Jan 04

CyberNotes: Style Your Sidebar with Windows Sidebar Styler

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

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

CyberNotes
Tutorial Thursday

The last several months I have been using Windows Vista, and I’ve really gotten used to having my sidebar filled with gadgets. I love that I can put nearly anything in the sidebar like games, maps, gas prices, photos, etc. While I think the sidebar looks fine the way it is, there are ways that you can tweak it to add something more to it.  One of the applications that helps you do this is called Windows Sidebar Styler.

Windows Sidebar Styler is described as an application that takes advantage of new technology introduced with Windows Vista to provide “extensions to the existing functionality of Windows Sidebar.” In other words, it allows users to tweak their Sidebar so that they’re presented with a customized interface. Today I’ll be explaining how to style your sidebar through the use of Windows Sidebar Styler and Sidebar Styles from WinCustomize.

  1. Download and install Windows Sidebar Styler. Installation is pretty typical, and only takes a few minutes. Download is found here (32–bit or 64–bit)
  2. Once the installation process is complete, head on over to Win Customize to pick-out the sidebar styler that you’d like to use. There’s two-pages to choose from, and they’ve done a great job designing them. I downloaded several of them myself to try them out.
  3. When you find one that you like, click on the image to download the file.
    Wincustomizedownload 
    You’ll want to save the file to disk because it’s a zip file and it will need to be extracted.
  4. Next, extract the file that you downloaded and double click the file in the folder (the one that’s not an image). The key thing to remember is that the Windows Sidebar Styler program you downloaded earlier does not need to be open. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.
    Wincustomize2

  5. After you double click on the file, you’ll get a message asking if you’d like to close the Windows Sidebar if it’s currently running. Click yes.
    Wincustomize3
  6. After you click yes to the above prompt, your style will be applied. Here’s an example of what my sidebar looked like with the “Cardboard” style, and the BrickWall style. They have several subtle styles, but I chose two that would stand out well.
    Chardboardstyle       Brickstyle
  7. Without the use of Windows Sidebar Styler, you wouldn’t be able to apply any of the sidebar styles that you found over at WinCustomize. So while the program doesn’t need to be open to apply a new style, it’s still necessary for you to download it and have it on your computer.
  8. If you’d like to get creative and change the individual items like the background, or the buttons in your sidebar, you can open Windows Sidebar Styler Advanced Settings and right click on any of the available image resources found in the menu and click replace. Then you can replace it with your own image.
    Note: This is really more work than what is needed. People have done a great job putting together a variety of stylers on WinCustomize that you can use. If you really want to be creative then by all means, play around with the advanced options with the Sidebar Styler program.

Changing the look for your sidebar really is a very simple process and doesn’t take much time. You could have a whole look for your Vista Sidebar within 5 minutes. Not bad!

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Jan 04

Vista Available For MSDN Subscribers 7 Days After RTM

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Windows

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

Windows Vista Microsoft plans on making Windows Vista available to MSDN subscribers just 7-days after they release it to manufacturing. That means it will be available to download around November 15, which is two weeks before businesses will even be able to get it. Here is what the MSDN site says:

Windows Vista and Office 2007 will be available through MSDN Subscriber downloads within 7 days of release to manufacture (RTM). MSDN Subscriptions is committed to making new content available to our subscribers as soon as is practical.

So, you know what question needs to be asked now…how long before Vista is leaked and cracked? I’m not sure if Microsoft was planning on making any changes to the activation mechanism before they launched or not, but I say it will be leaked within a week of it being available to MSDN subscribers and the activation will be cracked within a week of that. Any other guesses on when it will be leaked and cracked?

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Jan 04

Fuugo aggregates video content for your phone, tablet, or PC, makes it more touch-friendly

Posted in: app, Software, streaming video, StreamingVideo, Today's Chili, video

For the average consumer — the kind that doesn’t consider BitTorrent a way of life, that is — video content discovery can still be a pretty big challenge, particularly if you dare venture outside the friendly confines of YouTube and Hulu. A new service called Fuugo looks to clean that mess up a bit, offering to aggregate a variety of online services along with support for the full suite of digital over-the-air standards around the globe: one-seg for Japan and Brazil, DVB-H and DVB-T for Europe, and ATSC-M/H for North America. Fuugo’s app is tailored for devices ranging from smartphones to touchscreen all-in-one PCs, featuring what appears to be a solid UI powered by gestures — swipe to change channels, for instance — that heaps content from various online and offline sources together into one hot mess of brain-melting programming. It’s being shown off for the first time here at CES this week — we’ll be sure to track it down, but in the meantime, follow the break for the full press release along with a video preview.

