Xobni: MS Outlook Social Networking Technology for your Inbox
If you are a Microsoft Outlook user and let your emails build up by the dozens (like me), going back to locate an important message in a sea of junk mail can be an arduous task. Even if you are meticulous about storing and filing your emails, saving hundreds of "important" messages and having to locate a specific one can have the same effect. Xobni is here to help. Xobni -- "inbox" spelled backwards -- is a small Internet start-up company based in San Francisco and is introducing a new application that works together with Outlook to give users a better emailing experience. The software ...
Spiffy Envelopes and Labels in MS Word
I am sure that more than one of my readers has found themselves in this situation: You are in the Envelopes and Labels window in MS Word and you are trying to change the font, but alas and alack you are having no luck! As long as you are in that Envelope and Label dialog box, you do not have access to the Format menu. So what to do? Well it is quite easy actually. All you need to do is use your alternate click -- the right-click! Just right-click and choose Font. Once you have made your changes, click OK. That's it! You're finished! And look how easy it was! When you become a member ...
'Shell Enhancer', and 'Lansweeper'
Shell EnhancerShellEnhancer is an application designed to enhance the default shell of Windows and to make your life easier. ShellEnhancer includes two types of taskswitcher (Enhanced TaskSwitcher and Mosaic TaskSwitcher) which you can use to replace the default Windows Alt+Tab taskswitcher. The Enhanced TaskSwitcher supports live previews. ShellEnhancer allows you to make your own tasks. Tasks consist of a number of commands which get executed one after the other. Available commands include: insert text, send keystroke, manipulate windows, run program, start screensaver, lock workstation ...
Music Companies Jump on GTA IV Bandwagon
Grand Theft Auto IV ("GTA IV") is a retail phenomenon. By all accounts, it has raked in more sales than any game in history, making GTA IV a retailer's dream come true. However, the buck may not end there -- in fact, GTA IV is now acting as a prime marketing tool for music artists. When it shipped last week, Grand Theft Auto IV hit retailers like a sports car through a shop window (uh, you can do that in the game). Long midnight line ups and millions of pre-orders soon gave way to top-ranking reviews, with many experts calling the game the best ever released. With that kind of attention, it ...
Fascinating: Memristor to replace Binary
For more than half a century, digital electronic devices have been based on a binary paradigm -- that is, electronic switching of a signal either 'on' (1) or 'off' (0). Everything we know about computing is based on this simple concept. Now that's about to change. As first reported this week by our own John Lister, scientists at Hewlett-Packard's Information and Quantum Systems Lab have discovered a new type of electrical resistor: one that has memory properties. The so-called "memristor" exploits the curious memory-like properties of a thin coat of titanium dioxide when a current is passed ...
Adobe Hopes To Make Flash Master Of The (Mobile) Universe
Adobe, Inc. is dropping most restrictions on the use of its Flash technology on mobile devices. The firm hopes the move will help boost the technology's appeal on cellphones, handheld PCs and set-top television boxes. Flash, which allows developers to produce interactive content and animations that appear the same way on all computers, is already widely popular on the web: around 98% of desktop computers with an Internet connection have the software installed. There's already a cut-down edition called Flash Lite for mobile devices, but licensing restrictions mean the full-scale Flash ...
Yahoo Adds Security Warnings To Search Results
Yahoo is to follow Google's leads in highlight potential security risks in sites which show up in its search results. There are several differences between the two systems. Google highlights the most serious cases -- sites which exploit flaws in browser software and automatically download viruses -- with a warning. In Yahoo's case, the sites will automatically be deleted from the list of results. Yahoo will also highlight pages which appear to include downloads which are likely to include viruses, spyware (programmes which collect information from a user's computer without their knowledge) ...
Need Glasses for the Slide Sorter View in MS PowerPoint?
Subscribers to my newsletter have told me that they find themselves squinting when using the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint. The slides can be kind-of tiny and if they all are similar it can be a real problem differentiating between them. Here is what I told my subscribers:Use the Zoom box which is located in the Standard and Formatting toolbars. With this you can change the value to any number from twenty percent up to a hundred percent! You can use the drop-down arrow on the right-hand slide and select a zoom value. Alternatively, you can click inside the zoon box and type a value and ...
Apple to Lose Money on iTunes Movie Releases
Apple has lowered the prices of its iTunes movie downloads in an attempt to draw more business to its stores and website. The electronics retailer will be selling titles from almost every major film company at a $1 loss. New releases, such as 'Juno' and 'American Gangster', will retail for $14.99 on the website, while older films will sell for $9.99 (Source: efluxmedia.com) After completing deals with 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lions Gate, Image Entertainment and First Look ...
Amazon.com takes New York Tax to Court
Amazon recently filed papers with the New York State Supreme Court declaring a problem tax provision to be "invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional." This was an expected response by a retailer attempting to redefine what constitutes the physical presence of a company within the geographical boundaries of a state. Confused? So is the state of New York, which contends that Amazon ought to be held responsible for the collection of local sales taxes because the company pays out referral commissions to its affiliates who are registered to a New York address. The provision is part of New York's $...
After Winning The DVD Format War, Blu-Ray Sales Tank
Blu-ray may have won the high-definition format war, but sales of its high-definition DVDs and players have tanked. A report from ABI Research notes that it's been one quarter since HD DVD lost the high-definition format war to Blu-ray, and the market has absorbed the consequent impacts. HD DVD and universal players are selling at deep discounts and will no longer ship after 2008, but Blu-ray player and optical drive markets will need to undergo further evolution before reaching their full potential. Consumer electronics manufacturers need to introduce full-featured players that sell ...
