Jan 14
This morning a court has struck down the FCC’s ability to enforce certain key “Net Neutrality Rules” on companies that would favor certain kinds of web traffic over others. That’s … Continue reading
Jan 14
This article was written on October 09, 2006 by CyberNet.
Rumors are now starting to float around that Microsoft has a project called Motion Desktop in store for those who purchase Windows Vista when it is released. Just like the name implies it will be some sort of animated desktop that will also allow for interactivity with the user.
There is a reason that I believe this is true and a reason that I don’t. Microsoft is pushing hard to get Vista to RTM (to the manufacturer) so that it will ship on time and I don’t think that they would try and throw in new features that are untested by the masses. That just sounds like something which will be doomed to fail no matter how simple the feature may be. It would sound more reasonable for this to be part of an add-on pack that users purchase to get other things like the 3-D screensavers…hey, that fish tank screensaver is a necessity!
The primary reason that I could see this being true is that Microsoft apparently removed the whole Active Desktop feature from Vista because of the Gadgets now being available. The desktop is the heart and soul of the computer so it would make sense for Microsoft to make it interactive and useful.
I’m sure we will find out within a month as Vista starts to make its way into the enterprise world. Some people have mentioned that this would be the coolest feature that Vista would have. I think it would be cool but definitely not the coolest thing.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 13
At the moment you’ll find the folks behind the open-source project known as Limelight working on Android devices, attempting to make the PC streaming option for games through Valve’s Steam … Continue reading
Jan 13
This article was written on May 23, 2006 by CyberNet.
It looks like Apple is teaming up with Nike to turn your iPod Nano into a calorie calculating machine. That’s right, here is how it works:
Any mere pedometer can show you stats while you run. But thanks to the Nike+iPod sensor and receiver, iPod nano also transfers your workout data to the Internet as soon as you sync. Connect your iPod, and iTunes takes over, automatically syncing all your run data and sending it to nikeplus.com
If you are an exercise nut and have a Nano then go check this out, otherwise the upcoming iTunes 6.0.5 upgrade probably won’t mean much to you.
Apple’s Nike Site
News Source: The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 13
According to the UK office of HTC, the more powerful of the two USA-based HTC One X devices will no longer be receiving Android updates of any kind. This is … Continue reading
Jan 13
This article was written on September 28, 2007 by CyberNet.
I started off my morning with some Ubuntu 7.10 action since the first Beta had just been released. I downloaded the 688MB ISO image, burned it to CD, and got started immediately with the Live CD. It took a few minutes for it to boot up, but that’s expected since I’m running the operating system off of the CD I burned. I contemplated upgrading my current Ubuntu 7.04 installation with this version, but I didn’t want to risk the instability.
As soon as Ubuntu started up I was able to select my wireless network. Occasionally in the past it has had issues recognizing my wireless card, but this time it did a great job. It managed to pull in all of the networks in the vicinity:
UPDATE:We have put together guides on enabling restricted drivers in Ubuntu and how to enable Compiz Fusion in Ubuntu 7.10! We also wrote a complete Kubuntu 7.10 review.
There are several new features in Ubuntu 7.10, and here’s an overview of them:
- Compiz Fusion – I tried this on my laptop but couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. Every time I tried to enable the “Extra” option the configuration screen would freeze up. This could be because I was running the Live CD, but I’m not ready to give up my stable Ubuntu installation yet to see if that was the root of the cause. To try and enable it yourself just go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> Extra.
- Desktop Search – The desktop search is a nice addition to Ubuntu, and makes it much easier to find what you’re looking for.
- Fast user switching – I didn’t have multiple users on the computer to test this out with, but I’m guessing that it will be nice in those instances.
- GUI for Screen Configuration – I was really excited about this because Ubuntu has always had a hard time recognizing my native widescreen monitor resolution. My native resolution is 1680×1050, and the closest I could get is 1600×1200. I tried switching the drivers for my ATI graphics card, changing screen models, and just about everything, but it had its heart set on not giving in to the widescreen resolution. 🙁
- Automatic printer installation and non-free device drivers – Printers are now automatically setup when they are plugged in, and restricted drivers can now be installed in just a few clicks. This is great news for anyone with a wireless card from Broadcom!
- NTFS writing – Users can now read and write to NTFS partitions. I tried to do this, but again, I was running the Live CD which wouldn’t let me mount the Windows drive. So for right now I will assume that it works. 🙂
- And more…
It’s still a bit early for me to give an official thumbs up, but I would say things are looking pretty good. The final release is due out in October, and at that time I’ll go ahead and upgrade my current installation. Hopefully that will solve any of the issues that I was having with the Live CD version.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 13
At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), voice recognition specialist Nuance unveiled Dragon Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant for Intel-powered computers and laptops running Windows 8. It’s not as smart – or sexy – as Samantha from Spike Jonze’s Her, but it’s a start.
