For those of you using CyberSearch I thought I’d let you know that I just released version 2.0.2 that resolves almost all of the issues users were reporting with Firefox 3.6 Beta 1. The main reason I wanted to let everyone know is that Mozilla hasn’t approved CyberSearch 2.0 yet, which means you won’t receive an update notification in the browser. If you want to update to the latest version you’ll need to head on over to the CyberSearch homepage and install it from there.

I’ve also rolled up several bug fixes in this release, and one simple feature that I meant to include with the original release but never got around to fully implementing it. It’s so simple that I wouldn’t be surprised if you used it without even realizing it. What is it? Pressing the Escape key when you have a result selected should repopulate the address bar with your search phrase. This should be natural for most people… you use the keyboard to highlight a few results, decide they aren’t want you want, and press the Escape key to “cancel” the selection.

I’m trying to make this as user-friendly as possible, and since the release I’ve received over 300 emails that include feature requests, bugs (mostly reports from Firefox 3.6 Beta users… thanks everyone!), and a lot of “thank you” messages. A majority of the feature requests I’ve gotten are great ideas, but won’t be implemented because they stray from my original vision. For example, I’ve received numerous requests to offer the same search functionality in the search box instead of the address bar. The whole goal of CyberSearch is giving you the tools you need to drop the search box all together. So don’t be offended if I don’t agree with your ideas… right now I feel as though I’m teetering on the edge of having something so complicated that no one will want to use it. For that reason I’m very selective with what gets added, and also because CyberSearch currently has over 100,000 users (123,000 at its peak) that I have to take into consideration.

I think I’ve been able to personally respond to every email, but if I haven’t by now feel free to shoot me another one.

CyberSearch Homepage

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
CyberSearch 2.0.2 Released

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Windows only
You may not know this if you haven’t used Windows XP (or earlier) in a while, but all Windows versions have a killer feature that lets you launch applications quickly without having to install memory-eating launcher apps. Read on to see how you can start typing away in Microsoft Word faster than ever before, and more.

The principle
To launch applications quickly, we’re gonna use Windows’ Run feature. You can bring it up by pressing Windows key + R. Alternatively, you can hit the Start button and click Run (in Vista or Windows 7 you may need to enable this through the Start Menu properties) but I recommend using the hotkey to save time.

The commands
Here are a couple of frequently used commands to get to applications like Firefox, Paint, the Command Prompt and so on. It takes a while to learn these but believe me, it’s worth it.

Arguments
Most of the applications mentioned above take arguments so that you can pass along a file to open. This comes in very handy when I have a URL of a video I want to open in Media Player Classic. To do this, I can type mplayerc http://this/is/a/pasted/url to open the specified URL in my media player immediately.

Creating your own launchers
Of course, this list of commands is non-exhaustive. You can create as many launchers as you want for just about anything including files, folders and URLs. This can be done in two ways. The easiest way is to put shortcuts in C:\Windows\. Whatever the name of your shortcut is will be the command to launch it from the Run window. So if I create a shortcut named ‘prf’ in C:\Windows\ to the Program Files folder, typing the command ‘prf’ in the Run window will bring up that folder.

Now, I can imagine you not wanting to put truckloads of shortcuts in the Windows folder. There is an alternative method involving some Registry Editor witchcraft where you create new registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths, but doing that is a lot more complicated than creating plain old shortcuts.

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Speed Tricks: Launching Programs Quickly With Windows’ Run Command

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Is your desktop the digital equivalent of a gigantic stack of unsorted stuff? Perhaps it’s time then to cut through the clutter once and for all and get everything cleaned up. In this article, we’ll help you make it look organized again step by step and advise you on how to keep it that way.

Click to Enlarge

Step 1: delete files you don’t need
Although this is an obvious step, it is essential to the process of cleaning up your desktop. If you’re a big software downloader, chances are that you’ve piled up quite a bit of installers. Go through all of your files and delete the ones you no longer need. Do the same with your shortcuts. A lot of applications drop a shortcut on your desktop you don’t use anyway. If you find yourself using the Start Menu or the Quick Launch bar instead of clicking shortcuts on your desktop, just get rid of them.

