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Apr 20

Excellent Pagination Bookmarklet Firefox Extension

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

This article was written on April 07, 2009 by CyberNet.

It’s not often that I come across a bookmarklet that I’ll use everyday, but in the last few days PageZipper has become an unbelievable tool in my daily arsenal. Basically what it does is look for links on the page that say “Next”, and as you scroll down past that link it will automatically append the next page for you. That’s right, you’ll never have to click the “Next” button again (well, almost never).

I tested out the bookmarklet and it works exactly as advertised. You can use it on sites like Google, Digg, and it even works on our site. When you come across a page that you want this to activate for just click the bookmarklet, and then keep scrolling. The next page will eventually show up once you get all the way to the bottom.

Here are some of the PageZipper features:

As you scroll to the bottom of a page, PageZipper automatically adds the next page to the bottom of the page you’re on.
On image galleries, press Control+Down to skip directly to the next image in the gallery. Control+Up returns you to the previous entry. You can also use these keyboard shortcuts on any page that PageZipper works, making it easy to jump to the next page of results.
PageZipper automatically resizes images in photo galleries to fit your browser window. So you always see the entire image without having to scroll

What I really like about this is that it’s not making a ton of unnecessary page requests. By that I mean it only fetches the next page once I get towards the end of the results, and it will only work if I decide to activate it via the bookmarklet. So it leaves me in control.

PageZipper is also available as a Firefox extension for those of you who would prefer not to have yet another thing on your bookmarks bar (the extension uses a toolbar icon). Either way, it is a must-have utility that I believe works way better than the alternatives out there.

PageZipper Homepage [via MakeUseOf]

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Apr 20

3D Virtual Desktop Manager for Windows

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

This article was written on March 22, 2007 by CyberNet.

Windows Cube This isn’t quite as cool as what we’ve come to know (and love) in Linux with XGL, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. Yod’m (Download Mirror)stands for Yet anOther Desktop Manager and is a new virtual desktop manager that’s available for Windows users.

The “claim to fame” for this program is that it tries to replicate what XGL offers Linux users. The program doesn’t require any installation so you can have it up and running in a matter of seconds.

Yod’m definitely has its limitations though, and anyone who has played with XGL in Linux will surely recognize some of the shortcomings:

The cube can only rotate horizontally.
You cannot have a window halfway on one desktop and then halfway on another desktop.

The application works in both Windows XP and Vista so it doesn’t take advantage of Vista’s advanced visual features, such as live previews. When I tried it out it was a little choppy switching between desktops, and while it looked cool it didn’t seem as useful as some of the other virtual desktop managers that I have used in the past.

If you do decide to try out Yod’m, these are the shortcuts (which are customizable) that you’ll want to know:

Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right – This will take you to the previous or next desktop.
Ctrl+Shift+Up – Activate and show a “far” view of the current desktop
Ctrl+Shift+Down – Activate and show a “near” view of the current desktop

To move a windows to another desktop:

Click and hold the title bar of the window.
Press and hold Ctrl+Shift to activate the cube, move the cube left or right using the mouse or arrow keys.
Release the Ctrl+Shift keys.

Yod’m Homepage (Download Mirror)

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Apr 16

CyberNotes: Bookmark and Jump to Favorite Folders

Posted in: CyberNotes, Features, Freeware, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on April 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

How often do you open and save files on your computer? I’m sure that even the most casual users will do it several times throughout the day. Whether it be adding an attachment to an email, uploading a photo to a website, or simply saving a document you’ve been working on… opening and saving files is a part of our computer-driven lives.

Now the question of how to speed up the process comes into play. Most of the time spent opening or saving files is probably navigating through hierarchy of never ending folders on your computer that you’ve meant to cleanup for months. We’ve all been there, and luckily we have some excellent solutions for the Windows users out there!

–Vista Favorite Links–

First off Microsoft has made a valiant effort of addressing this problem in their latest Windows Vista operating system. When you go to open or save a file in Vista you’ll likely see a screen similar to this:

(Click to Enlarge)

Along the left side I’ve highlighted a section labeled Favorite Links. The Favorite Links is designed to serve as bookmarks for the folders you use the most on your computer. Vista ships with common bookmarks to the desktop, documents, music, pictures, and more, but you can add or remove them as you please.

