Microsoft's new weapon against open source: stupidity

An Information Week article published last week appears to position Microsoft as trying to do something right when it comes to open source. And it positions the open source community as being not quite ready to make nice after past insults, threats, and abuse.

Speaking for myself, I am always ready to see what somebody has to say when they say they want to work with the open source community. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to be continuing its campaign of defining open source on its own terms, terms that violate the basic principles of our community. According to the article:

For patented protocols, Microsoft said it would offer licenses on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." Open source developers can access the protocols for free for noncommercial use without fear of lawsuits, Microsoft said.

The Open Source Definition makes it quite clear in #6 that restrictions against commercial use violate the OSD. Thus, a free-of-cost license that prohibits commercial use is useless to open source developers. And therefore I cannot understand why anybody would think that Microsoft is doing the open source community any favors.

And yet to the uncritical eye of the media, Microsoft is comes across looking humble and generous while we look petulant and ungrateful. It is the OSI's mission (and written into our bylaws that we are an education and advocacy organization. So let me try to do a little education and advocacy: the open source community cares about open source software, and cares especially to not pollute its good work with compromised software that violates basic open source principles. As long as Microsoft goes around making one-side claims about "working with the open source community" when such works actively disrupt our work at the core, you can expect we're going to call them on that.

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Comprehensive sex ed may cut teen birth rate

Study: Birth control education helps reduce pregnancies in high school kids

NEW YORK - Comprehensive sex education that includes discussion of birth control may help reduce teen pregnancies, while abstinence-only programs seem to fall short, the results of a U.S. survey suggest.

Using data from a 2002 national survey, researchers found that among more than 1,700 unmarried, heterosexual teens between 15 and 19 years old, those who'd received comprehensive sex ed in school were 60 percent less likely to have been pregnant or gotten someone pregnant than teens who'd had no formal sex education.

Meanwhile, there was no clear benefit from abstinence-only education in preventing pregnancy or delaying sexual intercourse, the researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

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Windows Search 4.0 vs. Google Desktop 5.5

Microsoft released an updated version of Windows Search, its free desktop search client the other day. And while there are dozens of excellent desktop search clients, including a few good free ones, it seems inevitable that people are going to compare Windows Search to Google Desktop. Because you know, any time either company releases something kind of cool someones assumes that it's just a ripoff of a product offered by the other. Or Apple.

Anyway, we've been using Windows Search for the past few days and we thought we'd let you know how it stacks up against Google Desktop. Read on for the results.

Indexing

Windows Search gives you far more control over which files and folders you want to index. While Google Desktop says that "all fixed drives" are indexed by default, Windows will only index drives that you select. While this means Google Desktop is easier to setup, it also means that you wind up with a larger index file if you have hard drives and folders that you don't really need indexed.

On our test machine, Google Desktop indexed over 270,000 files, while Windows Search indexed 65,000. Google Desktop's index files took up about 1.7GB, while Windows Search used just 374MB. Advantage: Windows Search.

Categories

Windows Search does an excellent job of sorting search results into distinct categories. When you type a term into the search box, Windows Search will display a list of image files under a pictures category, MP3s under a Music category, Outlook contacts under Communications, and applications and other items under Everything.

Google Desktop, on the other hand just sort of spits everything out at once, without dividing your results up into categories. Advantage: Windows Search.

Ease of Use

Now, here's where things get interesting. You can launch Google Desktop in a variety of ways. You can add a search box to your Windows taskbar, enable the Google Desktop Sidebar with a search box, or pull up a search box by hitting the Ctrl key twice. Windows Search on the other hand, can only be launched two ways. You can either add a search box to your taskbar, or launch the application from your Start Menu (or other program launcher). Update As Scott Zarold points out in the comments, you can launch Windows Search by pressing Win+F. This brings up the Windows Search application, which takes a little longer to load than the Google Desktop search box. But since you don't need to launch a web browser window to display the results, the effect is similar.

This is probably just a matter of personal taste, but we hate the idea of adding a search box to the Windows taskbar. It just takes up too much screen real estate. But if you want instant results, this is the only way to go with Windows Search. Launching the application from the Start Menu takes significantly longer than opening a Google Desktop search box with a keyboard shortcut. And while you could assign Windows Search to a hotkey, that launches the full application, and not just a search box.