Click to Enlarge

Step 2: group files that belong together in folders
Try to put files that have something to do with each other in folders as much as you can. You may discover that some of the folders you’ve created can be grouped together in a folder of themselves. Using folders, you can drastically lower the amount of icons on your desktop.

Click to Enlarge

Step 3: move the folders you’ve just created to My Documents
Storing documents on your desktop is not a good idea if you want to keep the number of icons down. An exception to this rule are temporary documents. In some cases it’s better to leave them on your desktop to remind you that they have yet to be processed. As for the rest of your files: move your newly created folders off your desktop and into My Documents. If you need quick access to some folders, optionally create a shortcut to them but remember to keep the amount of shortcuts to a minimum.

Click to Enlarge

Step 4: download Fences to create groups of files
Back in February, Ryan wrote about a useful little tool from Stardock that allows you to group files on your desktop together. What’s even cooler about this nifty piece of freeware is that it will let you double-click your desktop (or press Escape) to hide all your icons. My advice is to always have this so-called quick-hide mode enabled, except for one or two essential groups that contain stuff like the Recycle Bin or shortcuts to folders you use often. To prevent Fences from hiding a group you’d like to be visible in quick-hide mode, right-click it, go to View and click ‘Exclude this Fence from quick-hide’.

Click to Enlarge

Done!
There you go, your desktop should look a lot cleaner now. In the future, remember to move or delete files on your desktop asap to keep it as clean as possible. Not only does it give you the chance to rediscover your wallpaper, but your files will be more organized too.

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
How to Clean Up Your Desktop

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Windows only
One of the new features in Windows 7 is Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 7, and Microsoft decided to also offer the most of the same functionality to Windows XP and Vista users. Many of you will probably shrug this off as a pointless update, but it has something that is really useful to me. What is it?

Sometimes I Remote Desktop into one machine, and from there I have to Remote Desktop into other machines. A good example of when this might happen is if you have multiple machines in your house… you may only open one of those machines up so that it can be accessed from outside of your network. If you want to connect to other machines you simply RD into the primary one, and then from there you can access any of the other computers on your network.

The problem? If you use one Remote Desktop session inside of another that yellow/tan connection bar along the top can become tedious to use when juggling your various sessions. The more machines you connect to the more those connection bars overlay each other, and can therefore make it extremely difficult to disconnect or minimize some of the connections. You’ll often find yourself sitting there playing with the pin/unpin until the correct connection bar appears.

In Remote Desktop 7 the connection bar is now an attractive transparent blue, but what’s important is that you can slide it back and forth along the top of the window. That basically means you can stagger the connection bars for multiple sessions so that they aren’t completely overlapping each other. I’m demonstrating this in the screenshot above where I connected to one machine using RD7, and then from there connected to another machine running an older version of Remote Desktop. I’ve cropped the screenshot, but the yellow connection bar is actually in the center of the screen. I then dragged the blue bar off to the side so that it could clearly be seen.

Unfortunately the bar can still only be placed along the top of the screen (you can’t move it to the side or to the bottom), but this is still a welcomed addition. There are also a bunch of other features I’m sure some of you will love in RD7:

• Web Single Sign-On (SSO) and Web forms-based authentication
• Access to personal virtual desktops by using RD Connection Broker
• Access to virtual desktop pools by using RD Connection Broker
• Status & disconnect system tray icon
• RD Gateway-based device redirection enforcement
• RD Gateway system and logon messages
• RD Gateway background authorization & authentication
• RD Gateway idle & session time-outs
• NAP remediation with RD Gateway
• Windows Media Player redirection
• Bidirectional audio
• Multiple monitor support
• Enhanced video playback

New features available only to users connecting from a Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 machine:

• Language Bar docking
• Remote application task scheduler
• Aero Glass support
• Start applications and desktops from ‘RemoteApp and Desktop Connections’

Here are the download links for XP and Vista users:

• Windows XP SP3
• Vista SP1/SP2 32-bit
• Vista SP1/SP2 64-bit

Remote Desktop Connection 7 Homepage

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Remote Desktop 7 Download for XP & Vista

