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Dec 03

CyberNotes: Play Videos on your Desktop in XP and Vista (like Dreamscene)

This article was written on April 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

VLC Media Player has got to be one of the best video players available, and it doesn’t cost you a single penny. Why is it so great? Well, it is a combination of the extremely simple interface and the large number of codecs that are included to support almost any type of video. There is, however, one feature that many of you may have forgotten about…

Buried within the settings is an option that allows you set any video as a desktop wallpaper. This setting is similar to what Microsoft is offering as an “Extra” called Dreamscene in the Windows Vista Ultimate edition. Once you have enabled the option you’ll be able to set a video to play as your desktop background, have it repeat so that it continuously loops, and then you can minimize the VLC player to your System Tray so that it is out-of-sight.

Go to Settings -> Preferences -> Video -> Output Modules -> DirectX and in the bottom-right corner check the box labeled Advanced Options. Now you should see an option on the screen called Enable wallpaper mode, check that box.

If you want to be able to minimize the VLC Media Player to the System Tray you’ll have to enable that option in the Preferences as well. While in the Preferences go to Interface -> Main Interfaces -> wxWidgets. Uncheck the Taskbar option and then check the Systray icon option in order to show the program only in the System Tray while playing a video.
Now if you want to have the video continuously loop on your desktop just press Ctrl+P and choose whether you want to loop all videos in your playlist or just a single video:
Just start playing a video and go to the Video -> Wallpaper option and you should see the video being played as your desktop background.

VLC Media Player has had this feature for a long time and it works in more than just Windows Vista Ultimate edition, unlike the DreamScene add-on. The only problem that I have had with it so far is trying to get some videos to play full-size. That can be a little tricky because the full-screen mode in the video player does not seem to stretch the video to fit your desktop.

There are quite a few things that Vista offers that can be done using other applications, and this is a prime example of that. Of course, this is probably just one of those features that you would use to show a friend and say “look at how cool it is” and then you would never use it because it lacked any practical purpose. A little bragging here and there can be fun though. 🙂

Dec 03

CyberNotes: Create Your Own Visual Map with Wayfaring and Google Maps

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on January 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Warrior

Recently, I stumbled across Wayfaring, a visual map creation service that uses Google Maps. There are four main things that you can do with with Wayfaring. You’re able to create maps of your own, share those maps with friends and family, explore maps that others have made, and collaborate with others to build new maps. There’s an endless list of reasons you’d use it, such as places you’ve traveled to, favorite restaurants, favorite golf courses, mapping out clients, etc. I decided to create a map of my own, so I’ll take you through the process.

Pictured above is the map that I created. One of the first things you should know is that you can embed your map into blogs or other websites. Clicking on the map will take you to Wayfaring where you can get more details about each point. The first thing that you’ll do when creating a map is to select the general area on the map that you’ll be starting with. I was starting in Miami, Florida, so I selected that area. Next, you’re going to name your map which you can always change later. I titled mine Honeymoon Cruise’, and then it was time to start adding “waypoints,” or locations on my map.

I went on a cruise for my honeymoon, so I created Waypoints for each of the stops the ship made. With each waypoint, you’re also able to add notes, and tags to give more details. Another nice feature is that you’re able to add extra elements like photos and videos to give it a more personalized feel. After you’ve added all of your points, you can create a route and connect each point together to get the total mileage.

Once you’re done, you have the option of sharing the map with friends, or family by email, or of course as mentioned, by embedding it on your website. Maps can be set to private or public, and you can also set it so that others can edit them (this would be the collaboration portion).

The last thing that you might want to do with Wayfaring is to explore and find maps that others have created. They have the “Best of Wayfaring” where you can view some of the best maps that users have created. Another option is to search by specific key words, or view the most recent maps created.

One of the best maps I came across was a road trip that started on the East Coast and went all across the US to California with lots of stops in-between. They included pictures for some of the places that they came across. If you switch to the satellite option on the Google map, you could get a nice tour of some of the US landmarks.

That’s all that there’s really to it. Wayfaring a very simple, easy way to create maps for any reason you could think of!

Nov 30

CyberNotes: TrayDevil goes Beyond Minimizing to the System Tray

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on January 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

Last week I wrote an article on freeware applications that let you arrange your windows in a more organized, and productive fashion. Then in the comments Everton mentioned an application that he found that lets you minimize windows to the System Tray. The only problem was that the link he posted vanished, and he didn’t mention what the name of the program was.

