Drop your bags, grab a drink, and grab the XP CD—it’s time for the holiday ritual of fixing up your relatives’ computer. Here are some tips and downloads to keep handy while you’re cursing all the auto-starting crapware.
For this guide, we’re going to do a bit of assuming. We’re assuming the relative with the busted computer is running a Windows system, and has an internet connection that works when the computer does. We’re assuming all the physical pieces of the computer work—hard drive, memory, disc drives, and anything else that’s crucial. We’ll also assume the computer’s in one of two states: Failing to boot and needing an OS re-installation, laden with unnecessary system tray/startup applications and/or spy/mal/ad-ware, or just needing a little optimization.

Read the reset at Lifehacker

There’s not much news to tell (at least not much in the way of positive news lately), so I thought I’d mention a couple of neat websites I’ve come across recently. The first one is Wordle. Essentially, it takes a piece of writing and creates an interesting combination of the words. Words used more frequently are supposed to be larger. This image was from this blog’s RSS feed. You can adjust the colors, the fonts, and the design. Recently, our Career Services department used this with students’ resumes to see what key words they were emphasizing. -A neat use, I think.

The other site I found via Lifehacker is Shape Collage. It takes your photos and creates interesting collages into any shape you want. (You can even create your own shapes by using a “draw” function.) The only drawback I see is that it doesn’t allow you to move the pictures around manually. If you want to do that, I think Google’s Picasa is still the way to go. If that’s not a concern for you, the sky is the limit on how you can shape your collages. Here is a link to the video posted on the site which gives you a good overview of its capabilities. And here is a quick one I put together with some recent pictures of my niece.  In addition to using this online, you can also download an application to your computer.

Both of the sites are free and very user-friendly. Have fun!

Since last post nothing too new has really moved forward in the Lightly Salted Film and Design world. We have established ourselves as an LLC or at least the paper work is moving along. The domain name Lightly Salted Films has been reserved as a domain which is a good thing. I never realized how many variations of light and salt one could have but there are definitely a lot.

In other news I hope to start working for a sports temp agency of sorts. I word it this way because the way the company works is you say hey I would love to do some sports broadcast and they hire you out to respective sporting events. So I could have a possibility of working with FSN, ESPN, METRO and other sports broadcasting company’s all as freelance. So that will be exciting I think. Or at least it will be nice to get back into shooting/working in sports again.  I don’t have any solid dates on this prospect yet but I hopeful it will develop into something.

On to some slightly unrelated news I have decided on my next DIY project. Nothing earth shattering I’m pretty excited about it. My plan is to build an editing station for myself. Its going to be a L shaped desk with one side being about 64 inches of lacquered particle board for the computer to sit on and the other side 53 inches, will be a multi-purpose work station with a painted chalk board and hopefully a built in cutting board station for cutting print items.  My goal is to build something large enough to work with and grow with but also have great functionality and clean on top and under i.e. hiding the cables. I’m going the way of the work spaces I have seen on Lifehacker and constructing a home gutter that will house all my cables, I have already drawn up various drop points on the desk for the cable to land on. My only dilemma so far is figuring out how I can get my back up power supply to work into all of this. But I’m hoping that once I start going to will come together. And while it is the holiday season and funds are stretched I’m hoping to start to pick up supplies over the next couple weeks and starting building…pics and updates to follow the adventure as well!

I believe that is all for now. As I said before I hope to update this at least once a week with something exciting either business related, DIY, music or film. So stay tuned!

Until next time.

NOTE: The banner at the top of the page of the books I can’t take credit for. For a reason unknown to me wordpress is not allowing me to post my previous picture of the sun in the trees.

Today’s discovery: the 40/30/30 rule, courtesy of lifehacker.com

“when you prepare for anything in life, only 40% of the preparation is physical….Thirty percent of preparation is technical skill and experience, and the second thirty percent is the willingness to take risks.” (Trent Hamm)

30 percent is taking risks? Wow! I would have rated it much less, about 10%, which is probably why I am sitting on my couch in an old t-shirt on a Friday night.

60% of success is mental, according to this percentage breakdown. That sits better with me than the claims of New Thought people a la The Secret that success is a matter of positive thoughts. I agree that mental attitude is important, but it is not the whole banana. 60/40 sounds a bit closer to reality.

