Hasta La Gadget!

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

We’ve mentioned the “SAVE XP” Petition that InfoWorld has put together before and at last count in mid-April, over 164,000 people had signed it. The purpose of the petition is to ask Microsoft to extend the date that XP will be available. InfoWorld has just updated the petition count and at this point, over 200,000 people have signed it. The exact count as of May 15th is 200,805 signatures and that’s the number after they took out those who signed multiple times, as well as the fake sign-ups. Clearly people want XP to stay around a little longer but is it enough?

In the big scheme of things, 200,000 people really isn’t THAT many people when you take into consideration the millions of people still using XP. It is a large enough number though that it should eventually get Microsoft’s attention and may make them stop and reconsider how long they should keep XP around. At this point they aren’t willing to meet with InfoWorld to receive the petition, but they do know that it exists. In their most recent update, InfoWorld says, “through its PR firm, Microsoft has declined to meet with InfoWorld to receive the petition and discuss the concerns of its customers who have signed it.“

One of the first thoughts that came to mind when we first heard about this whole petition several months ago was “are we going to be seeing a SAVE VISTA petition several years from now?” So many people are resistant to change because they get comfortable with what they are using and don’t want to have to get used to using something else. People were resisting XP back when it first came out. Technology changes and advances and upgrading to a new operating system allows us to take advantage of it.

So what will come of this? There are a couple of things that could happen. First of all, we’ve seen Microsoft extend the deadline for ULCPC’s (ultra low-cost personal computers) until June 30, 2010. Maybe they’ll decide to extend the date for anybody who wants to run XP and allow Vista and XP to co-exist? Or maybe they will just stick to their original plan?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

(Click to Enlarge)

Windows only
Everyday when I’m at work I’m dealing with dozens of different servers that I have to connect to using the Windows Remote Desktop. If you have just one computer that you need to manage the standard Remote Desktop Connection application serves the purpose, but it can become tedious when dealing with numerous machines.

To solve this problem I began looking around for a app that has a nice tabbed interface for handling multiple connections. What I wasn’t expecting was to find something as good as the free Terminals program. This can not only manage Remote Desktop Connections, but also VNC, VMRC, RAS, Telnet, SSH, ICA Citrix, HTTP, and Amazon S3. Plus you can accomplish basic tasks like pinging, trace routes, whois lookups, and more all from within this single program.

I’ve quickly become impressed with everything Terminals can do. Anytime you make a connection to a machine it will be added to the Favorites menu for easy access in the future. You can then go through and rename the entries for easier recognition (especially handy if you’re connecting via IP addresses), or even apply tags.

And we can’t forget about security. Naturally you won’t want a program like this to save all of your passwords because a lot could be lost should it ever fall into the wrong hands. At the same time it can be tough to remember all of those different passwords for the various machines. Terminals, much like any browser, will let you establish a master password that is used to protect all of your saved passwords. That means you’ll have just one password to remember from now on!

This probably isn’t a program that will be handy for everyone, but it can definitely save some time and frustration for those of you who work with dozens of different connections day in and day out. It’s completely free, and doesn’t require any installation for you to start using it. Just download the ZIP file, extract the contents, and run the executable.

Get Terminals for Windows

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

Windows only (not Vista)
When you’re working with a small screen space it’s nice to try and squeeze everything you can out of it. That’s especially true when you’ve got a device like the Eee PC who’s 7″ screen has an 800×480 maximum resolution. As you can imagine you’re Taskbar would fill up after opening just a few applications at a resolution like that.

One thing that you can do is hide the oversized Start button that appears in Windows. This is done with a simple and free application called Start Killer. When the program is running the Start button will disappear, but have no fear because it can still be accessed by pressing either the Windows Key on the keyboard, or by pressing Control+Esc.

Start Killer doesn’t work on Windows Vista, but Microsoft already did a decent job of shrinking down the size of the Start button there. On Windows XP, however, it can give you some extra breathing room on your Taskbar:

How do you get your Start button back? Simple, just close the program. When the program is running you’ll see an icon in your System Tray similar to the one in the screenshot above. You can use the icon to close the program or adjust a handful of settings (like auto-starting with Windows).

Get Start Killer for Windows XP and earlier

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

Tutorial Thursday

How many times have you seen someone take a post-it note, write their password on it, and slap it to their monitor? Unfortunately this type of thing is more of a common occurrence than it should be, but the problem is that people can never remember their darn passwords!

Windows has a built-in feature that is made for situations just like this. It lets a user create a password reset "disk" that can be used to change the password in the event that they forget it. The "disk" can be a floppy, USB drive, iPod, or any external drive. It takes less than a minute to create, and believe me…this can save you a ton of time!

