Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista
Turn off Sidebar:
Turning of the windows Sidebar helps with performance and reliability of Vista. Some people tell me it is nice to have that up. I say this, it’s using system resources and isn’t going to help you out when you’re running on a battery. Here is how you do this:
Control Panel>Classic View>Windows Sidebar Properties
Check your Power Plan when you are on battery:
Doing this will help you with your battery power. By making sure your got your CPU on power Saver when on battery power you will save battery life and will give you more time to use the laptop.
Control Panel>Classic View>Power Options
Change windows for Performance:
By changing Windows Aero to look like basic you can boost your battery life by not using any unneeded video acceleration. Doing this will save your battery and will give you 30 more minutes on your battery. It’s 4% to 5% battery increase but all this will make your battery last longer.
Control Panel>Classic View>Performance Information and Tools>Adjust Visual Effects
Disable Windows “Unused Icons” Balloon
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If you’re sick of Windows taskbar popup balloons prompting you about unused icons on your desktop, fear not—you can shut those down easily. The How To Geek explains that when you uncheck the “Run Desktop cleanup wizard every 60 days” box in your desktop items dialog, you’re good to go with one less irritating popup stealing your attention. Remember, using the free TweakUI you can disable all taskbar balloon popups indefinitely.
Disable Windows “Unused Icons” Balloon
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Skip Commercials in Windows Media Center with DVRMSToolbox
Windows only: Freeware application DVRMSToolbox analyzes Media Center-recorded files and marks the start and end point of commercials so you can quickly skip over commercials and go straight to the content. Similar to previously mentioned Lifextender in its commercial skipping capabilities, DVRMSToolbox keeps your files in tact and marks the commercials instead of deleting them entirely (like Lifextender does) so there’s less chance of an inadvertant cut. In addition, DVRMSToolbox can convert DVR-MS files (the default recording type of Media Center) to MPEG or WMV files for portability to other devices and other useful features. For a simple guide to getting started with DVRMSToolbox’s commercial detection, check out CyberNet’s introduction. This Media Center favorite is freeware, Windows only.
PSP 3.90 firmware update with Skype available
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Oh yes, Skype for your PSP-2000 (aka, PSP Slim & Lite) series is now a reality. At least outside of Japan. It’s only available via network update at the moment and adds expanded support for PLAYSTATION Network titles. You do have your $20 PSP Headset right? Good, so what are you waiting for punk, get outta here and let us know how it goes.[Via PSP Fanboy, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Via Engadget]
For those of you who have been waiting for this. I thought I’d give you this little update for people who would like to make skype calls on your PSP.
Save Ink, Paper, and Money with GreenPrint
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Windows only: Save money on ink and paper while helping the environment with GreenPrint World Edition. The freeware version of the otherwise shareware GreenPrint offerings, GreenPrint World Edition identifies and removes unnecessary pages or space—like images you don’t need to waste ink on or pages with lone URLs—from your print jobs. GreenPrint also keeps track of just how much money, paper, and greenhouse gases you’re saving by using it. The freeware world version includes most of the best features of its shareware siblings, so give it a try and start saving both white and green ($) paper today. GreenPrint is freeware, Windows only. For a closer look at how it works, check out their screencast.
Restore Your Data with Time Machine
Of course you know all about Time Machine’s marquee feature—the ability to browse your files back in time—but Blogger James Duncan Davidson details Time machine’s equally-excellent-in-its-simplicity feature: restoring an entire system after a hard drive crash. The process is painless. Simply boot from the Leopard install disc with a fresh hard drive in place of your crashed drive; instead of continuing with the install process, go to Utilities -> Restore System from Backup. Then select your backup source (your Time Machine drive), choose which backup you want to restore (most likely you’ll want the most recent), then pick the destination drive (your new drive). Then it’s simply a matter of kicking back and waiting for Time Machine to do its magic. When all’s said and done, your entire system (with a few small exceptions) should be back in the exact same state you left it. I’ve already done this a couple of times myself, and frankly, it feels good. The simplicity of Time Machine really does compel you.
