CyberNet

PureSync: Great for USB Drive or Memory Card Backups

Ryan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:40:36 +0000

Windows only
I’m always looking for awesome backup solutions that you won’t have to pull your wallet out for, and there’s no arguing that there are plenty of free apps out there. One that really caught my attention recently was PureSync. it does all of the common things you’d expect from a backup program such as two-way syncing or a one-way backup. The interface is extremely simple, which is something I did find refreshing… often times these programs get cluttered because of all the features they try to include. This has a good balance.

The real power of the program I would have to say lies in options it offers for automatic synchronization:

When folders are found – this is what really made me take a serious look at this program. I can have PureSync look for a specific folder/drive, and when it gets connected a backup will automatically be kicked off. You know how valuable this can be if you’ve ever had a USB drive die on you, or maybe you’ve lost a memory card. Heck, maybe you just want the same files on your computer and portable drive so that changes you make in one location will automatically get carried over once the device is plugged in.
When a file has been modified – When you’re working on a really important project there is always that fear in the back of your mind that something unexpected might happen to your machine. Maybe your computer is going to explode right before you hit the print button? With this option you can have it make a copy of a file as changes are made to it, and move it over to another location… hopefully to an external drive a few feet away from your computer, and sitting next to a fire extinguisher.
On a schedule – this is obviously a no-brainer, and any usable backup program will have this option.

If it weren’t for those options I’m not sure if this app would have struck me as being something special. Overall I’d say it’s pretty good, but then again I haven’t put it through any huge file transfers.

PureSync Homepage (Windows only; free)
[via MakeUseOf]

Related Posts:

Using Twitter to Control Your Computer

Ryan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:03:36 +0000

Windows only
Looking back at how Twitter has evolved I can’t help but be amazed by not only it’s popularity, but also the various services it is used for. I’ve seen ways to track packages using Twitter, add events to your calendar, manage your todo list, check balances on your accounts, and all sorts of other things. It’s crazy.

Now we can take it one step further. With the free app called TweetMyPC you’ll be able to remotely control several different aspects of your computer without any complicated setup process. There’s nothing you have to configure on your router because this simply goes out to Twitter to check for new messages that you’ve posted. Piece of cake.

So what can you do with this? Here are some of my favorites:

You can shutdown, lock, hibernate, or put the machine in standby.
Get a screenshot of your computer screen, and have it posted to Twitpic so that it can easily be viewed.
View and kill running processes.
Download files so that they are there when you get home. Perfect for large files like, well, the Windows 7 Release Candidate download that weighs in at several gigabytes.
Get a list of files inside of a directory on the computer.
Have it email you a document on your computer by providing the path. This only works with Gmail at the moment.
Custom commands will let you create any command you want, and associate it with any executable on your machine. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to work with batch files or command line arguments, which would be super sweet.

I think this could become an app that is widely used by a lot of the Twitter geeks out there. Once it is able to execute batch files and accept command line arguments this will become a must-have app for me. Because that means I can put my computer to work from the comfort of my phone.

TweetMyPC Homepage [via gHacks]

Related Posts:

Pirate Bay Sold for $7.8 Million

Ryan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:56:07 +0000

Huge news broke this morning when information got leaked to the press regarding an acquisition of The Pirate Bay. It’s said that they got $7.8 million for the site which will be turned over to the buyers, Global Gaming Factory X, in August. That might seem undervalued for a site that is nearly in the top 100 sites on the Internet according to Alexa (currently at 112), but given their legal troubles it isn’t surprising that they weren’t able to milk it for all it’s worth.

It didn’t take long for The Pirate Bay to respond to the news, and they confirmed that they are indeed being acquired by Global Gaming Factory X. They are trying to reassure users that things won’t change very much, and that this is all part of them “evolving.” According to TorrentFreak the new owners are looking for ways to ensure that copyright owners get paid, and that the site is legal. They are also reporting that the Pirate Bay’s BitTorrent tracker will be replaced with some new technology that is supposedly better, but is also backwards compatible with the BitTorrent network.

This is disappointing news for the BitTorrent community, but I guess it will help us appreciate those other BitTorrent sites (like MiniNova) that have managed to stay up. Plus this may spur even more interesting in private, invite-only, BitTorrent sites like Demonoid or What.CD. So where are you going to head for your torrent needs now that the Pirate Bay’s ship has set sail?

Related Posts:

Make Windows Shortcuts Open Mac-Style Stacks

Ryan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:29:33 +0000

Windows only
Remember when we wrote about the nifty Stacks docklet? Well, I received an email from a reader pointing out that you can get the same functionality without one of the Windows dock apps. All you need is a free program called StandaloneStack that adds the same functionality to any Windows shortcut you decide to create.

For the most part all you have to do is create a shortcut to the executable, and run it (FreewareGenius has screenshots of the setup process). When you do that you’ll be prompted to choose what directory you want the stack pointed to, how you want the items sorted, and whether you want the stack displayed in a grid (pictured above) or fan view.

I have to say that this can make those shortcuts in your QuickLaunch bar a lot more useful. Plus it will even work for shortcuts that are placed on your desktop. Basically you can have your whole computer littered with these things if that’s what you want. Go nuts, you have my permission.

