Feb 17

Firefox 3 Smooth Tab Scrolling

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

This article was written on August 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

The latest nightly build of Firefox 3 has a nice new feature that the eye-candy lovers out there will like. In Firefox when you open too many tabs they overflow and scrollers on each end of the Tab Bar appear. That way you can navigate between all of your tabs without having them shrink down to the size of a pea.

Firefox 3 is looking to spruce that feature up a bit my animating the scrolling motion so that it isn’t so choppy. It’s a little hard to explain so I threw together a quick video to demonstrate the new feature:

You’ll also notice at the end of the video I demonstrate the new resizable toolbar elements.

I think that this is a pretty cool feature, but it is of little use to me. Don’t get me wrong…I’m a sucker for eye candy, but I actually modify Firefox so that it almost never scrolls my tabs. I’d honestly rather see tabs that are super small than have to scroll to find what I’m looking for.

Sources: Asa Dotzler & Mozilla Links

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Feb 17

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta Download

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Linux, Mac, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on May 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

openoffice solver-1.jpg

arrow Windows Win; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
It’s here! I’ve been waiting for OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta for what seems like forever. I was getting a little bit worried when it wasn’t released on April 30th like it was supposed to be, and the release date was never revised. Luckily it’s only rolling in about a week late.

If you were one of the people expecting a huge facelift in this version of OpenOffice.org I’m afraid you’ll be a little disappointed. For the most part the interface is the same as it was with the exception of some refreshed icons. Some people I talked to were keeping their fingers crossed that the next major release of OpenOffice.org would include an Office 2007-like Ribbon, but it’s still using the classic toolbar style. Hey, it can now run on Mac OS X without needing X11 which is a huge feat in itself.

What I’m really excited about is that OpenOffice.org 3.0 is able to open the Office 2007 document formats. I’ve been using Office 2007 for a little while, and trying to use OpenOffice.org was quite a pain since I have a relatively large number of files saved in the Office 2007 file format. This will help ease the transition for many users.

And there’s still more! Here’s a look at the new features included in OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta:

  • Mac OS X Support
    OpenOffice.org is now able to run on Mac OS X without the need for X11. Thus, OpenOffice.org behaves like any other Aqua application. The cool thing is, while the market leading office suite vendor dropped VBA support and the Solver feature, OpenOffice.org recently introduced limited VBA support and includes a powerful Solver component.
  • ODF 1.2 Support
    OpenOffice.org 3.0 already supports the features of the upcoming version 1.2 of the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF). ODF 1.2 includes a powerful formula language as well as a sophisticated metadata model based on the W3C standards RDF and OWL.
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Document Support
    OpenOffice.org 3.0 is now capable of opening files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.).
  • Solver
    OpenOffice.org now also has a solver component which allows solving optimization problems where the optimum value of a particular spreadsheet cell has to be calculated based on constraints provided in other cells.
  • Chart Enhancements
  • Improved Crop Feature
  • Spreadsheet Collaboration
    This new feature in OpenOffice.org 3.0 allows collaborating on spreadsheets with multiple users. By sharing a spreadsheet; other users can easily add their data to the spreadsheet.
  • 1024 Columns Per Calc Sheet Instead of 256
  • Display Multiple Writer Pages While Editing
    With the new zoom slider, it is now easily possible to change the zoom factor. More importantly, OpenOffice.org Writer can now display multiple pages at the same time.
  • Improved Notes Feature in Writer
    With version 3.0, OpenOffice.org got an advanced notes features which displays notes on the side of the document. This makes notes a lot easier to read. In addition, notes from different users are displayed in different colours together with the editing date and time.
  • New Icons
  • Start Center
    When you open the application; you are now welcomed by a Start Center that allow you to chose which module you would like to use, or if you would prefer to open a document.

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Feb 16

CyberNotes: Configure Customize The Toolbars in Opera

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Hacks, Opera, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Opera LogoOpera is a free web browser that is available for the Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. One of the things that Opera is best known for is being highly customizable out-of-the-box, but I think that some people overlook how customizable the toolbars are.

I’ve seen quite a few people using Opera before, and almost none of them move thye toolbars or buttons around. I’m not sure if that’s because they don’t know how, or whether they love the default layout that much. On the other hand, almost all Firefox installations that I ever see have customized toolbars, and a good example of that can be seen at Lifehacker’s “Show Us Your Firefox“.