If you come across a folder that you want to add just drag it into the Favorite Links. The order for the shortcuts can be changed at any time simply by dragging and dropping them where you would like. And if you want to remove one of the shortcuts just right-click on it, and select the Remove Link option. Nice and simple… just the way I like it.

–Direct Folders (Homepage)–

This is actually the application that sparked us to write this article. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that a free version of Direct Folders emerged, and there has been quite a bit of buzz about it around the Internet. The free version will be more than enough for most of you, and it’s actually quite slick as to how it works. Once you have it installed just double-click with the left mouse button in an empty area of Windows Explorer (or an Open/Save dialog):

(Click to Enlarge)

You should see a menu popup, and at first glance there isn’t much there. What you need to do is go through all of your favorite folders and add them to the list. You can do this by navigating to a folder that you want to add, double-clicking in an empty space with the left mouse button, and then choosing the Add here option.

The nice thing about this is that there are no buttons that clutter the interface, which is something many of you will appreciate. The one thing that I don’t like is that it’s sometimes a hassle to find an “empty space” to double-click.

–FileBox eXtender (Homepage)–

This is an open source project that I’ve used off and on again for the last few months. It has several advanced configuration options that power users will love, and even has a few features that almost any application will be able to benefit from.

This program works a little differently than the Direct Folders previously mentioned. FileBox eXtender adds a few buttons to the Titlebar of Windows Explorer and the dialogs. The folder icon with the heart is the one you want to look for because it’s where you can store your favorites:

(Click to Enlarge)

Next to the heart folder is another button with a clock, and that menu will contain folders that you’ve recently accessed through the open and save dialogs. That’s pretty smart since you’ll likely be pulling up the same folders over and over again.

There are two other icons you’ll see in other applications aside from just Windows Explorer:

The up arrow will roll up the current window collapsing it down to merely the Titlebar. It’s just like WinRoll.
The pin button will force a window to remain on top regardless of whether it is the window currently in focus.

Any of these buttons can be removed from the Titlebar by going through the configuration options, but it’s nice knowing that you’ll get some additional features that can be used outside of the Explorer windows.

–Overview–

Now we want to know about any tricks you use to make opening and saving files a speedy process. Drop off your tips in the comments below.

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Apr 14

CyberNotes: Monitor File And Registry Changes When Installing Applications

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

This article was written on October 26, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Many times I am skeptical about installing new applications because I don’t know what they will end up doing to my computer. Will they install some spyware, delete some of my system files, or corrupt my registry? You just never know what the result is going to be but if you don’t try out new applications then you could be missing out on some great tools.

When I install certain applications I want to know everything that went on during the installation process. That way if I choose to uninstall the program later I’ll know exactly what it had created or modified. To do the monitoring I use InCtrl5 which is a small freeware program.

Here is what you need to do to use InCtrl5:

Download and install InCtrl5.
Start InCtrl5 and browse/enter the location of the install file:
After you have entered the location of the install file, selected the desired options, and pressed the “Go!” button the application will scan your computer so that it knows what is in your registry and file system for comparison purposes:
After the pre-installation check completes you should see the installation window for the program you are trying to install. In my case I chose Flock and after the Flock installation completed I pressed the “Install Complete” button in the upper-right corner of the screen. It then started to check the files and registry for any changes:
When InCtrl5 finishes the examination it will present you with a report that is nicely organized:

I don’t use this for every program that I install but it does come in handy every now and then. I typically use it if there is a possibility that I’ll uninstall the application later on because I don’t want things cluttering my computer that I know I can get rid of easily. You probably won’t want to use InCtrl5 for every program you install because it does take around a minute to for each the pre-install and post-install analysis. Sometimes it is worth the few extra minutes though.

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Apr 12

Ubuntu News Roundup

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

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

I’ve got a lot of news to share about Ubuntu, and instead of doing several different posts about it all I thought it would be better to aggregate the info into one convenient article. Prepare your minds for Ubuntu overload!

–Dell Ships 40,000 Ubuntu Machines–

Ubuntu Dell The Register managed to get their hands on some Dell stats, and they are actually rather impressive. It was back in May that Dell started offering Ubuntu as an operating system option on both laptops and desktops, and since then they have apparently shipped 40,000 units. I’m rather impressed with that number, but over 6-months has passed since the release which equates to about 220 computers being shipped every day.

