XBMC: A List of Our Guides, Plus Helpful Wiki and Forum Posts

This article was written on May 18, 2012 by CyberNet.

Xbmc movies

So after weeks of XBMC-focused posts we are wrapping it all up with a summary of all the guides we wrote, along with some helpful posts from the official wiki and forums pages. The community that surrounds XBMC is incredible, and that’s something you’ll realize once you start digging deeper into the software. If you’re just starting out with XBMC, the page we’ve assembled here should be a great place to kick-off your learning.

Helpful XBMC Wiki Posts:

  • UserData Folder
    An explanation of what all the various files and folders are used for in your UserData folder.
  • AdvancedSettings.xml
    A list of all the advanced configuration values that are available.
  • File Sharing Protocols by OS
    This page covers the various file sharing protocols that are available for each of the different operating systems.
  • Special Paths
    You can use the “special://” protocol to reference XBMC-specific resources, which is useful with path substitution.
  • Naming TV and Movie files
    In order for XBMC to correctly detect the TV show or movie that corresponds to a video file you’ll need to make sure you understand how the files will need to be named.
  • Keyboard Shortcuts
    A long list of all the various keyboard shortcuts available in XBMC.
  • Remote Control Reviews
    Wondering whether your remote will work with XBMC? This wiki page covers many of the different kinds of remotes that are compatible.
  • Debug Log
    The debug log can be infinitely useful when trying to troubleshoot an issue, and so it’s important to understand exactly how it works.
  • Keyboard.xml
    This configuration file will let you customize/override the default behavior for keyboard shortcuts.
  • Dirty Regions
    Dirty regions are a new way that XBMC tries to reduce the load on your CPU and GPU by optimizing how things are rendered on the screen, but it isn’t turned on by default yet. If you want to give it a try, this page will help you along.

Helpful XBMC Forum Pages/Posts:

  • Photos of Extensive XBMC Setups
    It will take some time to flip through the 75+ pages of posts here, but there are quite a few great images showing off some of the home theater setups people have in their homes.
  • XBMC Skins
    This is a nice directory of skins that are available in the official XBMC repository as well as third-party repositories.
  • Video Add-ons
    This is the forum dedicated solely to video add-ons, and there is an ever-growing list of them. It’s a good place to start if you’re wondering whether your favorite online streaming service has a plugin available.
  • Tips for Building Your Own HTPC
    This is a general guide on the various hardware components that make up an HTPC.
  • Hardware Recommendations
    This is a long list of hardware recommendations along with pricing for anyone building an HTPC from scratch.

CyberNet’s XBMC Guides:

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Windows 8.1+ software update “Threshold” to unify PCs, phones, and Xbox One

This week the Windows 8.1 (formerly known as “Blue”) software update continues to roll out as it has for the past several weeks, making way for the same sort of push for Windows Phone devices this spring. What’s just appearing this week for news on the generation after this one is the likes of “Threshold”, […]

Write and Share Five-Sentence Stories with Spine

You might not be able to write for a living for one reason or another, even if you wanted to, but that doesn’t mean you should stop writing. Let off some steam, talk about your dreams, share funny anecdotes – there are so many things you can do with words.

They don’t have to be extremely long. In fact, there’s an app that lets you write short blurbs and share them with friends and random people when you’re done with them. That app is called Spine.

Spine App 620x422magnify

It’s a neat little app that lets aspiring writers publish five-sentence stories. You can basically consider Spine as a social network for micro-stories where authors and readers can connect and share stories with one another.

Users can post and browse stories in nine different categories, which includes literary staples like action, horror, sci-fi, and mystery.

spine story app 2 620x366magnify

Users can rate stories and share the ones they love to others on their networks. In short, it’s a community of writers and readers doing something they love: reading and writing.

Spine is available free for iOS devices and can be downloaded here.

[via Laughing Squid]

New Yahoo Messenger 8.0 Opened to Developers

This article was written on June 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

New Yahoo Messenger 8.0 Opened to Developers

There’s lots of news in the messenger world today! First, as written about earlier, the Windows Live Messenger download links are active. Subsequently, Yahoo is launching a Yahoo Messenger 8.0. The difference with this new release will be the added release of a software development kit. This kit gives third party access to developers who want to create plug-ins.

