Oct 20

Comical: A Desktop Reader for Online Comics

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

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

comical.png
(Click to Enlarge)

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Reading web comics can really brighten your day, and there is no question that XKCD is one of my personal favorites. Sometimes a quick little comic that takes less than a minute to read can actually put a smile on your face, and the free Windows app called Comical aims to make the most of those minutes.

What makes Comical so awesome is that it not only aggregates all your favorites into one list, but it can also archive them for offline reading. You can specify the interval that you want to check for new comics (or you can do it manually), and a little green icon will appear next to the ones that have new content. A simple double-click on that particular comic will open and save it off to your computer so that they can be viewed even when you aren’t near an Internet connection. It would be even better if it could also download the new comics during an update check, but that might be a feature we’ll see in a future release.

If you don’t mind diving into some XML you can also add your own comics. In the XML you’ll specify the URL of the page that always has the latest comic as well as a simple regular expression that matches the format of the comic’s filename. So you can actually customize this to grab new images from just about any site.

Aside from all that the app is actually rather simple. You can create lists of your favorites so that you can make sure those get read first, and there are some settings you can customize… such as how file archiving, whether you want to be notified if there are updates, and so on. If you’re against all forms of laughter this is a good time to move along, otherwise proceed with the free download.

Comical Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Open Large Text Files or Logs

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

This article was written on September 17, 2010 by CyberNet.

open large text files.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I regularly find myself in a situation where I have to open large text or log files, and trying to view them using the built-in Windows Notepad will return a message saying that the “file is too large for Notepad”. Heck, sometimes my trusty Notepad++ can’t even handle them. When it comes down to files that are over a couple gigabytes I have to turn to a text editor that is a bit more reliable, and the one I’ve been using lately is called Large Text File Viewer.

This free application requires no installation, and is more than capable of handling those enormous files that other programs cringe at. I tested this with a 1GB file that had over 12 million lines, and I was able to start viewing the contents of the file in under a second. It then progressively loaded all 12 million lines over the next minute.

One important thing that makes this application useable for me is how smooth the scrolling is throughout the file. Sometimes when viewing a large text file it becomes extremely choppy to try and scroll through it, but with this viewer that is nowhere near being an issue. Opening a 1GB file and scrolling through it doesn’t feel much different than opening a simple text file in notepad that is less than a few megabytes in size.

Here are some of the features that Large Text File Viewer has to offer:

  • Designed for viewing large (>1GB) text files.
  • Uses very little memory (around 8-10MB on my system) and the executable is just 572KB in size.
  • Background file indexing makes browsing even faster.
  • It opens files that are currently being written to by other programs, and automatically checks and reads the files if new contents have been appended.
  • You can split the view either horizontally or vertically, and have each side show different portion of the same file.
  • It allows the user to perform high-speed complex text search by means of plain text or regular expression. (Note: The regular expression syntax is slightly different than normal)
  • For CSV (Comma Separated Value) files, when the user hovers the mouse over any field in the file, a hint automatically appears with the field name.
  • Customizable appearance (background, text color, etc…)
  • Automatic detection of URLs (HTTP, FTP and email addresses).

If you’re trying to open or view large text files and logs then this is definitely an app you’ll want to have around.

Large Text File Viewer Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Mozilla Firefox 3 Alpha 2 Released!

Posted in: Apple, Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Microsoft, Pre-Release, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on February 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

FF3A2

Mozilla has just released the English version of Firefox 3 Alpha 2 (codename Gran Paradiso) and it is the first release of Firefox that passes the Acid 2 test. Well, it is still a pre-release version but it is on its way to be the final version that will be released later this year. If you haven’t heard by this point, the big thing with Firefox 3 is replacing the rendering engine with Cairo…which has improved a lot of things including how it scales images. Here is a list of what’s new from the Firefox 3 Alpha 2 release notes:

  • Core layout code affecting the calculation of widths in tables, floats, and absolutely positioned elements has been rewritten. The code for handling incremental layout of pages (as data arrives over the network, as images load, or as dynamic changes are made) has also been changed extensively.
  • Resolved remaining issues with ACID2 test compliance.
  • Support for the Web Apps 1.0 API for changing stylesheets.
  • The inline-block and inline-table values of CSS 2.1’s display property are now implemented.
  • XML documents can now be rendered as they’re downloaded instead of only after the full document has been loaded.
  • Greatly improved Mac widgets support since Alpha 1.
  • Improvements in the Cairo graphics layer.

