Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on November 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

Recently I’ve been paying close attention to the people who say that Vista sucks for what they feel are valid reasons. Sometimes they say that the operating system has issues working hardware inside of the custom-built PC, and that’s something I definitely understand. Or maybe there is a program that they can’t live without that doesn’t run quite right…I understand that, too.

An increasing trend, however, that I’ve been noticing is the people who actually say they hate Vista without ever having used it, or they just tried it out for a few minutes. Sure Vista didn’t turn out to be the operating system that everyone was expecting, but don’t be so quick to judge without taking it around the block.

In my experience Vista has a lot to offer over XP, but many of the benefits may not be visible from Vista’s surface. I’ve managed to round up a list of five “tiny” features that many people, including power users, may never notice if they haven’t tried to see what lies beneath.

1. Faster File Renaming When Showing Extensions
   I’m the type of person that always likes to see as much detail as possible, and for that reason I always have it show the extensions on all files. That way I can easily tell what type of image a photo is (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc…), and there are many times where it’s nice to be able to edit an extension. In XP whenever I went to rename a file it automatically highlighted all of the text including the extension, but not in Vista! The amount of frustration that this has saved me is insurmountable.
   
2. File Previews
   Windows Explorer has a file preview window that can be enabled by going to Organize -> Layout -> Preview Pane. With this turned on you can view documents, presentations, and the contents of several different types of files without ever having to open them up. In the screenshot below I have a PowerPoint presentation open in which I’ve navigated halfway through the slides by using the scrollbar on the side.
   
3. Hey, that File is in the Recycle Bin! 
   Have you ever deleted a file or program, and when you go to launch it from a leftover shortcut it tries to search your computer looking for the file (you know that stupid flashlight that rolls back and forth). It never finds the file though, and one of the first things you probably do is go check the Recycle Bin to see if it’s there. Vista brings it’s “A game” when it comes to stuff like that, and if the item you’re trying to open is in the Recycle Bin you’ll be notified immediately:
   
4. Grouping Files in Windows Explorer
   As Ashley’s already pointed out Vista has some advanced sorting, grouping, and stacking features in Windows Explorer that are really helpful. You can group files in a folder that you’re viewing based upon name, size, type, or whatever you want. You can than expand or contract the groups giving you more room to work with in Windows Explorer. In this example screenshot I grouped the files by file type:
    
5. Advanced Photo Management
   Taking pictures is almost an addiction of mine, and right now I’ve got almost 7GB worth of them on my hard drive. The new Windows Photo Gallery makes it possible for me to tag, organize, fix (crop, color correction, etc…), and create DVD’s of my photos in no time at all. It’s a remarkable addition to Vista, and undoubtedly one of its shining points.
    

There are also some features in Vista that I haven’t taken advantage of yet, but would have probably made this list if I had:

• I don’t have any kids so the parental controls doesn’t do me much good, but it would be nice if I had a family.
• We all know about the nightmare that was known as Vista speech recognition. I’m more of a typing person myself, but IStartedSomething demonstrated how nice Vista’s speech recognition actually is:

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Whoa, Nelly! Is that a Firefox 4 download button we’re looking at? Why yes… yes it is! We can’t think of a much better way to wrap up one’s workday than by finding out that Mozilla’s own Firefox browser has finally made the official leap to 4.0, with Beta 1 going live for the adoring public today. It’s ready to be sucked down and installed for those with Windows, Linux and OS X-based machines, and the changelog itself is far too lengthy for this space (though it’s linked below for your perusal). You’ll obviously notice an overhauled look hitting you front and center, with a new add-on manager, support for the new WebM format, improved privacy settings and crash protection headlining the “big chart o’ features.” Give ‘er a download and toss your thoughts on the new build down in comments below, cool?

P.S. – Be warned that this may very well not work with your stable of add-ons right away, so we’d keep that stable 3.x.x build installed as a backup!

Firefox 4 Beta 1 now available for download originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like it’s blowhard season up in Redmond these days, as the latest word from Microsoft on its Live Essentials suite of apps has been accompanied by the brash pronouncement that it’s now markedly superior to Apple’s efforts in Mac OS X — at least when it comes to photos. This verdict was delivered by Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live, and is backed by a laundry list of new features we can expect by the holiday season of this year. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker will soon be able to link up directly to sites like Flickr, Facebook and YouTube — which will allow for painless uploads as well as pulling in any additional tagging done on Facebook. New photo stitching and retouching abilities, along with face recognition (rather than mere detection) are also being touted, but the ultimate arbiter of the new software’s utility will obviously be the real hands-on experience for users. We shouldn’t have to wait too long for that, as a beta version of the freely downloadable (on Vista and 7, XP holdouts are no longer being served) suite should be making the rounds in the coming weeks.

