Hasta La Gadget!

Sep 16

WrapUp: Windows 7 RTM, Hotmail Storage, and More

This article was written on July 28, 2009 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Windows 7 Released to Manufacturing
Piraters were one step ahead of Microsoft last week when they announced that Windows 7 was released to manufacturing (RTM). The build that went gold was leaked to Torrent sites a few days before the announcement, which isn’t the least bit surprising. General availability is still October 22nd, but MSDN subscribers will be receiving it in early August.

Sign Up for Google Wave Testing
In September Google has said that they will be rolling out Google Wave to 100,000 lucky people. If you’re interested in testing you should jump on the list to make sure you’re selected once September rolls around.

How Much Storage Does Hotmail Offer?
When it comes to Hotmail Microsoft doesn’t actually come out and say exactly how much storage you have. They do, however, say that it will increase each month as needed provided that you’re not abusing their system. When you look at some settings in Office 2010 (and other email tools) it is reporting up to 500GB of storage for some users. Huh, makes Gmail look like nothing.

Amazon Acquires Zappos
The web giant Amazon will be bringing another company into their nest. This time it is the online shoe shopping site Zappos, and the deal was just shy of $1 billion. The only concern I’ve really heard from people is whether or not Amazon will maintain the excellent customer service level that Zappos has been known to provide.

Palm WebOS 1.1 Re-enabled iTunes Syncing
There is definitely a conflict going on between Apple and Palm right now. The Palm Pre launched with the ability to sync with iTunes by disguising itself as an iPod, but Apple was quick to release an update to iTunes that disabled the functionality. The new WebOS 1.1 for the Palm Pre once again syncs with iTunes, and it was made available just one week after the release of the new iTunes. Your move, Apple.

Gmail Helps You Unsubscribe from Mailing Lists
Sometimes it can be a pain to unsubscribe from a mailing list, but it looks like Google is looking for a way to tackle that issue. In Gmail there will be an unsubscribe link for certain mailing lists, which will submit the request to be removed without you having to venture outside of your Inbox.

Thunderbird 3.0 Beta 3 Adds Tabs
Been looking to get some tab action in your email client? Look no further than the latest Beta of Thunderbird 3.0. It’s loaded with goodies such as tabbed windows for a more confined workspace. It’s not quite enough to pull me away from using the Gmail website though.

New iPod touch will have Camera & Microphone?
Apple is expected to unveil the next generation iPod touch in the coming months, and the current rumors say that they will have both a camera and microphone built-in. Makes sense… iPod touch owners would then be able to buy apps that are built to use those features.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Rip DVD’s Using VLC
I’m sure many of you have chosen VLC as your media player, or at least have it on your machine. After all, it is a great piece of software for playing those obscure media types. As it turns out that handy little app is also capable of ripping DVD’s for, um, “backup” purposes. It’s not the most elegant solution, but still pretty cool.

Terminate Running Apps with Keyboard Shortcut
Are you one of those people that don’t like to wait for a program to gracefully shutdown? If you are then this app will create a keyboard shortcut you can use to forcefully quit any program. It’s essentially the same result you get by opening up the Task Manager and ending a task there, but faster.

One Extension to Configure Them All
I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of this sooner, or why Mozilla doesn’t include this with Firefox. This extension will essentially create a button that you can place on your toolbar, and whenever you click on it you’ll see a list of all the extensions you have installed. Clicking on one of them will bring up the preferences for that particular extension. Anyone who plays with settings a lot knows how many clicks this can save.

Firefox 3.7 Theme
Mozilla posted some mockups last week showing off how Firefox 3.7 might look, and a lot of people took a liking to the design. As expected someone has developed a theme that pretty much replicates what we saw.

Click & Drag to Select Checkboxes
Here’s another Firefox extension for you to check out. It lets you simply draw a box around a bunch of checkboxes using your mouse, and when you let go it will automagically toggle them. Simple, yet useful.