Oct 23

CyberNotes: Bookmarklets that make Subscribing to Feeds Easier

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Internet Explorer, Opera, Software, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

I subscribe to feeds all the time, but many of the browsers are different in the way they handle feeds. Firefox has a pretty nice interface for choosing an external application as the default subscription handler while Internet Explorer (IE) and Opera are both a little more tricky. IE and Opera are setup to handle feeds from within the browser itself so they don’t offer many options for subscribing to feeds using external applications.

When you install an external application to handle your feeds on your computer, such as FeedDemon or RSS Bandit, it registers the “feed://” protocol with the operating system much the same way that your browser registers the “http://” protocol. This means that anytime a URL begins with feed:// it will actually try to launch your external feed program.

This bookmarklet doesn’t work for Firefox (at least I don’t think it does), but that doesn’t really matter because in the options you can choose a default program to handle the feeds. So if your using Internet Explorer or Opera the first thing you need to do is drag this bookmarklet into your bookmarks:

Now anytime you click on the bookmarklet it will take you directly to your external RSS feed application so that you can add the feed in there, instead of in the browser. The first time you will probably see some sort of warning like this one giving you a heads up that the browser is trying to pass a URL onto your default feed program, but you can just check the box to permanently allow this action:

Approve Feed

Don’t worry, if a site has more than one feed available the bookmarklet is designed to ask you which one you want to use before sending it to your feed program:

Select Feed

All you have to do is enter in the corresponding number of the feed you want to subscribe to and press OK.

Then I thought to myself that there had to be a better way to subscribe to the feeds…and I remembered Chris R. telling me about AddThis. It is a service that I could setup much the same way I setup the bookmarklet above, but for some people it is a little nicer. It will display a website that lists all of the feed URL’s associated with a specific site instead of having to use a popup window to select which one you want. With the way I had the bookmarklet setup it was easy to modify it to work with AddThis.

Internet Explorer and Firefox users just drag this link into your bookmarks:

AddThis

Opera users can click on this link if they want to create an orange RSS button to add to any toolbar:

Subscribe2RSS

I tested it in Firefox, IE, and Opera and it works in all of them from what I can tell. If you create an account with AddThis.com you can set it up so that you’re never asked for your feed subscriber preference again, although it can be changed later on should you decide to switch what program/service you’re using.

One quick thing that I wanted to mention is that in Firefox if you use the “Google Reader” option for subscribing to feeds you’ll be presented with an option to add the feed to your Google Personalized Homepage or to Google Reader. Most of you probably use one or the other and you can configure Firefox to automatically bypass that screen and go to your favorite service by following these instructions that Chad posted in our forum.

So that’s it…the first of the bookmarklets that I actually made myself and they came because I had received a few questions about changing how Opera handles feeds by default. If you have any ideas on how I can make it better or another service you would like it to work with just let me know, and I’ll do my best to fulfill your requests! :)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 22

FileZilla 3 – FTP Client for Windows, Linux, and Mac

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Linux, Mac, Newly Released, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

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

FileZilla 3 FTP Software

FileZilla 3 was just released and I have to admit that I’m pretty excited to see my favorite FTP client hit this big milestone. This version has spent several years in the making, and even though it doesn’t have many new features over the previous version there is something that is definitely worth noting: it’s now cross-platform! That’s right, it doesn’t matter whether your a Windows, Linux, or Mac user because FileZilla runs on them all.

Making FileZilla 3 cross-platform was no easy task, and it required a complete code rewrite. Unfortunately they also weren’t able to bring back all of the features from FileZilla 2, but I believe that most casual FTP users won’t notice much of a difference. The only thing I’ve found so far that FileZilla 3 is lacking is the synchronization capabilities that FileZilla 2 offered. If you never used that feature I think you should be pleased with the new version.

One of the other great things that I noticed in this version is the organization of queued, failed, and successful transfers into separate tabs at the bottom. This makes it much easier to see how your transfers are going.

Interestingly enough the developer also decided to refresh the FileZilla icon by choosing a different color scheme. It’s not a drastic change from what it was, but it’s enough to make me look twice when trying to find the program in the Start Menu.

FileZilla Homepage

Note: The Mac OS X version is currently experiencing some delays.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 22

Organize Your Desktop with Fences

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

This article was written on February 11, 2009 by CyberNet.

stardock fences.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Most of the time I use my computer’s desktop as a temporary holding place for things that I need to organize later on. It’s normally filled with attachments that have been downloaded from emails, apps I’ve downloaded to try out, and more. My goal is to always have a clear desktop because that means I’ve filed everything away, but that rarely happens.

