Mac only Tired of hunting down the various codecs to play your movies in QuickTime? Perian (free and open source) is pretty much the one-stop-shop when it comes to codecs on your Mac. It adds support for over two-dozen different types of media that QuickTime doesn't ordinarily support:
Windows; Mac Last week we wrote about some terrific rulers for both Windows and Macs, but it looks like we missed a top-notch alternative.
The digital future appears to be one that embraces touch-screen technology, or so Microsoft thinks. Last year they showed off the $10,000 Surface, which is a large touch-screen table that can interact with things that are placed on it. For example, the Surface has started showing up in AT&T stores as a way for users to compare and contrast devices that they sell.
Win; Mac; Linux Flock 1.2 Beta is now available, and as hard as it is to believe this version is even more social. This Beta makes it possible to keep up with your friends' activity on Digg or Pownce, and get AOL email notifications instantly as new messages come crawling in.
Windows only It seems as though Apple's Expose feature has really struck a chord with Windows users. There have been Expose clones for what seems like forever, but it wasn't until Switcher that I became really impressed with what a feature like Expose could offer to a Windows user. Unfortunately to use Switcher you have to be running Vista with Aero enabled.
Yahoo Messenger is the number one instant messaging service, and they are really starting to show off the talent their development team has. It's been over a year now since we first got a glimpse of what their Vista-specific messenger looked like.
Purchasing movies from iTunes continues to get better and more convenient for buyers. If you've bought movies from them before, you know that it usually takes at least 30 days from the time a movie comes out on DVD until the time it's available to buy on iTunes. Yesterday the big news was that Warner Brothers was saying that they were going to be making their movies available online sooner.
Slowly but surely, television networks are starting to understand new media. They get that there are other places than the TV where people want to watch their favorite shows, and they are finally starting to come up with ways to bring TV to the Internet. Hulu is a great example of television networks "getting it" by offering premium content from Fox, NBC, MGM, Sony, and others, online for free.
One of the things that I've felt online spreadsheets have really lacked is support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). I use VBA macros quite frequently in my spreadsheets as a way to analyze and process data that can't be done with formulas. Well, Zoho has decided to step up to the plate in a big way.
It's pretty crazy the things geeks can come up with when they get an idea. A group of undergraduate students over at Texas A&M have obviously been playing too much Guitar Hero, and decided that they could make a robot to conquer the game for them. After much thought they have named their dubious creation Slashbot.
Some of you may have experienced this before: you go to watch a video on YouTube only to get a message saying "This video is not available in your country." Unfortunately there are some videos that people in certain countries aren't able to watch because the person/company that added the video put geographical restrictions on it.
The Wii has become rather notorious for the specialized controllers that it uses to draw people into the game being played. It's very much possible that you've been using the controllers for quite some time without actually knowing what they are capable of doing.
It's been about a month since Hulu officially launched to the public after their 18 weeks of private beta testing. For those of you who have been able to try it, what do you think of it so far? Everything seems to be going well, so hopefully they'll be expanding the service elsewhere in the world soon.
Compiz Fusion is quickly becoming an important part of many Linux distributions, and I don't think that anyone would argue that the cube effect for switching between desktops is one of the most hyped features. Well, the cube could very well be on its way to retirement thanks to the cylinder effect that was just added.
Back in mid-March this year, we wrote about a rumor that Flickr Video would be here sometime in April. Well, it's April and as it turns out, the rumor was true. Flickr Video has launched. It launched yesterday, and so far it's received some mixed reviews from people disappointed about some of the limitations that have been put in place for the new service.
Microsoft just released Windows Mobile 6.1 yesterday, and they've added some features that are actually pretty slick. The new home screen is really the focal point of the release. With it you have several "panels" that get expanded as you scroll up and down over them. A video demonstration of this (and other features) is at the end of the article.
One of the things that I've always enjoyed in Safari 3 is the inline search interface, and just the other day I thought I would peruse around the Internet trying to find a way to do the same thing in Firefox. Why is searching special in Safari? Because it dims the background of the page that you're on, and highlights the matching results as you type.
One of the most useful tools for us as owners of CyberNet News is Google Analytics because it gives us a great idea of where our visitors are coming from, what time of day they visit, and how long they stay for. This information helps us in numerous ways, and it's hard to imagine not having it available to use.
We have a terrific application that we are going to take a look at today called Videoraptor. Prior to writing this article I had never heard of the program, but I have to say that many of you will find it to be as useful as I have.
The second annual YouTube Video Award nominees were announced last week (view 1st annual here). After a week of voting, the winners have been chosen! YouTube does this to reflect on the year and recognize the best videos of 2007, although now that we're three months into 2008, we've just about forgotten the happenings of 2007.