I thought about making this your typical tutorial that walks you through all of the different steps, but it would be extremely long and hard to explain. For that reason I’ve assembled a video demonstration that starts with a fresh installation of Opera, and shows you how I go about positioning things.

–Customize the Toolbars–

In the video demonstration I show you how to customize the look and position of any toolbar in Opera. Even the bar with the tabs and the sidebar are included in this category, and changing their location is as simple as right-clicking on them and choosing the Customize option. Then there is a drop-down menu next to a label called “Placement,” and that is what you’ll need to adjust to move toolbars around Opera.

–Tab Bar–

One of my favorite things in Opera is that you can move the tab bar to the bottom of the browser, or to one of the sides. Seeing that I have a widescreen monitor, I prefer to utilize the extra screen width by placing my tabs on the right-side, which is also nice because your tabs don’t get so small that they are unreadable.

In the video I’ll also show you how to move the tab bar below the address bar without any hacks or inconvenient tricks. By default the tab bar is above the address bar with Opera, which is something Firefox and Internet Explorer users might have a hard time getting used to.

–Sidebar–

I like to view myself as a minimalist when it comes to icons and clutter, but there are some things that I do simply because it makes me more productive, and the sidebar is one of those things. It takes up way too much room out-of-the-box, and I was anxious to find a way to condense it down. The reason why this is important to me is that I have hundreds of bookmarks that I frequently access, so to allow me to be as productive as possible, I need to leave the bookmarks sidebar open at all times. As you’ll see in the video, there is a surprising amount of customization options that pertain to the sidebar.

–Video–

Are you ready for the video? I spent a lot of time making sure that, despite the low-resolution, you can still clearly see everything that I’m doing. So without further ado…

–Overview–

Opera is about as powerful as you want it to be. Once you get diggin’ under the hood you’ll find all kinds of surprises that you didn’t know existed, and that’s one of the joys with using it as your browser. Play around, mess with the options, and don’t be afraid to screw something up…that’s my motto! :)

Opera Homepage

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Feb 12

Free PDF Reader: Foxit 2.1

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

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

Foxit 2.1 PDF Reader Screenshot

My absolute favorite PDF reader just got an update! Foxit Reader 2.1 is one of those free programs that I always have on my computer. It beats Adobe Acrobat Reader hands down in terms of startup speed (without using a pre-launcher), and has many of the same features. As expected, Foxit 2.1 added a bunch of new things that make this free PDF reader even more lovable:

  • Form Designer: With new form designer, you are able to add push buttons, text fields, check boxes, combo boxes, list boxes or radio buttons to an interactive PDF form and specify their properties.
  • Measure Tools: This set of tools will help you measure distance, perimeter or area on a PDF page and automatically transform the results into real-world values.
  • Image Tool: Now you can specify a rectangle on any part of a PDF page and then insert an image into that rectangle.
  • Link Tools: You may now add rectangle or quadrilateral links to a PDF file and specify their destination, which can be a page view, a named destination, an external file, or a web page.
  • Loupe Tool: This special magnifying glass enables you to take a closer look at any part of a PDF page that is beneath the mouse cursor.
  • File Attachment Tool: Now you may attach any type of external files as attachments or comments to a PDF file.
  • Annotation Selection Tool: This tool allows you to select multiple annotations and then move, resize or align them together.
  • Reading History: Foxit remembers where you left off when reading a PDF.
  • E-mail the PDF: Now when you read a PDF file, you can easily send it as an email attachment to someone else.

If you download the ZIP version of the Foxit PDF Reader there is no installation required to use it. That’s one of the best things with this free app…I can throw it on my USB drive and carry it with me wherever I go.

I thought I should let you know, however, that many of the new features were taken from the Foxit Reader Pro Pack. It normally costs $39 to purchase, but an evaluation copy of almost all the features are now included in Foxit. The only catch is that using some of the tools, such as measuring the distance, can result in an "evaluation" mark be placed on the PDF if you try to save the changes. Most of the tools are still useful despite this restriction.

Tip: You can remove the Foxit ad located in the upper-right corner of the program in a few simple steps.

Free Foxit Reader 2.1 for Windows Download

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Feb 08

Soashable: An Open Source Meebo Clone

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

This article was written on March 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

soashable

Meebo has become an extremely popular online instant messenger, and with a status as prestigious as theirs comes clones. With Meebo you can communicate with friends and family from anywhere you have an Internet connection and a browser. And if you want to start your own similar service go checkout the open source version called Soashable (project page).