StandaloneStack Homepage (Windows only; free)
Thank MisT for the tip!

Related Posts:

WrapUp: Gmail Increases Attachment Limit, Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support, and More

Ryan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:13:33 +0000

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Gmail Increases Attachment Size to 25MB
In a quest to show up other email providers Google has once again bumped up their attachment limit. This time they increased it from 20MB to 25MB. That may not seem like a significant jump, but if you look at both Yahoo and Hotmail they only offer 10MB attachments (or 20MB if you are paying for one of their plans). So now Gmail allows for larger attachments than the paid plans of their competitors.

Windows 7 Discounted for Pre-orders
Gizmodo has a rather comprehensive list of all the different places you can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 at a significantly reduced price: Home Premium is $50 instead of $120, and Professional is $100 instead of $200. I am extremely disappointed that Microsoft didn’t give existing Vista Ultimate users special upgrade pricing if we were willing to lay out our wallet for Windows 7 Ultimate.

iPhone 3GS Causes Surge of YouTube Uploads
The YouTube team posted to their blog that in the last 6-months mobile uploads to their site have increased by 1700%. Even more amazing is that the overall rate of uploads increased by 400% since the iPhone 3GS was released with its video recording/uploading capabilities.

Google Voice Invites Being Sent Out
Google has kept a closed door to new users for their GrandCentral service that they aquired, which then turned into Google Voice earlier this year. Users could get on a waiting list though, and according to Google all of the people who requested invites will now be welcomed with open arms. Everyone else, too bad, for now.

Microsoft Security Essentials Passes Initials Tests
Last week Microsoft posted the first Beta of their free antivirus application called Microsoft Security Essentials. I’m sure people are a bit weary of testing this since we don’t really know how good it is, but according to one independent test the application was able to catch and treat all 3,200 viruses they threw at it. What might be even better, however, is that it didn’t flag any clean files as viruses. Microsoft might be on the right track here.

Boxee for Windows Available
I have quite a few friends who have been anxiously awaiting to get a copy of Boxee on their Windows machine, and a few who were already testing out a very early release. Now everyone has the chance to dig into the best video sites through one clean and intuitive interface. In case you don’t look at the fine print… 64-bit platforms aren’t supported.

Download Windows 7 RC by August 15th
If you’ve been procrastinating and haven’t grabbed the Windows 7 RC download you might want to make a note that you only have until August 15th to do so. After that Microsoft will be pulling the plug on the download, but you’ll apparently still be able to get a key if you need one.

Firefox 3.5 Coming Tomorrow; Video of New Features
Note that I actually linked to two different stories in the title. Firefox 3.5 is apparently getting released tomorrow, and I thought the video was a good way to prep all of you for that. Mozilla’s Mike Beltzer walks you through the most notable changes, and describes how they all tie into the browser.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

43 of the Best Free Windows Enhancements
FreewareGenius has assembled a list of 43 apps that can breathe new life into Windows. I have to say that I’m very impressed with what they came up with because it doesn’t include the obvious programs like Firefox or Skype. Check it out because I’m sure a lot of the apps you haven’t heard of.

Another Dock for Windows
Man, you’d think that Windows users just can’t get enough of these docks. This is yet another dock that tries to clone a lot of the features offered by the Mac Dock. I have to say that it does a darn good job with the “live reflections” though.

Ubiquity for Firefox Updated
Mozilla has updated their Ubiquity Firefox extension to include smarter input parsing, better language support, and a hold-your-hand tutorial for those that don’t quite understand how such an extension could be beneficial.

DropRecord Offers Multi-Site File Uploading
Your mom always said “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” What she really meant by that was don’t go and upload a file to just one site when you can upload it to a dozen different ones at the same time with a service like DropRecord. The list of supported sites includes RapidShare, MegaUpload, HotFile, MediaFire, HotFile, 2Shared, and several others.

Backup Your Google Docs
This is a rather clever backup utility for anyone that is using Google Docs. It will let you backup all of your files in your account, and each subsequent time you run the app it will only grab new/changed files. You can even select the filetype you want the documents exported as (eg. PDF). Now if only there was a way to schedule this darn thing.

Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support
I always thought that Weave was a pretty cool add-on, but it just got a lot more useful. Now when you have it remember a password you can set it to automatically log you into the site. That way the next time Firefox sees the login form you want have to touch a thing… it will do all the dirty work for you.

–Downloads–

Boxee 0.9.12.6570 ^Alpha [Mirror]
CCleaner 2.21.940 [Mirror]
Defraggler 1.11.148 [Mirror]
Digsby Build 60 ^Beta [Mirror]
FileZilla 3.2.6 ^RC1 [Mirror]
Google Chrome 3.0.190.1 ^Beta [Mirror]
Maxthon 2.5.2.6929 ^{Beta 5} [Mirror]
Miranda 0.8.1 [Mirror]
Miro 2.0.5 [Mirror]
Opera 10.0.1606 ^Beta [Mirror]
Pidgin 2.5.7 [Mirror]
TeraCopy 2.0 [Mirror]
Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 [Mirror]
VirtualBox 3.0.0.49051 ^{Beta 2} [Mirror]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
WrapUp: Gmail Increases Attachment Limit, Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support, and More

Related Posts:

MetaPad: Light Notepad Replacement

Ryan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:08:10 +0000

Windows only
There are all kinds of Notepad replacements out there, and it makes perfect sense why. Notepad is one of those apps that people use because it starts fast, is lightweight, and for most purposes it does what you need it to. And then there are other solutions out there like Notepad++, Notepad2, and many others. For some people even those can be overkill though.

