Hasta La Gadget!

When it comes to smartphones, you can say that Android is the South Korean company’s bread and butter, but Samsung too, has a stake in the world of Windows Phone 8, although the choice of handsets from them that run on this mobile operating system is paltry in comparison to the Android collection. The Samsung ATIV S has been a decent release, even receiving its Windows Phone 8 GDR3 update just last month, leading us to wonder whether Samsung has any more plans to support the world of Windows Phone 8 or not in due time. Apparently so, as there is word that a new Windows Phone flagship could roll out from Samsung next year, where it comes in the form of the Samsung SM-W750V.

The Samsung SM-W750V happens to be a 5” smartphone which was listed by Zauba recently. Zauba happens to be the “home to India’s import and export data”, and other than the fact that it runs on the Windows Phone 8, we know very little else about the phone. Still, it shows off the possibility that Samsung has not quite forgotten about Windows Phone 8, but Nokia would most probably continue to be king in this growing mobile operating system segment. What do you think – should Samsung just quit the Windows Phone 8 game or keep the flame burning?

Samsung Prepares SM-W750V Windows Phone 8 Smartphone Release For 2014 original content from Ubergizmo.

This article was written on November 19, 2009 by CyberNet.

Having bought my first Mac about a year and a half ago one app that I quickly started to love was Growl. It brought a universal notification system to the operating system that any application could make use of, and the cross-program uniformity made the OS experience that much better.

Then came along Growl for Windows, which was something I took a quick liking to once the Prowl iPhone app was released. I wasn’t sure what kind of future Growl had on Windows since we had already seen other apps like Snarl start to fade out despite being updated regularly. It just didn’t catch on for me.

Growl, however, has become something I’ve installed on all my Windows machines. The notifications are clean and prominent, which can be a combination that is tough to come by. Not to mention the fact that there are also a variety of themes available. My favorite is definitely the Smokestack theme pictured above.

The new version 2.0 that was just released supports images in the notifications, can tell an app when a notification is clicked, can forward of notifications to an email address, and much more. And, of course, we can’t forget about the rapidly growing list of supported apps:

• Autotest – Get informed when your tests pass or fail.
• Emacs – Send and receive Growl notifications from within emacs.
• Firefox – Alerts you when Firefox has started, finished, or failed downloading a file.
• Feed Monitor – Alerts you when RSS and Atom feeds are updated.
• Foobar2000 – Get notified when playing starts, stops, or is paused.
• Gmail – Gmail Growl keeps you updated on new mails in your Gmail Inbox in a fancy way.
• Google Reader – Get notified of new feed items in Google Reader.
• Google Voice – Alerts you to new voicemails, text messages, call recordings, and more.
• Google Wave – Get notified of new Waves.
• Growlbook for Facebook – Get notifications for friend requests, messages, pokes, invites, and more.
• iTunes – Alerts you to the currently playing track in iTunes.
• Irssi – Alerts you when your name is highlighted, you receive a private message, and when someone joins/leaves a conversation.
• jWeatherWatch – Get the current weather and forecasts for multiple locations.
• Last.fm – Alerts you to the currently playing track on the Last.fm website.
• MediaMonkey – Alerts you to the currently playing track in MediaMonkey.
• Outlook – Get notified of appointment reminders and when new mail arrives.
• OWATray (Outlook Web Access) – Get notified of new Exchange mail without having to keep an OWA browser constantly open.
• Pandora AIR – Alerts you to the currently playing track in the Pandora AIR application.
• Pandora Website – Alerts you to the currently playing track on the Pandora website.
• Pidgin – Get Growl notifications for all kinds of Pidgin notifications.
• Postbox – Alerts you when Postbox receives new mail or RSS updates.
• Powershell – Send Growl notifications from your Powershell scripts.
• SageAlert for SageTV – Get notified for all kinds of SageTV events.
• SkypeToGrowl – Get notified of incoming Skype calls.
• Songbird – Pops up a notification when the currently playing track changes.
• System Monitor – Get notified of system-type events like low disk space, battery life, USB devices inserted & removed and more.
• Thunderbird – Alerts you when Thunderbird receives new mail or RSS updates.
• TV Browser – Get reminded when your favorite TV shows are starting.
• Trowl (Twitter) – Get notified of Twitter mentions, DM’s, and friends’ tweets.
• Twitulater – Get notified of new tweets and much more.
• uGrowl (uTorrent) – Get notified when torrents are added, start, or finish.
• Visual Studio – Get notified of success or failure when builds complete.
• Vuze (Azureus) – Notifies you of completed downloads.
• Witty (Twitter) – Get of new tweets, @replies, and direct messages. Sends summary notifications if you get too many updates at once.
• Yawcam (Motion Detection) – Get notified when your webcam detects motion, and then view streaming video of the activity.
• Yip – Transform any Fluid or Prism notifications into Growl notifications.

It’s tough to say how this app will pan out in the end, but I think it has a really bright future. Let us know in the comments whether you’ve given it a whirl, and how you feel about it.