I’m definitely excited about this release, but I just can’t bring myself to switch to this as my primary browser at this point because my GMarks extension doesn’t work. I know that I could just use the built-in bookmarking system but it is always nice to have my bookmarks available wherever I go. I’ve contacted the extension developer and he is currently looking into it, and once that gets fixed I plan on permanently switching over.

So what does the future look like for Firefox 3? As of right now the Alpha releases will be every 6 weeks or so, but they do not mention exactly how many of them they plan on doing. That puts us at the End of March before we see the next Alpha release and my estimation for the final release date is sometime this summer (probably the June/July timeframe). It will definitely be fun to see what the future has in store for us!

Note: In case anyone is wondering Places has not been put back in yet.

Portable Firefox 3 Alpha 2 for Windows
Windows: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 exe
Mac OS X: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 dmg
Linux: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 tar.gz

Thanks to natmaster for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Best Greasemonkey Scripts – Google Sidebar

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Google, search, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on December 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

One thing that I’ve always enjoyed with Google’s test site, SearchMash, was the powerful sidebar that it included. It gives users quick access to videos, images, Wikipedia, blogs, and more. Determined to find a way to get similar features on the Google search page I decided to turn to Greasemonkey.

The script that I came across is called Google Extra, and it does everything that I wanted it to. It utilizes the extra space on the right side of the search results to display:

  • Images – Six small thumbnails are shown, and hovering over a thumbnail will show you a larger version.
  • Videos – Grabs four videos from YouTube, and if you hover over one of the thumbnails it will flip between three thumbnails from that video.
  • Wikipedia – You’ll see a condensed excerpt from Wikipedia.
  • Dictionary – A nice list of definitions for the word you’re searching for.

Google Extra Sidebar 
(Click to Enlarge)

The thing that really makes this script nice, however, is the ability to reorder the four different sections so that they are organized with your most useful ones first. If you don’t use one of the sections very often, such as the videos, just minimize it. Your settings are remembered for every search you perform.

Heads up: Don’t be concerned if you perform a search and don’t see the four different sections pictured above. It’s designed to only display a section if it actually has matching results, so most of the time the Wikipedia and Dictionary results probably won’t show up.

You probably have some speed concerns, which is understandable given that several different sites have to be queried in order to display the extra data. After all, you don’t want to compromise Google’s split-second search results. Don’t worry, the script is well designed so that it will load after your search results. Basically you won’t notice any speed decrease in how long it takes to show the search results, but the overall page will obviously take an extra second or two to load.

Google Extra Script
Note: This script uses Greasemonkey-specific features, and for that reason it won’t work in Opera.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

CyberNotes: Switch Between Multiple Site Logins

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

This article was written on January 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

There was a lot of excitement when we wrote about the Greasemonkey script that could be used to switch between multiple Gmail accounts. At that time Thilak commented about a Firefox extension that basically accomplished the same task. With it you create user profiles that you can switch between, and it uses a different set of cookies for each of the profiles.

Since most sites store session information in cookies this is a good method for switching between multiple accounts, whether it be for email, shopping, or just about anything. That’s when it hit me that you can manipulate cookies using JavaScript as well, and I figured there had to be a way to create a bookmarklet to do almost the same thing as the extension.

Before we dive into the bookmarklet lets take a look at the Firefox extension more in depth:

–Firefox Extension–

CookieSwap The extension is called CookieSwap, and once installed you can create multiple profiles that can be used to manage different identities from around the web. They are all controlled from the Status Bar where you can select which identity you want to use.

This is great for switching between multiple email accounts without needing to login to each one, as well as making it easier for several different people to all use the same browser. For example, each person in your family could have their own profile, and then each of them wouldn’t have to constantly bother with logging in and out of websites.

