Feedreader 3 – My New Favorite RSS Reader

This article was written on October 03, 2006 by CyberNet.

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I have been using the GreatNews RSS Reader for exactly two months and it has been pretty good. I wasn’t looking to switch to a new feed reader until I stumbled upon the cleverly named Feedreader. It looked so clean and simple that I felt like I had to give it a try…and of course it is free!

Feedreader

My first impression was very good because I was shocked at how simple, yet powerful, the software was. The more I started to play with it the more I started to like it.

There are a lot of great features that really stand out to me. First, In the View menu there are two options that say “Hide read articles” and “Hide read feeds”. I particularly like the “Hide read feeds” because it will only show you the feeds that have new articles that you need to read. This reduces the clutter from the screen especially if you subscribe to hundreds of different feeds.

The next feature that is my absolute favorite is the Smartfeed option. It will basically search the articles in your feed list for keywords that you specify or one of the other many options that you can search for. For those of you familiar with WinAmp then it kinda reminds me of the Smart Playlists feature:

Smartfeed

What would a feed reader be without a cool alert slider? Yep, Feedreader has one of the nicest that I have seen and it notifies you each time there is a new story:

Alert Slider

There is a lot more that Feedreader can do so make sure you checkout the Options that they have available (particularly the Advanced tab).

It does have a few things that I’m not too fond of but they are all something that I can deal with. The first thing is that there is no button to mark all of the feeds as read. You have to either right-click on the feed/folder and select “Mark as Read” or you can press Ctrl+R, but ideally there should be a button to do this.

The second thing that I don’t like is that they apparently removed the option to set the default update frequency and now you have to change it on each feed individually. They do that because they believe their IntelliSense option is better so they set it by default. It is designed to recognize how often a feed is typically updated and it will adjust the schedule accordingly. So if a site doesn’t update their feed for a few days at a time then it may only check for updates each day. If you don’t want to use this option then you can change it for each feed with choices as low as 1-minute update intervals.

This is going to be my feed reader from now on and hopefully the developer continues to add more features…all while keeping the interface as simple as it currently is.

Update:
The developer of Feedreader commented below saying that you can easily change the update frequency of multiple feeds simultaneously:
You can change update period of all feeds if you go to feed management and then do Control A or select some feeds while holding down control. Now only archive size and update period is active. Change those and press Save. Voila – you have changed update period for multiple feeds.

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Donation Coder’s New Apps for the New Year

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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Suse Linux 10.1 Goes 3D

This article was written on May 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

Suse Linux 10.1 Goes 3D

An anonymous commenter in a previous article pointed out that Suse 10.1 has 3D capabilities. The screenshot to the right shows this in action and it looks quite impressive with how it handles the multiple desktops. What if you want to see all of the desktops simultaneously? Simple, just hold down Ctrl+Alt+DownArrow and the cube will unfold itself to display all of the virtual desktops!

Suse Linux 10.1 Goes 3D

Some of the stuff I don’t know how they came up with the design. Pictured to the right you will see the Window Page Peel. This allows a user to peel back a corner of a page (like you do with a book) so that you can see what window is underneath it. Wow! It amazes me that someone was even able to think of doing that.

I currently have Suse 10.0 installed on one of my machines but it looks like I will be making an upgrade. If you aren’t yet convinced then check out the news source for some more screenshots and details of more features.

Download Suse Linux 10.1
News Source: Mad Penguin

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Fedora 8 – Now With PulseAudio

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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AOL’s Free Active Virus Shield Ditches Kaspersky for McAfee

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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CyberSearch 1.0.1: Background Colors are Back

This article was written on August 01, 2008 by CyberNet.

cybersearch101.pngOkay, so I wasn’t thinking that I’d have a new version of CyberSearch so soon, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will stop the flood of emails requesting that I revive the customizable background color feature. Yesterday we released CyberSearch 1.0, and with it came a bunch of new features. Along with that I also scrapped the option to customize the background color of the results.

Why would I get rid of this feature? For a few reasons actually:

  • The new version of the extension put the CyberSearch icon in the upper-right corner of the results making it easy to distinguish without needing a background color. Well, at least that’s I thought, as well as a few other people I asked before releasing the new version.
  • A few people emailed me saying that the default color doesn’t look great on some themes. One thing I’ve always tried to keep in mind while building this extension is what would be best for the users who will never bother to open up the settings.
  • When you upgraded to a new version of CyberSearch the background color you had previously customized would get wiped out.
  • In order to see the updated background color you had to restart the browser, which was a pain for anyone that wanted to try a bunch of colors to see which one they liked the best.

I assumed that people who wanted to customize the background color of the results wouldn’t mind using Stylish, and I provided instructions on how to change the background color using the Stylish extension. That was obviously not what people wanted… they wanted to see the feature back in all its glory.

This isn’t easy for me to say, but I was wrrrr…….ong. There, I said it. Happy?

cybersearch result appearance.png

I’m pleased to say that the customizable background color has returned in CyberSearch 1.0.1! Not only has it returned, but I’ve improved it. In fact I’ve corrected all of the problems I listed above. Your background color preferences is now remembered across all upgrades, and you can see the effects of changing the background color without restarting the browser. There is still no background color by default, but any user that wants to change it will now be able to do so in the CyberSearch settings.

Hopefully this will please everyone, and I apologize to anyone that was upset by me removing this feature. Just take a deep breath… everything will be okay now, I promise. *arms extended waiting for a great big hug*

Grab CyberSearch 1.0.1

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Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 Gets Great Review

This article was written on May 30, 2006 by CyberNet.

Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 Gets Great Review

PC Magazine just reviewed Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0 and gave it 4.5/5! You might think that you don’t feel like paying for a firewall when Windows XP SP2 has one built into it, but this one is FREE. PC Magainze also tagged it as an Editor’s Choice and this is the overview that they gave of Comodo:

Comodo Personal Firewall is a kick-ass free firewall. It keeps hackers out and tricky unauthorized programs off the Internet. And it resists being terminated. It works as well as all but the best for-pay firewalls and did I mention it’s free?

It looks like it is a good piece of software and if you want to learn more about it then visit the Comodo Firewall Homepage or read the rest of the PC Magazine review.

Comodo Personal Firewall Homepage
Read PC Magazine’s Review

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Vista Transformation Pack 6 for Windows XP/2003 Released…Wow!

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

Vista Transformation Pack 6

What a Christmas present this was! Vista Transformation Pack 6 was just released yesterday with all kinds of new goodies including 3rd-party applications for providing features like Taskbar thumbnail previews and a remarkable sidebar just like Vista’s. In case you are unfamiliar with this application I will forewarn you that there is a tendency for it not to uninstall all the way in case you decide that you don’t like it. I think most of the time the problem lies within replacing the icons with the old Windows XP ones, but I have personally never had issues.

With that being said I want to give credit to “Windows X” for making this release better than all previous versions. After installing the Vista Transformation Pack you’ll notice that all of the following have been changed to appear more like Vista:

  • Boot screen
  • Welcome Screen / Logon Screen
  • New msstyles files (visual styles)
  • New desktop and file icons
  • New toolbar icons
  • Progress Dialogs
  • Sounds scheme
  • System Tray icons
  • New Wallpapers
  • Windows Media Player Skins

 Besides for bug fixes, here is a list of what’s new in version 6:

  • Additional Vista related applications:
    • Vista Sidebar
    • VisualTooltip (Taskbar thumbnail view and also have docking mode)
    • Styler with Kaye Irene’s Vista Perfection X4 Styler Toolbar
    • Start Orb (fix cutting edge start orb in msstyles)
    • Vista Live Messenger RC skin
  • Applying Vista setup screen transformation in setup integration
  • Browsable System files source for uninstallation so user can restore original system files from setup CD during uninstallation
  • Display configuration for the best view of machine’s display
  • Fixing file’s PE checksum after resource patching to keep files more secure
  • Launch & Maintenance Center in transformation destination in case user already have transformed the system
  • Partially x64 support for Vista visual stuff but not for system files (experimental)
  • Option to reserved updated system files after uninstallation or not
  • Skipping system file verification patch on setup integration
  • Vista RTM system applications transformation:
    • Photo printing wizard
    • Remote Desktop Connection
    • Volume Control
    • Windows Task Manager
    • System Restore
    • Connection Manager
    • Windows Update Client
    • Media Center

Those of you attempting to upgrade from a previous version of Vista Transformation Pack shouldn’t have a problem, but if you do please mention it in the comments so others know what to expect. This application is so close to Vista that I bet you could trick 99% of the population that don’t have hands-on experience with Vista. So if you are looking to give your XP machine a fresh new look you should check out the new Vista Transformation Pack 6!

View Larger Screenshots

Download FAST from FileHo (I setup this mirror because their mirrors were going slow)
Download from SendSpace, SaveFile, or SoftVisia.

Discussion at JCXP.net

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Notepad++ 4.0 Now Available!


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

Notepad ++

Notepad++ is definitely my favorite Notepad replacement because of the extensive features that it has built-in. A lot of applications are going to tabbed interfaces these days and Notepad++ realized the importance of this early on, which is actually why I started using it in the first place. Being able to have multiple documents open in the same window is a huge plus not to mention how much room it saves on your Taskbar.

Version 4 brings some new goodies to the table  and now includes the Explorer plug-in pictured on the left-side in the screenshot above. It actually lets you navigate your hard drive so that you can easily open up the documents without fussing with a popup window. Besides for that there are a lot of bug fixes so the upgrade is highly recommended:

  • Fix the crash issue.
  • Add Docking feature for plugin dialogs.
  • Fix the bug that current “open” and “save as” directory are unchanged with the shortcut Ctrl+Tab.
  • Fix the bug that the new added languages in v3.9 can not be hidden from the language menu.
  • Fix the volatile search direction bug.
  • Fix the Tab display problem.
  • Add Haskell, InnoSetup languages support.
  • Add the option to open/save files in the last operation directory.
  • Enhance Document switcher (MRU and switch crossing view abilities).
  • Fix “Find Next” unicode bug for Find Replace Dialog.
  • Support Unicode in displayed result of Find in files & Find in all opened files.
  • Add Reload from disk feature.
  • Fix bug : quite (close or restart Windows) without prompt to save.
  • All the shortcuts of plugins commands are customizable via the shortcut mapper

If you’re a programmer then you’ll surely love Notepad++ with its syntax highlighting. It supports all kinds of languages including C++, Java, PHP, HTML, ASP, and much more. When you’re just trying to make a quick edit, whether it be to source code or any text document, there is nothing better than to have Notepad++ a click away!

Download Notepad++ 4.0 (Mirror)

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Maps And Satellite Imagery Simultaneous Overlay


This article was written on December 09, 2005 by CyberNet.

Google Maps

While using the Google Maps API you can view the satellite images from Google Maps with the map view overlaid on top! This is not run by Google but does use the Google Maps Engine. For my home the overlay is flawless – it perfectly matches up.

Click Here To View Site

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