Dragon Assistant works a lot like Siri, Kinect and other voice-activated assistants. To start using it, you just have to say “Hey Dragon.” From that point you can then use everyday language to open applications, search online and of course dictate text. The program’s voice can be set to either “British Butler” or ”American Female.” Aww man, no German Shepherd?
See that? Now we’re all Dragonborn. Nuance says Dragon Assistant is already available on various Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops, ultrabooks, tablets and all-in-one computers, with ASUS and Toshiba computers to follow suit this year. Like other voice assistants, you’ll need an Internet connection to use all of Dragon Assistant’s features, although it can still execute certain commands even when you’re offline. Check out the Dragon Assistant support page for more on that.
[via Nuance via Gear Diary]
Jan 12
This article was written on May 10, 2007 by CyberNet.
People who can afford to fork out the money for Vista Ultimate will receive what Microsoft calls the “Ultimate Extras.” These are additional features that can be downloaded through the Windows Updates to provide things like drive encryption, Texas Hold’em poker, and DreamScene.
People think that the DreamScene is cool because it lets you add movies as your desktop background. The movies continuously loop, and if they are well done they will look like one continuous movie. Right now there are several videos available for DreamScene that have been created by Microsoft:
Up til now only Vista Ultimate users had the pleasure of using DreamScene, but as expected the hackers got their hands on it and figured out a way to make it work on any version of Windows Vista. The hacked version requires that you use patched DreamScene files, and you also have to run a batch script to modify some other stuff on your PC.
Just because it is possible for you to run DreamScene on Vista I don’t really think it is worth it. I have a copy of Vista Ultimate and have had the pleasure of trying out DreamScene, but I really don’t think it lives up to the hype. When using DreamScene I can notice enough of a performance hit that makes me not want to use it.
There are some things that DreamScene does to help with performance and save battery life though. When you maximize a window it stops the animation on your desktop, but I typically have multiple windows open (and never just one maximized window) which causes the desktop animation to continuously play. DreamScene will also not play when your computer is running on batteries, which is a nice touch because it doesn’t unnecessarily drain your battery power.
It admittedly looks awesome, and is one of those things that you would probably show your friends just because you can. However, it isn’t worth using patched versions of files on your PC which could potentially put the security of your system at risk. Ultimately (no pun intended) though, the decision is yours.
Source: My Digital Life [via GHacks]
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 11
This article was written on December 09, 2008 by CyberNet.
(Click to Enlarge)
When making a website or application, one of the things designers want to focus on is the look and feel of the buttons used. After all, it is one of the things that users will be interacting with the most. A program like Button Shop can take some of the pressure off your shoulders by making it super easy to design amazing buttons that fit in well with your website or program.
Once you run the program, you’ll quickly recognize the familiar Office 2007-style interface which helps make button creation process both intuitive and easy. Prior to this review I hadn’t used this app before, but it took only minutes for me to understand the layout and begin customizing the look of the buttons.
Curious what Button Shop is actually capable of? Take a look at their example page that showcases over 30 different designs they were able to create using the program.
Here are some of the features that make Button Shop so great:
- Create Vista, XP, or Mac-style buttons
- Over 150 templates and 50 different textures are included
- Various button effects:
- Mirror/reflection
- Glowing
- Pulsing
- Grayscale
- Shadows
- Gradients
- and More!
- HTML and JavaScript code generation… just copy and paste onto your website
- Supports various types of images: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, EXIF, WMF, EMF, ICON and even Animated GIF and Animated TIFF
-The Giveaway-
We have 10 licenses to Button Shop (valued at $39.95 each) to giveaway today! All you have to do is drop a comment below providing both your name and email address in the appropriate fields. We obviously need your email address for contacting you in the event that you should win. Believe it or not we’ve actually had winners in previous giveaways get randomly selected, but since they didn’t provide an email address we had to pick someone else.
Just as with all of our giveaways we will be using a random number generator to determine the winners. For this round here is how we’re going to give out the licenses:
- 1 winner will be picked from comment numbers 1 through 5
- 9 winners will be picked from comment numbers 1 through however many comments there are.
Entries for the giveaway will be accepted up until December 11th at 7:00PM Central Time.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 11
This article was written on September 26, 2006 by CyberNet.
Mozilla has put the Firefox 2 RC1 files up on their FTP and their download page says that they will have all of the links up by 3PM PDT. However, with the last release of Firefox I put together the nice drop-down menu downloader and it uses the exact same links that they will be providing on that page (which means these links share the load between servers instead of linking directly to one FTP location).
Just select your language from the drop-down menu and then press the operating system button for the OS that you would like:
If you have been unaware of RC1 there have been some great visual changes going on since Firefox 2 Beta 2 was released. The navigation buttons have gotten yet another facelift and the tabs actually seem to fit in now.
There is also a portable version of the RC1 to make it a little easier to try. All you have to do is download the Firefox Portable file. Then you unzip the file and browse for the file FirefoxPortable.exe. Just execute that file and you will be running Firefox 2 RC1! The profile is kept with the FirefoxPortable folder so you don’t have to worry about messing up your other profile and the uninstallation process is simple…just delete the folder!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
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