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I’ve been working on a new version of CyberSearch for a little while now, and I’ve been trying to come up with ways to add all of the most requested features. It wasn’t until about August 2009 that I started to get inspired to work on the extension again, which is when we all of a sudden saw a huge surge in downloads that has remained constant ever since. In the last 3 months we went from getting about 300 downloads a day and 10,000 active users to an astounding 3,000-7,000 downloads a day and almost 90,000 active users. I believe the rapid increase has been coming from the fact that we’re now a Mozilla “recommended” add-on, and as some users have pointed out to me our add-on sometimes shows up in the add-on management window within Firefox. So a big thanks to Mozilla for giving me the motivation to push out a new version, because without them the CyberSearch growth graph probably wouldn’t look like this:

CyberSearch 2.0 is almost a complete rewrite of the previous version, and I did that for performance concerns. Since I wanted to add more features I knew I had to squeeze every last ounce of juice out before I could move on, otherwise I could have ended up with something sluggish enough that people wouldn’t even want to use it. To put it in perspective… CyberSearch 2.0 actually does about half the number of computations that CyberSearch 1.0 did for each search that is performed.

As far as new features go we’ve got quite a few! The first thing is Bing support. You can now create keywords that use either Bing or Google, which is pretty cool if you think about it. That means you can make one keyword that searches Bing, and another that searches Google. If you don’t like the results that one search engine shows just try using the other… and all you have to do is change the keyword. The real reason I wanted to add Bing support, however, is because they have some API functionality that Google doesn’t offer. Thanks to Bing you can actually create keywords that will do conversions/calculations using their Instant Answer technology, or lookup the spelling of a word. You can do this all from the comfort of your address bar.

Next up: search descriptions. This is undoubtedly the most requested feature. You wanted some way to view the descriptions of all the search results just as if you were at the search engine page. I struggled with this for awhile because I didn’t want to try and cram the descriptions into the Address Bar menu which is already cramped, and could require a lot of scrolling to see all the results. That’s when I came up with the idea to use the area behind the menu for this! That way I have a large amount of space to work with, and am able to display way more details than I originally anticipated. For example, if you’re using a keyword with the Google Local service just press the arrows on your keyboard to highlight one of the results. You should see the background behind the menu dim down, and location details will appear… including a thumbnail of a map for where that place is located (as seen in the screenshot above)! All of the different types of searches provide you with customized details (video searches show the duration, book searches provide the ISBN number, blog searches show the publication date, etc…), and screenshots of them all can be found on the CyberSearch homepage.

Those are the two main highlights of the extension, but that doesn’t mean that’s all that changed. You’ll also find little things throughout CyberSearch 2.0 that should make your life a little easier. Things like a “snapback” button in the address for pulling up the last search phrase you used, or the ability to import/export your configuration and keywords so that setting up multiple machines with CyberSearch is a breeze! These were all your ideas, and hopefully they are exactly what you wanted.

When I describe my extension to people they often ask if it’s similar to Google Chrome’s “omnibar,” which is the name for their browser’s address bar. It eliminates the need for a search box just like CyberSearch does, but it isn’t nearly as powerful. Just watch this 3-minute video I put together and tell me if Chrome can do this:

The next thing I want to try and work on is localization so that CyberSearch supports other languages/countries, but it will probably be a little while before I can get to adding any big features like this again. If you find any bugs please report them so that I can try to get them fixed right away. Thanks again for all of your support and feedback!

CyberSearch Homepage

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
CyberSearch 2.0: Bing Support, Search Details, and More

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Windows only
I received a tip from Mark over the weekend that NeoSmart had posted their Windows 7 recovery disc ISO images just like they did when Vista was released. These discs are extremely handy to have especially if you didn’t receive any installation media with your new computer, which is a common occurrence when purchasing from a majority of manufacturers including Dell and HP.

Why are these recovery discs useful? They include the most important part of what you can find on the Windows 7 installation disc if you purchase a retail copy of the OS. These recovery discs strip away everything except for the recovery portion, which brings the size down to about 5% of what the normal disc weighs in at. With it you’ll able to do things like restore your computer from a backup, repair the startup, roll back to a System Restore point, run diagnostics, open the command prompt, and more.

I’ve used the Vista Recovery Disc numerous times to fix my own machine when the startup has become corrupt (namely because of installing and uninstalling several different Linux distributions). All I have to do is throw in the CD/DVD, run the Startup Repair, and Windows always manages to diagnose and fix the problem within minutes (example). This is something Microsoft got right in Vista… it’s a recovery tool that shockingly works, and the same functionality has been carried over into Windows 7.

So what do you have to do? Well, you simply download the ISO image below, burn it to a disc, boot your computer with it, and begin the recovery process. Here’s the 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of the recovery tool that I’ve uploaded to MediaFire so that you don’t have to download them through a torrent:

• Windows 7 Recovery Disc 32-bit (x86) – 144MB
• Windows 7 Recovery Disc 64-bit (x64) – 166MB

If you want to download it through a torrent jump on over to NeoSmart where you’ll find the links you need. Thanks again to Mark for the tip!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Windows 7 Recovery Disc

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Windows only
Coming across some free software is nice, but what’s even nicer is finding an app that you typically have to pay for that’s available at no cost for a limited time. Do you like the sound of that? If so you may want to check out the currently free (until the end of October) WinX DVD Ripper Platinum that is being given away compliments of Techweenies.

This software is perfect for anyone who’s looking to convert those DVD formats into a format that can pretty much be played on any device. It includes a lot of pre-configured profiles for things like the iPhone, Zune, and more to minimize the amount of tweaking you have to do.

• Rip DVD to popular video formats as AVI, FLV, WMV, MPEG, MP4, etc
• Rip DVD to popular portable devices including iPhone, iPod, PSP, PDA, Zune, Mobile phone, etc
• Support automatically detecting, connecting and transferring converted videos to portable devices
• Rip DVD audio into MP3 music file
• Support grabbing screenshot from DVD video
• Enable to remove or choose subtitles for output videos
• All video/audio parameters adjustable for users optimizing video quality
• Supper fast ripping speed, up to 300%-500% real time
• Best video/audio quality
• Easy to use and 100% stable

And here’s a more complete list of supported input/output formats:

• Input formats: Normal DVD, CSS protected DVD, region 1-6, Sony ArccOS, Commercial DVD
• Output formats: AVI, WMV, FLV, MP4, MPEG, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, PDA, 3GP, Zune, Music, XviD, DivX, JPG, BMP

The software normally runs $25 (which appears to be an “on sale” price marked down from $50). What I love is that the version you download through the giveaway page doesn’t require a serial number or anything like that. Just install it and you’ll have the full version. And you can reinstall it on your computer whenever you want.

I’d say you should grab it before October 31st regardless of whether you plan on using it right away. That way the next time you have to rip a DVD you’re not stuck scrounging around for an app that can do it.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum Giveaway (Windows only; Free until October 31st)

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Free WinX DVD Ripper Platinum

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A few weeks ago a lot of sites were writing about a web developer program from Microsoft that provided web-related software at no upfront cost. When you end your membership you will, however, have to pay a $100 fee. If you look at the overall value of the software you’ll see that it’s still worthwhile.

There’s another program that Microsoft offers which is an even better deal if you qualify… BizSpark. It’s targeted for small businesses that have been around for less than 3 years, make under $1 million a year, and are privately held. Once you get in you’ll have access to pretty much all the software Microsoft makes including all versions of Office 2007 (Ultimate, Professional, Enterprise, etc…), all versions of Windows 7 (Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium, etc…), all versions of Vista, and so on. You’ll basically get a full retail MSDN subscription.

Here’s a more detailed list of the requirements:

• An eligible startup must have the following characteristics at the time of joining:
  • Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business
  • Privately held
  • In business for less than 3 years
  • Less than US $1 million in annual revenue
• To be eligible to use the software for production and deployment of hosted solutions, startups must also be developing a new “software–plus-services” solution (on any platform) to be delivered over the Internet. To meet this requirement your software must:
  • Add significant and primary functionality to the integrated Microsoft software
  • Be owned, not licensed, by you

After you apply it should take about one business day to get accepted (they’ll send a confirmation email to you). Once you’re in you’ll be able to enjoy 3-years of Microsoft software, and similar to the web developer program you’ll have to pay a $100 fee when you exit the program. That’s a heck of a deal for all of the software you get access to.

