RT @glenngabe Lawyers, Guns, and Twitter - Who Owns Your Twitter Account - http://ping.fm/Ej9Wd
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Does your advertising reach half a million customers multiple times daily with NO media cost? - http://ping.fm/3D6fR
Posted by Augustine at 7:12 AM
Packard Bell intros Ion-based iMax mini nettop, non-Ion dot netbooks
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/28/packard-bell-intros-ion-based-imax-mini-nettop-non-ion-dot-netb/
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell iMax mini launches"
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell officially launches dot s and m netbooks"
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Packard Bell intros Ion-based iMax mini nettop, non-Ion dot netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 May 2009 04:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsPosted by Augustine at 6:03 AM
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Living Large in an NYC Shoebox [Featured Workspace]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/kMwA0eETae8/living-large-in-an-nyc-shoebox
City living has its perks, but free space usually isn't one of them. Today's featured workspace combines a living area and workspace with an equal dose of technology and well executed design.
Lifehacker reader Sam Laviit lives in a small but well appointed apartment where making the most of space is imperative. The screen real estate provided by his setup would make anyone envious, but especially those of us that spend all day in front of the terminal wishing for a screen just a little bit bigger. A computer rig built on the Intel Skulltrail platform with dual quad-core processors is the brains behind his five screen setup: one 56" HDTV and four 24" monitors in portrait mode. All four monitors are on fully articulating arms which makes it easy to swing, slide, and adjust them into whatever configuration works best for the project at hand. Throw in the wireless mouse and keyboard and Sam has both a space for work and play that puts most to shame. For more pictures of his office check out the link below.
If you have a workspace of your own to show off throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
Posted by Augustine at 11:15 PM
Cook For Good Plans Meals for Less than Two Dollars [Saving Money]
Cook For Good ostensibly wants to help you use less energy and create less waste in planning your meals. The notable side effect, though, is a meal plan that averages a cost of $1.20 per person, per meal.
That per-meal cost, averaged out across each week, is under the standard version of the "spring menu," which utilizes more fresh produce and seasonal ingredients. Go the "green" route, buying local and organic food, and your cart cost comes to about $1.99 per meal; switch back to the "winter menu," and it gets cheaper. All those prices are, as the site's creator points out, less than the individual food stamp allowance in many states.
The menu, devised by a former IBM engineer, is largely vegetarian, though it contains some surprisingly cheap but appealing items: spring onion and mustard green pizza, green egg scrambles, and noodles in spicy peanut sauce, as examples. Some menu days won't really surprise anyone who's made it through college on the cheap, as it leans on beans, peas, and rice fairly regularly. But the day-by-day planning is so comprehensive, and the options so thorough, that those looking to eat healthier, cheaper, or start out on a flexitarian diet will find Cook for Good's offerings a pretty great free resource.
Head over to the site to check out the winter, spring, and supplemental menus, as well as read more about the project. Update: Looks like Cook For Good's a little overwhelmed this morning; check back later for a better chance at access.
Posted by Augustine at 11:14 PM
Netvibes Adds Multiple, Publish-Ready Pages [Start Pages]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/4X2d4U3Oljo/netvibes-adds-multiple-publish+ready-pages
While it lost to iGoogle in our best start page showdown, Netvibes remains a popular platform due to its serious customization powers. With its newest feature, multiple personalized pages, it overtakes the competition as the feed addicts' platform of choice.
We say that will full respect for what other start pages do differently—iGoogle, for instance, offers a wide range of gadgets and widgets, many of them Google-integrated, that provide more than just news and headlines. But with multiple pages, each with their own color and theme, and multiple tabs on each page, it's a lot easier to separate what you're watching for your own gratification, what's actual work knowledge, and, say, your deal-finding start page.
What's more, you can choose to "publish" certain pages, making them accessible without your log-in credentials, and potentially making it really easy to clue your co-workers and friends in on what you think they should be monitoring. If you're still an OPML/XML geek at heart, Netvibes lets you export individual OPML files from each page, so you can still get crazy with the filtering/sharing tools.
