CyberNet News

Growl Becoming a Must-have App on Windows?

Ryan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:37:43 +0000

Windows-focused
Having bought my first Mac about a year and a half ago one app that I quickly started to love was Growl. It brought a universal notification system to the operating system that any application could make use of, and the cross-program uniformity made the OS experience that much better.

Then came along Growl for Windows, which was something I took a quick liking to once the Prowl iPhone app was released. I wasn’t sure what kind of future Growl had on Windows since we had already seen other apps like Snarl start to fade out despite being updated regularly. It just didn’t catch on for me.

Growl, however, has become something I’ve installed on all my Windows machines. The notifications are clean and prominent, which can be a combination that is tough to come by. Not to mention the fact that there are also a variety of themes available. My favorite is definitely the Smokestack theme pictured above.

The new version 2.0 that was just released supports images in the notifications, can tell an app when a notification is clicked, can forward of notifications to an email address, and much more. And, of course, we can’t forget about the rapidly growing list of supported apps:

Autotest – Get informed when your tests pass or fail.
Emacs – Send and receive Growl notifications from within emacs.
Firefox – Alerts you when Firefox has started, finished, or failed downloading a file.
Feed Monitor – Alerts you when RSS and Atom feeds are updated.
Foobar2000 – Get notified when playing starts, stops, or is paused.
Gmail – Gmail Growl keeps you updated on new mails in your Gmail Inbox in a fancy way.
Google Reader – Get notified of new feed items in Google Reader.
Google Voice – Alerts you to new voicemails, text messages, call recordings, and more.
Google Wave – Get notified of new Waves.
Growlbook for Facebook – Get notifications for friend requests, messages, pokes, invites, and more.
iTunes – Alerts you to the currently playing track in iTunes.
Irssi – Alerts you when your name is highlighted, you receive a private message, and when someone joins/leaves a conversation.
jWeatherWatch – Get the current weather and forecasts for multiple locations.
Last.fm – Alerts you to the currently playing track on the Last.fm website.
MediaMonkey – Alerts you to the currently playing track in MediaMonkey.
Outlook – Get notified of appointment reminders and when new mail arrives.
OWATray (Outlook Web Access) – Get notified of new Exchange mail without having to keep an OWA browser constantly open.
Pandora AIR – Alerts you to the currently playing track in the Pandora AIR application.
Pandora Website – Alerts you to the currently playing track on the Pandora website.
Pidgin – Get Growl notifications for all kinds of Pidgin notifications.
Postbox – Alerts you when Postbox receives new mail or RSS updates.
Powershell – Send Growl notifications from your Powershell scripts.
SageAlert for SageTV – Get notified for all kinds of SageTV events.
SkypeToGrowl – Get notified of incoming Skype calls.
Songbird – Pops up a notification when the currently playing track changes.
System Monitor – Get notified of system-type events like low disk space, battery life, USB devices inserted & removed and more.
Thunderbird – Alerts you when Thunderbird receives new mail or RSS updates.
TV Browser – Get reminded when your favorite TV shows are starting.
Trowl (Twitter) – Get notified of Twitter mentions, DM’s, and friends’ tweets.
Twitulater – Get notified of new tweets and much more.
uGrowl (uTorrent) – Get notified when torrents are added, start, or finish.
Visual Studio – Get notified of success or failure when builds complete.
Vuze (Azureus) – Notifies you of completed downloads.
Witty (Twitter) – Get of new tweets, @replies, and direct messages. Sends summary notifications if you get too many updates at once.
Yawcam (Motion Detection) – Get notified when your webcam detects motion, and then view streaming video of the activity.
Yip – Transform any Fluid or Prism notifications into Growl notifications.

It’s tough to say how this app will pan out in the end, but I think it has a really bright future. Let us know in the comments whether you’ve given it a whirl, and how you feel about it.

Growl for Windows Homepage (Freeware)

Daily Downloads: Growl, MediaMonkey, NOD32, and More

Daily Downloads: Growl, Paint.NET, and More

Push Gmail on the iPhone

MyFive: Package Tracking Widgets

Regular Expression Generator and Tester

Ryan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:51:18 +0000

Windows only
I always find myself using regular expressions (a.k.a. regex) in my programming because they are often the best way to parse out bits and pieces from blocks of text. Ever since I discovered the online RegExr that has been my tool of choice, but sometimes it’s nice to have a dedicated application. Programs like RegexBuddy are awesome, but aren’t free.

