Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on October 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

Being the geeks that we are I’m sure you’ve tried at one time or another to create some sweet ASCII art. When you look at some of the ASCII art that has been done it almost looks like it should be simple, but there is an insane amount of time that is spent getting the spacing and character density just right.

You can now be the envy of all your geeky followers friends by generating your very own gallery of ASCII art. We’re not talking something as simple as the last trick we showed you either, instead this is a full-blown software application. It’s called ASCII Generator, and I found out about it today while doing our Daily Downloads. After I looked into it I knew that I had to give it a shot.

The nice thing is that ASCII Generator is an open source project, and doesn’t require any installation to run it. Once you have loaded an image into the generator it will pump a bunch of text into the main content area. There is the “Size” option on the top toolbar that can be used to decide how many characters are on every line, and the more characters you have the more detail you’ll see.

Once you’ve got all of the settings adjusted you’ll be able to save your artwork as an image or text file. The sweet thing is that it also adds color to the text to help give the ASCII art a more photo-like effect.

Below you’ll see an image that I converted of an extremely colorful garden. I set the Size as large as it would go so that I could capture as much detail in the photo as possible. Think about how long it would have taken to make something like that without the generator.

ASCII Generator Homepage
Download Page

Here’s a garden that I converted (click to enlarge)

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Ouch. Over the weekend, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen tweeted that a new firmware was imminent for the Boxee Box, and given that we’d all been led to believe that both Netflix and Vudu support were inbound shortly, the natural expectation was… well, natural. Late last night the company went live with a new build, but it was pulled from existence within a few hours. According to Boxee’s blog post, the new update adds enhancements to control de-interlacing and video filters configuration, support for language selection in subtitle / audio, boosted browser performance and about 812 bug fixes. That’s the good news. The bad news is two threefold: there’s nary a mention of Netflix support, and while the team is just about there with Vudu, it’s also remaining off of the list for this particular update. Moreover, the devs noticed such major issues that the software was yanked from the servers only hours after it was posted, and judging by official comments in the source link below, things still aren’t totally ironed out. Translation? Hold tight for now, tough as it may be.

Boxee Box firmware gets updated, pulled — still no Netflix and Vudu originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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

Microsoft has added a spiffy new look to the Office Online site. I am really impressed with the new layout and the most prominent feature has to be the simulated “Ribbon” to match the one that several Office 2007 applications will have. As you browse through the various pages you’ll also begin to notice that there is a new color scheme for each different tab.

Their list of new features includes:

• Redesigned interface
• New content
• Improved help and search
• New template communities
• Clip art
• And more!

They say that there is new content but I don’t notice anything different, but then again I can’t say I visited the site that often. I typically only used it to look for a few good templates to get things done a little quicker, but other than that I didn’t really peruse around the different pages.

Microsoft has been making a lot of changes to their sites in order to prepare for the big Vista and Office 2007 release day that is the last day of the month for businesses. Last week they redesigned the Windows Vista Team Blog with a completely new look that made it appear to be something straight out of Vista, and now the new Office site shows that they are really trying to get prepared. The excitement continues to build!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on January 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One of the most valuable pieces of data your browser can hold are your bookmarks. For some people it’s not only important to access your bookmarks no matter where you’re at, but also from whatever browser you are using. That’s why today we are taking a look at some different ways you’ll be able to sync bookmarks between the different browsers.

Something I spent a lot of time doing was hunting around for a solution that would work in several different browsers, instead of just Firefox and Internet Explorer. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot I could find because some browsers, like Opera, don’t make it easy for third-party bookmarking services to be integrated.

Luckily Opera 9.5 (currently in the Beta stage) will include bookmark synchronization with Opera’s own servers. What I would like to see is Opera open up their bookmarking service and create an API that other developers could use. That way their service could become the one-stop shop for remote & cross-browser bookmark synchronization. But until that happens here are some alternative solutions:

–FavoriteSync & PlainOldFavorites–

PlainOldFavorites is a Firefox extension that gives users direct access to the Internet Explorer Favorites. With it you can access, add, and organize your favorites from within Firefox. Once installed this will add a new menu option that will be adjacent to your existing Firefox Bookmarks menu, and the two bookmarking systems are always kept separate from each other.

You can make the system even more powerful if you combine it with the free FavoriteSync utility. This will synchronize your Internet Explorer Favorites with a remote server so that the bookmarks can be accessed from any computer.

–Del.icio.us–

Del.icio.us is one of the most popular online bookmarking services, and they offer a variety of tools that integrate with it. There is an add-on for Internet Explorer, a Firefox extension, and bookmarklets that should work in the other browsers.