Both programs will start to spit out clickable results as soon as you begin entering your query. But while Google Desktop requires you to open your default web browser to display additional results (which can take a few seconds if it's not already open), Windows Search launches a standalone application which loads much quicker.

So if you can deal with a taskbar search box, Windows Search would seem to have the advantage right? Well, not exactly. Google Desktop has one killer advantage here: It's faster. When you enter a query in a Google Desktop search box, you get results almost immediately. But if you try the same query with Windows Search, you might have to wait a few seconds. The more files you have indexed, the slower Windows Search seems to get. Advantage: Draw.

Some other things to consider

Google Desktop is more than just a desktop search client. It's also a widget engine and desktop sidebar. If you don't want or need these features, you don't have to use them. But there's no way to install just the desktop search application.

Windows Search 4.0 will search encrypted files, something which Google Desktop cannot currently do. On the other hand, there are a ton of plugins for Google Desktop which will allow you to index files that are not officially supported by either application.

Conclusion

So which desktop search client is better for you? Umm, we don't know. While we give Windows Search 4.0 points for a well organized search engine, and more control over your indexing, Google Desktop is still faster. And we really prefer using a keyboard launch key over an always-present taskbar search box.

Which application do you prefer, and why? Or if you use another desktop search client, let us know in the comments.

Sobees widget engine launches private beta

While we often find ourselves thinking "the last thing this world needs is another desktop widget engine," we might be willing to make an exception for Sobees. While we'd forgive you if you mistook Sobees as nothing but a desktop widget engine like Google Desktop, Yahoo! Widget Engine, or Vista's gadgets and the Dashboard in OS X, it's actually much more.

First of all, yes, Sobees does let you load modules on your desktop for doing things like making notes, showing the time and date, or interacting with the web. There are also nifty RSS and Twitter clients, and a web browser with a built in web search feature that lest you sort results by images or text links.

But there are at least three things that set Sobees apart from most other desktop widget applications.

1. Sobees widgets are highly customizable. You can resize any widget by clicking on a portion of the edge and dragging it in or out. You can also make widgets translucent or opaque, and choose from a variety of options for each widget.
2. Sobees widgets interact with one another, and you can share content from widgets with your contacts. For example, you can save an item from an RSS feed and share it with other Sobees users.
3. Your data is synchronized with a remote server, which means you can install Sobees on multiple computers and changes to one will be reflected on another. If you'd like to have a separate setup for your work and home computers, there's no problem though, because you can set up multiple desktops.

Sobees is currently Windows only, but according to CenterNetworks, a Mac client is in the works. An API will also be released eventually which should dramatically increase the number of widgets available. Sobees is quite clearly still beta software. It takes a fairly long time to load the application, it freezes up periodically, and it uses close to 200MB of RAM. But Sobees is worth keeping an eye on. If you want to help test the software, you an sign up to participate in the private beta.


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Google turns off the lights for Earth Hour today

Google users in the US, UK, Canada, and a handful of other countries will notice that the page has gone black today. Do not adjust your monitors, this is intentional. Google is trying to draw attention to Earth Hour, an initiative to convince people to use less energy.

Now here's the thing, last year there a minor controversy over whether Google should permanently change its background to black in order to save energy. The theory is that it takes less energy to display a black background than a white one. But while that might have been somewhat true a few years ago when most computer users had cathode ray tube monitors, it actually takes more energy to display a black background on some modern LCD displays. So umm, essentially Google's black web page today could be contributing to an increase in energy use.

Hopefully if the move prompts a few folks to think about energy conservation, there'll be a net gain. But umm, seriously, Google, why go out of your way to debunk the myth of a energy-saving black Google last year just to promote it yourself today?


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How To Jump To Favorite Folders In File Open Save Dialogs [DirectFolder]

Quite sometime back we had spoken about how to add your favorite folder to your file open / save dialogs and also followed it up with a trick on how to access multiple favorite folders with a simple click in the file / open save dialogs.

Those tricks are still very much useful but if you intend to save yourself some time and efforts there is a very cool software utility that will allow you to open your favorite folders if you are using file open / save dialogs, browse dialogs or just using Windows explorer to browse folders.

