Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 24, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

A few weeks ago for our Microsoft Monday feature, we posted an article titled “Little Known Facts about Bill Gates.” While we all know Bill Gates as the King of Microsoft, there were still some things many people didn’t know – like his SAT score was 1590 and the top score for the test is 1600. Continuing on the same theme of Bill Gates, today we’re going to take a look inside his house with some photos and facts.

First, for starters, Bill Gates’ house is in Medina, Washington on a 5.12 acre lot and overlooks Lake Washington. According to Wikipedia, Bill originally bought the land back in 1988 for a measly $2 million, and the mansion was built over seven years. By 1995 it was complete.  As you can imagine, this is one wired house filled with new technology.

View of the house from the air:

One of the most interesting things you’d experience if you lived in this house is that you wear a pin containing a microchip which acts as your ID.  When you walk into a room, lighting, sound, and temp controls are customized for you. Any high resolution display that you walk by will know that you’re there, and your favorite art is displayed. And if you’re getting a phone call, only the phone nearest to you will ring. This is all thanks to the pin with the microchip.

Now we’ll take a look at some of the rooms in this house:

Library

If you were to peek inside the domed library, you’d find two “secret” bookcases with one of them containing a bar. Here you could sit in front of the fireplace and admire the Codex Leicester belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. Gates paid $30.8 million for it back in 1994.

Pool House

The pool building is 3,900 square feet and has a 17 foot by 60 foot swimming pool. While you’re swimming, you can listen to your favorite music underwater with the underwater music system.

Reception Hall

This is where Gates plays hosts to VIP’s and other social events.  The room features a large video wall made up of 24 individual screens measuring 40 inches each. At 2,300 feet, this room is capable of holding up to 200 people for a cocktail party, or 150 people for a sit-down dinner.

–Random Facts–

• The house is 50,000 square feet
• In 2005, the house and land were assessed at $200 million
• Annually, Gates pays nearly $1 million dollars in taxes for the property
• Over 64 km of optical fiber was used in the house
• 300 workers at one time were working on the house – 104 of them were electricians
• Every door handle in the house was custom made and cost $2,000 each
• There are no visible electric outlets in the house

Additional rooms in the house:

• Trampoline Room
  I’m not quite sure why you’d need a trampoline room, but I suppose when you’re Bill Gates and you’re the richest man in the world, you can have nearly anything you want.  Part of his exercise facilities includes a trampoline room with a 20 foot ceiling.
• Formal Dining Room
  Should Bill have 24 of his closest friends coming over for dinner, they can dine in his formal dining room in front of the fireplace. It’s on the third floor and has plenty of windows so that guests can enjoy the view. It’s 1,000 square feet.
• Underground Garage
  Apparently Gates likes to park his cars underground.  Part of this mansion is a 6,300 square foot underground garage. This is only one of three garages that are on the property, and it’s got room for 10+ cars.

–Random Facts–

• Hidden cameras are all over the property
• Floor sensors can track you – up to 6 inches
• As Gates is on his way home from work, he can fill his tub with water to his desired temp so it’s ready when he gets home
• Woodwork in this house (which is abundant) is flawless
• There are glass windows galore, and 7 varieties of stone were used to build the house
• The actual “living” space is modest
• All flooring is heated including the driveway and sidewalks
• Much of the house is built underground into a hill so it looks smaller than it is

–Additional Pictures–

–Virtual Video Tour–

–Wrapping it up–

So there you have it, a look inside the mansion of Bill Gates. Anybody want to swap houses with Bill? If you want more information about some of the rooms in the house, this virtual tour from U.S. News (while old) is an excellent source. Just click on the part of the house you’re wanting to learn more about.

Sources: Download Squad, U.S. News, and itmweb

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on July 20, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

One of the most common things that people probably do at work is chat with their friends. There are a lot of instant messengers out there such as Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, and Yahoo but how can you talk with all your friends when you are at work?

Many companies prevent software from being installed which makes it difficult but sites like Meebo will let you chat with your friends using an Online interface. However, some companies will even go as far as to block sites like Meebo to ensure you focus on your work. Meebo has come to your rescue by releasing the Meebo Repeater. It is a quick program that you download, run (no install required), and open the URL that they give you. Here are the few simple steps:

1. Download, extract, and run meebo repeater.exe.
2. You should see a dialog box that shows that the Meebo Repeater is testing your Internet:
    
3. If all goes well you will see an image much like this that provides the URL you need to use in your browser:
    
   If the program does not work it will take you to a site to show you how to setup your router to work with the Meebo Repeater.
4. Just point your browser to that URL and Meebo will be at your fingertips once again:
    

Meebo developed this tool because they didn’t want people using proxies which can prove to be insecure and steal your information or passwords. Looks like Meebo may have put themselves ahead of the competition once again.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on December 11, 2006 by CyberNet.

