Dec 13

Opera Mini Flash Replacement Coming Tomorrow?

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

This article was written on June 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

Opera MiniEarlier today Opera Watch posted a reminder of the pending Opera Mini 4 Beta release that’s coming tomorrow. What’s so big about this release? Well, only a handful of people actually know, but the Opera Mini team has posted some clues as to what the big new feature is.

The clues obviously point to music, photos, and games for the mobile browser. The real question is whether that is in regards to the specialized Flash player that Opera is known to be developing? That would make sense because of the photo slideshows available on the Web, as well as the Flash games people play. I’m sure a lot of people would appreciate a fast and efficient version of Flash on their mobile phone.

So tomorrow we’ll find out what the big news is for the next Opera Mini milestone, but in the meantime it is anyone’s guess. Maybe Opera Mini 4 will eliminate much of the need for the new YouTube Mobile. :)

Opera Mini Homepage

Thanks for the tip CoryC!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Dec 12

Bulk Edit Text Files in Notepad++ (Without Opening Them)

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

This article was written on December 03, 2010 by CyberNet.

find replace text in files.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Notepad++ has been a long time favorite app of mine when it comes to text editors. It seems to have the right mix of features, and if you use it enough you’ll start coming across some gems that can really save time. One of the features I want to focus on here is the “Find in Files” functionality that is extremely easy to overlook.

To get to the Find in Files section all you have to do is open up the find/replace dialog and switch to the respective tab (pictured in the screenshot above). Most people I talk to about this feature say that they’ve never even navigated to that tab because the Find and Replace tabs generally conquer all of their bulk editing needs. It’s true that those tabs have a lot of functionality, but Find in Files definitely deserves the space it occupies.

When switching to the Find in Files tab you may not immediately notice how this is different than the Find tab. The Filters and Directory fields (along with a few of the checkboxes) are the notable differences. This is where you can specify a directory you want Notepad++ to crawl and bulk edit files without having to first open them in Notepad++. Using the filters you can have it restrict results to certain file extensions, and the checkboxes off to the side will control its ability to crawl into hidden folders and sub-folders.

I’d like to present you with a small warning though. Before doing a bulk replace you should perform a Find All so that you can see a list of matching files along with the line numbers that will be modified:

notepad bulk find.png

Why? Once you choose the Replace in Files option you’ll see a brief warning confirming that this is what you want to do, and then it will go on its merry way updating all matching files. No backups are made, and it won’t tell you which files were changed. Personally I think it should also return a list of all the files it modified along with a glance of the text before/after the change, but that’s just me.

Generally I just use this for the finding capabilities, which also has one other nifty aspect I haven’t mentioned yet. You can actually double-click on any line number in the result list to instantly have Notepad++ open that file and take you to that line number. Alternatively you can right-click in the result pane and select the Open All option to have all of the matching files opened in different tabs.

I have some other Notepad++ tips that I’ll be sharing later on… so be on the lookout if you enjoyed this article.

Notepad++ Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Nov 02

Maybe Foxit isn’t the Best PDF Reader?

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

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

I’ve always been pretty big on the Foxit Reader because it’s not only free, but it takes under 3 seconds to open up. When you’re trying to read a PDF the last thing you want to do is wait forever for it to load, and that’s why Adobe Acrobat is the last thing that I recommend for people to use.

I do realize that some of you have had troubles with printing in Foxit, and today I want to introduce you to a different PDF reader that will hopefully solve your problems. PDF-XChange Viewer has all of the features you would expect from the even the best PDF reader, plus it has a few things that you can only find in a purchased copy of Foxit!

I’m sure you’re wondering what this could possibly do that your copy of Foxit doesn’t include. Have you ever tried to add a sticky note or type some text on an existing PDF in Foxit? If you have you’ll see a warning that says an “evaluation mark” will be added to the document to signal that you haven’t purchased the program. With PDF-XChange Viewer you can draw, add notes, type text, and do all kinds of things with no unwanted marks being placed on your document:

PDF-XChange Viewer
Click to Enlarge

But then there’s the speed issue, right? After all, we ditched Acrobat because of how darn slow the thing was. Don’t worry, you’re not sacrificing speed for features this time around. In my tests it opened just as fast as Foxit, or in the worst case it took one second longer. One thing that I didn’t like was the splash screen, but you can disable that in the options. Doing so also appears to make the program load faster.

The tabbed interface is also really nice for when you have multiple documents open. PDF-XChange Viewer has a feature like Internet Explorer 7 where you can view all of the open documents in a grid-like fashion. It will show a thumbnail for each of them, which is often much easier to distinguish between than just file names.