DirectFolder can be used by double click in any empty area of file open / save dialogs, browse dialogs or Windows explorer. Once you do that a new context menu will be displayed using which you can directly go to the folder you choose.

You can use it to get over the lousy task of browsing folders every time you want to save a image from the Internet or upload one to it. Other uses could range from anything to everything.

This for me is a really cool utility which will definitely go down in my must have application list both for myself and the website must have utilities too. Stamped ultra useful by Techie Buzz.

Download DirectFolder

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How to Install Toolbars in Firefox

Firefox comes with Bookmark and Navigation toolbars built into the program. These toolbars provide necessary functions, but you may be wanting more from your browser. To have more, you can download install toolbars, such as the Google toolbar.

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer with Internet access

Install the Google Toolbar in Firefox

Step 1:
Begin by starting up Firefox, then go to the Google toolbars page (see Resources below).

Step 2:
Click the 'Download' button in the 'Google Toolbar' section.

Step 3:
Read the 'Privacy Notice' and then click the 'Agree and Install' button.

Step 4:
Click the 'Install' button in the 'Software Installation' window that will appear on your computer. The 'Add-ons' window will open, which will show the progress of your download.

Step 5:
Restart Firefox to complete the installation.

Step 6:
Experiment with other toolbars created for Firefox. One popular option is the Groowe toolbar, which allows you to search a multitude of search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, AltaVista and Amazon all at once (see Resources below).

How to Promote an E-mail Newsletter

Things You’ll Need:

• E-mail Accounts
• Pacific Attitude Bulk E-mail Programs
• E-mail Software

Step 1:
Include subscription information in your e-mail signature. Every time you send an e-mail or post to a newsgroup, viewers will see your newsletter information.

Step 2:
Include subscription information on your Web site, if you have one.

Step 3:
Register your newsletter with the various online registries that exist for that purpose. Run a search for "e-zine directory" or "newsletter directory" and you will find many possibilities.

Step 4:
Trade ads for your e-zine with other newsletter publishers.

Step 5:
Write content for other people's newsletters in exchange for a free byline at the bottom. Promote your newsletter in the byline.

How to Add Songs From a CD to an iPod

With the rise of the iPod, compact discs are quickly going out of style. Now an entire music collection can fit in the palm of your hand. But don't start using those CDs as coasters just yet--hang on to your favorite tunes by taking a few minutes to add songs from a CD to an iPod.

Things You’ll Need:

• Compact disc
• Computer
• iPod

Add Song to an iPod

Step 1:
Download the iTunes program. This can be done by clicking "Download" on the "iPod + iTunes" section of Apple's Web site. Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

Step 2:
Locate your computer’s CD drive and insert an audio CD.

Step 3:
Open iTunes. The contents of the CD will appear as a list of tracks in the iTunes window. If you have Internet access, iTunes will search a database for information about the songs, including the name, artist and album. If you don't have Internet access, enter this information yourself by highlighting a song, then clicking the field you wish to change and typing in the new data.

Step 4:
Decide which songs you do not want to copy to your iTunes music library from the list of songs. Click the small check-marked box next to the song name; when a box no longer has a checkmark, you have deselected that song and it won’t be imported.

Step 5:
Copy the selected songs from the track list to your computer by clicking the “Import” button in the upper right-hand corner of the iTunes window. When the tracks have been successfully copied and added to your iTunes music library, eject the CD and remove it from your computer.

Step 6:
Use the USB cable that came with your iPod to connect it to your computer.

Step 7:
Wait for iTunes to recognize the connection to your iPod. Select the “iPod” icon once it is displayed in the iTunes window. This will open the “Summary” tab in the iTunes window.

Step 8:
Select “Sync Music” to allow your iPod to automatically copy all the music stored in your iTunes library, or choose to “Manually Manage Music” to be more selective about what songs you transfer to your iPod.

Step 9:
Highlight the tracks you wish to transfer from your iTunes library, then click, drag and release them over the iPod icon.

Step 10:
Allow the iPod to load the new songs, then disconnect your updated iPod by clicking the “Eject” icon next to it in the iTunes window. Remove the USB cable when prompted.

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Yahoo! Messenger 3 adds voice, in beta

Our friends on the Yahoo! Messenger team dropped us a note alerting us to their newly released Yahoo! Messenger 3 Beta 3 for the Mac. What's the big news with this beta? As you might recall previous betas made Messenger a Universal Binary and added tabbed chats. New in this beta: voice calling.

