Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

A few days ago we wrote about Firefox Companion for eBay, which at the time was in the private alpha stage. They’ve moved along into a public beta, so now you can try it out for yourself. It’s really only worth it if you’re experienced with eBay and use them on a regular/semi-regular basis.

The download site will automatically recognize if you are using Firefox, and if you are you’ll just download the companion for eBay.  If not, you’ll have a link to “download Firefox eBay edition” which includes Firefox 2.

Just to recap some of the best features, there are alerts for just about anything you could think of: when an item is ending, when you’ve been outbid, when an item of yours has sold, etc. They also took safe browsing into consideration and after you enter in your eBay and PayPal passwords in the “options” section, if you were to go to a site that wasn’t verified and started to enter those passwords, you’ll get a warning.

Give it a try– it’s a beta edition of course, so you may come across a bug or two.  If you buy or sell on eBay this will be a great companion because you’ll always be up to date with what’s going on, without ever having to go to the eBay site.

Download the Companion for eBay

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Sign up for the Firefox Companion for eBayHands-on With Firefox Companion for eBayGoogle Docs Sidebar for FirefoxDownload IE Tab 1.0.7 Official Release If You Haven’t AlreadyInternet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Now Works With eBay TurboLister

This article was written on September 21, 2006 by CyberNet.

There has also been a big question in my mind lately: “Will OpenOffice.org benefit or be hurt because of Microsoft Office 2007 release?”

With all of the hype we have been hearing about the Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon does everyone really love it? Personally I think it is a great replacement to the toolbars but I don’t think everyone will agree with that. With that said I am having a hard time determining whether the release of Microsoft Office will push users to go to OpenOffice.org in order retain the familiar toolbar format or if it will actually draw people away from OpenOffice.org because of the innovative design.

I’m torn between a definite answer because there are times that I do miss the simple toolbars but the Ribbon does bring a lot of great features to the table. Overall I think Office 2007 will be great for new users who aren’t familiar with Word processors but the average power user would probably prefer to have the toolbars. It is just like how some people rather have the Windows Classic theme instead of the normal Windows XP (Luna) one.

I could also see a lot of companies deciding to make the switch to OpenOffice.org because there has never been a better time. The people who are already familiar with the toolbars in Microsoft Office may actually prefer to switch to something they have seen before rather than something they’ll have to learn all over again.

OpenOffice.org is obviously trying to seize this opportunity by expanding their current set of features to include more templates and clipart. They are doing this by starting a contest that will give people a reason to share those templates/clipart that they have made with the chance to get something in return.

So what do you think would be easier/better for most people…learning Office 2007 or just switching to the free OpenOffice.org?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

OpenOffice.org: Take A Test Drive – Keep The Car!Photobucket and MySpace Feuding AgainOpenOffice.org Has Released An Update To 2.0.1OpenOffice.org Wants You To “Get Legal”Microsoft Starts Working On ‘Live Drive’ Storage For Users

This article was written on February 23, 2011 by CyberNet.

Windows only
You know when someone tells you their computer takes 20-minutes to boot up, and you roll your eyes because you know they are just exaggerating. Well, there is a way to find out. All you have to do is install BootRacer on their machine, and then restart it. The application will keep an eye on certain events such as how long it took the user to login and how long it took for their desktop to finish loading, and it will report back.

One of the cool things is that BootRacer actually displays a window in the lower-right corner of the screen after you’ve logged in showing how long it has taken to startup thus far. It will continue incrementing the timer until all the startup apps have finished loading, and will alert you once it has completed.

Here’s a rundown on some of the features pointed out by the developer:

• Automatically calculates your Windows boot time.
• BootRacer uses minimum of computer resources.
• Runs under the non-administrator accounts.
• BootRacer logs all the results to the history report and to standard event log. You can check events using Windows Event Viewer.

The history report feature may not seem all that useful, but with it you may be able to pinpoint when some sort of change was made to the machine that significantly slowed it down. You might even be able to salvage some time by simply rolling the computer back to a restore point before the slow-down occurred.

BootRacer is free for non-commercial use, and can be helpful when fixing someone’s computer. If you run it before and after the optimizations you’ll actually be able to give them real-world numbers as to how much faster their computer is thanks to your magical tweaks.

BootRacer Homepage (Windows only; Free for non-commericial use)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Apple Boot Camp 1.0.2 Beta ReleasedRunning Windows Vista On Your Intel MacApple Boot Camp Expiration Coming SoonCyberNotes: How To Reveal Vista’s Boot ScreenTutorial For Triple Booting Vista, XP, And Ubuntu

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

Click to Enlarge

Alex Faaborg has done several Firefox mockups in the past that we have covered (bookmarking, notifications, and history). He often highlights features that would make the browser more usable, and I occasionally feel myself longing for what he posts. This time around he posted some ideas of what it might look like to bring the keyboard to life.

The ideas that he came up with combine the power of the keyboard with the pleasure of a user interface. For starters there is the tab-switching mechanism (Ctrl+Tab) which currently has no sort of interface whatsoever. A mockup of what could be implemented is posted above, with a filter box to quickly find the page that you’re looking for. A similar interface would also be used for flipping through your browser’s website history.

The other thing that he designed is awesome…a quick way to search sites as well as your bookmarks. The mockup is pictured to the right, and as Alex pointed out there are currently a lot of inefficiencies in searching through your bookmarks. This design hopes to conquer those problems.

So are we going to be seeing this in Firefox 3? Nope, these mockups were made just to demonstrate the power of a command line interface when it is tied with an user interface. Here’s what Alex says about the future of this idea:

Please note that these are all only conceptual mockups, and we currently have no official plans to implement these features for Firefox 3 (although, we may at some point release a prototype extension through Mozilla Labs).
…
Just because the command line predated the graphical user interface doesn’t mean interfaces based on windows, icons, menus and pointers are always superior to interfaces based around using the keyboard for input.

It’s both fun and exciting to see such mockups come out of the Mozilla labs, although many of them seem to be more for show and tell. What really matters is how well they are able to implement these cool features if they ever get to that point.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Firefox 3 Tab SwitcherUsing Google’s Keyboard ShortcutsThe New Keyboard With Only 53 KeysA Quick Look At Vista’s Remote DesktopFirefox 3 Alpha 5 Released…with Places

This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has been very quiet on what to expect from Windows 7, and that’s to be expected after they over-promised on Vista thereby leading to a lot of disappointment. Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to keep things under wraps they still have a hard time dealing with leaks, and if rumors are right there’s yet another milestone right around the corner.

The person in charge of the Windows 7 development, Steven Sinofsky, decided that it was time to come forward. He did a very lengthy interview with CNet that talks a lot about nothing. There’s hardly any information regarding Windows 7, and this interview was primarily about how Microsoft intends to communicate during the development cycle. If you actually take the time to read through the interview you’ll notice that Sinofsky stressed the fact they he was not there to talk about Windows 7 features, and here are some quotes to that effect:

• “Well, why don’t we stick at a higher level today, because I think that I don’t want to really dive into the implementation details today.“
• “Again I don’t want to talk about any more specifics today, because we’re focused today on how we’re going to communicate things.“
• “Right now, today, we’re really focused on just making sure everybody understands how we’re going to talk about all of the things that we’re going to do in this next release of Windows“
• “I think we’ve talked enough about the direction that we’re heading with the specifics of the product today, since we really did want to focus a little bit more on just talking about how we’re communicating with partners and customers and the ecosystem at large.“

There are only a handful of things that are worthwhile in the interview:

• Microsoft is “committed to” delivering Windows 7 “about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista.” 2010 here we come!
• The driver model will work exactly the same as it does on Vista, which should help “not introduce additional compatibilities.“
• Windows 7 will be offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

The Windows Vista Blog also published an article to the same effect, letting people know that they still want to keep any details on Windows 7 as concealed as possible. Well, they didn’t say it like that, but that’s the impression you’ll walk away with.

This is all completely understandable actually, because it’s not like Apple pours out details as they roll in. Companies need to keep information like this from getting into the hands of their competitors, and Microsoft is no exception. But don’t worry, Microsoft still has plans to make pre-release copies of Windows 7 available just like they did with Vista.

Please, keep your excitement to a minimum.

Thanks to Omar for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Windows 7 Demo Not too ExcitingGoogle Discusses Details On Free Wi-Fi ServicePortable CD/DVD Burning App for Windows 7Windows XP Replacements For Vista ApplicationsPaul Thurrott Covers Vista Compatibilities