The good news is that all of your information is stored in a cookie, which ensures that no one can see your password in plaintext. Well, that’s at least the case for sites that are designed properly.

One downside that I’ve found to using this is that there’s no way to restrict the cookie swapping to a particular site. The first time you create a new profile you’ll start with a blank slate, and you’ll need to go login to all the sites you want enabled for that particular profile. So it may not be the optimum solution if all you want to do is switch between several different accounts on one particular site.

–Bookmarklet–

Huh?: A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or within hyperlinks on a web page.

We figured there had to be a way to create a bookmarklet to swap between cookies as well, but on a per site basis. As always we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if we didn’t have to, so we searched around to see what we could find. Jesse Ruderman came to the rescue with a bookmarklet that he wrote to transfer cookies from one browser to another. We took that bookmarklet, modified it a bit, and created something that we think you’ll enjoy.

Here’s how it works. First you’ll need to drag this link into your bookmarks, or right-click on it and select the bookmark option:

Backup Cookies

Now head on over to the site you want to “backup” the cookies for. Click on the bookmarklet you just created, and you should see something like this:

Bookmarklet Swap Cookies

Bookmarking that will store your existing cookies for that site in the form of a bookmarklet. To restore the particular cookies for the site just run that bookmarklet.

Important: You must be on the site corresponding to the bookmarklet before running it. Otherwise your the cookies will not be updated. For example, if you backed up your Yahoo! cookies make sure you are on the Yahoo! website before running the bookmarklet.

In the example pictured above I was logged into Yahoo!, I ran the “Backup Cookies” bookmarklet to save my existing cookies. I was then able to logout of Yahoo! and run the new bookmarklet to restore all of my login credentials. It’s really that simple.

It’s pretty cool how something as simple as cookies can be used to restore your login status, but it’s something you also want to be careful with. Doing this would also mean that if the information ended up in the wrong hands that it could do some severe damage. For security reasons I recommend that you be especially cautious if you synchronize your bookmarks with a third-party online service.

Hat tip to Thilak for pointing out the Firefox Extension!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Put Firefox Search Engines in Folders

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

This article was written on January 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

Manage Search Engines

I’ll give you a heads up that this extension is really just for those of you who heavily use the built-in Firefox search box. The Organize Search Engines extension will help remove some of the clutter from the search box drop-down menu.

How it works is rather simple. From the drop-down list you select the Manage Search Engines where you will be presented with a window to reorder the sites you currently have setup (on the left side of the screenshot above). In addition to being able to reorder the sites, you’ll also be able to create new folders to organize your search engines. Once done the end result will be a less cluttered menu of search engines (on the right side of the screenshot above).

This isn’t something that I would actually use myself because I hardly use that search box as it is. I have keywords setup so that I can always use the address bar to do my searching. How many of you actually use the browser’s built-in search box for searching a variety of sites?

Download the Organize Search Engines extension [via How-To Geek]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 19

JottiQ Antivirus Scanner is the Shining Point of NANY 2011

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

This article was written on January 19, 2011 by CyberNet.

jottiq.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Every year Donation Coder holds an event called “New Apps for the New Year” (NANY) where developers do some cramming in order to whip up small but useful apps. The NANY 2011 event came to an end on January 1st, and there’s no doubt that many of the 30+ apps available will only be downloaded by a very small subset of users. There was one, however, that really caught my attention: JottiQ.

Jotti, not to be confused with the new JottiQ application, is a website that is comparable to VirusTotal. You can upload files to the site and have it scanned against a bunch of antivirus applications. The JottiQ app, however, is a great replacement for needing to interact with the Jotti website. You can queue up files that you want to be scanned, but one of the super cool things is that you can have it scan all of the executables that are associated to processes you currently have running. Now that is slick.

Some other features of JottiQ include:

  • Uses Jotti’s internal cache to speed up scans by avoiding the uploading of files that have already been scanned in the past
  • Lists scanners with detections at the top of their list in red
  • Open scan results in your browser
  • Context menu integration lets you right-click and select “Scan with JottiQ” on a file
  • Up to three files can be scanned (processed) simultaneously.
  • Items that have been scanned and are deemed safe can automatically be removed from the queue.