That's right, you can now do the following with Yahoo! Messenger, just like our Windows running comrades:

• Make free computer to computer calls
• Sign up for a Phone Out account which will allow you to call regular phones with Yahoo! Messenger
• Send free text messages to cell phones (though the receiver might get charged for the text)
• Receive calls from phones on your Mac if you have a Phone In account (these accounts aren't free)

I gave the new features a whirl, so check out our gallery with screenshots of the new features, or head on over to the Yahoo! Messenger blog and watch their screencast.



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Fedora 9 beta Linux distro released

Fedora 9 beta is available for download today, with a final release scheduled for April 29. The latest version of the free (as in beer) cousin of Red Hat Linux comes with a number of major updates, including support for the latest versions of the KDE and GNOME desktop environments. Here are a few highlights:

• Uses the 2.6.25-rc5 Linux kernel
• GNOME 2.22 with world time clock, improved file system performance, and security improvements
• KDE 4.0.2 with a completely redesigned desktop manager look and feel, and integrated desktop search
• Firefox 3 Beta as the default web browser
  
• Support for resizing ext2, ext3, and NTFS partitions during installation

One of the more noticeable improvements will be the fact that Fedora includes a new free Flash plugin for Firefox out of the box, so you'll be able to watch YouTube within seconds of booting up your system. You can find a complete list of changes in the Fedora 9 beta release notes.



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Google Docs Gets a Menu

After updating the toolbar, Google Docs replaced the tabbed interface with a traditional menu. The File menu looks cleaner and integrates the revision history, the Edit includes some of the options that are missing from the toolbar (cut/copy/paste) and also the HTML code editor. It's amazing to see that Find & Replace is still in alpha and doesn't work as advertised. The InsertFormat replaces the Styles dropdown, while Tools lets you select the document's language, check the spelling and read stats about the document. The Table menu was previously available as a contextual menu for tables and there's a new Share drop-down that integrates the options to share a page, publish it on the web and preview it.

Google Docs includes all the menus from Microsoft Word 2003, except for View, Window and Help, but there's enough room to add more menus in the future. The team's blog explains the changes by invoking a user study, but the truth is that most people are used to Microsoft Office's classic interface:

A while ago, our Docs User Research team worked on a "card-sort" study in which we disconnected all features in the application from the places we had put them in the UI, and asked some people what the labels and icons meant to them, and how they would group the concepts they represented. One of the things we found was that names such as File, Edit, Format, and Tools resonated as "where you might look" for certain editing features. Check spelling? Seems to fit in a "Tools" group to many people. Find and replace? People generally look for that in an "Edit" group.

These updates are only for the word processing application, as Google Spreadsheets and Presently continue to use the old interface. Having an unified interface and a set of features that work consistently in all the three applications should be a priority for Google.



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How to Locate Vista Drivers for Your Devices

People were excited when Microsoft announced the release of Windows Vista. Unfortunately, many of these same people were disappointed when they had problems finding drivers for some of the peripherals that worked just fine with XP. Surprisingly, Vista was released with over 30,000 driver possibilities, as compared to the 12,000 released with XP. Of course, many more devices were used on computers in 2006 (the year Vista was released) than 2001 (the year XP was released). The total number of drivers on Vista doesn’t matter if you can’t locate the one driver you need for your device.

Step 1:
Turn on the automatic updates for your Vista computer. Among these important updates, you’ll find new drivers for both new and old equipment. You can change the settings for updates by clicking: "Start," "All Programs," "Windows Update" and "Change Settings." Choose your desired option, and place a check in the box next to "Include Recommended Updates When Downloading, Installing or Notifying Me About Updates" in the "Recommended Updates" section. Save your settings by clicking "OK."

Step 2:
Tell Vista to get updated drivers for specific items, since Vista won’t automatically download "optional" drivers. Click the "Start" button, "All Programs" and "Windows Update." Find and click "Check for Updates." Next, select "View Available Updates" to see the list of updates Vista thinks are optional. Place a check beside the updates you want to install, and click the "Install" button.

