Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 06, 2011 by CyberNet.

Windows only
I’ve tried all kinds of hard drive space analyzers because I hate having excessively large files laying around for no good reason. We’ve already written several articles on some of the programs out there that will help you crack down on large files and folders (including this long list of apps), but we’ve got another one to show off. An app I recently stumbled across called Xinorbis is one of the most powerful hard drive space reporting tools that I’ve come across.

What makes Xinorbis so special? It has a long list of ways to breakdown all of the file and folder size information. You can see that there is a summary page pictured above, but there are also layouts that will let you essentially navigate your system folder-by-folder drilling down until you find those large files eating up all your hard drive space. You can also get a list of duplicate files based on whether they have the same name or the same size.

Here’s are some of the other features:

• Analyze a single drive, folder, or merge several together in one report
• View the results by file type, attributes, size, user (owner) and date
• The Folder History feature allows you to compare the contents of a folder or drive at times and dates
• Built-in search engine with the ability to save results to a file or clipboard
• Find duplicate files by name or size
• Complex report generation with export to HTML, ASCII, CSV or XML
• Save reports and tables for later comparison or for inclusion in other documents
• Scan a directory through Windows Explorer

If you’ve been yearning for a hard drive analyzer that has a variety of reporting formats you should definitely try this one out. It also comes in a portable format for those of you that don’t want to go through an installation process.

Xinorbis Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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There’s been gnashing of teeth between Apple and Samsung in courts across the globe for a while now, but Australia’s temporary injunction against the sale of a Samsung tablet is a huge win for Apple, and could be very bad for the Android platform.

A court in Australia ruled today that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 cannot be sold in the country because it infringes on two patents held by Apple relating to multitouch. Because the patents are so broad, other Android device makers could find themselves mired in similar litigation, FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller said.

The two patents in question describe a “multipoint touchscreen” and a “touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics.” (Steve Jobs is listed as an inventor of the latter.) The preliminary injunction could have drastic effects for Samsung, leaving the tablet “commercially dead” in Australia and causing the company to miss out on lucrative holiday sales.

Samsung commented in a written statement, “We are disappointed with this ruling and Samsung will be seeking legal advice on its options.” Apple did not respond to a request for comment for Wired.com.

Apple began battling Samsung in court over design-related patents in April. In that lawsuit, Apple claimed that similarities between Samsung’s products and Apple’s iPhone and iPad were so similar it was “beyond the realm of coincidence.” Apple has continued to sue Samsung in courts across the world, including Germany, The Netherlands and Australia. The launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was initially delayed in Australia, but today’s injunction makes it even more likely that the tablet may never reach Australian consumers.

There are currently more than 20 lawsuits in litigation between Apple and Samsung.

Mueller stated in a blog post, “I believe no company in the industry may be able to launch any new Android-based touchscreen product in Australia anytime soon without incurring a high risk of another interim injunction.”

In previous rulings — for example, when Apple beat Samsung in a Netherlands’ court battle regarding a page-turning patent — Samsung was able to simply re-engineer a function and issue an update (often barely noticeable to the average smartphone user), and skirt the issue. But today’s ruling is different, because it concerns a patent for key, intrinsic, product-defining features.

“Today’s ruling is the broadest win that Apple has got so far,” Mueller said in an interview with Wired.com. There’s not much Samsung can do but countersue, and Mueller feels, “It’s really unimpressive what Samsung brings to the tablet against Apple.” Samsung has yet to score any wins against Apple.

Apple is already in litigation with three major Android device makers: Samsung, HTC and Motorola. Mueller believes Motorola could soon overtake Samsung as Apple’s main target, given Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

As for non-Android devices — such as Windows Phone, webOS and BlackBerry models — they don’t have as much to worry about.

“Apple is careful to exclude Windows Phone; they own far too many patents,” Mueller says. And as long as HP owns webOS, it may be in a stronger position than Google as far as patent challenges. And BlackBerry, well, it’s likely that Apple doesn’t feel threatened by RIM as it’s on the decline. It would be a far more efficient approach, Mueller says, to just erode RIM’s market via retail sales of iPhones and iPads.