Did I say how good this program looks, too? They’ve definitely got a leg up Foxit when it comes to graphics, and I think that’s apparent just by looking at how nice the preferences screen looks:

PDF-XChange Viewer Preferences
Click to Enlarge

For the time being I’m going to be switching away from Foxit because I really like this program better. It looks nicer, has more features, and is the same performance-wise as Foxit. I’ll let you be your own judge, but I think you’ll agree with me that this is currently the best pdf reader.

PDF-XChange Viewer [via Digital Alchemy]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Nov 02

Firefox 3.1 Introduces More Address Bar Improvements

Posted in: Firefox 3, Freeware, Pre-Release, Reviews, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

arrow Windows Win; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
Mozilla is working hard on Firefox 3.1 which is slated for release later this year, and with it will come several improvements. For starters it will include a Control+Tab replacement that makes switching between tabs a bit more fancy. It will also come packed with numerous improvements to the address bar to help please those of you who don’t like how it currently handles itself.

What they’ve added in the current nightly releases is a way to restrict what kind of results are shown in the address bar by using customizable characters. I’ve highlighted the corresponding options in the about:config that I’m about to talk about:

firefox 3 urlbar config.png

So what do these five new options do for you? I’ve got several screenshots below that show exactly how they work, but here is an overview of what each one does:

  • browser.urlbar.match.title: Returns results that match the text in the title.
  • browser.urlbar.match.url: Returns results that match the text in the URL.
  • browser.urlbar.restrict.bookmark: Returns only results that are from the bookmarks.
  • browser.urlbar.restrict.history: Returns only results that are from the browser’s history.
  • browser.urlbar.restrict.tag: Returns only results that have been tagged.

How do these work? It’s actually pretty simple. Just include the character anywhere in the address bar (separated by spaces) to have it restrict what results are displayed. Here’s an example of using the asterisk to only return results that are bookmarks:

firefox 3 restrict bookmarks.png

Including a pound sign in the address bar will only have it scan the titles of results, thereby ignoring the URL when searching:

firefox 3 restrict titles.png

Mix and match baby! This example will only search the titles of your bookmarks for matches since I’ve included both the pound sign and asterisk:

firefox 3 restrict title bookmark.png

How does all of this benefit those of you who hate bookmarks/tags showing up in the results? Hop on over to the about:config, find the browser.urlbar.restrict.history value, and delete the character that is assigned to the value. What that does is tell Firefox to only return history results when no special character is recognized. Then delete the browser.urlbar.match.url character while you’re at it if you don’t want the page titles being searched (meaning only URL’s will be scanned). You might have to give the browser time for the changes to take affect since some of your searches get cached due to performance reasons.

Hopefully this will make you a bit more fond of the address bar introduced in Firefox 3. Don’t forget to grab CyberSearch to supercharge the address bar even more, and the latest release of the extension adds Firefox 3.1 compatibility.

P.S. We’ve got a rather big update for CyberSearch coming up in the next few days. A HUGE thanks goes out to everyone that has been giving CyberSearch stellar reviews! Our extension currently has a 4.60/5.00 rating from 33 reviews. That’s awesome!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 31

gPodder – A Full Featured Podcast Client for Linux

Posted in: Features, Freeware, ipod, Linux, Software, Today's Chili, ubuntu

This article was written on October 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

We gave gPodder a quick mention a while ago, but it has improved greatly over the last couple of months. Here’s a quick rundown of gPodder’s most important features.

gpodder

Channel browser
newitemYou can quickly navigate through your channels by using the channel browser on the left side of the screen. When new episodes are available for download, the number of new episodes will be shown next to the channel’s name. You can also set a channel cover for each RSS feed, either by letting gPodder fetch it or by pointing the application to an image on your hard disk.

synchronizationMP3 player and iPod synchronization
gPodder is among the first Linux applications that fully supports podcast synchronization with iPods (except for the new ones, read this article for details). People with directory-based MP3 players can use gPodder’s synchronization functionality too though.

Bandwidth throttling
throttling I for one like to do other stuff on the internet while gPodder is taking care of my podcasts. If you’re like me, you might want to limit the number of simultaneous downloads and the download rate in Preferences so that it doesn’t consume all your bandwidth.

BitTorrent feed support
If you’re one of the few people who has heard of BitTorrent feeds, you’ll be happy to know that gPodder can handle BitTorrent feeds to some extent. I haven’t tried it, but it’s there.

Drawbacks
Although gPodder is among the best Linux podcast clients I’ve ever seen, it does have some drawbacks. The biggest drawback is that if you delete a podcast in gPodder, it doesn’t remove it from your iPod during the next synchronization. This means that you’ll have to do it manually using a tool such as gtkpod. The developer of gPodder is aware of this issue, but a fix for this annoyance has yet to be released.

