Hasta La Gadget!

If you own a cat, there’s little reason not to buy it its own record player

Fact: Cats will scratch everything in your home except the expensive purpose-made scratching post you bought them. Shredding a sofa is always better than following the rules for these devil-creatures, but that doesn’t stop the Cat Scratch Turntable from being 100% awesome (and probably 100% tacky).

The flat-pack decks are made from cardboard, and ship complete with a “pose-able tonearm.” Not that everything is guaranteed to go smoothly: you’ll notice that in the photo the cat is standing on the wrong side of the turntable.

As somebody who has lived with both cats and record players, often simultaneously, I can report that cats do indeed love to chase a spinning record and scratch the needle across its delicate surface. So there’s a fair chance that kitty might relax her usual haughty rules and deign to play with this cat toy. And if not, who cares? The kit costs just £15 ($23), which is worth paying, just for the pun-tastic name.

Cat Scratch product page [Suck UK via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Cat-Library, A Stairway to Feline Heaven
• Backyard Cat Weighs Odds Against Escape
• ZOMG You Can Has CatPaint for iPhone

The Movie Maker’s Kit. Almost every Lensbaby, ever, in a plastic box

Lensbabys, with their dreamy blur, shifting sweet spots and weird out-of-focus highlights, would seem to be just about perfect for movie makers. The folks at Lensbaby seem to have thought the exact same thing, and have bundled just about everything they sell into a box and called it the Movie Maker’s Kit.

The kit has lenses for both Canon SLRs and for movie cameras using the Arri PL mount, and comes with a host of swap-in optics, including fisheye, soft focus, plastic (the original blurry Lensbaby) and pinhole. It also comes with wide and telephoto converters, aperture kits (the drop-in plates that change apertures) and a macro kit. Here are some samples:

All of this is stuffed into a Pelican case, rendering it practically bomb-proof.

The kit isn’t cheap. You get a lot for your money, but you’ll have to spend $2,900. Part of this is the cost of the PL-mount lens. The standard, entry-level Muse lens costs $150. For PL, it’s $400 (when bought separately). Then again, movie makers are used to spending a lot on their gear, so this might even be considered cheap.

Movie Maker’s Kit [Lensbaby. Thanks, Jessica!]

See Also:

• Lensbaby Composer Goes Pro
• Lensbaby Sweet 35 Adds Real Apertures, Wide-Angle Lens …
• Review: Lensbaby Composer Lets You Art Up Images Sans …
• Lensbaby Tilt Transformer Marries Nikon Lenses to Micro Four …

It looks like those rumors of a streaming deal between Netflix and Dreamworks Animation were as good as advertised. Details are still fuzzy at this point, but the New York Times is reporting that the two parties have reached an agreement to stream Dreamworks’ movies and TV projects, as part of a deal worth an estimated $30 million. Under the contract, which replaces a similar pay TV pact between Dreamworks and HBO, Netflix will begin offering exclusive access to the studio’s new films in 2013, with Antz, Kung Fu Panda and other titles from its library slated to become available for streaming sometime thereafter. The company won’t be confined to selling digital copies of Dreamworks’ movies within a specific period, either, drawing a major distinction between itself and HBO, which requires studio partners to halt digital sales outside of an exclusive window. HBO probably isn’t too thrilled to see Netflix strike what Dreamworks chief exec Jeffrey Katzenberg called a “game-changing deal,” but it also has a new partnership of its own with Summit Studios, which it brought on board after letting Dreamworks out of its contract a full two years early. We’re still waiting for official confirmation of Netflix’s latest deal, but we’ll let you know as soon as we get it.

Update: Now with the official press release, included after the break.

Continue reading NYT: Netflix strikes deal with Dreamworks, will begin streaming movies, TV specials in 2013

NYT: Netflix strikes deal with Dreamworks, will begin streaming movies, TV specials in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on October 07, 2006 by CyberNet.

App-A-Day just released what I think is the best program yet. The Jedi Window Dock will let you remove any window from the Taskbar and place it into a tabbed interface, which means this could definitely help reduce some clutter.

Once you download the program and have it running you just need to open the “Tab Controls” tab and select which open windows you want placed in a tab. If you don’t see some of your applications listed you may need to refresh the window list. Click on the application that you want to remove from the Taskbar and hit “Add To Tab.” Bam! That’s all!

It appears to work very well for me and I haven’t come across any programs that it doesn’t work with. The only feature that I would like to see now is the option to right-click on a Taskbar item and select the “Add To Tab” option. If you could do that then this is almost like a virtual desktop to me.

You can also right-click on any of the tabs to pop-out the window and place it back in the Taskbar. If you accidentally close Jedi Window Dock, which I did, it takes all of your windows and puts them in the Taskbar…so you don’t have to worry about losing your work.

This is pretty awesome. Thanks to “Nate The Great” for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on April 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

If you have been looking for mapping software then this is a perfect deal for you. Best Buy is currently having a sale on Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 for $19.99, and there is a $10 mail-in rebate when you order it which makes the price $9.99! The normal price for this edition is $39.99 so 75% off the original price is a pretty HOT deal!

Before you jump in and order it you may want to make sure that this software is right for you. Delorme currently has a very powerful alternative called Street Atlas USA. I currently use their product because I have had bad experiences in the past with Street and Trips (mostly GPS navigation problems). I know that Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 is supposed to have many updates to improve the GPS navigation capabilities. Here is a review by PC Magazine on Streets and Trips 2006. PC Magazine also has a review on Street Atlas.

Hope it helps!

Order Microsoft Streets And Trips From Best Buy

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

PC Magazine Gives Streets And Trips 2006 A 3/5New Street Atlas USA 2007 Mapping SoftwareFree Vista and Office "Giveaways"Retailers Already Selling Consumer Versions of VistaYahoo Adds Improvements to Trip Planner