Apr 01

Portable Applications that should be on your USB Drive

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

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

USB KnifeIf you’re anything like me your Flash drive is almost like carrying a pocket knife. Mine contains a whole arsenal of applications and tools that are always ready to assist me. I’ve always got it with me wherever I go, and it definitely comes in handy when I’m repairing someone’s computer.

So what kind of apps do I normally carry? Here are the ones you’ll never find me without:

  • PStart – This is a must as I’ve previously stated. It serves as a central way to manage all of the applications on your drive.
  • Filezilla – Easily connect to my home FTP no matter where I’m at.
  • Firefox – There’s nothing worse than trying to fix someone’s computer with a browser that looks like this, so I always carry my own which lets me get things done without the clutter.
  • Startup List – Gives me a quick list of everything running on a computer, which can be essential when working on a computer other than your own. You’ll be surprised at how much "behind the scenes" software people have running. It also shows things like which Internet Explorer toolbars are installed, but the downside is that you can’t delete anything from this program.
  • Foxit PDF Reader – Lighter, faster, and better than Adobe Acrobat Reader. You’ve gotta have this, because you won’t want to use Acrobat when you come across a computer without Foxit installed.
  • Trillian – Let’s me chat with friends even when I’m away from my computer, although lately I’ve been using Meebo for this.

For the most part that is everything I carry on my USB drive. So let us know what apps you carry around, and if you are looking for more great portable programs checkout The Free Geek, PortableApps.com, and Portable freeware Collection.

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Apr 01

Dark Google Calendar Theme for Firefox Users

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

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

google calendar redesigned.png
(Click to Enlarge)

There were quite a few of you who were fond of the dark Gmail theme that we wrote about a few months ago, and since then it has received some significant updates to make it even better. Now there is a very similar theme that is designed for Google Calendar, and it’s created by the same people who made the Gmail version. I have to admit that it transforms Google Calendar into a rather slick interface.

You’ll want to have the Stylish Firefox extension installed before trying to use the theme, and after that you’re just a click away from having the new look that you see in the screenshot above. From what I can tell everything has been skinned including adding new events and managing your settings.

I’m normally not a big fan of dark themes like this, but with Google Calendar I feel that it works very well. The colors really stand out, and everything flows very smoothly. I can only imagine how much time the designers had to spend working on this, and they definitely deserve credit for their excellent work.

Google Calendar Redesigned [via Lifehacker]

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Mar 31

Backup Music from iPhone or iPod

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

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

sharepod-2.jpg
(Click to Enlarge)

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I’ve been asked several times how you can get music off of your iPhone or iPod. More often than not it’s because something happened to the user’s music library on their computer, and they are looking for a way to snag all of their precious music from their iPod before it’s completely gone.

A simple and free app called SharePod is capable of doing just that. You can copy songs to your computer, upload them to your iPod, and even backup an iPod. If you’re dealing with an iPhone or iPod Touch you’ll need to have iTunes installed in order for most of the operations to work, but once you pass that hurdle you should be good to go.

Here are some of the features you have to look forward to by using SharePod:

  • Add & remove music and videos from your iPod
  • Add, remove and edit playlists
  • Add & remove album art
  • Copy music, videos and playlists from your iPod to PC
  • Import music/videos into your iTunes library, including playlists and ratings
  • Tag editing
  • Drag n’ drop to and from Explorer
  • Simple, clean interface
  • Quick to load and use with no unnessary complicated features

Now if only Apple offered better two-way syncing with iPods then apps like this wouldn’t be necessary.

Get SharePod for Windows

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Mar 27

Another New Tab Alternative for Firefox

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

This article was written on April 24, 2009 by CyberNet.

new tab king.jpg

I still feel like I’m in search of the perfect page that is displayed when I open up a new tab in my browser. I used to be one of those people who always used a blank page for performance reasons, but when I started using Opera more I really started to like having the Speed Dial sites at my fingertip. Then other browsers like Google Chrome, Safari 4, and even IE8 started to catch on by trying to make the new tab page a little more useful.

Even though Firefox doesn’t ship with a feature like this it has a leg up on the competition because people can install extensions. Users can try out various alternatives until they find the one that works the best for them, and New Tab King is one of those extensions that’s definitely worth checking out. Here are some of the things it includes:

  • Access to most visited websites
  • See your bookmarks
  • See your recently closed tabs
  • Instant Google search box

It’s not the most graphical solution out there, but I know not everyone is a huge fan of pretty images. They’d rather just stick to a more text-based layout. If that sounds like you then New Tab King might be perfect. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

New Tab King [via FirefoxFacts]

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Mar 21

Half of Firefox Extensions Not Compatible with 3.1

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

firefox 31 addons.jpg

Mozilla is on the verge of releasing Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, and it’s quite possible that in the next month or two the final version will be pushed out the door. A major new release like this means that some of your favorite extensions might not be working, and Mozilla doesn’t want that to happen. With over 1 billion extension downloads they are now reaching out to developers asking them to update their extensions for the upcoming release.

