Archive for Computers – Internet
Good Software Development Ideas Google Chrome
Sometimes a good idea is so obvious you can’t help but wonder why no one had bothered doing it before.
Webmonkey reports that Google Chrome has released a new beta version of the Chrome browser that runs ALONGSIDE of the regular full-release version of the Google Chrome browser. The idea is that instead of having to commit to either the beta channel or the dev channel of Chrome as your one and only Chrome browser installed on your system, you could choose to have both a bleeding edge installation of Chrome with all of the latest features and functionality, while at the same time having a completely stable version of the browser installed as well.
This is such a great idea, it is a wonder that all beta software is not offered in this manner.
It wasn’t that long ago that beta software was something that was carefully controlled and offered only to specific partners who installed it in a testing environment. In this case, the only one model of software installation made perfect sense. Ever since Microsoft used mass beta and pre-release distribution and testing to go from releasing the embarrassing and widely hated Windows Vista to the almost complaint free Windows 7, software developers have been increasingly realizing the power of wide beta testing to virtually eliminate bugs and other issues before release. In this model the side-by-side beta version of software makes much more sense.
The developers of the Chrome Browser will no doubt see much wider adoption of its developer-level browser with the new Canary version that allows users to run both the "real" version of the browser and the new leading edge developer beta version at the same time. That broader usage will in turn allow bugs to be discovered and fixed more quickly and that will in turn allow Google to release updates to its Chrome browser faster than its rivals.
Like I said, some business strategy ideas are just so good, you wonder why they haven’t been used before.
Download Faster Any File Sharing Site Rapidshare Hotfile DepositFiles with JDownloader
While we do not condone piracy or copyright infringement in any form, the truth is that there are a lot of very useful files, programs, ebooks, white papers, research reports and more on the Internet’s numerous file sharing website services out there.
These days, there is less concern about sharing or hosting files on your own online profile or via one of the big free services like Live Spaces, Dropbox, and so on. However, there are still times where it would be better if particular files were not associated so closely with your name (competitor information, for example). And, even with generous online storage limits and high bandwidth traffic limits capable of handling most legitimate sharing purposes, there are still occasions where hosting on a dedicated file sharing service is better.
There are literally hundreds of online file sharing services, but some of the most popular are Rapidshare, Hotfiles, Depositfiles, and Fileshare. These file sharing websites offer anonymous free file hosting storage and sharing with varying features. You can require a password to access files or just allow anyone who gets the URL to be able to download the file.
Free Online File Host Services
Unlike social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, or specific purpose file sharing services like Flickr and Photobucket, the file sharing websites like Rapidshare and Depositfiles allow users to share any type of file. They also allow bigger files to be uploaded and most importantly do not require files to be associated with the user wishing to host the files online.
Therefore, a user could host all manner of controversial, topical, or large files and documents with little fear of repercussions or harassment.
For a researcher, access to exactly this type of books, research reports, notes, and white papers is very important. Rather than waiting days (or weeks) for an interlibrary loan of a doctoral dissertation written by a Harvard PhD candidate or just as long for one of the numerous law journals or other publications produced at colleges and universities around the country, an electronic version can often be found online with some diligent searching, or even with the help of a friendly librarian or fellow researchers.
Take a break Citibank rewards catalog 2010 review.
The catch to this utopia of free file hosting and unlimited bandwidth downloading for free is that it is not really free at all. Rather, each file hosting service permits anonymous users to download a small amount of material at a time. Some services go so far as to restrict free downloads to just one file per day or some equally low amount of megabytes in a 24 hour period. To get around this restriction, the file host offers a premium membership for a monthly fee or annual fee.
File Sharing Collaboration Strategy for Business
In theory, paying for access to unlimited files shared online would be a good business strategy. However, there are simply too many of these file sharing services out there, and it seems that every uploader has their favorite. To buy memberships to all of them would be absurd. Even a collection of premium memberships to Rapidshare and a handful of other major players could cost hundreds of dollars per month, not to mention the administrative burden of managing all of the premium accounts, usernames and passwords.
It is a situation crying out for a type of co-op where researchers, freelance writers, students, and others could each purchase a premium membership to one of the file sharing services and then share access between members of the cooperative. Of course, that requires either the insecure sharing of passwords and usernames while hoping for the best, or waiting on the person with the right membership to find download and then either re-upload or otherwise distribute the files needed to the original requester. Some sort of online service could manage the process for individual coops, but would need to be low profile to avoid being banned or blocked by the sharing services.
In the meantime, there is a very elegant solution allowing users to download for free from any file host like RapidShare, DepositFiles, HotFiles, and more. It is an open-source program called JDownloader. JDownloader works by handling all of the waiting, logging in, and downloading of files on the file hosts. If a captcha must be entered, JDownloader displays an unobtrusive pop-up box at the necessary time and the user can quickly enter the required Captcha without having to monitor a timer or countdown manually.
Furthermore, the software will wait on the user’s behalf for the next free time to open up, whether that is one hour or 24 hours and then automatically start downloading the requested files. It is not an instant process by any means, but online research requests can be queued up and then retrieved over a few hour or overnight if necessary.
JDownloader monitors the clipboard for URLs and then automatically adds them to its download queue to be reviewed by the user before the downloads are started. Downloading a dozen links off of a website requires simply right-clicking and choosing Copy URL for each link. No real waiting is required, because by the time the user can copy a new URL to the clipboard, JDownloader has already added it to the list of file downloads.
If you need to get a handful of books or files off of multiple file sharing websites, give JDownloader a try. It might just be the solution you are looking for… at least until I figure out that co-op thing… or someone beats me to it 
A final break if you need one for small business owners using section 179 deduction on taxes.