I’ve done a post before about minimizing applications to the System Tray and the popular one was 4t Tray Minimizer. There is both a paid and free version of that application. I also brought up other alternatives like Opera’s built-in Ctrl+H shortcut to minimize the browser to Tray…and you don’t have to install a thing to do that.

Then there is TrayDevil (download mirror): a freeware application that does more than just minimize windows to the System Tray. I’m not sure if this is the application that Everton was talking about in his comment, but when a friend of mine told me about it I couldn’t pass it up. Now that I have had some time to explore the program I thought I would share all of the things that it can do.

–Minimizing Windows–

The primary purpose of TrayDevil is to let you minimize applications to the System Tray that normally couldn’t be. There are all kinds of applications I find this useful for, like Web browsers and file explorers, but if you completely understand how TrayDevil works it will become an amazing tool.

To minimize a window you can do one of two things:

While holding Ctrl, Shift, or Alt just left-click on the titlebar of the window you want to minimize.
My favorite way is to simultaneously left-click and right-click on the titlebar which is a one-handed way of minimizing a window.

I would say the most unique thing happens when you have a window minimized to the System Tray. Unlike other tray applications that I have used, TrayDevil will keep the application’s icon in the System Tray even after clicking to maximize it. Of course, that’s only if you single-click because if you double-click it will remove the icon.

If you right-click on a minimized window you will receive the following options:

The Min, Max, and Close button options will disable those buttons on a given window. I haven’t really found this to be too useful quite yet, but I guess it could be if you wanted to make sure you didn’t accidentally close a window.

Then there is the Restore button ( ) which is equivalent to double-clicking on the icon…it restores the window and removes the icon from the tray.

The bottom option that has the up arrow ( ) is equivalent to single-clicking on an icon…it restores the window but leaves the icon in the tray. After a window has been restored the right-click menu option changes to a down arrow ( ) which will minimize the window back to the System Tray.

–Shutdown, Restart, and More–

So what happens when you right-click on the TrayDevil icon? It provides you with all sorts of options like turning your monitor off or restarting your computer. It isn’t the end of the world if you accidentally click on one of those options while you were on your way to the settings…TrayDevil gives you 10-seconds (or more/less if you customize it) to cancel any of the operations.

–Customization and Settings–

Options, options, options…TrayDevil has them! There are all sorts of things you can finetune with my favorite being the application’s tray icon. Instead of adding another worthless icon to the System Tray (I currently have 16), it lets you completely turn it off or display what day of the month it is. Thank goodness that there are some developers in the world who think outside the box. 😀

There are several other options that can be customized, so I thought I would take screenshots of all the things you can configure (many of which pertain to hotkeys):

–Overview–

As you can see this is one powerful freeware application that offers a wealth of customizability. It handles so smoothly that it is now one of my favorite programs, where I previously used 4t Tray Minimizer (free). The program is very light weight so you don’t have to worry about it taking up resources…go on now, it’s calling your name:

Download TrayDevil from their homepage
Download TrayDevil from our mirror

Nov 27

CyberNotes: A Look at Microsoft’s Main Redmond Campus

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on June 30, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft/Mac Monday

Ever wonder what a Windows Live Mailbox looks like? No, we’re not talking about the inbox for your Windows Live Mail account, we’re talking about an actual Windows Live Mail mailbox! Look below and there it is. It’s found on Microsoft’s main campus in Redmond, Washington.

Now who would have thought that someone at Microsoft would think to put a physical Windows Live Mailbox on campus? Today we’re going to be taking a look at Microsoft’s Main Campus both in picture and words.

Note: We haven’t been to the campus to take the pictures in this article ourselves, so be sure to checkout our list of image sources at the end of this article.

Size of the campus…

We weren’t able to find updated information on just how big the campus is in 2008, but in 2007, Microsoft’s main campus was 388 acres and included 70 buildings. This means that Microsoft’s campus is about the size of well over 350 U.S. Football Fields! The buildings straddle a road called Highway 520 for about an entire mile. Below you’ll find an image which shows what part of the main campus looks like.

According to that image, there are 10 different ATM Locations on campus along with 14 different Cafe locations for keeping the stomachs of Microsoft employees satisfied. While the food isn’t free, drinks are. Below is an image from one of the cafe’s:

microsoft cafe.png

microsoft transport.png Because of its size, there’s a Microsoft Shuttle Transporter that transports people around the campus, and thousands ride it each day. Over 50 vehicles are used to get the job done.