Step 3:
Visit the manufacturer’s website to locate drivers for the component you want to use. At the manufacturer’s website, run a search for the driver or look through the support pages for your component to find the needed drivers. Download and install the new driver.

Step 4:
Grab the driver from another Vista or XP computer. Run a search for the driver to locate it on the computer, then copy it to a USB drive or have your friend email the driver to you. Save the driver to your computer, then install it. The XP driver may only provide basic functions, but basic functions are better than no functions.

Step 5:
Visit websites like RadarSync, Windrivers or Download Drivers to locate the drivers you need (see Resources below).

How To Bluetooth MP3s to Your Phone

This will not work if you do not have Bluetooth capabilities on both your phone and your computer. I would also recommend that you use audio software to minimize your MP3 so that it is between 5-40 seconds long – putting the entire song on your phone will take up a lot of space. Also, be sure to do a save, as when saving the MP3, so you do not save over the original MP3 file. Now, let’s get started.

1. Right-click on the MP3 you want to send to your phone.
2. Choose the “to Bluetooth” option from the dropdown choices.
3. Another drop-down option will appear with a list of Bluetooth devices to which you can send the MP3.
4. Choose your phone from the list. If you do not see your phone listed, you will need to:
   • Make sure your Bluetooth phone is set to discoverable or is in find me mode. (This is done on most phones by going to your settings and/or connections.)
   • Once your phone is set to discoverable/find me mode, then choose the “choose other devices option” from the drop-down on your computer.
   • The computer will start a search and will most likely find your phone. It could also find other nearby Bluetooth devices.
   • Select your phone from the list of found devices. When you select your phone for the first time, you may have to enter a passkey on your phone and then on your computer. Once you have selected your phone, you are ready to continue to the next step.
5. A pop-up will appear on your computer showing the process status of your download.
6. When the download is complete, another pop-up message will appear on your computer saying that your file transfer was successful (or unsuccessful).
7. You should now be able to go to your sounds on your phone and find the song in the list.

How To Clean a CD Rom Drive

Computer CD-ROM drives are fairly robust and need little if any attention. They can function even with a fair amount of dust on the lens, but on rare occasions, may get dirty enough to require cleaning. Symptoms of a dirty lens include long read times, problems recognizing that there is a disc in the drive, and skipping or repeating on audio CDs. These symptoms are often intermittent and a drive may function perfectly most of the time and have only occasional problems.

CD-ROM drives should never be cleaned routinely. Clean them only if you suspect a problem. The cleaning process itself carries a small chance of damaging the lens or other equipment.

If only one disc is behaving badly, it's likely to be just that disc that is the problem. Even if several discs have problems, your first step should be cleaning and inspecting the discs rather than the drive.

1. Dampen a soft cloth or paper towel. Don't use a dry cloth as that may scratch the disc.
2. Wipe the disc gently from center to edge, not in a circular motion.
3. Try just using water at first, but if that doesn't fix the problem, you can try a mild detergent. Never use abrasives or solvents.
4. Dry with a lint-free cloth.

If cleaning the discs doesn't help, you can try blowing out the dust from the drive. Do this only with the computer turned off.

1. Don't blow into the drive as you will just blow in saliva and whatever you had for lunch. Tiny particles you can't even see are like boulders to a CD-ROM lens. The best thing to use is an air bulb, but you can also use a can of compressed air if you are very careful.
2. Use gentle, short bursts of air. You're not blowing out birthday candles, so if using a can of air, use a very light touch.
3. If using a can of air, be sure to hold the can upright. If you hold it at an angle you will blow in some of the liquified gas which can damage the lens.

If blowing out the dust doesn't work, you might consider getting a commercial CD lens cleaning disc but be careful with these. They are designed for cleaning audio CD drives which spin at a much slower rate. Even discs marked as being specifically for cleaning CD-ROM drives are often just repackaged audio CD cleaners.

If the drive is still giving you problems, the next step would be to open it up and clean the lens with a cotton swab. Since this will void your warranty and carries some safety concerns, you should take the computer in and let a professional handle it.

The best thing to do is to keep the drive from getting dirty in the first place. Try to keep pets away, keep the CDs clean and in their cases when not in use, locate the computer far from the kitchen to avoid grease, and if you are a smoker, then smoke in another room.