Most of the same Netvibes features—drag-and-drop tabs, easy re-ordering, and highly personalized color schemes—are available across and on each page. With features like published pages, alongside Google Reader's user-friendly feed bundles, it seems like RSS is starting to make itself a real attraction to the web-using masses. Tell us what you think of Netvibes' new look and layout in the comments.
Posted by Augustine at 11:13 PM
Slife 3.0 Time Tracker Becomes a (Paid) Web Service [Time Management]
Slife, the previously mentioned time tracker that tells you exactly how much of your day you're spending on email, in your browser, and inside other applications (along with non-computer tasks, if you log them), has made its Windows and Mac clients much thinner, open-source, and linked them to a new web service that centralizes all your productivity porn. All that is to say, however, that Slife is now a $5/month service—not unreasonable, by any means, but it's worth noting, since the service has gone from free to paid to free to, well, paid once more. Check out Slife 3.0 in the video demonstration below, and tell us what you've thought of Slife in its different versions in the comments. [Slife]
Posted by Augustine at 11:13 PM
Activate Alt-Tab Switching With Just Your Mouse [Autohotkey Tip]
Windows only: Reader Zarek writes in with an excellent tip for switching between open windows using just the mouse—all it takes is a couple of lines of AutoHotkey code.
The script binds one of your extra mouse buttons combined with the mouse wheel to activate Alt-Tab or Shift-Alt-Tab, depending on which way you are scrolling the mouse. To set this up for yourself, you'll need to create a new AutoHotkey script or paste the following into your existing one to activate your 5th mouse button:
XButton2 & WheelDown::AltTab
XButton2 & WheelUp::ShiftAltTab
If you would rather use the 4th button, you can substitute XButton1 in the code where you see XButton2. If your mouse doesn't have any extra buttons, Zarek still has you covered—this solution will activate Alt-Tab using the middle mouse button combined with the scroll wheel—although it's a little more difficult to use and (one commenter notes that it makes the middle mouse button not work correctly, so use this one with caution).
Update: yourbuddypal in the comments notes that you need a tilde at the beginning of the line, per this AutoHotkey forum post. Thanks!
~MButton & WheelDown::AltTab
~MButton & WheelUp::ShiftAltTab
Where this tip becomes really useful is for readers using Windows 7—once you've activated the Alt-Tab dialog you can simply hold your mouse over ! any of t he preview thumbnails to see the entire window through Aero Peek—very useful when you have too many applications running at once. Thanks, Zarek!
For more AutoHotkey fun, read how to turn any action into a keyboard shortcut, or turn your capslock key into a dedicated minimize button. Got your own useful AutoHotkey trick for managing open windows? Care to share your scripting skills with the rest of the class? Dazzle us in the comments with your wisdom.
Posted by Augustine at 11:09 PM
Skype 4.1 Beta Adds Screen Sharing and Other New Features [Downloads]
Windows only: Popular video and voice chat application Skype has just released a new beta version for Windows users featuring several cool new features, most notably the addition of a screen sharing feature that allows you to share your desktop with any contact.
In addition to the screen sharing, Skype 4.1 beta adds contact sharing, birthday reminders, call and video quality improvements, and more; you can find the full release notes here (PDF alert!). As Download Squad points out, new features generally hit the Windows version of Skype before the Mac version, but in this case, Macs have had Skype screen sharing since January.
To share your screen, just fire up a chat with a contact and then hit the Share button. After that, you can choose whether you want to share your entire screen or Skype may just become the new family helpdesk support app of choice. Note: The user you're chatting with must also be running Skype 4.1.
Skype 4.1 beta is a free download, Windows only.
Posted by Augustine at 11:08 PM
Google Expects 18 Android Phones This Year: All the Flavors Explained [Android]
Google/Android's Andy Rubin said at the Google I/O conference that Google expects 18-20 Android phones this year from 8 or 9 manufacturers—and those are just the devices they know about. But it's gonna be slower going in the States because of the custom Android builds that carriers want.
(The custom builds frighten us, on multiple levels.)
More interesting, perhaps, is how they fall along the Android lines—there are apparently three ways for a manufacturer to put Android on their phone with varying levels of Google control (though all are free). The "no strings" version anyone can grab, but it doesn't have Google's apps. The "small strings" version includes an agreement to distribute Google's apps, and 12-14 are this flavor.
