Oct 21

Three Of The My Dream App Finalists Revealed

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

My Dream App Mac

If you haven’t heard of the My Dream App Contest then you are probably not a Mac user. This contest was cleverly started with the hopes of bringing someone’s dream application to reality. They’ll pick out 24 finalists from the 2700+ entries that they have received and here are the first three that they are presenting to us:

  • Herald is an RSS feed aggregator that lets users package news from their favorite sites sharing a topic together as a virtual newspaper, with different sections of the newspaper representing separate RSS feeds. Herald features an iWeb style, easy to use interface for creating these newspapers, and makes it just as easy to share them and download other people’s creations. You can read the full idea here and check out Bogumil’s first blog post here.
  • Stick-It is a modern update to the Stickies apps of old. Forget about their current implementation. Stick-It attempts to recreate how we really use stickies, by allowing users to stick relevant notes all over OS X, whether it is on apps, within menus, or attached on the desktop. Need to email someone? Add a sticky to Mail. Have someone you need to talk to? Place a sticky in your iChat buddy list. And Stick-It allows for much, much more. You can read the full idea here and check out Anders’ first blog post here.
  • Desktop Wars brings the battlefield to your desktop, and is one of the few activities where the procrastinators win. With Desktop Wars, control armies of troops via mouse controls, voice commands, or even by shaking your motion-sensing laptop, and play several modes including capture the base and skirmish. The real fun of course begins when Desktop Wars is played on the network, and you attempt to take over your friends’ desktops. You can read the full idea here, and check out Andrew’s first blog post here.

The first bunch of finalists sound like they could turn out to be very promising programs. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a contest like this startup for Windows or Linux apps. Developers get a quick idea of what people are looking for and the how highly demanded it is.

After the 24 finalists have been chosen they will put the decision in the hands of the public. The top 3 voted applications will then be turned into real applications. I’m not a Mac user but this is pretty fun to watch.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

Microsoft To Stop Offering Windows Vista Beta 2 Tomorrow

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Windows

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

Microsoft To Stop Offering Windows Vista Beta 2 Tomorrow

Not many people realized this but Microsoft has limited the number of downloads for Vista Beta 2 and the limit has almost been reached. Here is what the Microsoft blogger had to say about it:

In case you weren’t aware, we are only providing a limited number of copies of Windows Vista Beta 2–either download or physical copies–and we’re fast approaching the cutoff point. What this means is–if you want to get a copy, get it now (and I mean now).

What he also mentioned was that you need to download Beta 2 and activate it to make sure you are a tester for Vista RC1 when it is released in the coming months. If you have been holding off on downloading it then you better do it soon because tomorrow (Friday) is approaching quickly!

The Microsoft blogger said that the Office 2007 team has had similar thoughts about breaking access to the download but they are going to hold off for the time being.

News Source: CNet

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 21

FTP Rush: A Free Windows FTP Client

Posted in: Freeware, Software, sync, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on October 26, 2010 by CyberNet.

desktop ftp client.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
When it comes down to free FTP clients for Windows there are only a handful of them I ever hear people talk about. Normally they consist of apps like FileZilla or WinSCP, and some people just stick to the standard Windows Explorer if they are only connecting to FTP sites. I came across a different app the other day that I’d definitely put on par with apps like FileZilla. That app is FTP Rush.

This free app comes from a company that also makes a paid and more feature-packed FTP client, but their free alternative should be more than suitable for most of your needs. Here’s a list of some key features for the app:

  • Supports FXP – Site-to-Site transfers
  • Tabbed interface and multiple connections
  • Supports FTP, FTPS, TFTP and SFTP (FTP over SSH).
  • GUI Customization and Integrated Docking
  • Drag-And-Drop files via Explorer-like interface
  • Automated transfer by writing FTP scripts
  • Built-in Task Manager including Synchronize
  • Supports HTTP Proxy, Socks 4&5
  • Fast SFV checking on client side
  • Supports Unicode/UTF8 charset
  • Supports UPnP Port-mapping
  • On-The-Fly Mode Z Compression
  • High performance Disk Buffer
  • Caching folders speeds your browsing
  • Keep alive your FTP connections
  • Smart Skip & Allow transfer
  • Row color and highlights
  • Super fast file search

What actually surprised me a bit was that they actually include a portable version of the app weighing in under 10MB once extracted on your machine. I haven’t seen a lot of cases where the developer of the FTP program also supplies a portable version, which made this a nice touch. I think the interface could use a little work, but I find that’s the case with most of the FTP clients.

