Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

Google Apps users who have years (or just a few months worth) of emails stored in Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird, now have a very simple way to upload those messages to a Google Apps mailbox (Gmail). Google just launched an open source desktop utility called Google Email Uploader that gets the job done. The best part is that the sent dates from all of your messages are kept in-tact and folders that you may have are converted to Gmail Labels. Not only is this utility for old email messages, it is also an uploader for all of your contacts.

Google describes the Email Uploader as:

The Google Email Uploader is a open source desktop utility for Microsoft Windows. It uploads email and contacts from desktop email programs (like Microsoft Outlook® ) into your Google Apps mailbox. It preserves information such as sent dates and sender/recipient data, as well as the folder structure used by email programs.

At this point there are a few downsides. The first is that it’s available only for Windows XP and Windows Vista.  The second is that this is something that isn’t available for the regular Gmail users. Google says that you must have a Google Apps Premier, Education, or Partner version of Google Apps in order to use this, however some people are reporting that this only works for Google Apps Premier subscribers. Google Operating System writes that you’ll receive an error message if you’re not a Premier subscriber (this is the paid version of Google Apps) which says, “you are not authorized to use this feature.”

Above is a screenshot of what you’d see if you downloaded the utility and started the process of uploading old messages. If you have Google Apps either the Education or Partner version and you try this out, be sure to let us know if you received the error message. It’s supposed to work for all Google Apps users but it may not work out that way and Google may have some tweaking they need to do.

Download the Google Email Uploader Here

Thanks for the tip Trip!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

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

Tutorial Thursday

VLC Media Player has got to be one of the best video players available, and it doesn’t cost you a single penny. Why is it so great? Well, it is a combination of the extremely simple interface and the large number of codecs that are included to support almost any type of video. There is, however, one feature that many of you may have forgotten about…

Buried within the settings is an option that allows you set any video as a desktop wallpaper. This setting is similar to what Microsoft is offering as an “Extra” called Dreamscene in the Windows Vista Ultimate edition. Once you have enabled the option you’ll be able to set a video to play as your desktop background, have it repeat so that it continuously loops, and then you can minimize the VLC player to your System Tray so that it is out-of-sight.

1. Go to Settings -> Preferences -> Video -> Output Modules -> DirectX and in the bottom-right corner check the box labeled Advanced Options. Now you should see an option on the screen called Enable wallpaper mode, check that box.
   
2. If you want to be able to minimize the VLC Media Player to the System Tray you’ll have to enable that option in the Preferences as well. While in the Preferences go to Interface -> Main Interfaces -> wxWidgets. Uncheck the Taskbar option and then check the Systray icon option in order to show the program only in the System Tray while playing a video.
   
3. Now if you want to have the video continuously loop on your desktop just press Ctrl+P and choose whether you want to loop all videos in your playlist or just a single video:
   
4. Just start playing a video and go to the Video -> Wallpaper option and you should see the video being played as your desktop background.
   

VLC Media Player has had this feature for a long time and it works in more than just Windows Vista Ultimate edition, unlike the DreamScene add-on. The only problem that I have had with it so far is trying to get some videos to play full-size. That can be a little tricky because the full-screen mode in the video player does not seem to stretch the video to fit your desktop.

There are quite a few things that Vista offers that can be done using other applications, and this is a prime example of that. Of course, this is probably just one of those features that you would use to show a friend and say “look at how cool it is” and then you would never use it because it lacked any practical purpose. A little bragging here and there can be fun though. 🙂

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

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

Last year Microsoft decided that it would be smart to continue offering Windows XP for sale until June 30th, 2008. That way consumers and businesses who didn’t want to be an early adopter of Vista had an alternative available. As that deadline approaches a petition was started by InfoWorld earlier this year to save XP again, and as of last week it had accumulated over 106,000 signatures. But Microsoft made it clear yesterday that in just a few months Windows XP will be cut… kind of.

Windows XP will be no longer available after June 30th, 2008 with the exception of ultra low-cost personal computers (ULCPC’s). These computers are becoming rather popular (such as the Asus Eee PC), but they don’t have enough requirements to run Vista. Here’s what Microsoft had to say about it:

Customers and partners have made it clear to us that Windows is the preferred operating system for ULCPC buyers, just as it is for mainstream PC users.  That’s why we are extending direct OEM sales of Windows XP Home for ULCPCs so that they can preinstall Windows on these devices through the later of June 30, 2010 or one year after the general availability of the next version of the Windows operating system.  While Windows Vista provides many benefits, including an easier and more secure user experience, Windows XP Home provides an effective solution on these devices from a performance and cost perspective.

You’ll notice that Microsoft made sure to say that Windows XP Home will be the only version offered to the OEM’s to put on their machines. This is obviously a push to keep new Windows XP machines from entering the corporate world.

So how do the requirements stack up between Windows XP and Vista? Well, there was such a huge time gap between the two operating system releases that the minimum system requirements differ quite a bit:

It makes sense that Windows XP will still be available on the ULCPC’s looking at the system requirements. In particular the hard drive space is drastically different when comparing XP to Vista. Most of the ULCPC’s wouldn’t have the space needed to run Vista.

Now the question is whether you buy as many retail copies of XP as you can, and then sell them on eBay after June 30th? 😉

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

In a report overseen by Microsoft, the Windows XP operating system was found to be more than five times as vulnerable to viruses as Windows 8 is. Out of every 1,000 computers scanned, 9.1 Windows XP SP3 systems were infected with a virus, while only 1.6 Windows 8 RTM machines had to be cleaned. The […]

As they say, all things, even the good ones, eventually come to an end. Next year, we will finally bid farewell to Windows XP, which so far has managed to hold on to its dear life far longer than it was supposed to. Google, however, will not be so quick on abandoning the operating system […]