The big question that this has left everyone asking is whether that’s good enough for Dell. They are shipping about 10 million computers every 3-months, and I’m not sure if they’ll see enough value in offering a line of computers where they can only ship 20,000 in the same period. It will be interesting to see how it plays out though.

–Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 1–

One of the joys with open source technology is that you can keep on top of future releases almost as if you were a developing it yourself. With that being said Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 1 (Hardy Heron) was just released, but it only brings a few goodies to the table. It has Xorg 7.3 which improves automatic graphics configuration, a few updated apps like Firefox and Gimp, and there are some new packages that were merged in from Debian.

It’s probably not worth an upgrade quite yet because you’ll risk compromising your system’s stability since it is such an early release. Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2 is scheduled for December 20th, and then looking into next year Beta 1 is planned for March 27th. When all is said and done Ubuntu 8.04 will ship on April 24th, 2008 and it will be classified as a Long Term Support (LTS) release.

–Full Circle Magazine Issue #7–

Full Circle Magazine Issue 7 It’s that time again! The community-powered Ubuntu magazine is already on its 7th issue, and the cover story is on installing Ubuntu Studio. That version of Ubuntu is geared towards audio and video enthusiasts.

I’ve converted this issue of Full Circle Magazine into a JPEG image for those of you who don’t want to download the PDF, and here’s a quick overview of what issue #6 has in it:

Step-by-Step Ubuntu Studio Installation
How-To:

Simple SSH Install
A Terminal on your Desktop
Easily Convert from Windows
Learning Scribus Part 7

Wubi Installer Review
Top 5 Audio/Video Apps.
Interview with the Howard County Library
News, Letters, Q&A, MyDesktop and more

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Apr 11

Ubuntu on Mobile Devices

Posted in: Freeware, mobile, Software, Today's Chili, ubuntu

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

Ubuntu As Ubuntu continues to gain popularity there is no doubt that they will be looking for more ways to increase their market share. Just last week it was announced that Dell will be offering PC’s with Ubuntu pre-installed, which is sure to make the operating system very well known. The Ubuntu team wasn’t about to stop there though…

Now they are partnering with Intel to develop a mobile and embedded version of Ubuntu to be used on mobile devices. The new mobile operating system will look to minimize the amount of power consumption while offering an interface that is optimized for small screens.

Having Intel on their side is a huge benefit because they are working on a new chip that will be less power hungry than typical processors. The chip’s size is just one-seventh of a processor and only uses 10% of the power.

Matt Zimmerman, Ubuntu’s CTO, made the announcement over an email list saying:

At the heart of the Ubuntu project lies a belief that open source software
and technology can play a key role in enabling individuals to achieve their
potential. A central goal has been the creation of a world-class, free and
open source operating system that we have worked to make accessible across
notebooks, desktops, thin clients and servers.
Three years on, it is clear that new types of device – small, handheld,
graphical tablets which are Internet-enabled are going to change the way we
communicate and collaborate. These devices place new demands on open source
software and require innovative graphical interfaces, improved power
management and better responsiveness.
…
Finally, we are delighted to be working with Intel on this version of
Ubuntu. Intel are making significant contributions of technology, people and
expertise to the project. We hope that others who are interested in
producing an easy-to-use and open source environment for this class of
device will join us in making this a success.

The mobile version of Ubuntu is expected to be released this year in the middle of October, which is also when Ubuntu 7.10 should be available. It will be interesting to see if any mobile device manufacturers jump on the Ubuntu bandwagon, and also what developments will come about to compete with the iPhone.

Source: BBC

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Apr 08

Firefox 3 Download Manager, Resizable Toolbar Items, and More

Posted in: Features, Firefox 3, Freeware, Mozilla, Pre-Release, search, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

Pretty soon Firefox 3 is going to be feature complete, and all that will be left for them to do is fine-tune the things they have implemented. As we build up to that big moment there are some new features that are coming out of the shop for testers. This includes a spruced up download manager, resizable toolbar items, a plugin manager, and better looking menus.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at all the enhancements that have come about since Alpha 7 was released:

–Download Manager–

The download manager has gotten a lot more useful with the features they’ve added. First off it sorts your downloads with the ones currently in progress up top, and those that are completed down below:

Firefox 3 Download Manager

For any of the completed downloads you can click on the blue "i" for more information, such as the location it was downloaded from.

