No, you didn't read the title of the article wrong. With all of the Vista bashing going on we thought it would be fun to take a step back and see what the initial consensus was of XP when it launched back in October 2001. Since so much time has passed it is easy to forget the messages that were filling the forums and reviews.
I'm still on a quest to find a great software update monitor so that I know when new versions of my favorite apps are released, and I just found a new one that looks promising. To recap we've showed you how to create your own software update monitor, reviewed UpdateStar, tried out AppSnap, played with File Hippo's Update Checker, and gave Secunia PSI a whirl.
Do you find Windows starting up slow because of all the applications that are set to automatically run at the beginning? If you consult anyone tech savvy they will say to cut back on the number of applications that start with your computer, but that's hard for some people to do. Most of the time those programs serve a purpose, and people want them to be running when they need them.
Many of you are probably sitting in front of a computer that has the amazing CCleaner application (review) installed. It helps keep your computer free from clutter by deleting unimportant files and cleaning up the registry, which is especially useful after uninstalling a program.
After weeks of rigorous testing we finally have Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 in our hands! It's available in 21 different languages for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
We recently asked the question of where should you buy your electronics, and where is the best place for product reviews. A new service, called Retrevo, wants to be your one-stop location for all of those things. You're probably wondering how they are going to have better reviews than sites like Newegg or Amazon, but it looks like they are going by the "" philosophy.
It's hard to believe it, but the #1 most influential reviewer on Amazon who has submitted over 5,000 reviews to the site doesn't even have an Internet connection in his home! His name is Peter Harris - he's 56 from Leicester, UK, and over 50,000 people have seen his reviews.
I'm always looking for ways to get things done a bit faster, and today we bring you what could very well be the ultimate sidebar. It's actually more like a personalized homepage, a sidebar, and an application launcher all rolled up into one. That sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it?
Recently I've been paying close attention to the people who say that Vista sucks for what they feel are valid reasons. Sometimes they say that the operating system has issues working hardware inside of the custom-built PC, and that's something I definitely understand. Or maybe there is a program that they can't live without that doesn't run quite right...I understand that, too.
I managed to find a lot of time over the weekend to play with the new Ubuntu 7.10 that was released on Thursday. It took a little bit of extra work to get the restricted drivers installed, and then to enable Compiz Fusion, but it was well worth it.
It's here! Days like today come only twice a year for Ubuntu lovers. I'm talking about the operating system hitting yet another huge milestone, Ubuntu 7.10, which brings features like read/write support for NTFS drives, desktop search, Compiz Fusion, and more! Since we've already reviewed Ubuntu 7.10 back when it was in the Beta stage I thought I would take this time to detail Kubuntu 7.10!
Microsoft's Mac Office 2008 won't be released until sometime in January, but those of you who are eager to get your hands on it don't have to wait much longer. File sharing sites have already started to distribute a 465MB download of the Beta version to anyone that wants it, and accompanying the download is a working serial number.
The other day Netscape took the plunge and provided a completely reworked version of their browser. The new Netscape 9 is based on the Firefox 2 browser, and therefore has some really nice features such as inline spell checking.
We have talked about text editors a lot on CyberNet before because they can help you be a lot more productive. Up until a few weeks ago I was using Notepad++ on a regular basis, but then I came across PSPad that seemed a little nicer. I do quite a bit of website programming, and that got me thinking whether there was anything better than PSPad out there.
It's not often that I come across a Firefox extension that does so much that it actually warrants its own CyberNotes article, but Tab Kit is one of those extensions. The only thing is that the extension is so new that it's still in the Mozilla Sandbox, and therefore requires an extra step or two to actually get it installed.
Launchy is one of the best application launchers available, and it is about to get a lot better with version 2 that is right around the corner. Just today Launchy 2.0 Alpha 8 was quietly released in the Launchy forum, and I've been using previous Alpha's for over a week. Despite being early in the development process it is incredibly stable.
As it stands right now there are not many Vista-compatible firewalls available.
Applications are pretty much the core reason that computers are useful, and I've seen people that have literally hundreds of different programs installed. I'm not sure how they make it through each day with the super-sized Start Menu that they normally have, but I'm guessing that they use some sort of efficient application launcher.
I can't believe that I'm actually saying this, but I may have stumbled across a text editor that is better than Notepad++! In yesterday's Daily Downloads I included a free program called PSPad, which sounded like a nice text and code editor.
I started off my morning with some Ubuntu 7.10 action since the first Beta had just been released. I downloaded the 688MB ISO image, burned it to CD, and got started immediately with the Live CD. It took a few minutes for it to boot up, but that's expected since I'm running the operating system off of the CD I burned.
