Hasta La Gadget!

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

Last week Microsoft released a Windows Update for Vista users to help address some of the application compatibility issues. I haven’t had a bad experience with compatibility lately because many of the programs I use have all been updated. However, some users (particularly of previous editions of Photoshop) may find this update to be useful.

Here are some of the more popular applications that are said to work properly now:

• Adobe Creative Suite CS2
• Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1
• Adobe Photoshop CS 8.0
• Adobe Photoshop Elements Version 4.0
• Macromedia Fireworks MX2004 7.0.2.295
• Microsoft Age of Empires III
• Microsoft Money 2006
• Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
• Opera 9.02
• Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.5

There are also many other programs on the list, but those were the ones that caught my attention. The update can be received by performing a Windows Update which is located in your Control Panel. The update should reference number KB932246 and as you can see in this screenshot I installed it last week:

Microsoft has also updated their list of programs that are compatible with Vista. It is very very long list now so you’ll need to give the page quite some time to load.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

Time Saving Tuesday

Do you find Windows starting up slow because of all the applications that are set to automatically run at the beginning? If you consult anyone tech savvy they will say to cut back on the number of applications that start with your computer, but that’s hard for some people to do. Most of the time those programs serve a purpose, and people want them to be running when they need them.

If you delete the items you’ll probably end up manually starting them later on. So how about we delay the startup programs for a few minutes until after Windows has had time to run all of your most important applications? That’s where the free Startup Delayer comes into play (for Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista). With it you can designate which applications you want to start with Windows, and you can associate a delay for each one. For example, your instant messenger programs probably aren’t of immediate importance so why not have them start a few minutes after Windows has done its thing?

Lets take a look at how to make Startup Delayer work for you…

–Adding Startup Items–

The heart and soul of Startup Delayer is the central management screen. That’s where you can specify what programs you want to startup, assign each one a delay in seconds, and move them around so that each app starts in the order that you want it to.

Click to Enlarge

You would think that being able to assign a delay to a startup program is enough, but Startup Delayer does even more than that. You can also choose the process priority (low, below normal, normal, above normal, high, or realtime) and the initial window size (maximized, minimized, hidden, or normal) of each application.

–Import Startup Items–

Sure you could sit there manually adding all of the programs to Startup Delayer, but why go through the hassle? In the File menu there is an import option which will list all of the existing applications that are scheduled to startup with Windows. Check the boxes of the apps that you want Startup Delayer to handle, and click the Import button. Startup Delayer will import them, and it will remove the options from the Windows Registry/Startup folder to ensure that there are no duplicates!

Tip: There is a Create Backup button at the bottom that I highly suggest you use before importing any of the entries. This will backup all of your startup entries in case you decide to revert back to the traditional startup method.

–Make Your Sequence Start with Windows–

Entering in startup entries isn’t enough though. After you get the order and delays of your applications just right you’ll need to tell Windows to run your sequence when it starts up. Here’s what you have to do (see the corresponding diagram below):

1. Save the sequence to your computer. It doesn’t really matter where you save it just as long as it will always be accessible (tip: don’t put it on a USB drive).
2. Choose the display method (make sure to press the Save button if you make changes):
• This Window – At startup it shows the same management screen that you use to configure the startup entries.
• Report – At startup it shows a small window that lists which programs have already been initiated and which ones still need to run (screenshot in the next section)
• None – At startup no information is shown on the progress of your startup items. It’s all done “behind-the-scenes”.
3. Click the Execute with Windows link and find the file that you saved in Step 1. After completing this step your sequence will be scheduled to start with Windows.

–Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor–

So you have all of that done? There is nothing left to do other than enjoy the faster startup of Windows! Here’s what the report view looks like when starting the computer:

Ahh, it’s nice being able to fully control and delay startup programs!

Download Startup Delayer

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on August 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Before a Firefox extension has a chance to become unbelievably popular it has to go through an experimental phase to make sure it’s worthy of being added to Mozilla’s extension site. This process can sometimes take months, and so today we wanted to show you some of the best experimental Firefox extensions that you probably don’t know about.

Since each of these extensions are still in the experimental phase you’ll need to have a free Mozilla account before being able to download them. Believe me though, there are some handy add-ons here that are worth going through the extra hassle.

P.S. If you get a “file hash” error message when trying to download any of the extensions checkout this guide on tips to solve the problem.

–MyBookmarks (Homepage)–

MyBookmarks creates a homepage out of all the bookmarks located in your Bookmarks Menu. Just type about:mybookmarks into the address bar, and it will traverse through your folders grabbing each bookmark displaying the results on a central page. It also sticks each site’s icon next to the results making it easy to find your favorite sites.

The color scheme might not appeal to everyone, but that’s not a problem. Just pull up the options, and using a little CSS magic you can customize the look of the entire page. Additional information on skinning the MyBookmarks can be found here.

–Get File Size (Homepage)–

How many times have you wondered how big a file is before you start downloading it? With this extension you just right-click on the URL of the file, select the option to get the file size, and then you’ll receive a popup letting you know just how big the download is.