At the 99percent blog (hey, that sounds like my blog, doesn’t it?), Michael Schwalbe writes: “Ultimately, it’s the ones who barrel through the discomfort, are resilient in the face of failure, and master the last 30% of taking risk who reach the highest levels of performance.”

Some really holy saints were risk takers. I am thinking of Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, Gandhi and my recent love, St Francis. They were resilient, persistent and willing to put up with a fair amount of the world’s bullshit in order to succeed in their Divine calling.

It seems crass to apply measurement to spiritual success. The epistles talk about running a race and keeping the faith. Certainly, it’s a risk even to place oneself in the contest!

Long, I suspected comfort zones created interior stalemate, and now there is some proof. I will try taking more risks when I work on my nanowrimo tonight, although I might start with 5% more risk, rather than 30%….

Windows: Gaming is fun. Organizing your all you personal video games isn’t. Sisimizi takes the hassle out of managing your collection so you can get back to raiding villages and killing zombies.

Sisimizi Game Catalog is a free, open-source database application that supports classic and recent video game consoles. It retrieves game info from the internet, imports from other databases or formats, and even keeps track of games you’ve loaned out to friends. Sisimizi groups games by platform, year, or genre, and you can even tote it around on a thumb drive or USB stick.

Do apps like this help you manage your towering piles of video games or do you have a better method for keeping track of them all? Share your ideas in the comments. Sisimizi is a free download for Windows systems only.

Sisimizi

Sisimizi Organizes Your Game Catalog [Downloads]
Lisa Hoover
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Heheh, I love that quote from ‘Network’

For those just waking up to this, for social archaelogists, economists and anyone interested in the virtual communities models, please take note, a revolution is occurring right now in Second Life and it is saying, NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION !!

Here’s the link to the Fiasco that broke the camel’s back: https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/4902

The basic problem that started this is that Linden Lab has announced a fundamental change to their XSTREETSL website which allows users to buy in-world merchandise via website and have the item delivered in world. Apparently now they intend to charge a fee to list an item of 10L (L being a Linden, the unit of in-world currency) and also take a commission on each sale ( they presently take just the commission). And if you want to list something to give away for free, well it’ll cost you 99L to do so and a 3L sale fee on the back end.

The bigger picture however is that Linden Lab said they did this in response to and in consultation with the residents of second life at three office hour meetings in world. The problem is out of the 85,000 regular users and millions of logged residents, curiously no one that we can find actually received an invite to discuss the matter.

Further research has found that only 20 Residents were present at the meeting(s) in question and only four lines of that conversation in those three meetings mentioned the new policy. There was no blanket announcement or email advising this matter was going to be brought up for discussion and this is the latest in a line of decisions made by Linden Lab with the supposed support of Residents, when in fact only a vocal minority happening upon it were even cursorily mentioned this latest change was coming.

So the Residents are finally standing up with one voice and declaring their rights and expectations of Linden Lab. The demands are simple. We want to be treated fairly. We want Linden Labs to stop the shady dealings and be up front on all matters concerning major changes to the way the virtual world of Second Life works and most importantly, the Residents demand an actual voice that is listened to, not just a token one anymore.

So far a large percentage of residents have closed out their accounts on XSTREETSL and divested their earnings from that site and are moving to other virtual sales sites and the damage to Linden Labs (the owners/creators of Second Life) is deafening.

We, at Lourdes Laysan, support the efforts of our brave brothers and sisters in standing up to Linden Lab despite Linden Lab having the ability and the right (in their Terms of Service) to erase user accounts for any reason.

Its high time that those who run Virtual Worlds realize that when they create a world, they have a responsibility to govern WITH representation of the people who inhabit their worlds, or they will be doomed to lose that world.

Viva La Revolution!

I have been having a “deja vue all over again” experience. It is the experience of hearing people say “gee, now that I am on Google Wave, what do I do with it?” The hype has been focused on Wave’s deployment as a killer collaborative tool. But how exactly do you get-to-done with it?

I haven’t yet been able to scare up a real project on Wave affording an opportunity to really put its collaborative forces into play. But I swear by its potential. And now I can point Studio readers to an excellent “how to” guide by a true Google Guru, Gina Trapani of Lifehacker, discussing how to manage a group project in Wave.