The Microsoft Company Store

On the Microsoft campus you’ll find the Microsoft Campus Store. This is where employees go to get all of their gear that proudly displays the Microsoft logo. Employees are also able to buy software for reasonable prices. While some people may think that all Microsoft employees get their software for free, they don’t, which is why the Company Store comes in handy.

Microsoft Company Store.png

From what we could find, peripherals like mice and keyboards are usually $25 each while software is usually $15 to $55 depending on what it is. Doesn’t sound like too bad of a deal!

Perks

We’ve heard all about the perks you get while working for Google, but other companies including Microsoft, offer perks as well to entice the best talent to apply. We already mentioned the free beverages, but they also have something called P.R.I.M.E discounts where employees are able to get products and services discounted. They also give their employees 15 paid vacation days and 10 paid sick-leave days right from the start which isn’t always given these days.

Other perks:

Stay-fit program
Counseling
Office ergonomics consultation
On-site services like dry-cleaning, and take-home dinner

Another thing they’re known for is their healthcare plans because you get 100% coverage with no deductible and they pay 100% of your prescriptions. Most of you know this is a pretty darn good plan when compared to what some other companies offer in the U.S.!

Microsoft Museum

There’s actually a Microsoft Visitor’s Center and museum where people can go to learn more about Microsoft and its history. Below is an image of the Microsoft Museum. It’s what they call the Microsoft Timeline and shows just how far they’ve come over the last several decades.

microsoft timeline.png

Wrap it up with Images…

Because we’re taking a “look” at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, we thought we’d wrap this article up with a bunch of images to give you a visual on what it looks like (click to enlarge):

Image Sources: Here, Here, Here , and Here

Nov 21

CyberNotes: Easily Locate Webcams Around the World

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on December 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Sitting at the top of my life’s to-do list is “travel as much as possible.” Many people love to travel, and would love to do it often to see and explore places around the Globe. For most of us though, it’ll be nearly impossible to get to every place we’d like to go. Thanks to the Internet, it’s possible to at least “see” from a distance, some of the places we’d like to go thanks to webcams. There are webcams all over the globe at this point and the only obstacle we face is finding them! Sure we can use search engines, but they’re not always going to turn up the kinds of results we’re looking for. Thankfully there’s EarthCam — a site that allows you to easily explore locations all around the world.

All about EarthCam

earthcam 1 EarthCam links to hundreds of webcams from around the world. They are categorized so that you can easily find various cameras that might interest you. Their directory is divided into categories like:

Animals
Business
Computer
Education
News
etc.

Also offered are several directories including:

Arts & Entertainment
Education
EarthCam for Kids – designed for children (great for use in the classroom!)
EarthCam for Mobile
Weather
Weird & Bizarre
Traffic
etc.

Advanced Search

Using the “Advanced Search” feature, you’ll be able to narrow down your search based upon category and subcategories, or even a specific time zone. You can also search for a specific camera name if you know it, or you can search by location including city, state, and/or country.

Become a member

Browsing through this site makes you realize how many cameras are really out there – it’s a lot!. These cameras will probably be the closest I’ll get to some of the destinations around the world. If you’re not there to simply view different places, it’s also a unique way to “people watch.” There’s a good chance that after you browse the site and come across some of your favorite cameras, you’ll be returning to the site on a regular basis. If this is the case, you’ll want to become a member. It’s free and will allow you to create a “MyCam Page” where you can save your favorites, organize them, and share them. You can also get live webcams on your mobile phone.

Lists

I like the way EarthCam highlights some of their cameras. On the homepage you’ll notice several lists with one of them being the Top 10 Cams which includes Cape Town South Africa, the Red Cliffs in Moab, Utah, and a live view of the Boston Harbor. There are also lists for New Cams as well as holiday focused ones including Christmas Tree cams from around the World.

top 10 cams

Searching

Because EarthCam works much like a search engine would, it’s easy to search and find what you’re looking for. For example, I performed a search for “St. Thomas.” It pulled up a whole list of different cameras and I had the option to sort the results like viewing the most popular cams first.

Just a word of caution though, in the time I’ve spent viewing webcams, I have come across a few broken links and I imagine you will too. Other than the broken link here or there, EarthCam is a fun place to browse when you have a spare minute or two. It’s easy to get caught up and spend more time than you originally intended to just because there are so many fantastic places to see.