One-Click Jailbreak for iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware
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Last week I detailed how to jailbreak your iPhone to the 1.1.3 firmware using Windows- or Mac-based applications and walking through a fairly long process. If that process was a bit too daunting for you, the Jailbreak Dev Team has released a one-click solution that you simply install through Installer.app. To use it, you need to have a jailbroken 1.1.2 iPhone (here’s how to do that), then it’s simply a matter of tapping the install package and waiting about 20 minutes for the entire process to complete. Before installing, make sure you’ve set your Auto-Lock feature to Never, are connected to a Wi-Fi network (it downloads a 200MB image), and you’ve got at least 300MB of free space on your iPhone. Finally, check to make sure you’ve got the latest version of Installer.app before proceeding.
I haven’t tried this method yet, but it should be scads easier than the previously posted method. As always, remember that things can go wrong, so proceed with caution. If anything does go wrong, check the panic section of this page to restore your phone to the 1.1.1 firmware and try again. As far as I know, this method will still require you to manually enable the Faux-GPS feature. Also, rumor has it that the current jailbreak method may mess with the upcoming third-party apps (though one would assume you could always downgrade and start fresh if you needed to)
Hulu Discusses Private Beta, Suggests Public Launch Time Frame
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I had the chance yesterday to sit down with Eric Feng, the CTO of Hulu, to discuss how things have gone during its private beta and where the service is heading in 2008. Here are some of the things I learned:
- Hulu currently has “several hundred thousand users” who have submitted “tens of thousands” of feedback messages.
- The public launch should come in the next couple of months, probably around the end of March.
- High definition video will be rolled out gradually over the coming year with more and more content; the company believes that 2008 will be a year when online video companies start focusing less on convenience and more on quality.
- Hulu has tripled its amount of content since private beta launch, with many episodes of shows going back to the first seasons, not just the last five that have aired on TV.
- Downloads might come in the long term, but they are not something that Hulu is focusing on currently.
- RSS feeds have been added so users can keep track of new content added to the site.
[Via TechCrunch]
First shots of Windows 7 leaked? And by 7, we mean Vista.
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There’s no telling how legitimate these shots might be, and it’s quite clear that these screens won’t be giving us any juicy details about Windows 7 anytime soon, but we couldn’t pass on images that purport to be the first from a super-secret test build of Windows 7 seeded to “key partners.” So, anything to see here? Not that we can tell, from the looks of things we’re looking at a copy of Vista with the name “Windows 7 Ultimate” tacked on, but there’s no telling what’s happening under the hood. We know we can’t wait to pay another few hundred dollars for a barely noticeable upgrade to Vista that will re-break all driver support, how about you?
[Via Microsoft will dump Vista for a new operating system. Any thoughts? It sure looks that way right now.
Add Multiple, Address-Specific HTML Signatures to New Gmail
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Firefox with Greasemonkey: If the upgrade to the new version of Gmail made you leave your HTML signatures behind, you’re in luck. The Gmail 2.0 Multiple HTML Signatures Greasemonkey user script (wow, that’s a mouthful) can associate rich text signatures to individual addresses in Gmail, and include them above the quoted text in replies. Unfortunately the user script requires that you edit its source to set up your sigs: once it’s installed, in Greasemonkey’s Manage Scripts dialog, hit the Edit button. In the area labeled “Setup/Configuration,” enter your email address(es), and your signature markup. Use the pre-filled examples to get started. Because this script requires hand source-editing, it’ll take some work to get it implemented in Better Gmail 2, but it’s on the roadmap. The Multiple HTML Signatures user script is a free download that works with Greasemonkey in Firefox.
Get Informative File Tooltips with InfoTag Magic
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Windows only: Freeware application InfoTag Magic adds useful file information to the Windows mouse hover tooltip to give you a better idea of what’s going on inside the file you’re looking at without requiring you to open it up to find out. As you can see in the screenshot, for example, InfoTag Magic displays an MP3’s metadata so that even if a song doesn’t have an informative filename, you can still get a preview of what’s inside. Likewise, InfoTag Magic will preview the first seven or so lines of a text file when you hover over it. Infotag Magic is freeware, Windows only.
