Apr 28

Easily Retrieve Those Pesky Songs Off Your iPod

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 02, 2006 by CyberNet.

iPod iDump

One thing that Apple doesn’t allow you to do with the iTunes software is retrieve the songs from your iPod. That doesn’t matter to most people until you reformat your computer and forget to backup your songs. Don’t worry though, iDump is here to save the day!

iDump is an awesome freeware application that lets you retrieve music off of your iPod without any troubles. It also has the ability to handle your playlists and will let you select certain songs only from those lists if you choose. Here are the rest of the features that it has:

  • Output formatting
    This gives you the option to select an output directory and the way the songs will be transferred.
  • Unattended Transfer
    If you have the pleasure of owning one of the larger iPod’s then this option is for you, Simply set the options for this feature and it will deal with common errors like what to do if a song already exist on the destination drive etc.
  • Search
    This does what most searches do, it searches!.
  • Playlists
    If you use playlists on your iPod then this gives you the option to select any of the playlists and display the song within the selected list only.
  • Export Playlists
    This option will export all of your playlists in to the standard .m3u format.

Download iDump

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 28

Skype 3 Beta Released With A New Interface

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

This article was written on November 08, 2006 by CyberNet.

Skype 3 Beta The new Skype 3 Beta was just released and is available for download. I have never really been a Skype user myself but I was curious what the new interface looked like so I downloaded it and got it installed.

It is hard for me to notice exactly what has changed because I have never installed Skype before but the setup process was incredibly easy. For the less advanced users you could run the file that you downloaded and just click the install button without going through all of those options screens. If you want to change some things around before installing Skype just click on the Options button in the bottom left corner and it will let you customize the installation.

I have seen the old interface and this one looks to be a lot nicer. It is much more condensed compared to Skype 2.5 which is definitely something most people love. Here is a list of the other features taken from the changelog:

  • known issue: call quality in video call can be low
  • known issue: http/socks proxy connections do not work
  • feature: Public chatrooms
  • feature: Extras Manager
  • feature: Sound Settings Widget
  • change: UI redesigned
  • change: Improved Video device detection
  • change: New Languages

Before installing the Beta version you should note those two known issues above. If you think those could prove to be an issue then you should probably not install the software.

Skype seems to be very well developed but I am a big fan of the call quality that Google Talk has. It is typically crystal clear when I am making PC-to-PC calls but I may have to give Skype a try.

Download Skype 3 Beta

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 28

Stick: Launch Applications, Manage Files, and Take Notes

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

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

stick tabs.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I’m always on the lookout for unique apps, and Stick is one of those that is unlike most others. Some may say it’s an application launcher or even a note taker, but it really just comes down to what you decide to use it for.

Stick lets you create tabs along the edge of your screen… as many as you want. They can be placed along any edge, and they snap to the edge of your Taskbar when the two are placed on the same side. What makes these tabs interesting, however, is the functional variety they can serve up:

  • Calculator – A basic calculator
  • Calendar – A simply formatted monthly or weekly calendar
  • Explorer (both files and Internet) – Display the contents of a specific folder or a website
  • News Feed – You can combine any number of RSS feeds into a single tab
  • Notes – Each note tab is saved to an individual text file on your machine
  • TaskBar – View all running applications, and switch between them

My favorites are definitely the “explorer” and “notes” tabs. The explorer tab is nice because you can specify a starting directory, but when expanded it actually behaves like the native Windows Explorer app. It has your standard back/forward buttons, supports IE favorites, and even has drag-and-drop functionality. Yes, you can actually drag a file from your desktop into any folder you can see within the tab. Or you can go even further and drill into directories to find exactly what you’re looking for. If you right-click on an item you’ll also notice that you’ve got the full Explorer context menu at your disposal, which means you can easily extract those pesky files you download.

stick notes.png

The notes tabs are really nice because each one gets tied to a text file on your machine. This will especially compliment you nicely if you’re already using a text file for your todo list. It also has some WordPad-style formatting options (bold, italic, alignment, color, etc…). It’s not extravagant, but it’s a great way to keep those frequently used text files just a mouse click away.