If Meebo is so great why would anyone want to use knockoff? Since Soashable is open source anyone can take their code and modify it so that it fits in well with their own site. For example, Facebook could take this, modify it a bit, and have a product that looks like their own cross-network chat client.

At this time Soashable isn’t quite up to the standard that Meebo has set because it only supports MSN Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo. They’ve got some stuff in the works to add XMPP/Google Talk support to a future release which is what I’m really looking forward to. Soashable also doesn’t do file transfers, chat rooms, or some other little things here and there.

I find this project to be cool because the only limitations users will have, such as the size of file transfers, will be what they set on their own servers. Not to mention the additional privacy you’ll get by running this yourself.

Soashable (download the code)
[via Webware]

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Feb 06

AppSnap: Install Applications…No Brain Needed

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

AppSnap

The thing that I always dread the most about formatting my computer is installing all of the programs that I use. Most of the programs are freeware so there should be an easier way to install all of them, right? There is, and that way is AppSnap (the homepage is running a little slow so you can get it from Softpedia). It will download and install all of the latest programs from the application’s server and then it will install it for you.

After installing AppSnap and reviewing the changelog I noticed that this thing has a really nice list of free programs that many of you probably wouldn’t mind seeing. Basically, I would say that this is a condensed list of the one started in our forum by wipeout140 where you’ll find a very extensive list of applications that is constantly being updated, along with preferred applications in bold font.

Well, here are the applications that are included in AppSnap:

An (*) represents a program that I have personally used AND would recommend that others use it as well.

It took me awhile to manually put together that list so hopefully you’ll find something that strikes you fancy. Of course, if you download and install AppSnap all of the programs above can be installed for you so you don’t even have to worry about finding the download links. Lazyness and convenience win once again! :D

News Source: Lifehacker

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Feb 01

Shock 3D Virtual Desktop for Windows

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

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

Shock 3D Virtual Desktop

We’ve got a treat for you if you’re a Windows user and you’ve been lusting over a sweet 3D Desktop. Shock 4Way is a free application that gives you four virtual desktops to work with. I wouldn’t say it is quite as good as the DeskSpace app, but it also doesn’t cost $20 to buy.

The screenshot above shows the 3D virtual desktop application in action, and here are some of the features it has to offer:

  • Screen Manager for dragging and dropping applications from one desktop to another
  • Blending option to give each of the desktops a transparent appearance
  • Rotate the cube horizontally by simply moving your mouse (there is no vertical rotation)
  • Assign a background image that appears behind the “cube”
  • Customize the hotkeys
  • System Tray icon for easy access to all available options

One of the things that I would like to see offered in this program is an easier way to move windows from one desktop to another. Right now you have to use the Screen Manager which is nice, but it would be better if I could drag a window to the edge of the desktop and have it move over.

Feel free to give it a shot though because there is a portable version available that requires no installation. You’ll probably keep it on your computer even if you don’t use it, because who doesn’t like to show this kind of stuff off to friends? :)

Shock 4Way 3D Virtual Desktop (for Windows XP/2000/2003/Vista)
Source: How-To Geek

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Jan 19

A Better Mac OS X Leopard Theme for Firefox 3

Posted in: Apple, Freeware, Mac, Software, Today's Chili

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

mac leopard firefox theme.png

arrow Mac Mac only (kind of works on other OS’s… read on) arrow
The features and performance of Firefox 3 have helped me fall in love with the browser all over again, but the “native” themes need some work. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a theme that is more along the lines of what Safari looks like on my Mac, and one developer has stepped up to the plate with two gorgeous alternatives: GrApple Delicious and GrApple Yummy.

At first glance the two themes look nearly the same (as seen below), but the differences lie in the details. GrApple Yummy is almost an exact clone of Safari, which is what I thought I was looking for. That was until I noticed that each individual tab does not include the site’s icon, which I didn’t even realize Safari lacked until this theme made me go back and double-check. I was very bummed because I loved the theme otherwise, but that’s when I came across GrApple Delicious which does show the icons on each tab:

mac leopard firefox theme-2.png

The only thing that is really different between the two themes (at least that I noticed) is the tab bar. In GrApple Yummy the tab bar hangs from the toolbar located above it just like in Safari, where as GrApple Delicious displays the tab bar in the typical old-school Firefox fashion. It doesn’t really bother me which way the tab bar is oriented as long as I have my icons on each tab, and so I’m loving the GrApple Delicious theme.

firefox leopard location bar.pngAnd the oversized fonts in the location bar… gone! As you can see in the screenshot to the right the location bar is toned down a bit in both themes by using slightly smaller fonts.

