CyberNet News » Pre-Release

Defraggler 2.0 Beta Offers Boot-Time Defragmenting

Ryan — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:03:09 +0000

Windows only
Earlier this week the first Beta release of Defraggler 2.0 was posted, which is a pretty big milestone for the software. This defragmentation utility is freely available, and this update serves as the first major milestone in nearly three years (Defraggler 1.0 Beta debuted back in November 2007). Interestingly enough the list of new features isn’t all that long, but when you’re talking about a Windows defragmenter program a lot of what you’ll want to see are things that happen behind-the-scenes.

The list of new features include:

Offering complete offline defrag during the boot process with full OS support
UI has been improved with a new Drive Map and customizations
Rearchitected the internal defrag processes to make it faster and more efficient

While that list is short the last bullet encompasses a pretty big overhaul, and I see the boot-time defragmenting as a nice feature since it can be set as a one-time thing or at every boot. If you choose to use that option your machine will defrag before you even login to your system, which may mean that it will be able to reorganize some of the files on your system that would have otherwise been unmovable.

I look forward to them polishing this up a bit more, but in my brief tests this Beta worked well. Keep in mind that they don’t have this packaged as a portable release yet like they offer for their latest stable version, which may mean that some of you will want to hold off a bit if you were wanting to throw this on a USB drive.

Defraggler 2.0 Beta Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Firefox 4 Beta 2 Will Break Many Extensions

Ryan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:52:36 +0000

As our regular readers know I am the developer behind the CyberSearch Firefox extension, and I wanted to say thanks to all of our users for their bug reports… and especially Ronin who pointed out a doozy. He keeps up with nightly Firefox builds, and is kind enough to point out when some of our extension’s features break. This is nothing new, and I’ve always tried to be good about keeping the extension in working order even for nightly builds. Well, as Ronin pointed out to me, something kinda big came down the pipe and will be included in the Firefox 4 Beta 2 release that is just a few days away. Something that could break a lot of your favorite extensions.

What am I talking about? This XPCOM change. Many extensions, including CyberSearch, use what’s referred to as components in their code. This change landed in the nightly releases shortly after Firefox 4 Beta 1 was made available, and it reworks the way these components get registered with the browser. The fix is pretty easy, and should take extension developers very little time (took me about 30 minutes) to update their add-ons. The problem is that there are so many add-ons that have been abandoned by their developers, and that will likely leave a lot of users frustrated.

**Begin geek talk**
So why the change? Well, it’s better in the long run. Previously if you did anything with an extension (install, remove, enable, disable, etc…) you would have to restart your browser, and doing so would require ALL of your browser components to have to re-register. With the way it was set up every component would be “loaded and executed, then unloaded, then reloaded again during the restart.” You’ll still need to restart your browser after installing/updating extensions, but now the components are pulled directly out of the extension’s manifest file which avoids many of the otherwise poor side effects. Not only that, but as Mozilla points out this is a good move in helping to make Firefox multithreaded.
**End geek talk**

Why am I telling you all of this? I know I don’t typically write about developer-related things like this, but I know many of you are already testing out Firefox 4 Beta 1… and when Beta 2 is available it will seem like a no-brainer to want to upgrade. Please keep in mind that just because your extensions worked in Beta 1 does not mean they will work in Beta 2. The good news is that I’ve already seen some indications that developers of many popular extensions are working on updates, and will hopefully be ready in time for Firefox 4 Beta 2. I have an updated version of CyberSearch out to testers right now, and I will should get the green light back from most of them today. If that’s the case CyberSearch 2.0.6 will be posted later tonight.

When can you expect Firefox 4 Beta 2? The estimated release date is Friday, July 23rd, but it may be pushed back to Monday, July 26th. This should be interesting.

SnagIt for Mac (Beta) Released

Ryan — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:24:24 +0000

Click to Enlarge

Mac only
I’ve been using a Mac for nearly two years, and with as many screenshots as I take there was just never an app that quite matched the capabilities of SnagIt on Windows. I’ll admit that Skitch was pretty close, but the screenshot editor lacked in a lot of different areas. My biggest pet peeve is the inability to manage/manipulate multiple screenshots on the same canvas… a.k.a. turning more than one screenshot into a single image. That was something SnagIt on Windows really shined at.

Techsmith has heard the pleas from Mac users, and released a Mac-compatible screencast recorder earlier this year. Then yesterday I received an email from them saying that they have officially unveiled the Beta version of SnagIt for taking screenshots on a Mac. The interface is wildly different from the Windows counterpart, but that’s understandable considering that the Windows version uses the Office 2007 Ribbon UI that Microsoft hasn’t made available for Mac applications.

