CyberNotes: Performance-Friendly Desktop Search Applications
Searching for files on your computer was something that was once a tedious process, but in the last few years it has been one of the most talked about features in new operating systems.

Searching for files on your computer was something that was once a tedious process, but in the last few years it has been one of the most talked about features in new operating systems.

Whenever I do programming I tend to use some form of text editor, and so far my favorite app for that is Notepad++. Ever since they added in the code auto-completion it has been a great tool for the projects that I've worked on.
We always like coming across an interesting free application... especially when it sets out to accomplish a lot of what a paid application does. That's exactly the first impression I got when using Artweaver. They don't come out and say they are trying to emulate Photoshop, but they don't need to.
Most of you probably recall the Photosynth project by Microsoft that gave us some breathtaking 3D navigation of popular areas. We haven't heard from the Photosynth team in almost a year, but the University of Washington and Microsoft Reasearch have collaborated on some more awe-inspiring technology.
In this day and age almost everyone has a USB drive that they use to transport data, and if you're like me you probably have more than one.
DonationCoder started a competition in June 2008 looking to recruit some fresh new blood apps, and it's come to a close with the winner taking home a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite with an MSDN Premium subscription.
Have you ever been working on a project where you wish you had a copy from a few hours or days ago before you made some changes? Most people never think about being able to setup a system that manages revisions of files (a.k.a. version control) because they think it's too complicated, but it takes only minutes to do using the free Cobian Backup software.
Google Maps is hands down my favorite online mapping service because it has a simplistic design, which in the end makes it load extremely fast. Not only that but they offer features not found on other mapping services, including Street View, Wikipedia integration, and even walking directions.
One trend that I've noticed as bandwidth and hard drive storage space continues to grow is that sending CD/DVD's over the Internet is becoming a preferred way for distributing media. These files are typically in an ISO or BIN/CUE format, which most people will then burn to a CD/DVD before using them.
Songbird is a media player that I've had a lot of faith in ever since I took a look at it back at version 0.2. The fact that users create extensions just like in Firefox gave the perception that it would become very successful, but for awhile development had slowed down considerably.
Okay, so I wasn't thinking that I'd have a new version of CyberSearch so soon, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will stop the flood of emails requesting that I revive the customizable background color feature. Yesterday we released CyberSearch 1.0, and with it came a bunch of new features. Along with that I also scrapped the option to customize the background color of the results.
AOL has retired the older version of their radio application for the Mac OS X operating system in favor of the new AOL Radio 2.0. The application is powered by CBS Radio, and includes over 200 radio stations including 150+ CBS Radio stations that are spread out across the United States.
It's been exactly one month since I uploaded the first version of CyberSearch to Mozilla's site, and since then we've had 4,000 downloads of the extension. What's really kept us going are all of you who have expressed how valuable the extension has become, and we're now averaging 4.60/5.00 stars from the 34 reviews we've received thus far.
I think Microsoft did a great job with the Aero transparency interface in Vista, but there might be times were you'd want to turn it off. Maybe you're trying to take a screenshot and don't want to include the contents seen through the window? The normal process that you would have to go through takes several clicks of the mouse:
Desktop shortcuts can be extremely useful for doing common tasks like launching applications, opening commonly used folders, and pulling up your favorite websites, but few people take the time to use shortcuts for anything else.
I've been a big fan of uTorrent for quite some time mostly because of its small size, but there are a lot of features it has that I've never really needed. For example, how often do you look at all of those fancy graphs in uTorrent? If you feel the same way then you might want to checkout the Halite BitTorrent client.
Here you thought that the only big announcements today were going to be from Apple. Looks like you were wrong! We've got another new version of our CyberSearch Firefox extension, and this time it packs more than just bug fixes.
It has been over a year and a half since the consumer release of Windows Vista, and the Sunbelt Personal Firewall is finally compatible with it. The new version has better network performance, enhanced packet filtering, improved stability, Vista (32-bit) compatibility, and more. Plus, like always, it comes in both free and paid flavors.
I can't even count the number of times I've been asked whether there is some way that users can synchronize select bookmarks with their work computer. It's often because they like having access to some of their bookmarks from both home and work, while some they want left exclusively for one of the locations.
We wanted to give our readers a heads up that we are officially launching the CyberSearch Firefox extension tomorrow morning, but you can get your hands on it right now! It is based on the original version of AwesomeSearch, which is now called Searchery. We had contacted the developer of that extension with some of the ideas that we had, but unfortunately we never heard back from him.