BizSpark Homepage
Thanks Chris for the details!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
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A few weeks ago we wrote about a free audio converter that was pretty nice, but when installing the app it tries to also put a bunch of third-party software on your machine. I made sure to point this out, but our readers stepped up and mentioned several other apps that are both free and clean. One of them, called winLAME, was recommended by Ian and really caught my attention. Not only is it free, but it’s also open source.

There were a few reasons why I really liked this app. First, it already has support for Windows 7. Second, it has presets for people looking for no-brainer audio conversion in addition to custom settings for people looking for more control. It’s basically a four-step process: Select your input file(s), select your output settings, choose from one of the quality presets or customize the advanced settings, and then let it go to town. And not only can it convert your audio files, but it can also rip CD’s.

Here’s a more complete list of features and supported formats:

• Encoding and decoding of many audio formats, including:
  • .mp3 via LAME mp3 encoder (encoding) and MAD (decoding)
  • .ogg Ogg Vorbis
  • .aac via libfaac/libfaad
  • .wav, .aiff, .au, .voc and many more, via libsndfile
  • .wma via Windows Media Audio codec
  • .flac via FLAC library
• Uses LAME features, including:
  • high quality and optimized mp3 encoding
  • nogap encoding of continuous-mix-cd’s
  • optimized 3DNow! and SSE routines
  • ID3 v1 and v2 tagging
• Easy-to-use wizard-like user interface style for easy encoding setup
• CD Audio extraction (aka. CD ripping), including freedb support
• Presets for fast settings setup
• User interface translations to english and german language
• Batch Processing
• Detailed HTML Help File
• Easy install- and uninstall process
• Small size

If you’ve got some audio files to convert this is one app that I highly recommend downloading.

winLAME Homepage
Thanks Ian!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
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It’s not often that I write about iPhone apps, but there are a few reasons why I want to point out SimplyTweet [iTunes links: free or paid]. First, I have to say that it hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of recognition that it deserves. It has one of the largest set of features out of any of the Twitter clients on the iPhone. If you decide to spring for the $4.99 version you’ll even get push notifications for mentions or direct messages, which is surprisingly something very few Twitter apps offer at this point.

The thing that originally drew me to SimplyTweet was one particular feature that I had been longing for. I wanted a way to load all of the unread tweets regardless of how many that was. Yes, I realize that the Twitter API has a restriction on how many requests can be made each hour, but if I want to max out those requests then, well, do it. And SimplyTweet does. It won’t load just 100 or 200 tweets, it will load as many tweets as it needs to in order to get back to the point where I left off. So when I go for 8-10 hours without loading the app it will grab all 400-500 tweets that I have yet to read. This is, of course, optional.

The main reason, however, that I wanted to cover the app is because of the developer himself. I’ve interacted with a lot of application developers for desktop apps, iPhone apps, and websites. I do my best to give useful feedback, and often reach out to my friends to get their feedback as well. I’ve also been involved in a good number of Beta programs for iPhone apps including the one for SimplyTweet. What makes this developer stand out is that he promptly responds to feedback. I’ve made several recommendations and requests, and the developer has acknowledged all of them… regardless of whether it was over his Twitter account or through email. His responses, however, weren’t just the common “that’s a great idea and we’ll look into adding it.” I’m pretty sure all of the things I’ve asked for have been implemented at this point, and, heck, some of the things I asked for were things that were already in the app but I just didn’t realize it.

The only other thing I want to see this app include is the ability to cache tweets. That way if I open SimplyTweet to load up my tweets, close the app, and reopen it all of the tweets will still be there without having to fetch them again. There are a few apps that do this, but SimplyTweet loads them fast enough that it doesn’t bother me too much. It would still be nice to have though.

I’ve bought other iPhone apps like BirdFeed, Twittelator, and Tweetie. Most of them have their own niceties, but SimplyTweet takes the cake. Robert Scoble also seems to agree.

SimplyTweet [iTunes links: free or paid]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
SimplyTweet: Best Twitter Client for the iPhone

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