Hasta La Gadget!

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

Tracking Down Great Software For You!

A few weeks ago I was introduced to a free media player called Foobar2000 by MetaMan. He gave me a link to a portable version (called FoobarRemix) that was put together so that I could try it out without having to install the application. For some reason I haven’t been listening to a lot of music lately, but when I did crank up the tunes I made sure to use Foobar2000. The result…it’s quite impressive.

At first glance it looks like a program that is way too simple since it even sports some “ASCII art” for some of the display items, such as the progress bar. My first reaction was that this was just whipped up real quick, but the real gems lie under the hood. Not only that, but the progress bars that I once saw as amateurish I now look at as stylish. I’m not quite sure why I like them now, but it probably has something to do with my inner geek coming out. 

One of the things that really struck me as cool was that when I played a song it would actually retrieve the lyrics and display them on the screen while the song was playing. It would also highlight the words in a karaoke style as the song went along. Unfortunately it wasn’t able to retrieve the lyrics for all of my songs, but it was successful about 75% of the time.

The shock didn’t hit until I opened up the Preferences under the File Menu. In there was a wonderfully large selection of options that I could customize and tweak until the pitter patter of my heart was just right. It appears that the portable version that I was using already had all of the additional components installed, and therefore added an extreme amount of customizability to the application. There was even an XM plug-in installed that let me stream my XM Radio without needing to use Windows Media Player like I previously did…that’s what won my heart over.

The only downside that I found to the entire application was that it wasn’t skinnable. That didn’t really bother me because they let you customize fonts, background colors, and a lot of different aspects of the current theme. Not only that but I really warmed up to the existing color set that came with the application.

So below you’ll find the option to download Foobar2000 from the official site or you can give the portable version (called FoobarRemix) a shot. I highly recommend using the portable version because your experience will be a lot better with all of the components already downloaded and installed for you. In case you’re wondering I did monitor the registry while running the portable version and didn’t see anything being written to it, so it should be fine to take with you on your USB Drive wherever you go.

Download the Portable FoobarRemix
Official Foobar2000 Homepage

Thanks for the tip and portable version link MetaMan!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

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

According to Discovery.com Microsoft is working on a new technology in India that could let users share their computer monitor with another user using a software-based solution. That’s right, it would be like playing a split-screen video game where each user has their own space to work with.

When I first read about this my thought was how could two people share a 15–inch or 17–inch monitor? The sideways scrolling on websites and documents would probably start to get tedious:

Each side of the screen has its own mouse and keyboard hooked up to control what is essentially their own operating system. Users would then share the same computer hardware (processor, video card, memory, hard drive, etc…) which would therefore reduce costs and power consumption.

It still sounded pretty stupid to me until I thought about the possibility of hooking multiple monitors up to the system! That would mean one computer can be shared between two users, but they would hardly notice that they were using the same computer. Each user would have their own keyboard, mouse, and monitor but everything else would be shared. Of course that’s assuming the computer has a graphics card with two monitor outputs.

That would be more cost effective for both businesses and homes. With how powerful computers have become it is not unreasonable to think that most households could then have one central PC that has a keyboard, mouse, and monitor running into different rooms as if they were different computers. Both parents and kids could have their own computer, and if Microsoft chooses to they could probably setup some advanced parental controls so that parents can see what their kids are doing at all times. That type of system should be more than adequate for families assuming that no one plays graphics-intensive games on the PC.

Unfortunately the split-screen technology is still a few years away, and I’m hoping that Microsoft will look into all the benefits that such a system could bring to families in addition to businesses.

Source: Discover.com [via Gizmodo]

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on March 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

The rumor is true! Microsoft has confirmed that they will in fact be acquiring Tellme Networks. Everybody knew it was coming (despite both parties denying it), it was just a matter of when. GigaOm is reporting that the deal is worth over $800 million but below 1 Billion which makes it one of Microsoft’s most expensive purchases!

Tellme is known for their voice services for the phone including providing information to callers on businesses, driving directions, stock quotes, weather, movies show times, etc. And according to the Microsoft Press Release, Microsoft will use this acquisition to improve and expand their speech capabilities.

Recently Tellme has been experimenting with new products that make use of voice by allowing mobile phone users say what they want, and then they get a response back to their phone as data. Another service uses text messaging to allow users to request something and then get a response back as a text message with their options.

With this purchase, Microsoft is also hoping to improve their voice-enabled apps “including Windows Vista operating system, the Microsoft Office system, and mobile applications such as Windows Mobile and Windows Automotive.”

There’s already rumors that Microsoft is working on some type of phone to compete with the Zune, and an obvious step would be to incorporate some of Tellme services into that phone.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Antivirus is a confusing matter—it’s called antivirus, but there are tons of other types of malware out there. So…do those programs also scan for spyware, adware, and other threats? Here’s how to make heads or tails of it all, and which tools you can trust to keep your PC clean.

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Between constant password breaches and the NSA looking in on everything you do, you’ve probably got privacy on the mind lately. If you’re looking for a little personal privacy in your communications with friends and loved ones, or you just want to trust that the documents you email to your accountant or client aren’t being intercepted and read, you’ll need to encrypt those messages. Thankfully, it’s easy to do. Here’s how.

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