Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 06, 2006 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has finally released Expression Web Beta 1 and it is calling your name. Don’t you hear it? No? I guess you’re a Dreamweaver user then.

Everyone knows that FrontPage is a simple tool to use but the code it generates is beyond ugly. If you never look under-the-hood and don’t care about standards then it probably serves you just fine.

If you think you’ll give Expression Web Designer a try then you should know before hand that it primarily supports XML, ASP.NET and XHTML. I’m really big on working with PHP right now so it doesn’t work out too well for me.

To get this up and running you will either need Windows Vista or XP SP2. It might be a little tough to meet the hardware requirements though:

• 233MHz or higher processor
• 128MB of RAM or higher
• 400MB of available hard disk space
• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution

Is it even possible to do Web design on an 800 x 600 resolution monitor? That would be horrid with the amount of space the toolbars and sidebars already occupy.

Tour and Demo of Expression Web Designer.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Download Microsoft Expression Web Designer CTPMicrosoft To Begin Charging For Office Beta 2Download The Official Version Of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 PreviewMicrosoft Releases Windows Defender Beta 2Microsoft To Release Office 12 Technical Beta In March

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

I have come to love the free nLite application very much because of the dozens of times that I have had to install Windows XP. It allowed me to enter things like my Windows XP product key along with my preferences so that I could stick the CD in, get the installation started, and then walk away. I never completely understood why Microsoft made you enter in the serial number and select some of the preferences in the middle of the installing Windows, but it sure was frustrating. Not only that, but by using nLite you are able to slipstream hotfixes and service packs into your Windows installation to prevent hundreds of Windows Updates from needing to be downloaded when you get done installing Windows.

One thing that I commend Vista on is that the installation screen looks like something beyond the days of DOS and it is also more productive. It asks you for the required information up front so that you don’t have to worry about the installation pausing halfway through to wait for your input. All Vista asks you for before the installation process is the serial number and which hard drive you would like to install the operating system on. You don’t even have to enter in a serial number…in that case you’ll be asked which version you would like to install, and you’ll have 30-days to activate Vista with a valid serial number. I really like that feature because people can tinker around with the different versions until they find the one that is right for them…and then they can confidently purchase it.

Vista’s setup process only took me 15 to 20 minutes which is half of what it takes XP, and I find that to be very impressive. One of the best things that I love about Vista is that it has the SATA drivers included, which always made installing Windows XP a pain for me. Before I would have to insert a floppy before starting the Windows XP installation so that it would be able load my SATA drivers to recognize my hard drives, but that is because the SATA technology is still a little new (started around 2003).

While I am grateful that Microsoft at making Vista’s installation much more painless there are still some things that many of us don’t need to be installed. For that reason there is a new version of nLite, called vLite, that will allow you to customize a lot of what gets installed in Vista by default. With how well Vista’s new installer handles itself this might not be something that you need right now, but as more Windows Updates are released this might be a great solution to making the Vista installation a little less painful. Looking at the changelog for vLite also says that there is an option to force the Aero Glass effects as well, but to my knowledge the known registry tweak to do this stopped working in early 2006 when Microsoft removed the registry option so I’m not sure if this would really work.

Note: 64-bit versions of Vista are supported in vLite, but the application is still in the Beta stage.

Thanks for the tip Tito!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Daily Downloads: Joomla and vLiteDaily Downloads: Miro, Songbird, and MoreCyberWare: Create An Unattended Windows Installation Using nLiteDaily Downloads: QuickTime, Skype, and MoreDaily Downloads: Firefox, FeedDemon, Paint.NET, and More

This article was written on October 01, 2009 by CyberNet.

A few weeks ago we wrote about a free audio converter that was pretty nice, but when installing the app it tries to also put a bunch of third-party software on your machine. I made sure to point this out, but our readers stepped up and mentioned several other apps that are both free and clean. One of them, called winLAME, was recommended by Ian and really caught my attention. Not only is it free, but it’s also open source.

There were a few reasons why I really liked this app. First, it already has support for Windows 7. Second, it has presets for people looking for no-brainer audio conversion in addition to custom settings for people looking for more control. It’s basically a four-step process: Select your input file(s), select your output settings, choose from one of the quality presets or customize the advanced settings, and then let it go to town. And not only can it convert your audio files, but it can also rip CD’s.

Here’s a more complete list of features and supported formats:

• Encoding and decoding of many audio formats, including:
  • .mp3 via LAME mp3 encoder (encoding) and MAD (decoding)
  • .ogg Ogg Vorbis
  • .aac via libfaac/libfaad
  • .wav, .aiff, .au, .voc and many more, via libsndfile
  • .wma via Windows Media Audio codec
  • .flac via FLAC library
• Uses LAME features, including:
  • high quality and optimized mp3 encoding
  • nogap encoding of continuous-mix-cd’s
  • optimized 3DNow! and SSE routines
  • ID3 v1 and v2 tagging
• Easy-to-use wizard-like user interface style for easy encoding setup
• CD Audio extraction (aka. CD ripping), including freedb support
• Presets for fast settings setup
• User interface translations to english and german language
• Batch Processing
• Detailed HTML Help File
• Easy install- and uninstall process
• Small size

If you’ve got some audio files to convert this is one app that I highly recommend downloading.

winLAME Homepage
Thanks Ian!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Super Is the Ultimate Video ConverterSUPER 2009 Video Converter ReleasedFree PDF to Word Converter (PDF to DOC)Free Audio Converter (eg. M4A to MP3)Convert & Extract Audio from Videos

This article was written on February 12, 2008 by CyberNet.

