Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 31, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

When it comes to PDF documents I’m not really one that likes to read them online. If they’re only about 10 or 15 pages I’ll go ahead and print them out to read later on when I’m away from my computer. However, some people remove the ability to print a PDF when it is created.

I’m against that sort of thing because if I can open and read the PDF, then I should be able to print it for reference later on. When I received a PDF last week that was like this I was determined to find a way to get around it.

Some ways I found included taking a screenshot of the whole document and then printing out the image, but that seemed like way too much work for both me and my printer (printing an image is much more intensive than printing a PDF). Then I found the exact freeware application that I was looking for: PDF Unlocker!

Unfortunately the homepage was removed for this program, but I was still able to find it on Download.com (Download Mirror). It removes 40 or 128–bit passwords from a PDF, including the one preventing you from printing, but you must be able to view the PDF. By that I mean the whole PDF can’t be password protected.

Here is an example document that I created with a screenshot of Google’s homepage. The red boxes show that printing has been disabled and that the document is considered “secure”:

After you get it setup here is what you want to do:

1. Download and install PDF Unlocker.
2. The installation should have created a shortcut on the desktop that has a key for an icon. Drag your protected PDF onto that icon:
   
3. Now a screen will quickly flash, it doesn’t require any interaction on your part so just wait for the screen to disappear before proceeding:
   
4. There will now be another PDF file in the same location as the protected one, and the only difference is the new one has “_no PW” attached on to the end of the filename. Double click on the new PDF to open it:
   
5. Now enjoy all of the features that had been removed from the document, such as printing and page extraction (a.k.a. copy and paste functionality)!
   

Even though the process here is listed as being 5 steps, it will really only take a few seconds for you to complete it. This program has removed the burden and hassle of being able to only read certain PDF’s on my computer, so I thought that this was something that I had to share.

Of course, I guess I should say that you are not to use this in any illegal ways…yada yada. You know the drill.

Download the Freeware PDF Unlocker (visit the now deceased homepage of PDF Unlocker)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on October 15, 2009 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Shared Folders Now on Google Docs
Google has added a feature to Google Docs that I’m sure collaborators will love. They now let you share an entire folder of documents with a group of people instead of having to specify permissions on a per-document basis. That means you can have a folder of docs for co-workers, another for family members, and so on. This just got a lot more useful for me!

Microsoft Ditches Works for Office 2010 Starter
Microsoft has decided to give the axe to MS Works, and replace it with Office 2010 Starter edition. This will included stripped-down ad-filled versions of both Word and Excel that will ship on many new PC’s… instead of the current 60-day trial solution that is getting included. I’m a bit torn as to whether this will be good or bad. In some ways I’m happy I won’t have to hear people say “why can’t I edit my documents in Office anymore?” I’m a bit concerned, however, as to what the quality of ads will be like, and what information Microsoft will be able to collect from users as a result of that.

Verizon Promises Android Phones with Google Voice Support
Verizon and Google made a joint announcement that they will be working together to serve up some Android-powered phones this year. They also said that they will be including support for Google Voice, which was obviously a jab at Apple/AT&T considering the lack of support for the service from those two companies. This should definitely shine some more light on the Android platform, which will hopefully give Google the push they need to continually innovate in the mobile area.

–News in Brief–

Walmart Offering $45 Unlimited Nationwide Cellphone Plan
The retail giant Walmart will begin offering a no-contract cellphone plan in the coming days that includes unlimited minutes, data, and messaging for a mere $45 per month.

Gmail Labs Introduces “Got the Wrong Bob?”
Google can analyze the recipients that you have selected in an email composition, and see if you’ve likely chosen the correct people based on past email habits.

YouTube Shows Video Info
By right-clicking on a YouTube video you can now get information like bitrate, frame rate, and other details.

Ten Teen Entrepreneurs to Watch
TechCrunch outlines 10 teens that you should keep an eye out for… because you’ll probably hear about them again in the future.

Google Sites Gets More Features
When using Google Sites you can add things like documents, spreadsheets, calendars, and more.

Google’s (Lack of) Acquisition Process
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt admits that Larry and Sergey buy companies on a whim.

Quickly View Formatted PDF’s in your Google Search Results
Google now includes a “Quick View” option next to PDF search results to make reading PDF’s less painful.

MediaFire Pushes for a Firefox Extension to be Banned
MediaFire is urging Mozilla to remove a Firefox extension that is against their terms of service.

