Aug 15

CyberNotes: Browser Download Shortcuts

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

This article was written on January 30, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Did you know that both Firefox and Opera come with shortcuts to make downloading files a quick and painless process? It’s true, but few people know about the shortcuts that can save oodles of time. Lets take a look at how we can trim some time off of downloading files in Firefox and Opera.

–Firefox–

In the Firefox Options there is a setting where you can designate a default location for files to be downloaded. Once enabled it will automatically download all of the files to this location without ever prompting you. Some people like this because it requires far less work since it bypasses all prompts, but you also don’t get to choose the designated name for the file from within Firefox.

Firefox Downloads Options

It’s okay if you’re not one of those users who have it setup to automatically save files to one specific location, because we’ve got some tricks for you. Here are two ways that you can bypass being prompted for a location and file name on a per-download basis:

  1. Drag and drop a download link onto the download icon in the toolbar. This icon is not visible by default, but can be added by right-clicking on the navigation bar and dragging the icon where you would like it.
    Firefox Download Icon
  2. When you come across a file that you want just Alt+Click on the link.

Personally I prefer the Alt+Click method of doing thing because it seems faster than dragging a link to the toolbar, but it’s all a personal preference.

–Opera–

Opera also has some great tricks up its sleeve for making downloading both files and images just a little bit easier. If you head on over to the Preferences -> Advanced -> Downloads you’ll be able to specify a default download folder. This is the location used when you try to do some of the things we’re about to show you.

Opera Download Default

So how can you avoid some of the hassles with downloads in Opera? Here’s what you want to know:

  1. Right-click on any link and select the Save to Download Folder option to have the download start immediately without any prompts.
    Opera Save to Folder
  2. In the Transfers window (Ctrl+Alt+T) there is a box labeled Quick Download. Whatever address you paste into that box will be downloaded to your default location. You can also add this download box to any toolbar by right-clicking on a toolbar and selecting Customize. Then go to Buttons -> Panels, and drag the Quick Download box wherever you would like it.
    Opera Quick Download
  3. If you Ctrl+Click on an image you will immediately be prompted with the Save As dialog where you can specify the file name of the image. This is an alternative method to right-clicking on an image and selecting the save option.

It’s pretty incredible how many time-saving techniques have been implanted into the browsers, but very few people know about them. If you know of other great ways for quick downloads in Firefox or Opera be sure to leave a comment below.

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Aug 13

Pause iTunes or VLC When You Unplug Headphones

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

This article was written on April 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

breakaway.png

arrow Mac Mac only arrow
Breakaway is a nifty little free application that makes your Mac computer stop playing music in iTunes anytime you unplug the headphones. Some of you might already be familiar with this feature because it’s something that most iPods do. I would imagine that this would be especially handy if you’re in a quiet office, and don’t want your music to play through the speakers when you unplug your headphones.

If you don’t use iTunes on your Mac this can still serve a rather useful purpose. With a little AppleScript programming you can essentially have the app do anything you want when the headphones are unplugged or plugged-in. By default Breakaway comes with several different scripts that you can setup under the Triggers tab in the preferences. They will do things like set your iChat status to away, play/pause VLC, start your screensaver, and more:

  • awayiChat.scpt – Sets iChat’s status to away
  • availableiChat.scpt – Sets iChat’s status to available
  • awayAdium.scpt – Sets Adium’s status to away
  • availableAdium.scpt – Sets Adium’s status to available
  • awaySkype.scpt – Sets Skype’s status to away
  • availableSkype.scpt – Sets Skype’s status to available
  • fastLogout.scpt – Fast user switches (logs out) the current user
  • startScreensaver.scpt – Starts the screensaver (useful if the screensaver locks your computer)
  • vlcPlayPause.scpt – Toggles the playing state of VLC

I could be missing something, but even after quite a bit of searching I couldn’t find anything comparable for Windows users. Maybe it’s not possible to detect when headphones are unplugged in Windows? If you know of any applications or add-ons that will do this in Windows or Linux please shoot us a comment below!

Download Breakaway

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Aug 13

New Version of FastAero Available for XP Users

Posted in: Apple, Freeware, Microsoft, Pre-Release, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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

FastAero

Several of you expressed interest in FastAero the last time I wrote about it, so here is an update on the progress. A new version was just released today that has pretty much been rewritten, and boasts some performance updates which appears to help quite a bit!