Mueller says that unlike Microsoft, which uses its vast trove of patents as leverage to raise cash, Apple uses patents as they were originally intended: to create a monopoly. “Apple really seeks and optimizes its products for differentiation. Apple takes a more exclusionary approach to patent enforcement,” Mueller said. Microsoft, by comparison, has established licensing deals with a number of manufacturers in order to score a cut of retail sales revenue. The latest example is PC manufacturer Quanta, the ninth OEM to pay Microsoft royalties for Android products.

Android makers are especially susceptible to litigation because they are late entrants to the market, and don’t have licensing deals or extensive patent holdings in place yet.

This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has been very quiet on what to expect from Windows 7, and that’s to be expected after they over-promised on Vista thereby leading to a lot of disappointment. Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to keep things under wraps they still have a hard time dealing with leaks, and if rumors are right there’s yet another milestone right around the corner.

The person in charge of the Windows 7 development, Steven Sinofsky, decided that it was time to come forward. He did a very lengthy interview with CNet that talks a lot about nothing. There’s hardly any information regarding Windows 7, and this interview was primarily about how Microsoft intends to communicate during the development cycle. If you actually take the time to read through the interview you’ll notice that Sinofsky stressed the fact they he was not there to talk about Windows 7 features, and here are some quotes to that effect:

• “Well, why don’t we stick at a higher level today, because I think that I don’t want to really dive into the implementation details today.“
• “Again I don’t want to talk about any more specifics today, because we’re focused today on how we’re going to communicate things.“
• “Right now, today, we’re really focused on just making sure everybody understands how we’re going to talk about all of the things that we’re going to do in this next release of Windows“
• “I think we’ve talked enough about the direction that we’re heading with the specifics of the product today, since we really did want to focus a little bit more on just talking about how we’re communicating with partners and customers and the ecosystem at large.“

There are only a handful of things that are worthwhile in the interview:

• Microsoft is “committed to” delivering Windows 7 “about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista.” 2010 here we come!
• The driver model will work exactly the same as it does on Vista, which should help “not introduce additional compatibilities.“
• Windows 7 will be offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

The Windows Vista Blog also published an article to the same effect, letting people know that they still want to keep any details on Windows 7 as concealed as possible. Well, they didn’t say it like that, but that’s the impression you’ll walk away with.

This is all completely understandable actually, because it’s not like Apple pours out details as they roll in. Companies need to keep information like this from getting into the hands of their competitors, and Microsoft is no exception. But don’t worry, Microsoft still has plans to make pre-release copies of Windows 7 available just like they did with Vista.

Please, keep your excitement to a minimum.

Thanks to Omar for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on April 08, 2010 by CyberNet.

Windows only
Hard drive performance is something a lot of people never think twice about. What would your response be if you were asked what the read/write speed of your hard drive was?

You can get the answer to that question pretty easily. A free and portable utility called HD_Speed will test the transfer speed of a hard drive, CD/DVD drive, USB drive, memory card, and just about anything else that shows up as a drive letter on your PC. You can also have it measure either sustained or data burst rates.

The nice thing is that this app is simple, but still includes all of the features you really need. You can choose whether you want to test read, write, read/write, or read/write/verify speeds. You can also put in a specific duration that you want the test to run for, which makes it easier to get an accurate average speed.

It’s not a ground-breaking program, but it is easy to keep stored on a USB drive since it consists of a single 92KB executable. Go ahead and grab it if you’re wondering just how well one of your drives performs.

HD_Speed Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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You can unpack your suitcase and drop that custody suit, because Microsoft has heard your Windows 8 complaints, and it’s willing to change its ways. Yesterday, in a lengthy post on its Building Windows 8 blog, the company acknowledged that it’s received plenty of feedback since unleashing a developer preview of the OS last month, and pledged to respond with a number changes. For starters, apps displayed within the Windows 8 App Screen can now be organized into groups, rather than alphabetical arrangements (see image above). Apps will also be displayed at a higher density, thereby cramming more content within the same space. Enterprise users, meanwhile, will be able to customize their companies’ Start screens and unify them across networks, though there’s still no word on whether administrators will be able to opt out of the software’s tiled interface in favor of the more Windows 7-esque Desktop app — one of the most highly requested features. These are just two of many, relatively granular changes that Microsoft is implementing to help users maximize the efficiency of its new Start screen, and they likely won’t be the last. To dig into the nitty gritty, check out the full post, at the source link below.

Microsoft responds to disgruntled users, unveils changes to Windows 8 UI originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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