That’s where Metapad comes in. This app just celebrated it’s 10-year anniversary, which means it’s been around the block and back again. It’s withstood the test of time, and yet there are still all kinds of people who swear by this app… and rightfully so. Metapad isn’t meant to be some all-powerful Notepad replacement. Instead its focus remained on staying small in size, but adding features that could be incredibly useful in daily use. This includes things like:

Persistent window placement
Dirty file notification
Intelligent Find and Replace
External viewer support (e.g. web browser)
Usable accelerator keys (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+N, etc.)
Dual customizable font support
Optional Quick Exit (Esc key)
Configurable tab stop setting
Auto-indent mode
Go to Line/Column
Seamless UNIX text file support
Block indent and unindent (Tab, Shift+Tab)
Recent files list
No file size limit! (under Win9x)
Hyperlink support

So how small is this app? The executable weighs in under 100KB, which is pretty incredible. You have to keep in mind though that this app was developed before broadband had started to take off, and so it had to be quick to download over a modem. With that being said if you’re looking for a VERY light Notepad replacement you should definitely give this a shot.

Metapad Homepage (free; Windows only)

Related Posts:

Microsoft: Firefox/Chrome are Insecure, Difficult to Use, and Unreliable

Ryan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:44:10 +0000

I’m sure you guys will get a kick out of this one. Microsoft has posted a “Get the Facts” page that has a chart comparing some general areas of IE8 versus Firefox and Chrome. Naturally IE8 comes out on top… way on top!

If you quickly just glance through the chart your initial impressions would be that Firefox and Chrome are insecure, can’t manage your privacy, difficult to use, unreliable, not compatible with websites, and not easy to manage. In fact there are only three areas that the three browsers “tie” in: web standards, customizability, and performance. Although they just couldn’t pass up commenting about Firefox’s extensibility:

Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you’d want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box.

Now I’m not trying to say that Internet Explorer 8 is an awful browser. In fact I use it several hours everyday at work because there are a lot of older internal sites I deal with that don’t play nice with other browsers. I just hate that they are trying to send a message like this. Take the “Security” section for example. This is their reasoning behind why Firefox and Chrome didn’t get a checkmark:

Internet Explorer 8 takes the cake with better phishing and malware protection, as well as protection from emerging threats.

Huh, both Firefox and Chrome have phishing/malware protection in them. So they are going off the fact that theirs is “better?” Oh well. Hopefully their aren’t too many people that will see this chart.

Still want some more of this good stuff? Jump over to their “mythbusting” page.

Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” Page [via Google Blogoscoped]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
Microsoft: Firefox/Chrome are Insecure, Difficult to Use, and Unreliable

Related Posts:

iPhone 3GS Camera Review

Ryan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:16:15 +0000

It was a tough decision, but I decided to upgrade my iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS. I wasn’t sure if the new features would be enough to justify the purchase, but I figured I should be able to sell my iPhone 3G on eBay and recoup a good chunk of the cost. So I pre-ordered the phone, and got it delivered to me last Friday morning.

I’m not going to do a full-fledged review because I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of those already. Gizmodo has a really good in-depth review, and so does Engadget if that’s what you’re looking for. Instead I really wanted to focus on the camera, and then briefly throw in my thoughts on some of the other features.

–The Camera–

They bumped up the resolution of the camera to 3.2MP, but the thing I love the most would have to be the auto/manual focus capabilities. I’ve never seen a camera that would let you choose which spot you want to focus on simply by touching it on the screen, but I’m sure that will be the next big thing on point-and-shoot cameras. Combining this with some camera-specific apps I found (more details in a later post) will make this a valuable device to be carrying in my pocket.

I have quite a few friends who ended up grabbing the iPhone 3GS, and one of the first things there’s always comments on is the quality of the images. Some are surprised at how good they turn out, while others say it could be a lot better. I think for a phone the camera is pretty darn good… except in low-light situations where a flash is a must-have.

I took some time to walk around Millennium Park in Chicago since it’s right down the street from where I work, and along the way I took some pictures. I didn’t just take them with the iPhone 3GS though, I also took the exact same photos with my Canon XSi Digital SLR for comparison sake. The iPhone doesn’t really let you adjust any settings when taking photos, and so I decided to set my DSLR to fully automatic mode in the spirit of keeping things fair. I did my best to split each of the photos so that you can really see the differences when they are side-by-side.

(more…)

Related Posts:

StrokeIt Updated After 4-Years; Works on Vista & Windows 7

Ryan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:48:04 +0000

Windows only
We have written about several other system-wide mouse gesture applications, but I know there are quite a few of you who haven’t found one that can rival the functionality of StrokeIt. This is a classic mouse gesture application that has been around for almost 8-years, and in February 2005 it looked like development on it had come to a halt.