Of course by the time you come across this article it will probably be too late, and you’ll want to reset the Windows password without a disk. If that’s the case then I’ve put together a small section at the end of this article dedicated to "cracking" the Windows password.

–Creating a Password Reset Disk–

Instructions on creating a password reset disk in Windows XP can be found here. Here’s what you have to do if you’re running Vista:

1. Open the start menu and start to type "User Accounts" in the search box.
   
2. In the window that pops up choose the "Create a password reset disk" under the Tasks heading in the left pane.
   
3. A wizard will now walk you through creating a password reset disk. After you get by the first screen you’ll be presented with a drop-down menu that lists the available devices that can successfully be used. It has to be some sort of removable media, such as a floppy disk, USB drive, or even your iPod.
   
4. Next just enter in your current Windows password, and then you’ll be done. If you check the device that you used for the reset disk there should be a hidden file called userkey.psw.
   

–Using a Password Reset Disk–

Like most things in life, the advanced preparations you made by creating a password reset disk can really pay off. To use the disk just insert it into your computer, and then try to login as if you knew the password. Windows will tell you that the password is incorrect, and when you return to the login screen there will be a "Reset password" option located under the password field. That will initiate a wizard that will guide you through the steps needed to create a new password.

Note: Your current password reset disk is still valid even after changing your password.

Click to Enlarge

–Don’t Have a Password Reset Disk?–

Unfortunately by the time you realize that you can create a password reset disk it’s normally too late. There are some solutions, which I’ll outline here, but for obvious reasons none of them are going to be very easy.

• Using a Windows XP loophole – You can launch the user account management while performing a repair on the operating system since you can access the command prompt. This is definitely the route I would go if I was running XP, but make sure you follow the instructions closely.
• Cracking a Vista or XP password using Ophcrack – This is an application that you burn to CD, and it will boot up with your computer. You’ll need to give your computer some "alone time" depending on the strength of your password.
• Login Recovery for NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista – This is actually a service, and it requires that you download an application to put on a floppy that will retrieve your password file. You then send your password file to them, and they will decode it. There’s a 98.5% chance that it can be done in less than 10-minutes, but you’ll have to pay some money if you want it that soon. Otherwise they have a free service available, and with that you’ll get the password within 48-hours.

–Overview–

I highly recommend that you create a password reset disk if you haven’t done so already. I did it for all of my computers since I can just use a USB drive as the storage medium. You’re probably pretty confident that you won’t forget your password, but who knows, it could happen.

This might also be useful to backup passwords for friends and family who may often forget these types of things. I might start doing that because then they don’t have to worry about putting a darn post-it note on the desk with their password! Maybe they would also create a password that is more secure, too.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on October 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

Mozilla has started to to post some more information regarding how Firefox 3 will adapt itself to the look of multiple operating systems. One of the big changes that Mike Beltzner, Mozilla’s User Experience Leader, mentioned in an article was the two different icon sets that will be created for Windows alone. There will be one for Vista and one for XP. Each set will contain 120 different icons, which means they have 240 icons that they need to make for the two different Windows Operating Systems.

An inventory of the necessary icons have already been posted, but none of them have been updated to reflect the changes that are yet to come. As of right now they are looking for a contributor or a contractor that is willing to produce the icons in the time frame that they have. Here’s what they would like to have done at each milestone:

• 10 icons done in XP and Vista styles as an initial proof-of-concept by the end of the month
• the most frequently viewed icons delivered as a first draft in time for Beta 2
• the full set of icons delivered as a second draft in time for Beta 3
• the ability to make small revisions before the release candidates

The icon inventory site says that the due date for the second milestone (Beta 2?) is in early December, and the third milestone (Beta 3?) isn’t until February 15th! I thought that Firefox 3 would be out by January of next year, but that doesn’t appear to be the case at all.

There are also some lower priority items for Vista that will probably not make it into Firefox 3, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed:

A Windows Vista theme which can be installed by Vista users to include Vista-like widgets and control layouts, tabstrip and other changes for Vista look and feel (to be shipped alongside, not with, Firefox 3)

That almost sounds like a theme utilizing the Aero effects available in Vista, much like what Internet Explorer 7 does. That would be truly awesome if that’s the case.

Beltzner has also begun discussions about the new theme for Linux which has got to be a tough cookie to crack. Think about all of the different Linux distributions available and how many of them look different. It’s probably going to be pretty strenuous to develop something that looks good on them all, and lets not forget that they are also working on a Mac-specific theme. There’s no doubt that they have their hands full.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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