My Bing History

I am happy to announce that I have just released a new product.
I have considered switching to the Bing search engine for quite some time, but I wanted a feature to save the search history.
The Bing search engine by Microsoft has a so-called “Save & Share” feature, to log all your searches. However it does not work very well yet.
- On all my machines (except for one Windows XP in a Virtual Machine), the save to skydrive feature simply does not work.
- You have to manually tell it to save each search in the history.

Therefore, I decided to create my own firefox plugin, to log all searches. The product is called My Bing History, and saves all your search history automatically, including the links you click in search results. Then at any time you can with a single press on a button, view all your previous search history. Here you can of course filter the history by web, image, video, shopping or news searches.

My Bing Search History

This plugin is very useful when you know that a few months ago, you found something helpful, but you do not remember where it was. You look it up in the search history, and the problem is solved.
It is a very simple and easy to use plugin. Of course it respects Private Browsing, meaning that it does not save history when in “Private browsing” mode.

The plugin is currently in beta, but seems to work very well. Although a few features are still to come:
- Import/Export
- Synchronization of search history on multiple computers.

So if you use the Bing search engine, I would recommend this addon. You never know when you need to look up something in the history.

Click here to read how you can get MS Fingerprint Reader to work on Windows 7.

I am terribly sorry to tell you that Fingerfox (SE) is most likely going to be discontinued. Continue to read if you want to know why.

I got my Windows 7 Ultimate Retail copy yesterday, and now had to install the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader software on Windows 7.
I had already read forum posts saying that it should be possible to make the software work on Windows 7.
However this seems to be the case only with Windows 7 Beta and RC – in the retail version, Microsoft has enabled a hard block on the installer. This means that you cannot simply ignore that “warning” – the software is not allowed to install.

I have tried to disable the “Program Compatibility Assistant” both by disabling the service and using Local Group Policy. Neither seems to work – still denies installation.

This means that the MS Fingerprint Reader driver and software is not installable on Windows 7.
UPDATE: I have found a way
Fingerfox (SE) will NOT be discontinued anyway.

Therefore, I am no longer able to use the Fingerprint Reader myself. Considering that many people will probably soon upgrade to Windows 7, and many people use 64 bit (also not supported), it seems that the need for Fingerfox (SE) will be decreasing. I know some people use Fingerfox (SE) with other fingerprint reader products, but this is not enough for me to continue developing Fingerfox (SE).

If anyone finds a solution that makes the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader software installable on Windows 7 retail, please tell me – and I will certainly keep developing Fingerfox (SE).
Solution found

There have been a few feature suggestions and bug reports since the last release, and I will implement these in Fingerfox (SE) soon. After that last release, Fingerfox (SE) will be discontinued.

NOTE: Forget all about this, I have found a way to make it work on Windows 7
Read more in this blogpost.

I hope you understand my decision.

Amews Development

After less than a month, the new website for Amews Software Development is done.

I realized that my other projects (including Amews Tech) used too much of my time, and decided to only have this single project for software development. This means that I can now focus 100% on the software development, and hopefully provide better and more maintained applications.

I will try to focus as much as possible on user opinions and requests to make everyone happy. At the moment you’ll only find the Fingerfox (SE) project on the products page, but I am working on other applications as well. I hope you will follow the development, and eventually give your opinions on it.

A new bugtracking system has been made, so it is now much easier to track the status of bugfixes. And of course you’ll still find a forum which is however totally rewritten for a better performance. Here you can ask for help if you need it. Notice that posts from the old Fingerfox (SE) forum has been transfered in the username “old_system” since I cannot use the old user system anymore (the new site here is based on WordPress).

The download system has also been improved, since I can now create unstable releases for you to test.

You can get in direct contact with me and other Amews Software users in the chatroom on the support page. I hope to see you there.

PS: I might from time to time write recommendations for other software that I find useful.

Once again: Welcome.

If you have 5 apps on each screen, all the apps will be on the same taskbar (one screen). It makes dual-monitoring inefficient, since the taskbar is still very cluttered.

There is an application called UltraMon. It has a lot of features for dual-monitoring:

1. Smart Taskbar: Adds another taskbar to your secondary monitor. No more clutter on your primary screen.

2. Window Buttons: Move to the other monitor or expand the window over both monitors. The windows are resized proportionally if you don’t use same resolution on both screens. The buttons integrate nicely with the vista interface, and of course you can also add shortcuts to these buttons.

3. Desktop Icons: When going from one resolution to another, chances are that the icons on the desktop gets really mixed up. With a few clicks, the positions are restored.

4. Per-app settings: Make apps start on a specific location or monitor, or maybe turn off either screen when a specific app is running.

5. Display Profiles: Easy access to different setups.

6. Dual Screen Savers: Different screen savers on each screen, running smoothly.

This application, especially the smart taskbar, is a must for every dual monitor user. Get a trial, or buy the full version (40 US$) on http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon/