Mar 21

Apple sues Amazon for App Store trademark infringement

Posted in: amazon, Apple, apps, AppStore, Law, lawsuit, legal, Software, Today's Chili

You had to know this was coming. Apple, which is already engaged in a heated battle with Microsoft for the protection of its “App Store” trademark, has filed suit against Amazon for its “improper use” of the same. Amazon’s Android Appstore seems to have been intentionally contracted to a single word to differentiate its name, but that difference isn’t enough for Apple, which has asked a California court to grant a ruling preventing Amazon’s use of the moniker and asking for unspecified damages. Apple claims it reached out to Amazon on three separate occasions asking it to rename its software download offering, but when faced with the lack of a “substantive response,” it decided to take things to court. Its big task remains unchanged — proving that the term App Store is something more than a generic descriptor — and this was a somewhat inevitable move given Amazon’s choice of name. The legal maneuvering, as always, continues.

Apple sues Amazon for App Store trademark infringement originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 21

Pandora Extension for Chrome is the Perfect Compact Player

Posted in: Freeware, media player, Music, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on February 22, 2011 by CyberNet.

Pandora chrome extension

I’m an avid Pandora listener, and for the most part I’m listening to the music when I’m on-the-go with my iPhone. I still like to have some tunes turned on while I’m working though, and for that I fall back to the web interface which can often feel clunky. Last week, with very little hope, I decided to see if there was a Google Chrome extension for managing Pandora playback, and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found.

The unofficial Pandora extension is perfect for any Pandora listener. As you can see in the screenshot above there is an icon added to the Chrome toolbar just like with other extensions. When you click on the icon you’ll have to login the first time, and from there you can switch between and manage stations, manage playback, thumbs up/down a song, and so much more.

Are you a keyboard junkie that would rather manage your music with an interface that is reminiscent of the command-line? Well, the Pandora extension has some special Omnibar commands that can be activated by bringing focus to the address bar and then typing “Pandora” followed by the tab key. After that you can enter things like play, pause, skip, like, dislike, tired, and station <station name>. Yes, you can skip songs and control playback without lifting your fingers from your keyboard. It’s a geek’s dream come true.

Pandora extension omnibar

If you’ve been looking for a better way to play your Pandora music in your browser I’d say this is almost as good as it gets. Frankly I’m surprised that Pandora doesn’t offer something like this for users that pay the annual fee, but I guess it’s better this way since both free and paid users can take advantage of this.

Unofficial Pandora Extension for Chrome

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Mar 21

The HotFix Claims To Have Leaked Windows Live Messenger

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 10, 2006 by CyberNet.

The HotFix Claims To Have Leaked Windows Live Messenger

If you want a leaked version of the “final” Windows Live Messenger then The Hotfix claims they have it. Sounds great huh? However, they force you to pay $1.39 in order to get access to their downloads. Technically I don’t believe that is legal for them to charge for Windows Live Messenger. Then again I guess they aren’t charging for the software specifically but instead you are paying for access to their downloads forum.

Here is what they have to say about the release:

The final build of Windows Live Messenger has leaked today and The Hotfix has it! The forums have more information on where you’ll be able to obtain it within the next 12 hours. From what we understand, it does indeed have Yahoo IM integration included. The final build is supposedly going to be released to the public on June 16th.

Well, I am sure torrents will be on the web in the next few days. Those people that are too impatient will probably fork out the $1.39, which only gives you access to the forums for ONE week! The final Windows Live Messenger should be released on June 16th so I would recommend you just hold out.

News Source: The HotFix

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Mar 21

Google patches Flash vulnerability in Chrome, leaves other browsers hanging

Posted in: adobe, Chrome, flash, Google, reader, safety, security, Software, Today's Chili

Remember that massive security vulnerability that Adobe identified in its Flash Player, Acrobat and Reader software? Well, shockingly enough, it hasn’t yet taken over the internet and ground productivity to a halt, but Google’s been proactive about it and patched the flaw by itself. Of course, the fix applies only to its own Chrome web browser, Firefoxes and Internet Explorer types will have to wait for Adobe’s fix, which is expected any minute now. Still, it’s good to know someone’s looking out for the security of our data, even if that someone already has access to most of it anyway.