Continue reading Fuugo aggregates video content for your phone, tablet, or PC, makes it more touch-friendly

Fuugo aggregates video content for your phone, tablet, or PC, makes it more touch-friendly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 03

Open/Save OpenOffice.org Files In Microsoft Office

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

This article was written on October 09, 2006 by CyberNet.

Office 2007 ODF

Many of you probably aren’t aware that Microsoft has been working on an Open Document Format (ODF) Converter for Office 2007, 2003, and XP. It will essentially allow you to import files in the Open Document Format and export them as needed.

The current release is now compatible with the Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh. Once installed it will add a menu item which can be seen in the screenshot that I took above. It appears that they currently disabled the saving capabilities so right now you can only open documents, but that is still nice.

I tested it on a 380-page OpenOffice.org Writer document that had all kinds of different formatting and it seemed to do a decent job. The conversion process took about 4-minutes and it immediately saved the file to Microsoft’s DOCX filetype. From there I can edit it at my leisure and eventually I will be able to export the document back to the ODF. Unfortunately it is not like other formats where you can open it and edit the file without having to convert it to a completely different file format.

Download the ODF Add-in for Word 2007
Download the ODF Add-in for Word 2003
Download the ODF Add-in for Word XP

At this time there are only add-ins available for Microsoft Word but they do have plans to make similar ones for PowerPoint and Excel. The final Word add-in is scheduled for release on December 30, 2006 and the other add-ins should make their way out in early 2007.

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Jan 03

Opera for tablets teased on video, bringing first public preview to CES (video)

Posted in: Android, GalaxyTab, Opera, preview, slate, Software, tablet, teaser, Today's Chili, video

As if building a top notch browser wasn’t hard enough when having to develop for both desktop and mobile, here comes Opera with a third category: tablet-specific browsers. Opera for tablets has just been teased on video, exploiting a Galaxy Tab to show off slippery smooth pinch-to-zoom functionality plus a finger-friendly landing page for all your favorite websites when opening a new window. It’s really not much to go on, but the Norwegian company is trying to hold the details until its proper public preview, which will be happening right here at CES very soon.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Opera for tablets teased on video, bringing first public preview to CES (video)

Opera for tablets teased on video, bringing first public preview to CES (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 22:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 03

CyberNotes: Opera Tips, Tricks, and Keyboard Shortcuts

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

This article was written on March 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

While I have a tendency to use the Firefox browser most of the time, I do use Opera quite a bit as well. Opera is kind of my casual browser because it is slim, efficient, and yet powerful while Firefox offers the extensibility that I need when plowing my way through hundreds of different sites I visit everyday. I don’t really get around to playing with all the different tweaks that lie under-the-hood of Opera, but I think I have some that you may not yet know about.

I’ve already covered some speed enhancements for Opera in a previous article, so the focus here is is going to be a little bit different. I’m going to dive into the opera:config which is similar to Firefox’s about:config screen. In both browsers that is where all of the hidden gems lie that most people are afraid to tinker with, and as a result you could really miss out on some great tweaks.

In my opinion Opera’s opera:config screen is a little more formal than what Firefox has to offer. To get to the configuration screen you simply have to type opera:config in the address bar and there you’ll see a bunch of categories that can be expanded to reveal corresponding settings:

Opera Config

It’s easy to get the hang of, and if you ever mess something up you can always press the “Default” button next to an option to return that setting back to its original value.

A short description for all of the settings listed on the opera:config screen can be found here, and you’ll notice on that page that all of the settings are hyperlinked. Those links will only work in Opera because they will take you directly to the that option on the configuration page. The few tweaks that I mention below also use hyperlinks to help you find the setting quickly.

—Add Thumbnail Previews to Ctrl+Tab Window Cycle—

Opera ThumbnailsThis is probably one of the cooler features for switching tabs, and for some reason it isn’t enabled by default in Opera. If you want to switch tabs in Opera you can use the Ctrl+Tab key combination to do so. It will pop open with a tab switcher that is purely text-based. The screenshot to the right was taken after I enabled a setting in opera:config to show thumbnails along with their corresponding titles.

The thing I like about this is that it only shows three thumbnails on the right-side of the list so that it doesn’t get too cluttered. The thumbnail in the middle is the one that you currently have selected, and the one above and below it are the tabs before and after it, respectively.