Being an extension developer myself I’ve tried to keep CyberSearch up-to-date and functional with all nightly releases of Firefox 3.1. In fact we just updated the extension over the weekend (version 1.0.7) to fix yet another change Mozilla made in the nightly builds rendering our extension inoperable.

Mozilla has assembled a compatibility chart that looks at all of their extensions, and determines how many of them are not yet compatible with Firefox 3.1. I’m not, however, quite sure about the accuracy of the chart. If you view the detailed report you can see a list of all the extensions and what version of Firefox they currently work with. CyberSearch isn’t even on that list.

This is a two-way street though. Developers need to start prepping for Firefox 3.1, and at the same time Mozilla needs to get better about approving new releases. CyberSearch 1.0.7 was just approved this week after about 2 months of submitting different updates, and so it looks like Mozilla has some catching up to do. Just make sure you check the homepage of your favorite extensions, because they may already have a Firefox 3.1-compatible release.

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Mar 19

Opera 9.22 Available with Improved BitTorrent Support

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

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

Opera Torrent

The Opera team has been working intensely on version 9.5, and we’ll hopefully be seeing weekly builds of those coming shortly. In the meantime they have whipped up Opera 9.22 which has significant improvements to the BitTorrent downloader.

I wasn’t expecting the results to be all that great because in the past the built-in BitTorrent was kind of slow (at least compared to a standalone program). I’ve been pleasantly surprised though, and having used the "improved" build for about a week I’ve noticed download speeds comparable to what I get with uTorrent. For example, when downloading the Ubuntu operating system I was able to max out my Internet connection. Previously Opera had a tough time using more than half of what my connection had to offer.

Aside from that the new version also adds support for the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. Microsoft had said that Opera support for Silverlight would be coming soon, and they surprisingly didn’t lie. :)

I’m still anxiously waiting to see what the Opera team is throwing into version 9.5 though. We know that it will do a great job with CSS3, and then there is some sort of feature that they’ve "censored" from a screenshot. Argh…the pain of having to wait can be enough to kill ya!

Download Opera 9.22 Build 8801
Source: Neowin

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Mar 13

Flickr Uploadr 3.0 Beta Now Available

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

This article was written on November 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

flickr uploadr
Click to Enlarge

It seems like it’s been quite a while since Flickr launched a new version of their popular uploader, and it has. That’s why it was nice to hear that Flickr Uploadr 3.0 Beta has been pushed out the door. It comes with the same great features as before, except they’ve added a few additional features that make it even better. You can get the new Uploadr here.

A bulk uploader for any photo service is really helpful because it simply means less work for you. You skip the whole tedious process of uploading your photos one at a time which means you save time. The biggest change with this version is that you can add titles, tags, descriptions, sets and privacy data for the photos that you’ve selected which is really convenient. This change addresses one of the problems that I recently had when I was uploading photos.The problem was that I wanted to upload a bunch of photos, but not all of them were going to be put in the same set. Unfortunately the Flickr Uploadr only allowed me to choose one set for all of those photos which meant I had to do a bulk upload multiple times.

In the past, many people had complained about the fact that there was no way to reorder photos before they were uploaded. This meant that they’d all get uploaded, and then they’d have to manually go through and change them. The Flickr guys heard the complaints, and now you can drag your photos into any order you like… before you upload them. This essentially means that once you click upload and all of your pictures have been added to your account, there should be nothing left to do. I also noticed a link that said “re-sort photos by date taken,” another nice feature.

Do remember that this is in beta which means it may not be smooth sailing. If you do run into a bug here or there, Flickr wants to know about it so that they can get it fixed. All around, Uploadr 3.0 Beta has a lot of great improvements. When I look at the differences between the previous version, they’re huge. Even the interface of the uploader is much different.  If you don’t want to use Flickr’s uploader, remember that the new Windows Live Photo Gallery includes a Flickr uploader which is another great alternative. At this point, there’s no reason for you to manually upload your photos one at a time with the options available.

Source: Download Squad

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Mar 08

Mozilla Messaging Touches on Thunderbird 3

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

This article was written on February 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

mozilla messaging Back in September 2007 Mozilla decided to break their email client, called Thunderbird, away from the browser and create a separate subsidiary for it. Up until now the new subsidiary has been called MailCo, but today it officially received the name of Mozilla Messaging. I believe the new name of the subsidiary is a good indication that Thunderbird will evolve into more than just an email application.