Stardock has released a free program called Fences that focuses on de-cluttering your desktop. Basically what it does is make it possible to group the icons on your desktop into self-contained areas. You can then hide all of the groupings simply by double-clicking on your desktop. If you’ve got certain icons you always want visible (like the Recycle Bin) you can specify them within the settings, and those will never be hidden when double-clicking on the desktop.

To top it off the application will also let you take snapshots of how all your icons are organized at any given moment. These will serve as backups in case you ever want to revert back to a previous state of organization.

Stardock Fences is completely free, but they do have a professional version in the works that will add more features if you’re willing to pay for them. The free version, however, will always remain available.

This has become a must-have app for me, and I highly recommend it for anyone that has troubles managing their desktop.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 22

Automatically Rotate Desktop Wallpapers

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

This article was written on April 10, 2009 by CyberNet.

wallpaper juggler.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
We’ve shown you some tools in the past that lets you automatically rotate your desktop backgrounds (like this one), but the sheer simplicity of Wallpaper Juggler is what makes it so great. Basically what it does is download wallpapers from InterfaceLIFT and WallpaperStock, and you can choose to have it grab only the most popular wallpapers. Then you can setup an interval so that it automatically rotates through the downloaded wallpapers. Once setup the whole process happens transparently in the background without any interaction needed from you.

Here are the features the free Wallpaper Juggler app has to offer:

  • Controllable from the System Tray (enabled/disable, juggle now, switch back to last wallpaper, etc…)
  • Can be configured to…
    • start with Windows
    • look for wallpapers in multiple folders including/excluding subfolders. Best results when used with matching resolution wallpapers
    • change wallpaper once every preferred duration between 1 min and 500 hrs. It will understand “000 Hrs/Mins 000 Min” format. It can interpret M/Min/Mins/Minutes and H/Hr/Hrs/Hour as Minutes and Hours respectively
    • confirm before changing wallpaper
    • adjust image positioning for odd size wallpapers
  • Change wallpaper manually by clicking ‘Juggle Now’ menu or double clicking the icon
  • Displays the last updated wallpaper and the time stamp when the next change will occur

If you hate having the same wallpaper on your computer this might be just the thing you need. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

Wallpaper Juggler Homepage (for Windows only)
Thanks Raj for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 22

Auto Dial for Firefox: Fast Access to Your Most Visited Sites

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

This article was written on August 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

autodial.jpg

Mozilla has been looking at different ways to optimize the user’s experience when they open a new tab in Firefox. By default Firefox is set to display a blank page whenever a new tab is opened, and from there the user normally performs a search or navigates to one of their favorite sites. From the sounds of it they’re looking to add something much like what Opera already does with Speed Dial.

Using that idea one developer decided to create an extension called Auto Dial. It grabs information from your browser’s history to determine what your most visited sites are, and it will display them in a format similar to what you see in the screenshot above. The more popular sites are larger and listed towards the top, while the less visited sites are at the bottom and occupy less space. The number of items shown on the screen at a time will change depending on the size of your browser window.

As it stands right now Auto Dial is far from being anything fancy. The only way you can access the Auto Dial page is to visit chrome://autodial/content in Firefox, which you can then set as your homepage. If you want the page to appear whenever you create a new tab you’ll need to use an extension like Tab Mix Plus or New Tab Homepage.

I like some of the ideas Mozilla has for optimizing the new tab page, and it will be interesting to see if any of the improvements will be coming in the early part of 2009 when Firefox 3.1 is due out. Would you like to see a revamped new tab page, or are you content with the blank screen?

Get Auto Dial for Firefox
Thanks Cody!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

CyberNotes: DeskScapes that make your Vista Desktop Shine

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on June 25, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Microsoft Monday

DeskscapesWhen Microsoft released a DreamScene Preview for Vista Ultimate users, I couldn’t wait to try it out. Once I got it installed I was indeed impressed, but I still felt like I was missing out on the full capabilities of what DreamScene could really do.

Now being more than 4-months after the preview version was released, there is still no final version, but that’s a whole other story. Shortly after the Vista release, Stardock picked up some of Microsoft’s slack by extending the feature set that Dreamscene had. They made a free add-on called Deskscapes which once installed, lets you choose from their vast collection of user-uploaded “Dreams.”

Almost all of them are offered for free, and so I thought I would take a look at several that I have personally tested out. And since there are no videos of them available on the site I also felt the need to demonstrate to you what each of them looks like.