Windows version?
A Windows port(?) of gPodder is in the works. Unlike the Linux version, it doesn’t support iPod synchronization because the piece of software it relies on to synchronize podcasts to your iPod is currently only available for Linux. There’s no word yet on when and if gPodder for Windows will ever get out of testing phase. You can read this post on the developer’s blog for more details.

How to install
Ubuntu users can download version 0.9.4 (which is not the current version) from the Ubuntu repositories by going to Applications > Add/Remove. If you’re not an Ubuntu user, check out the download page for instructions. The latest greatest gPodder version can be installed from its source. Just extract the package, open a terminal, navigate to the directory where you extracted the package (using ‘cd /path/to/the/directory‘) and finally execute ‘sudo make install‘. If you’re going to install gPodder from its source, make sure that all dependencies have been installed on your system.

Website

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Oct 31

Use ImgBurn to Change Book Type (Bitsetting) to DVD-ROM

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

This article was written on August 11, 2010 by CyberNet.

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
The book type setting is something I haven’t had to worry about much, but that is largely because I don’t burn DVD’s very much anymore. The last time I did have to burn one, however, it was a DVD+R DL (dual layer) that didn’t want to work in the particular DVD player that I was trying it in. After some searching around I found out that not all DVD players recognize the DVD+R DL book type/bitsetting, and that it may be necessary to change it to DVD-ROM when burning.

Nero reportedly has an option that will let you do this, but I wanted to use something free. To my surprise I didn’t even realize that I had an app on my computer that was able to change the book type of the DVD… the program I’m talking about is ImgBurn.

Once you fire up ImgBurn you can go ahead and select one of the options related to burning a disc (e.g. “Write image file to disc”). Then right-click on the Destination drop-down menu (I know, it doesn’t seem like you should be able to right-click on a drop-down menu). That’s where you’ll see the option to change the book type:

imgburn change book type menu.png

Now you should be presented with a bunch of tabs that represent the different drive manufacturers. As long as you have one of the supported manufacturers (BenQ, LG, LITE-ON, NEC, Nu Tech, Plextor, RICOH, and Samsung) you should be able to change the book type:

imgburn change book type.png

The settings available depend on the manufacturer. For example, with LITE-ON you can change the book type setting so that it only takes affect on the next DVD that you burn, whereas with LG you have to make the setting default for the entire drive (although you can always change it back).

Once I burned the DVD using the DVD-ROM book type I was able to play the dual-layer DVD in my player without any troubles. I recommend giving ImgBurn a try if you’ve had similar compatibility troubles with your DVD+R or DVD+R DL media.

ImgBurn Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Oct 31

Google Docs Sidebar for Firefox

Posted in: Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Google, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 31, 2008 by CyberNet.

Google Docs Bar Google Docs has come a long way in becoming a powerful online alternative to the desktop office suites, and now there’s a Firefox extension that makes it way better. The Google Docs Companion for Firefox adds a new sidebar in Firefox for quickly managing and searching your online documents. The simple, yet powerful interface is sure to win over your heart.

Once installed you’ll be able to search through all of your documents, filter them by type, and sort them in a variety of different ways. It’s almost like having the files right there on your own computer!

The best feature, however, has to be the drag-and-drop uploader that is located at the bottom of the sidebar. With it you can drag files from your desktop, drop them into that special location, and they will automatically be uploaded to your Google Docs account. No more trampling through folder after folder trying to navigate to a specific file to have it uploaded!

Worried about privacy? Your credentials are sent over a secure connection, and the username/password is stored within your Firefox password manager. Looks like you don’t have to compromise your security and privacy to get a cool new feature for Google Docs.

Google Docs Companion [via Google OS]

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Oct 31

Splash Lite: A Beautiful Video Player

Posted in: Freeware, media player, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on January 12, 2011 by CyberNet.

splash media player.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
There are all kinds of great video players out there such as VLC and GOM, but when it comes down to appearance I have to give Splash Lite the credit it deserves. You can see what I’m talking about in the screenshot above, but that only gives you a glimpse of how polished the app actually is. Everything from the settings to the main interface is thoughtfully assembled to give you, the user, the best experience possible.

If you’re reading this article the chances are good that you’ve heard of VLC before, and know that it is popular for the wide range of video formats that it is able to playback. Splash Lite doesn’t support quite the list that VLC does, but it’s no slouch by any means. Here’s a list of features and supported video formats that can be found in the free “lite” version of Splash:

  • Supported video formats: AVI, M2T, MTS, M2TS, MKV, MKA, MOV, MP4, MPG, TS, M4V, VOB, DIVX, XVID, WMV, MBT
  • H.264 video decoding hardware acceleration
  • Subtitle support
  • Stereo or 5.1 channel audio output
  • Media Center Remote Control support
  • Aspect ratio settings
  • Multicore CPU support

As you can tell by the name, Splash Lite, there is an older brother called Splash Pro that includes some uniquely awesome features, but it also has a $20 price tag attached to it. I’m sure for most of your video watching needs will be fulfilled by the free Splash Lite version, but you can always take a look at the features page if you’re wondering what kind of additional stuff you’d get with the upgrade.

