Need A Windows Bootable CD?
I was watching the Thursday's episode of The Screen Saver that TiVo had kindly taped for me. One of the Patrick's featured segments was on PE Builder—a software package that will create a bootable Windows CD from your installed copy of Windows.
If you do a lot with Windows, you've probably run into a time when you needed a Windows bootable device and this looks like the perfect tool to help you do that. I remember running into this site a while back, but didn't mess around with it. Go read the full TechTV article for more information.
Viewing Browser Cache In Mozilla/Firefox
Here's a nice little Mozilla/Firefox tip:
Mozilla has a nice way to view files that are in both your memory and file cache. In the Address Bar, type - about:cache. This will take you to a page that allows you to view a summary of your browser cache and also will allow you to browse the files stored in the cache.
New NVIDIA nForce3 Has Built-in Hardware-Accelerated Firewall...
NVIDIA has released it's nForce3 250Gb Chipset for the Athlon 64. The most intriguing feature to me is the built-in hardware-accelerated firewall. Check out the The Tech Report for their review on the chipset.
Gizmodo: A Gadget Weblog...
For those of you looking for a really good general tech related site, be sure to check out Gizmodo. They really do a hodge-podge of stuff and have been around for a long time. If there's only one general tech site you hit, this is a good one.
A Must Tab Extention For Mozilla/Firefox...
I've pretty much made the switch to Mozilla's Firefox as my primary browser. I find that browsing using tabs makes my life much, much easier—especially in regards to surfing message boards.
My biggest complaints with Firefox's tab interface have been with the inability to resort the tabs using drag-n-drop and the ability to configure things so that links that target a new browser window are opened in tabs instead. Well, thanks to the person/people over at Outsider Reflex they've released the "Tabbrowser" extension for Mozilla.
This is a must download for anyone using Mozilla and who uses tab to do their surfing! Finally, no more new window spawning—everything in one nice window!
Leo Leoport's Sudden Exit From Tech TV...
It appears that Leo Leoport has left Tech TV indefinitely. I tend to watch the show The Screen Savers in the evening, as they do a pretty good job covering the world of tech in a nice casual way. Even Jenn finds the show tolerable—which I'm happy for. She was the first to notice Leo's sudden disappearance. I first assumed he simply had gone on vacation. I didn't recall hearing anything about him going away or anything, but then found it odd they were talking about Leo at all on the show.
During last night's episode, I noticed that they had a new intro—one that looked pretty hastily put together and one that was lacking Leo. That made me very curious. That's when I went to Leo's blog and found out what was going on. Hopefully when Comcast takes over, they'll find a way to bring him back. It's very unfortunate the way things went down. Leo's a big part of the success of Tech TV.
He did it his (Seg)way...
It always amazes me what someone with a little bit of ingenuity and time on there hands will do. Dr. Trevor Blackwell, who recieved his Ph.D. in 1998 from Harvard University, decided he wanted to build his own version of the Segway because he was facinating with the Segway's self-balancing mechanism. There's a couple of neat videos on Dr. Blackwell's site that show of his version of the scooter. Pretty cool stuff.
Macromedia Flex ("Royale") Officially Announced
Macromedia official released some public information on Royale this morning. The new official name is "Macromedia Flex." There's a brief online presention done in Breeze which you can view—it gives an overview of the product, how to use it and where it fits in.
They've also released a "white paper" and several other articles at the Macromedia Flex home page.
For more information, see the official press release.
Macromedia to Join ECMA International
Macromedia announces today they've formally applied for membership to ECMA International. This is the organization that oversees ECMAScript (ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262)—which is widely referred to as JavaScript (Microsoft JScript, Macromedia ActionScript, etc.)
For more information, see the official press release.
First peek at Sony Portable PSP?
