CyberNet News » Freeware

CyberSearch 2.0.2 Released

Ryan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:23:47 +0000

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

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CyberSearch 2.0: Bing Support, Search Details, and More

Ryan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:48:08 +0000

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

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CyberSearch 2.0.2 Released

Free WinX DVD Ripper Platinum

Ryan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:08:33 +0000

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)

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winLAME: Another Free Audio Converter

Ryan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:57:01 +0000

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!

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How to Save a DVD to Your Computer

Pieter — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:29:30 +0000

(Click to Enlarge)

Looking for a way to back up your old DVDs onto your hard drive? Want to watch your purchased DVD movies on your iPod? You’re certainly not the only one. For some reason however, developers are not very keen on developing tools that do this. Luckily, HandBrake has stepped up to the plate with a free tool that lets you take control of your media.

When starting HandBrake for the first time, you might get a little overwhelmed by all the knobs and buttons, especially if you’re not familiar with the audio/video codec lingo. Don’t worry, HandBrake has got your back. It comes with a truckload of presets, each of which with its own purpose. By using these, you don’t have to mess with video settings as long as you know what you want to do with your video. For example, you can convert your DVD to video formats that work with gaming consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 and PSP), the Apple TV and the iPod/iPhone. There’s also a “Classic” preset in case you have no idea which preset you should pick. Keep an eye on your hard drive though, because some of these presets can quickly make your videos take up a lot of space. In my test, the Classic preset used about 40MB for a five-minute video.

HandBrake also gives you the option to rip the DVD subtitles (if available) and embed them into your video. If you’re in the market for this feature, check the Audio/Subtitles tab.

(Click to Enlarge)

There’s one more thing you want to pay close attention to: the aspect ratio. Unless you know for sure that the DVD you want to rip is entirely in widescreen (16:9), you have to intervene before you let HandBrake have a go at your DVD. Otherwise, it will cut off the top and bottom border of the screen when encountering 4:3 video. Depending on your OS, you have to take a different approach to tackle this issue.

Windows users – On the Picture Settings tab, look for the section called Crop and set the Top and Bottom to 0.
Linux users – Click on the preview image at the bottom of the window. In the window that opens, look for the cropping options and set Top and Bottom to 0.
Mac users – Same as with Linux, but instead of clicking a preview image you have to look for a ‘Picture settings’ button.

Once you get that out of the way, you can hit the Start button and go grab a cup of coffee. The ripping process may take a while depending on the speed of your DVD player and the horsepower in your PC/Mac.

Also, remember that you should only use HandBrake for backup purposes or to exercise your personal use rights. Keep it legal, kids.

HandBrake Homepage (Windows, Mac, Linux; Freeware)

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WOT Keeps You Safe On the Internet, Tops Bloated SiteAdvisor

Pieter — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:18:01 +0000

SiteAdvisor started out as a really good idea. Whenever you went to a site, the SiteAdvisor label would turn green (safe), yellow (shady) or red (dangerous) to indicate the safety of that site. But then McAfee got involved and bundled SiteAdvisor with a search bar, a resident Windows service and other common signs of bloatware. Fortunately, the Web of Trust (WOT) extension stepped up to fill the gap that SiteAdvisor left.

Setup

When installing Web of Trust for the first time, the extension asks you how it should behave. Depending on your needs, you can go with the full package (Basic), a less intrusive version (Light) or a child-safe version. The latter will first check whether or not the site your kid wants to navigate to is safe. If no ratings are available, the site will be blocked. Interestingly, an accessibility setting for color blind people is also available. After choosing which version you want to go with, WOT will prompt you to create an account with them to unlock the full potential of the extension.

How it works

After installing WOT, a color indicator will be placed in the navigation toolbar. Much like SiteAdvisor, a quick glance at this icon lets you know whether you’re safe or not. Additionally, you can click the indicator to reveal more information about the site. WOT keeps track of trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. It is also possible to read user reviews by clicking ‘View scorecard for rating details’.