How to Access your PC if you Forget Your Administrative Password

Things You’ll Need:

• Windows CD-ROM
• PC that supports a bootable CD-ROM

Re-set Your Admin Password With a Bootable Windows CD-ROM

Step 1:
Modify your PC’s BIOS so that it will boot from the Windows CD-ROM. Insert the Windows CD into the drive and boot up the PC. Watch the screen messages until you see the prompt: "Press any key to boot from CD."

Step 2:
Go through the boot-up process until you get to the "Setup" screen where you have the option to install or repair. Choose the option to repair and press "R" which will launch the repair process. As the repair runs, Windows Set up will do a check on your disks and then begin to copy files. This may take a few minutes. Your PC will then re-boot itself automatically.

Step 3:
Open a command prompt after your PC reboots and resumes set-up. Here’s how:

* In Windows 2000, wait until the point where it’s registering components, and then pres the "Shift + F10" keys.

* In Windows XP, watch the bottom left-hand side of your screen until you see a progress bar that reads: "Installing devices," and then press the "Shift + F10." This will open a command console.

(more...)

How to Assign a Different User Name to a Program Shortcut

Do you have different users on one computer? Perhaps a user sometimes needs to run a certain program with their user name, but does not want to log off from the current user for whatever reason. These steps will show you how to assign a different user name to a program shortcut. This will allow the alternate user to execute the program under their user

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer using Microsoft Windows

Step 1:
Click “Start” and then click “My Computer.” Alternatively, double click “My Computer” from your desktop.

Step 2:
Double click the drive where Windows is installed on your computer. Most typically, this will be your C Drive.

Step 3:
Double click the “Program Files” folder.

Step 4:
Double click the folder of the program you want to assign the user name to. Right click the program’s executable file and click “Create Shortcut.”

Step 5:
Right click your new shortcut, and click “Properties.” The program’s “Properties” dialog box will open.

Step 6:
Click on the “Shortcut” tab. Click “Advanced” and then select the check box for “Run With Different Credentials.”

Step 7:
Click “Apply” and “OK.”

How to Use Ready Boost and Easily Add More Memory to your VISTA PC

Things You’ll Need:

• Vista
• Flash Drive

Step 1:
Insert a fresh or blank flash drive of 1 GB or more.

Step 2:
Vista will prompt you to open or use to expand memory.

Step 3:
Accept the offer to use the flash drive as memory.

Step 4:
You can also adjust how much of the flash drive will be used as memory.

Step 5:
You have just added memory to your vista PC with out opening the PC.

How to Locate Vista Drivers for Your Devices

People were excited when Microsoft announced the release of Windows Vista. Unfortunately, many of these same people were disappointed when they had problems finding drivers for some of the peripherals that worked just fine with XP. Surprisingly, Vista was released with over 30,000 driver possibilities, as compared to the 12,000 released with XP. Of course, many more devices were used on computers in 2006 (the year Vista was released) than 2001 (the year XP was released). The total number of drivers on Vista doesn't matter if you can't locate the one driver you need for your device.

Step 1:
Turn on the automatic updates for your Vista computer. Among these important updates, you'll find new drivers for both new and old equipment. You can change the settings for updates by clicking: "Start," "All Programs," "Windows Update" and "Change Settings." Choose your desired option, and place a check in the box next to "Include Recommended Updates When Downloading, Installing or Notifying Me About Updates" in the "Recommended Updates" section. Save your settings by clicking "OK."

Step 2:
Tell Vista to get updated drivers for specific items, since Vista won't automatically download "optional" drivers. Click the "Start" button, "All Programs" and "Windows Update." Find and click "Check for Updates." Next, select "View Available Updates" to see the list of updates Vista thinks are optional. Place a check beside the updates you want to install, and click the "Install" button.

Step 3:
Visit the manufacturer's website to locate drivers for the component you want to use. At the manufacturer's website, run a search for the driver or look through the support pages for your component to find the needed drivers. Download and install the new driver.

Step 4:
Grab the driver from another Vista or XP computer. Run a search for the driver to locate it on the computer, then copy it to a USB drive or have your friend email the driver to you. Save the driver to your computer, then install it. The XP driver may only provide basic functions, but basic functions are better than no functions.

Step 5:
Visit websites like RadarSync, Windrivers or Download Drivers to locate the drivers you need (see Resources below).