Meebo Hits 90 Million Users
Congrats to Meebo for inching even closer to the huge 100 million user milestone!

Pirate Bay Relocates to Nuclear Bunker
The Pirate Bay is protecting themselves from physical attacks by relocating to a nuclear warfare bunker.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

SearchTabs Enhances Your Google Results
The SearchTabs Firefox extension is pretty cool because it leverages the data from Xmarks, which includes over one billion user bookmarks. SearchTabs looks at this data and displays stats next to the results letting you know how each one ranks in particular categories. This can definitely be helpful when trying to determine how reputable something is that you’re reading.

Create a Virtual Machine Image From Your Hard Drive
Interestingly enough the Microsoft-owned Sysinternals company has created a free application that lets you turn the OS on your hard drive into a virtual machine image. The image that is generated can then be used in one of numerous virtual machine applications, or when you’re in Windows 7/Vista you can actually mount and browse the contents of the image without actually needing to fire it up.

Create Dynamic Desktop Wallpapers
PhotoJoy is a free Windows app that lets you create dynamic wallpapers and screensavers from the photos you have stored on your computer. If you’re looking for a way to spice up your desktop this is an awesome way to do it. And, if you’re anything like me, you have plenty of photos on your computer for it to work with.

Find Source Images for Desktop Wallpapers
I’m sure it’s happened to you before where you’ve seen an image or screenshot of an image that you really want to use as your wallpaper, but you’re not sure where the original high-res version can be found. That’s where TinEye comes in. Just upload the image, and it will try to locate some higher quality versions of the same photo that will hopefully be good enough to grace your desktop.

–Tips in Brief–

Firefox 3.7 Starts Prepping for Windows 7
Firefox 3.7 is including Windows 7-specific features like jumplists and per-tab Taskbar thumbnails… it’s just disappointing that this final release won’t be available until next year.

DoubleTwist: Another Media Player
This is a decent media player that supports a wide range of devices, including Android-powered gadgets.

Where’s My Cell Phone Service Calls Your Phone
That’s right… you won’t have to ask one of your friends to call your phone the next time you can’t find it. Although that does require you to have it off of silent, and you have to be in the general vicinity if you want to hear it.

Join the Minimalist Google Homepage Prototype
Google is testing a truly minimalist homepage with not much more than a search box and a few buttons. Just run a quick script and you’ll be able to join in the fun.

Color Code Outlook for Easier Management
Make some of your emails stand out from the others by color coding them as they fly in.

Make a Portable Browser Your Default
If you prefer to use a browser that is self-contained (a.k.a. portable) on your machine this is what you need to do to make it the default one.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Review
Who would have thought… the reviews for Windows Mobile 6.5 aren’t looking too good. Gizmodo even goes as far as to say that the changes are barely noticeable.

Create Music Video Playlists with TubeRadio.fm
This website, which will remind you a lot of iTunes, lets you queue up a bunch of music videos that you want to watch.

–Downloads–

• Adobe Reader 9.2 [Mirror]
• AIM 7.0.13.4 [Mirror]
• BurnAware Free 2.4.1 [Mirror]
• Digsby Build 70 [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.2.8.1 [Mirror]
• Foxit Reader 3.1.2.1013 [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 4.0.221.6 ^Beta [Mirror]
• Google Desktop 5.9.909.8267 [Mirror]
• MediaMonkey 3.1.2.1272 ^Beta [Mirror]
• Miranda IM 0.9.0 ^{Alpha 3} [Mirror]
• Notepad++ 5.5.1 [Mirror]
• Notepad 2 4.0.2.3 [Mirror]
• Opera 10.10.1833 ^{Beta 1} [Mirror]
• Paint.NET 3.5 ^{Beta 3} [Mirror]
• PrimoPDF 5.0.0.19 [Mirror]
• SeaMonkey 2.0 ^RC1 [Mirror]
• Skype 4.1.0.179 [Mirror]
• TagScanner 5.1.553 [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.0.0.16850 ^Beta [Mirror]
• VirtualBox 3.0.8.53138 [Mirror]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on August 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

I’m sure you’ve been in the situation before where you’ve wanted to purchase something on eBay, but there were multiple people selling the same thing. You probably placed a bid on one of the items in hopes that you’d win it, but you had to leave for work and wouldn’t know the results until you got home. The first thing you did when you got home was see if you won the auction…and you didn’t. Not only that but those similar auctions had also ended without you ever getting a chance to bid on them.