Continue reading Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’

Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on September 26, 2008 by CyberNet.

When it comes down to it, what most people want in an operating system is stability. They want something that works well out of the box, and they really don’t care too much about the extras that come with it because they can always download them at their convenience. In the case of Windows Vista, examples of extras would include things like Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker and Windows Mail.

Do these extras really need to be shipped with the operating system? Microsoft thought so when Vista launched, but it looks as though they have re-thought the idea. Microsoft has confirmed that the next version of Windows will not ship with built-in programs including the three we mentioned above.

Our initial reaction to this change was definitely a good one. Since the launch of Windows Vista, there has been some confusion with the difference between the applications that come with Vista, and those that are available for download through Windows Live. For example, Vista ships with Windows Photo Gallery, yet one of the Live applications that people can download is Windows Live Photo Gallery. Installing the latter does not replace Windows Photo Gallery. This is where people get confused.

What does all of this mean for you? First of all, less confusion. Windows Vista general manager Brian Hall spoke to ZDNet and discussed the issue of confusion. He said in regards to the changes, that, “It makes it much cleaner.” There’s no need to have two different applications that offer nearly the same type of service to users. Less confusion for users is a great thing any day!

Microsoft is going to end-up taking the applications that they have removed and include them (we suspect) with their bundle of Windows Live Services. This means a user can download the group of Live services, and then choose which of them they want installed. This should certainly make things easier in the end. This also means that those applications could potentially get updated more frequently. To us, it’s a win-win situation.

Should Microsoft un-bundle applications from Windows to provide a cleaner, simpler operating system?

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

Vista’s Flip3D is one of the most notable features, and something you frequently see in demonstrations of the operating system. It presents a unique way to flip between your open applications, and for the longest time I didn’t think it would ever make me more productive. I was proven wrong when Logitech launched a new version of their SetPoint software that gave their mice a quick way to launch Flip3D without needing a keyboard shortcut.

I ran into a problem, however, when I was using my laptop’s Touchpad mouse which didn’t have such capabilities. It left me yearning for a way to launch Flip3D from my Touchpad so that I wouldn’t have to touch the keyboard, and after thinking about it for a minute I got an idea! Using AutoHotKey I could doing something similar to my middle-click Touchpad script.

Note: Vista is required for this to work. It is not a Flip3D clone or anything of that nature!

So what do you need to get it working? Download Mouse Flip3D and run it. There’s nothing to install, and the only indication of it running will be a Vista-like Orb in the System Tray. Anytime you press and hold the left mouse button, and then press the right mouse button you should see Flip3D come up:

If you want the program to start with Vista just copy it into your Startup folder, and you should be all set! Here are a few pointers on why this is great and how exactly the script works:

• One of the reasons that I never thought Flip3D was productive was because of how much time it takes to shuffle through all of the windows to find the one you want. With the mouse that is obsolete because you can click on any of the windows to bring it to the front! Go ahead and try it, and you’ll see just how fast it really is.
• If you decide that you still want to flip through the windows just use the scroll wheel on your mouse or Touchpad. Alternatively you can hit the Tab key to shuffle through the windows, and use Enter key to select the foremost application.
• You may not have realized it, but there are two different ways that you can launch Flip3D from the keyboard. The WinKey+Tab is the standard way that most people know about, but you can also launch it using Ctrl+WinKey+Tab. The difference between the two is that using the Control key makes Flip3D remain open until you click on one of the windows. That’s what we ended up using for the script. For the code junkies out there here is the entire AutoHotKey script for launching Flip3D with the mouse:
  

  ~LButton & RButton::send, {lwin down}{lctrl down}{tab}{lwin up}{lctrl up}

Some mouse gestures that you use, such as navigating forward in Opera, may not work because of the overlapping shortcut that is used for this script. Personally I’d rather have Flip3D at my finger tips than anything else, so I was willing to sacrifice that mouse shortcut.

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