The IE7 auto-rollout: fact and fiction
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News is spreading that on February 12, Internet Explorer 7 will be flagged for “automatic installation” through Windows update. Microsoft has published a knowledgebase article detailing the push, but there’s plenty of misinformation out there stemming from flawed understandings of what the article actually says. In short, the Windows world isn’t about to be forced to upgrade to IE7 (although with few exceptions, the Windows world probably should upgrade from IE6 to something else, be it IE7, Firefox, or Opera).What’s happening: come February 12, Microsoft will release IE7 as an “Update Rollup” to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). By treating IE7 as an “update roll-up,” the package can be pushed from Microsoft to WSUS without a WGA antipiracy check. This, you may recall, stems in part from a decision Microsoft made last year to treat IE7 more like a critical security update than an application update.
[Via Arstechnica]
I thought people would like to Know about the IE 7 Forced install. I know I’m having to prevent that in some systems in my company!!
Make Firefox more responsive!! (Tweak)
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Type about:config into the Firefox address bar, and then filter by the following:
content.switch.threshold
Most likely the key doesn’t exist yet, so you’ll have to set it by right-clicking in the empty area and selecting New \ Integer. Use these values when prompted:
- Key Name: content.switch.threshold
- Key Value: 1000000
The default value is 750000, or 3/4 of a second. The more time that you tell Firefox to wait before resuming high priority mode, the more responsive the application will feel… but it will obviously take a little longer to load the pages. You could reverse this if you were more worried about speeding up page load time.
[Via How-to-geek]
I’ve had trouble with Firefox with non-responsive webpages this might actually help. Thought people would like this little tip!!
Find Popular Google Reader Shared Items with ReadBurner
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Web site ReadBurner aggregates popular Google Reader Shared Items, turning Google Reader sharing into an action similar to bookmarking a page on Del.icio.us or voting for an article on Digg. Sure you can already share your favorite news items with friends, but by adding your shared items URL to ReadBurner, sharing feeds will also give that link some juice on ReadBurner—so it’s like a simple way to contribute to a social bookmarking service without really adding a step to your bookmarking. So far the site’s fairly young, but with enough users it really shows promise.
I saw this on Life Hacker and thought people would like to know about this little way to social bookmark on Google Reader!!
More Skype Spam
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[3:41:14 PM] Update ® says: WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
=============================ATTENTION ! Security Center has detected
malware on your computer !Affected Software:
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows Win98
Microsoft Windows Server 2003Impact of Vulnerability: Remote Code Execution / Virus Infection /
Unexpected shutdownsRecommendation: Users running vulnerable version should install a repair
utility immediatelyYour system IS affected, download the patch from the address below !
Failure to do so may result in severe computer malfunction.http://www.updatew.org/?q=scan
Now if you are me you do your research? It’s spam, they try to scare you into buying there little product and is really stupid!! It says I’ve got trojans and spyware but yet, It’s not ACTIVE X. I’m thinking its Java look a like!! If you get something from skype like this just disregard it. If it’s an update from Microsoft it comes from the update microsoft screen not from skype!!
If you would like to protect yourself without going to that site try my list of programs to help protect your computer better and they are all free:
Some Important Programs to Prevent Youself from having Viruses!!
Time Warner Bills for Bandwidth in Texas
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This is one of those things that will effect us all. I am worried that the low-income families who need internet access will not be able to afford to pay for this type of bandwidth. Let’s look at the article and see:
The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman.
What only 5 percent most people now a days are watching HULU and stuff that is IPTV like AppleTV and Itunes, even NetFlix Downloads(Which can be a big file download). That alone is more than 5 percent. More like 50 to 60 percent and will impact a lot of families. It is cheaper and faster and more reliable to do this then to watch it on Cable. I think Time Warner is definitely worried, I know I am. I would have to be charged to watch all my favorite TV Shows on the net. I think Time Warner should go IPTV and get it over with!! let’s continue with this:
Spammer sues Anti-Spammer and Wins!!
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Anti-spam activists often need to do quite a bit of hunting to track down the real identity of various spammers. Over the years, spammers have become increasingly adept at hiding from those trying to shine light on their activities. However, when one well-known anti-spammer used some standard whois and DNS lookup tools (the same kind many of us use every day) to find out the identity of a spammer, the spammer sued him… and won! The anti-spammer has to pay over $60,000 in fines, and possibly much more once lawyers’ fees are added up. The judge ruled that some rather basic tools suddenly constituted “hacking” even though the details don’t suggest any actual hacking. The anti-spammer simply used the tools available to get the information necessary. He didn’t need to break through any security or do anything malicious to get the info. If you read the ruling, it sounds like a judge could define plenty of perfectly normal online activities as “hacking.” Update: There’s a good discussion in the comments, suggesting that there’s a lot more going on here than is clear from the article itself. The judge’s finding of facts suggest that the anti-spammer did some questionable things, including lying and ignoring an injunction — which certainly hurt his case. However, others are suggesting that the judge’s finding of facts are incorrect and there’s much more to this story that will come out on appeal.
