Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on February 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

This past week, Ryan and I found ourselves looking for a new background image for our computers . We were both using a winter scene and got sick of looking at it when we have our own winter scene right outside our window (we got over 15 inches of snow this past week!). I set out to find something different and ended up using two different sites before I came across a background I was satisfied with. I liked both sites for different reasons and thought I’d share them with you.  We’re also asking you to fill us and everybody else in on your favorite places to get desktop wallpapers.

History

Before we get into two of the best sites I’ve come across, I thought we’d talk a little bit about how computer wallpaper originated.  Obviously we know that the term wallpaper refers to an image that’s used as a background on a computer screen, but how did it all come about? I went to none other than Wikipedia to find out, and here’s what I found:

The first use of a distinguishable background in conjunction with overlapping windows was in an experimental office system, Officetalk, developed in 1975 at Xerox PARC on the Alto. Prior to that, the white backgrounds to overlapping windows (for example, in Smalltalk) could be difficult to distinguish from window interiors. The pattern used in Officetalk produced a 25% gray, using dots two pixels high to avoid flicker on the Alto’s interlaced screen. The same pattern was adopted for the Xerox Star.

Apple used a similar gray background for their Lisa and Macintosh. However, since these machines had non-interlaced screens it was possible to use a less noticeable background pattern, formed from a simple 2×2 repeating pattern that gave a 50 percent gray. The introduction of color monitors for personal computers led to non-patterned, single-color backgrounds and then to arbitrary ‘wallpapers’.

Social Wallpapering

Social Wallpapering is described as “a community effort to classify, rank, and distribute high resolution images for use as computer wallpaper. As you might expect, Social Wallpapering has a social side to it.  Visitors to the site can vote up or down a wallpaper that they may or may not like. The nice thing is that unlike social sites, you don’t have to register to be able to vote. 

Now, on to the important part, the wallpapers. At Social Wallpapering you can browse by category. They have all kinds of categories ranging from abstract to TV and movies.  If you’re not quite sure which category you’d want a wallpaper from, you can also filter by the highest/lowest rated, the most popular ones, and more. Additionally, you can browse by monitor size whether it be standard, widescreen, or a dual monitor set-up.

Another thing I like about this site is that if you hover over a wallpaper, a box pops-up with information like the size as shown below:

Visit http://socwall.com to find a pretty decent selection of wallpapers for your computer.

InterfaceLIFT

InterfaceLIFT is another site that offers free high-resolution wallpapers. One of the things I like best about this site is that they divide all of their wallpapers into categories based upon size. Here are the sizes that they offer:

• iPhone
• 2560×1600
• 1920×1200
• 1680×1050
• 1440×900
• 1280×800
• Sony PSP
• 1680×1200
• 1400×1050
• 1280×1024
• 1280×960
• 1024×768
• Apple iPod/Sony Mylo

On their homepage you’ll find that the wallpapers are listed and sorted by the date that they were added to the site.  It’s not that they offer many new ones each day because they don’t, but the ones they do offer are usually quality.  At least one new wallpaper is posted every few days.

You can also sort wallpapers by which ones were downloaded the most, which ones are rated the highest, those they were commented on the most, or you can even view random selections. Over the last year or so, I’ve found some of my favorite desktop backgrounds at InterfaceLIFT which you can visit here.

Where do you go for backgrounds?

We know there are all kinds of sites out there with great backgrounds, so fill us in. Where do you go for wallpaper?

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on March 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Mozilla has just launched their new Firefox Add-ons site that shows off a sparkling and freshly revamped interface. Back in February we took a glimpse at what a preview of the new add-ons site had to offer, and overall I would say that it is a really nice improvement over the prior version.

The thing that I like the most is that the add-ons in the Sandbox are actually shown with the search results regardless of whether you are logged in. They are labeled as “experimental” add-ons if they are in the Sandbox, and if you want to install them you’ll still need to login. At least users will know that the add-ons exist which was a big complaint of the extension developers that I had talked to before. It was almost discouraging for developers to create extensions since they weren’t widely available to the public right away.

There are two things that I don’t like though. The first is that there is still no way to customize the sort order of your search results. I’m sure this has to do with performance issues, but I hate not being able to see my search results according to popularity or most recently released.

The second thing that I don’t like, and this is quite a doozy for me, is that the site now checks what version of Firefox you’re running. And guess what, it won’t let you install an extension that doesn’t meet the version requirements specified by the developer. If an extension is compatible with your Firefox you’ll see the typical button on the pictured on the left side below, otherwise it will be replaced with the button on the right:

I looked around and I saw no place where I could change this setting, and seeing that I’m the type of person who likes to test out pre-release versions of Firefox this can cause a lot of headaches. I’m currently running Firefox 3 Beta 4, and many of the extensions are disabled for me since the developers haven’t gotten around to updating them. Sure this is nice so that people don’t think an extension will work with their version of Firefox, but what about people who want to try them anyway?

Check it out and let us know what you think about the new site.

Firefox Add-ons Homepage
Thanks to Yansky for the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on May 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

After Microsoft’s last slip-up we knew that Windows Live Folders would probably be coming soon, and the service was available for a short period of time earlier today. Luckily Chris over at LiveSide managed to sneak in fast enough to snap some screenshots of what the service is going to offer.