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How to Hide Files in Image Files

The right to keep secrets is a privilege that every human being should enjoy. Our secrets are who we are and in this age and time the name of the game is distrust. We keep our dark secrets to ourselves for fear of rejection by others, we only reveal them to a very trusted few.

We all know (consciously or unconsciously) that the shape of one’s character is revealed by the kind of clutter one makes in one’s life. Let me see the contents of your hard drive and i will tell you who you are. We all know that the kinds of files you download help reveal your soul’s shape that is why you would like to know how to hide your "dark’ files so that your nosy officemates won’t see them. Here’s a method of hiding files in other files. In this tutorial we will hide an mp3 file in an image file (.jpg) so that when an unsuspecting intruder to your PC clicks the image file all he sees is the image, he won’t hear the music hidden in the image file.

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The Green Cruiser

A New Zealand skipper, Pete Bethune, is planning to circumnavigate the globe in 75 days using a boat. The boat that he will use to do this is not just a boat, it is an eco-friendly powerboat that runs on biodiesel fuel made from renewable sources like soybeans and some secret ingredients like human body fat. Yes, human body fat. Bethune and two of the crew members, through liposuction procedure, made the very personal donation of about 10 liters of their own fat. The fat they donated is enough to propel the boat for about 15 kilometers.

Taken from anythingthatmatters

Do You Want Bionic Eyes?

Engineers at the University of Washington (www.washington.edu) are developing contact lenses imprinted with electronic circuits and lights. These contact lenses will allow the wearer to see generated images superimposed over the outside world. There are many possible uses that are cited for this like navigation information for drivers or pilots, virtual reality for video games, and watching porn while you go about your daily business. According to one of the researchers, Babak Parviz, “People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about.Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it’s safe.” Wow, it is like having bionic eyes! A prototype of the lens has been introduced in January at the IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro- Mechanical Systems. Though the the prototype’s display does not light yet, it has an electrical circuit plus some red LEDs. It has been tested on rabbits for about 20 minutes and no ill effects has been reported to have occured. Fully operational versions are not expected to obstruct the wearers’ vision, either, as “there is a large area outside of the transparent part of the eye that we can use for placing instrumentation.”



Taken from anythingthatmatters

Dispute in LED patent could hamper Blu-ray, cellphone import

The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) has instituted an investigation on a list of companies in the electronics industry who may have infringed some patents that cover “short-wavelength (e.g., blue, violet) LEDs and laser diodes that are used in products such as handheld mobile devices, instrument panels, billboards, traffic lights, HD DVD players (e.g., Blu-ray disc players), and data storage devices.” When we talk about companies earning from Blu-ray discs, LEDs and HD DVD players we know that the list could be quiet long. The list includes Hitachi, LG, Lite-On, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. The person who holds the patents and is behind the lawsuit is Dr. Gertrude Neumark Rothschild. Rothschild is the Howe Professor Emerita of Material Science and Engineering and Professor Emerita of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, where she’s taught and worked since 1985. She earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia in 1951. She was connected to Sylvania Research Laboratories and then with Philips Laboratories. She also holds several patents that cover the production of wide band-gap semiconductors in the blue/ultraviolet range (these are presumably the patents at issue, though patent numbers are not given), and she worked specifically in the development of gallium-nitride-based semiconductors.

Previously she filed a suit against both Toyoda Gosei and Philips Lumined over some alleged infringement of US Patent No. 4,904,618 (”Process for Doping Crystals of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors”) and 5,252,499 (”Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation”). Rothschild and the two companies eventually settled out of court

Sony and the other big companies named in the suit haven’t responded to the allegations yet.

Microsoft is killing XP, So What?

Microsoft is planning to end all retail and PC OEM sales of XP on June 30 this year. This move by Microsoft is not being welcomed by many Windows PC users. In a survey conducted by PC World Magazine, it came out that two-thirds of the respondents were very unhappy about the news; 79% also said that they prefer XP over Vista. PCWorld’s survey was inspired by a site called SaveXP.com where almost 100,000 people have added their names to an online petition urging Microsoft to reconsider its decision.