How does SnagIt for Mac handle itself? Right now I’d say very well. It offers an all-in-one capture mode that tries to detect whether you want to grab the full screen, a window, a specific region, or even a scrolling area. That’s cool and all, but it’s the small things I appreciate having again… like the small magnified window when capturing a region:

The awesome thing about the magnified window is that it doesn’t actually appear until your cursor isn’t moving much on the screen. That makes sense because when your cursor is only being nudged a few pixels at a time is when you’re probably trying to get a pixel-perfect screenshot, and that’s when you need the magnified area.

Overall I’d say there are a lot of nice touches in the app. You can use keyboard shortcuts, the Menubar icon, or the hide-away window (pictured in the first screenshot) to initiate a capture. SnagIt for Mac isn’t full-featured yet though, and you’ll notice that as soon as you click on the “Effects” tab where all you’ll see is a “Coming soon” message. The things that are available work very well though.

I like where the app is headed, and I’m already confident that I’ll be purchasing it once it is released. It offers all the intuitiveness that Skitch does, but tacks on a much better screenshot editor. If you hardly edit your screenshots I’d say this isn’t the application for you, but keep in mind that the Beta of SnagIt for Mac is completely free to use until a commercial version is released. They haven’t specified when that will happen, but I’m guessing it will give you more than enough time to try it out to determine whether it’s something you’ll want to buy.

SnagIt for Mac (Beta) Homepage (Mac only; Freeware while in Beta)

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!

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)

Microsoft Office 2010 Icon Pack

Ryan — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:01:48 +0000

In our WrapUp earlier this morning we talked about how a new build of Office 2010 Beta had been leaked, and in this build Microsoft included new icons for each of the applications. It didn’t take long for someone to extract all of the icons from the release and assemble them into an icon pack, which is exactly what one DeviantArt user did (our download mirror).

I’ve pasted the icons for each of the main applications below, and that includes Access 2010, Excel 2010, InfoPath 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Project 2010, Publisher 2010, Visio, 2010, and Word 2010 (in that exact order). Each of the icons are 256×256 pixels, and come in both ICO and PNG formats if you download the pack. In all there are over 60 different icons included in the download.

What do I think of them? Well, I actually like them. They feel modern, and one of the first things I thought of when I saw them for the first time was how much they reminded me of the icons Adobe uses… mostly because of how prominent the lettering is on them. I think they fit the Office Suite well.

Here are the full uncompressed icons for the 10 primary applications:

[via Redmond Pie]

High Sign: Mouse Gesture Application

Ryan — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:28:15 +0000

(Click to Enlarge)

Windows only
Mouse gestures are something that I’ve gotten into the habit of using for years now, and giving them up would almost be like giving up the ability to use keyboard shortcuts. Some gestures have become second nature to me, and when I’m on a computer that doesn’t have that capability I get rather frustrated.

The bad news is that a lot of these apps have a tendency to not get updated very often. A good example of this is with StrokeIt… one of the most popular mouse gesture programs. The last time it was updated was over 4-years ago.

The other day I started doing some searching and found a relatively new app called High Sign, and I like what it has to offer. It’s extremely simple to understand and operate, and has all the right features… like being able to record your own custom gestures.

Once you’ve recorded a gesture you can assign an action to it. This includes minimizing/maximizing a window, switching between apps, running a program or command, and simulating a hotkey combination or keystrokes. With these options you should be able to do just about anything you want, and you can even restrict a gesture to a particular application.

Once you get High Sign installed it will be in training mode so that you can create some new actions, but it does already come pre-configured with a few popular ones. To start using High Sign you’ll want to exit out of Training Mode by right-clicking on the System Tray icon, and then just hold down the right mouse button to start drawing.

High Sign is an open source and freeware application for Windows only

Safari 4 Beta is Worth a Look

Ryan — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:10:53 +0000

Windows; Mac;
Today Apple kind of took everyone by surprise when they released a big milestone for the Safari browser. The new Safari 4 Beta from Apple borrows some ideas from their competition, and they spiced it up a bit with some fancy graphics. This is most notably seen in the “Top Sites” screen as seen in the image above. It’s a combination of Opera’s Speed Dial and Google Chrome’s most frequently visited pages. Then they added a little glamor to really make it pop.

The Windows version also received a major visual overhaul so that it actually fits in well with the operating system, and for the most part feels a lot like Google Chrome. Especially since the tabs are located along the top on the titlebar… again, like Chrome.

