Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 17, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

Here you thought that Windows 7 wasn’t going to bring that “killer” feature we’ve all been waiting for. Well, you were wrong… big time! The third milestone of Windows 7 has been shown off to what appears to be a small group of people, and in it users are noticing that apps like Paint and Wordpad are adopting the Office 2007 Ribbon style interface. UX Evangelist managed to snag a screen capture of the new Paint interface, and all joking aside it does look a little snazzy.

Now that Microsoft is moving some more of their own apps over to the Ribbon interface I think that other third-party programs may look a little deeper to see if it would be feasible for what they have to offer. Unfortunately this type of interface doesn’t work great for every program, but I wouldn’t mind seeing what certain apps (such as Photoshop) would be like with a Ribbon. Some programs have already gone this route, and the commercial screen capture utility SnagIt is the first one that comes to my mind.

Unfortunately no screenshot of the revamped Wordpad was provided, but I think the ribbon interface would fit very well with that as well. If these two redesigned apps don’t make you want to buy Windows 7 I don’t know what will!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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

Time Saving Tuesday

I am all about freeware that gets the job done, and the free application that I am about to talk about definitely gets the job done! It’s a brilliant program that offers a wide range of features you wouldn’t normally find on your Windows computer. Let me introduce to you DM2 (Download Mirror)!

Before I get started I’ll let you know that the program doesn’t have to be installed! Yep, I always love freeware programs that you can just download and run without having to install…and this is one of those. So don’t be hesitant to try it out yourself, and I’m sure you won’t be once you see all of these features:

• Minimize to Tray – This is probably a feature that a lot of you will love. DM2 can minimize almost any application to the System Tray to clear up some room. TrayDevil did this as well, but I think I actually like the configurability and feature set that DM2 offers which you’ll see in the rest of this list.
  
• Minimize to Floating Window – This is a really unique feature that I haven’t seen before. Basically, you can make DM2 minimize a window to a small floating icon so that it can still be accessed rather quickly, but takes up virtually no room. You can then choose whether the little icon is always on top or gets hidden behind other windows. Check out what one of the icons looks like:
  
• Hide a Window – This will completely hide a window from both the System Tray and the Taskbar so that you won’t be cluttering up anything. Go on, I know you’re begging to know how you get the windows back then…from the DM2 System Tray right-click menu:
  
• Always on Top – This will help ensure that a particular window will always remain on top of other windows. Not the most advanced feature, but one that should undoubtedly be included with Windows.

• Transparent Windows – Making any window transparent is always a cool thing. Well, maybe not always, but with DM2 you can assign a hotkey so that adjusting the window transparency is always just a click away.
  
• Quick Access Menu – The DM2 menu is where all of the fun happens. You can access it by right-clicking on a window’s titlebar which will give you access to some of the features you might have been looking for, including transparency adjustments and minimizing the window to the Tray or floating icon.
  
• Align Window – Quickly position a window in one of several common places on the screen. This can come in handy when you’re trying to organize multiple windows that you have open at the same time.
  
• Resize Window – Resize a window to a preset size or to a certain percentage of what it is currently at.
  
• Open/Save Dialog Favorite Locations – This is a pretty cool feature. When you go to open or save a file I’m sure there is just a handful of different directories that you save your files to. With DM2 you’re able to customize a list of directories that will be accessible through a menu on the Open/Save dialog that pops up.
  

The program is  highly configurable as well, and instead of taking screenshots of all the options it offers, I thought I would just point you to the page they have already setup for the settings. It describes the different features that can be configured in a lot more detail than I was planning to do. A quick glance at that page and you’ll realize what I’m talking about.

Now I do have to give the developer of DM2 a lot of credit, because almost all of the features work flawlessly in Windows Vista. The only thing that didn’t function 100% correctly was assigning actions to the right-click option for the Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons. Yep, you can actually assign events to the buttons when you right click on them, such as minimizing to the tray, but in Windows Vista some of them didn’t work. For example, I couldn’t Alt+Right Click on the close button.

Besides that, the program was absolutely amazing. I was expecting this to have a lot of problems with Vista, but it somehow managed to work great. Not only that but the plugins that it also comes with worked great (for doing things like rolling up windows to just their titlebar).

I highly recommend that you give this application a shot if you haven’t already. The feature set that it offers is a lot better than other applications that I have come across, and I’m sure you’ll find at least one thing to be useful!

