Download Statusbar is a Firefox Extension for users who do not want the Firefox download window to get in way of their browsing.

This Firefox addon is recommended for users who download files very often and using this addon they will be able to view and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar instead of the download window.

The fully customizable interface of this Firefox addon auto-hides when not in use, allowing full control without interruption.

Users can pause/resume a file download with single-click and can open or run a completed file with double-click. Other interesting feature of this addon is the in-line preview of percent done, speed in KBs, KBs downloaded so far and remaining time. A virus scanner can also be configured to auto-scan a file when it completes.

Install Download Statusbar

Most users believe Apple iMac as the epitome of classy and stylish desktop computers but the new Dell Studio Hybrid Desktop PCs is going to change it all.

This new line of Dell’s most unique, stylish, and conscientious desktop PC consumes half the power consumed by a standard desktop PC and is designed to fit into your environment while protecting it.

According to Dell, Studio Hybrid Desktop PCs are more flexible and almost 80% smaller in size than a typical PC. It can fit anywhere e.g. in the living room, on the desk or virtually anywhere.

The Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile Processors make Dell Studio Hybrid Desktop PCs one of the best user choice in terms of power and efficiency. They are available in 6 colors of Bamboo.

Apart from being user and nature friendly machines, the Dell Studio Hybrid Desktops offer an optional optional digital/analog TV tuner to watch/record live TV and free online data backup-service to keep data safe and protected.

According to LiveSide, a new Windows Live service known as Windows Live Video Messages is in the worksand will be available to the public in September this year.

Windows Live Video Messages is a web-portal where users with webcams will be able to communicate with their friends and family by sending/recieving video messages, even when they are offline.

The added benefit for Microsoft LifeCam users is that they will be able to take benefit of all Windows Live Videos Messages features right on their desktop using the Vista sidebar gadget and they won’t need to visit the web portal.

The tech preview is coming to the public on September 9. However if you own a Microsoft LifeCam and are just too impatient enough to try it already, use this link below to download the sidebar gadget.

Warning! Please do not download and install if you do not have a Microsoft LifeCam install on your PC.

Everyone loves downloading and listening to music but when it comes to sharing music publicly, the RIAA is never very much happy about it.

Previously a lot of sites have been taken down by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as a result of their movement to stop all unlawful and illegal music sharing activities and now their next target is Muxtape.

So far, Muxtape has served users well by allowing them to upload and share music imitating the old-school way of making mix-tape music collections and sharing with friends.

However a recent notice on the website explains that it will remain unavailable for brief period, all thanks to RIAA and there is even a good chance that Muxtape may not come online at all.

Though I wonder why users prefer to use Muxtape even when it has limits such as 10MB per song and 1 Muxtape per account. Making a song playlist is quite the same and it does not even have any limits.

Apple has once again managed to push an iPhone Firmware update in such a short time.

The new iPhone Firmware 2.0.2 was released later yesterday and can be download only directly through iTunes.

This second minor update just comes two weeks after the first minor update for iPhone firmware i.e. iPhone 2.0.1 and is said to fix issues related to keyboard lag and 3G connectivity.

A lot of iPhone users have been experiencing problems such as unwanted and automatic switches from 3G to 2G, keyboard lags and slow browsing. This new iPhone firmware update will most likely fix all these issues.

I tried searching for direct download links for new iPhone Firmware 2.0.2 but couldn’t find them anywhere so for now the only way to update your iPhone 2G/3G is by connecting it to iTunes.

As soon as I find direct download links for this new firmware, I will update this post.

Yahoo! Buzz, the Digg-Like social network by Yahoo which only allowed stories from some particular sites to be submitted until now has now opened its door to all publishers.

Yahoo! Buzz was unveiled by Yahoo earlier this year with a motif of over throwing Digg in terms of the traffic it sends to the front-page stories and it has quite well succeeded in that.

As TechCrunch reports, Yahoo! Buzz is much different to Digg as the stories pushed to the front-page are handpicked by the Editorial team unlike Digg, where the algorithm takes care of everything.

Also the Yahoo! Buzz Effect is not just a temporary sudden boost of traffic like Digg rather a server-melting stampede which is just too big to handle.

If you think your blog/site is ready to handle such big surge of traffic, head on to Yahoo! Buzz and submit your story.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/submit/

Its been only a day since I downloaded the iPhone 2.0.2 Firmware for my iPhone 2G and I have already managed to Jailbreak it.

The method I used makes use of QuickPwn which is quite an easy and quick tool to Jailbreak iPhone.

Just follow the steps below:

1. Download the QuickPwn binaries archive and extract to a folder (link provided at end of this post).
2. Get a copy of iPhone 2.0.1 for your specific iPhone model from here.
3. Put your phone to DFU mode (video tutorial) and then restore to the latest iPhone 2.0.2 Firmware.
4. Copy the iPhone 2.0.1 Firmware, you downloaded in Step 2, to QuickPwn folder.
5. Run the iPhone_2G.bat
6. Enjoy and thank me!