Note: None of the videos have sound because I was trying to keep the size of the video to a minimum, but its not like they would have sound on your desktop anyway. You can also look for the little white dots on the timeline to quickly skip to the next Dream demo:

Viddler Comment

–The City–

These three Dreamscapes are all based on cities, and one of them has a special place in my heart since it is of the Chicago skyline!

  1. Bay Bridge
  2. Detroit By Night
  3. Stadt (Chicago Skyline)

–Waterfalls and Lakes–

Everyone loves water when it comes to desktop backgrounds, so I thought I would devote an entire section just to that! We’ve got waterfalls, lakes, and tropical paradise that will help prepare you for a vacation. :)

Note: Some of the effects that some of the Dreams have are more subtle than others, particularly the two Island ones. I threw these in because they look good, and some people don’t like too much motion on their desktop.

  1. Berge
  2. Future World
  3. Heron
  4. Island Oasis
  5. Island Paradise
  6. Small Waterfall
  7. Sydney Opera House
  8. Wassfall

–Other–

This is kind of a conglomeration of odds and ends that I found. A few of them put you in space, some are related to movies, and others just don’t belong anywhere.

The hot one in this group is no doubt the Shark Pit, which is what I have my current Vista desktop set to. When other people have seen me using it they think it is the coolest thing ever. Kudos to the Stardock team for developing it and not charging a dime!

Caution: The Rollercoaster might make you sick. :)

  1. Apollo
  2. Bliss (like the default XP background)
  3. Evolution
  4. Matrix
  5. Rollercoaster
  6. Shark Pit (this is my favorite)
  7. Spiderman
  8. The Moon
  9. Vista

–Premium Dynamic Dreams–

Besides for producing free Dreams such as the Shark Pit, Stardock also works hard to create dynamic ones. Unlike other Dreams, the content that these show are not just a looping movie, and are instead created on-the-fly for your viewing pleasure.

Since these will cost you money, I decided to point out the features that each has a little bit more in detail so that you have a better idea of what you’ll receive. All of them, except the first one, also have options that you can configure to your liking and I made sure to demonstrate some of the different things you can do with those settings.

  1. Blissful Dream ($8.95)
    This one is pretty cool because it adjusts with your computer’s clock. From what I gather, there are just a few transitions that it has (sun rise, afternoon, sunset, night) which I try to demonstrate in the video by manually adjusting the clock.
  2. Desktop Earth ($8.95)
    I think the NASA-addicts out there will really get a kick out of this one. It is a rotating globe that shows where it is currently daytime and where it is nighttime. You can customize the speed of the rotation, or just make the globe stationary and have the light revolve around it as the day goes on.
  3. Desktop Collage ($8.95)
    I really thought at first that this was going to be my favorite. I consider myself a photo guru and take pictures of almost anything, and looking through the options there was all kinds of stuff to love. At certain time intervals, it places a picture on your desktop (essentially forming a collage), and you can control the size of the pictures as well as the delay between adding photos. The downside is in choosing the location of the photos to use because it didn’t let me use a folder that only contained sub-folders. Instead I had to pick a folder that had pictures directly in it, which takes away a little bit from the beauty of this Dream.
  4. Liquid Dream ($9.95)
    I think this ended up being my favorite out of the bunch because of how realistic it is. At first glance it doesn’t look like anything amazing, but the power lies in the configuration. You can adjust the rain drop frequency, the drop size, the background (rocks, sand, etc…) and the reflective image (night sky or clouds). If you sit there and play with the different options you are sure to find some cool settings, which I try to demonstrate in the video.

While all of the cool dynamic Dreams currently cost money, in the near future that could be changing. Stardock told me that they are working on an SDK (Software Development Kit) for the dynamic Dreams so that anyone could create ones just like these. So keep your eyes open because there could be some cool things on the horizon!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

CyberNotes: Enhancing IE7′s Feed Reader

Posted in: Apple, CyberNotes, Freeware, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

One thing that Microsoft did a good job of in Internet Explorer 7 was making it easy for users to read feeds. They provided a feed reader that was so simple, yet it does exactly what most casual users want, and that is to keep up on the latest news from around the Web.

Despite doing many things right, there are some things that it doesn’t do, but for those things, there are work-arounds which you might find useful. This includes adding a notifier so that you know when there are new items, and synchronizing with an online service so that your feeds are up-to-date both at work and at home. Here are some tips that you might find helpful if you use the feed reader in Internet Explorer…

IE7 Feeds

–Synchronize with NewsGator Online (Homepage)–

This is one of my favorite add-ons for Internet Explorer because it focuses on the fact that not everyone sits in front of the same computer all day. Many of us go from being at home, to work, and then back home again which is where the NewsGator Desktop Sync comes in handy.

