Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 25, 2010 by CyberNet.

For many of us instant messengers have become an important part of our daily lives, and in some cases IM’ing has begun to replace email communication. That’s why I’m always on the lookout for the best messenger application, and for awhile I gave that crown to Digsby… that is until they started to use what I consider to be shady practices to infest computers with adware.

A friend at work introduced me to a new messenger application called Qnext. I was instantly impressed that it was a cross-platform messenger (runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux), and works with all of the major networks including MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, and Google Talk. The thing is that Qnext goes way beyond just being a messenger. It does all of the voice chat, video conferencing, photo sharing, and file transfers that you want from an app like this, but it is also able to grant remote access to your PC for one of your friends or even stream music from another computer that’s running Qnext. Sound cool? It is.

Here’s a rundown of what Qnext is capable of:

• Universal Messenger – Qnext is the world’s most advanced Universal Instant Messenger, allowing you to send and receive messages with buddies on all of the most popular networks.
• Voice Chat – Just get a microphone or a headset and you’re ready to host Voice Conferences with up to eight Qnext Friends. Qnext is cross-platform. This means, you guessed it, finally Mac, Windows, and Linux users can all jump on a Video or Voice call together!
• Video Conferencing – Just plug in a webcam and a headset, and you are ready to go! Since Qnext video and audio conferencing is completely integrated into your Qnext friends/ buddy list, initiating a video conference is straightforward and easy. All you do is select a user from your ‘friends’ list and start a live video conference with right clicking on a Qnext contact and selecting Conference > Video.
• Photo Sharing – Qnext Photo Sharing is the easiest way to share an unlimited amount of photos with anyone, even if they don’t have Qnext. Just choose your photos, choose your Audience and you’re done; your friends will receive a link that lets them view or download (with permission) your photos from any web browser. They can browse through thumbnails, zoom into photos, and run custom slideshows too!
• File Transfer – Qnext enables users to send or receive files from other Instant Messenger protocols including Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google Talk, Jabber, iChat, and ICQ. When you Transfer Files between Qnext users you can take a file (s) or folder (s) of any size from your computer and drag it onto a contact name. This initiates a secure P2P file transfer. A file can be 1 MB, 1GB, or your entire C drive!
• File Sharing – Qnext File Sharing is the easiest way to get those huge files where they need to go fast. Put an unlimited amount of files or folders of any size into a File Zone and select your Audience; your specified recipients will get a link in an Email or an Instant Message and be able to download any or all of your shared files at top speeds, from any web browser in the world!
• Remote PC Access – Qnext MyPC is a Remote Access and Application Sharing service included in Qnext. Basically, it lets you give yourself or anyone you specify access to your computer or specific applications from any standard web browser.
• Music Streaming – Qnext Music Streaming is the only way to listen to your entire music Library from anywhere in the world. Choose up to 700,000 songs and select your Audience; we will Streaming your tunes instantly to whoever you want. Whether you want to share with yourself or with your friends, this is the only way to stream your music to any web browser on the planet.

The downside to a messenger like this? Well, it’s Java based which is something I’m typically not a huge fan of. Putting that aside the memory usage is rather high, and ranged from 90MB at startup to somewhere around 150MB after some normal usage. That’s a big number, but given the amount of memory available these days that may not be a concern for you. Netbook users, however, may need to be a bit more conscious with how much memory their applications are using.

Here are a bunch of screenshots from different areas of Qnext:

There is also an iPhone version of Qnext in the works that is working to bring many of these features right to your phone… including the streaming music capability from what I’ve read. The desktop version is free though, and can’t really hurt to give it a try.

Qnext Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on May 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

Windows; Mac
Last week we wrote about some terrific rulers for both Windows and Macs, but it looks like we missed a top-notch alternative. Nate pointed out in the comments that a free app called Rulers is his favorite option for Macs, but it turns out that there is also a Windows variant that works exactly the same way. Now how sweet is that?

Rulers, despite the name, does a lot more than just measure stuff. Checkout the video below for the features in action, but here’s a list of what it can do:

• Unlimited rulers creation
• Multiple units of measurement support
• Multi monitor support
• Take a screenshot of selected area or whole screen
• Magnifier
• Color picker (RGB and Hex)

The screenshot tool is rather interesting in how it works. You basically create a bunch of measurement points on the screen, and it will let you take a screenshot of each area where your points intersect. You kind of have to see how it works in the video to really understand it.