Well, it’s back! The StrokeIt homepage broke the news last week that version 0.9.6 can run on Windows 95 all the way through Windows 7. Plus a new portable mode has been added so that you can take the app with you where ever you go. All this, and it’s still free.

Visually nothing has really changed, but if you look close enough you’ll see that Google Chrome and Safari have been added to the list of apps it includes gestures for out-of-the-box:

StrokeIt Homepage (free download for Windows)

Related Posts:

Pixar Grants a Wish; Gets Well-Deserved Credit

Ryan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:29:15 +0000

So last week there was a story about a girl, Colby Curtin, that touched the hearts of thousands of readers, and Pixar played an important roll in it all. She was dying of vascular cancer, and her last wish was to see the movie Up. The only problem was that the movie is only in theaters, and she was to ill to be transported. So a friend of the family made a call to Pixar, and it touched their hearts enough to fly an employee out with a DVD to the family’s home the next day (on June 10th). Just 7-hours after watching the movie Colby passed away.

Pixar didn’t want to comment on the story, and from what I’ve read Pixar even asked the mother not to talk to the media about it. They wouldn’t even release the name of the employee who had gone out to the family’s house. They weren’t doing it for the publicity, they were doing it because they cared. They cared so much that they wasted no time getting out there, and that made all the difference. Bravo Pixar. It’s not often that you hear of a big company striving to make a difference in someone’s life.

After 24-hours the source of the article reported that it had been read by over 400,000 readers on their site. Not to mention the thousands of other people that I’m sure read the story in forums, blogs, and countless other sites. It’s safe to say that this story has traveled around the world.

I had also read that this isn’t the first time Pixar has done something like this, and it’s never the media attention they’re after. I guess they are the only ones who know how many wishes they’ve made come true, and hopefully they’ll keep doing so.

Related Posts:

WrapUp: Microsoft Morro Screenshots, 40 Open Source Apps, and More

Ryan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:37:02 +0000

–News–

Google Maps: “What’s Here”
Google Maps is pretty much the only mapping service I ever use, and for good reason… it keeps getting better and better. The latest addition is a feature you’ll get when right-clicking on a location. If you choose the “What’s Here” option you’ll be presented with a list of places (ex. businesses) that are located there. It kind of reminds me of reverse phone number lookups, except for addresses.

Over 700,000 Palm Pre Apps Downloaded So Far
Palm obviously doesn’t have nearly as many apps for their platform as Apple’s iPhone, but that’s because it’s only been out for a few weeks. What’s impressive is that the 30 apps currently available have been downloaded a whopping 700,000 times.

Microsoft Morro Screenshots
Neowin managed to snag some screenshots of Microsoft Morro, which is destined to become Microsoft’s free antivirus offering due to be released later this year. They are also saying that it will be released with the name Microsoft Security Essentials.

Opera Unite Unveiled
Opera is taking an interesting approach to content sharing with a new service they announced called Opera Unite. Its goal is to make sharing files, media, and just about a no-brainer. To share something with your friends all you have to do is provide them with a public URL, and they’ll be able to download the items straight from your machine.

Wikipedia Will Let You Add Videos to Articles Soon
In the next two or three months Wikipedia authors will be given the option of inserting videos anywhere within the articles. Initially there will be three copyright-free sources authors can pull from: Metavid, Internet Archive, and of course Wikimedia Commons.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Glass Notepad Fully Utilizes Aero
This is a simple notepad replacement that doesn’t really add too much functionality. It’s main purpose is to extend the Aero transparency to the entire window. I’m not sure how many people would be able to use this for a significant period of time, but it definitely has some coolness to it.

Firefox 3.5 RC2 Review
Mozilla posted the second release candidate of Firefox 3.5 last week as they inch closer to the final release. At this point they are pretty much just putting the final touches on the browser, but one thing to note is that it is sporting a cool new icon (also pictured to the left).

Backup Your Apps with Ease
You can treat this app as your standard backup program, but the plugin support is really where it shines. By using the plugins you can actually select specific applications you want to backup like Windows Mail, Opera, Google Chrome, and more.

40+ Open Source Apps
Lee over at Download Squad takes us through his personal favorites when it comes to open source applications. There are a lot of great apps in the mix that you should give a whirl.

Best Sites to Download Hi-Res Wallpapers
Looking for something that will make your desktop a conversation piece? This guide introduces you to a handful of sites that feature some amazing hi-resolution wallpapers.

Find Duplicate Files on Your Computer
Trying to reduce some of the clutter on your machine? A good place to start is to scan your computer for duplicate files.

25 Free Cross-Platform Games
Here are some free games for the next time you don’t have anything better to do (no, we’re not talking about at work). These are games you can download and play without having to drop a single dime. Gotta love that.

Songbird 1.2 Gets Some Nice Improvements
Songbird users will be happy to know that the latest release of the media player has some nice new features. This includes things like automatic file organization across multiple folders, forcing file naming conventions, exporting to iTunes, an equalizer, Last.FM improvements, and more.

Merge Two Folders by Renaming Them
Vista and Windows 7 users might not know this, but you can merge the contents of two directories simply by renaming one of them to match the other. The operating system will then prompt you to verify that you want to merge the contents of the two folders.

