Full FeedGadgetell Guide: Make your computer a lean, clean machine
Dust. It is definitely not your friend when it comes to your computer. Do you actually take the time to clean it out or is your computer a cavern of dust galore, slowly killing your computer’s insides? Here is a quick guide to help you get rid of some of that icky stuff. Now, keep in mind, there are probably more ways to do this than what I’m going to tell you about. But, I’ve been doing it this way for over 12 years, and it’s always worked for me, and I’ve never damaged or destroyed a component.
Hail to the red, white, and blue gadgets
With Independence Day fast approaching here in the States, I thought it would be a nice time to have our own red, white and blue display. Of gadgets, of course. Ready for some bright, fun toys? Here’s a rundown of five I found.
1. The ScandiPhone
This thing has apparently gotten great reviews from almost all the people that have used it on the shopping sites I checked out. Although, even I have to admit, I’m a tad confused by the shape and “how?” of it all. But, regardless, if you are looking for a funky addition to a room, in an “I’m not shy” design and color, this may be for you.
T-Mobile Dash 3G: Sneak peek and Review
There has been lots of buzz about the latest brainchild from T-Mobile and Gadgetell was lucky enough to get its hands on one of these before it hits the shelves. The T-Mobile Dash 3G, designed by HTC—does it live up to its speedy namesake, or do we find it lagging behind?
Wikipedia gets behind the NY Times to help hide story of kidnapping by Taliban
It was hidden for seven months—almost unheard of in the news world. A kidnapping by the Taliban of a reporter to the NY Times was hidden and covered up by both the print and online press. The thing is, in this case, it was done for his safety.
David Rohde, along with his interpreter and their driver, was kidnapped in Afghanistan on November 10, 2008. In response to the action, executives at the Times decided to keep it quiet, believing that publicity about the event would increase Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors, and in turn, lower his chances of survival.
Usually, when a decision is made to keep something quiet, a call is simply placed editor to editor from one publication to another. The trouble in this day in age in keeping news quiet is the obvious. We have the Internet. News travels at the click of a button whether someone wants it to or not.
And that is just what happened in this case. Or, what kept trying to happen anyway. Just days after Mr. Rohde was kidnapped, it began showing up on his Wikipedia entry. Thus started the Wikipidia editing battle.
The Video Bay to be setting sail soon
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Ye makers of The Pirate Bay are apparently not planning to go sailing into waters unknown even amidst all the current legal fiascos they are facing. They are launching a new site called The Video Bay to be in competition with YouTube. No one ever said pirates were the meek sort.
Now, this little venture was apparently first started quite some time ago. As in, two years ago, but it seems they have decided to finally forge on. A few days ago, according to Slashdot, Peter Sunde appeared via Skype at the Open Video Conference in NY and said they were gearing up to launch something new. Of course at that point speculation ran rampant. What could it be?
Then, some changes appeared on TVB site. And the the site suddenly stated for a while,
“To stay in the spirit on which TPB was founded and using the Latest Technology, TVB aims to use the new HTML5 features, more specifically the video and audio tags with the ogg/theora video and audio formats. This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don’t bug us too much if the site ain’t working properly.”
I went and tried to check out TVB, which is currently in the roughest of beta modes, but couldn’t get anywhere other than seeing that the home page did indeed exist. Apparently, this is a change from fairly recently, when the curious were able to tack random numbers on the end of the page URL to see movies that are on the page for beta-testers. Of course, even that process was pure hit or miss. You would, for example, be typing in a “21” after thevideobay.org/, without having any idea what movie might be showing up for you to view. This little trick is no longer working at time of writing. Now, when you do that, or click on any link, including the one to register, it asks you for your username and password.
So, when is it going to go live for the public? That’s anyone’s guess. Including The Video Bay. They told TorrentFreak that “there is still a lot of work to do behind the scenes. The encoder is not finished yet and the design is also a work in progress.” And, “it will be done when it’s done, in the future.”
One thing that should also be noted, they say they will not be implementing P2P technology to be streaming the videos. The site definitely has potential become a key player in the video streaming area. It’s going to be a site where users can share whatever - no censoring. I can see heads in the movie industry steaming already.
Read: [slashdot]
RelatedDouble the YouTube: Now you can upload 2GB videos
Fans of YouTube should be happy, since they have just doubled the size of uploads for users from 1GB to 2GB. The change counts for regular account holders, no fancy account status needed. According to the company, the increase is to compensate for users’ HD uploads.
This is a pretty nice move on their part considering they only recently made the move to 1GB from 100MB back in September 2008. One thing to take into account is that even with the size increase, any non-partner videos still remain limited to 10 minutes in length.
For those people that do make use of uploading HD videos to share and embed, YouTube has made the process easier than it was previously. All you have to do now is add “&hd=1” (without the quotes) to the YouTube URL, and if possible, it will play in HD. Or, you also have the “Play in HD” option you can use when you are configuring things to embed your code to copy and paste it somewhere.