Then there is also the search box located in the bottom-left corner. That does a live search of all your completed items, and the results are then immediately displayed:

Firefox 3 Download Manager

At first I thought this might be really really nice, except I always setup Firefox to clear my completed downloads after they are finished. The reason why I do that is because it’s supposed to improve the startup time of the browser, and this feature is therefore rendered useless for me. So if you have Firefox setup to clear completed items in the Downloads window, the new layout and features won’t really do much for you.

–Resizable Toolbar Items–

This is a super sweet feature that I’m glad Mozilla got implemented. There is now a "Resizer" item in the Customization screen that can be added to the toolbars. It is the most useful for placing between the search box and address box, where you will then be able to drag it back and forth to resize the two boxes.

Firefox 3 Toolbar Resizer

It also works when placed between toolbar buttons, but the results may not be what you expect. I noticed that the buttons scrunch together when trying to resize them, and if space gets really tight they are just hidden. It would be a lot better if Mozilla worked on a way to scale the buttons to a size that would allow all of them to remain visible, but that might be something they are working on.

–Plugin Manager–

Plugin management has been taken from about:plugins to the same place where you manage extensions and themes. One of the most notable things that I saw when opening the plugin management was that it easily lets you disable certain items. For example, if you don’t want Flash enabled you can disable it right from the plugin management screen.

Firefox 3 Plugin Manager

The only problem, which can’t be seen in my screenshot, is that plugins with more than one file associated with them show up repeatedly. For me the issue was with Java, which had about 10 entries all given the same title.

–Menu Appearance–

The menus have also gotten a slight overhaul. Now Firefox 3 supports a Vista-like menu appearance. Some things take advantage of this, such as the History menu which shows the site’s icon next to the entries:

Firefox 3 Menus

–Overall–

Still to come in Firefox 3 is integration with Vista’s parental control system, a visual refresh/new default theme, Places enhancements, as well as a few other things that are pretty high priority. The next milestone, which is due September 18th, could be either an Alpha or a Beta build. Mozilla appears to be picking up the pace and getting some much-needed features implemented, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to me if they are able to move on to the Beta releases.

Sources: The Burning Edge, Ars Technica, Mozilla Links, Firefox Extension Guru & Kyle’s Cove
Thanks for the tip Mohan!

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Apr 01

Pause Animated GIFS in Firefox and IE

Posted in: Freeware, Internet Explorer, Opera, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Have you ever been on a page with a ton of animated GIF’s, and all you’re trying to do is read the content? It can get quite distracting, but if you’re using Firefox or Internet Explorer just hit the ESC key. Doing so will immediately pause all of the animated GIF images on the page. Go ahead, try it with this image:

Stick Figure Animated GIF

The only bad part about pausing the images using the ESC key is that there’s no way to have them resume without refreshing the page.

One thing that I’ve never understood about browsers is why they don’t have a play, pause, and restart options on the right-click menu for GIF animations. That would be a really nice feature to have, but Firefox and Opera users do have a few advanced settings for GIF animations:

–Firefox Users Only–

In Firefox you can also completely disable GIF animations, or only allow them to play through one time. Here’s what you have to do:

In the Location Bar type about:config and hit Enter
Type “animation” in the Filter field (to quickly find the needed preference)
Double-click the image.animation_mode line and edit it to one of the following:

none — will prevent image animation
once — will let the image animate once
normal (default) — will allow it to play over and over

–Opera Users Only–

If you want to completely disable GIF animations in Opera here’s what you have to do:

In the Location Bar type opera:config#Multimedia|ShowAnimation and hit Enter
Uncheck the box next to Show Animation, and then save the settings

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Mar 31

Comodo Firewall 3 – They Did it Again!

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

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

Comodo Firewall 3 Summary

We’ve always been a relatively large fan of the Comodo Firewall Pro software, not only because it is 100% free but also because of its award-winning reputation. The new version pulls out all stops bringing full support for both XP and Vista 32-bit and 64-bit versions! After playing with this for a few hours I would have to say that they did it again … they created another amazing firewall that has won my heart, and my computer. We’ve got a ton of screenshots for you at the end of the article, so make sure you stick around.

