Hasta La Gadget!

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

Dell’s IdeaStorm website has only been available for a few days and the votes are already pouring in. With users from sites like Slashdot and Digg there is no doubt that many of the requested features would be related to open source software. Looking through the most popular suggestions list makes me wonder whether Dell will actually listen to user feedback:

1. Pre-Installed Linux | Ubuntu | Fedora | OpenSUSE | Multi-Boot (42,165 votes)
2. Pre-Installed OpenOffice | alternative to MS Works & MS Office (22,528 votes)
3. NO EXTRA SOFTWARE OPTION (17,547 votes)
4. Linux laptop (15,423 votes)
5. No OS Preloaded (12,250 votes)
6. Have Firefox pre-installed as default browser (10,766 votes)
7. Build computers not loaded with extra software (10,304 votes)

Note: Each time a person votes it actually counts as 3. That means the number one suggestion currently has 14,055 unique people who have voted for it.

Those are the top 7 suggestions available on the site right now, and with the big tech sites writing about the new IdeaStorm site I would imagine that the open-source related ones will continue to grow in popularity. I am really impressed because the person who wrote the top two stories took some time to think out what they were going to say. They reference several applications, such as Firefox and GAIM, that should be offered to customers when purchasing a new computer.

If Dell starts to take some action on these requests you’ll find out about it on this page. That’s where they post about suggestions that they are actively working on to meet the consumer’s request. Right now, however, there is nothing available since Dell still has to “analyze” which requests are feasible.

I think it would be great if Dell started offering Linux PC’s with a variety of options, but I have a hard time seeing that happen. Right now Dell is able to offer their PC’s at such a discounted price because of the software companies who pay to put their “junk” on PC’s that new users purchase (with AOL probably being one of the most common). The Linux-only computers would probably be more expensive so Linux users would still buy a Windows machine (with all of the bloat) and just format it themselves.

News Source: Slashdot

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on June 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

One of the my favorite things in Firefox and Opera is having the ability to perform searches right from the location bar using keywords. In fact I’ve always removed the search box from the browser simply because I never use it. But when I found out about the Peers extension I thought it was going to be the extension that would actually get me to use the search box once and for all. I was wrong.

Ghacks uncovered an incredible extension that could very well be the best one ever created. I know, a lot of extensions have passed through the golden gates of the add-ons site, but I don’t think any of them will save me as much time as this one does.

The extension is called AwesomeSearch, which is named after the new Firefox 3 location bar (pictured above) that’s dubbed the “Awesome Bar.” With it you’ll get Google and Amazon search results intermingled with the items from your browser’s history. Here’s a video demonstration put together by the author to show you how it works.

As you can see in my screenshot the search results that are pulled in are highlighted with a blue background, and that makes it easier to differentiate what’s a search result and what’s a site you’ve previously visited. The true power of the extension, however, will only be revealed if you’re familiar with some of Google’s advanced search operators. A good example of this is what I have typed into the location bar in my screenshot, where the “site:cybernetnews.com” is the advanced search operator. By including that as part of the query it only returns results from our site. This basically gives you a nearly instantaneous way to search specific sites. Another example would be using “site:en.wikipedia.org” to only show results from the English Wikipedia site. Now do you see why this is so cool?

I sent an email to the developer with some recommendations that would make the extension even better. One of the things that came to my mind was having the ability to create keyword searches so that you can force it to only show Google results, and not anything from your browser’s history. That can be taken even further by being able to automatically append text onto the query based upon which keyword you use. For example, typing “wiki [search text]” into the location bar would actually be like performing a Google search formatted like “[search text] site:en.wikipedia.org“. That’s just an idea, but it would give people the chance to add site-specific search capabilities without the developer working overtime trying to make it compatible with dozens of different services.

