Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on June 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

Last week I wrote about “What was Life Like Before the Computer” where a poem pointed out that before the computer, an application was used for employment, you pasted things with glue, and a virus was the flu. Times have surely changed because those words, along with many others have totally different meanings today.

It got me thinking about spell-checker and how much I, like many others, rely on it on a regular basis to keep written material free from spelling errors. What did I do without it?  It’s evolved a lot since it was first introduced, and now we have more than just a way to check for spelling mistakes, we can also check for grammar mistakes. More recently with Microsoft Office 2007, there’s also the contextual spell checker that ensures that the theirs and there’s along with the to and too’s, and all of the other homophones are used appropriately. (Image source)

As a Firefox user, I was ecstatic when spell-check was included with Firefox 2.0 because that meant that when I left comments on blogs and social network sites, I’d know if there were any errors. Without a spell-checker, I’d spend a decent amount of time everyday correcting my spelling errors. In other words, it saves me A LOT of time.

With that said, I thought this poem was very fitting. I received it as a forwarded email a long time ago as I’m sure many of you have, but I managed to track down the original author. It was written by Jerrold H. Zar who I thought would have been an English professor, or a linguistics specialist. I was wrong, he’s a Biologist. Just reading through it once is enough to make anybody appreciate the spell-checkers that are readily available today in browsers, applications, and elsewhere.

CANDIDATE FOR A PULLET SURPRISE by Jerrold H. Zar
(Otherwise known as “Owed to a Spelling Checker”)

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it.
Your sure real glad two no.
Its very polished in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a blessing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays comes posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checkers
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re laks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does not phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too please.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryThe Wonders Of The Microsoft Word Spell CheckerSafari 3.0.4 for Windows – Spelling and Grammar CheckVisually See The PageRank Of All Links On Your SiteMicrosoft Password Checker

We had a feeling the Olympus XZ-1 would be a winner, and Digital Photography Review seems to think so, too — it called the 10 megapixel, full-manual point and shoot “the best photographers’ compact currently available” at the end of a thorough review. Most of the praise was heaped on that F1.8-2.5 Zuiko lens, providing an “unbeaten combination of range and brightness” whose potent, detailed low-light performance was practically enough to cancel out the publication’s worries about the lack of a adjustable noise reduction setting. Though the publication admitted that the camera lacked the customization of certain Micro Four Thirds cousins, it didn’t miss most of the advanced controls, preferring the streamlined menus and manual dials for easy access to common adjustments. (Battery charging over USB and a dedicated movie button were also deemed nice touches.) In fact, the only major ding DPReview had for Olympus was the complete omission of auto exposure and autofocus locks for focus-and-recompose shooting, but if you’re willing to snap shots using Olympus’s 11 AF points and aren’t looking to tote a set of expensive interchangeable lenses around, this might be the one. Dive into our source link to find out for sure.

Olympus XZ-1 reviewed: $499 for sweet simplicity originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

Recently Stardock launched TweakVista version 1.01. We’ve written about it before (here and here), but just as a refresher, it’s described as “an enhancement application that helps users configure Windows Vista to meet their personal needs. The program has been designed to allow both casual, non-technical users to safely use it as well as contain a host of advanced features for power users to dig into the internals of Windows Vista.”

Here’s the thing about TweakVista — it doesn’t allow you to do anything that you can’t already do with Vista out of the box. What’s nice though is that everything is in one central location so that it’s easier to access  the settings you’d ever want to change. It also makes it easier to manage certain things versus doing it on your own, and does a great job of explaining them for those who aren’t familiar.

Today we’re going to give you a visual guide of what it’s all about. Take a look at the screenshots (click to enlarge them) to see what all TweakVista has to offer… it’s a lot! Please note that we used the full-featured version which costs $19.95. There is an awesome free version available that just lacks a few of the features for those of you who’d like to try before you buy, or who don’t need a full-featured version. At the end of this article, look for the instructions on entering our giveaway to receive one of two TweakVista licenses.

Start Up

From the Start Up menu you’ll be able to control just about everything to do with the start up process. You’ll be able to see which programs are set to run upon startup, and you’ll also  be able to disable some of those programs. TweakVista will monitor your computer’s startup, shutdown, and sleep performance which could help you identify if there are any problems.