There are two types of categories for Yahoo Messenger, conversation and personal plug-ins. One example TechCrunch gave of a conversation plug-in is the ability for two people chatting to be able to pull up a Yahoo Map to discuss restaurants or other pegged locations. Personal plug-ins reduces or eliminates the need to open a browser with options to add news, a calendar, etc.

The release of 8.0 and the software development kit can really only mean more options for messenger users in the future! Some applications have become more well known and used due to the creative, useful plug-ins that have been created for them the obvious and first to come to mind being Firefox.

Also worth noting, it was reported that Microsoft’s Live Messenger was thought to allow users to add their Yahoo contacts. Live Messenger has been released but without this feature.

UPDATE: Download Yahoo Messenger 8.0 Beta

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Mossberg Says Linux Not Ready for Mass Market

This article was written on September 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

Ubuntu Banner

Walt Mossberg is a very well respected technology journalist for the Wall Street Journal, and he was recently known for being the one to head up the Steve Jobs & Bill Gates interview. His articles typically revolve around either Windows or Macs, but his readers had been asking him to jump into the Linux side of things.

Mossberg was able to get his hands on a Dell 1420N laptop preloaded with Ubuntu. Right there you know he should have a great out-of-box experience since there shouldn’t be any hardware complications (such as getting the wireless card to work). That was partly true, and here’s a quick overview I put together of the good and bad things he discovered while using Ubuntu:

The Good:

  • It’s free and open source
  • Looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X so it is easy to get used to
  • Runs on the least-expensive popular hardware configurations
  • Essentially free of viruses and spyware
  • Built and constantly improved by a world-wide network of developers

The Bad:

  • No control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works
  • Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded
  • Codecs had to be downloaded to play audio and video files, and the  user is warned that some of the codecs might be "bad" or "ugly"
  • Several computer reboots were needed to recognize a Kodak camera and Apple iPod, and the iPod had problems synchronizing
  • No built-in software for playing DVD’s
  • Nobody is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product, and open-source developers often have an imperfect feel for how average people use software

Are all of these things the fault of Ubuntu? Not at all. In fact many of the problems could be reconciled if the hardware developers would create proper drivers for the Linux operating system. Instead Linux distributions are often left on their own to make sure the different hardware configurations are supported.

Mossberg isn’t saying that all of these things are show stoppers, instead he’s just trying to get the point across that Linux isn’t quite ready for the mass market. He even quoted Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s founder, as saying "it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market."

Here’s a 5-minute video that Mossberg put together to explain the details:

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Mac Trojan Hijacks Bank Logins

This article was written on November 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

Mac Virus The other day security analysts deemed the new Mac Leopard’s firewall insecure, especially since it is disabled out-of-the-box. Now things have gotten a bit worse for those Mac users who feel that their machine is not in need of any additional security software.

Give a warm welcome for the OSX.RSPlug.A Trojan Horse. Sure this isn’t the first virus for a Mac, but this one is pretty nasty and being distributed through porn sites. It poses as a video codec that needs to be installed before the viewer can proceed to watch the movie. The result, well, it’s not good:

This Trojan horse, a form of DNSChanger, uses a sophisticated method, via the scutil command, to change the Mac’s DNS server (the server that is used to look up the correspondences between domain names and IP addresses for web sites and other Internet services). When this new, malicious, DNS server is active, it hijacks some web requests, leading users to phishing web sites (for sites such as Ebay, PayPal and some banks), or simply to web pages displaying ads for other pornographic web sites.

Is it possible that the increasing popularity of the Mac Operating System has caused virus writers to target the OS more? If you’re a Mac user looking for a free antivirus solution there is ClamXav, which is based on one of the leading Linux antivirus applications.

Source: Intego [via Mashable]
Kudos to the How-To Geek for the tip!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Mozilla’s Trimming the Fat from the Add-ons Site

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

Firefox Add-ons Mozilla has announced that they will be relaunching the Firefox Add-ons site on Monday with only a handful of the extensions that are currently available. In fact, they are said to be trimming down the list of available add-ons to just several hundred, which means they could be cutting 80% to 90% of the ones listed on the site. To see just how many there were I did a quick search for the letter “a” which pulled up 2359 results. That number seems to be accurate since searching for “e” comes up with the same answer.

