Hasta La Gadget!

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

Windows only
As a geek I always find myself firing up Notepad because of how fast it is, plus it’s nice not being flooded with toolbar buttons. A free utility called Nocs will cater to those that feel the same way about Notepad, but also want some sort of synchronization with Google Docs. One particularly nice feature is that you can have documents auto-save in the background so that you should be able to recover most of your data even if your computer crashes.

Nocs also sports multiple tabs and can handle advanced searches using regular expressions. Here’s a better breakdown of some of the features:

• Full synchronization with multiple documents open at the same time (tabs).
• Auto-save files up to every 5 seconds.
• Supports folder organization (create/delete/rename), and you can specify a default folder to save to.
• Pin documents to have them auto-loaded when Nocs starts
• You can sort documents by title or by time updated.
• Regular expression search/replace.
• Tip: You can close tabs with by clicking the mouse wheel

I’d say that Nocs isn’t anything fancy, and isn’t much more advanced than Notepad itself. So if you’re not a fan of Notepad you probably won’t use this very much, but if you’re a fan of the plaintext files then Nocs might be right up your alley.

Nocs Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)
Note: I had problems installing this on Windows 7 because it said I didn’t have .NET 4.0 installed, but I did. It turns out you need the full thing installed, which is not what their installer links to in their prompt to get .NET Framework 4.0.

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

Windows; Mac; Linux
A few months ago we wrote about a free application that was able to track stolen computers, and today we’ve got an open source alternative for you. It’s called Adeona, and it’s interesting how it works. After setting it up you’ll be given a file that is used to identify your computer in the event it gets stolen or lost. It’s recommended that you put that file in a secure location, or email it to yourself.

Once you lose your computer you’ll be able to call up the Adeona Recovery application, give it the file you stashed away in a safe place, and it will try to remotely fetch pertinent information from your stolen computer. The information you’ll be able to retrieve includes:

• Internal IP address – This is your Internet location as reported by the operating system.
• External IP address – This is your Internet location obtained by asking a web server like checkip.dyndns.org.
• Nearby routers – These are network routers obtained by doing a traceroute to randomly selected PlanetLab computers. Usually, the names of network routers you are using can give a clue about your geographical location.
• Access point – This is the name of the wireless hotspot you are connected to, can also give a clue about your location. Note that the Windows version simply reads a registry key that might contain stale information or no information on the current access point (for example, if one is not using the Windows-provided wireless management tools.)
• Photos (Macs only) – The location-finding component takes a picture using isightcapture before sending an update to OpenDHT. If a thief was using the laptop, you could get a photo of them.

There’s no saying as to whether this would actually help in the retrieval of your computer, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. Here’s a guide that will help you when setting up Adeona, and another guide that explains the retrieval process.

Get Adeona for Windows, Mac, or Linux

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This article was written on February 14, 2008 by CyberNet.

A few different people have posted screenshots of Windows 7 Milestone 1, which is a very early look at what’s supposed to be released in 2009 or 2010. The last time we saw screenshots of Windows 7 Milestone 1 there wasn’t really anything that exciting, but a Russian site (English translation by Google) has really busted the lid off of any mysteries.

Aside from the article that was written there are also two screenshot galleries that accompany it (here and here). From the article and the two galleries here are the things that we found interesting:

• After you first setup the computer with Windows 7 you’ll be able to establish a “HomeGroup.” Sounds similar to a Workgroup, but I guess this is yet another step that Microsoft is taking in making networking an easy process for anyone that uses a computer.

  (Click to Enlarge)
   

• The Status Bar, as we already knew, expands hidden icons in a popup window to conserve the precious Taskbar space.
   
• The search box in Windows Explorer is now resizable, which I’m surprised to see.
  
• The Start Menu now makes it a bit easier to pin items that you use the most:

  (Click to Enlarge)
  

• The size of the Control Panel icons can be adjusted for those that like things a bit smaller:
  
• In just a few clicks you’ll be able to restore Windows back to the original state. It would be cool if this feature didn’t include the bloated software that the manufacturers typically bundle with Windows, but that’s doubtful.
  
• One of the features that I want right now in Vista is the full-width Start Menu searching (I trimmed out the middle of the screenshot to eliminate the abundance of whitespace). Super sweet!
   

After looking at the screenshots in the article and the gallery I have to say that there is a lot more new stuff in Windows 7 Milestone 1 than I had expected. Microsoft still has about a year to develop new features and improve usability before they need to start focusing on polishing the operating system and squashing bugs. Well, that’s if they want to make the projected release date of 2009.

We’ll keep you informed when more Windows 7 news becomes available, but I have a feeling that the first milestone has been milked for everything it’s worth.

[via istartedsomething]

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

Microsoft briefly announced in one of their press releases today that they hired on the developer of the popular WebGuide software for Windows Media Center (both XP and Vista). This software lets Media Center users manage all of their recordings from any browser, as well as stream content from your Media Center computer. You can also stream music, pictures, and videos that are stored on the PC all from the comfort of your browser.

I’ve actually been using this software for months, and there was both free and paid versions available. The free version did just about everything except for the streaming media, and I liked the software so much that I decided to buy it for the $10 or $15 that it was. Now, however, Microsoft has decided to make the software available at no cost.

The creator of WebGuide, Doug Berrett, made this announcement yesterday afternoon in his forum. Here’s a summary of what he had to say:

I’m excited to announce that I recently finalized a business deal with Microsoft to make WebGuide available to users for free and to become a member of the Media Center team.
…
For those of you who feel I’ve sold out, given in to "the man" or crossed over to the dark side, you don’t need to send me a nasty email.  I hear yah.  Go play a round of Halo to get it out of your system.  At the end of the day, my passion is for developing cool software, and this is an opportunity to do just that.  I’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.

Honestly the interface on this program is amazing, and it even includes a mobile version for phones and PDA’s that make scheduling a piece of cake. There’s also a Vista Sidebar Gadget available so that you can manage your recordings, view scheduled shows, or search and browse the TV guide without ever opening your browser.

Another interesting part of the website is the Top List which collects anonymous television recording stats. You can then view the most recorded shows for your country, and it’s pretty interesting to see what tops off the list for different parts of the world.

I highly recommend installing this software if you’re using either XP or Vista Media Center. It will handle almost all of the configuration itself, and you can create multiple users each with customized access restrictions.

WebGuide Homepage
WebGuide Screenshots

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This article was written on January 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

Many of our Microsoft Monday posts over the last several months have focused on Windows Vista — after all, it is the latest operating system from Microsoft. While it’s the “latest and greatest” as they say, we know many of you still use and prefer Windows XP. Today we thought we’d spend some time going over a few Windows XP tips. Some of the tips you may be well familiar with while others will be completely new to you. This will be the first in a two part series, so stay tuned for the 2nd edition.

Many of these tricks use the Windows Registry Editor, which you can start by pressing WinKey+R and type regedit into the box.

Note: Some of these tips may work in Vista, but we have not tested them in Vista.

–Rename the Recycle Bin–

Want to rename the Recycle Bin? Here’s what you gotta do:

1. Run the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ CLSID\ {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
2. Double-click on (Default), and change the name of the Recycle Bin. Close the Registry, and press F5 on the desktop to refresh the icon.

–Network Sharing–

When you’re looking at files on a network drive you might have noticed that it can take a rather long time (up to 30 seconds). What happens is XP checks to see if the other PC has any scheduled tasks. You can disable that by:

1. Run the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace.
2. Delete the {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} key. Close the Registry.
3. While you’re there you can also delete the {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} key if you don’t use printer sharing.
4. Reboot your computer.

–Excessive Printing–

This probably isn’t for home users, but for all the people out there that do a lot or printing this is something you should consider doing. By tweaking this Registry setting the printing process will have a higher priority. Here’s the details:

1. Run the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHING\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print.
2. Create a new DWORD called SpoolerPriority, and give it a value of 1.
3. Reboot your computer.

–Disable Last Access Time Stamp–

This small little tweak is a great one, because it disables a feature that most people never even use. By default Windows always keeps track of the “Last Accessed” date in the file or folder’s properties. If you’re constantly opening and closing files you’re causing some additional work for Windows since it has to update the last accessed date each time. If you never use that property feel free to disable it:

1. Run the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ FileSystem.
2. Create a new DWORD called NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate, and give it a value of 1.
3. Reboot your computer.

–Remove Text from Icons–

I would have to put this trick up near the top of my favorites list. With it you can prevent the text from appearing below icons on the desktop. If you’re looking to clean up your desktop a bit this could be the perfect way:

1. Right-click on an icon, and choose the Rename option. Delete all of the text.
2. Hold down the Alt key and type 0160 (note: you shouldn’t see any text being typed). That will essentially make a space character the file name. Press Enter to save the results.
3. You can repeat this for several icons, but there is one catch. You probably know that you can’t have multiple icons in the same folder (or on the desktop) with the same name. To get around that for a second shortcut you can do Alt+0160 + Alt+0160. That will essentially create two spaces for the filename, and for a third shortcut you could do Alt+0160 + Alt+0160 + Alt+0160. As you can see this would get tedious rather quickly, but for a handful of shortcuts it is pretty nice.

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