The next generation of MacBook laptops and iPad tablets could be opened with a scan of a fingerprint (or nipple-print, or toe-print , or sausage-print), as Apple’s TouchID patent looks ready to cover a wider range of the Cupertino firm’s products.
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This article was written on May 12, 2008 by CyberNet.
Microsoft/Mac Monday
Today we’re taking a look at Apple’s Front Row vs. Windows Media Center. We’re not really sure if Front Row can be compared to Media Center because right now, they serve different purposes. Front Row is more of an interface for controlling the media already on your computer while Media Center will do that in addition to recording television shows. They’re both media hubs though, so we thought it would be interesting to see how they compared.
Before we dive in, we thought we’d first mention the fact that while we may be using MacBook Pro computers for our everyday use, we do have a PC dedicated to running Vista’s Media Center. It has 3 tuners and enables us to record 3 shows simultaneously, and was one of the best investments we’ve made.
Front Row is an application for Apple computers that is similar in some aspects to Windows Media Center. The first time it was announced was back on October 12, 2005. It now comes shipped on all new Mac computers.
Windows Media Center originally debuted in 2002 for Windows XP. Now it comes with Windows Vista Ultimate and Home Premium versions of Windows Vista.
One thing that Apple did really well with Front Row is transitions. These transitions start the moment you open up Front Row because it nicely fades-in to display the menu. Their interface is nice, but I noticed it’s missing a few things. First I should say that a lot of people use the Apple Remote to navigate Front Row, but for people who don’t want to use the remote, they’re stuck using a keyboard. There’s not a way (that we know of) to use the mouse which is pretty inconvenient. Navigation with a keyboard is a little more difficult, and you’ll end up using the Escape key frequently.
The biggest downside to Front Row if we’re comparing it to Windows Media Center is that there is no way to watch or record live TV.
Content that you can access via Front Row include:
Overall Front Row is nicest for watching movie trailers or maybe listening to your music but really it’s just a remote-friendly, fancy interface for iTunes. If they’d allow you to rent movies from iTunes via Front Row, that would be fantastic, but they don’t. They also don’t allow you to watch YouTube videos from there which is something that can be done on Media Center through an add-on, or even using Apple TV.
One of Media Center’s best features is the interface. Microsoft really did a fantastic job here. Another thing they did a great job with is packing a lot of features in under the hood. Not only does it come loaded with a bunch of features, but there are many add-ons that give you even more features like commercial skip and WebGuide which we’ve mentioned before. To Apple’s defense, because they don’t provide a way to record and watch live TV, there’s really no need for add-ons like commercial skip.
Another awesome thing about Media Center is that they’ve got quite the community surrounding it. There’s a website at www.thegreenbutton.com where you’ll find thousands upon thousands of people who are there to post and answer questions. There are even members who work on the Media Center Team that will stop by to help answer questions. While Apple does have a developing community out there, a lot of them are for Mac computers in general and not specific to Front Row.
Features:
Unlike Front Row, users are able to navigate through Windows Media Center using a mouse, and in fact, when they use a mouse or a keyboard, other navigational buttons appear on screen to make it a little easier.
If we were asked to decide which was better, Front Row or Windows Media Center, without question we’d choose Windows Media Center. This is one of those things that Microsoft really has done a great job with in multiple aspects. Maybe Apple will “borrow” a few of their ideas to improve Front Row in the future?
While Windows Media Center may be superior, it also depends on what you’re looking to do. If you don’t have a tuner card and you don’t have any intentions of getting one for your computer, there’s no reason why you can’t get most of the same functionality out of Front Row as you would with Media Center.
Those of you looking for a nice way to manage your media, graphically both applications look nice and get the job done. If you’re looking to record TV, Media Center is the only way to go. So now our question for you is, do you think Apple will go the route of recording television, or will doing so distract people buying episodes of TV shows from iTunes which ends-up bringing in money?
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
Yesterday, Apple sent out invitations confirming the anticipated October 22 event, and the expectation is that we’ll see the iPad mini 2 and the iPad 5 detailed by the company. Says Apple, “We still have a lot to cover,” and to help ensure that coverage is as widespread as possible, the event will be telecast […]
The folks at Barclays Equity Research have proposed an intriguing idea, stating today that it believes Apple to be working on a 13-inch iPad running the new 64-bit architecture — which was recently called a “gimmick” — that could be a laptop killer (for certain types of laptops, that is). The theory is just that […]
Earlier this year at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks. This is the first time in years that Apple has not named a major OS X release after a big cat. That’s not the only change that has been made. Mavericks brings as many as 200 new features and improvements. Since WWDC 2013, Mavericks has only been available to developers. Apple is yet to roll it out to the public, who are without a doubt anxiously waiting for it. It appears that Apple is already readying OS X 10.9.1 update which is expected to be released soon after Mavericks goes live.