Overall this is definitely one of the more clever free applications that I have seen because of how it bundles so many nice features into one package.

Get Rulers for Windows or Mac
Thanks Nate!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on August 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the best things about the Revo Uninstaller that we recently featured was that it removes the junk leftover by programs after uninstallation. It does a quick scan of your computer before and after you install the program to make sure the uninstaller took care of everything. Aside from that it also had several other features for managing your computer.

The other day I found another free app (for Windows 98 and up) that is similar in nature: Absolute Uninstaller. It’s goal is to remove software from your computer much like the classic Windows Add/Remove programs, but it goes a step further. It will check to make sure that the uninstaller takes care of everything that was in the uninstall log, and Absolute Uninstaller will delete the things that are left behind.

Here are some of the things that Absolute Uninstaller can do:

• Detects and removes leftover files from the uninstaller
• Remove programs in bulk by checking the box next to multiple items. Unfortunately it will still require input from you so you can’t walk away.
• One-click removal of any entry
• Points out which applications were recently installed
• Show installed applications by name or by install date

And yes, this is completely free. In fact this is the first version of Absolute Uninstaller that doesn’t cost a dime. Previously you had to pay $29.95 to get this program, but now you only have to pay if you want to get their entire suite of utilities.

Absolute Uninstaller Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on September 16, 2010 by CyberNet.

Mac only
I use Google as my calculator and conversion utility all of the time, and I’m sure most of you are the same way. The Google Search box can handle everything from simple math, to unit conversions, and even currency conversions. Examples of what Google can calculate include:

• 1 a.u./c
• 56*78
• 1.21 GW / 88 mph
• e^(i pi)+1
• 100 miles in kilometers
• sine(30 degrees)
• G*(6e24 kg)/(4000 miles)^2
• 0x7d3 in roman numerals
• 0b1100101*0b1001

On my Mac I don’t use very many widgets, well, that’s an understatement. I haven’t even opened the widget Dashboard in months. When I stumbled across Gooculator, however, that all changed. It’s so easy and works so well that I instantly started using it for all my calculator needs. This rekindled my respect for how useful Dashboard widgets actually can be.

How does it work? Gooculator is essentially one big text box. You type in a conversion on one line, for example “150 pounds in milligrams”, and it will output the answer on the next line. I know what you’re wondering… why would I use this over the Google site? Because Gooculator can let you chain calculations together. Allow me to explain.

Imagine you did a calculation like this:

10 + 30 - 20 <enter>

Gooculator will output the answer, and the screen should look like this:

10 + 30 - 20
= 20

Remember what I said about this being one big text box? You can actually move your cursor back up to the “= 20″ line, and append on to it another calculation:

10 + 30 - 20
= 20 / 4 <enter>

The widget will be smart enough to take the end result from the last calculation (20) and divide it by 4 providing the correct answer of 5. This is obviously an oversimplified equation, but I’m sure you can imagine how useful this can be if you’re working with converting between several units and performing mathematical operations on them.

After using this for a little bit I noticed that I had a long history of calculations, and was wondering how I clear them out. Duh, it goes back to this being a big text box… just highlight everything and hit the backspace key! In that regard it is also extremely easy to copy everything out of the widget and paste it into some notes if you ever wanted to save your calculation trail for later on.

Gooculator Homepage (Mac only – Dashboard widget; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on June 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

There are some Firefox extensions that are more useful than others, and one of the featured extensions over at Learn Firefox yesterday was StatusbarEx. It is probably one of the more useful extensions that I have seen because it not only displays the memory usage for your entire computer, but also for Firefox.

Using this tool you are able to monitor both the memory usage of Firefox as well as the CPU usage. That way you’ll be able to keep tabs (no pun intended) on possible memory leaks so that you can restart Firefox before it gets too slow.

The only thing that I couldn’t get to work was the network usage. It is supposed to show how much data has been transferred, but it always remained at 0K for me no matter which adapter I used. Oh well, being able to monitor the Firefox memory and CPU usage is worth enough in itself for me to keep this extension installed.

For more extensions head on over to Learn Firefox. Almost 50 Firefox extensions have been reviewed at this point, and there are dozens of other guides available on using and tweaking Firefox.

Install StatusbarEx

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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