Resources

Under this section you can identify the programs that are using the most amount of memory. No one likes a program that’s a memory-hog, so this will be helpful. It’ll also show you your process list. Certainly you can easily get this information without TweakVista, but it’s nice to have it all in one centralized location.

Services

This part of TweakVista will help you manage all of the services that come with Vista that you may or may not use. From here you can turn off the services that you don’t use like web folders, diagnostics, error reporting, and more.

Security

Security is an important part of any operating system. From here you can customize your security settings like enable UAC, or switch to the secure desktop to display elevation requests.

Display

Stardock describes this portion of TweakVista as: “Unleash the power of the Desktop Windows Manager, underlying Vista’s user interface.” From here you can do things like enable or disable the Flip 3D window switching.

Power

One of the best options here is the power cost analysis which estimates how much your annual cost is per year to run the computer as well as your carbon footprint.

Assessment

If you’re currently running Vista, you’re probably aware of the assessment feature which rates your computer. You get an overview of how your computer performs, but TweakVista breaks it down further and provides you with detailed information on what the assessments are based on.

Internet

Allows you to easily enable certain network features that aren’t enabled by default.

SMARTGuard

Information presented in the SMARTGuard section was provided by your hard drive.

Misc. Tweaks

Includes context menu handlers, environment variables, and the system restore feature to create a restore point.

–Giveaway–

We have two licenses of TweakVista to giveaway thanks to Stardock! If you are using Windows Vista or have plans of getting it in the future, go ahead and enter. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and we’ll choose two winners.  One winner will be randomly chosen from the first ten comments, and a second winner will be chosen from all entries(it can be someone from the first 10 as well). The sooner you enter, the better!

As always, only one entry per person and this giveaway is void where prohibited. Each winner will receive a license for TweakVista which is valued at $19.95. Please note that if you are selected as a winner, you’ll need to create an account (if you don’t already have one) over at Stardock, and then they’ll go ahead and add the copy of Tweak Vista to your account.

The contest will end tomorrow on Tuesday, November 20th at 12 PM central time and the winners will be announced shortly after. Please be sure to include your email address in the email field of the comment box because this is how we’ll contact you, should you be chosen as a winner.

Thanks to Stardock for sponsoring this giveaway!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

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It’s been a long time since we used a laptop that had a monochromatic display — it was a giant white block of a thing that is not missed — but flip around just about every laptop we use today and you find a backside that stubbornly refuses to change color no matter the light that hits it. Is that a problem? Not really, we think it’s quite fine since we’re not often staring at that bit, but for Toshiba such tedium simply won’t do, so it’s introducing the Dynabook Qosmio T750 with a color-shifting lid. Turn it in the light and it shifts and shimmers, just like the chameleon paint tuners have been using on custom rides for decades. Here, though, we’re told it’s done with multiple layers of film, no paint at all. Oh, the inside? A 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-480M, 4GB of DDR 3 memory, and a 15.6-inch, 1366 x 768 display that’s LED backlit — which is also capable of displaying multiple colors, in case you’re interested.

Toshiba Dynabook Qosmio T750 laptop has a lid that changes color on both sides originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 21:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NFC technology might still be months away from being called the next big thing, but researchers are already looking to turn it into a useful tool for collaboration on smartphones. NFC, or near-field communication, is already a part of Google’s Nexus S, and rumors suggest Apple might bring it to the next-generation iPhone to use in mobile payments. Stanford researchers are looking to take it beyond the usual embedding of NFC tags in objects to add a social, communicative element to the technology.

After creating a customized version of the Android OS with support enabled for peer-to-peer mode NFC, the researchers collaborated on a whiteboard app just by tapping two Nexus S phones together. Think Google Docs, but between phones using NFC. Having the two phones in close proximity let the NFC chips pair the handsets, then data was shared using a platform called Junction. The researchers said Junction will allow collaboration and app-sharing not just on NFC between phones, but also between laptops, desktops, TVs and whatever other devices can run the software. If this little experiment is any indication, the not-so-distant future might see us transferring our work between gadgets with just a tap, thanks to NFC chips.

[via Stanford, Engadget]