Gina’s post focuses on her ongoing project – writing a book aptly named “The Complete Guide to Google Wave.” While the book isn’t being written in Wave, it is being managed in Wave. She lists various tricks and tools she and her co-author employed, including shared tags and saved searches, how to reply to a blip below or in-line with it, or how to edit the blip, how to mark a reply private, how to playback a wave, and a list of helpful gadgets and bots (those crazy add-ons that make Waves exciting with multi-media goodness).

Gina also points out that adding Google Gears to your set-up isn’t necessary but helpful for securing more complete functinality. Installing Gears and a developers’ version of Chrome were the first tasks I undertook following my invitation to Wave and I do recommend it for new (and existing) Wavers. 

If you are like me and haven’t yet been able to put Wave through its paces for a real, honest-to-goodness task, check out the Lifehacker post to cull some tips and tricks secondhand. And if you are on Wave already, feel free to add me to your conversations – I would love to chat – I’m startoestudio@googlewave.com.

My comment on a Lifehacker poll. Would you pay for online content? Or do you already pay for it?

I went completely digital back in 2005. I have spent over $20,000 on CDs, DVDs, and vinyls― I was a hard techno/minimal techno DJ. I no longer pay for cable, nor video rentals, nor would I pay for any kind of content anymore. I don’t have a TV, only a big computer screen. Like the hacker mantra, information is supposed to be free. It’s up to the companies to find new ways of leveraging their readers. Usually, when I hit a pay wall, I stop clicking on articles to that source, the WSJ is among them. I signed up for the NYT as it’s one of the best papers and I really like the online version, though I don’t pay for it.

★

What do I pay for? Books. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on books. Books are great. I love them. I always have one on me and read in the lost moments of the day. I’ve never liked ebooks and don’t plan on getting an ebook reader anytime soon. The technology is too new and riddled with faults. I also rarely go to the movies. In fact, I’ve probably stopped going altogether. I used to go almost every week a few years ago. I used to spend a lot of money on DVD rentals. I don’t anymore.

Back in 2005, I was paying between $50-400 a month on my cell phone bill. It’s because I worked in finance and needed to talk to clients and employees. Right now, I spend about $30 a year on my cell phone. I bought a SonyEricsson Cyber-Shot K810i in 2007. I rarely get any calls, and it’s usually to do with work.

Windows/Mac/Linux: Adobe is offering up a "prerelease" of its inescapable Flash software, adding in GPU acceleration for H.264 video in Windows, multi-touch support, and bug fixes. Anyone with Adobe AIR apps can also grab a 2.0 prerelease of that platform.

Yes, you read right—only Windows gets the graphics-card-powered HD acceleration for now. Even though that matches up nicely with YouTube’s expected 1080p HD roll-out, it’s a shame that Mac and Linux users get left out in the wilds of jerky video. All platforms get support for multi-touch, however, and tweaks that presumably make Flash a tad bit less of a resource hog.

Adobe AIR 2.0 beta, meanwhile, adds in a whole bunch of native computer functionality, including USB access, better networking compatibility, the ability to open a link or file with its native application (making awkward TweetDeck hacks less necessary), and a faster native WebKit browser, among other improvements.

Both Flash 10.1 prerelease and AIR 2.0 beta are free downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Tell us what you’re seeing improved, or broken, by the new releases in the comments.

Flash Player 10.1 [Adobe Labs]
Adobe AIR 2 [Adobe Labs, both via TechCrunch]

Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta Brings Hardware Acceleration to Web Videos [Downloads]
Kevin Purdy
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:30:00 GMT

There are many options to backup files online. Lifehacker has listed the best tools for online backup here. All these options have a monthly fee for the storage they are providing but what if you already have space online that you are paying for? You may be hosting a blog or website and more than likely you have lots of space available.

Most of the webhosts nowadays offer unlimited storage or generous storage capacity as part of their plans. So, why not use that storage space also for your online backups? For e.g. Dreamhost is running campaigns for Unlimited Disk space and Band width!

Current promo from Dreamhost: One-year hosting plan using the promotional code “777″ and you’ll get an entire year of web hosting (including a domain registration) for just $9.24!

