Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on February 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has started to send out emails to select individuals indicating that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is right around the corner. The email is targeted to people whom they would like to receive feedback from before they open the doors to the general public, and no specific date for the IE8 Beta release has been given.

Activewin has posted the full email that was sent out to people, but this is the only part that really matters to me:

We are nearing the launch of Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 and we will be making it available for the general public to download and test. IE8 Beta 1 is focused on the developer community, with the goal of gaining valuable feedback to improve Internet Explorer 8 during the development process.

We don’t really know what to expect from IE8 other than the fact that it will pass the Acid 2 test when running in the Super Standards Mode. The Beta version will also let users switch the user agent of the browser between IE8 and IE7 for compatibility reasons, and you won’t have to restart Internet Explorer each time you change it.

The real question is whether Microsoft can do enough in Internet Explorer 8 to prevent more users from flocking to other browsers. Personally if Internet Explorer 8 is well developed I would consider switching to it, but Microsoft would really have to impress me with features and performance. I know a lot of you have the minds set on the fact that you’ll never switch back to Internet Explorer, but I like to always keep an open mind.

The guy who runs the Internet Explorer team is going to walk through some of the features in Internet Explorer 8 at MIX08 this year, which is held on March 5th to March 7th. This seems like a good point for Microsoft to release IE8 Beta since all eyes will be on the conference, but we’ll keep you posted if an official release date emerges.

[via All About Microsoft]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

A few days ago we put together a list of the best application launchers, and as it turns out there were some that were mentioned by commenters which we had never heard of. FMsaziri mentioned one in particular, called Executor, that really caught my eye when I checked it out.

The main thing that I was really impressed with was the Keyword creation utility (screenshots are below). You can setup a keyword to do things like restart your computer, launch a program, open a website, or even have a single keyword perform multiple tasks (such as opening several sites and/or programs). Vista users will also like the fact that you can designate a keyword to always run a program as an administrator.

–Installation–

The download site has two different versions of executor available. One will install Executor onto your computer just like many other programs, but there is also a version available that doesn’t require any installation. I wanted to point out that this might appear to be a portable version at first glance, but it’s actually not. Your settings are stored in the Windows Profile, so your configuration will not carry over from one computer to another without copying the profile.

–Features–

• Fully skinnable
• Keywords have properties like shortcuts, and you can for example drag-drop a shortcut/file/folder/favorite to add it as a keyword
• Auto-completion for keywords, file system and history
• Enter URLs directly (for example, www.google.com)
• Keywords support parameters (for example, “google [SEARCH PHRASE]“)
• Executor can dynamically add matching start-menu items and control panel items to the drop-down/list
• Keyword “find [TEXT]” for using Windows Instant Search (Vista) feature or Windows Desktop Search (WDS for XP)
• Each keyword can be assigned a hotkey, so Executor can also perform like many popular hotkey managers
• One keyword or text input can start multiple keywords, urls, programs, documents, and files (for example, one keyword opens three websites and/or programs)
• All file-paths can be auto-completed
• Option to override windows run hotkey (Win-R)

–Settings–

There are a ton of different options that you can configure in the application. At first the number of settings might be overwhelming, but just take a deep breathe and you’ll be okay.

The keyword configuration screen (pictured on the left) is extremely powerful. You should pay a visit to the Executor help site for more information on making the most of the keywords.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on August 12, 2009 by CyberNet.

Windows only
It seems like on Windows I always come across those pesky files I can’t delete because another process is using it. Up until a few months ago I had always used a program called Unlocker to get around this, and it has served me well. I had to stop using it, however, when I moved to Vista 64-bit since it only includes support for 32-bit versions of Windows.

LockHunter, on the other hand, is a similar free utility that works on Windows 2000 up to Windows 7, and comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Just like Unlocker it integrates into your Windows Explorer context menu to save some clicks each time you want to unlock a file.

Here’s a rundown on some of the features:

• Shows processes locking a file or folder
• Allows to unlock, delete, copy or rename a locked file
• Allows to kill locking process
• Allows to remove locking processes from hard drive
• Integrates in to Explorer menu
• It deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake
• Supports both 32 and 64-bit Windows

There’s just one more thing that I’d like to see LockHunter do, and that’s add a command-line interface. I have some scheduled tasks that used to use Unlocker’s command-line functionality to ensure that a a file wasn’t locked before trying to perform an operation on it. Unfortunately automated tactics like this don’t appear to be possible in LockHunter, but I’m sure that’s something they could easily add. Oh, and a portable version would also be pretty cool.