DM2 Homepage
DM2 Download via SourceForge
DM2 Download Mirror

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Wes, who is actually brave enough to even consider an FM transmitter. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I’m in the market for a new car, and that has me thinking towards multimedia connectivity. I don’t want to rule out direct iPhone integration, but since the car is almost certainly going to be used, I’d like to think more along the lines of AUX-in and FM transmitter capability. I’ve also read that many of the new products can enable hands-free cellphone use, so this would be great to include. Any recommendations for a good in-car charging unit with these features?”

We’ll go ahead and be straight with you — if you’re in the city or the suburbs, be prepared for long, frustrating fights to find a clear channel. We’ve never had much luck with ’em outside of the middle of nowhere, but maybe our dear readership will chime in with a few pointers below. Godspeed.

Ask Engadget: best FM transmitter out there? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on August 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Google Maps is hands down my favorite online mapping service because it has a simplistic design, which in the end makes it load extremely fast. Not only that but they offer features not found on other mapping services, including Street View, Wikipedia integration, and even walking directions.

Naturally when there is a great web service people will start making Firefox extensions that take full advantage of it, and that’s exactly what’s happened with Google Maps. Below we’ve got our top 5 Firefox extensions that push Google Maps (and some other mapping services) to the limits.

–CyberSearch (Homepage)–

CyberSearch is the advanced Google Search extension that we’ve created, and one of the services it supports is Google Maps. What this gives you is full access to the Google Maps database right from the Firefox 3 address bar. When searching for a location it will also provide the address and phone number right there in the title, and clicking on a result will take you to the Google Maps page.

–GDirections (Homepage)–

This extension is pretty simple because all it does is provide a context menu entry to pull up a highlighted address on Google Maps. Just select an address on the screen, right-click on it, go to GDirections and choose the map option. You can also go into the preferences and customize up to three default home/from addresses so that you can get quick directions.

Note: This extension also works with Yahoo! Maps.

–All Your Maps Are Belong To Us (Homepage)–

Not much to see here. This extension pretty much does everything in the background without you ever noticing. Anytime it recognizes a URL pointing to another mapping service (like Yahoo!) it will automatically reroute the links to point to Google Maps. There’s no list of what services it supports, but Yahoo is definitely one of them.

–Mini Map Sidebar (Homepage)–

Do all of your mapping right from the Firefox sidebar with the Mini Map extension. This has an incredible interface setup to navigate, search, and obtain directions all from the comfort of your Firefox sidebar. Plus mapping an address is as simple as dragging and dropping it into the dropzone located below the maps.

Note: This extension also works with Yahoo! Maps.

–Locator (Homepage)–

This is actually very similar to the Mini Map extension mentioned above, but instead of opening in the sidebar it opens in either a new tab or new window. I actually prefer to have the map open in a new tab so that I have a much larger viewing area available to me, and that’s the primary reason I’ve chosen to use this extension over Mini Map.

To get a map of an address all you have to do is highlight the address on the page, right-click, and then use the “Locate on Google Map” option to have it open a map for you.

–Overview–

As you can see there are a variety of different extensions available that put the full power of Google Maps right at your fingertips. Plus the fact that they make getting a map just a click away can save you a ton of time.

If you’ve got a favorite Google Maps extension be sure to let us know in the comments!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Good news for Wildfire owners: fresh from HTC’s oven is its 3.0 desktop sync suite that — like the one baked for the Desire over the weekend — enables iTunes sync for the company’s latest budget device. Since we had a Wildfire on hand, we decided to go through the trouble to check out this new feature. And boy, it sure was a bumpy start. We had no problems with obtaining the software, but in order to get the “HTC Sync” option to appear in the USB connection menu, we had to switch on USB debugging mode (Settings -> Applications -> Development) before establishing our first link. As fiddly as it sounds, this was actually the only tricky part of the preparation, and you can leave debugging mode switched off afterwards.

So, how does the iTunes sync work? Well, it’s certainly nowhere as thrilling as Palm’s cheeky hack — it appears to simply access iTunes’ database and playlists for the file locations, rather than fooling iTunes into thinking your Wildfire’s an iDevice. You’ll also be limited to syncing either everything or just selected playlists (smart playlists supported), so in other words, you can’t sync by artists or genres, and you’ll have to set up a dedicated playlist for syncing podcasts. Apart from this minor flaw, we’d say this is still a pretty neat solution for an age-old problem, and hopefully HTC will offer a similar app for Mac users. Hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading HTC Sync 3.0 for Wildfire hands-on: iTunes sync tested (video)

HTC Sync 3.0 for Wildfire hands-on: iTunes sync tested (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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