Even if you do not have unlimited storage plans, most of the web hosting plans have more storage than you need. Even the starter program from 1&1 , the 1&1 Beginner provides 10 GB free space for  $ 3.99 per month. If you are like me and are not using all of the storage available, you can use the rest for backing up your precious data.

So how do we go about using this online space for our backup needs?

We will use Areca-Backup, an open-source, easy to use and reliable backup solution for Windows and Linux. This software has an option to use FTP/FTPs which we will leverage to backup files to our online location.

1) Go over to Areca-Backup and download the version for your operating system and install the same.

2) Access the web space provided by your web host over FTP or web panel. Create a new Directory (say Backup) to place your backup files.

3) On you local PC, create a directory for Areca software. (Like C:Areca on Windows). We will use this directory to store the configuration of your backups (what files to backup, where to store them, which files types must be filtered, whether the backups are compressed or encrypted, and so on). This “configuration directory” is called a “workspace”.

4) Run the Areca Software. Go to the “Workspace” menu, choose “Open Workspace” and select the directory we made in step 3 (Eg. C:Areca)

5) Go to the “Edit” menu and select “New Group”. Areca allows you to group your configurations so they will be easier to manage. For eg. you can create a first configuration that backups your MP3 without compression, and another one that backups your documents with compression and encryption.

6) A new window will appear, asking for a group name and description. Enter “Online Backup” as group name and a description. Click the “Save” button.

7) Now select “Online Backup” on the left pane, go to the “Edit” menu, and select “New Target” item. The backup configurations are saved in this “target” in Areca.

8.) Enter “Online Backup Target” as target name, and select “FTP/FTPs repository”.  Click on Select. Enter the FTP details for your webhost and click Save.

9) Keep all other fields unchanged and go to the “Sources” tab. This tab allows you to select the directories you want to backup. Click the “Add” Button, and select a directory (for instance : “/home/olivier/Photos”). Click on the “Save” Button. “/home/olivier/Photos” appears in the “sources” list. Add as many source directories as you want, and go to the “Compression” tab.

10) This window allows you to select whether your archive will be compressed or not (and how it will be compressed). In our case, we just want to create standard zip files, so keep the default settings, and simply check the “add .zip extension to filenames” checkbox.

11) You can add Encryption, filters, pre- processing and post processing within this Target. Post processing may be useful to send yourself an email after the backup is completed. Check Areca tutorial for more details. Once you’re done, hit the “Save” button. That’s it ! You’ve created your target for Online Backup !

13) Once your target has been created, you can run it as frequently as you want. Just select your target in the left side of the main window. Right click and and hit the “Backup” item in the menu that appears. A new window appears and asks some (optional) information about the backup that will be performed. Once you’re done, hit the “Start Backup” button : the window closes and a progress bar appears in the main window.

14) Once the backup is completed, your new archive appears in the “Archives” tab  which is your first Online Backup. You can also FTP to your webspace to see the files backed up.

15) You can now recover the  files by going to the “logical view” and selecting the file, right click and say “Recover” or “View”.

There you have it! Your files are now stored online and can be recovered when required using many options available with Areca. Have questions, leave them in the comments.

There has been a lull in my painting life after the excitement of the Colombo Art Biennale which took place in early September.  Most of the time has been spent moving in to our new home, settling things in and then in the midst of it all a 3 week break!    Got back earlier this month raring to go.  There’s still a bit of clearing to do before the Studio can be considered to be ready.

A while ago I had applied to Gawker Artists and was delighted to hear from them yesterday that they’d accepted my entry and listed me on their site.

Gawker Artists is a curated online art community and exhibition program promoting the works of artists of all media. Participating artists receive profile pages on Gawker Artists and are eligible to have their works published in the ad space on Gawker Media titles and included in Gawker Artist sponsored exhibitions. All participation for artists and exhibitors is free.

Currently there are 1,108 artists listed by them and there’s a form for submitting your art if you are interested.  Gawker Artists is a part of Gawker Media.  And Lifehacker and Gizmodo, both sites that I’ve been following for a while now, belong to the group.

Last week I saw on post on Lifehacker about people with Google Wave invites offering them for free to anyone in the comments section of that article.

I thought, “cool, I can finally/maybe get me an invite to start waving”, so I tried to leave a comment in the way that I had done in the past, using my Facebook login. I should have read more carefully, seems lifehacker (and presumably opther Gawker sites) have a custom made comments thing, where you have to sign up and be approved for your comments to be shown.