Nov 21

CyberNotes: LG To Mass Produce 100 Inch LCD TV

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on November 06, 2006 by CyberNet.

Million Dollar Monday

Back in July, we wrote about the Samsung 102-inch Plasma TV that was soon to be de-throned by Panasonic with their 103″ display. There seems to be no limit as to just how big these TVs will get. Today we’re going to step away from the plasma displays and take a look at LG’s 100 inch LCD display that has officially been given the title of “World’s Largest LCD” and will be featured in the Guinness Book of World Records 2007.

More recently, the largest displays ever made have only been at the electronics shows for people to ooh and ahh over. Now, you just might be able to see the LG 100 inch display in person! According to Luxury Launches, it is set for mass production. What’s the price you ask? Well, considering the production cost alone is over $150,000, expect the retail price to be well over that. How quickly could you make room for 100 inches of LCD and a six-figure price tag?

Here are the specs:

3,000:1 contrast ratio
92% color reproduction
6.6 feet across/ 3.6 feet high
Capability to produce 1.07 billion colors
6.22 million-pixel picture quality

So for now, LG will wear the crown for largest LCD display. In the world of TVs where bigger seems to be better, I imagine it won’t be long before the title is passed on to someone else. In the meantime, can you just imagine what it would be like to clear 6 1/2 feet of space for a TV?

Nov 20

CyberNotes: Multiple Ways To Use The Google Calculator

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on September 26, 2006 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

The Google Calculator is one of the things that I use Google for all the time. It’s nice to quickly compute a conversion for just about anything you can think of:

You may not use this that often because it isn’t convenient enough. Here are multiple ways that you can quickly take advantage of the Google Calculator:

Yahoo Widget Engine (Download)
Google Personalized Homepage (Download)
Netvibes (Download)

Unfortunately Opera doesn’t have a widget for this but that is probably because the Opera team has already put together a really nice widget that handles conversions.

Maybe your problem isn’t that you don’t have easy access to a Google search box, instead you just don’t know everything that you can do with the calculator? If that’s the case then there are two sources that can help you out:

Soople – puts all of the Google Calculator functions together on an easy-to-understand interface.
Google Calculator Cheat Sheet – a fairly comprehensive guide on what you can enter into the Google Calculator.

I use this calculator all of the time especially with the Yahoo Widget. It gives me quick access to conversions and calculations without the need to run a whole separate program. This is just another feature that Google has “hidden” away and most non-techy people don’t even know it’s there.

Nov 15

CyberNotes: Change Your Desktop To A List View

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on August 17, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Okay, this has to be one of the smallest (11KB) and coolest programs I have every seen. In just a few steps I am going to show you how to use Deskview to change your desktop layout from the “icon view” to a “list view.” I never knew how much room I really had on my desktop until I used this program!

Here is what you need to do:

Download Deskview.
Extract the ZIP file that you just downloaded:
I made a copy of the deskview.exe and pasted it into my Startup folder. That way Deskview will start with Windows.
If you just want to try it out go ahead and double-click on the deskview.exe file. Voila! Your icons are now nice and organized.
To switch back to the normal icon view go ahead and run deskview.exe again.

Okay, a few other things you should probably know about this. Deskview is NOT a constantly running program…go check your running processes if you don’t believe me. When you execute the program it simply changes the layout and terminates itself. For that reason it has no way of remembering the layout of the icons that are located on your desktop. Once you restart your computer it may not organize them the same way they were before you shutdown your computer.

That doesn’t really matter for me because I hardly have any icons on my desktop to begin with. I try to keep it clean but I like being able to fit 4 icons into the space that one normally takes up. Best of all is that I never have to worry about Deskview hogging the memory since it runs and then quits!

Nov 15

CyberNotes: Friv.com – Endless Games for Your Enjoyment

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on May 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

Fun Friday

It’s once again Friday, so we decided to have some fun. What better way than to take a break and play a game or two? One of our readers, Radu (thanks Radu!) recently sent us a tip to checkout www.friv.com which has over 200 games available for your enjoyment. These aren’t complex games by any means, and you probably won’t be spending hours playing them, but they are fun. Today we’ll just point out a few of the games that we came across that we enjoyed, but feel free to checkout all 220 of them here! If ever you’re in need of a time-waster, this will be it…

Oh, and before we get started, we just thought it was worth mentioning how the site operates. It’s described as a system of “one in one out, so when a new game is added it simply replaces the least popular one in the existing selection.”