This is a pretty common problem, and eBay is taking it into their own hands to solve it. They have created a free Bid Assistant that anyone can use to do the bidding for them. It lets you "bid" on a group of items, and if you win one it won’t bid on the others. It will immediately bid on the item that ends the soonest in your group, and when one ends it will continue to bid on the others until you win or hit your maximum bid price.

To use it you’ll need to add all the items that you want to monitor to your Watch List. Then select the checkbox next to each one, and click the "Bid with Bid Assistant" button:

In this case I had two of the same computers being offered from the same person. It is common for eBay sellers to have multiple listings of the same items, and the Bid Assistant makes it easy to bid on each until you win one.

Now you can enter in the maximum price you want to pay for each individual item in the group, or you can set one price to be the global maximum bid:

Click to Enlarge

It’s nice that they let you choose a price for each individual item because often times you may not be bidding on the exact same thing. For example, you may want an iPod, and so you’ll setup bids on various models. Or maybe you’re buying a present for someone and are bidding on several different ideas that you came up with.

To use the Bid Assistant you must have at least 5 feedback, but most of you are probably eBay veterans that have dozens if not hundreds of positive feedback. Also, the Bid Assistant will not snipe your bids (place them at the last second). To do that you would need to use a software application such as the free JBidWatcher, which also incorporates most of the features from the Bid Assistant as well.

Hopefully these tools will help you get the things you want at a price you can afford!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 01, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Ubuntu 10.04 Adds Native iPhone & iPod touch Support
Some forum users are reporting that Ubuntu 10.04, due for release in April, will support both the iPhone and iPod touch out-of-the-box. There is some concern that Apple may try to “break” this compatibility because of what happened with the Palm Pre, but that was a different situation. Palm was trying to make it possible for their customers to use iTunes to sync with the Pre, whereas Ubuntu is bypassing iTunes all together and trying to sync with Apple’s own products. So it would be hard for them to break the compatibility without issuing software updates for the iPhone and/or iPod touch.

Gmail Labs Graduations and Retirements
Google has decided to incorporate the functionality of six Gmail Labs experiments into the default Gmail interface, and they will also be retiring five others. Some of the ones getting promoted are search autocompletion, forgotten attachment detector, YouTube previews, and vacation away messages. The five being retired are really nothing to worry about, and judging by the people I talk to those five never seemed to gain any traction.

–News in Brief–

Nexus One Coming to Verizon March 23rd
Some sources are reporting that the Verizon-compatible Nexus One will be available as soon as March 23rd.

Palm webOS 1.4 Software Update
Palm’s new software update lets you capture, edit, and share videos from your phone.

Windows Mobile 6.5 = Windows Phone Starter
Microsoft will be rebranding the existing mobile operating system as Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition.

Refine Google Searches by Location
Google now offers options to filter your search results according to geographic locations.

End of Support Coming for Windows 2000, Vista RTM, and XP SP2
Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 2000 and XP SP2 on July 13th, and Vista RTM (prior to SP1) on April 13th.

iTunes Hits 10 Billion Downloads
Over the last 7 years iTunes has served up over 10 billion media downloads.

YouTube Killing IE6 Support on March 13th
In a bold move YouTube will be leaving IE6 behind beginning on March 13th. The site should remain functional for the most part, but some newer features may not work.

Wal-Mart Buys Vudu Streaming Video Service
It’s been confirmed that Wal-Mart has purchased Vudu for upwards of $100 million.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Mozilla Provides GPU Acceleration in Firefox Nightly Builds
Mozilla has quietly provided some “hidden” settings that can be enabled to disperse some processing between your CPU and graphics card. Right now the technology uses two DirectX 11 features called DirectWrite and Direct2D, but OpenGL versions (for Mac/Linux users) will hopefully be available later on. In the meantime if you’re running Vista or Windows 7 go ahead and enable the new feature.

Inbox2 Provides a Unified Social Network & Email Hub
With all the social networks these days it can get hard to manage all the messages you receive. Inbox2 strives to make things a bit easier by aggregating all of the data into one central location. It can pull in content from Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several other services. All of your emails, contacts, and messages can then be found in one simple location.

–Tips in Brief–

Lifehacker’s Top 10 Android Apps
A great list of useful and must-have Google Android applications.

Top 10 Torrent Sites Sorted by Traffic Stats
A look at some of the top torrent sites available according to the amount of traffic they receive.