After using this for a little while I’d say this is by far one of the most useful apps I’ve seen come out of any NANY event, and it is definitely worth checking out. These a few more of the apps available from NANY 2011 that I thought were at least worth mentioning:

  • Webcam Video Diary – A program to help you quickly record, label, and manage videos and photos from your webcam throughout the day
  • Quick Cliq – A portable menu based application launcher and productivity tool
  • Auspex – Automatically replace and complete text strings as you type
  • Duplicate Photo Finder – Find and delete duplicate photos

Kudos to all the developers who put in their own time to contribute all these apps!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 19

Change Alt+Tab Thumbnail Size in Windows 7

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7

This article was written on April 27, 2011 by CyberNet.

Alt tab size windows 7

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
When Microsoft released Windows Vista they had a lot of great innovations in it despite the constant complaints people had with the OS. One of the best things that came out of Vista is Aero, which is what powers the Flip 3D (Windows Key + Tab), the Taskbar thumbnails, the blurred border around all the windows, the thumbnails used in Alt+Tab, and more. Those things are all great, but I’ve always felt that the thumbnails in the Alt+Tab popup are sometimes too small to even be useful. I mean if you have multiple Windows Explorer windows open it’s hard to distinguish between them using a thumbnail that’s barely bigger than a postage stamp. That’s why a few years ago we wrote about how you could increase the thumbnail size in Vista with a Registry tweak, but it’s gotten easier since then.

A skilled developer put together a super simple application called Alt+Tab Tuner for changing the size of the thumbnails in Windows 7. Most of the changes seem to take affect immediately after you hit the Apply button, except for the “Thumbs Grid” settings. For this you need to restart Explorer, which can easily be done by checking the “Autorestart Explorer” box in the bottom-left corner. The next time you hit the Apply button it will automatically restart the Explorer process for you.

To add a little perspective to some of the changes here are some before/after screenshots of a few changes I made:

Before (default Windows 7 settings):
Aero alt tab before

After (larger thumbnails, smaller margins):
Aero alt tab after

Not bad, huh? It’s a free and portable app that does exactly what it is designed to do. It’s hard not to love apps like that.

Note: The file will likely fail to download if you are viewing a translation of the download page, which is in Russian. Just look for the red “Download” text and click the link next to it.

Alt+Tab Tuner Homepage (Windows only; Freeware; Portable)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 19

Free Windows XP Virtual PC Images Available

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

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

Virtual PC 2007Microsoft just released updated Virtual PC images for Windows XP that users can legally download. Virtual PC images are a single file that contain a “clone” of an operating system. The Virtual PC software is a free download provided by Microsoft and is used to run multiple operating systems inside of Windows. This is normally useful for developers who need to try a program that they’re developing on multiple operating systems to ensure proper compatibility, but it can also benefit other people.

So why would this be useful for you? The Virtual PC images that Microsoft just released come in two different flavors: one has Internet Explorer 6 (443MB) and the other has Internet Explorer 7 (491MB). This lets you test your websites out to see how they look on other browsers without actually needing to have multiple versions of IE installed on your computer.

There is actually another benefit to this that most people don’t realize. Using these images is also great for keeping your PC free from unnecessary clutter! If you’re thinking that you want to test out an application to see how much you like it, now all you have to do is install the program on the Virtual PC. That way if you don’t like it, you can easily remove it from your computer without wondering what registry settings or folders it left behind.

The only downside to using these is that the images expire August 17th, 2007, but that is still 4–months of free access to a Windows XP testing station. Also, these images are pre-activated, but Microsoft has deactivated the product keys so that they don’t pass the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) check. This is pretty logical because some users might try to retrieve the product key from the Virtual PC image and use it to install their own version of XP. If Microsoft allowed these keys to pass the WGA checks, then that product key would quickly become a goldmine for piracy.