[Via TechDirt]
Blogger as an OpenId provider
Comments OffEffective immediately, Blogger users are able to use their blogs URL as an OpenID login, after toggling the option via the draft.blogger.com admin menu. Google’s baby steps follow the announcement last week that over 250 million Yahoo users would be able to use their Yahoo logins as OpenID. Reports have put users of Blogger at somewhere between 10 million and 50 million, although the service is renowned as a haven for spam so how many legitimate bloggers will take up this service is unclear. It also isn’t being provided as yet via the regular Blogger quite yet, only via the Blogger in Draft service (although this is available to those who wish to use it), however this is the regular first step for new features in Blogger so it could be expected to become a standard option sometime later this year.
[Via TechCrunch]
I’m testing out the comment system with openID. I’d like to know what people think about it and should it stay or go? These are the questions that I’ve got, let me know what you think.
What will XBOX Live do now?
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After a long and hard last few weeks with XBOX Live being up and down. There has been a class action lawsuit file against them.
Lawsuit Accuses Microsoft of breach of contract, breach of warranty, and negligent misrepresentation for not better warning subscribers that the service could suffer the kind of outages. These outages have been going on for quite some time. A few weeks in fact.
Earlier this week Major Nelson who is working in Xbox and has a podcast stated that “the pending outcome of the lawsuit means no more updates can be given to the users and paying customers. The progress of the repair is forcing Microsoft to be quite about it.” The podcast that Major Nelson talks about this is:
Does that mean Mommy is keep the child quite over this? I think so. I think Microsoft should be made to talk about this. This is customer rights and information and we have the right no know what is going on. We after all are paying for the service if your a Gold Member? Silver well you aren’t paying for the service so you really don’t have any rights. I think the government should step in and make them tell the truth. They have an obligation to the public whether they like it or not. Please leave comments on what you think!
What Steve Jobs talked about on the Keynote!
As you can see there is something in the air. That’s the Macbook Air. It’s really small, Might be interesting to play around with it. Any thoughts people?
This is the Time Capsule, a Network Attached Storage Device. It will come with 500Gb to 1 Terabyte Hard drive. It’s also going to be able to be wireless. 802.11 B, G, And the New N series.
Apple talks about Renting Movies instead of buying them straight off. The Prices for movies are 2.99$ (old movies), 3.99$ (New movies) and 4.99$ (HD Movies). Some of the rules are “You can keep the movie on your system for 30 days, once you start viewing the moving you have 1 day to watch the movie.”
There are some other things Steve Jobs talked about these were the picks that I thought were the most important. I really think Steve did a good job keeping a lid on some of this news and can’t wait to see the movies on itunes. That’s the next place I’m going!! Enjoy
I will talk about what Steve Jobs talks about this afternoon
Comments OffDue to the fact that I’ve got to work. It’s a shame I know. I will be checking what people are talking about with the keynote and making my own thoughts clear on what he said this afternoon. so check in later for all the details!! I am sure it will be big whatever Jobs talks about.
Netflix Online Video Becomes All-You-Eat Tomorrow; Can It Compete With iTunes Video Rentals?
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We had heard that unlimited online viewing had been granted to select Netflix subscribers last month, and suspected it’d get a full rollout soon. Well, soon is tomorrow—as the AP notes, a day before MacWorld, where Apple is expected to unveil its video rental-killer rendition of iTunes.
The only people who aren’t getting cut in to the infinite viewing parade are the cheapos who only rent a pair of DVDs a month for $5. Whether or not turning the stream access into a smorgasbord is enough to fend off the looming iTunes threat is doubtful—Mac-compatibility would be a nice little shot to the balls, though—but it’s not like Netflix is totally without a battle plan for the infinite format war. [SF Gate/AP]
[Via Gizmodo]
Now get your Netflix accounts now. You will never be without a movie. I hope to see everyone buying a subscription to them. I thought I’d share my view on the whole matter!!