FTP Rush Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Oct 21

Mozilla Still Plans On Tabbed Messages For Thunderbird 2

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

This article was written on November 13, 2006 by CyberNet.

Thunderbird 2 Mozilla has been taking a little longer than I expected to complete Thunderbird 2 which is in the Pre-Beta stage right now. It has been that way for nearly two-months and Firefox 2 has already been released. I thought that Mozilla would have tried to push version 2 out for both Thunderbird and Firefox at the same time but that doesn’t look like it will be happening. :)

The Thunderbird 2 roadmap was just updated a week ago and says that it should be released the first quarter of 2007. That still gives them plenty of time to throw in some features that haven’t yet made the nightly builds and it looks as though one of the features will be tabbed emails:

  • Tools for organizing and managing e-mail
    • Custom Folder Pane Views such as favorites, unread and recently used.
    • Message Tagging
    • Tabbed Messages
  • Be Informative
    • New Mail Alert Improvements
    • Folder Summary Popups
  • Help Fight Junk Mail
    • Improve the current Bayesian based algorithm
    • Token Store Pruning / Aging

I have been using the nightly releases of Thunderbird for quite awhile now and they are remarkably stable. I like the new Mail Alert but tabbed messages will no doubt be my favorite feature when they release it.

I do hope that Mozilla plans to release some updates to both Firefox and Thunderbird soon for applying the partial updates for the programs in Windows Vista. I recently decided to re-enable the User Account Control (UAC) because there aren’t too many things that I do anymore to initiate the annoying prompts. So I figured for the sake of security I would give it another shot. However, in order for Firefox or Thunderbird to apply the nightly updates I have to be running the programs as an administrator. I don’t mind receiving the UAC prompt each time I am updating either program but right now there is no such prompt and the update silently fails. I’m sure Mozilla will be fixing this soon I just hope that it is before the business launch of Vista at the end of November.

Thanks to “Jack of all Trades” for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Comical: A Desktop Reader for Online Comics

Posted in: Freeware, reader, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on March 03, 2010 by CyberNet.

comical.png
(Click to Enlarge)

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Reading web comics can really brighten your day, and there is no question that XKCD is one of my personal favorites. Sometimes a quick little comic that takes less than a minute to read can actually put a smile on your face, and the free Windows app called Comical aims to make the most of those minutes.

What makes Comical so awesome is that it not only aggregates all your favorites into one list, but it can also archive them for offline reading. You can specify the interval that you want to check for new comics (or you can do it manually), and a little green icon will appear next to the ones that have new content. A simple double-click on that particular comic will open and save it off to your computer so that they can be viewed even when you aren’t near an Internet connection. It would be even better if it could also download the new comics during an update check, but that might be a feature we’ll see in a future release.

If you don’t mind diving into some XML you can also add your own comics. In the XML you’ll specify the URL of the page that always has the latest comic as well as a simple regular expression that matches the format of the comic’s filename. So you can actually customize this to grab new images from just about any site.

Aside from all that the app is actually rather simple. You can create lists of your favorites so that you can make sure those get read first, and there are some settings you can customize… such as how file archiving, whether you want to be notified if there are updates, and so on. If you’re against all forms of laughter this is a good time to move along, otherwise proceed with the free download.

Comical Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

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Oct 20

Mozilla Gets the Green in 2005

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

Firefox money Ever since Firefox became a hit Mozilla has really been raking in the money. Actually, that is an understatement…they are pretty much bathing in money.

In 2005 the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation combined had revenue from all sources of $52.9M. $29.8M of this was associated with the Foundation (both before and after the creation of the Corporation). The bulk of this revenue was related to our search engine relationships, with the remainder coming from a combination of contributions, sales from the Mozilla store, interest income, and other sources. These figures compare with 2003 and 2004 revenues of $2.4M and $5.8M respectively, and reflect the tremendous growth in the popularity of Firefox after its launch in November 2004.