After months of speculation, Sony unveiled a single piece of concept art which indicates what its forthcoming PSP game deck might look like. At Sony's Corporate Strategy Meeting, held today in New York City, the concept art of the PSP showed a thin, rounded rectangular handheld game deck with a 4.5-inch 16:9 letterbox LCD screen, sporting a snap-on cover and hand lanyard.
PSP CPU Core
MIPS R4000 32-bit core
128-bit bus
1-333MHz (1.2V)
8MB eDRAM main memory
2.6Gbps bus bandwidth
FPU, VFPU (2.6 billion flops)
3D graphics extended instructions
I Cache, D Cache
USB Storage Watch...
I found this watch while searching for KVMs. I've seen other products highlighted, but this is the first one I've seen for sale. It's an interesting idea, but I think that USB cable could be problematic. However, I definitely could see this being a useful tool for a system administrator who's constantly having to load stuff on different PCs on the network. It could also be extremely useful to someone needing to transfer files from work to home on a daily basis.
I'm looking for a new laptop...
I've been researching laptop computers lately. I'm in the market to buy a new laptop and have finally decided the specs on what I think I want, but unfortunately, I can't find a notebook that matches what I want. I'm looking for the following:
- Intel Pentium M, preferrably w/the Centrino chipset
- ATI Mobility 9600 Pro (or higher)
- >= 60GB Hard Drive @ 7200 RPMs
- >= 768MB RAM
- 15" display (undecided on widescreen or not)
- 802.11a/b/g (at least b) and Bluetooth enabled
I've heard that HP/Compaq is coming out w/a new nc8000 model in the "Evo" case and from the spec sheet I download, it seems to match my requirements. Also, I heard that Voodoo PC was going to update their Envy m460 notebook to match those specs.
Trillian Pro v2.0 has been released!
Trillian Pro v2.0 has been released. If you've ever used Trillian or Trillian Pro, go buy/download this update. Lots of new features—plus it works with the newer MSN and Yahoo protocols, so you won't get that annoying message that you need to update your Instant Messenger (IM) to the latest version of the software. I'm still playing with the new version, but at first glance it's much faster and the new features are really nice. I also like the fact that you can now add other IM client's, like Jabber, via it's plug-in model. Nice touch!
If you currently use more than one IM client and you're running Windows, do yourself a favor and spend the $25 (US) to buy Trillian Pro v2.0—it's well worth the money. The simple fact I only have to load one client really speeds up my machine and saves the memory for other real world tasks—plus having one nice interface is immensley more intutive to use. I can't imagine ever going back to the individual clients again.
Trillian Pro v2.0 in beta!
Cerulean Studios just released a (semi) public beta of their fantastic multi-protocol instant messenger, Trillian Pro. The beta is only available for paying customers of Trillian Pro v1.x, but the sneek peek is available for everyone.
Trillian Pro v2.0 Sneak Preview
Tech TV's Cat learns software lesson the hard way...
Well Cat Schwartz, of Tech TV, recently learned a valuable lesson about computers—forunately she learned the hard way. Recently she posted some unreavling pictures of herself on her blog site—or at least what she thought was unrevealing.
However, there's an important issue to keep in mind about software—many applications save "meta data"—data that is "hidden" from the user, but embedded in the file. For Microsoft's Office products typically will keep track of all your changes to the document. This means even after selecting and deleting text from your document and saving the file, the data you delete may still be recoverable. That's why it's important to never, ever put any content into a document that you don't want viewed. You should be able to remove that hidden data in an Office application by simply opening a new document and copying all the data to a new file.
Anyway, back to Cat's situation. The pictures she was posted were editing in Adobe Photoshop. By default, Photoshop will save a thumbnail preview of your JPEG images as meta data within the file. It does this because it speeds up displaying thumbnails in their thumbnail view. The problem with this, is that the meta data isn't always updated. If you don't use the "Save As" option to save the file in a different file or don't make "dramatic" changes to the file, then the thumbnail won't be updated. You're still probably wondering where I'm going with this.