Last friday Apple seeded the GM build of Mavericks, after which it was reported that the team has now moved on to developing OS X 10.10, the next major OS update that’s expected next year. Rumor has it that Apple has internally seeded a number of OS X 10.9.1 builds to its employees. It is not expected to bring any major features, only bug fixes and performance improvements are likely to be onboard. A rumor suggests that perhaps OS X 10.9.1 might bring the ability to block iMessages and FaceTime calls from certain contacts, though there has been no confirmation of that as yet. Apple hasn’t provided a concrete release date for OS X Mavericks, though it is believed that the launch will take place towards the end of this month through the Mac App Store.
Apple Reportedly Readying OS X 10.9.1 Update original content from Ubergizmo. 
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This article was written on May 15, 2008 by CyberNet.
Adobe has announced that the first Beta of Flash Player 10 is now available for everyone to download. It comes with al kinds of really nice features and improvements, but the best thing that we’ll probably see come out of this is the newly available 3D effects. One example that they gave of where this could be useful is taking 2D images and arranging them in a rotating 3D carousel similar to that seen to the right. Making your own Cover Flow clone wouldn’t take too long either then.
Concerned about performance? According to Adobe they are pushing some of the graphical processing onto the user’s video card so that the processor can be used for rendering special effects:
One of the best things about the creative features now available in Adobe Flash Player 10 beta is that they won’t slow down performance. With Flash Player 10 beta, developers can enable SWF content to render through the memory bandwidth and computational horsepower of the GPU hardware processor, freeing up the CPU to do more – such as render 3D content and intricate effects, and process complex business logic.
Here’s a list of some other notable new features in Flash Player 10 Beta:
It will probably be a little while before we start to see developers making use of the new technology offered in Flash Player 10, but once a majority of users have upgraded the developers will be all over this like a kid in a candy store. 😉
Get Adobe Flash Player 10
Adobe Flash Player 10 Release Notes
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
If you’ve seen the likes of the Apple Volume Purchase Program in the past, you’re likely part of an Education or Enterprise-based organization, and you’ve likely wished they had the same program for Mac Apps as well. While this program had only worked with iOS-based apps and books in volume in the past, Apple has […]
Apple has reached a milestone with the next version of OS X by seeding the Golden Master of OS X Mavericks to developers. The release of the Golden Master of the operating system comes a couple weeks after the Mavericks Developer Preview was made available. The Golden Master edition of Mavericks is the almost the […]
Web traffic for a major new operating system typically grows at a consistently faster pace than its predecessor. That’s not true for Windows 8, however — NetApplications now estimates that Windows 7 outpaced its newer counterpart for the first time in September. While Windows 8 did grow to a symbolic 8 percent of web use last month, its ancestor grew slightly faster, hitting 46.4 percent. We wouldn’t necessarily say that Windows 8 is in trouble based on these figures, though. The rise in Windows 7 use corresponds to a drop for Windows XP (shown after the break), which suggests that corporate customers are in the midst of upgrades; they’re less likely to choose a young OS. Microsoft still faces long-term problems, but they’re more likely to stem from customers’ shift toward mobile devices and away from PCs.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Apple, Microsoft
Via: The Next Web
Source: Net Applications
This article was written on August 12, 2011 by CyberNet.
I love the way Microsoft integrated the quick window resizing in Windows 7, and so I started looking around for something similar on the Mac since I frequently work with two windows side-by-side. Not only did I find an app, Moom, for my Mac that would let me resize my windows, but it also blew away any expectations I had for such a utility.
It’s hard to do Moom justice without you actually trying it out (there is a free trial on their site), but I’ll do my best. Moom gets activated by hovering over the green zoom button located on each window. By default you’ll see pre-defined options to move/resize a window to the left half, right half, top half, bottom half, or full screen. If you click and drag on one of those icons you’ll notice that the icon changes to quarter segments. For example, in the screenshot above I clicked and dragged down on the “left half” icon which turned it into the bottom left quarter icon. If I would have clicked and dragged up it would have turned into a top left quarter icon.
The slickness doesn’t stop there though. You can add the optional grid to the popout menu, which I highly recommend. The number of boxes are customizable, but I found their default 6×4 grid to be just right on my 27″ iMac. To use this you just click and drag on the area/size you want for the window, and Moom will make sure the window gets put into that position. You’ll also notice in the screenshot that some of the boxes are shaded different colors. These are used to represent where the window is already located: the solid white box means that the window already occupies that portion of the screen, and the other shades of gray mean that the window only occupies a fraction of that space. Very slick!
Keyboard junkies aren’t left out in the dark either. There are plenty of customizable keyboard shortcuts, such as for moving a window to another monitor, available for you to play with. An unexpected use I found with Moom is that using these keyboard shortcuts you can gather up some of those off-screen windows that appear on a monitor that isn’t connected to your machine anymore.
Before I tried Moom I was thinking “$5 for an app that just resizes window?”, but it didn’t take long for me to change my tune to “this is just $5?”.
Moom Homepage (Mac only, $5 in the Mac App Store – trial available at the homepage)
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
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