Google patches Flash vulnerability in Chrome, leaves other browsers hanging originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 21

Game developers want DirectX to ‘go away,’ says AMD man

Posted in: AMD, Games, gaming, Microsoft, PC, radeon, Software, Today's Chili, video games, VideoGames

Like a pesky video game villain that just won’t go away, Microsoft’s DirectX has been a mainstay of mainstream PC gaming pretty much since the inception. Its existence hasn’t been without its tensions, however, with notable graphics guru John Carmack of id Software ignoring it in favor of OpenGL — until last week when he finally acknowledged that Direct3D had outgrown its cross-platform alternative and was now the preferable API for PC game development. That’s all well and good, but plenty of game devs, says Richard Huddy, head of AMD’s developer relations team, don’t want any API at all. Huddy points out the sadly obvious fact that modern graphics cards can pretty much stomp any console hardware into the dirt in a straight fight and yet fail to show the full extent of their superiority in actual game visuals. He’d prefer to see developers given direct low-level access to the hardware, so they can maximize their own talents and really push things forward. Of course, the beauty of DirectX is that it’s a standard that every Windows game designer can code to, leading to predictable and more widely compatible (if not necessarily spectacular) results. For more on how the future’s shaping up, hit the links below.

Game developers want DirectX to ‘go away,’ says AMD man originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 04:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 21

Tweak Vista & XP with XdN Tweaker

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on August 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

XdN TweakerI’m astonished at how many tweaking utilities have been released for Vista thus far. We’ve got TweakVista, VistaTweaker, TweakUAC, Vista Sidebar Styler, and Vispa. Now we’ve got one more that we can append to that list: XdN Tweaker. This one is a little more unique than the others, and the reason for that lies in its cross-compatibility.

This tiny app has customization tweaks that work in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista, Server 2003, and XP. There’s nothing to install…just download and run the tweaker. After you’re done you can safely remove the program, and your changes will remain in place.

There are quite a few different things that you can do with this, but my favorite is the option to disable the black "faded" background that appears behind a UAC prompt. It takes just one click to remove that background, and I actually think the prompts appear faster by having that disabled.

Here’s a mixture of the things that you can customize on both XP and Vista:

  • Changes the number of Folder views Windows saves.
  • Resets the folder views Windows has saved.
  • Add/Remove classic Windows 2000 user control panel icon.
  • Disable/Enable ATI Catalyst Control Center right click on Desktop (only for use if you have an ATI video card and have the Catalyst Control Center installed).
  • Disable/Enable ‘SendTo’ right-click menu.
  • Allows you to adjust and tweak TCP/IP settings.
  • Disable/Enable ZipFolders.
  • Disable/Enable the Outlook Express/Windows Mail splash screen.
  • Put the File menu above the Back/Forward buttons in IE7.
  • Remove or Replace the Search box in IE7.
  • Disable/Enable User Account Control prompts under Vista.
  • Disable/Enable the “- Shortcut” text under Vista.
  • Attempt to force Vista to better save folder views.
  • Disable/Enable Windows Media Player Explorer context menus.
  • Add/Remove “Take Ownership” to right-click menus under Vista.
  • Disable/Enable the Documents item on the Classic Start Menu.
  • Changes “Delete” to “Search…” on Recycle Bin.
  • Turn off the annoying full screen “black” UAC prompt.
  • Add/Remove the Network Connections icon to Control Panel

XdN Tweaker Homepage
Source: Lifehacker

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Mar 20

Active Desktop in Vista

Posted in: Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on August 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

Active Desktop was a feature included with Windows up until the release of Vista. It allowed HTML sites, among other things, to be viewed on the user’s desktop as if they were part of the wallpaper. They were then constantly updated to provide news, weather, and a host of other information at the user’s fingertips.

Microsoft had decided that it was time for Active Desktop to be retired with Vista because of the newly introduced sidebar. The sidebar gadgets can be dragged out onto the desktop, and they therefore were expected to serve a similar purpose.

I was never really a user of Active Desktop, but I know plenty of people who were. For that reason the How-To Geek started a $206 bounty to see if someone could replicate what the Active Desktop did on Vista.

The same person stepped up to the plate that made a program to increase the Taskbar thumbnail size in Vista. The resulting application (Download Mirror) isn’t the most extravagant thing in the world, but it gets the job done. With it you can specify multiple websites, the number of pixels each should occupy on the desktop, the position of each one, and how often it should be updated. It works just as you would expect allowing all of your desktop icons to be placed on top of the items you add (as seen in the picture above with the Recycle Bin).

It doesn’t work exactly like Active Desktop did because none of the links are clickable, and the items can’t be easily resized and repositioned by dragging and dropping. Nevertheless, it might be exactly what you’ve been longing for, especially if you’re wanting to put some weather radar images on your desktop.