WOT also protects you when you’re searching with Google, Yahoo and Bing. Depending on your settings, you can choose to have WOT always display a rating next to every search result, only display the rating if it’s not green or not display ratings at all. Similarly, if you’re a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo Mail user, WOT will display these icons in your incoming e-mails too.

Blocking features

Depending on how cautious you are, you might want to set up WOT like a passive advisor or rather like a mom who is always on your side to keep you out of bad neighborhoods. Either way, you can pull up the settings panel and configure the lowest permissible safety level for each category. Depending on your choice, WOT will either alert you or block you from visiting sites that do not meet your customized safety criteria.

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Get the Windows 7 Taskbar for XP

Ryan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:58:59 +0000

Windows only
One of my favorite features in Windows 7 has to be the redesigned Taskbar. The entire user experience is so smooth, and I think they really went down the right path with it. At work I’m stuck on XP, and I went looking for a way that I could get a lot of the same functionality as what Windows 7 offers.

That’s when I came across the free ViGlance. It’s a rather lightweight app (uses about 10MB of memory when running) that simulates the Windows 7 Taskbar. What I like is that it doesn’t replace the entire Taskbar in XP. Instead it replaces just the portion where the Taskbar buttons normally reside, and leaves the System Tray, Quick Launch, and other native sections untouched.

Here are some of the features:

Pin your favorite applications so that they serve as a shortcut when they aren’t running.
Hovering or clicking on an icon with multiple instances running will show thumbnails of each window, and you can then select the one you want. If just one instance of the app is running when you click on the icon it will instead minimize/restore the window depending on the window’s current state.
Drag and drop the icons in the order you want them to appear.

I expected this app to be nice, but I figured after using it for a week that I would have kicked it to the curb because of annoyances I would find. Surprisingly the features that are implemented are done pretty well. For example, I was wondering what would happen when someone sent me an instant message… how would ViGlance alert me? In a case like that the icon lights up orange as you can see in the screenshot above.

If you do decide to use this there’s just one thing that I want to give you a heads up about. When I first started using it none of the icons would show up, and I was rather perplexed. After some searching around I was finally able to fix the problem by switching my computer from 16-bit color quality to 32-bit in my display properties. I’m not sure why this prevents the icons from displaying, but it does. Aside from that I’d say it’s becoming a solid app, and a great solution for anyone who’s stuck using XP.

ViGlance Homepage (Windows XP only; Freeware)

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Play MKV Files in Windows 7

Ryan — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:51:58 +0000

Windows only
I’ve been using Windows 7 Media Center as my dedicated media hub for the last few weeks, and it’s been a nice upgrade from Vista Media Center. Some improvements include support for up to 4 tuners for each type (QAM, ATSC, etc…), a lot of interface improvements, and HD support to name a few. It can even play AVI/DivX files natively without needing any add-ons.

Windows 7 Media Center does support HD content, but it isn’t able to handle Matroska files (with the MKV file extension) which is disappointing. The MKV format, for those of you unfamiliar with them, has become the chosen method for people ripping Blu-ray videos to their machine. Since those files aren’t supported the videos are treated just as any other file on your computer… they do not show thumbnail previews and, more importantly, are not playable.

The solution is easy though. DivX Labs has introduced a “tech preview” of what they call Project Remoulade. Part of the project is a simple download that adds support for MKV files to Windows 7. Once installed you’ll get thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer (including details like movie duration), you can watch the videos in Windows Media Player or Media Center, and it can even be streamed to UPNP devices like the Xbox 360 or other extenders. Their most recent release also added support for 64-bit versions of Windows 7 in addition to the already supported 32-bit.

