Oct 24

OpenOffice.org Wants You To “Get Legal”

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

Get legal. Get OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is pushing for a new reason to make the switch from Microsoft Office…so that you can “Get Legal”! The article talks about a lot of statistics that I found to be very interesting:

  1. According to Microsoft 35% of the software in the world is thought to be counterfeit or otherwise illegal.
  2. 86% of users would prefer to try OpenOffice.org 2 rather than buy MS-Office 2007.
  3. Studies have shown it is ten times cheaper to move to OpenOffice.org 2 than it is to upgrade to MS-Office 2007.

I think that the statistics are good information, however, I do not agree with them using Microsoft Office 2007 as a comparison. They are comparing themselves to a product that has not even been released to the public. Many people don’t even know what to expect from MS-Office 2007 because they have had no hands-on experiences with it. I find it to be very intuitive and easy to find the tools that you are looking for which was Microsoft’s goal in redesigning the user interface.

The campaign that OpenOffice.org has started is very clever because they are actually fighting Microsoft’s fight. Why? Microsoft has been continuously implementing new anti-piracy technology into its products in hopes to stop people from using their software illegally. Now OpenOffice.org is trying to attract those people that are using illegal software! I like their thinking.

OpenOffice.org “Get Legal” Campaign

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

CyberNotes: A New Web Browser, Firefox In Disguise?

Posted in: CyberNotes, Software, Today's Chili

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

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday
 

Everyone knows the people that refuse to use or even try Firefox because they are already used to Internet Explorer. You know, the kind of people that don’t like change? You tell them “it is easy to learn how to use it” but they just tell you “Internet Explorer does everything that I need it to”. You want them to use Firefox because of the additional security features and the extensibility but they could care less. What if you could switch them over to Firefox without them even knowing?

A great piece of software called eFox (also known as FirefoxIE) will help you switch those people over from Internet Explorer. eFox models itself after Internet Explorer 7 but has all of the stability of Firefox 1.5.0.4!


eFox
 

You have a few options to get eFox (I recommend the second option, at least to test it and make sure you like it). First, you can download it from their site and install it. This is a good solution if you know that you will like it because this will overwrite your existing Firefox profile and your Firefox installation (If you have a version of Firefox installed, let’s say 1.5.0.3, and you installed eFox it will change your installation to version 1.5.0.4).

I downloaded the executable file and while that was downloading, I backed up my profile folder and my Firefox installation folder. After it finished downloading I went ahead and ran the EXE file. I waited about 15 seconds and nothing happened, so I double-clicked on it again. Still nothing, so I opened up Firefox and wham!!, eFox was running. The installation process doesn’t prompt you for any information or directories. It would have been nice to get a confirmation box that said “Make sure you back everything up and press OK to continue” but there was nothing like that.

It was up and running, and I have to say it was pretty slick! Everything was setup as best as it could be to make Firefox appear to be Internet Explorer 7. This isn’t just a theme like some are probably thinking– but I will get into some of the features after I discuss my “easier” method of trying eFox.

Portable eFox

Like most people, you will probably want to try this out before you commit yourself to a newly styled browser. That is how I was but there was no hope of it being that simple for me. To make my second method of getting eFox simple for you,download this Portable eFox that I put together. Simply run the IEXPLORE.EXE file (as pictured to the right) and it will be up and running. This also makes it easy to trick someone that this is Internet Explorer because all you have to do is replace these files with the ones in the “Program Files/Internet Explorer” folder. This way, anytime that they execute an Internet Explorer shortcut it will run eFox. Clever huh?

eFox

There are a lot of things that eFox does to make it resemble Internet Explorer. Besides for the obvious theme, it also replaces the Firefox logos with IE7 logos. It comes with a small list of extensions already installed: UI Tweaker, Google Toolbar, Bookmarks Menu Button, IE Tab, ChromEdit, Compact Menu, Launchy, FirefoxIE SMS Messenger, and Firesomething. Some of these extensions are to make the theme more like Internet Explorer– however, some of them are also used to make your browsing experience better.

Portable eFox

One thing that I didn’t like was that the Menu bar was removed and there was no way to get to some of the menus I use– like Tools. In the portable version I was able to put the Menu back in next to the Bookmarks. This Menu will provide every option normally found in the complete Menu bar, except this is more condensed. You can do this in the installation version by simply right-clicking on a toolbar and select “Classic Menu”. Right-click on a toolbar again and select “Customize”. Drag the Menu button down next to the Bookmarks. Now you can remove the Classic Menu bar because there is nothing else you will need on it.

