Hasta La Gadget!

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

Mozilla finally seems to be making good progress on getting user interface items implemented into the Firefox 3 nightly builds. Last week they were able to get an early version of the new download manager incorporated into the browser. I didn’t think that it was all that bad, but then again I am a person who has their download history automatically cleared. When I was reading in the Firefox Builds Forum earlier I even noticed that some people were against the new download manager.

Towards the end of last week Mozilla had also implemented a smooth tab scrolling system that adds a little eye candy for those of you who often have dozens of tabs open. I put together a video demonstration of the feature so that you can see what it’s like.

Mozilla has now added one of the first visual pieces for Places into Firefox 3 nightlies, with the hope of shipping the next milestone prior to September 18th. The new bookmark system now supports tagging capabilities so that organizing your bookmarks will be a little easier. Right now you utilize this feature by double-clicking on the star located in the address bar or by pressing Ctrl+D on your keyboard. You’ll then be presented with a menu where you can enter the name of the bookmark, choose a folder to place it in, and add any tags that you want. Here are some things you should know about how it works:

• There are three folders by default: Bookmarks Menu puts the bookmarks in the drop-menu and in the sidebar, Bookmarks Toolbar puts the bookmarks in the toolbar, and All Bookmarks is the default location and doesn’t show up anywhere except for searches right now.
• There is no structure yet for viewing tagged bookmarks, and items not placed in a folder can only be found by performing a search in the sidebar.
• Multiple tags can be separated by commas, and existing tags can be seen by pressing the drop-down menu button next to the tag box.

So there is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done on the new system before it is ready for fulltime use, but it’s coming along quite nicely. I put together a quick 28-second video that shows you how the new system works:

There is no doubt that Mozilla needs to tidy up the interface for the new bookmarking system, but the important part is that they make it functional first. I’m excited to see what else the new Places will bring, and hopefully Mozilla sticks with their plan to create an easy-to-use API for the new bookmarking system. That way interaction with online services, such as Del.icio.us, will virtually be a painless process.

Source: Mozilla Links & Firefox Builds Forum
Thanks for the tip Oropher!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Firefox 3 Alpha 8 – Bookmark Tagging, App Preferences, and MoreHelpful Tip: Recover Lost Bookmarks in Firefox 3CyberWare: BlueOrganizer Keeps Track Of Your GadgetsQuickly Tag & Bookmark Sites in Firefox 3Space Saving Extension for Firefox Bookmark Toolbar Users

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

I’ve never been a big fan of splitting and joining files because the entire process is normally tedious. A lot of times it requires the receiver of the split files to have a specialized application installed in order to join them back into one single file. It’s an almost impossible chore for anyone that isn’t tech savvy.

One of our readers, "s", tipped us off on a free Windows application called GSplit. As expected, it splits and joins files together, but the receiver doesn’t have to worry about installing an application to unite the files. GSplit automatically includes a standalone combiner when the files are split, and it is extremely lightweight (about 70KB). For example, I split a 1.32MB file into 15-pieces, and the resulting files totaled 1.40MB which included the built-in combiner.

Note: GSplit does require installation in order to split files.

Here are some of the features GSplit has to offer:

• Generates a Self-Uniting program to restore your split files professionally. GSplit is then not required in order to restore the split file.
• Store file properties and restore them: file’s date, attributes are not lost contrary to batch files.
• Detect file corruption using size, offset, CRC32. When a piece is corrupted, you are notified about it, so you just need to get a new copy of that piece, not the whole set.
• Split very large files (bigger than 4 GB).
• Customize piece files according to your needs (size, filenames, title, author…), leave additional space on disks, create pieces without headers (useful for text-based files like large server log files).
• Split multiple files back-to-back in one time, include batch (automating) and command line options.
• Show you elapsed and estimated times during the splitting & uniting operations. You can also pause/resume the splitting operation.
• Store settings into profiles and let you use these settings for different files, remember MRU files and folders, automatically try to find out the best splitting settings…
• Integrate into Windows Explorer to let you split your files directly from the context menu.

Here is a screenshot of the standalone file joiner:

GSplit Homepage
Kudos to "s" for the tip!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

CyberWare: CrossLoop 1.1 Receives File Sharing CapabilitiesPlay MKV Files in Windows 7File Dropper – Easily Share Large FilesThe Best Free File Renamer!File-Swap.com Provides An Entertaining File Sharing Experience

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

Time Saving Tuesday

One of the things that you probably use the most on your Windows computer is the Taskbar, right? I’m not just talking clicking because think about how many times your eyes wonder down to see what time it is in the System Tray. One thing that I find that Windows Vista (to be released January 30, 2007) still lacks are some features that make using the Taskbar more efficient. Let’s see if we can find some freeware tools that will make things a little easier…

–What the Taskbar Can Do By Default–

There is one thing that the Windows Taskbar can do by default that most people don’t realize, and that’s performing operations on multiple windows simultaneously. This is by no means an extravagant trick but if you didn’t know about it then you’ll probably find it to be useful.