Well that’s fair enough, everyone hates comment spam, and idiots trying to start flame wars. So I signed up last weekend, and I left a few comments over the next few days.

I was on there today, read an article I thought I could comment on and went to do it. I was told to login and I would be redirected. I wasn’t redirected and I was already logged in, I clicked to check my account and noticed “Comments are not enabled for this account.” across the top of my info. Hmmm that’s odd, when I went back to the front page, I noticed a message was waiting for me, i opened it only to read that I had been banned!

Why I was banned I don’t know, obviously trying to add a legitimate comment goes against their rules? I didn’t say anything inflammatory or rude, and really wasn’t offending anyone, so why the ban?

Anyway, I have contacted them through the form on their accounts page, but I don’t hold out much hope for it, I’m not some celebrity or something, not even on wordpress.com

It’s a shame as Lifehacker is actually one of my favourite sites, I just won’t be leaving comments there anytime soon.

In a post from Lifehacker, stress is relieved in a myriad of fashion.  Listening to music was #1 for the 2nd year in a row, closely followed by….exercise.

Does this really surprise anyone?  According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise benefits you in the following ways:

1. Exercise improves your mood
2. Exercise combats chronic disease
3. Exercise helps you manage your weight
4. Exercise boosts your energy levels
5. Exercise promotes better sleep
6. Exercise can put the spark back in your sex life
7. Exercise can be – gasp – fun!

I’d be the first to admit I don’t always have enough helium in my balloon, but it’s nice to know that medical experts at an internationally recognized healthcare facility back up what I’ve known for years.  Exercise not only relieves stress, but it improves your quality of life.

If you are in need of a push to get off the couch, look no further than here.  In this economy, we all need something to relieve stress.  Not only does exercise get you in better shape, but you end up feeling pretty damn good about yourself.  If time is a factor or gym memberships scare you away, click here for some great ideas on how you can get going in the privacy of your own home.

Oh, by the way – the 8th Benefit to Exercise (according to Moi) – you can listen to music while you exercise.  Talk about multi-tasking!

You should never confuse your batteries. Here’s an easy way to keep them apart in your head: Lithium Ion batteries explode, Nickel Cadmium destroys the environment, and Lead Acid batteries are more corrosive than the Alien Queen’s blood (plus, they contain lead). You can eat Lithium Ferro Phosphate batteries.

http://gizmodo.com/5398271/10-terrible-tips-for-longer-battery-life?skyline=true&s=x

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1, like every other browser, makes a claim to being "faster." We took Firefox and all the other latest browsers, put them on Windows 7, and ran them through our human-measured speed tests to vet the bragging.

We’ve done a good number of these tests now, and the methodology remains much the same here—testing how long it takes for browsers to start up and load pages, and how much memory is eaten up, from a user’s perspective. We don’t use a fancy multi-protocol benchmarking suite, mostly because each suite is subjective to a developers’ preferences and recording errors.

Browser start-ups are measured from double-clicking to the load of a locally saved Google home page, as "cold," or right after reboot and "warm," with the browser already having run once. Each browser is given a folder full of nine sites—up from eight in previous tests—and forced to load them all at once. Those timings are measured with Rob Keir’s timer app, and done three times each and averaged, with way-out results discarded under the assumption of general computer wonkiness.

JavaScript testing comes from Mozilla’s Dromaeo suite, which itself incorporates Google’s V8 testing suite, Apple’s SunSpider, and a handful of indpendent JavaScript tests. We initially only ran the JavaScript tests in this initial round, but Chrome’s just-released Chrome beta makes a point of its prowess with DOM scripting, or the ability to use jQuery and other web scripting to alter page elements on the fly. We’ll try to add in DOM test scores later on today.

The memory results come from Windows own Task Manager. In the case of browsers that use multiple processes, a screenshot is taken of the processes screen after the browser "settles," and a sum is added up there. In Chrome’s case, we used the about:memory report, as Chrome/Chromium reports its memory a bit differently. The memory used by the about:memory tab itself is subtracted from the total reported memory.