In terms of memory usage I’d say it runs pretty light. I added one of every different kind of tab, and it was sitting a hair under 20MB. I can definitely spare that for the quick access this provides to my most used folders and text files.

Stick Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Apr 24

CyberNotes: Make Firefox 2 Show Tabs With Your OS Theme

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

This article was written on November 22, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

One thing that I have heard several complaints about with Firefox 2 is that the tabs are not themed to match what your operating system is using for a theme. Maybe you don’t like the darker color of the default tabs but don’t worry, it is so unbelievably easy to change that you’ll cry. Okay, maybe not as easy as a checkbox but close enough for those of us that have a little knowledge of computers.

First, I’ll show you what I’m talking about. These are what the standard tabs look like in Firefox 2, correct? Just nod your head and agree. :)

Firefox 2 default tabs

So, after you complete what I am about to tell you to do your tabs will take on your operating system’s properties. This is what the new tabs look like for me in Vista (the left-most tab is a background tab, the middle one is being hovered over with the mouse, and the right-most tab is the currently selected tab):

Firefox 2 System Tabs

In Windows Vista when you hover over buttons and other objects it applies a light-blue glow which is exactly what happens in Firefox now. I’m not sure how this will look in all operating systems but I’m sure some people will like it better while others will probably hate it.

So if you want to give this a shot there isn’t much that you need. You will be creating a custom style sheet and you can do it manually but I recommend just using Stylish. If you use Stylish you also don’t have to worry about restarting Firefox to see the changes.

Once you have the extension installed open up this text file that I uploaded (I would have pasted it here in the post but it is 165 lines long). Copy all of the code and place it into the Stylish box:

Stylish

Save your new style and the look of your tabs should now match what your operating system calls for. Pretty cool, huh? The beauty of using Stylish is that you can easily remove the new look if you decide that you don’t like it.

I am kinda torn right now because I like having the light-blue glow when I hover over a tab but at the same time I miss the rounded corners on the tabs that the default theme offers. Sometimes I am so indecisive. :D

I found this solution at UserStyles.org but at the time of this writing the site was down, but I was still able to get it from the Google Cache.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 22

Backup Only Changed Portions of Files with DeltaCopy

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

This article was written on August 21, 2009 by CyberNet.

deltacopy.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I’ll forewarn you that DeltaCopy is something you won’t want to use for all of your backup needs because it’s not the easiest thing in the world to set up. It is, however, useful if you’re backing up large amounts of data every night that doesn’t change very much.

DeltaCopy is different than most other backup utilities because of how it handles incremental backups. Normally a program will check to see if a file has changed, and if it has it will update the file with the new data. To do this it will copy the new file over top of the old one, which for most people is just fine. When you start dealing with large files on a regular basis, however, this can take a long time to process.

What DeltaCopy does is transfer only the pieces of the file that have actually changed. For example, if you have a 1GB file and only 2MB of data has changed DeltaCopy will only transfer that 2MB instead of the entire 1GB file again. When you’re talking about gigabytes worth of data this can save a bunch of time.

The catch? In order to do this you’ll need to install both a server and client app on the respective machines. This is needed so that DeltaCopy is able to figure out what has changed in the file before transferring any of the data. So it does require some extra steps, but it may be worth it for some of you.

Aside from that the program is pretty basic and offers only the necessary features:

  • Incremental backup – Copies part of the file that is actually modified
  • Task scheduler – Profiles in DeltaCopy can run based on a schedule
  • Email notification – Administrators can receive email confirmation on successful as well as failed transfers
  • One-click restore – Backed up files can be easily restored.
  • Windows friendly environment – No need to manually modify configuration files or play around with command line options.

I know this is just a GUI to the rsync command (ported from Linux/UNIX), but it makes the whole process a bit easier to manage.