If you Ctrl+Click on multiple Taskbar items and then right-click you’ll be presented with some operations that you can perform on all of the selected programs. Whether it be closing them all, minimizing them, or tiling/cascading them so that they are easier to see:

–Easy Access Calculator (Homepage)–

Over time I have noticed that I trust my mental math less and I reach for the calculator more. I guess that is more figuratively speaking though, because more times than not I find myself popping up the built-in Windows Calculator to get the job done. Most of the time I am wanting to just add or multiply a few numbers so all I need is something simple.

Have no fear…the Taskbar Calculator is here! It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that your graphing calculator has, but I would say that it is a fair match for the Windows Calculator. All you have to do is type in an equation like “7+3″ and press Enter to have it show you the result. This could come in handy if you’re not a registered user on our site and you’re having troubles with the spam protection.

–Virtual Dimension (Homepage)–

Virtual Dimension greatly surpasses the Windows XP PowerToy that Microsoft released for Windows. It does all kinds of really great stuff and even offers a window that can be placed on your desktop to show which applications are currently open on which desktop (pictured below). You can make that window as big or small as you would like.

As if a well-made virtual desktop manager wasn’t enough…this also adds features like minimizing a window to the System Tray or making it partially translucent. These options are available when you right-click on an item in the Taskbar and go to the Virtual Dimension menu (pictured below). There you’ll also find an option to move the application to any of your other virtual desktops. Talk about a great way to reduce clutter! The application officially works in Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP but I have also tested it in Vista and can verify that it works great on there.

–GroupBar by Microsoft (Homepage/Download)–

This is one application that I am surprised Microsoft has kept so silent on. They haven’t even put GroupBar on the PowerToys for Windows page, but this is one thing that should definitely be on there. Here are a list of things that you can do with GroupBar:

• Drag and drop reordering of items in the Taskbar
• Drag and drop arranging of items in groups (pictured below)
• Perform actions on groups of windows such as closing, minimizing, or maximizing all of the windows in the group
• These bars can be simultaneously placed in multiple locations on the screen
• You can save the state of your open windows so that you can do things like restart the PC and quickly resume where you left off. You may want to be careful when using this feature though, because it isn’t like what happens when hibernating your PC.  GroupBar tries to store key information about the program that you have open, such as with Microsoft Word it will store the file location of what you currently have open, and then upon restoring the session it will re-open the file. Saving sessions only works with the more popular applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer, and Shell/Explorer (folder windows). It is customizable though, so you might be able to save sessions for other applications as well.

–Overview–

I talked about the next version of Windows, codename Vienna, in an article yesterday and offered possible solutions that Microsoft may use to replace the Windows Taskbar. New functionality is quickly getting limited and I think Microsoft has taken the Start Menu as far as they can in Windows Vista. There are few people in the world who have a good idea of what to expect in the next big release of Windows…but whatever it is will take some getting used to. By the time Windows Vienna is released we will have been accustomed to the Taskbar and Start Menu for 15-years, and I’m sure it will be hard to let go.

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

CyberNotes: Getting Your Taskbar Onto Another MonitorCyberNotes: Always Group Similar Taskbar Buttons in WindowsYour Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryRemove Windows From The Taskbar And Place In TabsCyberNotes: Your Week in Review with Sunday’s Summary

This article was written on March 14, 2008 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

One of the things that I absolutely love about Opera is the Speed Dial that was introduced back in Opera 9.2 almost exactly one year ago. It basically adds thumbnail images of your 9 favorite sites to the page that is displayed when you open a new tab.

Well, like most great features it didn’t take long for a Firefox extension to appear that offered a similar concept. The extension fell short in a lot of different areas, and I didn’t feel as though it stacked up very well against what Opera was offering. It turns out that there is a better one available called Fast Dial that is much much closer to Opera’s Speed Dial, and actually has some rather unique aspects to it:

• Up to 36 different sites can be added (6×6).
• Hotkeys! Just like Opera you can use hotkeys to access your first 9 sites. However, with this extension you can actually customize the hotkey that’s used in conjunction with the number.
• Specify a custom image to be used for the thumbnail. This way you can just use a site’s logo if you don’t want to actually have a screenshot.
• Customize the appearance so that it looks the way you want it to. For example, I changed the background color in the screenshot above from being white to a darker gray. You can also change the font and several other colors used in the extension.
• You can add files/images from your desktop! For example, you can add a link to a PDF or a DOC file that you frequently need to access. You’ll want to specify a custom image for the thumbnail image though because it won’t be able to generate a preview. Note: Firefox will prompt your with the open/save box assuming that the file can’t be displayed within Firefox.
• Right-click on a site or tab to quickly add it to the Fast Dial.
• Drag and drop to rearrange the different items.

