. The new Beta that was just released yesterday adds a feature that I haven’t seen in any other feed reader before: adding or editing articles. It sounds crazy, but I could see how this would be incredibly useful.

How it works is that you can right-click on any article in Feedreader, and select the edit option. You’re then presented with a WYSIWYG interface for editing the article, which includes inserting images and hyperlinks, or even changing the title. This is great if you see an article that you want to add your own notes to, or maybe rename the title so that you can quickly recognize what it’s about in the future.

Aside from being able to edit an article you can also create an article to insert into any of your feeds. To do this use the Control+N keyboard shortcut, or hit the New drop-down menu. The editing screen will appear similar to what I have pictured in the screenshot above.

I’m not sure if this feature will be useful for everyone, but I really like the concept behind it. Being able to add your own notes to an article really helps transform this into a great bookmarking solution, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some other feed readers adapt a similar feature.

Feedreader 3.13 Beta Homepage

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