Million Dollar Monday

Need a new watch? Forget it! Why not get the Liquid Vacuum Clock for $85,000? That’s for the 7 ft. model, and if that’s simply not big enough you could always go for the 35 foot model for a mere $495,000. Hmmm… all of the things you could buy with 85,000 dollars let alone 495,000 dollars!

So, how does this Liquid Vacuum Clock work? It uses a variety of pipes and siphons that display the time.  Interestingly, there are only 58 minute markers instead of 60 because it takes two minutes for the pipes to drain and the process to start again. There are disks on the right which show the minutes, while spheres on the left show the hours. The Future of Things  website gives a great detailed description on how it works:

Each daily clock cycle begins when an electric water pump beneath the clock moves the water to the top reservoir. From there it flows into a glass cupel (a shallow glass cup or scoop) attached to a neon green pendulum. As the cupel fills, the increasing weight causes its arm to dip and empty the liquid, which in turn forces the pendulum to swing away from its center position. The cupel then returns to an upright position propelling the pendulum. This occurs every two seconds, keeping a steady stream of liquid flowing into the clock’s systems of curved pipes and siphons. Every hour, the minutes column empties, creating a vacuum that draws liquid into the hours column to fill one of the hour spheres. Together the number of filled spheres lining the hours side of the clock and the number of filled discs on the minutes side tell the time of day. Each disc in the minutes column on the right side represents two minutes. There are only 29 of these minute discs, representing 58 minutes. The missing two minutes are accounted for in the time it takes for the pipes to drain. Just before one o’clock, the minutes and the hours sections become full. When they overflow, they create a siphon that empties the entire clock in a dramatic fashion and the whole process begins again.

This method for telling time is nothing new as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used water clocks to measure the passing day.  If you just don’t have $85,000 to spare and you’d like to see one in person, visit the Indianapolis Children’s Museum where they have one on display!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on December 29, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free for all Friday!

If you’re looking for nice, simple, but useful photo and image programs, you’ll love the freeware that VicMan Software has to offer. As of December 22, 2006, all of the graphics software that they offer is free. They’ve got some great products that you can use to easily enhance your photos. Their software is inspired by the idea that “most casual photographers need a photo processing solution, but do not want to learn sophisticated graphic applications.” I’m sure most of you fit into that “casual photographer” like I do, which makes their technology perfect to meet your needs.

My Pictures 3D

Out of all of the software on the site, one of my favorites is My Pictures 3D which I installed and played around with for a while.  Given the name, it is pretty self explanatory.  My Pictures 3D allows you to view your pictures in 3D as a screensaver and as a 3D album.  The 3D screensaver is great. I typically don’t use a screensaver anymore, but after playing around with the 3D screensaver, I may revert back. The idea is to display your pictures in a 3D format in “realistic” types of environments, like an art museum, a park, or a castle. They offer 13 different galleries that you can download to use, along with the 2 default galleries that are automatically installed with the program.

After I selected the folder that I wanted it to use, I tested it out.  My picture folder contains literally hundreds of sub-folders, which My Pictures 3D loaded without any problems.  Once your pictures have loaded, your 3D walk begins in a setting where all of your photos are displayed.  For example, the “Showroom” gallery appears as any Art gallery would. On the wall you’ll find your pictures hanging, and your tour begins.

There are other extras to the program that make it stand out.  First, you can add sound to play during your 3D walk.  One option is to have the music randomly selected, or you could also have the music loop. Another important feature is desktop resolution; You’re able to select the resolution so that your pictures will fit appropriately. Other options include the stop frequency which gives you control over how often the program will stop and zoom in on a full-sized picture.  You can also select whether or not you want full-screen pictures.  Occasionally, while you’re on your walking tour, it will zoom in to one picture and then show a full screen picture. This can easily be turned off.

To give this yet a more realistic experience, there are options to change the walker height and speed so that you’re comfortable while browsing the gallery.  There’s also a free-move mode so that you can wander around the space using the mouse. If you’re in the auto mode, the computer will do all of the moving for you.

One of my favorite galleries is their new ‘Neon Maze’ that’s available to download. Some of the other galleries include a Moon Observatory, Lopsided Room, and an Exhibition Hall, all of which are new additions to the gallery.  Other options include a Christmas theme gallery, Greek, and an Armory gallery. Really, any of the galleries will make a 3D walk interesting. They also note on their site that they continue to create new galleries!

You can download My Pictures 3D here.

My Picture 3D is not the only program available, there are lots of others which I’ll briefly mention here.  If you find it useful, I’ll also include the download link for easy referencing.