It’s still not 100% perfect yet, and I’ve particularly noticed issues when streaming to my Xbox 360. For example, some movies that play on my computer will not play on my Xbox. Installing the free AC3Filter and Haali Media Splitter, however, made the rest of my videos work. I’m sure the DivX add-on will continue to get better, and I’m just happy to see them working on an easy way for people to play MKV files on their machines.

NOTE: You’ll need a DivX Labs account in order to download the file, but I just jumped over to bugmenot.com to grab an account that had already been created.

MKV Support on Windows 7 (Windows 7 only; 32/64-bit; Freeware)

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Best Firefox 4 Theme

Ryan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:16:32 +0000

There have been a few themes that have been developed using the mockups Mozilla made for Firefox 4.0. What’s funny is that while Firefox 4.0 is over a year away you can already get the same beautiful design without having to wait.

As you can see in the screenshot above the theme is extremely close to this particular mockup from Mozilla. Unfortunately, however, there are a few things that you have to install other than just a theme in order to get the full affect. The good news is that the theme developer outlines all of the different things you’ll want depending on exactly how far you want to go:

Strata40 – This is pretty essential… because it’s the theme itself.
StrataGlass – Needed for Aero glass effects on Windows 7/Vista.
Personal Menu – Needed for tools and bookmarks toolbar buttons. I noticed that if you hide the Menu bar that you’ll want to disable the ability to press the Alt key to quickly display the toolbar. If you don’t there is a small group of text that isn’t properly hidden by the theme.
Omnibar – Not essential but great for using the address bar for searching instead of the search box. You’ll probably want this because the theme seems to have a little bit of troubles if you have the search box displayed. Our CyberSearch add-on may also be handy in this respect.
Fission – Needed for “progress line” feature. Shows the page’s loading progress as a small line below the address bar.
The mockups also include a tabs on top version. If you would like a tabs on top version install an addon called Stylish, and then install this style.

It may sound like a lot of work, but I was actually able to get it all setup in less than 5-minutes. And there’s no need to say that I’ve had several people ask what browser I’m using when they’ve seen me running this.

Strata40 Firefox Theme [via ghacks]

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How Good is Opera Turbo?

Ryan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:39:31 +0000

Windows; Mac; Linux
With Opera 10 one of the new features that was revealed was a “turbo” mode that sits in the bottom-left corner of the status bar, and is represented by a little speedometer. What is it? Opera Turbo promises fast browsing when you’re on a slow Internet connection by pushing your requests through Opera’s servers, and making them do the hard work so that the content you’re fetching is delivered in a highly compressed format:

Opera Turbo is a server-side optimization and compression technology that speeds up data transfer and reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded in order to view the page by up to 80%. Among other means, the compression is achieved by image down-sampling therefore some level of distortion in graphics may occur.

When I tell people about this feature the common thing I’m asked is “when will this be useful?” After all, these days we’re all surrounded by high-speed connections, and saving a few megabytes doesn’t matter too much. This kind of thing makes sense on a mobile device, and that’s why Opera Mini also makes use of it, but when would you use it on a desktop browser?

I’ve actually found Opera Turbo to be unbelievably handy… when I’m tethering with my phone. My Internet connection isn’t always as fast as I would like it to be, and I’m more than willing to compromise the quality of some images so that my pages will load faster. Plus, I can turn it on/off at the click of a button if I need to.

How much of a difference does it make? On average I’d say that I save about 1MB for each site that I load, but sometimes it’s even more than that. On sites like Yahoo.com and ESPN.com I’ll save upwards of 2MB since they are heavier on graphics. And, to be honest, the graphics are a bit pixelated, but it normally doesn’t detract from the experience I have on any one particular site. When being tethered on my phone saving that 2MB typically means the page loads five or even ten seconds quicker, and is a worthwhile tradeoff in my eyes.

I haven’t made Opera 10 my primary browser, but thanks to the Opera Turbo this is hands-down my browser of choice when I’m not hooked up to a reliably fast Internet connection. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation you may want to consider grabbing Opera 10 for your machine as well.

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