Overall there has been a lot of great work put into eFox. I am impressed with how it handles, but then again I love Firefox. Even though I won’t be using this browser on a daily basis, (I actually like the default Firefox theme) I will always keep it in the back of my head for the next time that I meet the person that doesn’t want to try anything other than Internet Explorer.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Shareaholic Supports More Web 2.0 Sites

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

shareaholic Shareaholic is an add-on for Firefox that’s all about helping you bookmark and share the content you come across on the web.   Up until recently, they only offered support for Firefox 2.0 and Flock. With their newest release, there’s now support for Firefox 3, and they’ve added a bunch more Web 2.0 sites where people can share content.

The list of supported sites continues to get longer, especially when you compare it to the list they initially supported which consisted of only five sites. Now you can bookmark and submit content to the following sites using the Shareaholic bookmarking tool:

  • Del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Truemors
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Mixx
  • Simpy
  • FriendFeed

Shareaholic also serves the purpose of giving you an idea of how popular a web page is by letting you know how many times the web page you’re on has been dugg or saved to social site del.icio.us. This helpful sharing extension launched several months ago and so far it’s received rave reviews. Shareaholic says that they will be adding even more sites in the future which will help attract even more users.

Download Shareaholic here.

Source: Mashable

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Both Opera and Firefox Benefit from Mozilla’s jsfunfuzz

Posted in: Freeware, Mozilla, Newly Released, Opera, Software, Today's Chili

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

Black HatAt the Black Hat conference this week Mozilla announced a new tool called jsfunfuzz that was developed by their very own Jesse Ruderman. This is something developers can use to test the JavaScript engine for both stability and vulnerabilities. Here’s what Mozilla had to say about it:

The responsible sharing of security tools is an important way to contribute to the overall health of the web. We worked with Microsoft, Apple, and Opera to reduce the possibility that this tool might adversely affect users of those browsers. All of these browser vendors reviewed the tool and let us know that they were okay with the release.

The great news is that Mozilla isn’t the only one benefiting from it! Opera posted version 9.23 Beta today that fixes four bugs that caused crashes, and one that could have compromised the security of the browser. All five of those problems were found using the jsfunfuzz tool that Mozilla announced and released to the public.

Of course the tool was developed by Mozilla, and so you would expect it to help them the most…and it has. Using it they’ve found 280 bugs in Firefox’s JavaScript engine with about two-dozen of those that could have been exploitable. More than two-thirds of those bugs have already been fixed, and their working on nailing down the rest.

So even if you aren’t using a Mozilla-based browser, I think we all owe Mozilla a big thanks for making this tool available to the public!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Print a List of Files in a Folder

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

This article was written on March 09, 2010 by CyberNet.

getfolder.png

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
I can think of a handful of times that I’ve wanted to export a list of all the files from a particular directory so that I could share them with someone else. That kind of task sounds like it should be really easy, but there aren’t too many apps out there that are versatile enough to meet most users’ needs. One that I stumbled across, getFolder, should cover most aspects that you’re looking for in an app like this.

Aside from being both free and portable, getFolder will let you export a list of files and folders to an HTML, XML, TXT, RTF, or CSV file. All of these options mean you can create an ultra-simple list, or get a bit more complex by using a CSV file and opening it up into a spreadsheet app such as Excel.

Looking for more features? getFolder can do basic bulk renaming of files and can filter out results according to criteria you specify. It’s not exactly a ground-breaking program, but since it’s portable I’d say there’s some value in keeping it around for those one-off situations where you need to list out the contents of a folder.

getFolder 2.0 Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Kororaa Removes XGL Because Of ATI & nVidia Drivers

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 17, 2006 by CyberNet.

I received an email from a user today who said that they were trying to download the Kororaa that I previously mentioned. When they went to download the file they noticed that the link had been removed and the Kororaa team said:

The Kororaa Xgl Live CD has been taken offline due to GPL violation by distributing the ATI and nVidia drivers with the Linux kernel.

We would like to apologise to the Linux developer community and thank everyone for their support, especially the end users who have loved our Live CD.

That just sucks because Kororaa was one of the coolest Live Linux CD’s that I have ever used. I no longer had to fumble around looking for instructions on how to setup XGL because they did that out-of-the-box.

The normal Kororaa distribution is still available without the XGL pre-configured but to me it has lost most of its appeal. Hopefully some other Linux distributions will start to make it easier to use XGL.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Dell Studio Laptops Get Some Mac-Like Qualities

Posted in: Laptops, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 26, 2008 by CyberNet.

dell dock.jpg

Dell has a launched a new line of laptop computers dubbed Dell Studio that has raised a few eyebrows. The laptops ship with Windows Vista which isn’t surprising, but the thing that made Gizmodo do a double-take was the Mac-like dock that appeared on the desktop. The dock is used as a way to remove some of the icons from the user’s desktop, and can be customized in a variety of ways (color, location, etc…). Plus you can add your own shortcuts to it.