The thing that I don’t like about it is that there is no border at all around the tab switcher. It only has a white background that can make it a little more difficult for your eyes to visualize the boundaries.

To turn the thumbnail preview on for the tab switcher all you need to do is enter opera:config#UserPrefs|UseThumbnailsinWindowCycle into the address bar, and then check the corresponding box.

 

—Disable Opera’s BitTorrent Client—

I recently saw this configuration option over at Opera Watch, and many Opera users that I talk to say that it is nice having a BitTorrent client built-into the browser but it doesn’t work nearly as well as a standalone program. For that reason there is an opera:config setting to prevent Opera from handling BitTorrent downloads itself:

To disable the BitTorrent client in Opera:

  1. Copy and paste the following into the address bar (the URL bar): opera:config#BitTorrent|Enable
  2. Unselect “Enable”
  3. Click “Save”

To use another BitTorrent client with Opera:

  1. Go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Downloads
  2. Unselect “Hide file types opened with Opera”
  3. Type “torrent” in the Quick find box
  4. Double-click the line that looks like this: application/x-bittorrent torrent
  5. Select “Open with default application”
  6. Click “OK”

 

—Opera’s Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts—

  • Ctrl+H sends Opera to the System Tray.
  • Holding down the right mouse button and using the scroll wheel will bring up the tab switcher that is mentioned above. This makes is really easy to switch between tabs!
  • Going back and forward in Opera is really easy. To go back just hold down the right mouse button and then press the left one, or to go forward just hold down the left mouse button and press the right one.
  • Pressing the period (.) key will initiate a Find As You Type search feature just like in Firefox.
    Opera Search
  • Shift+Left Click on a tab to close it.
  • Ctrl+B will paste a URL an already copied URL onto the clipboard and press enter for you. Thanks for the tip ResearchWizard!
  • Ctrl+Z will undo the last closed tab.

 

—Cascading/Tiling Windows—

This is one thing that Firefox will never be able to do because Opera is built using a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) that lets you cascade, tile, and minimize windows all from within the window. There is an extension for Firefox that tries to replicate this feature, but it doesn’t quite cut it for me.

Actually, this is one of the biggest reasons that I use Opera in my casual browsing. If I come across two items that I want to compare I can put them side-by-side very easily with tiling. To use this feature just right-click on any tab, go to the Arrange menu, and choose the option that you want to do:

Opera Cascade

Here is what it looks like when I tile a few different windows:

Opera Tile

 

—Overview—

Opera is full of all kinds of tweaking goodness that is just waiting to be exposed. I’m sure some of you have used Opera more than me so if you know of any great tweaks please make sure to mention them in the comments so that we can all benefit from them! I’ll go ahead and leave you now with a few sites that may help you on your journey for finding more tips and tricks:

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Jan 03

Export/Import Your Firefox Livemarks With An OPML File

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

How To Export Your Firefox Livemarks To OPML FileRSS feeds are becoming the easy way for people to keep track of hundreds of Websites in minutes instead of taking the time to visit each site which could take hours. Firefox’s native support is Livemarks which creates a constantly refreshing bookmark to display the news feeds for you. If you start to get a large list of sites and want to move to another feed viewer then it could be difficult.

OPML Support is a Firefox extension that is simple yet priceless because it will allow you to export/import your bookmarks and Livemarks to/from an OPML file. Here is what the author says about the functionality:

When exporting, you can choose to export your livemarks, bookmarks, or both. When importing a file, you can choose to import only the livemarks, only the bookmarks, or all of the links listed in the file. You can also choose whether to import/export links in their folder hierarchy.

This may not be an extension that you need to use everyday but I am sure most people will find it useful every now and then.

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Jan 02

Using Firefox With Your Tablet PC

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 12, 2006 by CyberNet.

Using Firefox With Your Tablet PC

I am an avid Tablet PC user that has always been disappointed that Firefox doesn’t support the Tablet PC inputs. An extension was made awhile back (years ago) to allow Firefox users to get the ‘Tip’ functionality, but was never updated. The extension fell apart when Firefox 1.5 was released so someone else had updated it. Now, there is another update, and this time they took it a long way!

Get The GeckoTip Firefox Extension
News Source: The Tablet PCs Weblog

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Jan 02

Apple iTunes 7.1: “Safely Removing” iPod on Vista can Corrupt it!

Posted in: Apple, Freeware, itunes, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on March 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Cover Flow

Just yesterday Apple launched iTunes 7.1 which had a feature that sparked a lot of conversations on the Web. The big thing that has people talking is the full-screen Cover Flow, and other than that there isn’t much new according to their site:

Using iTunes 7.1, you can now enjoy your favorite iTunes movies, TV shows, music, and more from the comfort of your living room with Apple TV. iTunes 7.1 also supports a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options to let you decide how iTunes should sort your favorite artists, albums, and songs.

The Cover Flow (pictured above) is a cool feature because it lets you shuffle through all of your albums while displaying the album cover, and it does it in a way that is sure to leave you in awe. Making it fullscreen adds a lot more to it, but to be honest I was expecting to see a version of iTunes that was completely compatible with Vista.

I started browsing around Apple’s site and found a page that had a list of things that still doesn’t work right with Vista. They do, however, say that they are actively working with Microsoft to fix these issues:

  • Ejecting an iPod from Windows Explorer or the Windows notification area (system tray) using the “Safely Remove Hardware” feature may corrupt your iPod. To always safely eject an iPod, choose Eject iPod from the Controls menu within iTunes. If your iPod becomes corrupt, selecting your iPod in iTunes and clicking Restore in the iPod’s Summary panel should return your iPod to a working condition.
  • iTunes may display text or graphics incorrectly on your screen. Resizing the iTunes window should correct this issue.
  • Contacts from Windows Address Book may not sync with iPod.
  • iTunes remains unsupported on 64 bit editions of Windows, including Windows Vista and Windows XP x64.

The first item was what really caught my attention because I have always used the “Safely Remove Hardware” to disconnect my iPod. I haven’t tried this version of iTunes on my Vista machine yet because of the problems it still has, so I’m running it on my one and only remaining XP machine. It’s not that big of a deal because I normally don’t do much with iTunes other than sync my songs and podcasts, but it would be nice to get this up and running on my primary PC which has Vista installed.

So now I’ll cross my fingers that Vista will be added to the list of operating systems that are currently supported for the next release. While I understand that Apple is going to cater to the Mac operating system more than Windows, I would have thought that a Vista-compatible version of iTunes would have been ready when the OS launched over a month ago. I’m a little disappointed with Apple from that standpoint.

Download iTunes 7.1

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Jan 02

Remove Extra Whitespace from Text, Delete Duplicate Lines, and More

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

This article was written on November 12, 2010 by CyberNet.

clean text.png

arrow Windows Windows; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
I’m sure we’ve all come across some text we had to work with where you had to sit there removing extra line-breaks, removing duplicate lines, and other mundane tasks. I’ve seen a lot of this happen when getting poorly formatted emails that you have to turn into something halfway readable, but there are other scenarios that can be troublesome as well. Maybe you’re trying to put together a text-based version of your resumé (typically a DOC to text conversion), or even tried copying a bunch of text from a PDF file that didn’t end up transferring over very well.

CleanHaven is the free cross-platform solution. It’s not going to be a miracle worker, but I’ve come across several instances where this has saved me a surprising amount of time. I’ve even used it for copying over some Excel columns, performing a few operations on the data to make it look nice, and then copied it back over into the spreadsheet. Here are some of the different conversions/operations you can perform on any text you put into CleanHaven:

  • Case: Title Case, Sentence Case, UPPERCASE, lowercase, random case, curly quotes
  • Sort order: ascending, case-sensitive, descending, random, reverse, numerical value
  • Duplicates: remove, only duplicates, only unique
  • Remove characters: excess returns, excess spaces, linefeeds, linefeeds to returns, non-ASCII, non-letters, non-numbers, periods, punctuation, returns, returns to linefeeds, spaces, tabs
  • Personal: combine columns, combine paragraphs, email address to web URL, full name to first/last name, phone number format, salutation, UK postcodes
  • Info: only correctly-spelled words, only incorrectly-spelled words, original-spelling and result, ASCII, overall text information, value and frequency
  • Find and Replace text

cleaned text.pngOr maybe the nerd in you is trying to shine through, and you just want to see what the most frequent words are that you’ve used. Go to the Settings tab and choose the Clean By -> Word option. Then switch back to the Convert tab, check the Info box, and from the drop-down select Frequency. When you click the Clean button you should see the most frequently used words in the text you provided (as seen in the screenshot to the right). Kinda cool.

The app is free, and once you get used to all the functionality I’m sure there are even more uses you’ll find for it.

CleanHaven Homepage (Windows, Mac, and Linux; Freeware)

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