Finally, these tests were done on a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p, with 2GB of RAM and a 2.0 GHz Centrino Duo processor. For the first time since we started these tests, they were also performed on a fully updated, freshly installed final edition of Windows 7 Home Premium, rather than a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional. If you wanted to see how these browsers fared on Windows 7 versus XP, our last batch of speed tests compiled aggregate results for all browsers, with the same exact tests, minus the specific Chrome memory measurements.

Enough with the rules and regulations—here’s how the browsers fared in our latest round of slightly obsessive-compulsive ratings. Note: Click any of the images below for a much bigger, clearer view.

Boot-up and page loading—Winner: Google Chrome (Development/Beta)!

In our last go-round, Opera’s final 10th edition was just on the edge of beating Chrome’s "stable" 2.0 release at cold and warm start-up times, while Firefox 3.5 tried its gosh-darn best. Either Chrome’s development version made some huge changes between 4.0.203 and 4.0.223, or adapted better to Windows 7, or Chrome 2 bulked up a bit, because Chrome Dev consistently started up faster than its stable brethren. Meanwhile, Firefox 3.6 beta 1 bore out its claims to boosting start-up times, being nearly neck-and-neck with Chrome’s stable edition, and Opera continues to be an impressively snappy browser.

When it came to loading nine tabs at once—all the browsers’ home pages, plus Google.com, YouTube, Lifehacker, and Gizmodo—Firefox 3.6 beta 1 continue to almost line up with Chrome’s stable release, while Chrome development took the prize. As with our last tests, Internet Explorer 8 was surprisingly quicker at multi-page loading than Safari 4 or Opera, and, truth be told, faster than Firefox 3.5 and nearly on-par with Firefox 3.6 or Chrome 2. It’s installed and semi-running from start-up, so you might think it has an inherent advantage in the newest Windows release—but, then again, look at how long it takes to start up.

JavaScript—Winner: Google Chrome! (For Now)

As mentioned above, we’re planning to implement DOM/query-based testing into this test to give a fuller picture of how browsers manipulate code and move page elements around on the fly. On a straight-up test of JavaScript prowess on Mozilla’s testing suite, though, both of Chrome’s versions seem far ahead, Safari earns a sure second place, and the rest are fairly matched (Internet Explorer 8 refuses to finish on Dromaeo, so we left it out of this chart).

We’ll note here, as many browser developers have, that pure JavaScript speed tests can be considered akin to horsepower engine tests—they don’t tell you everything about performance, and might be adjusted for by browser’s JavaScript engines.

Memory use—Winner: Firefox 3.6 beta 1

Firefox 3.6 beta 1 continues Mozilla’s mission of reigning in memory use, both at start-up and with content loaded, with even slimmer returns than 3.5. Opera 10.01 was a little slimmer than Safari this time around on Windows 7, and Chrome, measure with its own memory counter, still takes a fairly hefty commitment to pull off that speed. Then again, if you’re rocking a laptop with 4GB memory, that might not matter so much.

Grading the results

We’re going to try something a little new here, assigning a number grade to each browser’s performance in the various categories. They’ll be based on the raw numbers, but the ranking assigned to them is our own doing.

Given seven browsers competing in each test, we’ll rank each browser’s performance on a scale of 1 to 7, 7 being the best performance, 1 a marked worst, and awarding a tie when the results are close enough to be affected by one editor’s timing reflexes. After totaling up the point scores, and divide by the total number of points available. Here’s how they fared in each test, to our eyes:

Scores (out of 28 possible)

• Google Chrome 4.0.223.11: 23
• Firefox 3.6 beta 1: 21
• Google Chrome 2 (stable): 19
• Firefox 3.5.4: 17
• Safari 4.03: 17
• Opera 10.01: 16
• Internet Explorer 8.0.7600: 13

---

Conclusive, scientific results? Not so much. That said, we’re glad to see measurable improvement in Firefox 3.6 beta 1, and we’re always eager to see what Opera, Chrome, and Safari have been building into their latest releases. Internet Explorer, hey, you just keep keepin’ on, yeah?

Browser Speed Tests: The Windows 7 Results [Performance Tests]
Kevin Purdy
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The latest Firefox beta integrates much more fully into Windows 7, adding support for Aero Peek-enabled tabs, an enhanced Ctrl+Tab, and more. We’ll show you how they work, and how to enable or disable them.