It’s that time again! We haven’t seen a Firefox 3 Beta release in nearly 2-months, and I’m sure many of you are ready to jump on this download. The Windows build features some of the new icons (back, forward, refresh, etc…), and checkout the Bookmarks Toolbar if you start wondering where the heck the Home icon disappeared to. I guess Mozilla thinks that the Home icon makes more sense when it is in your bookmarks?

Also in the screenshot above you can see the new section that has been integrated into the Add-ons Manager. Now you’re able to search and install extensions into Firefox without ever having to open a website. I think most experienced Firefox users will still stick with the official add-ons site since you’re able to sort the results and whatnot, but this was a smart move by Mozilla to expose new users to extensions.

Last, and definitely not least, is the new section in the Status Bar that displays the status of all your downloads. It tells you how many active downloads you have, the time remaining for them to complete, and clicking on it will bring up the download manager. And then it will disappear when the downloads have completed restoring your precious space in the Status Bar. *applause* I’ve got to hand it to Mozilla for adding this feature because little things like this is what makes a browser great.

Okay, now it’s your turn to try it out! Mozilla hasn’t updated the official Beta site yet, but the necessary files have been added to the FTP. Our downloader, as always, balances the load across all the servers that are hosting the setup file which eases the burden on Mozilla’s servers. So download until your heart is content:

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Daily Downloads: Firefox, TweakVista, and MoreFirefox 3 Beta 3 Coming with a Big New FeatureMozilla Wants To Hear Your Opinion On The New ThemeDownload The Firefox 1.x Classic ThemeNo Firefox 2 Beta 2 Until August 15

This article was written on August 28, 2007 by CyberNet.

The WordPress development team is on the home stretch to releasing the next milestone! WordPress 2.3 is scheduled for an official release on September 20, and right now they are looking for people to test out the first Beta.

Before we tell you what’s new in WordPress 2.3 we wanted to clarify that this is a Beta release of the blogging platform. It probably shouldn’t be used on any production sites, and the development team has requested that those who participate in the Beta feel "comfortable troubleshooting PHP issues, filing tickets, and backing up your data religiously." Not only that but the new version might possibly break some of your existing plugins.

Okay, here’s a sneak peek at WordPress 2.3 features:

• Tag Posts
  
• Import Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) tags or convert select categories to tags
  
• Improved Post and Draft Management using filters
• Improved publishing workflow with a new post status of Pending Review
• WordPress and plugins upgrades available notification
• Terms tables (combined post categories/link categories/tags)
• Canonicalize more URLs
  
• Upgrade to "800% faster" jQuery (1.1.4), and some parts of the WordPress dashboard have been converted to jQuery.
• MovableType/TypePad and WordPress Importers memory usage has been greatly improved
• Several bundled libraries were updated to the latest versions. TinyMCE is now at 2.1.1.1, Prototype is at 1.5.1, and script.aculo.us is at 1.7.1 beta 2. More updates to script.aculo.us and an update for TinyMCE Spellchecker are on the way.
• The files in wp-admin were reorganized to make things easier to find.

The new tagging system is a bit of a disappointment right now. It’s extremely basic, and I would have liked to see it recommend existing tags based upon the content of the article. Not only that but there is no way to know what tags you’ve already created, which makes it hard to know whether I’ve already created a similar tag.

After WordPress 2.3 is released in about 3-weeks work will begin on the next version. There was some discussion in the mailing list about bumping the version number up to "3." Mark Jaquith, a contributing developer to WordPress, had this to say about WordPress 3:

There is one nice solution for the "marketing problem" that I keep throwing out there every couple months: WordPress 2008. Do it like a sports video game franchise does it. For multiple releases within a year, we can do WordPress 2007.2 or WordPress 2007b. This works well with our new 4-month cycle. And people will be made aware of exactly how long it has been since they’ve upgraded.

The problem with skipping numbers is that before you know it, you’re shipping WordPress 14.5, which just reeks of version inflation. What makes good marketing sense for 2.2-to-3.0 bites you in the ass down the road.

My first choice, though is to stick with 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 until we’re ready to rewrite 50% of the code and really break stuff for a groundbreaking, spoon-bending, mind-blowing 3.0 release.

So don’t expect to see WordPress 3 anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that the development team won’t be adding new features in the upcoming versions. Keeping with their 4-month release schedule, WordPress 2.4 is currently scheduled for December 12, 2007 and WordPress 2.5 is expected on April 1, 2008.

Get WordPress 2.3 Beta 1

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

WordPress 2.0 Has Officially Been ReleasedCritical Upgrade Available for WordPress 2.1.1 Users!WordPress 2.6 Utilizes Google Gears for Better PerformanceOpera 9 Beta 2 Available For DownloadDaily Downloads: Rainlendar, WordPress, and More