–Find in Tabs (Homepage)–

Being able to find text on a page is nice, but being able to find text in any of your open tabs is even nicer! With this extension a new “Find in Tabs” button is added to the find bar. Once pressed it will pull up a listing of search results from each of the tabs that you have open. Clicking on one of the results not only takes you to that particular tab, but also focuses on the area where the match was found.

–Text Area Resizer & Mover (Homepage)–

We’ve seen extensions that let you resize text boxes before, but none of them are like this. Just right-click and drag to dynamically resize any text box, or double-(left)-click and drag on any text box to move it around. If you choose to double-click in a text field it will remain “locked” and movable until you double-click in it again.

The screenshot below demonstrates how you can do things like move a comment box up alongside an article so that it’s easy to pull out quotes. Then as you scroll on the page the text field actually moves with you.

–ErrorZilla Plus (Homepage)–

There are plenty of extensions out there that provide powerful “address not found” or “404 error” pages. Typically they just let you bring up the cache for a particular page, but this one is a bit different. ErrorZilla Plus also lets you customize a list of proxies, which you can then use to try and view the site. This is especially helpful for viewing sites that may be blocked for one reason or another.

–Google Redesigned (Homepage)–

The great people over at Globex Designs have taken the time to compile their two custom styles for Gmail and Google Calendar into one simple extension. A dark skin has never looked so darn good!

–GrandCentral Click to Call (Homepage)–

Do you use Google’s GrandCentral service? If so this extension makes it a lot easier to dial phone numbers that you come across in the browser. Just click on a phone number, and let the extension do the rest of the work!

The developer’s homepage has a lot more information about the extension.

–Noise (Homepage)–

I’m not a big fan of sounds while I’m surfing the Internet, but I know some people like them. If you happen to be one of those people this extension will let you add and customize the sounds used throughout the browser. Get audio alerts for when a popup is blocked, a download has completed, and much more.

–CyberSearch (Homepage)–

And the last one of the day is our own concoction. CyberSearch lets you view Google search results from the web, images, videos, local/maps, and more right in the Firefox 3 address bar. Be sure to checkout the options where you can customize the keywords used to drill down search results to a particular site or Google service.

–Overview–

There you have it! I have to say that there are a lot of great Firefox extensions that can’t wait to get out of the experimental phase, but in the meantime they’d love for you to take them for a spin. Let us know in the comments about any Firefox extensions you use that haven’t broken out of the experimental stage yet.

Update: You might have noticed that a few of the extensions are no longer experimental. It looks like some of them didn’t spend much time in the Sandbox.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on April 03, 2009 by CyberNet.

For a lot of users creating screencasts is too much of a pain, and so a lot of people will avoid them. This is especially true if they see software like Camtasia Studio that has a pricetag of $300, which is overkill for what most people are looking to do.

ScreenToaster is an awesome alternative that uses Java through your browser, and doesn’t make you download/install anything. You’ll need to register for an account, but it’s completely free. After you get done making your screencast they’ll let you download it as a .mov file, upload it to their own site (free hosting), or upload it to YouTube in HD quality. The choice is yours, but you should be aware that they will place a watermark in the bottom-right corner so that people will know you created it with their service. That’s really the only trade-off that I found though. Heck, you can even add subtitles, record from a webcam, and include audio in your screencast.

I’m not a huge fan of tools that use Java, but in cases like this it is kinda nice. Since it uses Java this tool is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux users. I had never really found a good screencast utility for Linux that was easy-to-use, but something like this would be perfect for most of my situations… especially if i’m just trying to show a friend how to do something real quick.

If you’ve got something easy and free that you use for screencasts let us know in the comments.

ScreenToaster Homepage [via WebWorkerDaily]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on November 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Developers who are wanting to take their web services and databases offline now have a new technology at their disposal called Microsoft Sync Framework. Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet reports that Microsoft posted the test build for download just yesterday on November 4th, and it will work for any file type including music, contacts, videos, images and settings, and more.

Apparently Microsoft has been working on a synchronization solution for quite some time. In fact, this new Microsoft Sync Framework was previously code-named Ibiza/Harmonica and was mentioned here and described as the “core metadata layer that will be at the heart of Microsoft’s online/offline synchronization technologies and strategies.”. This new framework could be Microsoft’s response to Google Gears which launched back in May as Google’s solution for taking online applications offline.

There are so many benefits with allowing users to use web-based applications both online and offline that it makes sense for Microsoft to develop their own framework to do this.  Microsoft talked about these advantages and said:

The advantage of a synchronization-based solution is that users are no longer required to have a constant network connection to access their information. Since their data is stored locally they are given constant access to their data while offloading processing requirements from the central database. Furthermore, the user is no longer limited by the network speed and can now access the data at the speed of the device.

For those of you who want to download Microsoft Sync Framework, head on over to Microsoft’s download center.  Depending on the components that you want, the download will range in size from 820 KB to 25.7 MB. Here are some of the highlights that Microsoft points out:

• Add sync support to new and existing applications, services, and devices
• Enable collaboration and offline capabilities for any application
• Roam and share information from any data store, over any protocol, and over any network configuration
• Leverage sync capabilities exposed in Microsoft technologies to create sync ecosystems
• Extend the architecture to support custom data types including files

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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