The Aero Peek Tabs

If you simply hover your mouse over the Firefox button in the Windows 7 taskbar, you’ll see a list of all the open tabs. This works best if you only have a few tabs open—too many, and it’ll just stop showing them.

Enhanced Ctrl+Tab (optional)

The really awesome new feature is an enhanced Ctrl+Tab, but you’ll have to turn it on with a simple tweak if you want to use it. Once you’ve done that (detailed below), you can simply hit the shortcut key combination to flip between the tabs. Note that it only activates if you have 3 or more tabs open.

Enhanced Ctrl+Shift+Tab, with Tab Search

Ever wanted to be able to just start typing in the name of a tab in order to switch to it? Once you’ve enabled the Ctrl+Tab setting, you can use Ctrl+Shift+Tab to pull up this alternate tab switching interface, and then start typing in the name of a tab to filter it down.

For example, if I typed in "tiny" into the textbox in the above screenshot, you would only see the TinyHacker tab on the dialog.

Enable or Disable Ctrl+Tab Enhancements

This one isn’t enabled by default (at this point), but you can enable or disable it by typing in about:config into the address bar, and then filtering for the following key:

browser.ctrlTab.previews

You can simply double-click the key to change it between true and false.

If you want to also be able to activate the new tab switcher with the button on the right-hand side of the tab bar:

You can open up about:config and filter for this key, making sure to enable it:

browser.allTabs.previews

Enable or Disable Taskbar Aero Peek Enhancements

This one is enabled by default in my testing, but if you want to disable it you can type about:config into the address bar, and then filter for the following key:

browser.taskbar.previews.enable

Just like above, double-click to change between true and false.

Download the Beta!

All the usual conditions apply, it’s a beta, it will break everything and drink all your coffee, etc.

Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 from mozilla.org

The Illustrated Guide to the New Firefox 3.6 Windows 7 Integration [How-To Geek]

The Illustrated Guide to the New Firefox 3.6 Windows 7 Integration [Screenshot Tour]
The How-To Geek
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Lifehacker for their great coverage of Windows 7 this week. Read on and follow the link to their site for more.

October, you were one happening month. You brought us Windows 7, some serious Google Wave insights, and tasty media center upgrades. Here’s a quick look back at the most popular posts of October, 2009.

• Top 10 Windows 7 Booster Apps
  Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista, and a pretty convenient OS in general-but it’s by no means perfect. These 10 downloads improve Windows 7’s looks, functions, and make it easier, safer, and more convenient to upgrade to.
• Lifehacker’s Complete Guide to Windows 7
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October 2009’s Most Popular Posts [[this Is Good]]
Adam Pash
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Last night as I entered the phrase “agricultural labourer” for the umpteenth time I decided I need to find a short-cut to save having to keep entering it over and over. The majority of my relations were agricultural labourers, and I don’t like using the phrase “ag lab” preferring to spell it out in full.

I turned to a little application, that I had played with briefly before, called Texter. There is nothing new or revolutionary about this program, but it is quite powerful, and I have only used it at its most basic level.

What it does is watch what you type for “hotstrings”, which are certain combinations of letters, and when you type the correct combination, it converts them into something else. A bit like using find and replace, but it happens as you go along.

In my case I set it up so that when I type the word “aglab” it replaces it with the phrase “agricultural labourer”. It is pretty simple to install and set-up. All it takes is a little bit of thought in selecting the hotstrings and a few minutes to set it up. I set up two hotstrings, “aglab” and “Aglab”, for the second one the word agricultural is capitalised.

The great thing is that it appears to work in almost any Windows program, such as Family Historian, my family history software. The best thing of all is that it is free, so if it doesn’t work you haven’t lost anything.

I have previously used it to speed up the entry of several family surnames, but there is probably no limit to what you could set it up to do, such as surnames, place names, addresses, occupations, in fact anything that you find yourself have to type repeatedly.

There are a couple of videos on the Lifehacker page, showing the basic use of Texter, plus some of the more advanced techniques.

I think this is going to save me a serious amount of typing in the future, I don’t know why I didn’t start using it sooner. Make sure you have a look and see if it could make your life easier, whether it is for family history, blogging or elsewhere.