I’ve tried out Del.icio.us before, but for some reason it never really struck me as all that great. It’s nice that your bookmarks are accessible from any browser via their website, but I just don’t feel like I have the control over my bookmarks that I would like to have. I guess you could say that I’m more of a folder guy rather than a tagger.

–Diigo–

Diigo is really more than just a bookmarking service. In addition to letting you save and organize bookmarks, you can also clip text and images from websites. Just like Del.icio.us they have an add-on for Internet Explorer, extension for Firefox, and bookmarklets designed for the other major browsers.

Don’t shrug off the bookmarklet as a weaker version of the add-ons. Diigo’s bookmarklet is surprisingly powerful, and you’ll find almost all of the features contained within the add-ons. If you’re using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Firefox Diigo would be a perfect fit for you.

–Zinkmo–

We’ve previously written about Zinkmo and explained about how it works, so we won’t go too much in depth here. It’s an all-in-one solution for people who want to synchronize their bookmarks between Firefox and Internet Explorer…remotely! They’ll store your bookmarks on a remote server, which makes this an ideal solution for people who use one browser at home, and a different one at work.

–Google Bookmarks–

Google Bookmarks is integrated into the Google Toolbar for both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but Firefox users also have the GMarks extension for even more control. Google’s bookmarking system is similar to Del.icio.us in that it uses a labeling/tagging system for organizing the bookmarks. The tools used to display the bookmarks will transform these tags into a folder-like system.

If you’re using a browser other than Internet Explorer or Firefox just drag this bookmarklet into your bookmarks:

Google Bookmark

That bookmarklet will let you bookmark the site currently being viewed in the browser. Unfortunately the only way to view and manage your existing bookmarks is to visit the official Google Bookmarks homepage.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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This article was written on November 15, 2006 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Memory leaks seem to follow Firefox with every release but have you ever stopped to think that some of those leaks may be the cause of an extension(s) that you have installed? Many of you probably have thought about that but you haven’t taken the time to disable them one-by-one to find the culprits.

I don’t blame you because it takes some time to do that. First you have to record your memory usage after about an hour of using the browser. Then you have to disable one of the extensions and spend about another hour of browsing to see what your memory usage climbs back upto.

I take the time to do it every now and then but I typically have less than 7 extensions installed and I have found most of them to be leak-free. However, with the release of Firefox 2 I decided to give two extensions another shot after not using them for months: Tab Mix Plus and IE Tab.

I had forgotten how great Tab Mix Plus was and quickly became addicted to it all over again. After a few hours of installing the extension I noticed Firefox starting to run slow so I pulled up my memory usage and it was at 120MB! That isn’t as bad as some of you might experience but that is 40MB over my normal amount. It was hard but I determined that I would rather eliminate this memory leak so I ditched Tab Mix Plus, once again.

Next up was IE Tab. I didn’t install this simultaneously with Tab Mix Plus because I never install more than one “trial” extension at a time. After I have it installed long enough I’ll move the extension from the “trial” category to the “I think it’s a keeper” category. IE Tab was a little better than Tab Mix Plus but after around an hour of typical usage the memory meter was reading a little over 100MB which means IE Tab contributed around 20MB to the memory leaks. Needless to say I don’t use the extension that much so I decided to drop this one as well.

These memory leaks get pretty frustrating but I feel bad for the Mozilla team because so many people criticize their browser for being loaded with the leaks, when in fact the leak is often caused by an extension that the user has installed. Months ago I put together a list of extensions that are known to have leaks and IE Tab was on that list, but ironically enough Tab Mix Plus was one of the solutions to another problematic extension. I’m not sure what caused Tab Mix Plus to start leaking memory but after removing it from Firefox my memory usage returned to the 80-90MB for typical use.

Then there is always this about:config tweak that doesn’t remove the memory leaks but will free Firefox from using your physical memory as soon as you minimize the browser. Opera has this feature enabled by default and I think it is a good idea to use it in Firefox as well.

What’s the best way to start fresh and minimize the amount of memory that Firefox uses? The solution that everyone is saying works 100% is restarting Firefox, although that is just a temporary solution as well. The problem is that no one ever wants to restart Firefox because they don’t want to lose their open tabs or windows. No problem! Firefox 2 has a built-in session restore feature that can be utilized to cure that situation. Just install the Restarter extension (yes, another extension ) and it will add an option in the File menu to restart Firefox. It will automatically remember all of the tabs that you have open and even all of the windows. This is definitely a must-have extension for everyone using Firefox 2 and especially those people who are plagued with memory leaks!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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