–Downloads–

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
WrapUp: Microsoft Morro Screenshots, 40 Open Source Apps, and More

Related Posts:

“Hacked”: Tethering the iPhone 3G on AT&T

Ryan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:44:47 +0000

When Apple announced that the iPhone would be capable of tethering a computer to the Internet a lot of customers in the U.S. shrugged their shoulders because AT&T wasn’t on the list of carriers who were ready to roll the service out. So even though the iPhone 3.0 software (released yesterday) supports tethering all AT&T customers won’t be able to take advantage of it, well, not in a legit way that is.

AT&T has pretty much just shot themselves in the foot because now this has started to make people look for a way to utilize the functionality without needing to Jailbreak their device. And they have done it. 9to5Mac has already posted instructions for an extremely simple 3-step process that will fully enable tethering on the iPhone 3G (and presumably the iPhone 3GS?). Plus you can choose whether you want to tether via Bluetooth or through the USB cable where your iPhone will be charged at the same time.

Sounds great, huh? There are a few things you should know before trying this out:

You’ll need a Mac in order to get your iPhone ready for tethering. BUT once your iPhone has been setup this will also work on any Windows machine as long as you have iTunes installed. I tested it out on a Windows XP computer, and there were absolutely no problems accessing the Internet. If you do some searching you might find instructions on how to prep your iPhone using a Windows machine.
You’ll likely have problems accessing your visual voicemail after applying the changes, and I eventually found that downloading the ICC file from here and using that instead fixed both. So I recommend using that file instead of the one from 9to5Mac. Reading through the comments on 9to5Mac will also tell you how to revert the changes if you want to go back to how it was.
There’s no confirmation whether AT&T can recognize that you’re tethering, which means there is a possibility you’ll be charged extra.

I gave this a whirl despite the risk of seeing extra fees on my phone bill next month, and the results were rather spectacular. When stationary at my house I could get download speeds of about 2.3Mbps, and while rapidly moving on a train I consistently got between 0.9Mbps and 1.2Mbps.

There’s a very good chance that once AT&T finally lets people tether their devices that there will also be a hefty fee associated with it. I only tether a few times each month, and there’s no way that I’d ever pay for tethering if it was more than $10 a month since it’s not something I see as vital. So hopefully this “hack” will remain in working order, and any charges will stay clear of my bill. If that’s the case this trick is perfect for me.

If you don’t mind the risk of getting charged for tethering, and you have access to a Mac, check out the instructions.

P.S. I took the screenshot above to show you what the iPhone displays when you’re tethered.

Related Posts:

New Poll: What Brand of Printer is “the best”?

Ashley — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:37:52 +0000

Working in a school, a private school for that matter, I’ve come to realize that there are always going to be fundraisers. Schools need money, and fundraisers help them with this. I’m sure if you have kids, you dread when those fundraisers start because it usually means you’ll end up buying way too many candy bars, or oodles of wrapping paper, just so your child sells something. Or, you butter-up to your co-workers and hope they’ll help you out, but then of course, you’ll be expected to return the favor come the time their child is selling popcorn or Girl Scout cookies.

Anyhow, what does fundraising have to do with printer brands? At my school, one of the fundraisers they run is a printer cartridge collection. A company called Funding Factory gives the school money for certain qualifying cartridges (and cell phones). At the end of the school year, we sort through all of the cartridges, ship them off, and then receive money. The great thing about this is that it’s a no hassle way for parents to contribute. The bad? I’m the lucky one who gets to sort through all of the used cartridges to find the ones on the qualifying list. This is tedious, and a little messy, as you can imagine.

This past week I finally decided to sort through the collection, and from it, was able to see what I believe to be trends in printer brands. This leads us to our new poll:

New Poll: What brand of printer is “the best”?

What brand of printer is “the best”? Have you found a certain brand to be better than others over the years? Our personal preference is HP, and if the small sampling of cartridges my school collected means anything, it looks as though HP is the preferred brand as well.

Based upon the cartridges collected, let’s see if your preference matches what I found:

#1 – HP
#2 – Lexmark
#3 – Epson
#4 – Canon
#5 – Dell

You can vote below if you have Flash enabled, or vote in the sidebar of the site.

Related Posts:

WrapUp: Google Calendar Gadgets, Mozilla Comments on Safari Downloads, and More

Ryan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:35:46 +0000

–News–

Digital TV Transition in Full Swing
It felt like this day would never come since it was one delay after another, but the government finally pulled the plug. Millions were caught off guard when their TV’s all of a sudden didn’t have a signal, but I’m sure they’re aware of what’s going on now.

Twitter Reschedules Downtime
Twitter’s service provider had some downtime planned for last night, but they managed to get postpone it a day because Twitter is being used as a communication tool for the events transpiring in Iran. Kudos to Twitter for trying to minimize downtime when it really does matter.

Google Calendar Gadgets Appearing
Looks like Google is working on some additional “gadgets” that you’ll be able to see in your Google Calendar sidebar alongside the tasks. This includes features like upcoming events, time zones, google searches, and more.

Mozilla Comments on Safari’s 11 Million Downloads
Apple boasted the fact that Safari 4.0 had been downloaded over 11 million times in merely three days, which sounds like an impressive number… until you compare it with Firefox. Mozilla said that Firefox 3.0.11 was downloaded 150 million times in a 24-hour period.

