Hasta La Gadget!

Whether you’re an NVIDIAn calling it SLI or a Radeonite referring to it as CrossFireX, a multi-card graphics setup is nowadays almost a prerequisite for experiencing the best that PC gaming has to offer. It’d be negligent of us, therefore, not to point you in the direction of the Tech Report crew’s latest breakdown, which takes an investigative peek at dual-card performance on NVIDIA’s latest and greatest GeForce GTX 580 and naturally compares it to a wide range of other alternatives on the market. AMD’s latest refresh, the Radeon HD 6870, is among those options, though it’s worth remembering that the company’s real high-end gear isn’t due for another couple of weeks. All the same, most people will be buying their holiday rigs right around now, and if you want an exhaustive guide as to what’s what on the graphics front, the source link is your best, um… source.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 and AMD Radeon HD 6870 square off in dual-card showdown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plan on visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island via ferry next year? If so, pay close attention to the vessel you board, as it just might be the world’s first to rely on hydrogen, solar and wind power for motorization. Currently, the New York Hornblower Hybrid (not to be confused with the San Francisco Hornblower Hybrid) is under construction in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and if all goes well, it’ll reach completion in April. The 600-passenger boat be equipped with Tier 2 diesel engines, hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels and wind turbines, with power coming from a proton exchange membrane fuel cell that turns hydrogen into electricity. We’re told that the diesel rigs will only kick in to cover “additional energy needs,” but it’s hard to say how often they’ll actually be used. The eventual goal, however, is to do away with emissions altogether in the ferry process, and it seems that the technology is already capable of being scaled for use in other hybrid ferries, hybrid yachts and even hybrid tugs.

Continue reading Hornblower Hybrid ferry relies on eco-friendly trifecta: hydrogen, solar and wind power

Hornblower Hybrid ferry relies on eco-friendly trifecta: hydrogen, solar and wind power originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iFlash not a battery-sucking, CPU-choking browser plugin. Instead, it’s an LED lamp that plugs into the dock-connector of any iPhone or iPod and provides a “flash” for your photos.

It’s self-powered, so you won’t drain your battery, and you’ll have to switch it on and off manually, making the dock-connector little more than a mounting point for the light. And that’s not the only hole it will fill on the iPhone: a little plastic jack-plug will let you dangle the dongle from the iPhone’s headphone socket when not in use.

I’d probably avoid this particular gadget, though. If you’re going to add light to your photos, why go to all the bother of buying an expensive light and then just stick the thing right near the lens, where it will give you the same harsh shadows you get from any light so close to the lens. It’s like buying an SB900 strobe for your Nikon and then sitting it in the camera’s hot-shoe. No, better to just take the $40 this widget will cost you and buy a decent LED flashlight.

iFlash Product Page [Gadgets and Gear via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Strobe Pro Adds Motion-Stopping Flash to iPhone 4
• Cheap, Manual Flashgun: Built by Strobists, for Strobists

This article was written on May 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

At first glance it may seem like Firefox lacks a lot of configuration options, hoever, much of the fine tuning lies underneath. Most Firefox power users will know about the about:config window which can sometimes be a tedious tool ,but there are a lot of customizable options located there.

Mozilla actually warns users that they should not change settings in the about:config window unless they really know what they are doing. Often times it is compared to editing the Windows Registry, where one wrong setting can crash Windows.

To help users out we have provided our own guide to configuring Firefox using about:config, which also includes a long list of tweaks. If it just doesn’t seem worth the hassle, then you’ll want to continue reading this article because there are now much easier ways to tweak those “hidden” settings…

—Preferential (Homepage)—

Nogg3r5 pointed out this great extension over in the CyberNet forum. It is a great extension because it takes everything from the about:config and breaks it up into categories. To top it off, they provide a description for all of the entries so that you know what they do without needing to visit Mozilla’s knowledgebase!

After installing the extension you’ll notice a new entry in the Tools menu immediately below the Options choice:

Then you’ll be presented with a bunch of collapsed menus which look something like this:

Click to Enlarge

You can now start browsing through the settings to find the ones you are looking for. From what I have seen, the largest category of settings can be found in the browser section:

Click to Enlarge

This is definitely something that Mozilla should look at including in Firefox as a better way to edit the entries in the about:config screen.

—Configuration Mania (Homepage)—

Now if that still seemed too complicated, you need something that breaks it down even further. How about something that puts the settings in an easy-to-understand interface similar to the existing configuration screen for the Options? Let’s now turn our attention to Configuration Mania!

This extension is cool because it puts a ton of settings together in a way that makes them very easy to understand and manipulate. Before now, almost all of these settings had to be configured through the about:config screen, but now they will almost seem as if they were naturally integrated in Firefox.

Just like the Preferential extension, Configuration Mania has its options located in the Tools menu:

Starting up that extension will present you with a screen similar to this one:

Click to Enlarge

As you can see this one also has collapsible menus, but it organizes the settings a little nicer. Oh, and don’t be deceived by the small appearance because there are a lot of settings there for you to tinker with. Here is a screenshot of what all the browser settings look like when they’re expanded:

Click to Enlarge

And that is only the settings from one of the 5 tabs! Here are a few more screenshots from the rest of the tabs:

   
Click to Enlarge

As you can see there are a lot of different things available for you to configure and play with, but it will take some time to go through all of the settings presented here. Let us know if you find any you didn’t know about!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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I’ve long said that there’s nothing in this world sadder than an ugly baby. For plenty of people, those first few years are the only chance to look the least bit presentable. Ugly babies really have it rough from the start, however. So perhaps Dapper Gentlemen is doing us all a favor with the introduction of the Ugly Baby Meter for the iPhone.

This could be just the thing doting parents need to help prepare their ugly spawn for a life time of difficulty and disappointment. The app was developed by the same team that gave the world the gift of Ugly Meter. This version is targeted specifically toward “babies and small children,” rating their cuteness on a scale of one to 10.

The app features a real-time face tracker and offers “one-liners,” based on the resulting score. It’s compatible with the iPhone 3, 3G, 3Gs, and iPod touch with cameras. It’ll run you $0.99 in the app store, but may well be worth it for the lifetime’s peace of mind (or crippling depression) it provides.