I would say $52.9 million in 2005 is not too shabby. Yes, that says 2005 because their 2006 numbers have not been released yet. If they experience the same amount of growth as they did from 2004 to 2005 (which is probably unlikely), then they will have earned more than $480 million in 2006! Employees are not taking all of this home despite what you were thinking. In fact, Mozilla only spent $8.2 million of the $52+ million earned in 2005 and they put the rest in the bank:

The combined expenses of the Mozilla Foundation and Corporation were approximately $8.2M in 2005, of which approximately $3M was associated with the Foundation. By far the biggest portion of these expenses went to support the large and growing group of people dedicated to creating and promoting Firefox, Thunderbird, and other Mozilla open source products and technologies. The rate of expenses increased over the year as new employees came on board. The unspent revenue provides a reserve fund that allows the Mozilla Foundation flexibility and long term stability.

I am really excited to see partnerships between Web browsers and search engines because it offers the developers an incentive to make a great browser, all while remaining free to the consumer. Browsers like Opera and Flock both have partnerships with search engines to be compensated for any ad revenue generated by users utilizing the built-in search box within the browser.

Below I have two buttons for those people who decide that they don’t want to support Mozilla in this way. Some people might donate money and feel that Mozilla should not receive a revenue from performing the searches, so I have made it easy to remove the referrer from the URL from the search box (you can also manually modify the google.xml file in the Firefox installation folder). The first button, “Replace Existing Google Search,” will only work if you delete the existing Google search engine first because it has the same name (“Google”). The second button, “Add Additional Google Search,” will add another search engine to your current list with the name “Google-R” which stands for “minus referrer.” That way you can always switch back and forth between the two options.

Note: Firefox is still capable of showing suggestions while you type if you use these.

I do recommend that you leave Mozilla as a referrer because it allows you to support them without you having to fork out any money. Thanks to Mozilla for making such a great browser…you have definitely earned every penny!

News Source: Mozilla Foundation

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Open Large Text Files or Logs

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

This article was written on September 17, 2010 by CyberNet.

open large text files.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I regularly find myself in a situation where I have to open large text or log files, and trying to view them using the built-in Windows Notepad will return a message saying that the “file is too large for Notepad”. Heck, sometimes my trusty Notepad++ can’t even handle them. When it comes down to files that are over a couple gigabytes I have to turn to a text editor that is a bit more reliable, and the one I’ve been using lately is called Large Text File Viewer.

This free application requires no installation, and is more than capable of handling those enormous files that other programs cringe at. I tested this with a 1GB file that had over 12 million lines, and I was able to start viewing the contents of the file in under a second. It then progressively loaded all 12 million lines over the next minute.

One important thing that makes this application useable for me is how smooth the scrolling is throughout the file. Sometimes when viewing a large text file it becomes extremely choppy to try and scroll through it, but with this viewer that is nowhere near being an issue. Opening a 1GB file and scrolling through it doesn’t feel much different than opening a simple text file in notepad that is less than a few megabytes in size.

Here are some of the features that Large Text File Viewer has to offer:

  • Designed for viewing large (>1GB) text files.
  • Uses very little memory (around 8-10MB on my system) and the executable is just 572KB in size.
  • Background file indexing makes browsing even faster.
  • It opens files that are currently being written to by other programs, and automatically checks and reads the files if new contents have been appended.
  • You can split the view either horizontally or vertically, and have each side show different portion of the same file.
  • It allows the user to perform high-speed complex text search by means of plain text or regular expression. (Note: The regular expression syntax is slightly different than normal)
  • For CSV (Comma Separated Value) files, when the user hovers the mouse over any field in the file, a hint automatically appears with the field name.
  • Customizable appearance (background, text color, etc…)
  • Automatic detection of URLs (HTTP, FTP and email addresses).

If you’re trying to open or view large text files and logs then this is definitely an app you’ll want to have around.