The Windows Live Folders service obviously focuses on making it easy to share your documents with others, or keep them private so that you’re the only one who has access to them. Chris also provided a nice summary of the different types of folder sharing:

Personal

• Use personal folders to back up important files that are only for you.
• Get to your files from any computer with Internet access by signing in with your Windows Live ID.

Shared

• Shared folders make it easy to collaborate with coworkers or classmates.
• You decide how much control each person has over each shared folder. Some can just read what’s there: others can add and delete files.
• Everyone who is sharing uses their own Windows Live ID.

Public

• With public folders, anyone on the Internet can view your files, but they can’t change them.
• Want to show your public files to others? Just send them a link! Each folder and file has its own web address.

I haven’t been able to tinker with the service myself because it was pulled down so fast, but looking at the screenshots that Chris provides I would say that the service is fairly intuitive. Take a look at how you do some things on Windows Live Folders:

Note: Click any of the screenshots to make them bigger.

Creating a folder is just a click away:

Mange who has access to each of the folders:

Do a lot more with the folders:

As of right now the service is only showing 250MB of storage, but when it is officially launched to the public it is supposed to offer 500MB. I was expecting to see the storage hit at least 1GB, but more like 2GB to 5GB. So the quota is a little disappointing, and they even limit filesizes to about 50MB each. I think most geeks will be holding out for a service with larger amounts of storage since Box.net offers 1GB and AOL’s Xdrive offers 5GB for free.

Does this look like something you would use? Both Internet Explorer and Firefox are supported in case that will influence your decision.

This will be the homepage of Windows Live Folders

See more screenshots over at LiveSide

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on November 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

I’m not sure if you should be getting your hopes up quite yet, but rumors have started to circulate around the Internet that Microsoft will be opening up the @live.com email addresses tomorrow for public registration. There is no official word from Microsoft that this will be happening, but the timing sounds about right. Back in June the Windows Live Product Manager said that the addresses will be available this fall, and we are indeed midway through the fall.

If you’ve been reading our site over the last year you probably already have an @live.com email address from one of the many loopholes that were found (here, here, here, and here). Microsoft had pondered shutting down all of the accounts that were created from those tricks, but they realized that doing so would anger their most hardcore users.

Remember, this can be your chance to get an email address people can easily remember. I managed to sneak in on one of the loopholes last year and snatched up my name, but I still only use Gmail. It is nice to have my name, however, in case I ever decide to switch over in the future.

If Microsoft does launch the @live.com email addresses tomorrow we’ll be sure to keep you informed.

[via LiveSide]

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on January 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

Sharing videos online used to be something that only a few were able to do, but thanks to sites like YouTube, MetaCafe, and “fill in your favorite video service here,” anybody can do it. Many times the raw footage needs some tweaking – maybe a few seconds or minutes cut out, transitions added, and music applied. After video sharing sites became huge, so did online video editing services. Some of you may just be getting used to the idea that you can edit your photos online, let alone edit videos online! Today we’re going to be taking a look at four different online editing services that are easy and free to use which will help you put together the perfect movie.

–JumpCut–

Jumpcut describes their service as “the easiest way to upload, edit, and share your video and photos. Free.” It’s perfect for editing your videos up to 100 MB in size. You’ll be required to register, but once you do, you can upload either video clips or photos from your computer and begin editing them. They offer an easy-to-use web-based video editor that you can use to move video clips around, add clips and titles or music, and sound effects. Once the video is perfected, you can publish it and make it private or public.  You can also share it via email, or post it to another site like MySpace, Facebook, WordPress, and more.

If by chance you don’t have any videos to play around with, you can use their “explore” feature to checkout the work that people have done.  You can also search by tags which is a great feature.

–Motionbox–

Motionbox describes their service as the following: “Motionbox makes it easy to upload, organize, enhance, and share your personal videos with family, friends, & groups.” It’s another one of those “one-stop” places where casual users can get all of their video editing done. They offer both a free service and a premium service which costs money for those who want unlimited storage and high quality video downloads.

As a basic member, users can upload video (up to 300mb – 100 MB per file) and then mix and edit it (take out portions).  They can also share the videos online and make them public or private. The user interface is easy to use and offers most of the basic functions.

–Eyespot–

Yes, Eyespot is a fungal disease but it’s also a free and easy to use video editing and sharing service.  Not only can you edit your videos at Eyespot, you can also host them there as well. There are a variety of different video file formats that they accept like ASF, AVI, DivX, and more, so you should have no problems. They’re all about personalizing your videos and allow you to “mix, discover, interact, and publish” your media.

If you just want to watch videos that others have put together, you can do that without creating an account.  However, if you plan on using this service to create your own mixes and edit movies, you’ll need to sign up for a free account. The only requirements to use this service are a web-browser and a Flash plug-in installed.

–One True Media–

Like some of the other services, One True Media offers both a free and a premium service.  They say that “it’s a snap to mix your photos and videos with our effects to create something wow-worthy.” Once you become a member, you can upload your photos and video clips and then choose a style, add effects, captions, and music. You can also choose a thumbnail which will represent the montage that you create. Out of all of the services that we’ve looked at today, I tend to like One True Media’s interface the best.

–Wrapping it up–

Of course, don’t forget that you likely have Windows Movie Maker or iMovie already on your computer just waiting to be used.  Both are great solutions for editing videos and are convenient simply because you don’t have to take the time to upload your video clips to a service like the services mentioned today.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com