Growl for Windows Homepage (Freeware)

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 September 15, 2006 by CyberNet.

Totalidea Software has released a program called TweakVI which will let you customize Windows Vista without the need to dig through the registry. They do have a free version available that has the ability to tweak several different features but they also have subscription-based versions that you can purchase for one year at a time.

Here is an overview of what the software can do:

Activate hundreds of hidden Windows Vista settings, clean your registry, activate system and software restrictions, display detailed system information, create a 256 MB RAM drive, protect your privacy, clean your harddrive, manage TrueType fonts, improve your internet connection, optimize your CPU, optimize your RAM, manage system updates, and much more …

If you are like me you will want to checkout what the difference is between all of the versions. Unfortunately you can only compare using this chart because they do not have a trial version of the Premium and Ultimate editions (and the free version is cleverly named Basic).

I thought about downloading TweakVI but I’m not sure if I will really find it useful. I already seem to like Vista the way it is but I’ll be considering it.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

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

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:

• XBMC: Introduction to Our Upcoming Guides
  Our introduction provides some of the deciding factors for switching from Windows Media Center to XBMC.
• XBMC: Build Your Own HTPC
  Our extensive guide on the hardware we chose for our home theater PCs (HTPCs), the cost, and some tips on choosing the hardware for your own HTPC.
• XBMC: Prepare and Optimize Windows 7
  A helpful list of tips to optimize the performance of Windows 7 so that the system is able to offer as many resources to XBMC as it can.
• XBMC: IR Receiver and Remote (Harmony, Xbox 360, and More)
  If you want your HTPC to operate like a set-top box you’ll definitely want to get a remote control configured, and for me this was a critical step so that I wouldn’t have to be concerned about less tech-savvy users trying to use my TV.
• XBMC: Share and Sync Media/Settings Between Multiple XBMC Installs
  Configuring XBMC to share settings between multiple instances means you’ll be able to stop a show in one room, and seamlessly pick up where you left off in another room.
• XBMC: Fit the Picture to Your TV with Overscan
  If XBMC doesn’t fit your TV screen perfectly there are a couple of steps you can take to get it just right.
• XBMC: Installing Skins
  How to tweak the appearance of XBMC so that it looks the way you want it to.
• XBMC: Custom Home Screen Menu Backgrounds
  Make the backgrounds of your chosen skin/theme a little more interesting by having it flip through artwork from your favorite TV shows and movies.
• XBMC: Dynamic Weather Backgrounds
  If you’re using the Aeon MQ 3 theme you can have it use dynamic wallpapers that change based on the time of day and current weather conditions.
• XBMC: SMB on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)
  I use a Mac to serve up files to my XBMC instances running on Windows, and so my preferred protocol for sharing files is SMB. This guide explains how you can get a XBMC-compatible version of SMB running on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• XBMC: Adding Media Sources
  Learn how to add your media to XBMC and turn on the appropriate content scrapers.
• XBMC: Troubleshoot Buffering Issues
  Trying to troubleshoot buffer issues in XBMC can be quite a pain, and so I lay out some of the most common culprits.
• XBMC: Test Your HTPC with High Bitrate Sample Videos
  Want to see how well your HTPC performs? Throw some of these high bitrate 1080p sample videos at it.
• XBMC: More Advanced Settings
  Configure some of the settings that you won’t find anywhere in the GUI.
• XBMC: Stream Hulu, Food Network, and More
  Thanks to add-ons you can stream videos from some of your favorite sources including Hulu, Food Network, HGTV, TWiT, and more.
• XBMC: AirPlay on Windows
  Send videos from your iOS device to any XBMC instance with very little configuration.
• XBMC: Web Interface and Chrome Extension
  As long as you are on the same network as your XBMC box you can control it from any browser using the built-in web interface, or you can install a Chrome extension to make it even easier.
• XBMC: iPhone and iPad Remote
  If you own an iPhone or iPad you can enjoy one of the best XBMC remote control experiences I’ve seen, and it will only cost you a few bucks.
• XBMC: A List of Our Guides, Plus Helpful Wiki and Forum Posts
  A recap of all the guides we’ve written as well as useful wiki and forum post from the official XBMC.org site.
• XBMC: Free and Official iOS Remote for XBMC Released
  This is the free and official XBMC remote control iOS app (optimized for both the iPhone and iPad). It will let you easily control all of the XBMC instances in your house as long as they are all on the same network.
• XBMC: Running XBMC on Startup in Windows 8
  Learn how you can make XBMC start automatically when Windows 8 boots.
• XBMC: Send YouTube Videos From Chrome to XBMC
  Send YouTube videos from your PC to any XBMC instance in a single click.
• XBMC: Aeon MQ 4 Skin
  If you’re looking for one of the best and most popular XBMC skins the Aeon MQ 4 is a great choice.
• XBMC: Android Widget Remote Control
  Control multiple instances of XBMC without ever having to open an app on your Android device!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com