Before I get started I wanted to send out a quick warning to everyone running both Vista and Avast! antivirus. There seems to be a critical issue with Avast! that prevents Vista from loading at startup, and in order to uninstall Comodo you’ll need to boot into safe mode. Updating to the latest version of Avast! will help ensure that Vista can load properly, but the startup time will be significantly longer than normal. For a status update on this issue keep your eyes peeled on this post in the Comodo forum.

I finally ended up getting Comodo Firewall Pro installed after that little ordeal with Avast!, and aside from that rather critical bug the program is stellar. During normal use of my computer Comodo only consumes 3.5MB of my memory, which is amazing when you compare that to some of the other firewalls out there. And I ran several bandwidth tests both with and without the firewall enabled, and I came to the conclusion that the firewall had very little effect on the speed of my Internet.

At first I wasn’t too sure about the redesigned interface, but it is definitely starting to grow on me. The old one was much more vibrant and lively, but the new one makes Comodo feel more like a professional app. And the popup alerts will surely grab your attention.

Personally I’m the type of user that prefers to see what Comodo is doing, and I want to see any alerts that it feels would be good for me to scan. When finishing up the Comodo setup process it will ask whether you want to run the advanced firewall filled with all of the alert goodness, or whether you just want the basic protection where it does most of the authorization itself (there is a screenshot of this below). If you’re installing this for someone else who isn’t tech-savvy I recommend sticking to the basic mode so that they aren’t bombarded with popups that they don’t understand.

Alright, lets take a look at some of the new security features, and then we’ll move over to the plethora of screenshots!

–New Features–

Clean PC Mode – This feature takes a profile of a new PC and all the applications in it and registers them as safe. Then, any new application trying to gain access to a computer will be denied access to the PC unless the user expressly permits it since it is assumed to be potentially unsafe. This feature prevents most types of malware and rootkits from getting installed and keeps a new PC virus and malware free.
Defense+ Host Intrusion Prevention System – Defense+ is one of the most advanced Host Intrusion Prevention Systems available in any desktop security program. This new addition helps to secure desktops and servers against rootkits, inter-process memory injections, key-loggers and more.
Advanced Network Firewall Engine – New features such as Stealth Mode to make your PC completely invisible to opportunistic port scans; Wizard based auto-detection of trusted zones; Password protection of firewall settings; Diagnostics to analyze your system for potential conflicts with the firewall and much more.
Security rules interface – Users can quickly set granular Internet access rights and privileges on a global or per application basis using the flexible and easy to understand GUI. This version also sees the introduction of pre-set security policies which allow you to deploy a sophisticated hierarchy of firewall rules with a couple of mouse clicks.
Training Mode – By selecting ‘Train with Safe Mode’, the firewall will learn how your trusted applications work and silently create rules for them.
Application Recognition Database – Includes a proprietary and continually updated white list of nearly 1,000,000 safe executables. The integrity of every executable is checked against this database to determine whether or not it is genuine before it allows it installation rights. Firewall Pro will alert users of potentially damaging applications before they are installed.

–Screenshots–

(Click to Enlarge)

Comodo Firewall Pro Homepage

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Mar 30

Maximize Vista’s Battery Life with Vista Battery Saver

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

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

On my laptop that runs Vista (with the Aero Glass enabled) I receive about 4-hours of battery life on full screen brightness. I would say that is pretty darn good, but I can often squeeze out an additional hour or two if I use the free Vista Battery Saver.

This program is designed very well, and with it running you’ll be able to disable the Aero interface and the sidebar if your battery level gets too low. The Aero interface is claimed to reduce your battery life by 1-4% of what it would normally be, so disabling it along with the sidebar should definitely give you some extra time when you need it.

Vista Battery Saver
Click to Enlarge

Also, a new feature in Vista Battery Saver lets you choose a different power plan for Vista anytime your computer isn’t plugged into an outlet. This is nice because you can send Vista into Power Saver mode when using your battery, and have it automatically switch back to a more performance-focused state when you plug back in. And from personal experience I can get an extra hour of battery life just by using the Power Saver mode, so this is a very welcomed addition to the application.

All you have to do is download the Vista Battery Saver, install the program, and set it up once. From then on it will automatically start with Windows, and will quietly do all of the work in the background while running in the System Tray.

Vista Battery Saver Homepage
Vista Battery Saver Download

Thanks to Download Squad and gHacks for the heads up!

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Hasta La Gadget!

Excellent Pagination Bookmarklet Firefox Extension

3D Virtual Desktop Manager for Windows