Credit: Malabooboo

UPDATE 2: Cecil pointed out in the comments that the conditional call forwarding Sprint is implementing will mean that free forwarding will be applied to any busy or unanswered calls. This allows for the specific use Google is offering, but is not exclusive, and is open to all users on this conditional basis. The Google page about the change is correct, I just misread it. Thank you Cecil, for the clarification.

UPDATE: Google and Sprint are partnering to eliminate the $0.20 per minute call-forwarding charge, but only for calls forwarded to Google Voice. The change should be complete by “mid-November 2009.” Read Google’s official announcement for details.

Lifehacker has a post about Google’s new Voicemail service. The new service will let you use all of the cool features of Google Voice (message delivery via email or SMS; voice-to-text transcription; different greetings for different contacts, and more) with your current phone number.

This will allow you to maintain a consistent voicemail experience for both yourself and those who are calling you. Those who heed your request that they use your Google Voice number and those who don’t will both get the same greetings, and you’ll be able to process their messages in the same way.

You can also hang on to all of your voicemail. So, the next time that friend of yours says that they never leave obnoxious drunken messages, you can forward them a transcription of one of their more colorful  messages. Not too shabby, eh?

Click through for information on the “catch” that may prevent or delay your switch, and for Google’s video introduction of the service.

The catch is the fact that Google achieves this through call forwarding.

This means that if your plan doesn’t include call forwarding, you may be charged by your carrier if you use the new Google feature. For example, Sprint will charge me $0.20 per minute under my Everything Data plan  if I sign up for Google Voicemail today via the number I use with my Palm Pre. So, you may want to check with your service provider on pricing before diving in.

Luckily for me and all the other Sprint customers out there, it looks like Google and Sprint are discussing a solution that wouldn’t involve those per-minute charges:

So, hopefully I’ll be able to try it out sometime soon. But, for now, I’ll be keeping those two dimes in my pocket every minute.

Finally, Google’s video introduction to Google Voicemail:

[ Via Google, through Lifehacker ]

Finding great prices on technology is not always limited to store ads or even websites. One less used way to find deals is through RSS.  Now, if you’re a reader of this blog, you probably already know how to subscribe to RSS feeds, but just in case you don’t, Google Reader is always a good place to start. It’s web-based, simple, and you can search for other feeds and subscribe to them through the reader.

They are not always the easiest to find, but once subscribed to, finding deals on RSS feeds could be as easy as checking your email.  Let me highlight a few feeds of interest for you (click the titles to access and subscribe to the RSS Feeds):

Lifehacker

Website Lifehacker is not a website completely devoted to deals, but it IS devoted to finding unconventional ways of improving your life through simple (often cheap) DIY ideas and projects, often involving technology.  Their companion RSS feed contains every post made to the site, and about once or twice a week, they feature posts with the tag “Dealhacker.” These posts are often time-sensitive discounts that stores or websites are running and are also often tech-related.  Many of these “Dealhacker” posts are specifically called “Gadget and Gear Deals of the Day“. These gems of posts aggregate a section for Computer Gear, Not Computer Gear, and Free Stuff from various different deal sources and put them in one post.

Gizmodo

Part of the same network as Lifehacker, Gizmodo is a website all about technology and gadgets.  This is a very cool website if you want to keep up with tech news and the latest in gadgets.  Their RSS Feed works in the same way as Lifehacker’s and contains posts tagged with “Dealzmodo” that feature tech-specific deals. Their most watched ones are called “Gadget Deals of the Day” which aggregate even more tech-specific deals from a lot of the same websites as Lifehacker (which means you’ll get a bit of overlap between the two feeds).

Kotaku

For the more video game oriented people out there, this is for you.  Kotaku is a website dedicated to video game news and reviews, and is also on the same network as the last two feeds. About once or twice a week, they also feature posts tagged with “Dealtaku” which gives insight to the best deals and weekend coupons specifically on video games and accessories.  This feed is a definite must for anyone who loves video games and doesn’t want to pay a lot for them.

These sites are most certainly not the end-all-be-all of Deal RSS Feeds, and I’m only scratching the surface, of course, but they are a great way to start.  If these interest you, definitely subscribe to them and also see if you can find some more from readers like Google Reader, or just check back with Tech on a Budget for some more featured RSS Feeds soon!