When I came across an app called The Regulator I was pretty surprised to see that the developer wasn’t charging for it. Sure it didn’t look as powerful as RegexBuddy, but I had yet to come across a regex program that you didn’t have to pay for. So naturally I jumped in and started using it.

Basically, I’ll say that it isn’t really anything to die over, but the fact that it’s available offline is really a nice touch. You can enter in your regular expression, and then there’s a box where you can place the text that you want to test it with. Or, one of the nice features is that you can also provide the path of a text file that you want to have loaded in and run against the regex you generated. I’d say that it has all of the basic functionality you’d expect from a regular expression tester.

And then I saw that the developer had also created another rather interesting app called ReguLazy. This program, which is also free, tries to generate regular expressions for you. It took me a few minutes to understand how it works, but this can be helpful for anyone new to regular expressions. It will basically let you highlight blocks of text, right-click on them, and choose whether you want it to allow a string of numbers or letters (along with their corresponding length). The downside… this definitely doesn’t let you generate advanced regular expressions, and so it’s probably not something more advanced users will find useful. This animation should give you a better sense of what it’s used for:

The Regulator Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)
ReguLazy Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Related Posts:

Online Regular Expression Builder

Download Microsoft Expression Web Designer CTP

Download Microsoft Expression Web Beta 1

Regex Widget for Mac OS X

Quickly Add Media to iTunes When It’s Not Running

Pieter — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:59:45 +0000

Windows; Mac
Sometimes, Apple sneaks in new features into their software without ever making a big deal out of it. When iTunes 9 was released, they made it possible to add files to iTunes without even launching the app. The secret to this trick not as far-fetched as you might think…

The key to this feature is a subdirectory of the folder where iTunes keeps your data. Depending on your OS, your iTunes library has a different default location:

Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\your username\My Documents\My Music\
Windows Vista and up: \Users\your username\Music\
Mac OS X: /Users/your username/Music

Once you’ve found your iTunes library, look inside the iTunes Media (or iTunes Music) folder to discover a directory called “Automatically Add to iTunes”. Anything you put in that folder will be added to your iTunes library next time iTunes launches. If iTunes was unable to recognize the type of a file you dropped in that folder, it will be moved into a subdirectory called Not Added. Most of you will probably use it strictly for MP3s anyway, so you should be safe.

Taking it a step further: downloading MP3s straight into iTunes using Firefox
If you’re a huge MP3 downloader, you can set up Firefox to automatically download MP3s to the “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder. You can do this by installing Automatic Save Folder and configuring a default download location for MP3 files as shown below.

Related Posts:

Download Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2

Apple Releases iTunes 7.0.1

AllOfMP3.com Is Running Into Some Trouble

iTunes 7 Now Available For Download

Apple Releases iTunes 6.0.4 With Front Row Improvements

WrapUp: Office 2010 Beta Available, Legal Usage of Windows 7 OEM Copies, and More

Ryan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:02:40 +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–

Office 2010 Beta Available
Microsoft has posted the Office 2010 Beta for MSDN and TechNet subscribers, but not before it had already been leaked. It was already appearing on your favorite BitTorrent search engine last week, but now there is some legitimacy to the download.

It’s “Illegal” to Use OEM Copy of Windows 7 on Your Own PC
I know several tech-savvy people who have purchased OEM copies of Windows 7 because they build their own PC’s, but if you look at the fine print doing so means you don’t have a genuine copy of the operating system. Microsoft says that you have to resell the PC to a third-party in order for it to be deemed legit, which is rather disheartening.

Google Getting Ready to Launch Extensions Site for Chrome?
The eagle-eyed people over at Download Squad noticed something new in the latest Chrome build… a reference to what appears to be an upcoming extensions site. Maybe Google Chrome extensions will finally become a bit more official, and I’m sure the extra publicity that developers will get will spark an onslaught of new extensions.

1080p HD Coming to YouTube Next Week
Starting next week users will be able to watch videos in both 720p and 1080p HD formats. They have even said that they will begin re-encoding videos that have been previously uploaded at the higher resolution so that there’s no need for anyone to upload their videos again to get the better video quality.

–News in Brief–

Windows 7 RTM Activation Bypassed by Hackers
Pirates just don’t give up… two new methods of bypassing Windows 7 activation emerge: RemoveWAT and ChewWGA.

Apple Launches iTunes Preview
Apple now provides a web-based version of iTunes that will let you preview URL’s before redirecting you to the iTunes software.