David Ascher, the CEO of Mozilla Messaging, has shed some light on the direction that the new subsidiary will be going as they push forward. In Thunderbird 3 they hope to provide an integrated calendar based on the Lightning add-on, add better search capabilities, easier configuration, and enhance the user interface. So it looks like the project might still be alive after all, but what’s expected of Thunderbird 3 makes it sound like it should really be called Thunderbird 2.5.

From the sounds of it the future of Thunderbird will not revolve solely around email. They want to expand into instant messaging, SMS, and possibly even VoIP:

It is worthwhile considering what the right user experience could be for someone using multiple email addresses, multiple instant messaging systems, IRC, reading and writing on blogs, using VoIP, SMS, and the like. What parts of those interactions make sense to integrate, and where? I don’t believe that stuffing all of those communication models inside of one application is the right answer.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Mozilla Messaging as they move forward, and will definitely watch for improvements to Thunderbird.

David Ascher’s Blog [via Webware]

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Mar 06

Movable Type 4 Launches

Posted in: Freeware, Newly Released, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on August 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

Movable TypeEarlier today Six Apart launched the 4th edition of their popular blogging software called Movable Type. Many of the bloggers I know are using WordPress, but there are several big ones such as Boing Boing, Read/Write Web, and Treehugger that all use Movable Type.

It currently isn’t open source like WordPress is, but an open source version is in the works for later this year. If you’re just using it for a personal blog then you are free to download it, but commercial blogs will have to fork out some money if they want to use this.

There’s quite a few things that are new in Movable Type 4, but here’s a shorter list of the more notable things:

  • Administer multiple blogs, and create pages that aggregate posts from all or some of the blogs.
  • Create standalone pages for powerful content management
  • Built-In Asset and File Management
  • Simpler Installation
  • Easy-to-use, extensible interface
  • Templates are more customizable
  • Customizable Roles
  • Use RSS feeds to manage comments and feedback, approve draft entries for publishing, keep track of site registrations — anything you can imagine.

A demo site has been setup for people to play around with Movable Type 4. Here is the information needed if you want to try that out:

Screenshots of Movable Type 4 in-action:

Movable Type 4

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Mar 06

CyberNotes: Rotate Your Screen Orientation

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

This article was written on February 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Tutorial Thursday

Whenever I’m at home I hookup my laptop to a secondary 24″ monitor to drastically increase the amount of screen space available to me. When I’m working on programming projects I will rotate my monitor so that it is oriented vertically (a.k.a. portrait mode), which I think is something most programmers do when they have widescreen monitors.

Physically rotating my monitor doesn’t change the screen’s orientation though, and for that you’ll need some software. Most graphics cards are bundled with a control center that will let you change such properties, but I often find them a bit bulky. Below we’ve got three different methods that you can use to change the orientation of your monitor without using the software that came with your graphics card.

Note: All of these alternatives depend on your graphics card supporting screen rotation. This might require installing the drivers for your graphics card, which are typically offered separately from the software control center that they offer.

–Windows Hotkeys–

Believe it or not there is a standard Windows hotkey (in both XP and Vista) that will let you change the orientation of your primary monitor only. The shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+[Arrow Key], where you use the standard arrow pad on your keyboard to change the orientation. Ctrl+Alt+Up will always set your monitor back to the usual landscape orientation.

–Vista Settings–

All editions of Vista except for Home Basic now come with Tablet PC support regardless of whether your machine is actually a Tablet PC. If you only want to rotate the primary monitor you can use the Tablet PC settings in Vista to rotate the screen orientation.

The easiest way to find the Tablet PC settings is to open the Start Menu or Control Panel and start typing “Tablet PC” in the search box. You want to click on the “Tablet PC Settings” option when it is displayed. Then look for the orientation option that you can adjust:

tablet pc rotation

Unfortunately this only works for the primary monitor on the system, but I’m guessing that there are more people out there looking to do this with a single monitor rather than multiple monitors.

–iRotate (Homepage)–

iRotate This is a free program that creates a System Tray icon for each of the monitors connected to your machine. You can click on each icon to see the various orientation options that are available to that monitor. That means in a few clicks you can quickly switch between orientations.

iRotate will also set itself to start with Windows to ensure that all of the monitors remain in the correct orientation. Hotkey junkies will appreciate the keyboard shortcuts that are provided for each of the four orientations, which can be seen in the screenshot above.

–Overview–

I’m sure there are dozens of other ways that you can change your monitor’s orientation, and that’s where we turn it over to our readers. What tools, if any, do you use to adjust the orientation of your screen?

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