This small, lightweight program installs in a matter of seconds on your computer. Once setup, it will synchronize with an online NewsGator account to keep track of which feeds/posts that you have read. You can choose to have IE override all feed settings, have NewsGator’s online service override all settings, or have the application merge the feeds in the browser and what’s available online.

The System Tray icon gives you easy access to synchronization, and in just a few clicks you can sync up before you go to work or come home. Or, if that seems like too much of a hassle you can actually customize the duration between syncs so that you never even have to think about it.

NewsGator Desktop Sync NewsGator Desktop Sync

–Feed Folder (Homepage)–

This add-on doesn’t do that much, but it does make your feeds a little more accessible outside of just Internet Explorer. By using the Feed Folder add-on all of your feeds will be placed in your Favorites bookmarks folder in addition to the normal feed location within Internet Explorer 7. This means that your feeds will quickly be accessible from Windows Explorer as well as the Start Menu (if configured to show Favorites in the Start Menu properties).

Feed Folder

–MS Feed Icon (Homepage)–

This is simply a notification system and System Tray icon for the feed reader in IE7. Basically, it adds the most critical thing that Microsoft never put into their browser, but this one does a terrific job of going above and beyond the call of duty. Check out everything it can do:

  • Icon in the system tray indicating status of you feed subscriptions
  • Displays notifications when a feed contains new posts, and you can customize which feeds receive the notification.
  • Can automatically marks a feed as read
  • Force an update on all feeds
  • Star a notification for later reading (essentially pinning it so that the notification doesn’t close)
  • Mark as read without viewing the feed
  • Unsubscribe from a feed within the notification window
  • Search new posts for specific Tags so you can select which posts are interesting to you. Then any matching posts can be starred to ensure that the notification window does not close until you manually close it.
  • Feed statistics
  • Presentation mode aware (Windows Vista only)
  • Customizable background color

MS Feed Icon MS Feed Icon

–Feeds Plus (Homepage)–

Feeds Plus makes it possible to read all of your feeds on the same page. This is a really nice feature as long as you don’t have a large number of feeds, but you can always organize your feeds into folders. That way you can just read all of the items on a folder by folder basis.

It also has a built-in notifier that pops up near the System Tray when a feed has new posts, but it isn’t nearly as extensive as what the MS Feed Icon has to offer. Luckily you can disable this notifier so that it doesn’t conflict with MS Feed Icon.

Feeds Plus Feeds Plus

–Summary–

As you can see, there are several tools available that all enhance IE7’s Feed Reader. None of them really make it a full-fledged application like FeedDemon or RSS Bandit, but they help make it a lot more useful.

If you have any other tools that you use with Internet Explorer 7’s feed reader be sure to let us know. We’ve also written two other posts, here and here, on other great add-ons for Internet Explorer 7.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

Switcher 2 – Best Exposé Clone for Windows

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

This article was written on September 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

Switcher

There is no doubt in my mind that Switcher is the best Exposé clone ever made for Windows, and only Vista users get to bask in the features that this free program has to offer. Switcher 2 Beta has just raised the bar several notches by adding features Apple’s own Exposé doesn’t even have!

Among many other things the new Switcher has tremendously improved the smoothness of its animation. You’ll see this in the video demonstration below, but first lets take a look at some of the great new features.

–Custom Window Labels and Backgrounds–

You can now have labels on windows as well as customized backgrounds and borders. You would probably think that the labels only tell you what the title of the app is, but you can put multiple things in the label. My personal favorite is having it show the number of megabytes the particular program is using, but you can also have it display the program’s icon, the filename of the application, or the process name.

–More Productive–

Switcher WindowNow the first 9 windows in Switcher are assigned numbers. This makes it a lot easier to move between windows without having to shuffle through them one-by-one.

One of my favorite features in Switcher has always been the customizable shortcut keys though. That’s also been taken up a notch by adding several new commands that can be assigned shortcuts, including "Begin and Select Next." That command behaves similarly to the standard Windows Alt-Tab where upon activation the last-accessed window is selected. I love this option so much that I’ve gone ahead and assigned it to be the default action. A more Alt-Tab like appearance can also be seen by using the new Grid View, which aligns all of the windows to a grid in number order. I’m sure the Alt-Tab fans out there will choose this to be their default preference.

Another shortcut action that was added was the ability to close a window straight from Switcher. I set it up so that anytime I right-click on one of the thumbnails in Switcher it closes that particular window.