Google Acquires Gizmo5
Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5 will be used to enhanced Google Voice, and will likely be used to tie features into Google Talk.

Demonoid Rewrites Code, Comeback is Imminent
According to TorrentFreak, Demonoid’s return will be coming soon after it was down for several weeks, but they had to rewrite code to account for the loss of data.

Google Offers More Storage for Less Money
You can grab twice as much storage at a quarter of the old price over at Google… 20GB is just $5 a year and 80GB is $20 a year. Not bad! Or you can spring for the 16TB at $4k a year.

Google Provides Free WiFi at Airports This Holiday Season
47 different airports will be offering free WiFi for travelers this holiday season, compliments of Google.

Firefox Tops Vulnerability List
Firefox accounted for 44% of all vulnerabilities in the first half of 2009 according to an application security vendor.

Celebrating Five Years of Firefox
Last week the open source browser celebrated it’s fifth birthday.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Windows ReadyBoost Monitor
Windows 7 and Vista both support using ReadyBoost as a simple way to turn a USB drive or memory card into additional memory for the computer to use. ReadyBoost monitor is handy because you’ll be able to keep an eye as to whether your system is actually making use of the additional memory, and if so how often it’s being hit.

Wally Wallpaper Changer
Wally is a free and open source wallpaper changer that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. With it you can have it pull down images from online sources (such as Flickr), and flip through the different images on your desktop to help keep the scenery fresh.

PHPAnywhere: An Online PHP Editor
PHPAnywhere is a rather full-features PHP editor that is all handled online. It does your syntax highlighting, can edit files located on an FTP location, adjust permissions, and much more. You’ll always be able to work on your code no matter what PC you’re using. It’s a programmer’s dream!

–Tips in Brief–

How to Convert MKV Files to DVD
This free Windows app will let you convert a high-quality MKV video file to a format that can easily be burned to a DVD.

Download Torrents without BitTorrent
A website called httpTorrents is will let users download files directly without needing a BitTorrent client.

Extract Clips from DVDs
DVD Knife is a free program that can be used to extract portions of a DVD to a single file.

Linux Mint 8 RC1 Spices Up Your Desktop
Linux Mint 8 builds on the latest Ubuntu 9.10 platform, and bundles a lot of apps/features to make it even easier to use.

Automatically Backup Your WordPress Database
These instructions demonstrate how you can use a free WordPress plug-in to schedule database backups.

Comodo EasyVPN Created a Free VPN in a Few Clicks
You can set up your own VPN with this free software, but you can only do it at home (it’s not free for commercial use).

Show Week Numbers in Google Calendar
Google has a special calendar you can add to your Google Calendar account that will display week/day numbers on your calendar.

–Downloads–

FeedDemon 3.0.0.45 [Mirror]
Firefox 3.6 ^{Beta 2} [Mirror]
Google Chrome 4.0.245.0 ^Beta [Mirror]
Maxthon 2.5.10.2994 [Mirror]
Maxthon 3.0.5.7 ^Alpha [Mirror]
Opera 10.10.1874 ^Beta [Mirror]
PeaZip 2.8 ^Beta [Mirror]
ReNamer 5.50 [Mirror]
Safari 4.0.4 [Mirror]
VirtualBox 3.1.0.54685 ^{Beta 1} [Mirror]

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
WrapUp: Office 2010 Beta Available, Legal Usage of Windows 7 OEM Copies, and More

Related Posts:

Microsoft Office 2010 Icon Pack

Microsoft To Stop Offering The Office 2007 Downloads Soon

Microsoft To Stop Offering Windows Vista Beta 2 Tomorrow

OpenOffice.org Wants You To “Get Legal”

New Poll: Is Your Copy of Microsoft Office Legitimate?

How to Reduce Firefox’s Memory Usage

Pieter — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:47:15 +0000

It’s a common problem among Firefox power users: you’ve been surfing the web for some time and all of a sudden Firefox’s memory footprint goes through the roof. And although Mozilla’s developers do their best to ensure that Firefox is stable, many people play a part in the browser’s memory leaks without knowing it. So how do you get Firefox to run smoothly again?

Do you really need that Firefox extension?
In my opinion, Firefox’s support for add-ons is one of its most valuable features, but there’s a catch: the longer Firefox has been installed on your hard drive, the more extensions you install and the slower Firefox becomes. That’s why it’s not a bad idea to uninstall extensions you don’t use. If you want to keep a certain extension around just in case, disable it to prevent it from being loaded on startup.