Virtual PC Homepage (32–bit download or the 64–bit download)
Download the Internet Explorer 6 Virtual PC Image (443MB)
Download the Internet Explorer 7 Virtual PC Image (491MB)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 19

CyberNotes: 6 Firefox-based Web Browsers

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

This article was written on June 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Mozilla has definitely made a name for themselves with Firefox, and have done such a great job of developing the browser that other people want to create their own browsers based on Firefox. To create their own browsers…they use Gecko, Firefox’s rendering engine as the core of the browsers that they create.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what a rendering engine is I’ll try to explain that real quick. It is basically the aspect of the browser that takes the HTML code from a website and turns it into something that is organized the way that the developer intended it to look. It’s safe to say that it is the core of the browser, and since Firefox has gained a lot of popularity, other browsers can safely use Gecko knowing that most websites will look and function as they were intended. Similarly, the name of the Internet Explorer rendering engine is called Trident, (which even Google Talk uses to render the content of chat windows) and Opera’s is called Presto.

Today we’re taking a look at 6 other browsers, some you’ve probably heard of while others you haven’t, that use the Gecko rendering engine:

–Wyzo (Homepage)–

Wyzo is the Web browser offered by the same people who create the FireTorrent extension that we recently reviewed. You would think that it would come with the extension already integrated into the browser, but instead you have to download the extension separately. It also has a custom start page which can be found here.

Both the FireTorrent extension and the start page can be used in Firefox, so the only thing that sets it apart is the skin. It is probably one of the best Firefox skins that I have seen, and is the only thing that isn’t offered to current Firefox users.

Wyzo
Click to Enlarge

–uBrowser (Homepage)–

uBrowser is unique in the sense that it isn’t meant to be a dedicated browser that you use everyday. Instead, it was made as a way to implement the Gecko rendering engine into the popular 3D virtual world called Second Life.

Once you startup uBrowser, your first impression will probably be poor because of the simplistic interface, but the real goldmine is playing around with the settings in the right-sidebar. That’s where you’ll be able to transform the websites you visit into something that can be manipulated. The images speak for themselves:

uBrowser uBrowser
Click to Enlarge

There is no installation necessary to try out uBrowser, just download the Windows ZIP file (the first file on the page), extract the contents, and run the uBrowser executable file.

–XeroBank (Homepage)–

You may not recognize this browser right away by its name, but that’s probably because they had to change their name. Previously XeroBank was called TorPark, and despite the name change, it still offers all of the same features that we previously pointed out.

This browser is completely portable and doesn’t require any installation, but it is essentially just a version of Firefox that comes with a bunch of extensions pre-installed. Nevertheless, it is a great tool for those of you who are concerned with privacy.

XeroBank
Click to Enlarge

–Flock (Homepage)–

I’m not going to say much about Flock because I recently wrote a heavy review on the next upcoming version that is due out in a few weeks. To sum it up in one sentence: Flock is a browser that is well integrated with social networks like Del.icio.us, Flickr, and MySpace.

Flock
Click to Enlarge

–Maxthon (Homepage)–

I always knew Maxthon as being the browser that works off of Internet Explorer. Little did I know that there is actually an option in the File Menu that you can enable for all new tabs to use the Gecko rendering engine. I tried it out and it worked like a charm.

The disappointing news is that the new Maxthon 2 that should be available soon (currently on Release Candidate 3) doesn’t have this feature because they don’t have anyone on the team that is handy with the Gecko rendering engine. I’m sure a lot of people would love to see this implemented later on, but it’s definitely not going to be ready at launch.

Maxthon
Click to Enlarge

–K-Meleon (Homepage)–

Now this is one cool browser! It is among the slimmest that I have mentioned here, and after running it for just a few minutes it reminded me of the early Firefox days. I had a hard time getting the memory usage to break the 40MB mark, and that was with almost 10 tabs open!

Besides that, it has the standard tabbed browsing (although they don’t call them tabs, instead they’re layers), mouse gestures, and a popup blocker. Oh, and you can use the Internet Explorer or Opera bookmarking systems in place of, or in addition to the Mozilla bookmarking system that it incorporates.

If you’re missing the old days of Firefox, I highly suggest that you try this browser out!

K-Meleon
Click to Enlarge

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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