Active Desktop in Vista (Download Mirror)

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Mar 20

Opera Fights for IE Web Standards

Posted in: Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Opera, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

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

Opera IE Fight Opera issued a press release today announcing an antitrust complaint that they filed with the European Commission. In the complaint they argue that Microsoft should be required to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows, and that the browser should follow the Web standards that many other browsers are already compliant with.

They are “filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” according to Jon von Tetzchner, Opera’s CEO. In Opera’s own words they would like to…

  1. Obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop.
  2. Require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities.

As a Web developer myself it is always difficult designing websites that work on all browsers, but I do have to say that Internet Explorer 7 is much easier to design for than its predecessors. But still, Opera Watch’s Daniel Goldman makes a good point when he says:

We, as Web users, will greatly benefit when Microsoft will start supporting Web standards, something which the other major Web browsers (Firefox, Opera, and Safari) have been doing for quite some time already.

I’m not sure how this is going to play out, but everyone knows that the European Union (EU) has ruled against Microsoft in the past. Because of them Microsoft has had to offer a version of Windows that does not have Windows Media Player bundled with it, and has also had to pay a $613 million fine.

It does make you wonder how you would download another browser if Windows didn’t come with Internet Explorer, and you only had that one computer?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 19

Foxit Reader 2.2 – Now the Best PDF Reader

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Newly Released, search, Software, Today's Chili

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

Foxit Reader 2.2 Screenshot

Foxit Reader just got perfect in my opinion. You may think that I’m crazy for thinking that it wasn’t perfect before, but one thing that always bothered me was the poor text selection. Before to copy and paste text from a PDF you had to draw a box around the text that you wanted. It was nothing like what Acrobat does for selecting text, and it was far from what people are accustomed to when selecting text in a word processor.

Now, however, that has all changed. Foxit Reader 2.2 has a greatly improved text selection feature. With it you can highlight text line-by-line which is incredibly handy when working with multi-column layouts. If the text that you’re highlighting gets close to the bottom of the page Foxit will automatically begin scrolling for you, too!

The other good news is that the improved text selection is just one of the many new features in Foxit Reader 2.2:

  • Capture words via mouse: If you are using a dictionary software, you may want to use your mouse to capture words inside a PDF file and have them translated. You can turn on this feature by checking “Screen word-capturing” option under Edit>Preferences>General.
  • Advanced PDF Search: Now you can search a string either in a single PDF file or in multiple PDF files under a specified folder. When the search finishes, all occurrences will be listed in a tree view.
  • Minimize Foxit Reader to the system tray: You now can save space on your task bar by minimizing the Foxit Reader to system tray. This feature can be turned on by checking “Minimize to system tray” option under Edit>Preferences>General.
  • Work with friendly bookmarks: Now when you navigate through the PDF document, the highlighted bookmark item will automatically be kept in sync with the current page being displayed. And you can click on a handle to hide or show the bookmark panel.
  • View PDF page size: Now the actual size of each PDF page is displayed on the status bar.
  • Enjoy other improved features: You will enjoy many other improved features, including:
    • Well-organized toolbars
    • Better command line support
    • Enhanced support for eastern Asian languages
    • Many bug fixes

Download Foxit Reader

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Mar 19

Ubuntu 6.10 Starts To Come Together For October Release

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on September 04, 2006 by CyberNet.

Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft

Most of us that are using Ubuntu are just getting used to version 6.06 that was released a few months ago. Well, you can start preparing for Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) which is scheduled for an October 2006 release. So what can you expect to see new in this release?

You can find a nice list of goodies that are already in the Alpha 2 build by checking out this site. One of the cool things that it will have is the F-Spot photo software pictured above. Not only can you tag and edit your images using the software but you can also upload them to sites like Flickr. Looking at the screenshot reminds me a lot of a stripped down version of Google’s Picasa photo software.

I have also posted a video below which was a presentation of Ubuntu Edgy Eft in action. Unfortunately the screen is not very readable but they do go over several of the new features (and yes, it is a 40-minute movie). There is one thing that really struck me as impressive towards the end of the video (36 minutes into it). Ubuntu will now work with your iPod and it will even recognize what color it is in order to display the proper image on the system. Sure the eye candy is nice but it will also let you drag songs off of the iPod onto the computer or, *gasp*, you can hook up multiple iPods to the computer and copy songs from one to another!

 

It looks like the Ubuntu team will be releasing another quality build later this year but I wonder if any of these Linux distributions are planning anything special to launch around the time Vista does? Maybe we will start to see some one-click installs for XGL? That would be awesome!

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