Large Text File Viewer Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

WordPress 2.1 Ella Released – Over 550 Bug Fixes

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

This article was written on January 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

WordPress 2.1 Ella has been released, and it’s ready for download.  With over 550 bug fixes, and quite the list of new features, it should definitely be worth the upgrade.  There are too many features to list,(view the complete list here) but here are some that caught my eye:

  • Autosave- This should prevent you from ever losing a post again! We use Window’s Live Writer for writing our posts, but previously to that we wrote our posts in the online editor.  There were several times that the browser would unexpectedly crash. Post gone. This should prevent that.
  • Tabbed editor: This allows you to switch views between your code editing, and WYSIWYG. Nice edition.
  • Improved visual editor- now includes spell checking!
  • Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project
  • Upload manager lets you easily manage all of your uploaded pictures, video, and audio
  • Akismet plugin – a new version of this spam protector built right in!

There’s also a list of developer features that will allow for a new generation of plugins with richer elements like  image and thumbnail API, and a custom header, color picker, and image cropping framework.

As they plan for the future, they’re asking what the community wants to see.  The most popular ideas are pictured in the screenshot below.  The most popular ideas include plugin update notification, tags, and thumbnail and image resizing.

 

We’re in the process of upgrading, and will probably have it completed later tonight when traffic slows down a bit.  You can download the latest version here.

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Oct 20

CyberWare: GOM Player Plays All Of Your Videos

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on September 02, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNet's CyberWare
Tracking Down Great Software For You!

GOM Media Player Do you have a hard time finding a media player that has all of the codecs that you need? GOM Player will solve those problems and many more. It can support formats like AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF, and the list keeps going!

Are you in the middle of downloading a movie or do you have a broken AVI file? GOM Player can play files that are missing frames and it will just skip them when they are found…making the video as seamless as possible. If that doesn’t sound sweet enough then maybe some of these other features will push you over the edge:

  • Editable Skins
  • HTTP streaming
  • Drag-and-drop support
  • Subtitling
  • Overlay mixer
  • Key remapping
  • Enhanced filter rendering
  • Rebuilding for AVI files
  • Real-time index

I didn’t find out about this player until a few weeks ago when a friend told me about it. Ever since I haven’t been able to go back to using anything else. Sure it is great that it has the huge list of codecs built-in but you’ll love how fast it runs.

Cost: FREE
Download GOM Player

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 20

Mozilla Firefox 3 Alpha 2 Released!

Posted in: Apple, Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Microsoft, Pre-Release, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

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

FF3A2

Mozilla has just released the English version of Firefox 3 Alpha 2 (codename Gran Paradiso) and it is the first release of Firefox that passes the Acid 2 test. Well, it is still a pre-release version but it is on its way to be the final version that will be released later this year. If you haven’t heard by this point, the big thing with Firefox 3 is replacing the rendering engine with Cairo…which has improved a lot of things including how it scales images. Here is a list of what’s new from the Firefox 3 Alpha 2 release notes:

  • Core layout code affecting the calculation of widths in tables, floats, and absolutely positioned elements has been rewritten. The code for handling incremental layout of pages (as data arrives over the network, as images load, or as dynamic changes are made) has also been changed extensively.
  • Resolved remaining issues with ACID2 test compliance.
  • Support for the Web Apps 1.0 API for changing stylesheets.
  • The inline-block and inline-table values of CSS 2.1’s display property are now implemented.
  • XML documents can now be rendered as they’re downloaded instead of only after the full document has been loaded.
  • Greatly improved Mac widgets support since Alpha 1.
  • Improvements in the Cairo graphics layer.

I’m definitely excited about this release, but I just can’t bring myself to switch to this as my primary browser at this point because my GMarks extension doesn’t work. I know that I could just use the built-in bookmarking system but it is always nice to have my bookmarks available wherever I go. I’ve contacted the extension developer and he is currently looking into it, and once that gets fixed I plan on permanently switching over.

So what does the future look like for Firefox 3? As of right now the Alpha releases will be every 6 weeks or so, but they do not mention exactly how many of them they plan on doing. That puts us at the End of March before we see the next Alpha release and my estimation for the final release date is sometime this summer (probably the June/July timeframe). It will definitely be fun to see what the future has in store for us!

Note: In case anyone is wondering Places has not been put back in yet.

Portable Firefox 3 Alpha 2 for Windows
Windows: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 exe
Mac OS X: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 dmg
Linux: Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 tar.gz

Thanks to natmaster for the tip!

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