Free file sharing storage downloading is complete.
More small business strategies await you.
Windows Live Sync Down Website Says
Update: Looks like Live Sync is working again and live.sync.com is up and running.
However, there is a new bummer. Looks like a new version of Live Sync is coming. It is currently in beta. However, it looks like the new beta version of Live Sync will not support Windows XP. That wouldn’t be so bad except that it also says that all of your Microsoft sync clients must be updated to the beta version in order to work together. That means you won’t be able to use Live Sync to keep files and folders synchronized between Windows 7 and Windows XP computers unless you keep your Win 7 boxes on the old (current) version of the client. (Maybe some of that will change when the client comes out of beta.)
Windows Live Sync, part of the Microsoft Live Essentials for Windows 7 and other operating systems has been down for a couple of days now. The sync.live.com website says that the Live Sync Website is offline for maintenance and gives a link to the Live Sync newsgroup for more information. Of course, there is no more readily accessible OFFICIAL information posted on the newsgroup, so we can only assume that this is some sort of default setting when there is a problem with Live Sync.
The Live Sync software client installed on each PC has an icon that displays the sync status. Currently, it has alternating arrows blue and white and says “Not Signed In” despite being logged in already with passwords saved.
For this mobile freelance writer, the Live Sync outage is starting to become a pain since I use Live Sync to keep folders and files synchronized between my desktop computer, writing laptop, and my writing netbook.
Hope it comes back up soon and this is not an indicator of things to come.
Internet Explorer Flaws to Fix for IE 9
I was going to just leave Internet Explorer alone. Everyone knows that it is the bottom of the pile when it comes to browsers. The only people who use IE are those who are either not computer savvy enough to know that there are options and how to get them, and those who do know about the better web browsers out there, but figure that it just is not worth the effort. Even Microsoft knows IE 8 is already junk, that is why whenever it posts press releases about how fast Internet Explorer is compared to Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari, they compare them to the non-existent Internet Explorer 9 and not the currently released Internet Explorer 8.
Today, however, two of IE 8′s many shortcomings popped up in my face again and I figured that I would write this post in hopes that a growing chorus of user voices might just get Microsoft to pay attention to what is really wrong with Internet Explorer instead of what they think is wrong with Internet Explorer.
First and foremost is the Apple Computer-like arrogance that keeps IE from offering a way to choose your own setting for how IE 8 handles browser sessions. In every modern web browser out there, except for IE 8, you can choose to restore your last browsing session by default. That is, you can tell the browser to open all of the same tabs and webpages that were open during your last browsing session automatically the next time you start your browser.
Internet Explorer offers the ability to restore your last browsing session, but requires that you do it manually. The stated reason for this enormous deficiency in browser functionality is privacy. Microsoft thinks that the possibility that someone might inadvertently see the website you were looking at last time is more important than you (the user) wanting to be able to pick right back up where you left off. Or, in the case of yours truly, not only pick right back up where I was online last time, but also to BE REMINDED of where I was last time without having to jot down notes or send myself a reminder or whatever.
While privacy is important and a worthy goal, allowing the user to use the software in the way that works best for them is WAY more important. It makes perfect sense that for privacy reasons Microsoft does not set Internet Explorer 8 to reopen the last browsing session by default. It makes NO SENSE whatsoever that Microsoft will not provide that option as one of the settings that can be customized in IE 8. I guess this feature wasn’t widespread enough during the development of IE 8 for Microsoft to bother copying it into their “revolutionary” new browser.
Spell Check Missing From IE 8
There is also no spell check in IE8 by default. In a world where more and more is done online on the Internet, being able to spell check your entries into fields and forms is paramount. Of course, at the time, although everyone else had a spellchecker, and Microsoft has access to arguably one of the most complete spellcheck programs anywhere (the one in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office), they didn’t bother to include it. You have to download an addon called ieSpell in order to get spell check in IE 8. I guess that they wanted to make sure that at least someone downloaded an IE addon since as we discussed above, anyone willing to go download add-ons would have long ago downloaded a better browser instead.
Password Saving Wrong Time
Finally, IE 8 has a very annoying flaw in the way it saves and remembers passwords for websites. Apparently when Microsoft sent down the command to copy the password save and remember function from better browsers like Firefox, they didn’t actually pay enough attention to how it was done to copy it right.
When you enter a username and password in Chrome, Opera, or Firefox, the next page continues to load behind the dialog box that asks you whether or not you want to save the password. This is critical because all webpages hide the password you enter behind astericks which means that you can never be sure that you got the password right until the login page loads and sends you on your way with a successful login. On good web browsers, you enter your username and password, and then, if there is any doubt in your mind about whether or not your login will be successful, you just wait and see. If the login works, THEN you click Save or Yes to Save your password. If not, you click No and enter the password again and the browser correctly offers you a chance to save THAT password.
The jack#ss that designed Internet Explorer 8′s password save and remember functionality makes you answer the question BEFORE the next page will load. That means that you have to say Yes in order to see if the login was successful or not. If it was not sucessful, then you have already saved the WRONG password thanks to this bassackwards feature.
The worst part is that when you re-enter your login information and actually get it right, IE may not even offer to change the wrong information it already saved, especially if you fat-fingered the username. Now that website has TWO username and password combinations saved and one of them will be wrong forever unless you go manually dig into the guts of the IE settings menus to find and delete that wrong information.
Microsoft, while you are building functions and support and speed into IE 9, if you could please fix these things that you got wrong in IE 8, we would really appreciate it. Of course, it isn’t really that big of deal. Those of us that know better only use IE for two reasons: to get stuff off your own website, and to make sure that our websites look right for the chuckleheads who use your browser.