• Red Eye Remover Pro – Red eye correction tool automatically detects and instantly corrects red pupils in photos. You can even perform this check in a batch of pictures!
• Mobile Phone Enhancer – Most phones these days have cameras on them, and now there’s software to enhance those photos too!
• Color Correction Wizard – Adjusts brightness and contrast.
• Cartoonist– Warp images of your friends and family into cartoons!
• JPEG Enhancer – Restore images that were damaged by saving a picture as a low quality JPEG compression.
• Light Artist – Add realistic lighting to your photos.

 If you’re a casual photographer and you haven’t taken the time to play around with your photos to enhance them, give any of the listed freeware a try.  You’ll be amazed at what a simple program can do to your pictures, and how easy it is to actually add some fun and excitement to your photos.

VicMan Software

Thanks for the tip Radu!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on December 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

We’ve looked at Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets before, but it seems every time I go back to the gallery of gadgets, there’s always at least one or two that I haven’t seen before that impress me. Today we’ll be looking at three of the best Vista sidebar gadgets I’ve come across lately including XM Online Radio Gadget (perfect for all of you XM radio users), Wp-corp Mail Checker (for checking up to five different email accounts), and Auction Sidebar Tool for eBay (a necessity for eBayers).

XM Online Radio Gadget

The XM Online Radio Gadget is by far one of the most useful gadgets that I’ve seen.  I listen to XM radio all throughout the day while I’m working, so you can see why this has come in handy.  Previously I accessed XM Radio online through Windows Media Player which was nice, but it wasn’t as convenient as I wanted it to be for a couple of reasons.  First, I’d have to open Windows Media Player and leave it open to listen to XM but secondly, there wasn’t an option to remember my login and password. It got a bit tedious after a while to enter in a user name and password any time I wanted to listen to music. This gadget takes care of both of the minor complaints I had about accessing XM Radio Online.

Features:

• Once you enter your name and password, it will remember it so you don’t have to enter it in each time you want to listen to the radio
• Access the channel list right from the gadget
• Displays the channel you’re on and the artist that sings the song

Obviously you have to have a paid subscription with XM Radio in order to be able to use the gadget.  I noticed that some people that left comments in the Gadget Gallery were complaining because they assumed if the gadget was free, so was the XM service. XM does offer an online only subscription which is $7.99 per month or you can get the full subscription and use it with an XM Radio device and listen online.

Below you’ll see a screenshot of what the gadget looks like in the sidebar. I clicked to view the channels, and they pop-out to the left:

Wp-corp mail checker

Wp-Corp Mail Checker is my new favorite service for checking my mail because I can set it up to check multiple accounts. It’ll work for any POP3/ IMAP4 with SSL email accounts which means it does work with Gmail. There are a few bugs here and there, but all around I’d say it’s an awesome gadget for checking your mail. Once you install it, you’ll go through the process of configuring your accounts – you can have up to five.

There are several configuration options including selecting the number of accounts you’re going to use. You’ll also be able to determine how often you want it to check your email. Options range from one minute to one hour. There are a few other options as well like selecting “mailbox glow.” If you decide to use the mailbox glow, you’ll see a glow around the box in the gadget when you have a new message. You can also opt to show the mail date. As you can see below, I have two different email accounts setup. When you click to view the unread mail, it will pull-up all of the messages from your inbox in a pop-out window as shown below.

My only complaint with this gadget is that if you trash a message, it will remove the email from your inbox but it actually archives it instead of actually deleting it.

Here are a few things to make sure you do while setting it up if you’re using a Gmail account:

• Mail Protocol: Select IMAP and SSL from the dropdown lists
• Server address is imap.gmail.com and the port should be changed to 993
• Make sure you choose how many headers you want it to retrieve otherwise it won’t work

Auction Sidebar Tool

The Auction Sidebar Tool for eBay is perfect for anybody who buys or sells on eBay. You can either use it as a basic search tool, or you have the option of using it in an advanced mode where you can manage your whole eBay account right from your sidebar. If you want to get notified when you get a new message, you can get notified through this gadget as well. When you’re initially setting up the gadget, you’ll have the option to show items that you’re watching, selling, and bidding on.  You’ll also be able to select a skin that suits your tastes.

After you’re done with the setup process, you’ll have to sign in to your eBay account. The sign-in page will open in your browser at which point you’ll enter in your user name and password.  Then you’ll be required to authorize the gadget to access the info in your account by simply clicking ” I agree.”

If you search for an item, you can either have the results open in a window in your browser, or you can select to have the results appear in a gadget flyout (shown above) which I prefer.  If you click on a result within the searches, there are tabs for the overview of the listing, the description, pictures, and shipping and policies so that it’s easy to navigate as shown below.

Have a favorite Vista Sidebar gadget? Let us know!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com