Obviously these themes are targeted towards Mac OS X users, but they do surprisingly work on other operating systems. The only issue was that the menu (File, Edit, etc…) layout was a bit off from what it should be, but that can quickly be cured with an extension such as Personal Menu. If you want to install it on an operating system other than Mac OS X you’ll need to do so from one of these two pages: GrApple Delicious or GrApple Yummy.

Get the GrApple Delicious or GrApple Yummy Firefox themes

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Jan 17

Gallery 2.2 Released – Host your own Image Gallery

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

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

Gallery2Ajaxian

Gallery 2.2 is now available to the public and it offers some new features that are sure to be a crowd pleaser. The software is used to host your own photo galleries on your own site instead of using a service like Flickr. To setup Gallery you will need to have PHP installed on your server, which is almost standard for all hosting packages these days. If you don’t already have a hosting package you can checkout the page that Gallery has setup for recommended hosts.

Here’s what Gallery 2.2 has to offer you:

  1. Downloadable Plugins – It is all done straight from the administration interface now. Before you had to upload any themes and plugins to the server before you can enable them.
  2. Added support for themes to display dynamic albums
  3. Watermarking changes
  4. New themes: Carbon and Ajaxian
  5. New WebDAV module to mount Gallery as network device on your computer. This allows you to easily manage your Gallery with any WebDAV client like Windows Explorer.
  6. New module to send Ecards
  7. New Digibug module for prints from digibug.com
  8. Added support for Flash Video and Windows ASF video
  9. Photo auto-rotation based on camera sensors or on settings from other applications

Gallery 2 is a great way to share your photos with the world, and it serves a large variety of purposes. You could create a site where people can upload their own photos to share with you, or you can just use it for personal reasons.

There are several different themes available, and each of them has an online demo. You can even play with the two newest themes, Carbon and Ajaxian, and between the two, Ajaxian definitely takes the gold. Just like the name says, it uses Ajax to retrieve photos among other things so that the user receives nothing short of a great experience. Most of the themes do have color packs available as well, so when you’re looking for a theme, choose it because of the layout and not the color choices.

I used it for quite awhile to share photos with my family, and I just created a generic account and provided the username/password to them. Then they could view whatever galleries I chose to give them permission to.

It is really easy to setup the software, and uploading images can be done several different ways. You can browse for a single image to upload, select a directory on your server that already contains all of the images and Gallery will import them, or you can upload a ZIP file that has all of the images in it and Gallery will automatically extract the contents of that file to get the photos.

I don’t use the software anymore because I just bought a Flickr Pro account since they added the collections feature. The reason I wanted to use Flickr instead was because of all the external tools that it has available to make uploading images and even synchronizing my account extremely easy. Even with Flickr I can control who can and can’t see my images all while taking advantage of the hundred or so online and offline tools available.

If you’re looking for your own image gallery solution then Gallery 2 is by far the best one that I have found.

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Jan 16

AIM 6.8: Real-Time Instant Messaging

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

This article was written on January 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

AIM Real Time Messaging AOL is embarking on new ground with their next milestone release of the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Just yesterday they released AIM 6.8 Beta to the public with a new feature that I’m guessing more people will hate rather than love. That’s why it’s a good thing it’s optional!

The new feature is real-time instant messaging with your buddies. If you and your friends are all running AIM 6.8 Beta you’ll be able to see what the others are typing before the messages even get sent. As seen in the screenshot, when the user is typing the message it is highlighted and the timestamp reads “typing.” After the message has actually been sent the highlighting will be removed, and it will look like any other message.

Naturally both parties have to agree to the real-time chat session before AIM will activate it. It can be initiated by going to the Actions Menu at the top of the IM window, or by pressing Ctrl+R on the keyboard.

Now I want to hear what everyone thinks about this. Would you use it? Think about how many times you’ve typed a message and in the end decided not to send it. Would you want to reveal your poor spelling before you have had time to re-read the message?

And yes, ICQ did have this feature back in the day.

AIM 6.8 Beta Homepage

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