DeltaCopy Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)
Note: If running this on Vista/Win7 make sure to install it to a location that has write access (meaning a location that UAC isn’t blocking write access to). I noticed that DeltaCopy writes configuration files to the install directory, and UAC will prevent that from happening if you install it into the Program Files folder.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 21

Ubuntu 6.10 Review – I’ve Got XGL Up And Running

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 27, 2006 by CyberNet.

I was reading this review of Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft, which was just released yesterday, and I remembered that I still had the ISO image sitting on my hard drive waiting to be burned. I figured there is no better time than the present so I slapped it onto a CD and got it running in no time.

The review had so many screenshots of XGL that I figured it was about time to get it installed on my own machine. Normally I use KDE as my desktop environment in Linux and from my experience it has been a little harder to get XGL running in it. Then again I don’t know the ins and outs of Linux but I am fairly proficient at using it.

The review details how to setup XGL in Ubuntu 6.10 for a nVidia graphics card so I went looking around to see what I could find for an ATI graphics card. I ended up using this tutorial but it was designed for Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper so when I added the repositories I had to change them to say:

deb http://www.beerorkid.com/compiz edgy main-edgy
deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ edgy main
deb-src http://xgl.compiz.info/ edgy main

I didn’t try to get all fancy with what can really be done, like this, but I was just happy to get all of the cool effects working smoothly…and it took me less than 10 minutes. All of the people who say that this is just eye candy are completely wrong. Sure certain aspects of XGL/Beryl may be for your viewing pleasure but things like the cube are very useful. Being able to drag windows from one desktop to another is the best simulation for multiple monitors that you’re gonna get.

So you should head on over and download Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft if you still haven’t because it is proving to be a great release.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 21

Use Portable TreeSize to Find Large Files and Folders

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

This article was written on August 05, 2010 by CyberNet.

treesize free portable.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
There have been a lot of disk space analyzers floating around lately that help you identify space-hogging files and folders on your hard drive. Disk Space Fan has a pretty interface, WinDirStat is a classic favorite, and there are all kinds of other ones available that accomplish the same kind of task. Some provide unique ways to view the space usage of your hard drive, but one I’ve been using for awhile is TreeSize Free.

The interface of TreeSize Free is pretty straight forward as you can see in the screenshot above, but that’s a lot of what I love about it. If you upgrade to the professional version you’ll get a lot of the advanced visualizations, but I don’t find them to be necessary. The free version should be more than sufficient for the few times you’ll actually need to use it.

One thing that I wanted to point out, and something a lot of users don’t realize, is that there is a portable version available so that you can carry TreeSize Free with you wherever you go. To grab it head on over to the download screen and from the drop-down menu select the middle option, which identifies itself as a “Zipped Executable.” You should be able to take that and throw it on your USB drive, or just keep it tucked away somewhere so that you can just pull it out when you need it.

Portable TreeSize Free Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Apr 20

CyberNotes: Backup Files When Your Computer is Idle

Posted in: CyberNotes, Features, Freeware, Screenshots, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Tutorial Thursday

The biggest reasons that I hear as to why people don’t perform backups is that they are either too lazy to set them up, or there just isn’t a good time to schedule them. The later excuse is often because they don’t want to “waste” their computer’s processing power and memory performing a backup when they are actually trying to use their computer. Sure they could leave it on overnight, but that just seems silly to leave a computer on for an extra 8 hours when all you need is 20 or 30 minutes to perform an incremental backup.

If you use one of those two excuses I’m hoping that the free Windows application I’m going to show you today will solve both of them. The solution is called IdleBackup, and as the name implies it can be used to backup important files and folders on your computer. The thing that really makes this unique is that it will check to see if the computer has been idle for at least one minute before performing a backup.

Once you get IdleBackup installed on your computer you’ll be presented with a window that looks like this:

idlebackup setup
(Click to Enlarge)

As you can see it is a pretty simple program without an over abundant amount of things to confuse you. All you have to do is check the box(es) corresponding to the areas on your computer that you want to backup. Each folder that you designate will be listed below the selection area for easy viewing.