XP users continue to get closer and closer to having a Vista-like transparent border around their windows that also supports blurring. FastAero still has a lot of bugs in it, especially with certain applications, but hopefully the developer will continue to squash those as future updates are released.

And I’m sure you’re probably also wondering about the FastAero window that you must keep open in order to run it…no, that hasn’t been removed yet. It would be nice if the developer just made a System Tray icon because I’m sure most users who really want the blurring effect would suffer through the bugs that FastAero has. Maybe you can use TrayDevil to put that window in the System Tray and out of the way?

Let us know in the comments how well it works for you.

Note: This software is only for Windows XP, and does not require any installation to try it out.

Fast Aero (Download Mirror for build 0600)

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Aug 10

Azureus 3 (Zudeo) To Take On YouTube?

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

This article was written on December 04, 2006 by CyberNet.

Zudeo

I was just getting my daily dose of GigOM when I saw this article regarding Azureus 3 (which is apparently called Zudeo now). The new version will be sporting some unique features for a BitTorrent client with the most obvious being video sharing. I wasn’t very fond of the initial idea of this being a video sharing client because there are already plenty of sites that do it for free. Besides for that they won’t have an embedded video player (to put on your website or blog) ready until next quarter.

So why would anyone use this? Ahh…because much like YouTube this will actually allow for the streaming of videos except they will be high-quality instead of being compressed! I haven’t downloaded this client yet but current Azureus users should be forewarned that the interface is quite different from the currently released version. In fact, GigaOM says that you have to click on the “Advanced” tab in order to get back to the normal Torrent interface that most people will be looking for.

I used to be a die-hard Azureus user until I found µTorrent and noticed how much less memory it ate up. I imagine that Azureus 3, with the new video sharing, will be an even worse memory hog. Not only that but the interface of µTorrent so simple and it offers all of the detailed information that I like to know about my downloads. You can even download a version of µTorrent that doesn’t have to be installed (referred to as the “standalone”) which is my favorite feature.

Download Azureus 3 Beta (also known as Zudeo)

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Aug 07

New Windows Live Photo Gallery Includes Flickr Uploader

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

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

Windows Live Photo Gallery

Microsoft just launched Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta 2, and just like the previous version it is available for both Windows XP SP2 and Vista. In order to get the update you must have the first Beta already installed, and then you must perform a Windows Update with the Microsoft Updates enabled. In the available updates you should see a “Critical Update for Windows Live Photo Gallery (KB943550)” listed.

On my Vista machine the update process took about 3 minutes for it to download and install itself, and then I got all of the new features! Well, really there only appears to be one feature, but it is BIG. I think you better sit down for this one … Microsoft actually added support for uploading photos to the Yahoo!-owned Flickr photo service. Here’s how it works (click any thumbnail for a fullsize view):

  1. You highlight the photos that you want to upload in the Windows Live Photo Gallery, and then go to Publish -> More Services -> Publish on Flickr.
    WLPG Publish on Flickr
  2. You’ll have to give the program access to your Flickr account just like you would with any other Flickr uploader.
    WLPG Authorize Flickr
  3. Now you’ll be able to select the properties for all of the photos that you are about to upload. You can create a new set or choose an existing one, select the maximum photo size, and choose a privacy option.
    WLPG Flickr Upload
  4. Sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while it finishes things up.
    WLPG Flickr Uploading

When you upload the photos it will grab the description and tags that you have given your photos on your computer, so you don’t have to worry about doing that on Flickr! Honestly, I have to admit that Microsoft really stepped up their game with the new Windows Live Photo Gallery by adding support for Flickr. And the “Publish on Flickr” option is located under the “More Services” menu, which seemingly implies that support for more services will be coming in the future. Or, at the very least, they will let users create plugins for other photo services.

One thing that really bothers me with the Windows Live Photo Gallery is that it has the blue-colored bar that stretches along the top. I’m not a big fan of that color, and in other “Live” programs such as Live Writer and Messenger I’m able to change it to any color I want. I have no idea why I can’t do that in Windows Live Photo Gallery, but I would like to get it back to the black color that ships with Vista.