Disable all unnecessary plugins
Aside from your extensions, there are some hidden memory eaters in Firefox that you may want to get rid off: plug-ins you didn’t even ask for. Common plug-ins you might want to disable of include Microsoft Silverlight, Java, Google Update, QuickTime, RealPlayer and Adobe Reader. If you disable the latter, you won’t be able to view PDFs in your browser. Instead, you’ll be prompted with the standard download dialog. Unlike extensions, plugins can be disabled/enabled without restarting your browser.

Reboot Firefox with a hotkey while saving your tabs
Rebooting Firefox is one of the most effective ways to lower its memory footprint. Originally intended for use by extension developers, QuickRestart does just that. Just press Ctrl+Alt+R to reboot Firefox while conserving your currently opened tabs.

Use Safe mode
Vista Rewired suggests using Firefox’s Safe mode in situations where you just need the basic browser. In Safe mode, all your extensions are disabled. You can find a shortcut to Firefox’s Safe mode in its Start Menu folder. Alternatively, you can launch it with the -safe-mode parameter. Visit Vista Rewired here for more details.

Hack: save Firefox’s state on your hard drive when minimized
In 2006, Ryan wrote about a way to have Firefox save its state on your hard drive when it’s minimized. This involves creating a setting of the boolean type in Firefox named config.trim_on_minimize with value true. Although this might free up some memory when Firefox is minimized, it may cause a slight delay when you restore Firefox’s main window. If you want to activate this hack, check out the how-to here.

Start with a clean slate
For that extra speed boost, you should consider starting out with a clean Firefox install. To do this, you’ll need to delete your entire profile folder. If you’re not sure where to find this folder, you might want to read Mozilla’s explanation here. Unless you don’t mind your bookmarks being wiped, ensure that they are backed up. Also note that this will not only delete your bookmarks, but also your extensions, your settings, your saved passwords, your history and so on. That’s a lot of data you’re throwing away, but obviously that’s the reason why wiping your profile is so effective.

Related Posts:

Firefox 3 Memory Leaks Status Update

CyberNotes: Windows Memory Usage Explained

Must-Have Firefox Extension: StatusbarEx

New Tab Mix Plus Uses Firefox’s Built-In Session Restore

Keeping Track Of Firefox Extensions That Leak Memory

Access SkyDrive in Windows Explorer

Ryan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:46:20 +0000

Windows only (32/64-bit)
I love the fact that Microsoft gives users a free 25GB of storage for files through SkyDrive, but I think they’re able to do that because they don’t provide an easy way for people to upload things. That way most people will never come close to hitting their 25GB limit, but that may change with the free SkyDrive Explorer app.

As the name implies this will make your SkyDrive account accessible right there in Windows Explorer… exactly what I’ve been wanting. From there you can drag-and-drop files into any of your SkyDrive directories, or copy down files that you’ve already uploaded. Once you’ve uploaded a file or folder you can then right-click on it to grab the URL that can then be used to send to other people you want to share it with. This is perfect for sharing music or photos with friends and family! It’s fast, simple, and makes it so that you never even have to visit the SkyDrive site.

Here’s what you can do with SkyDrive Explorer:

View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive
View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format)
Create new root folders and subfolders
Copy files into the storage
Delete files and folders
Copy files from the storage to the computer
Copy folders and subfolders from the storage to the computer keeping their structure
Use Drag & Drop for files operations
Rename files and folders
Create links to SkyDrive folders on your computer
Copy URL of the selected object(s) to the Clipboard

The one downside is a limit of the SkyDrive service itself… and it’s that you can’t upload files larger than 50MB. What would be cool is if a future version of SkyDrive Explorer would automatically split files up into 50MB chunks! It’s an awesome app even without that functionality though.

SkyDrive Explorer Homepage (Windows only; 32-bit or 64-bit; Freeware)

SkyDrive Storage Limit Doubled

Microsoft FolderShare Beta

Adobe Air-based Xdrive Desktop Lite Launches

Download Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3

Should We Prefer Metered Bandwidth Over “Unlimited”?

Pieter — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:47:18 +0000

We love unlimited. Everything is better when it’s not limited, right? Then what’s not to love about unlimited bandwidth? Actually it’s bad for us consumers. Here’s why.

ISPs currently give you unlimited internet access… as long as you don’t use it too much
Did you look into your contract when you signed up for your ISP? If you’re on an unlimited plan, in most cases you’ll find the term ‘fair use policy’ buried somewhere between five hundred paragraphs of Legalese. This term generally has two possible definitions.