When it comes down to speed Apple has actually managed to squeeze out a bit more. I ran the Mac version of the browser on the SunSpider test against Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 (also Mac), and Safari 4 Beta squeaked out on top. It took Firefox 3.1 a total of 1409.6ms to run all the tests, and Safari 4 was 1276.8ms (lower number is better). It’s not much of a difference, but Firefox 3.1 beat out Safari 3 proving that Apple didn’t focus solely on appearance this time around.

Aside from that here are some of the features Apple pointed out for Safari 4:

Top Sites – See your favorite websites at a glance.
Cover Flow – Flip through your site history or bookmarks like you flip through albums in iTunes
Full History Search – Easily retrieve sites you’ve seen before.
Tabs on Top – Manage your tabs elegantly and open a wide window for exploring the web.
Nitro Engine – Surf the web with the world’s fastest browser.
Windows Native Look and Feel – Vista and XP users will feel right at home.
Developer Tools – Access the best suite of development tools ever included in a browser.

I’m diggin’ Safari 4 on my Mac, and despite being a rather dedicated Firefox user I plan on giving Safari a fair shot. I think Google might be able to grab an edge on Safari once they add support for extensions, but until then I think Windows users will, at the very least, be giving the browser a shot.

So what do you think? The number of web browsers and what they’re capable of doing is getting pretty amazing when you think about where this market was just a few years ago. I can’t wait to see what comes next, and what company it will come from.

Haven’t read enough? Here are some more articles worth checking out regarding this release:

This is one fast browser – by Hardware 2.0
Safari 4 Hidden Preferences – by Random Genius
Safari 4 a big step up, but not as far as rivals – by Webware
Safari 4 First Impressions – by Gizmodo

Get Safari 4 Beta for Windows or Mac

Windows 7 Download Available, Users Wait for Product Keys

Ryan — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:46:54 +0000

Big news came Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) when Steve Ballmer said that they would be releasing a copy of Windows 7 Beta today that the public can actually get their hands on. The Beta build leaked a few weeks prior to the official announcement, and there was a lot of excitement because early reports were saying that it was stable, efficient, and a huge improvement over Vista. Naturally people were wanting to kickoff their downloads early today because grabbing 2.4GB is not a 2-minute task.

Surprise! Right now the Windows 7 site has a message up that essentially says the demand was more than what they anticipated:

Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal—we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.

Over at Lifehacker they managed to scrounge up some direct download links for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, which is handy for those wanting to get the download going overnight. Here are the links:

The only problem now is waiting to get your hands on one of the 2.5 million product keys they are handing out for this round of testing. What boggles my mind is the fact that Microsoft isn’t letting people just sign-up so that they could receive the product key, and then let users download the OS from an alternative source if they don’t want to wait (*cough* BitTorrent). Heck, a lot of the people probably have the leaked copy installed and all they need is the product key to activate Windows 7 Beta.

P.S. This Beta release will expire on August 1st, 2009 even after entering the product key. If you don’t enter a product key you can still run Windows 7 Beta for 30 days.

Opera 10 Gets Inline Spell Checking and More

Ryan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:14:50 +0000

Win; Mac; Linux
I’ve been waiting to see what Opera had in store for us in version 10, and it looks like everyone is finally getting a peak. In fact I’m a bit surprised by what has been revealed so far, but in a good way. For awhile it seemed like other browsers were trying to find their own ways to adopt features that were first introduced in Opera, but the opposite never really happened. By that I mean Opera never really went after the handy features that other browsers were introducing.

What features am I talking about? Inline spell checking and auto-updating. Last year I covered some of the things that I really wanted to see included in future versions of Opera, and those two things were definitely on my list. Opera 10 Alpha 1 is the first version of their browser to incorporate these features.

Here are some of the other highlights in this release:

Presto 2.2 Rendering Engine
Performance boost
100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days
Widget Improvements on Linux

The million dollar question is whether Opera is still doing enough to attract new users, or whether they’re fighting a losing battle? I found Opera 10 to be more responsive than any of the other browsers, and the pages felt like they were displayed faster as well. Does that mean I’m going to make it my primary browser? I’ve really become accustomed to the extensions that Firefox has to offer though, and it would be hard for me to use only Opera without some of that important functionality.

What do you think about Opera? Did you expect more from Opera 10? Guess we’ll have to wait and see whether they have a few more tricks up their sleeve.

Get Opera 10 Alpha 1 for Windows, Mac or Linux
Thanks Cody!