Is HD Players Really Dead?
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Now in an article I read Blue Ray Takes the Lead by a blog called ITola. I was reading this and had to ask myself some questions and try to figure out some answers.
Is HD Players really Dead?
My Answer is : “NO”
I don’t say that lightly for several reasons. Recently today Arstechnica states that Universal and Paramount haven’t changed there stance on switching to Blu-Ray. Now why is that a big deal, it just proves that there is something that Blu-Ray Founders don’t know . Here’s what I know, having thought about this for several days. If cable companies start offering Blu-ray HD movies in there service that is some major bandwitdth. Even though HD DVDS are 15 GB and Blu-ray DVD’s are 20 GB, Blu-ray Movies would take some time to download or stream it. Blu-ray would have to compresse the file into small pieces to even view the movie. Although HD movies are a little smaller they require less bandwitdth and in doing so are faster and easier to watch on 
Hulu and other sites like that. They have a HD Gallery that is really nice to watch on my intel and seems to work really well for an example of the HD Horton Hears a Who! – Trailer to see what I mean by the HD. I love how they stream it without much of a problem. Now if that was going to be a Blu-Ray HD movie it would be crazy to try to stream it. I think HD will not die, it will however change if needed into a way to stream really good video and movies on the internet. I think we haven’t seen the HD and Blu-ray Wars going way soon. It will continue without much help from anyone. The way I see it, the world will always change and go about it’s business. I know there is always going to be a choice and I hope to see this type of competition more often with players.
Can You Run it — I can!!
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So you want to be able to play a game? You don’t know if your current system can play the game? Well this little website Can You Run it has the ability to show you in details of what does and what doesn’t work. It will recommend software or hardware that can be upgraded to allow you to play your game. It allows you to see where you can improve or where you Can Run it!! I’ve always have a question of what will run and what won’t. With this website, I know what will run and what won’t on my current system. If I need to upgrade, I know what needs to be upgraded and what will work. I have this site bookmarked for just that. If I have an inclination of wanting to buy a game. This is the first place I go for just that. I don’t want to buy a game a have to upgrade the whole system just to play a 40$ game. I also like to know when my system is too old for current games.
CES-TPN-2008-01-09-POD CES 2008 Day 4 Pick of the Day
Comments OffIt’s the last days of CES and they have there final picks of the day 4 for CES 2008:
Some of the Picks of the Day are:
Dash Express
Life-Ware Media Experience
PhotoSimile 5000
Deluo MouseGPS
HD Radio
Use Skype It’s free!!!
Comments OffHi all,
Just joined the affiliate program for skype and would like to let you know. Every so often on the bottom of the feed there will be a changed advertisement. I am looking into making it change from each time you click a different feed but I’ll have to look into that!! Have a good day.
CES-TPN-2008-01-09-POD CES 2008 Day 3 Pick of the Day
Comments OffDay Three coverage comes to you from the Zune Section of the Microsoft booth. Big thanks to the Zune team for letting us film this in a section of their booth. Check out the podcast suport on the Zune.
MyDreamFlyer.com
Plantronic Virtual Phone Booth
Asoka Power Line PlugLink AV 9164
My Theater Acoustic Panels
i-sobot
Sanyo HD 1000 HDMI Camera
CES-TPN-2008-01-09_02 Wednesday Plan for CES
Comments OffThe morning breakfast planning discussion was about one third planning and two thirds philosophy. Todd and I are pretty open in discussion on lessons learned in covering this CES, and the need for flexibility as the technology and coverage plan changes in realtime. Todd and Andy talk about how difficult it is to actaully send off these videos and editing them!! Thanks Todd and Andy, I hope today you get some great sleep. I can’t wait to see what they put up on the website when they get home!! 
Here’s what Andy is talking about hitting the wall on the back channel:
CES-TPN-2008-01-09_06 Panasonic Talent on the Main LVCC
Comments OffPanasonic and HD TV’s did a show at CES 2008 about the the HD Experience. I love the video and the performance by some of the Talented people who did a great show. Thanks Andy McCaskey and Todd for this little video.