After a little searching around I came across this article from Notebook Review that was just posted today. That’s where I got the screenshot from at the beginning of the article, and as you can see each main icon serves as a folder for your shortcuts. That way you can group your related shortcuts, and therefore steer clear of cluttering up the dock itself.

The Dell Studio line also includes backlit keyboards, which happens to be one of the biggest features that drew me to the MacBook Pro. That way when you’re in a low-light environment, such as a presentation, you’ll still be able to see the keys on your keyboard. I had been wondering for awhile why Apple was one of the only laptop manufacturers to offer this feature, and so I applaud Dell for offering this.

dell backlit keyboard.jpg

I’m sure there will be a lot of Mac fanatics criticizing Dell for including these features will their Studio laptops, but the dock they designed actually looks pretty good. The dock isn’t very Apple-like if you ask me, but there will be plenty of other people who will disagree. I wonder if they will be rolling these two things out to their other laptops?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Windows Home Server for $190 on Newegg

Posted in: Microsoft, Newly Released, Release Date, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on October 08, 2007 by CyberNet.

Windows Home Server Newegg just setup the Windows Home Server product page, and they will be selling the OEM version for $190 starting October 12th. Microsoft will not be selling a retail version of this in stores, so OEM is the only way you can get it besides for buying a pre-built Home Server device. Because it is OEM there is no fancy packaging and it doesn’t include much (if any) paperwork, so don’t be disappointed if all you receive is a CD and serial number when you order it.

There’s also supposed to be a 120-day evaluation version on the horizon, but there has been no news of that yet. Here’s a list of the requirements needed if you decide to roll your own:

  • 1.0 GHz Intel Pentium 3 (or equivalent) processor
  • 512 MB RAM memory
  • 80 GB internal hard drive as primary drive
  • 100 Mbit/s wired Ethernet

Extremely positive reviews are already starting to roll in on the Newegg Home Server page from a small handful of people who had been testing the operating system. One comment in particular caught my attention:

I was lucky enough to beta this and it has become indispensible. It is a lot more than just a NAS [Network Attached Storage] box sitting on my network, the silent backup of host PCs is awesome and the simplicity of install and use is somewhat of a shock compared to most MS server products. Apple would have been proud to release something this intuitive! Amazingly for a v1 Microsoft product it has behaved flawlessly from day one and the ability to access all my host PCs and documents from anywhere in the world is something I now consider absolutely essential. I can’t wait for v2.0!

If you don’t feel like building your own then just hold out for one of the many third-party solutions that will be coming from Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, HP, Iomega, Lacie and Medion. The most prominently advertised has been the HP MediaSmart computer starting at $599 with 500GB of storage.

So who plans on building their own Home Server, and who’s going to pick up one of the third-party options?

Newegg Windows Home Server
Windows Home Server Website
Source: Windows Connected

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Shareaza Team Launching New File Sharing Client Soon

Posted in: Freeware, Pre-Release, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on August 19, 2008 by CyberNet.

panthera.png
(Click to Enlarge)

The open-source file sharing application Shareaza has been going through some tough times lately. They had their domain hijacked by a company called Discordia Ltd. back in December 2007, which is the same company who turned Bearshare and iMesh into paid services. On the Shareaza.com site they then started offering an app called “Shareaza 4″ that promotes legal downloads. If a user installs the “new” Shareaza any older version of the real open-source application will be removed. Discordia has even gone as far as to file for a trademark registration for the Shareaza name. *sigh*

What does the Shareaza development team have up their sleeves now? They are actually working a new project that they’re calling Panther, and it’s slated for release on August 25th. It does everything that Shareaza is already capable of, plus some. Things like better BitTorrent support, skin support, not using the registry, and a revamped media player are all included.

Pre-release versions of Panther can be found here, but there are still quite a few bugs in it right now. As seen in the screenshot above there is still a lot packed into the program, but it’s tough to beat if you’re looking for an all-in-one file sharing solution that works on the BitTorrent, Gnutella1, Gnutella2, and ED2K networks. I’d just hold out until the official launch of Panther where it will likely be more polished than it is right now.

P.S. The real Shareaza homepage is now located on SourceForge’s servers.

[via TorrentFreak]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 24

Mozilla Updates The Firefox 2 Release Schedule

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 16, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox 2 Release ScheduleFirefox 2 Beta 2 has already been delayed as most of us know, and now it looks like that delay has rippled through to the other milestones. Here is the most recent schedule for the upcoming Firefox builds:

  • Firefox 2.0 Beta 2 – August 23
  • Firefox 2.0 RC1 – September 19
  • Firefox 2.0 RC2 – October 2 
  • Firefox 2.0 RC3 – October 11 
  • Firefox 2.0 Final – October 24 

The two-week delay of Firefox 2 Beta 2 appears to have pushed back the final release nearly one month. Even though it is disappointing to hear this I am glad that they are taking their time to ensure that this is a quality release.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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