The final one, aka the Google Experience, is like the G1—you've got Google apps and an agreement from both the carrier and phonemaker that they won't restrict access to the Android market at all. You can spot these phones by the Google logo literally branded onto them. (These are the Android phones you probably want.)
So, maybe 2009 will be the year of Android after all. Maybe. [NYT]
Posted by Augustine at 11:05 PM
Google Ion hands-on and unboxing
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/27/google-ion-hands-on-and-unboxing/
Looks like Chris' hatred wasn't totally unfounded. We just got our hands on a Google Ion -- which as you can tell is a spitting image of the HTC Magic -- complete with 30 days' worth of T-Mobile service on an included SIM card. It's not a public release model, but seems fully capable. Yes, it's got Cupcake, and while the portrait keyboard seems more cramped than the iPhone's, we found it very comfortable to type in landscape mode. Form factor wise, this thing is as sexy as hardware gets -- light, sleek, and thin. The only thing that exceeds our love for it right now is its own love for fingerprints -- seriously, the entire body and screen attract them like flies to honey. Colorful similes aside, hit up the gallery below for all the pics you could ask for.Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Google Ion hands-on and unboxing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 May 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this ! ;| CommentsPosted by Augustine at 10:59 PM
New Intel Core i7 CPUs show up unannounced
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/27/new-intel-core-i7-cpus-show-up-unannounced/
[Via PCWorld]
Read - Core i7 Extreme 975 listing
Read - Core i7 950 listing
Filed under: Desktops
New Intel Core i7 CPUs show up unannounced originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 May 2009 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsPosted by Augustine at 10:58 PM
palm-sized cameras for an enthusiasts toy box
Casio superfast camera 1,200 frames per second
Casio High-Speed Exilim EX-FC100 9 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (Black)
Sigma DP2 foveon 14 megapixel direct capture camera
Sigma DP2 14MP FOVEON CMOS Sensor Digital Camera with 2.5 Inch TFT LCD
achieve a high dynamic range shot (previously you'd have to bracket the same shot yourself, and smash the shots together with software)
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR 12MP Super CCD Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Dual Image Stabilized Optical Zoom
Posted by Augustine at 9:50 PM
Every Mobile Browser Should Give Up and Just Go WebKit [Internet]
The ZuneHD looks like a lovely catchup to the original iPod touch—you know, before apps allowed it to be so much more—except for one thing. That damn browser. It's not just they're basing it off hellacious and reviled IE—it's that it's not WebKit-based.
There simply isn't a better mobile browser than WebKit right now. It powers the internet in the iPhone, Android, Symbian S60 and Palm Pre, and destroyed all comers in our Battlemodo. It's fast, it's competent and most importantly from a development perspective, it's open source. Meaning Microsoft could adopt it for its mobile devices with (relatively) little shame (okay, maybe a lot of shame) and it's ready to go right now, meaning there's no wasting time building a new engine just to attempt to play catchup to a browser that handily delivers the best mobile internet experience right now across multiple platforms.
Mozilla's Fennec could become a contender to the throne, true, but it's still far from final. Opera and Skyfire are interesting and good, but they're both proprietary, meaning there's no chance in hell they'd ever be adopted by Microsoft or RIM, much less the entire industry, as the basis for their mobile browsers.
You could rail against the idea of WebKit becoming a "monopoly," but you'd be foolish to do so: Web standards are important, and WebKit, whic! h is aga in, open source, is dedicated to standards compliance and performance. A performance and compliance standard that web developers could count on in every single mobile device wouldn't be a bad thing—far from it. It would mean even more amazing web apps, since developers would know they'd run on any mobile device, no matter what "OS" they were running underneath—the web would be the real OS.
That day is coming. I just hoped I'd see it a little sooner.
Posted by Augustine at 5:42 PM
Google Android 2.0 Donut Has Universal Search and Text-to-Speech Powers [Android 2.0 Donut]
Sort of odd that Android, made by Google, is behind both the iPhone and Palm Pre in rocking the universal search thing. But Google showed off that, a text-to-speech API for Google Voice Search in any app, and other Android 2.0 Donut goodness at Google I/O today. [Engadget]
Posted by Augustine at 5:36 PM