Hasta La Gadget!

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

Microsoft has finally released the Windows Media Player 11 Beta (WMP11) to the public. The build number is 11.0.5358.4827 which is slightly newer than the 11.0.5358.4826 build that was leaked last week.

So far the reviews of WMP11 are looking pretty good. People enjoy the sleek and intuitive interface that Microsoft has established in this release. Now you also get a shot to try the URGE music service brought to you by MTV.

Windows Media Player 11 Beta Homepage
Windows Media Player 11 Beta Download

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on April 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

Imagine sitting at a large round table over at AT&T trying to come up with ways to better your brand and service. Everyone is expressing their minds, and one individual says “how about we design a web browser?” There’s a slight chuckle in the room, and then everyone begins looking at each other with a slightly puzzled look on their faces. Finally, someone says “Hell, I’ve got nothing better. Why not!“

That may not be exactly how it went down, but that’s the best explanation that I can give as to why AT&T would actually develop a web browser… especially one called Pogo. It’s currently in a private Beta, but even if you do manage to get in you’ll need a computer with a minimum of a 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and a video card with at least 256MB of VRAM. Now that is a power hungry browser if I’ve ever seen one.

Ars Technica managed to get their hands on the browser. They quickly got frustrated when trying to find a machine that could actually run the browser:

We tested Pogo on a dual-processor, dual-core AMD Opteron 2210 with 1.80GHz CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 video card with 128MB of VRAM running Windows XP. On this machine, the remainder of Pogo’s features actually displayed, but did not do much else. We found that with even minor use, the browser slowed to a crawl, animations built into the UI were laggy, and at some times, unusable. Performance was extremely poor when even trying to perform basic functions like clicking UI elements.

So what makes the browser need so many resources? There is a slick 3D interface for navigating through the browser’s history as well as bookmarks (screenshot:history on top, bookmarks on the bottom):

These are the resource-intensive tasks that Ars was having problems running on the machines that didn’t quite meet the minimum requirements. While they do look awfully pretty I can’t actually see myself using those methods of navigation very often.

Pogo is a Mozilla-based browser, and so you may be wondering where the tabs are. Notice the tiny thumbnails along the bottom of the browser? Yep, that is the tab bar which completely supports drag-and-drop rearranging.

I did sign up for the Beta, but I don’t know that I’d install it even if I do get in. It does look cool, but it doesn’t sound like it’s all that functional as it stands right now. If you want to see more of how it all works checkout this video demo assembled by AT&T.

Pogo Browser Homepage
Ars Technica Review
Thanks to “S” for the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on September 25, 2006 by CyberNet.

I had been wondering for quite some time what the actual size difference was between the Office 2007 Ribbon and the Office 2003 toolbars. There is no better way to do the comparison than to put the two side-by-side.

As you can see in the screenshot above the Ribbon is obviously larger even when you have 3 rows of toolbars open in Office 2003. I measured the difference to be about 20 pixels but in Office 2003 I typically only have 1 row of toolbars…which measures in at a 72 pixel difference.

However, with the latest release of Office 2007 Beta 2 TR I have setup the Ribbon to auto-minimize itself. That means I actually save 20 pixels by using the Ribbon! The minimize feature is great because most of the commands that I need are now located on the right-click menu anyway.

Sometimes I miss having the toolbars flowing all around my window but the Ribbon also has a place in my heart now. 🙂

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on June 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3 RC2 today which is right on schedule, and that means we might still be on for a June launch of Firefox 3! It’s even possible that this could be the last Release Candidate before Mozilla shoots for their world record.

This time around there’s probably nothing that you’ll notice as being different from Release Candidate 1, which is a good thing. At this point they are focusing only on bugs that could keep the user from having a great experience with the browser, and if all looks well in this release it could be signed-off on to be the final version. *cue marching band*

Mozilla hasn’t officially made the Firefox 3 RC2 announcement yet, but it will be coming in the next day or so. That also means the automatic update to RC2 won’t be available until then, but they have posted the files up on their FTP. Just like with previous releases I’ve put together a downloader for those that want to give the new version a whirl right now. And don’t worry, it balances the load between all of the mirrors unlike some of the sites that post direct links to the FTP:

For those of you waiting for your favorite add-ons to get upgraded… hopefully you won’t have to wait too much longer! I do have to say that the add-on developers are much more attentive to the release of Firefox 3 compared to that of Firefox 2.

And once you get Firefox 3 RC2 up and running I highly recommend that you checkout the AwesomeSearch extension. It’s quickly become a must-have for me.

Thanks to Cody for the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on March 13, 2008 by CyberNet.

Stardock has started to deliver the DeskScapes 2.0 Preview yesterday to anyone that wants to give it a whirl. Previously DeskScapes was a way for Vista Ultimate users to extend the functionality of Dreamscene, but now it works on any version of Vista without needing Dreamscene. It’s a great way to have an animated desktop background on your Vista machine, oh, and did I say that it’s free?

DeskScapes 2.0 Preview is shipping with three different Dreams (that’s what the backgrounds are called) to test different aspects of the application. As we’ve shown you in video demonstrations there are a ton of amazing Dreams available to really make your desktop shine. The dynamic ones are especially nice, but you’ll have to fork out a few bucks to get some of my favorites.

Using the application is virtually dummy-proof. Once setup you can run DeskScapes, and you’ll see a window similar to this one:

If you just want to checkout the Dreams that it comes with click the Choose an Animated Desktop to get started right away. Once you’ve tinkered with those I recommend going to WinCustomize and downloading some of the others that have been created. Almost all of the Dreams are free, and I’m sure you’ll have a good time trying them out.

DeskScapes 2.0 is expected to be released at the end of March with Object Desktop 2008.

Download the DeskScapes 2.0 Preview
Get Additional Dreams for DeskScapes

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com