And remember, this is available for both Windows XP SP2 and Vista. After you download and install Windows Live Photo Gallery you’ll just have to do a Windows Update to get the latest Beta.

[via LiveSide]

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Aug 06

Open Source Alternatives to Software You Use

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 29, 2006 by CyberNet.

Open Source Alternatives

Some of the most popular software in use on computers is open source. Personally, I would rate Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Gaim, FileZilla, Apache, and Thunderbird to be my favorite open source applications. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s because I use a lot of freeware applications in addition to the open source software. A free application is not always open source, and more times than not, free programs make the source code unavailable to you. Sometimes it is to prevent people from stealing their code, and other times it is for security purposes (so that people can’t look at the source code to find vulnerabilities).

OSAlt.com provides a great list of open source applications broken up into categories. Initially you might be confused when viewing the software because they do have commercial applications mixed in, but in the upper-right corner you’ll see a drop-down menu where you can select “Open source software” as a filter. That way you see only the open source options for each category.

Another great site that I found is called Open Source Scripts. I would say that this is more useful from a programmer’s perspective because it organizes the open source software by the language it was written in. After you select the desired language, such as C/C++, it will show you a bunch of categories for open source software that has been developed. This can be a great educational tool and an awesome source for help when your trying to create your own program.

Thanks for the tip on OSAlt.com tito!

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Aug 02

Fedora (Core) 7 to be Better than Expected?

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

This article was written on January 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

Fedora In October of 2006 we saw one of my favorite Linux releases get unveiled: Fedora Core 6. It was a significant improvement in speed over the previous versions which I found to be nearly unusable with my hardware. Actually, what I’ve been playing with lately is the Fedora Core 6 Live CD that was just released toward the end of December, and this is a great way to see how much you like Fedora.

The future does look bright for Fedora with version 7 just a few months away. April 26, 2007 appears to be the current release date for Fedora 7 if all goes according to plan, but more often than not a release schedule doesn’t turn out as expected. For just having 6 months between releases I do have to say that it seems pretty ambitious:

  • The release will now be known as Fedora 7 (without the Core) because they are combining both the Core and Extras.
     
  • They will have 3 separate releases for Fedora:
    Fedora Desktop: This is what you would probably expect from a Fedora release.
     
    Fedora KDE: If you prefer to use KDE you’ll probably want to use this since it will include the K Desktop Environment. This will be the flavor of Fedora that I choose.
     
    Fedora Server: One of the examples they give where this would be useful is “Bill needs to set up a DNS server, and his boss told him to use FSS; Bill has no Linux/Unix experience but is a proficient admin of that other OS.” It will be really interesting to see what this evolves into because Fedora is what we use on our server and it would be nice to have a website optimized version of the operating system.
     
  • Improved wireless support.
     
  • Better startup and shutdown times.
     
  • Fast user switching so that users don’t have to logout to change users.
     
  • Both a Live CD and DVD will be available.
     
  • And there is much more…

Next Tuesday, January 23, we should see the first pre-release of Fedora 7 become available. All of the features won’t be implemented until February 20 and then after that the primary focus will be on fine tuning all of the new stuff. With Ubuntu 7.04 expected just one week before Fedora 7 it should be interesting to see the two Linux distributions go head-to-head with their milestones.

News Source: Phoronix

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Jul 29

Donation Coder’s New Apps for the New Year

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

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

Donation Coder is working some of their programmers to the bone lately with all of the apps that are being developed! Just a month ago they released a dozen or so free programs, and this time around there are 16 new ones. Here are a few of them that really peaked my interest:

  • WTF Music Info – This creates a chart of your music based upon genre, artist, or year. It really gives a cool perspective on the music you listen to.
    Music Info
  • Point Motivator – At first when I saw this program I was kinda like, huh? It’s a reward system that you setup where you get points for completing tasks. Then you can “cash in” your points for rewards that you’ve created for yourself.

    It’s not something that I would really use, but this would be great for anyone who has kids. You can assign points to things like ice cream or video games which they have to earn by completing tasks.