8 Browser Innovations Started by Opera
Even though Opera may not have the largest market share for browsers we do have a lot of things to thank them for. At one point I was using Opera as my daily browser, but once I could get similar functionality in other browsers I found myself drifting away in favor of website compatibility. I still go back to play with it from time to time, but I don’t know if I’d ever make a full-time switch again.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Fedora 11 Review
About a week ago Fedora 11 was released, and as expected the reviews started pouring in. This review in particular is both thorough and informational, and is something you should read if you’re considering giving the OS a whirl.

Firefox Notifier for Web Apps
A free Firefox extension called Yip adds a notification system to the browser that will let you receive a popup when a particular event occurs. Out-of-the-box it works with Meebo and Filttr, but what makes this so cool is that it can easily be extended through the use of Greasemonkey scripts. You’ll already find scripts for services like Gmail, Facebook, and Friendfeed.

Updating Portable Firefox
If you’re having troubles getting your Portable Firefox updated this guide will show you some step-by-step instructions on how you can manually update it the easy way.

LiberKey Installs 200+ Portable Apps
Looking for a way to get some apps on your USB drive? LiberKey will let you install packages that include up to 200+ of the best portable apps you can carry in your pocket.

Adjust File Creation Date/Time in Windows
Have you ever modified a file on accident, and didn’t want anyone to see that you had changed it? The timestamp on the file could surely get you caught red handed, but that’s why apps like this exist so that you can roll it back to anytime you want.

–Downloads–

AbiWord 2.7.4 ^Beta [Mirror]
Digsby Build 57 [Mirror]
FileZilla 3.2.5 ^RC1 [Mirror]
Firefox 3.0.11 [Mirror]
foobar2000 0.9.6.8 [Mirror]
GOM Player 2.1.18.4762 [Mirror]
Google Chrome 3.0.187.0 ^Beta [Mirror]
Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder 2.0.1 [Mirror]
MediaMonkey 3.1.0.1256 [Mirror]
Miranda 0.8.0 ^{Preview 5} [Mirror]
Notepad++ 5.4.3 [Mirror]
Paint.NET 3.50.3450.236 ^Alpha [Mirror]
Safari 4.0 [Mirror]
Songbird 1.2 ^{Beta 2} [Mirror]
Super 2009.36 [Mirror]
VLC 1.0.0 ^RC3 [Mirror]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
WrapUp: Google Calendar Gadgets, Mozilla Comments on Safari Downloads, and More

Related Posts:

WWDC 09′ – New iPhone 3G S, Safari 4 Released, MacBook Pro Price Drops, & More…

Ashley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:51:41 +0000

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicked off yesterday and missing from the event, of course, was Steve Jobs. In his place was Phil Schiller to give the keynote filled with some major announcements. While Schiller did a decent job, he is certainly no Steve Jobs.

We’re skipping the fluff and getting right down to what you want to know. Here’s a list of the major announcements:

NEW iPhone 3G S introduced – the S stands for “speed”
MacBook Pro Updated – and with the update came a drop in price
Snow Leopard unveiled – and set to launch in September for just $29 bucks
Safari 4 released – many of you were probably testing out the beta, but the final version is now available

iPhone 3G S/3.0 Software

Those of you who have been following us for a while know that we are big fans of the iPhone. We bought the original iPhone several months after it launched, and then stood in line last July to be one of the first to get our hands on the iPhone 3G. As you might suspect, we’re planning on upgrading to the iPhone 3G S loaded with the latest 3.0 Software which is set to launch next Friday, June 19th.

Speaking of the 3.0 Software, Apple got smart this year and decided to launch the software update BEFORE the launch of the new phone. Last year the software update coincided with the launch of the iPhone 3G which caused major activation problems. The software upgrade forced everybody to reactivate, so with the combination of those upgrading software, and those upgrading hardware which needs activating, their system became overloaded. The 3.0 Software launches next Wednesday, June 17th, and will once again, probably require everyone to reactivate their phone.

iPhone 3GS Features:

Speed- it’s a faster phone
Video camera – built right in, with editing capabilities
Voice control – now you’ll be able to control the device by telling it what to do
Compass – in case you can’t figure out which way is North

Pricing: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB

Regular iPhone 3G in a 8GB model will still be available at a reduced price of $99.

iPhone 3.0 Software Features:

Cut, copy and paste – finally!
Landscape Keyboard
MMS
Spotlight Search
Voice Memos
Updated Calendar
Capability to download content from the iTunes store like movies, TV shows and Audiobooks, on your phone
and more…

MacBook Pro Updated

Several changes were made to the MacBook Pro line. One of the changes is that the 13-inch MacBook recently introduced with the aluminum body, was changed a bit and is now part of the MacBook Pro line. The MacBook Pro line includes 13-inch (starts at $1,199), 15-inch (starts at $1,699), and 17-inch (starts at $2499) models which all received significant price-cuts.

The good: obviously the fact that they are now more affordable, and battery life is improved

The bad: non-removable batteries

More here…

Snow Leopard Unveiled

There’s a reason that Apple is only charging $29 for Snow Leopard come September when it launches – there aren’t that many new changes. There’s enough though, that many will be willing to pay the reasonable upgrade fee.