There’s a hidden limit. If you want to know much you can use, beg our customer service representatives to tell you what it is.
We can cut off your connection or throttle it whenever we feel like it.

In my book, ‘unlimited’ doesn’t mean ‘limited in a secretive way’.

With metered bandwidth, you know what you’re gonna get
You know what you’ve paid for when you’re on a metered bandwidth plan. Consumers with metered plans have a legally binding agreement with their ISP where they have to let them send and receive a set amount of data through their pipes. This is more transparent than vague fair use policies that impose a hidden limit. With a little collaboration between ISPs and tools such as ISP Monitor (pictured above), the customer always knows what he’s up against.

There’s only so much traffic our pipes can handle anyway
The only reason why ISPs lie about the bandwidth limit of their plans, is marketing. You could compare the internet to a highway: you can only fit so much cars on a highway at the same time. Similarly, internet resources are limited too so it is only fair that we have to pay for what we use. Otherwise, your grandparents are overpaying for their internet connection because some kid is constantly torrenting movies.

In conclusion

ISPs need to be upfront about their limits and provide an easy way for their users to check their bandwidth usage. As long as these limits are fair compared to what you pay for it, I for one think we’re better off banning unlimited plans.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

DivShare 3.0 Sports a New Interface

JAlbum Launches Image Hosting Solutions

DivShare Disappoints – No Longer Unlimited

Time Warner: More Bandwidth = More Money

WrapUp: MSN Redesign, Clean Install with Windows 7 Upgrade Media, and More

Ryan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:10:55 +0000

–News–

Fresh Windows 7 Installs Vulnerable to 8/10 Viruses
Some people feel as though UAC is enough to protect them from the computer daemons known as viruses, but as it turns out you may not want to go down that path. SophosLabs did a test, and a majority of the viruses ran on the OS just fine even with UAC enabled. I think you know the moral of the story.

Google Dashboard: See What they Know About You
A new section in the Google “my accounts” page serves as a dashboard for all of your Google activity. It summarizes recent emails from your Gmail account, how many contacts you have, documents, pictures, and more. You’ll quickly realize just how much Google knows about you.

Long Overdue MSN Redesign Coming
It’s been quite awhile since MSN has seen a redesign, and it’s safe to say that the current design is showing its age. A new one is on the way though, and it is largely simplified from what you currently know as MSN. Actually, the first thing that will probably come to your mind is “why didn’t the background load” when you see all of the white space that was previously filled with an eye-gouging blue.

Reocities… Your Geocities Archive
Yahoo! decided to kill off Geocities for some weird reason. I don’t quite understand because Geocities truly is a part of the Internet’s history, and served as the first personal homepage for a good chunk of Internet stragglers in the early days of 56K modems. One man decided to take it upon himself to create an archive of as many sites as possible, and according to him over 800,000 accounts have been restored as of now.

Google Maps Navigation for Android
In a rather interesting move Google announced that they will be providing turn-by-turn directions for Android devices at no additional cost. They will even throw in features like voice guidance, 3D-views, and a lot of other features you’ve come to expect from traditional GPS applications. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be available for the iPhone soon as well!

–News in Brief–

Windows 7 Sales Exceed Vista Sales by 234%
Reports are that based on sales numbers from the first few days that Windows 7 blew Vista sales out of the water.

Intel Allegedly Paid Dell $6 Billion to no use AMD Chips
A lawsuit filed against Dell claims that they received billions of dollars in payouts over a five-year period from Intel so that Dell would not use AMD processors in their machines.

New Digg Trends
Digg is experimenting with a new way to get hot topics promoted to the front page even faster.

More Info on the Microsoft Courier
This document explains how the swipes and gestures will work on the Microsoft Courier.

Apple Announces 100,000 App Milestone
With over 100K apps in their App Store I’d say this gives Apple a key advantage over a lot of their competition. Granted a lot of the apps suck, but there are also a lot of amazing ones.

130K French Government PC’s Switching to Thunderbird
In a big win for Mozilla… 130,000 government machines in France will start using Thunderbird as the designated email client.

Ubuntu 9.10 Released
It’s that time of the year again! That’s right, the bi-annual release of Ubuntu is upon us with a handful of new features.

Crapware Banished from PC’s in Microsoft Stores
It’s a pleasant surprise for people buying a PC at a Microsoft Store when they find out that it doesn’t come with all the bloatware you’d normally get if purchased directly from the manufacturer.