The extension is currently in the experimental stage, and you’ll have to login with your Mozilla account to install it. It’s also not officially compatible with the latest Firefox 3 release, which means you’ll also need to ignore extension compatibility checking before trying to grab it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten this excited about a Firefox extension! One thing that I do want to point out is that this does also search Amazon, and it uses affiliate links for the results it retrieves. It’s just an easy way to support the developer though.

Get the AwesomeSearch Extension for Firefox 3

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

One thing that has always left me puzzled is why Firefox takes so long to startup. Both Opera and Internet Explorer take just seconds to get up and running, but on all four of my computers Firefox takes between 10 and 20 seconds to start (even with no extensions installed).

If you find yourself in a similar situation then what you might need is the open source Firefox Preloader. It can be set to startup when you turn your computer on, and with it Firefox will always be at your beck and call. If there are multiple versions of Firefox installed on your computer you can decide which one you would like it to work with.

This feature does come at a cost though. When the preloader first started up on my computer it used about 4MB of memory itself, and Firefox was using about 10MB. Those aren’t drastic numbers, but for those of you conscious about the memory usage you might want to think twice before using the preloader. Also, when you close Firefox it doesn’t actually close all the way, instead it’s just tucked away so that it will still start quickly the next time you go to use it.

Firefox Preloader (for Windows only)
Thanks to “S” for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on September 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

AOL’s decision to dump Kaspersky for McAfee was not accepted very well by the tech community. There was no official Vista-compatible version of Active Virus Shield (AVS) released before the switch had been made, but I had assumed that they would continue to provide support for at least the next few months for the XP version.

That turned out to not be the case as several readers have reported to me that as of last week they were receiving an "Update failed: Incorrect signature" error (the corresponding error codes were 0x8000005C and 0x8000005A). Netster007x was the first to notify me of the issue, and after looking around I began to think that the issue lied in the update server.

I managed to find a Google Group that had several other people complaining about the same error message in Active Virus Shield. One eagle-eyed commenter noticed that you could bypass the problem by removing the two AOL entries from the list of update servers. Here’s the quick how-to on doing that:

1. Right-click on the Active Virus Shield System Tray icon and close the program. Alternatively you could boot your computer into Safe Mode.
2. Open this file:
   C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\AVP6\Data\aol-updcfg.xml
3. Remove the top two lines from the file:
<site2 url="ftp://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/" diff_url="diffs" weight="10000001" region="*" />
<site2 url="http://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/" diff_url="diffs" weight="10000000" region="*" />
4. Save the changes and restart Active Virus Shield (or restart your computer).

Now your Active Virus Shield should be back to normal, and updating regularly. Of course support for this application is extremely limited now that AOL isn’t using it anymore, but the last version is still available for download on sites like Softpedia, MajorGeeks, and CNet.

So it looks like there is a workaround for the time being, and for some of you it will be worth it since Kaspersky (which powers Active Virus Shield) is ranked as one of the best antivirus solutions. Although I prefer to just use the always free Avast! or AVG.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on June 23, 2010 by CyberNet.

Windows Vista/7 only
I’m always on the lookout for great apps that take full advantage of the Aero interface in Windows 7 or Vista, and OnTopReplica is undoubtedly one of the more handy ones. When you run this free (and portable) app you’ll see a clear glass window. All you have to do is right-click, and select which of your currently open windows you want to clone on the screen. From there you should see something similar to the screenshot above.

There are all kinds of things you can tweak to your liking. The size of the thumbnail is scalable, you can move it wherever you like, and you can even select a specific portion of the window that you want to see in the thumbnail. Here are some of the features you’ll enjoy:

• Clone any of your windows and keep it always on top
• Select a subregion of the cloned window
• Auto-resizing (fit the original window, half, quarter and fullscreen mode)
• Dock in task bar
• Adjustable opacity
• Add/remove the thumbnail border
• Ability to send left-clicks on thumbnail through to main window (useful for watching videos, so that you can play/pause them). However, keyboard characters are not sent through.

OnTopReplica Homepage (Windows Vista/7 only; Portable/Freeware)
[via Freeware Genius]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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