More here…

Safari 4 Released

Finally, the last big announcement at WWDC 09′ is that Safari 4 is now officially released. Its best feature is simply that it’s a fast browser. We can say that from first-hand experience. Other well-liked features include “top sites” and coverflow history viewer.

Available for Mac and PC, download here.

–

That’s about all folks! It was one of the longer WWDC keynotes that we’ve seen, about two hours, and they covered a lot. When we get our hands on the iPhone 3G S next week (hopefully), we’ll be sure to fill you in.

Related Posts:

WrapUp: Yahoo Mail Integrating Picnik, Palm Pre Review, and More

Ryan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:14:47 +0000

–News–

Google Chrome Dev Release for Mac & Linux
Google is starting to show that they will deliver on their promise of also offering a version of their browser for both Mac and Linux platforms. This is a very early release that doesn’t even support Flash, but I have to say that the page rendering performance is pretty darn good at this point. I can’t wait to see what it’s like when it’s a bit more polished.

TechCrunch Shows Off Latest CrunchPad Design
Looking for an affordable and sleek tablet computer? The CrunchPad might be just what the doctor ordered. This web-optimized machine looks to be coming along rather nicely, but it’s too bad they still haven’t talked about pricing for the device. I hope they can keep it under $300.

Windows 7 Available October 22nd
Microsoft has finally announced that Windows 7 will be available in time for the holidays, and more specifically it will be available on October 22nd. It will also RTM somewhere around mid-July if everything goes according to plan.

Yahoo Mail Integrating PayPal, Picnik, and More
Yahoo will be integrating even more features into their web-based mail client such as the ability to send money to friends via PayPal, or being able to edit photos with Picnik. You’ll be able to do all of this from the comfort of your Inbox!

Palm Pre Review
Engadget goes in-depth with the Palm Pre, and considers it a “no brainer” purchase if you’re already on Sprint’s network. They’re not sure, however, if it’s good enough to pull users from other networks.

Mahalo Looking to Become More Like Wikipedia
Mahalo has decided to open their content to user editing, but unlike Wikipedia (who is ad-free) Mahalo will be giving editors a cut of the revenue. It sounds like they’ve thought out the system, but only time will tell whether it will catch on.

Google Squared Simplifies Comparisons?
Google Squared is a new service that tries to parse and display data from all kinds of sites across the web. I, for example, did a search for “xbox games” and it returned a list of results in a table that include things like the release date, genre, and description. I also “manually” added a column for the “number of players”, and Google Squared was surprisingly able to collect accurate data for most of the games.

Google Docs Adds Support for Office 2007 Docs
It’s taken a few years, but Google has finally rolled out support for Word and Excel 2007 filetypes to their online Office-competitor. That basically means DOCX and XLSX can be uploaded, but at this time it still doesn’t look like they’ll let you save a file as that type.

Opera 10 Beta Shows Off New Features
Opera pulled the cover off the first Beta release of version 10, and it includes a customizable Speed Dial page and visual tabs. These are new to the Beta, and from the sounds of it they still have more features in the works to show off before the final release.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

NumLocker Disables the Caps Lock Key
Windows users can download this tiny app to disable the Caps, Num, and Scroll Lock keys so that they can’t be accidentally enabled.

Google Notebook Extension Download URL
Google has stopped new signups for their Notebook service, and as a result they have also pulled down the page where you can download the Firefox/IE extension. This site gives you a direct link to the extensions since Google is still actually hosting them, but they might not be for much longer.

Lifehacker Pack 2009
Each year Lifehacker outlines what their “must have” apps are for Windows users, and I have to say that they did a great job of rounding up my favorite programs.

Free Multi-monitor Taskbar
If you have multiple monitors you surely know how frustrating it can be having only one Taskbar that apps on all the different screens share. Here is a free solution that will give each monitor it’s own Taskbar.

Tweaking the Windows 7 Taskbar
One developer decided to take it upon himself to create an AutoHotkey script that will add multiple enhancements to the Windows 7 Taskbar. The script will let you do things like middle-click an icon to close an app, a single left-click on an icon will switch to the app instead of opening the previews, and more.

Rotate Your Screen in Windows 7
Those of you who like using your monitor in a non-standard orientation will be happy to know that Windows 7 includes an option for letting you rotate it. This is something you’d normally have to install drivers from the manufacturer in order to do, and it’s nice to see it included with Windows.

–Downloads–

Related Posts:

WindowTabs: Organize Your Windows and Taskbar

Ryan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:08:59 +0000

Windows only
Tabs are undoubtedly a hot thing these days with more and more applications moving to some sort of tab-like interface. Web browsers are probably the first thing you think of, but other apps like Microsoft Office even have a tab-like interface with the Ribbon. Why not go a little further? With WindowTabs you can extend the tab interface to pretty much any app.

We’ve seen other programs that are capable of doing this, but after having played with it for a bit I’d say it’s one of the smoothest and best looking solutions I’ve seen. As you can tell from the screenshot the tabs currently take on a Chrome-like appearance, which may or may not be something you like. Unfortunately at this stage it’s not something you can customize, but skinning capabilities seem like a natural next step for this app.

