This article was written on April 30, 2007 by CyberNet.
Windows Live Writer has become one of the most popular blogging tools for Windows-based PC users. It’s free, and a quick download which makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog. And on top of it, Live Writer works with WordPress, LiveJournal, Blogger, and others.
One thing that I’ve always liked about it is that it’s a familiar environment that’s easy to get used to. I use Microsoft software on a daily basis, and Live Writer has hints of other software elements here and there, particularly with the interface.
Another great feature is the support for plug-ins! There are numerous plug-ins available that have been created for Live Writer which make it that much better. One example is the plugin that allows you to embed videos from YouTube and Google. This plug-in alone has been a huge time-saver for me.
Live Writer is in beta, and so people are always waiting and keeping their eyes open for hints of an updated version. LiveSide noticed that the Austrian MSDN blog posted a screenshot that included a newer version that hasn’t been seen before (screenshot below).
Things you’ll notice:
No more drop-down-menu on the top right
Link to access plug-ins
Weblog management has been moved around
In general, it’s starting to look a lot more like other built-in Vista Applications. If this screenshot really is what Microsoft has in the works for the latest version, it’s looking pretty good and I think users will welcome the changes.
Sick of belonging to the white earbud cult? There’s no reason you can’t make a statement with your audio gear. For the truly adventurous, we’ve rounded up the weirdest options here.
Contact lenses that act as a glucose monitoring system for diabetics aren’t exactly a new idea, but it looks like a group of researchers from the University of Western Ontario might be a bit closer to making them a reality, as they’ve now received a $200,000+ grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to further develop the technology. The secret to their contacts are some “extremely small” nanoparticles that are embedded in the hydrogel lenses which, like some similar systems (such as those pictured at right), react to the glucose molecules in tears and cause a chemical reaction that changes the color of the lenses — thereby informing the wearer when their blood sugar is too low or too high. What’s more, the reseachers say the same basic idea could also have a wide range of other applications beyond glucose monitoring — for instance, being used in food packaging to indicate if the food is spoiled or contaminated.
Land Rover and Jaguar release some amusing concepts for Santa’s sleigh. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10419251-48.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Car Tech blog/a/p
The drumbeat for HD 3D continues to pick up the pace, and with broadcasters around the globe pushing forward 2010 plans to bring 3D home HDMI has updated the course of its latest 1.4 spec to ensure compatibility between displays and boxes. Quite simply, existing cable and satellite hardware isn’t going to be held to the same requirements as Blu-ray and videogame equipment rocking the 3D sticker and expecting compatibility with displays on the way, since they won’t be passing the same high quality, high bandwidth dual-stream 1080p images anyway. Additionally, some broadcasters are pushing for HDMI to officially support “Top/Bottom” 3D transmissions they plan to use, which sacrifice resolution while saving bandwidth by shoving left/right images into a single frame. While that should add an entirely new angle to the line counting and claims of “HDLite” (get ready for 3DLite) all viewers can do is wait to hear when or if their hardware will get a software upgrade to 3D (like the one we expect will allow the PS3 to play 3D Blu-ray discs) in the months and years to come, once there’s a standard everyone can adhere to of course.
This year’s release of Firefox 3.5 gave us a lot of reasons to like it, but its extensibility remains everyone’s favorite feature. These add-ons and theme tools were the most popular in the year gone by.
This list is culled from a straight listing of the most popular posts that offered a Firefox extension for download in 2009. We’re not including posts about configuring Firefox, or even our own hand-rolled Firefox add-on packs—even if they were pretty popular, too. Let’s get to the good stuff.
One of the greatest things about Firefox is that its development happens way out wide in the open. When the design workers start coming up with preliminary sketches of a new release, anyone can peek at them and even compile them into a theme, which does just what the headline suggests.
Windows Vista and 7 feature some fairly nice looking transparency effects, but if your primary browser doesn’t use them, it can feel a bit disconnected. All-Glass Firefox v2 tweaks your browser to look just, well, proper in its fancy-pants surroundings.
Google Redesigned, a multi-site suite that trades Google’s blue/white/minimal look for a darker, sleeker feel, kept improving its transformative powers this year, adding a host of improvements in its 3.0 release, and later releasing a new version with GReader Redesigned for the RSS hounds.
“I’m having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!” That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the Dislike extension.
Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren’t in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. The TinEye extension makes it a simple right-click maneuver to search out similar copies of any image you come across.
Sometimes, great stuff has to be hosted on public download services, because the file—or the attention it’s getting—is just too much for our meek little personal sites. And the download sites often make it as painful as possible to grab those files. SkipScreen acts as an automated intermediary, jumping through the necessary hoops and entering the key presses required.
This neat little extension, winner of the Extend Firefox 3.5 contest, utilizes lots of Firefox’s built-in features, like geo-location and the extension framework, to offer wary laptop users a way to nuke their personal data, passwords, and history if necessary, track where their machine is logging on after a theft, and cull all kinds of data from the thief. FireFound is, in other words, a smart thing to install if your laptop ever leaves the home.
A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox’s about:config menus. Gui:config brings them into focus and offers a graphical way to manage them. As the How-To Geek puts it, it’s amazing that this isn’t something being considered for mainstream distribution in the browser.
(Windows only): Firefox is decently light with memory on startup, but extensions and plug-ins drag it down as you actually use it. Memory Fox monitors Firefox’s memory use and, once it reaches your pre-set limit, whips it back into shape.
(Windows only): Well, the headline and picture kind of say it all about Daum Blue, but it’s worth noting that beyond looks, it’s also fairly customizable, and looks even better on Vista and Windows 7 systems.
Sure, kind of anathema for this site’s stated mission, but giving your mind a break at work has real mental benefits, even if your boss doesn’t think so.
If you’re likely to do more at a web site than just simply bookmark it, UrlbarExt is like a Leatherman for your AwesomeBar. Head to a site’s root, search the site on Google, and do much more from a small array of address bar buttons.
Another headline that pretty much says it all. We weren’t a big fan of Xmarks‘ new “discovery” features, but its growing reach into Chrome and other browsers make the former Foxmarks’ expansion a good thing.
Given the recent legal crackdown on BitTorrent-centered sites, magnet links (explained here) are increasingly popular. Magnetiser makes it easy to track down a working torrent link to grab the file you’re looking for.
It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, Integrated Gmail also customizes every niggling detail of those combined apps, making it worth the try-out, even if you think you like your Google spaces separated into different tabs.
If you’re always looking at online purchases and wondering if you could save more before pulling the trigger, Invisible Hand affirms your hunches for you, dropping down and showing lower prices wherever it can find them.
Not seeing your favorite add-on released in 2009 here, or covered anywhere at Lifehacker? Can’t believe your favorite app doesn’t get more attention? Let’s hear all about it in the comments.
If there is one near universal gripe folks have with the Kindle, it’s the DRM-laden files. It’s no wonder, then, that the thing has been a lightning rod for the “information wants to be free crowd,” almost since the beginning. Sure, we’ve seen Mobipocket, .epub, and .pdf files used on the device, but if you really want to bedevil Bezos the thing to do would be to altogether circumvent the DRM from your Amazon e-books — and it looks like an Israeli hacker named Labba has done just that. For the time being, the hack, which allows you to convert your legally obtained e-books to unencrypted PDF files, is available as a Python script. We’re sure that the process will be streamlined for us civilians soon enough — let’s just hope that it happens before the hole gets plugged and your e-reader auto-updated. This is one way to keep hold of your legally purchased Orwell, eh?
A member of the FCC’s five-person commission, Mignon Clyburn, has sent out a letter today in response to Verizon’s earlier reply regarding questions surrounding its gargantuan $350 early termination fee on so-called “advanced devices,” and in brief, it looks like this issue is far from tied off. Her choicest quote is that she found Verizon’s answers “unsatisfying and, in some cases, troubling,” noting that customers are already paying “high” monthly fees and suggesting that the public interest isn’t being served when someone gets slammed with a three-digit cancellation charge mid-contract. She also straight-up calls the company out on its claim that customers aren’t being inadvertently charged when the press the web button on their phone without an appropriate plan, saying that “press reports and consumer complaints strongly suggest otherwise.” Commissioner Clyburn’s conclusion? “I look forward to exploring this issue in greater depth with my colleagues in the New Year.” Dum dum dummmmm. Follow the break for the full text of the letter.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
This year’s 
You can speed up Firefox by 
“I’m having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!” That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the 
Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren’t in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. 
This neat little extension, 
A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox’s 
(Windows only): Firefox is 
It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, 