Why is it that majority of PC users could not just accept the changing of season? I have been using Windows Vista Ultimate for almost a year now and I would not deny that it took me about two to three months to get the hang of it.I would not also deny that Vista, as of now, is clearly not as stable an OS as XP, just this month i had three to four “blue screens” from crashes whose causes i, nor Microsoft’s website, could not explain. Now if you will ask me which OS I prefer I would say that I prefer Vista over XP. Vista is a work in progress, we still do not know how much it could give us. As for XP, we have mastered it, it has become the comfort zone of many PC users, a new challege like Vista looks like a lot of work and humans are naturally lazy so they stick to something that is familiar. I’m bored with XP’s look and familiarity.

Street Fight

10 Things that Makes Firefox Cool (cont)

I use Firefox all the time because it is the coolest browser in the world for me. Firefox is great right out of the box but do you know that aside from adding extensions you can make it even greater? If we take a look at what is under its coat, we will see a lot of things that could greatly increase the pleasure of using this very good browser. Here are 15 tweaks and tricks that could make your Firefox experience more fiery.

1. I think this first trick is something that is not really known to half the world, or if it is known to everyone, people just do not realize how cool this somewhat hidden tool is. If there is a particular search you use a lot this tool comes handy. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “guitar”) and save it. Now, when you want to do a guitar search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “guitar” and the brand name of a particular line of guitars, say Fender or Ibanez, and hit enter. You'll have instant search. Try this now.

2. Now, If you want more screen space, you can make your icons smaller. Go to View>Toolbars>Customize and check the “Use small icons” box as shown in the image below.



3. Cool keyboard shortcuts. Master these shortcuts and you'll become a Firefox ninja:

* Spacebar (page down)
* Shift-Spacebar (page up)
* Ctrl+F (find)
* Alt-N (find next)
* Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
* Ctrl+T (new tab)
* Ctrl+K (go to search box)
* Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
* Ctrl+= (increase text size)
* Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-W (close tab)
* F5 (reload)
* Alt-Home (go to home page)

4. For a quicker tab navigation, you can use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:

* Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
* Ctrl+Shft+Tab (rotate to the previous tab)
* Ctrl+1-9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)

5. Some people are more comfortable with the mouse than with the keyboard, if you are one of them here are some useful cool mouse shortcuts you must master :

* Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
* Shift-scroll down (previous page)
* Shift-scroll up (next page)
* Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
* Middle click on a tab (closes tab)

6. This one is a somewhat old trick in the bag, I haven't tried it with version 3 though it worked well with the previous versions. You can speed up Firefox (this is for those who have broadband connection) by using pipelining to speed up page loading. Pipelining allows Firefox to load multiple files on a page at once, instead of one at a time. Here's how you do it :

* Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter. After hitting Enter you'll be faced with this something like what is shown below. The ninja in you will of course click the "I'll be careful, I promise button".


*Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
* Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
* Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0?. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

7. Firefox allows you to limit RAM usage. If you do not have that much memory in your computer this will help you a lot. Go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.

8. You can also reduce memory usage further by a setting that moves Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, giving up some of the memory it uses. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.

9. If you always happen to accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs , don't despair because you can move or remove the close tab button, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:

* 0: Display a close button on the active tab only
* 1:(Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
* 2:Don’t display any close buttons
* 3:Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)

10. Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up. Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.

Entourage Season 6 Episode 8 [HD Quality & Streaming]

Entourage Season 6 Episode 8 [HD Quality & Streaming]

This week’s episode is dedicated to all my college students out there, moving back on campus from the newly minted freshmen to the OG seniors. wzup. your university probably laced you with that basic cable. no HBO. maybe you’re in a forced triple, top bunk. maybe you’re cooped up in that suite. there’s probably no way of seeing tonight’s episode but DCtoBC’s got you! this one’s for you guys. every sunday. yerp.

now, back to business. the sorkin notes is the name of this week’s episode, the eighth of the sixth season.

the trill synopsis of the episode: eric decides to meet with sloan, but rethinks their whole relationship after gollum…i mean ashley calls him. Andrew’s back to his basket case ways when he has a meltdown that puts a big deal in jeopardy. and finally, vince and the boys call in some professional help after last week’s burglary.

so now you have that. here’s the HD (hella dope) video streaming, as well as the link(s) to download the new episode. and if it’s your first time on this site, i’ll assure you, ain’t no bull$#!t product out here.