SeaMonkey 2.0 Released
The new version of Mozilla SeaMonkey has session restore, tabbed email, an updated internal platform, and much more.

Google Voice Works with Your Existing Number
You can take advantage of some Google Voice features without having to switch over your phone number.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Allmyapps Bulk-Installs Programs
We’ve seen other solutions that are similar to this, but Allmyapps as an amazing repository of over 100 apps that you can choose to have rolled up into a single installer. If you rebuild machines often (like me) a utility that can do this becomes a huge time saver.

Readability 2 Makes Webpages Printable
Ever come across a page that you want to print or maybe paste into an email, but can’t because the formatting doesn’t carry over very nice? This handy bookmarklet will try to format the page you’re on in an easy-to-read layout that also doubles as a great printable solution.

Add CPU and Memory Meters to Windows 7 Taskbar
I’ve been saying for awhile that we’re going to start seeing some really clever uses of the Windows 7 Taskbar, and I think this is one of them. With this app you can add two performance meters to your Taskbar: one for CPU usage and another for memory usage. They make use of the built-in progress bar that is displayed behind the icon so that you can always see where the usage is at with a single glance.

Performing a Clean Install with Windows 7 Upgrade Media
One of the headaches with purchasing upgrade media with Windows is trying to provide proof that you own a prior version of the OS. Sure, it’s no problem if you already have Windows installed on your machine, but what if you want to perform a clean install? Paul Thurrott walks you through the different scenarios and explains what will or will not work. He also provides information on how to hack the registry to make a clean install work when using upgrade media.

–Tips in Brief–

Backup Your Ubuntu Machine
This simple app will let you pick and choose which areas of your Ubuntu machine you would like backed up.

Windows 7 Taskbar Tweaker
This free program will let you customize how icons are grouped, what action is performed when you click on an icon, what happens when you right-click, and more.

Rotate Desktop Backgrounds in Windows 7
You may not know it, but Windows 7 has a built-in feature that actually lets you shuffle through desktop backgrounds.

Get Pinned Tabs in Firefox
Yet another Google Chrome feature has been migrated to Firefox through the use of extensions!

Songr: Search for and Download Songs
Grab some of your favorite songs for free with this Windows desktop application.

Texturize Your Taskbar
Change the Taskbar background in Windows 7 to be more than just a single color.

Sketch Out Accidents Online
The website accidentsketch.com gives you the tools you need to quickly draw out and explain how an accident occurred.

IE-Like New Tab Page for Firefox
Firefox users can get a new tab page that resembles that of what you’ll find in IE7/IE8. The one nice addition, however, is the ability to add your favorite sites.

–Downloads–

Clean Install from XP to Vista…a Workaround is Needed?

Windows Media Player 11 Leaked To The Web

Paul Thurrott Upgrades His XP Machine To Vista RC1

Beta Testers Wanted for Next Windows Media Center

BackupURL Lets You Archive Websites

Ryan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:56:34 +0000

I’m sure at one point or another you’ve wanted to share a link with a friend, but knew that when they went to visit the page that the content would change. Unfortunately you don’t have control over when services like the WayBack Machine make archives of a site, and often times the backups available there are at least a year old.

That’s where a service like BackupURL comes into play. With it you can create an on-demand backup of the current state of a website. You can then share the backup with anyone you want using a shortened URL that it will provide.

I tried the service on several different sites, and for the most part it was pretty fast at creating the backups. Most of the time I had a working URL in my hand within 10-seconds of clicking the “backup” button.

The one thing I don’t like is that, unlike the WayBack Machine, there’s no way to navigate past archives of sites. If you lose the URL you’re simply out of luck. I’d have to imagine that it would be simple for them to add some sort of interface to flip through the archives, but I’m guessing they have a reason for not providing this information to us yet. Hopefully that’s something that will come though.

This is another site that I’d recommend putting in the “may be useful someday” folder in your bookmarks.

BackupURL Homepage
Thanks Mark!

IE 8 to Enforce Standards Mode by Default

Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites of 2007

Search Old Newspapers Online with Google News Archive

Firefox Extension Lets You Drag & Drop Attachments In GMail

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

Related Posts:

CyberSearch Tops 25,000 Downloads

CyberSearch Publicly Available on Mozilla Add-ons

CyberSearch Supports Firefox 3.1 Beta

CyberSearch 1.0.1: Background Colors are Back

CyberSearch 1.0.2: Pull Up Google Results Page Faster