LockHunter Homepage (Windows only; freeware)
[via Lifehacker & gHacks)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on November 22, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

For some weird reason, I’ve been a Microsoft Excel addict for as long as I can remember. When I was younger I remember being told by one of my teachers that Excel is one of the most powerful applications available, but most people will never touch it with a ten foot pole.

For over 7 years I’ve been programming Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in Excel, which is essentially a way to extend Excel to do everything your heart desires. With it you can add more formulas, and create buttons that will execute queries on the data located in your spreadsheet. VBA is one of Excel’s best features in my opinion.

What I’m going to cover today is how to highlight cells based on their values in Excel 2007. This method is extremely simple and doesn’t use an ounce of VBA, despite an abundance of sites out there saying that VBA is required to do such a task. It’s all about Conditional Formatting!

Tip: This tutorial was created for Excel 2007, but the general principles will also work in older versions of Excel. The free OpenOffice.org Suite even has a Conditional Formatting option located under the Format menu, but it’s pretty basic compared to the one in Excel 2007.

–Preparation–

The values in column “C” and “D” are both formulas that I created to calculate the age of the person, and then how many days are left until their next birthday. That way I can prepare gifts or cards for any upcoming birthdays well in advance. The only problem is that when the list gets large it can be hard to see what birthdays are coming up.

I’m not going to walk through what all of the formulas mean, but to make it easier to follow along with our example, here’s what the content of the second row looks like:

• A2: John
• B2: 11/19/1984
• C2: =FLOOR(YEARFRAC(TODAY(),B2),1)
• D2: =DAYS360(TODAY(),DATE(YEAR(B2)+C2+1,MONTH(B2),DAY(B2)))

What I want to do with the data is highlight anyone with a birthday that is coming up within two weeks. To do cell highlighting, a lot of sites talk about how to use the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but that’s way more work than needed. It’s actually really easy to do …

–Instructions–

Note: Most of the screenshots below are thumbnails, so click on them for a fullsize version.

1. The first thing that you need to do is fill in a spreadsheet with some data to apply the conditional formatting. I’m using the data that I provided above for keeping track of birthdays, but you can use whatever you want.
   
2. I want to have the birthdays highlighted that are coming up in the next two weeks, so I need to highlight the cells in column “D” for that:
   
3. On the Home Ribbon is the Conditional Formatting option. Click on that and select the option for a New Rule.
   
4. There are several different types of data that you can look for in the cells that you’ve highlighted. For example, you can have duplicate entries or max/min values highlighted. For us we want to choose the Format only cells that contain option, and we want to check for a cell value that is less than 14. After that is entered in press the Format button.
   
5. Now we need to pick what the cells should look like that match the criteria, which in our case is all birthdays that occur in less than 14 days. I chose to make the background orange and also made the text bold.
   
6. You should see a preview of what matching cells will look like. Just hit the OK button to complete the conditional formatting.
   
7. Yay, it worked! Looks like John has a birthday coming up in 4 days!
   
8. Anytime the values in these cells change, Excel will automatically reanalyze them to see if they meet any of the conditional formatting rules. That means that once John’s birthday passes in 4 days it will no longer be highlighted.

This is just one of the nearly unlimited uses for conditional formatting. I use this all of the time in my spreadsheets because it helps recognize when an item needs attention. Some things I’ve used this for in the past is attendance lists for parties to highlight who’s coming and who’s not, budgets to see when money is getting low, gift lists to pinpoint who I still have to buy for, and a countdown fir events (similar to the birthday example I did in this article), and much more. Get creative!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on September 08, 2006 by CyberNet.

Ed Bott over at ZDNet is really on top of things because he noticed that you don’t have to enter in a product key when installing Windows Vista. If you simply leave the product key field blank and try to continue it will ask which version of Vista you want to install.

You will have up to 14-days to supply a product key after you have installed any of the Vista versions, so now you are can try out different ones to see which best fits your needs. Remember that if you select the wrong version for the serial number that you have you will need to reinstall Vista completely, so if you already have a serial number then I highly recommend you just enter it in while performing the installation.

This should also help satisfy those people who didn’t receive a product key for Vista Beta 2 but they want to test out the Vista RC1 that was just released the other day. I would imagine that Microsoft should be able to get new keys out to the public within two-weeks which is how long you have before Windows expires.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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