What’s cool with WindowTabs is that you can group together any apps, regardless of whether they are the same program or not. Each group will then show just one Taskbar item, and the title/icon will reflect the currently selected tab. So not only does it de-clutter your desktop, but it also frees some space on your Taskbar.

Still not sure if you should try it? Check out this video demonstrating WindowTabs in action. You’ll see just how smooth the whole tab-grouping process is.

There’s just one catch. The free version is considered a “trial” even though it doesn’t have any nag screens and isn’t time limited. Instead you’re not allowed to have more than 3 tabs per grouping. If you want to buy the full app you’ll need to shell out $19. The developer did a great job on this, but I think somewhere around $9.99 would have been better suited for a program like this.

WindowTabs Homepage [via Lifehacker]

Related Posts:

Will Windows 7 Taskbar Shortcuts Replace System Tray Icons?

Ryan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:26:57 +0000

Windows only
In Windows 7 Microsoft has significantly changed the way the Taskbar works, and it’s starting to make me wonder if a lot of the items sitting in the System Tray might work their way out onto the Taskbar. What do I mean? A good example is this Gmail Notifier that gHacks found. It shows a Gmail icon that is intermingled with all the rest of your shortcuts. When it’s running it will show you how many unread emails there are in your Inbox, and if you click on it you can see a preview of each one.

That’s cool enough by itself, but then it even goes to another level by making use of the Jump List functionality. If you right-click on the icon you’ll see options to compose an email, go to your Inbox, or check for new mail. At the top of the list it will also show the subject line from each of the new emails in your Inbox.

I think the improvements Microsoft has made in Windows 7 is reinvigorating Windows developers, and is once again teaching them to think outside the box. This notifier is a great example of that. It takes something that would normally reside in the System Tray, and moves it to the Taskbar where it’s more prominent, useful, and sleek. I can’t wait to see what people come up with once the operating system is actually released and even more widespread!

Gmail Notifier Homepage

Related Posts:

Gmail Labs: Almost a Year Later and 50+ Available

Ryan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:07:57 +0000

This Friday Gmail Labs will be celebrating its one year anniversary. That’s right… those “extras” that you’ve been enjoying in Gmail all started one year ago when they pulled the curtain off of 13 features that testers could enable in their Gmail accounts. At the time none of the ones available were anything to die for, but as time has progressed the things they’ve added have really changed the way I use Gmail. In fact one year ago I was using a desktop mail client, and as more Labs features were released it slowly converted me over to using the web-based mail client.

I counted up the number of Gmail Labs features available, and if my math skills are anything to go by it looks like there are 51 at the moment. That’s almost an average of one per week if you spread that number out over the course of a year. Of the 51 available I have 26 of them enabled.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the new Gmail Labs features that Google has been releasing, and if I think they’ll be helpful to me I’ll go ahead and enable them. What’s impressive is that even though I have over half of them enabled I don’t see it affect the performance of the site.

I was going to list out all of the ones that I use, but after some careful thought I figured it would be better to only share my favorites:

Inbox Preview – Show a simple, static preview of the inbox while loading.
Multiple Inboxes – Add extra lists of emails in your inbox to see even more important email at once. The new lists of threads can be labels, your starred messages, drafts or any search you want.
Undo Send – Thankfully I haven’t had to use this yet, but I know the day will come! With it you can stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button.
Tasks – Lets me manage my to-do list from my Inbox.
Send and Archive – Adds a button to the compose form that lets you send a reply message and archive the email conversation in a single action.
Title Tweaks – Changes the order of the elements in the browser’s title bar… makes it easier to see how many new emails there are.

Those are the six Labs features that have really changed the way I use Gmail… particularly the Multiple Inboxes one. I love being able to see certain emails that I’ve tagged or starred right there in my Inbox. It gives me even less of a reason to leave an email sitting there not filed.

So here’s a big thanks to Google and even more specifically the Gmail team! Now they just need to come up with a more user-friendly way to manage which Gmail Labs features are enabled/disabled. Because now that there are over 50 items it can be rather tedious to scroll through the list to find one in particular.

Related Posts:

Follow CyberNet on Twitter

Ryan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:18:56 +0000

We’ve received a lot of requests over the last few months for us to setup a Twitter account that pushes out all the articles we post. The thing that was holding me back from creating one was that I wanted to do it my way. There are services like TwitterFeed that will take in your RSS feed, and post them to your Twitter account, but I didn’t like that solution for a few reasons:

The articles will only get posted to as often as they check my RSS feed. Twitter is all about being “instant”, and so I wanted something that got pushed immediately to Twitter once an article was published. That way when we do things like giveaways people on Twitter will have an advantage.
I didn’t want to be dependent on a third-party service. If you read through some of the support pages for TwitterFeed you’ll see all kinds of people asking why the stuff they’re posting isn’t showing up on Twitter. I didn’t want it to be out of my control if it suddenly stopped working.

So what did I come up with? I ended up making my own custom solution after realizing that nothing fit my needs quite right. I got some example code from existing WordPress plug-ins since I had never interacted with the Twitter API before, but the whole process wasn’t that hard.

The end result is instantaneous Twitter posting as soon as an article becomes available on our site. You can follow CyberNet here (link also available at the top of our sidebar), and you can follow me here if you want.

Related Posts: