Hasta La Gadget!

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

Tutorial Thursday

In Windows when you right-click on a file there will likely be an “Open With” menu that lists the various applications that can be used to open that specific file. I use it all of the time because there’s never really just one application that I want to open a file. For example, with HTML files the operating system naturally want to open them in a browser by default, but you may need to open them in Dreamweaver or Notepad to make some changes. The Open With menu makes that possible.

Today we’re going to show you how you can add or remove programs in the Open With menu. In the end you’ll truly appreciate how much easier it is to open files in several different applications that are installed on your Windows computer.

–Add Programs from Open With Menu–

Adding an application to the Open With menu is a pretty easy task, and can actually be done in a few different ways. The easiest way is probably to right-click on the type of file that you want to alter, go to the Open With menu, and click the Choose Default Program option pictured above. You should now see a window similar to this one:

(Click to Enlarge)

The applications listed underneath the Recommended Programs section are the ones that already appear in the Open With menu, and then underneath those are some of the other apps installed on your computer. If the program you want to add to the menu is listed just select it and hit the OK button. Otherwise you can use the Browse button to hunt down the program on your computer.

One thing that you may want to think about before hitting the OK button is whether you want to make the new application the default for that specific type of file. If you don’t you’ll want to uncheck the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file box.

Any programs that you select from this window will be added to the Open With menu until you decide to remove them.

–Remove Programs from Open With Menu–

Unfortunately there is no fancy interface for removing programs from the Open With menu like there is for adding items. To do this you’ll need to fire up the Registry Editor by opening the Run command (Windows Key + R), and then typing regedit into the box. Messing with the Registry Editor is not for the faint of heart, and I recommend that you understand how it works before diving into it.

The programs listed in the Open With menu should be located in one of two locations in the Registry:

1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ FileExts \ .FileExtension \ OpenWithList
2. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ .FileExtension \ OpenWithList

Note: Replace “.FileExtension” with the extension of the file for which you’re looking to modify the Open With menu.

You should find the applications listed according to their executable name, and all you have to do is right click on the entry and have it deleted:

Tip: If you’re having troubles finding the application listed in the Registry Editor it might be easier to perform a search for the name of the executable. Just make sure that the entry you are deleting is located underneath an OpenWithList entry.

After you’ve successfully deleted the OpenWithList entries related to an extension you’ll want to restart your computer to see the changes take place.

–Overview–

So that’s how the Open With menu works! If you’ve got any suggestions as to easier ways to manage the Open With menu we would love to hear them.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on October 26, 2010 by CyberNet.

Windows only
When it comes down to free FTP clients for Windows there are only a handful of them I ever hear people talk about. Normally they consist of apps like FileZilla or WinSCP, and some people just stick to the standard Windows Explorer if they are only connecting to FTP sites. I came across a different app the other day that I’d definitely put on par with apps like FileZilla. That app is FTP Rush.

This free app comes from a company that also makes a paid and more feature-packed FTP client, but their free alternative should be more than suitable for most of your needs. Here’s a list of some key features for the app:

• Supports FXP – Site-to-Site transfers
• Tabbed interface and multiple connections
• Supports FTP, FTPS, TFTP and SFTP (FTP over SSH).
• GUI Customization and Integrated Docking
• Drag-And-Drop files via Explorer-like interface
• Automated transfer by writing FTP scripts
• Built-in Task Manager including Synchronize
• Supports HTTP Proxy, Socks 4&5
• Fast SFV checking on client side
• Supports Unicode/UTF8 charset
• Supports UPnP Port-mapping
• On-The-Fly Mode Z Compression
• High performance Disk Buffer
• Caching folders speeds your browsing
• Keep alive your FTP connections
• Smart Skip & Allow transfer
• Row color and highlights
• Super fast file search

What actually surprised me a bit was that they actually include a portable version of the app weighing in under 10MB once extracted on your machine. I haven’t seen a lot of cases where the developer of the FTP program also supplies a portable version, which made this a nice touch. I think the interface could use a little work, but I find that’s the case with most of the FTP clients.

FTP Rush Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 03, 2010 by CyberNet.

(Click to Enlarge)

Windows only
Reading web comics can really brighten your day, and there is no question that XKCD is one of my personal favorites. Sometimes a quick little comic that takes less than a minute to read can actually put a smile on your face, and the free Windows app called Comical aims to make the most of those minutes.

What makes Comical so awesome is that it not only aggregates all your favorites into one list, but it can also archive them for offline reading. You can specify the interval that you want to check for new comics (or you can do it manually), and a little green icon will appear next to the ones that have new content. A simple double-click on that particular comic will open and save it off to your computer so that they can be viewed even when you aren’t near an Internet connection. It would be even better if it could also download the new comics during an update check, but that might be a feature we’ll see in a future release.

If you don’t mind diving into some XML you can also add your own comics. In the XML you’ll specify the URL of the page that always has the latest comic as well as a simple regular expression that matches the format of the comic’s filename. So you can actually customize this to grab new images from just about any site.

Aside from all that the app is actually rather simple. You can create lists of your favorites so that you can make sure those get read first, and there are some settings you can customize… such as how file archiving, whether you want to be notified if there are updates, and so on. If you’re against all forms of laughter this is a good time to move along, otherwise proceed with the free download.

Comical Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Q1 of 2012 (don’t ask…) was good to Microsoft. Very good in fact. The company posted a record first quarter revenue of $17.37 billion, a 7-percent increase over the same period last year and slightly higher than the $17.26 billion that was expected. The big hero was Office which accounted for $5.62 billion of that income, though sales of Windows stayed flat and fell somewhat short of expectations. The company’s $5.74 billion in net income was also a significant jump of 6-percent over the same time last year. For a few more of the financial particulars check out the earnings report after the break and the spartan spreadsheets at the source link.

Update: Wondering what Microsoft plans to do with the newly acquired Skype? Well, details are thin, but during today’s earnings call the company revealed it did plan to integrate the VoIP service and its technologies into Lync, Live Messenger and Xbox Live. Soon you may not only have to listen to your friend gloat after every kill in Call of Duty, you might have to watch him do a celebratory dance in his Lazy Boy too.

Continue reading Microsoft has record Q1, rakes in $17.37 billion in revenue (updated: Skype plans revealed)

Microsoft has record Q1, rakes in $17.37 billion in revenue (updated: Skype plans revealed) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on April 27, 2011 by CyberNet.

Windows only
When Microsoft released Windows Vista they had a lot of great innovations in it despite the constant complaints people had with the OS. One of the best things that came out of Vista is Aero, which is what powers the Flip 3D (Windows Key + Tab), the Taskbar thumbnails, the blurred border around all the windows, the thumbnails used in Alt+Tab, and more. Those things are all great, but I’ve always felt that the thumbnails in the Alt+Tab popup are sometimes too small to even be useful. I mean if you have multiple Windows Explorer windows open it’s hard to distinguish between them using a thumbnail that’s barely bigger than a postage stamp. That’s why a few years ago we wrote about how you could increase the thumbnail size in Vista with a Registry tweak, but it’s gotten easier since then.

A skilled developer put together a super simple application called Alt+Tab Tuner for changing the size of the thumbnails in Windows 7. Most of the changes seem to take affect immediately after you hit the Apply button, except for the “Thumbs Grid” settings. For this you need to restart Explorer, which can easily be done by checking the “Autorestart Explorer” box in the bottom-left corner. The next time you hit the Apply button it will automatically restart the Explorer process for you.

To add a little perspective to some of the changes here are some before/after screenshots of a few changes I made:

Before (default Windows 7 settings):

After (larger thumbnails, smaller margins):

Not bad, huh? It’s a free and portable app that does exactly what it is designed to do. It’s hard not to love apps like that.

Note: The file will likely fail to download if you are viewing a translation of the download page, which is in Russian. Just look for the red “Download” text and click the link next to it.

Alt+Tab Tuner Homepage (Windows only; Freeware; Portable)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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