Unfortunately we can’t link to any of the individual games because of how the site is designed, so we’ll include the icon that you need to look for next to each game.

Pool

The classic game of 9 Ball Pool is one that many of you will enjoy. If you’ve played any type of pool on the computer before, you’ll know how this one works. You left click your mouse and hold the cue to drag it with your mouse. The more you drag the cute back, the harder you’ll hit the ball. You’re given five minutes to play and the only downside is that you can’t play against the computer or anyone else.

friv.com - pool.png

Arcatris

This is essentially the game of Tetris, another fan-favorite. Use your arrow keys to move and rotate the pieces, and the space bar to send the pieces quickly down to the bottom. The music is a little annoying on this one so you might want to mute it…

Tennis

Ready for a quick game of tennis? It’s not as easy as it looks, especially if the computer’s skill level is set high. You end up using the arrow keys and the spacebar, and you can play either an exhibition or a tournament. The player who wins by 3 games wins.

Orbox

Orbox can get difficult pretty quickly, so beware! Using the arrow keys, you’ll guide the blinking blue square to the red square, being sure not to fall into outer-space.

Cobacoli

Cobacoli starts off a little slow and may take you a little bit to get the hang of it, but it’s a lot of fun once you do. Using your mouse, you will click to shoot a while ball to hit a colored ball. You goal is to hit the colored line with the same color ball. Now here’s the thing, if your white ball hits a colored line, you lose one of your shots. At the later stages of the game, this can get pretty tricky!

friv.com _ Cobacoli.png

Nov 14

CyberNotes: Firefox Profile Backup Solutions

Posted in: Today's Chili

This article was written on January 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

There’s no doubt that your browser stores a lot of important information that could leave you in quite a bind should it disappear all of a sudden. The Firefox users out there probably have a bunch of extensions installed and configured, settings tweaked just the way they like them, obscure passwords stored that no human could possibly memorize, and enough bookmarks saved to make even a hardcore geek nauseous.

I don’t find much joy in the fact that a hard drive can crash at anytime for any number of reasons. We’ve had it happen twice this year, but fortunately for us we had backups of all our most important information. You shouldn’t even think twice about backing up your browser’s profile, and that’s why today we’re going to show you two easy and free Firefox profile backup solutions!

–MozBackup (Homepage)–

This is a small program that you can download, and on the website you’re given the choice between an installable version or a no-install ZIP version. I opted for the ZIP version because I can always keep it on my USB drive, which conveniently happens to be the place where I store my Firefox profile backup.

MozBackup is not restricted just to Firefox profiles either. It can also backup profiles for Thunderbird, Seamonkey, Mozilla Suite, and Netscape. Don’t worry, you’ll be prompted early on in MozBackup to select specifically what application and profile you want to backup.

You’ll then be able to pick exactly what you want to backup, such as bookmarks, history, extensions, passwords, cookies, and more. I’ve documented the entire process in screenshots:

(Click to Enlarge)

Once you’ve got the backup done it will create a single file that can be used to restore everything that you backed up. To perform a restoration just go back through the wizard, and on the second screen just choose the Restore a profile option instead of Backup a profile.

Tip: Close Firefox before using MozBackup, otherwise it will prompt you to do so in the middle of the wizard.

–FEBE (Homepage)–

I find this to be a rather interesting profile backup option for Firefox. FEBE (short for Firefox Environment Backup Extension) is an extension that can be used to backup important parts of your profile. Things like themes, extensions, bookmarks, preferences, cookies, passwords and more can all be saved to a single file, and restored at a moments notice.

What really makes this a fantastic choice for backing up your Firefox profile is that it has scheduling capabilities. You can choose to have your profile automatically backed up daily, weekly, monthly, or you can just set it to remind you every few days.

The first thing you’ll want to do after installing FEBE is go and setup the directory where your backups will be stored. Then from the Tools -> FEBE menu you can initiate your first backup of whatever profile items you chose in the options.

(Click to Enlarge)

As you can see this is an extremely intuitive option for backing up your Firefox profile, but MozBackup is also nice since it works with several different Mozilla applications. The choice of which backup solution is obviously up to you, but take them seriously because they could save you a lot of trouble in the future.

Hasta La Gadget!

CyberNotes: Play Videos on your Desktop in XP and Vista (like Dreamscene)

CyberNotes: Create Your Own Visual Map with Wayfaring and Google Maps