    You can also use this to help lose weight. For example, you can say that for every 30 minutes of exercise is equal to enough points for one cookie.
    Point Motivator

  • Coin Jar – This is completely web based, and it is used to estimate how much money you have in a coin jar. The estimate is calculated according to the weight of the jar and the fraction of coins collected in one handful. Just make sure you don’t grab a handful of quarters when most of the jar is pennies, otherwise it will throw off the estimates.
    Coin Jar

Don’t forget to checkout out the rest of the New Apps for the New Year from Donation Coder. If you use Find and Run Robot (another Donation Coder creation) there are several plugins that were created by users for this challenge, including Del.icio.us integration and iTunes control.

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Jul 25

Fedora 8 – Now With PulseAudio

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

This article was written on November 08, 2007 by CyberNet.

The second annual wave of Linux distribution waves is coming to an end, and there is no better way to wrap it up than with Fedora. The new Fedora 8 sports several new features, including built-in Compiz Fusion support for the GNOME desktop. You can enable Compiz Fusion in Fedora 8 by opening System ? Preferences ? Desktop Effects.

Fedora 8 has also improved laptop support in several different areas, including wireless (both Bluetooth and WiFi) and suspending/resuming. This is great news because most of the people I know who run Linux for personal use only have a laptop.

One of the best features in Fedora 8 has to be the PulseAudio integration. This is similar to Vista’s Volume Mixer, and Pieter gave us a heads up that Fedora would be including this by default. With it you can control the volume for individual applications and sound sources on your computer:

PulseAudio Volume Control

Is that it? Not even close. Fedora 8 users will also enjoy the following features:

  • This release features GNOME 2.20. GNOME now includes mail notification in the Evolution mail client, the ability to fill in PDF forms in the Evince document viewer, improved file management, a revamped Appearance control panel applet, a revised help system, and many other enhancements.
  • KDE 3.5.8 is available in the KDE Live image as well as the regular DVD. The KDE 4 (Beta) Development Environment is available in the repository.
  • CodecBuddy is now included, and promotes free, superior quality, open formats to end users trying to play multimedia content under patent encumbered or proprietary formats.
  • OpenOffice.org 2.3, with many new features, is available as part of Fedora 8.
  • Nodoka, a fresh new GNOME theme created specially for Fedora, is available in this release.
  • Live installations are faster and require a smaller root filesystem. The file system layout has also changed somewhat. System files for the Live images are now under LiveOS/, and a new README file has been provided as a short introduction to the live image.

Fedora 8 Homepage

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Jul 24

AOL’s Free Active Virus Shield Ditches Kaspersky for McAfee

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

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

AOL McAfee

Ever since a leaked copy of AOL’s Active Virus Shield software for Vista hit the web, I had been waiting for AOL’s official announcement. Well, now I know why AOL never released a new Vista-compatible version of their Kaspersky-powered antivirus software…they were instead preparing for the switch to McAfee!

The screenshot above was taken from the current Active Virus Shield website which kindly explains that Active Virus Shield is no longer available, and has instead been replaced with a special McAfee suite. It does include virus protection, spyware protection, and a firewall, but come on…it’s McAfee! They are just as bad as Norton when it comes to dragging down the performance of your computer. AOL does try to make it sound great by saying:

Buy this protection yourself, and you could spend as much as $39.99, but with an aol.com email address, you can receive this comprehensive set of safety tools free.

Yep, they even require you to get an AOL.com email address in order to use the software. Where’s the humanity? ;)

Kaspersky, and therefore Active Virus Shield, always ranked highly on the antivirus tests which made the now deceased app even more appealing. It didn’t do quite as good on the retrospective/heuristic testing, but I didn’t expect a free program to be the best in every area. This is one freeware program that I will truly miss.

I haven’t tried the new one myself because, well, I’m not exactly McAfee’s #1 fan. I’ve known people who had paid for their software before, and they always end up complaining a month or two down the road that their computer is horrendously slow. I always give my condolences to them for having purchased the software, and immediately install Avast (or sometimes AVG). I’ve yet to see someone complain that their computer is extremely slow after doing that.

So if you’re up for it, you can get the new AOL McAfee Security Center at no monetary cost, but don’t be surprised if you have to forfeit a good chunk of your system’s resources. Current Active Virus Shield users (those that have it downloaded and activated with a key they received) can continue to use the program, but future sign-ups are no longer allowed.

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