–Live Filtering–

The live filtering gives you the capabilities to only show certain sets of windows at any given time. For example, you can have all minimized windows be hidden or you can only show windows from a certain program (like Windows Explorer). Here are the various options for filtering along with their default shortcut keys:

  • Search by window title (default shortcut Ctrl+F, or simply type to automatically display the search box). You can search using regular expressions (an obscure feature that I keep forgetting about).
  • Exclude minimized windows (default shortcut Ctrl+M).
  • Hide a particular window (default shortcut Ctrl+H).
  • Show only the windows belonging to a certain program (default shortcut Ctrl+W).
  • The default shortcut to remove all filters is Ctrl+R.

After trying out the search feature I couldn’t stop myself from creating a video to show off this cool feature:

–Overview–

I honestly can’t believe how much Switcher has evolved since I first started using it, and it’s quickly become something that I recommend to anyone using Vista. Of course, if you’ve never used Alt-Tab before then you’ll probably never think to use this, but I’ve quickly found this to be a valuable tool in my daily work.

Get Switcher 2 Beta

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

FTP Rush: A Free Windows FTP Client

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

This article was written on October 26, 2010 by CyberNet.

desktop ftp client.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
When it comes down to free FTP clients for Windows there are only a handful of them I ever hear people talk about. Normally they consist of apps like FileZilla or WinSCP, and some people just stick to the standard Windows Explorer if they are only connecting to FTP sites. I came across a different app the other day that I’d definitely put on par with apps like FileZilla. That app is FTP Rush.

This free app comes from a company that also makes a paid and more feature-packed FTP client, but their free alternative should be more than suitable for most of your needs. Here’s a list of some key features for the app:

  • Supports FXP – Site-to-Site transfers
  • Tabbed interface and multiple connections
  • Supports FTP, FTPS, TFTP and SFTP (FTP over SSH).
  • GUI Customization and Integrated Docking
  • Drag-And-Drop files via Explorer-like interface
  • Automated transfer by writing FTP scripts
  • Built-in Task Manager including Synchronize
  • Supports HTTP Proxy, Socks 4&5
  • Fast SFV checking on client side
  • Supports Unicode/UTF8 charset
  • Supports UPnP Port-mapping
  • On-The-Fly Mode Z Compression
  • High performance Disk Buffer
  • Caching folders speeds your browsing
  • Keep alive your FTP connections
  • Smart Skip & Allow transfer
  • Row color and highlights
  • Super fast file search

What actually surprised me a bit was that they actually include a portable version of the app weighing in under 10MB once extracted on your machine. I haven’t seen a lot of cases where the developer of the FTP program also supplies a portable version, which made this a nice touch. I think the interface could use a little work, but I find that’s the case with most of the FTP clients.

FTP Rush Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

Mozilla Still Plans On Tabbed Messages For Thunderbird 2

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

This article was written on November 13, 2006 by CyberNet.

Thunderbird 2 Mozilla has been taking a little longer than I expected to complete Thunderbird 2 which is in the Pre-Beta stage right now. It has been that way for nearly two-months and Firefox 2 has already been released. I thought that Mozilla would have tried to push version 2 out for both Thunderbird and Firefox at the same time but that doesn’t look like it will be happening. :)

The Thunderbird 2 roadmap was just updated a week ago and says that it should be released the first quarter of 2007. That still gives them plenty of time to throw in some features that haven’t yet made the nightly builds and it looks as though one of the features will be tabbed emails:

  • Tools for organizing and managing e-mail
    • Custom Folder Pane Views such as favorites, unread and recently used.
    • Message Tagging
    • Tabbed Messages
  • Be Informative
    • New Mail Alert Improvements
    • Folder Summary Popups
  • Help Fight Junk Mail
    • Improve the current Bayesian based algorithm
    • Token Store Pruning / Aging

I have been using the nightly releases of Thunderbird for quite awhile now and they are remarkably stable. I like the new Mail Alert but tabbed messages will no doubt be my favorite feature when they release it.

I do hope that Mozilla plans to release some updates to both Firefox and Thunderbird soon for applying the partial updates for the programs in Windows Vista. I recently decided to re-enable the User Account Control (UAC) because there aren’t too many things that I do anymore to initiate the annoying prompts. So I figured for the sake of security I would give it another shot. However, in order for Firefox or Thunderbird to apply the nightly updates I have to be running the programs as an administrator. I don’t mind receiving the UAC prompt each time I am updating either program but right now there is no such prompt and the update silently fails. I’m sure Mozilla will be fixing this soon I just hope that it is before the business launch of Vista at the end of November.

Thanks to “Jack of all Trades” for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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