Apparently one user, Barry Schwartz, actually had his account upload limit raised to a whopping 20GB, even though a YouTube spokesperson said the limit is 2GB. So, whether this is a freakazoid anomaly or a privileged few are being handed some kind of “Oh, you’re lucky. Try this on for size accounts” remains to be seen.
Regardless, double the size? Thanks, YouTube. I’m sure that will make lots of folks rather happy. Because like they say, size matters.
Read: [newteevee]
RelatedFacebook makes yet another Twitter move: Changes in Publisher
Maybe they should just start calling it “TwitBook” because Facebook sure seems to be trying to adapt their interface to everything Twitter. Their latest redesign sees them making some changes to their Publisher tool (this used to be the status update box). Now, users can choose just how public (or private) they want their shared content to be. “Public” as in everyone—you don’t even have to be friends.
There actually still seems to be some confusion as to how public “Everyone” really is. Facebook doesn’t clarify the term on their blog. Some people are stating it means your content will actually be Google-able, others say it probably means just searchable within Facebook. You can also choose to feed your updates to friends, friends of friends, networks, or just certain friends.
HTC Hero has a nifty new Android interface that makes a lot of Sense
After much leaking and speculation, HTC has finally given up the goods on the new Android phone, the Hero. Those details offer some nifty peeks at their new interface, which appropriately enough, is called “Sense.” Did I mention it is the first Android phone with Flash? Yeah. Nice.
Granted, some of the hardware is a little bit more impressive on the Hero than what we had with the Dream or the Magic, but the real catch is the software. Sense not only has a new widget interface, but even more impressive is the fact that it brings Android up to speed with some of the features on the oh so touted iPhone and Palm Pre. For example, you’ve got system-wide search and social network integration built in including Flickr and Facebook.
The phone itself comes with a 3.2-inch HVGA screen, which is coated with an anti-print Teflon treatment (there’s a bonus in and of itself!). Inside is Qualcomm’s MSM7200A processor running Android at 528MHz, 512MB/288MB ROM/RAM. Also included is a generous five megapixel camera, AGPS, a gravity sensor, a digital compass, a dedicated search button (to go with that system-wide search), and even a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
As for the Flash, it is going to come with Flash Lite 3.1. So, it will be able to deal with anything written with ActionScript 2.0 and be able to cope nicely with interactive content and streaming online video and audio. Now, since Adobe says about 80% of all online videos are delivered in Flash, this is kind of important. And yet, the iPhone still doesn’t support Flash. Wonder what they are waiting for? If you’d like to see a demo of the Hero working with Flash, you can check it out here.
As for availability, we won’t be seeing the Hero in the States until “later this year,” although Europe can expect it in July, and Asia later this summer.
Read: [Product Page]
RelatedOn Alan Turing’s birthday, we look back at great moments in technology
Remember your first time? No, not that one you pervert. Your first time on the Internet or even using a computer.
After all the years, through all the changes, it began with what was never even meant to be a computer by a brilliant man. Today, we tip our hats to Mr. Alan Turing on his birthday. Modern computing would not be what it is without him. Let’s take a look back at some great leaps in technology.
Alice.com wants to make sure you never run out of toilet paper again
Alice.com just launched in beta mode after first making announcements hinting it was coming way back in November. Alice is a website that promises consumers “free shipping, saving you time, and making sure you never run out of bathroom tissue.” Now, there is one heck of a marketing slogan.
So, will their promise hold true? Well, the shipping is indeed free. It saves times in the fact that you can do your shopping in your bedroom in your jammies at three a.m. and not have to run to three different stores to get Fido’s food, your kid’s DS batteries, and that shampoo that your wife likes. And as for the never running out of toilet paper? Well, Alice even has this nifty reminder feature that lets you know when you might be running low and reminds you it just may be time to order some more.
Alice is brought to you by the founders of the social shopping network Jellyfish, which was bought by Microsoft in 2007. So, it could be presumed that the makers aren’t total peabrains.
At its most basic, Alice.com is an ecommerce website for household essentials. It gives you recommendations based on who lives in your household. So, if you don’t have children, it won’t recommend baby shampoo. Or, if you are a guy living alone, it probably won’t suggest those dreaded female products. The recommendations Alice makes appear as little bathroom ducks (a tad cutesy).
When you click on a duck, it takes you to where you then choose your specific product. Say you need razor blades. You click on your duck. You go to the shaving section and then can select Mach 3 razor blades by Gillette. Where it gets personalized is that you can set quantities, set custom labels, and in my opinion most importantly, tell when you want to reorder. It will send you a reorder reminder according to what you specify.
You’ve got thousands of product brands to choose from. After you have set all of your products and reminders, you have a display of your shopping orders, your discounts and any taxes. This makes your reordering process much easier the next time. And you are far less likely to run out of anything.
Heck, even driving to the store costs you gas. That free shipping is a very nice bonus is this economy.
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Palm Pre Information & Updates
Palm just introduced their next-gen smartphone, the Palm Pre, and next-gen operating system, Palm webOS. Gadgetell's got the latest Pre and webOS information and news for you right here.