I am really glad to see Mozilla stepping up and trying to make the Add-ons site even better. When doing my Firefox 200 Extension Test I installed many of the top extensions that can be found on Mozilla’s site. To my surprise a lot of the ones I came across were junk and the download numbers are probably being faked by spammers. This could definitely hinder the experience that new Firefox users receive so I see a change as being a great thing.

Mozilla also said that they wanted to remove extensions that were not being updated anymore, which is completely understandable. They want users to have a great experience and that is often found with well-updated extensions. Using the advanced search feature I was able to find out how often the extensions have been getting updated:

  • 26 extensions have been updated today
  • 90 extensions have been updated this week
  • 306 extensions have been updated this month
  • 1938 extensions have been updated this year

Now all of the numbers I have mentioned here are for all of the Mozilla add-ons and not for just Firefox, which does have more than 92% of the 2359 listed. I thought more of the extensions would actually be outdated, but a huge majority have been updated at least once this year.

The extensions that get pulled will be put in a “sandbox” for users to vote on. That means the add-ons will have to earn their way to the public site in what appears to be a Digg-like fashion. I’m not sure how that whole process will work but I have fears that it may not be much better off than their current system…if spammers want their extension to make the public site they will surely find a way.

This will definitely be a way for Mozilla to analyze the quality of submitted extensions and sounds like it is a scalable solution (meaning as their products grow the system will still be able to manage itself). Just to be on the safe side though, you might want to save some of your favorite extensions to your hard drive especially if they haven’t been updated in awhile. I would assume that they will make it easy to download the extensions which have been removed from the site, but you know what happens when you assume something. 😉

Mozilla Add-ons Site

Source: ComputerWorld [via CyberNet Forum]

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

U.S. Army Saved $130 Million by Stealing Software

U.S. Army Saved $130 Million by Stealing Software

The U.S. Army just paid a $50 million settlement over accusations that it illegally installed software on thousands of devices without a license. Even after the settlement, the Army ended up saving a bunch of cash. Maybe crime really does pay?

Read more…


    



CyberNotes: TrayDevil goes Beyond Minimizing to the System Tray

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

CyberNotes
Time Saving Tuesday

TrayDevil 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:

TrayDevil

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 (TrayDevil Restore ) 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 (TrayDevil System Tray ) 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 (TrayDevil Minimize ) 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.

TrayDevil Power Management

 

–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):

General  System Tray  Power  Run Program  Minimize to Tray  Restore / Close  Transparency  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

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

A Look at Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope

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

A lot of hype has surrounded Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope right from the start, especially after we learned that it made Robert Scoble cry. Back in February he took a trip to Microsoft and saw it in action. He was under embargo and couldn’t explain what it was that he saw, but he did say that it was life changing and it was something that had an emotional impact on him. A couple of weeks later when we learned that the WorldWide Telescope was in fact what Scoble was referring to, the pressure was on for Microsoft to deliver. Late last night they did deliver and the WorldWide Telescope has been released into it’s “Spring Beta” and is available for download here.

My very first impression when I started it after installing it was that in some ways, the interface reminds me of Windows Media Player with the drop-down menus at the top. The next thing I noticed was just how complex it is, in a good way. There is so much information available, it’s unbelievable and there are many, many features.

worldwide telescope.png

The best way to get a hang of everything is to just start exploring. Click on the different drop-down menus to see what kinds of things you can click on and just have fun. I haven’t spent more than 20 minutes playing around with everything, but in that time I saw a lot of really amazing images. You can choose which telescopes you’d like to look through, and you can even switch between different light wavelengths. There are also guided tours available, complete with narration.

In the official press release from Microsoft, they quote Bill Gates saying:

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe.

By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

I don’t know about you, but I would have loved to have tools like the WorldWide Telescope and Google Sky available while I was in school to learn about the universe. For both kids and adults alike, these tools provide us with a great opportunity to see what’s out there.

Check out Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope… (just note that the download is Windows only)

Thanks for the tip Change and Silviu!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com