The only thing that I’ve found this extension to lack is dragging and dropping bookmarks/URLS onto a blank square which I believe eases the setup process. Admittedly this extension is the closest thing I’ve seen to Opera’s Speed Dial, and it even has some aspects that I like better. From now on I don’t think I’ll be using Firefox without this extension.

Get the Fast Dial Firefox Extension

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Opera’s Speed Dial in Firefox…You Knew it was Coming!Will the Real Speed Dial Please Stand Up?Desktop Firefox Extension: Another Speed Dial ConceptOpera Reveals New Speed Dial Feature…I like it!Helpful Tip: Add More Speed Dials in Opera 9.5

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

Web Browser Wednesday

More than a month ago I looked at 6 different browsers that were all based on the Firefox rendering engine (a.k.a. Gecko). The Gecko rendering engine is an important factor for some people when choosing a browser because most sites are tested and work well in Firefox, so it should be just the same in those other browsers.

I discovered the Windows-only K-Meleon browser when writing that article, and the low-memory performance really caught my attention. I was able to open about 10-tabs all while keeping the memory usage under a meager 40MB. That’s about what Firefox 2 uses immediately after starting it, and then when I get to work with Firefox, the usage quickly climbs upwards of 80MB or 90MB with about 5 tabs open.

So today I thought that I would point out some of the features K-Meleon has for those of you looking for a lightweight browser that is actually quite packed with features.

–General–

K-Meleon is a browser that only runs on the Windows operating system, and uses the same rendering engine as the Firefox browser. The reason why it doesn’t run on any other operating systems is because it uses a tightly integrated Windows-specific API to give you the best performance possible on your machine.

One thing that I should mention right off the bat is that K-Meleon makes it easy to drag-and-drop toolbars in whatever order you would like them (including the Menu Bar). You can also turn off the toolbars completely, however, you cannot rearrange and remove buttons from the toolbars very easily. If you wanted to do that you would need to dive into some configuration files.

–Layers (”Tabs”)–

K-Meleon doesn’t actually support a tab system, but it has what they call “layers.” Each time you create a new layer it essentially opens a new browser window, but it only shows one entry in the Taskbar which represents the layer you currently have selected. If you switch to a new layer, K-Meleon goes to work hiding the appropriate windows, and showing only the one you have selected.

It sounds crazy, I know, but I believe that is one way it is able to use respectable amounts of memory. Not only that but you won’t really notice much of a difference between the layers and a full tab system. If not having real tabs starts to get the best of you, feel free to try out the Alpha version that has a tab implementation.

–Preferences–

There are an insane number of preferences that you can configure with K-Meleon, and there are so many that I would have to post dozens of screenshots if I wanted to try and cover them all. So I’ll just go ahead and highlight a handful of them:

• Manually select the window size and position (in pixels) for K-Meleon when it starts up.
• Block Flash objects by default and/or block ads.
• Manage how pop-up windows are handled.
• It has the most extravagant search engine management that I’ve ever seen!
• Define keyboard shortcuts for up to 9 different sites. The shortcuts correspond to the Ctrl+1-9 hotkeys (much like Opera’s Speed Dial).
• And a lot more…

Click to Enlarge

–Plugins–

The screenshot above has a section dedicated to K-Meleon plugins. This isn’t like Firefox where you can download and install extensions, but it does come with some useful plugins that can be enabled. Here’s a list of what’s included that you can configure:

• Netscape/Mozilla Bookmarks – Share and use your bookmarks with Netscape-based browsers (like Firefox).
• IE Favorites – Share and use your bookmarks with Internet Explorer.
• Opera Hotlist – Share and use your bookmarks with Opera.
• Layered Windows – Customize the Layers Toolbar such as the minimum and maximum “tab” width.
• Macro Extension – Adds several smaller features to the browser, and their is a designated macros page where users can submit their own homegrown macros.
  
• Mouse Gestures – There is an extremely long list of actions that you can create mouse gestures for. Of course the most common thing you would probably use this for is going back and forward on a page.
  

–Themes–

As with most browsers you can customize the appearance of K-Meleon by using a variety of skins that they have available. The collection is no where near what Firefox and Opera has available, but it might be nice for something different.

–Overview–

Using a combination of Opera and Firefox seems to suit me quite well for my daily routines, but K-Meleon is transforming into a speedy little browser that would satisfy most casual users. It renders pages very quickly, starts up extremely fast, and doesn’t treat my system resources like they are a midnight buffet. If you haven’t been satisfied with your browser, try out K-Meleon to see if it is right for you.

Download K-Meleon (portable version available)

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryDaily Downloads: K-Meleon & Foobar2000Daily Downloads: K-Meleon, Weather Watcher, and MoreDaily Downloads: NeoOffice, XP SP3, K-Meleon, and MoreDaily Downloads: Flock, Google Notifier, and More