The next thing that you’ll want to configure is the destination location for the backup files. This can be a location on the current hard drive, an external drive (memory card, USB drive, etc…), or another computer on the network:

idlebackup configure destination

idlebackup timer And lastly you’ll want to set how often the files should be backed up. Check the Automatic on box if you want IdleBackup to stay on a set interval, otherwise backups will only be performed when you manually start them. If you do decide to enable the automatic backups you’ll want to specify how often the program should check to see whether the files have changed or not.

Backups, unless manually started, will only begin once the computer is idle for one minute regardless of whether the timer has hit the magic number you specified. That means if you schedule a backup for every 15 minutes, but use your computer for four straight hours the backup won’t begin until after you’ve finished.

The countdown area will show how long you have to wait before another backup is performed, but if you see it “stuck” on 60 seconds (like in the screenshot to the right) it’s because the computer is not idle. Once there is no activity on the machine the countdown will wait 60 seconds to ensure that the computer is idle, and then it will begin the backup process.

By default the IdleBackup will check keyboard/mouse usage and CPU activity to determine whether the computer is idle. I’m not sure how low the CPU usage needs to get before being considered “idle,” but if you find that backups are never being performed it might be good to disable the Cpu activity check feature.

There are some things that would be nice to configure, such as the amount of time the PC has to be idle before initializing a backup. However, that is a tradeoff you have to make for getting an application that is extremely simple to use.

Note: The first time that you run a backup it may take awhile depending on how many things need to be transferred. After that it will only copy changed files, and will never delete a file from the destination even if it is deleted from the source.

Get IdleBackup

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Apr 20

2007 CyberNet Awards: Best Tiny Programs

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

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

Over the last year we’ve covered hundreds of different applications, but there are only a handful that are both worthwhile and small. You may recall that we’ve done a post with 15 ultra tiny apps, all of which were 250KB and under in size. My favorite tiny program of the year, however, was not on that list!

The 2007 CyberNet Award for Best Tiny Program goes to…

–2nd Place: Taskix (Our Review)–

Taskix is an extremely simple solution to a feature that should be included with Windows. Weighing it at just 64KB it makes it possible to rearrange the items in your Windows Taskbar simply by using a drag-and-drop motion.

It’s a well updated application that is efficient, small, and extremely useful. It’s had a home on my computer ever since I found out about it.

–1st Place: Pitaschio (Our Review)–

This has quickly become one of my favorite programs, and what makes it a real gem is the fact that it consumes nearly no room on your hard drive (the download is a mere 60KB).

With Pitaschio you’ll be able to customize several different aspects of Windows that you probably never thought was possible. One of my favorite things that it can be used for is letting windows snap to each other, thereby making organizing applications on your screen a breeze.

–And Your Winners–

Now it is time for you to chime in! Let us know in the comments who earned your “Best Tiny Program” award.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Apr 19

AppHider for Mac Puts Program Shortcuts in Menu Bar

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

This article was written on July 15, 2009 by CyberNet.

apphider-3.png

arrow Mac Mac only arrow
It’s not often that I write about Mac apps because I don’t find some of them all that interesting, but I came across one that I thought was pretty useful. AppHider is a free program who’s goal is to tuck apps away into the Menu Bar. It then lets you assign any keyboard shortcut or AppleScript to the menu options you create.

Where would this be useful? The reason I wanted something like this is because I use the Spaces virtual desktop feature all of the time. If I already have a Safari or Firefox window open on another desktop and I click on the icon in the Dock it won’t open another window. I have to click on the icon and then press Command+N to get a new window. By throwing it up in the Menu Bar I can get one-click access to opening a new browser window no matter which Space I’m in.

You can configure AppHider to work with just about any program, and it’s actually just a Preference Pane instead of a full-blown program:

apphider-1.png

If you’re not into using Spaces I’m not sure how useful something like this would be, but it may have other purposes as well.

AppHider Homepage [Mac only; free]

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