Mastering Multiple Firefox Profiles
Learn some tricks to setting up and managing multiple Firefox profiles for different purposes.

Other Ways to Visualize iPhone Free Space
Clicking on the capacity bar in iTunes will display the remaining free space on your iPhone in different measurements.

Most Accurate & Highest Resolution Earth Photo Yet
NASA has released some very high quality Earth imagery that will surely look great on your desktop.

Rooting and Tethering a Nexus One
Boing Boing explains how to root and tether your Android-based Google Nexus One phone.

Autohide the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox
This Firefox extension will let you automatically hide the bookmarks toolbar when it’s not in use.

Disable Aero Snap in Windows 7
You can easily disable the Aero Snap functionality in Windows 7 if you find that it is more annoying than useful.

25 Dangerous Programming Errors
This guide (freely available in PDF form as well) explains 25 programming pitfalls that could lead to vulnerabilities, and provides steps you can take to prevent them from occuring.

HTML5 Plugin for Internet Explorer
Microsoft hasn’t announced whether full HTML5 support will be included in IE9, but at least while we wait you can get the HTML5 video functionality in your current version of Internet Explorer.  

Five Tips for Buzz Users
Google provides some tips to help Buzz users get the most out of the service.

–Downloads–

• CCleaner 2.29.1111 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Cobian Backup 10.0.0.349 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Dropbox 0.7.110 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.3.2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Flash Player 10.1.51.95 ^{Beta 3} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Foobar2000 1.0.1 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 5.0.335.1 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Notepad++ 5.6.7 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org Portable 3.2.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Opera 10.50.3273 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Paint.NET 3.5.4 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• PeaZip 3.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Picasa 3.6.105.41 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• RSSOwl 2.04 ^{RC 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Security Essentials 1.0.1961 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Skype 4.2.0.152 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• SMPlayer 0.6.9 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Thunderbird 3.0.2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• TightVNC 2.0 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on May 15, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Windows only
Today we’ve got an amazing freeware application for Windows that actually serves two different purposes. Give a hardy welcome to LocatePC. First and foremost it will keep you informed of your computer’s whereabouts by sending you an email either on a daily basis or anytime the IP address of the machine changes. In the email it will give you all kinds of details that can help you track the PC’s location, such as the ISP it’s connected to and IP address of the machine.

What’s the other purpose it serves? Most of you are probably not paying to get a static IP address from your ISP, right? That means your IP address might change periodically, and this program can notify you via an email each time the IP changes. This isn’t a stated purpose of the application, but that was one of the first things that popped into my mind after I looked at some of the configuration options.

It wasn’t too difficult to download and install LocatePC, but one problem I did run into is that it wouldn’t install without running it as an administrator on Vista. After I ran it as an administrator I was able to fly through the rest of the setup, which is pretty much just entering a password to protect the application. The end result is the screenshot you see above.

Remember, LocatePC is supposed to be discrete so that it couldn’t easily be found by someone if your computer was stolen. For that reason you won’t see anything in the System Tray, and the process name is slightly obscure making it hard to pinpoint when doing a quick visual scan. Don’t worry though, you can access the console at any time by pressing Alt+Shift+Home.

Now you’re ready to configure all of the email settings. This is pretty much a no-brainer, but might require you to setup a new email address since it only supports POP accounts that don’t use SSL. I know, that’s not optimal but you can easily go setup an AOL account that you’ll use only for sending the emails. You can have the notifications sent to any address you would like.

Here are the different configurations screens you’ll encounter (click on any screenshot to enlarge it):

1. Email Account
   This is where you’ll enter in the details of the email account to use for sending the notifications. If you have a Yahoo! Plus account you can go ahead and use that, otherwise I would recommend just grabbing an AOL email account. If you use AOL or Yahoo it will automatically fill in a lot of the details for you.
   
2. Email Message
   This is where you want to enter in the address to send the notifications to, and also any other information you want included in the email. Maybe enter in the model and serial number of the PC so that you don’t have to try and dig it out once the PC is stolen.
   
3. Email Schedule
   Choose how often you want to receive the emails. By default it will send one email out everyday in addition to one if the IP address changes. It’s probably easiest to just have it send an email if the IP changes, which is the only other option available.
   
4. Advanced
   Here you can configure some of the advanced settings such as the site used to get the trace route, the hotkey used to show the console, and where it obtains the IP address from.
   

And now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor! Whenever your IP address changes you should receive an email similar to this:

LocatePC Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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