Thats it! now you will have a Jailbroken iPhone. For iPhone 3G and iPod Touch simply use their corresponding .bat files as provided in the QuickPwn archive.

Use the following link to download QuickPwn binaries archive.

Download QuickPwn

Last week we took a look at different options for backing up, storing, and sharing data files with online storage services. This week we will take a look at services which are more secure. IDrive uses AES 256 bit encryption for its online storage service. Transfers of data to the drive is done with 128 SSL encryption. IDrive allows you to sign up for a free 2GB account. Their Pro Personal Account is 4.95/month for 150GB of storage. They also offer accounts for businesses at different rates.

As with other online storage services you need to set up a free account on the site and download the desktop software. When you first launch IDrive you will be prompted to log in.

After signing in you will get a window to set up the encryption storage password. I set my own password as recommended. Make sure you do not forget this password as you cannot retrieve it if lost. IDrive does not store the passwords on their servers. If you choose the default encryption key from IDrive you will never need to enter one in.

After setting the encryption password you are given a verification message advising not to share or lose the password.

When the IDrive Classic manager launches, notice some directories are pre-selected. This definitely put me over the 2GB limit for the free account right away. No worries, you can change the directories to whatever you need.

Ok, I chose a couple of my directories to backup. You can see the total size of the combined files is 212 MB. When everything looks good go ahead and click on Backup Now.

A progress screen comes up while IDrive prepares the files for backup.

This is the screen during the actual secure data transfer. Notice you can adjust the amount of bandwidth used and can pause the backup.

When the process is complete you have the option to check out the log file right away.

The log is a long text document of every file that was backed up. This can get pretty lengthy if you have a lot to backup. The most important part to notice is at the bottom which verifies the start and stop time and that all backups were successful.

IDrive creates a virtual type drive on your computer. If you go into My Computer you will see it there as a networked drive and you can select properties to see how much space is available without having to open up IDrive Classic or browse to their website.

The IDrive Classic application is where to make changes and schedule backups. You can also view previous logs, run bandwidth tests, and sync folders.

There is also a feature called Continuous Backup which will monitor the backed up directories on your computer and update them on IDrive as needed. IDrive works with Windows and Mac.

If you are working on a spreadsheet and want to be able to quickly see differences in numbers at a glance, you should use the new Conditional Cell Formatting in Excel 2007. With this you can change the background of a cell based on the data in the cell, almost like an inline chart.

Using Conditional Formatting

Once you select the cells that you want to format, you can find the Conditional Formatting drop-down on the ribbon, which gives you loads of pre-set rules to choose from, like color scales.

This will automatically color the items based on the range they are in…

You can also choose to use icons instead:

Reminds me of that commercial… more bars in more places…

You can also create your own rule to color only cells that fit within a certain range, or greater than a certain number.

This rule will only color cells greater than a certain amount, with the color you specify.

This can be very useful, and you should note that you can apply a second rule to the same range. For instance, I added a second rule that colored items larger than 2000 with green instead of red.

You can even create a completely customized rule by choosing the New Formatting Rule option.

If you've applied too many rules and want to start over, just select the cells and use the Clear Rules option to remove all the formatting.

This is one of those really useful features that make Office 2007 a lot better than the prior versions.

If you are using Office 2007 in an environment where everybody else is using Office 2003, you might have already set Excel or Word to always save to 2003 format, but what about when you create new documents using the New menu? The only choices are now to create files in 2007 format, but we can add the old ones back.

In case you aren't sure what I mean, just right-click on the desktop and choose New from the context menu, and you'll see Microsoft Office Word Document in the list, which creates a blank .docx file.

We can add the old item back to the list with a simple registry hack.

Manual Registry Hack

The "New" items are stored under the file type definition, under a ShellNew key. In order to create a blank document, you have to add a key named Nullfile to the right-hand side.

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key for the .doc extension:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.doc\Word.Document.8\ShellNew

Simply create a new string value on the right-hand side and name it Nullfile. You might have to wait a few minutes before it shows up in the New list, or you can always log out and back in.

You can do the same for the .xls file extension for Excel 97-2003 documents by browsing down to this key, and create the same Nullfile value on the right-hand side.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xls\Excel.Sheet.8\ShellNew

For Powerpoint 97-2003 you can browse down to the following key, creating the value again like before.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ppt\PowerPoint.Show.8\ShellNew

You should see the items on the right-hand side now, but if you don't you may have to wait a few minutes or log out and back in.

Downloadable Registry Hack

You can simply download, extract, and then double-click on one of the included files to add the information into the registry. Each file is named according to the document type. There's also included files to remove them as well.

Download AddOffice2003DocumentsToNewMenu Registry Hack