Splash Lite Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Oct 28

How to do Incremental Gmail Backups

Posted in: Email, Freeware, Gmail, Software, storage, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on March 03, 2011 by CyberNet.

Gmail backup

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I rely on my Gmail account for just about all of my email communication, and I’d be pretty sad if I lost some of my emails. After all I have emails dating back to the middle of 2004 in my Gmail account, and so it has almost 7-years worth of my email history. Over the years I’ve put a lot of trust into Gmail, but so much of the service is out of my control that I still feel like I need to make backups just in case my Gmail account mysteriously disappears one day.

A free program called IMAPSize is nice because it lets you view a breakdown of all your labels and the space used by each one, but it is also capable of doing incremental backups for specific labels or the entire account. By doing incremental backups only new emails that haven’t already been backed up will be retrieved, and so it should only be the initial run that takes awhile. Each email is downloaded as an individual EML file, which is a standard format used by many email clients. The EML files will keep all the header information intact so that you can still see the original dates and whatnot.

IMAPSize will work with any email service that provides an IMAP interface, but I’m going to focus on Gmail here. After you download IMAPSize you’ll be prompted to add an account, and these are the things you’ll need to enter in the fields:

  • Account: A descriptive name that only IMAPSize will use.
  • Username: <your_email>@gmail.com
  • Password: <your_password>
  • Server: imap.gmail.com
  • Port: 993
  • Use Secure Connection (SSL): Yes (checked)

After that’s done you can proceed with the various configuration options. You’ll find most of the options you’ll need in the Account menu, which includes calculating sizes and performing backups.

Curious what all IMAPSize is capable of? Here’s a rundown of features provided by the developer:

  • Display of all mailboxes in an account with visual alerts for the most space consuming mailboxes
  • Convenient storage quota display
  • Powerful search capabilities on single or multiple mailboxes
  • Delete attachments (all or individual) without downloading them
  • Save attachments locally from multiple messages (BETA)
  • Mailbox management (expunge, create, delete, rename)
  • Message management (change flags, copy, move, delete, etc)
  • Manage folder subscriptions
  • Modify message headers
  • Copy messages from one IMAP account to another
  • Perform incremental backups of multiple folders in your IMAP account
  • Perform incremental backups of the whole account
  • Replicate IMAP folder hierarchy to your local drive
  • Download/upload messages to/from mbox and eml files
  • eml2mbox conversion
  • mbox2eml conversion. This can be extremely useful in the process of moving messages from Thunderbird to Outlook.
  • Spam handles which provide a basis for visual alerts on spam messages
  • SSL connections
  • Minimizes bandwidth consumption wherever possible
  • Keyboard friendly – you can perform almost all operations without using the mouse

IMAPSize Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Oct 28

Opera Dragonfly Developer Tools

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

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

opera dragonfly developer tools-1.png

Opera Dragonfly is here, and as expected it is a new set of tools to help developers create functional websites. It’s obvious that the Opera team wanted to develop something to draw developers to their browser, much like how Firebug has become an irreplaceable tool for the developers that use Firefox. The real question is whether Dragonfly is the tool we’ve been longing for?

I was pretty pumped when I went to try it out in the latest snapshot build of Opera 9.5, and didn’t know quite what to expect. It turns out that Dragonfly (currently Alpha) is pretty much written entirely in JavaScript, and so the performance wasn’t the greatest. This also means that you must have JavaScript enabled in your browser to even start Dragonfly.

To get started with Dragonfly go to Tools -> Advanced -> Developer Tools and a new window should popup. The first time you load the tools it might take a little while since it has to download the necessary files onto your machine, but each subsequent launch should be much faster. Well, that is until you clear your browser’s cache which will also wipe out Dragonfly, and the files will once again be downloaded the next time you launch the developer tools.

In terms of functionality Dragonfly is decent, but doesn’t quite stack up to what Firebug can deliver. In Dragonfly you can do things like set breakpoints that make debugging JavaScript code a lot easier, but since it all operates in another window I found it to be a pain to use. Firebug, on the other hand, will display itself immediately below the website you’re trying to debug. From what I gather support for something like this is coming in a future version of Dragonfly.

Here is the documentation on using the JavaScript debugger, DOM/CSS inspector, and more in Dragonfly. I’m interested in hearing what everyone thinks of it, but I don’t see it pulling me away from Firebug anytime soon. I guess this is an Alpha release, and maybe they have some tricks up their sleeve?

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