Tag Archive for 'Windows'

Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha Internal Release

Published on December 20, 2009 in Applications, Microsoft, Multimedia, Opera, Picture, Product Review, Web Browsers and Windows. 0 Comments Tags: aero, Opera, opera 10.5, Windows, windows 7.

I’ve just given a leaked release of Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha a test drive and I must say that I’m very impressed with the changes I’ve noticed thus far!

I look forward to testing the Official Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha release on Tuesday, December 22. However, until then I’ll be digging through this leaked version.

Note that Opera has officially warned against installing such leaked builds, stating that the official release will be “much better and you don’t risk getting nasty trojans on you pc.”

Here are some screenshots I’ve taken. I don’t cover everything, but just enough to give you a good idea of what we should be expecting. I also won’t be detailing all of these pictures, but a picture is worth a thousand words right? Inspect them and see what you can find!

I did notice a lot of skin changes and a couple of bugs here and there dealing with the skin, but it’s overall very much improved. The internal “opera:*” pages also seem to be using a different style than previous builds, but then again they may have dropped using the Opera logo in the top of the pages.

Notice the border-radius support!

Try this build at your own risk!
http://rapidshare.com/files/323481638/Opera_1050_20192_in.msi
http://depositfiles.com/files/e01z2q5qp

LifeCam Button Config v1.0.0.0

Published on October 20, 2009 in Applications, How-To, Microsoft, News, Open Source, Picture and Windows. 2 Comments Tags: hack, lifecam, visual basic, Windows.

I’ve just written a tool that lets you bypass the default Windows Live Messenger prompt when you press you LifeCam’s button on top.

It can be a little annoy, but the good news is that now you can open or focus any application you want with the click of that button.

As you can see from the image above, I’ve made a simple browse option so you can easily find the file you want. When you open this tool it will automatically display the path to the program that is currently set to open.

If you later decide that you want to just use the default application (the one set before you change anything) then it’s only a couple of clicks away!

Currently the implementation used could be error prone. I have written the application to “assume” that the default application should be installed to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft LifeCam\icepick.exe” for 32-bit computers and to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft LifeCam\icepick.exe” for 64-bit computers.

If problems are experienced with this then please let me know. It may be better to scan for the application rather than to assume it’s in that location, but typically it should always be in that location.

Thanks for checking out this little tool! I hope you find it helpful. If you’re curious about the source code just fire off an email! It’s currently written in Visual Basic 2008, but could easily be ported to another language especially since I overly document code so others know what I’m doing.

Download – 163kb

LifeCam VX-1000 Live Call Button Hack

Published on October 19, 2009 in Applications, Entertainment, How-To, Microsoft, News and Windows. 1 Comment Tags: hack, lifecam vx-1000, microsoft, webcam, Windows.

After digging into process and id’s I was able to track down the Guid for the Microsoft LifeCam VX-1000 and inspect several settings assigned to it via the Windows Registry.

As it turns out, there is a very simple hack to use the Windows Live Call button for any program you’d like!

I don’t have time at the moment to write a script or a program for this, but you can manually configure your webcam to open a program. If it’s already open then pressing the Windows Live Call button will simply bring it back into focus.

So far, I’ve only tested this button to open and focus Digsby and Opera, but it could in theory be used to call and or focus any application.

If you’re a little sketched about editing your Registry then that’s a sign that this hack isn’t for you and you should wait until I (or someone else) releases a tool that suits you.

If you’re still reading, then you probably want to get rid of that annoying Windows Live prompt.

Open up RegEdit.
Navigate through the Registry to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{6BDD1FC6-810F-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}\0000\Settings
The key that you want to edit is conveniently labeled “QuickStartPath“.
Just change this key to the direct path of any file you want to launch. You can test that it works immediately after saving the key. No need to close RegEdit until you’re done.

If it works, great! You’re done! If not, then you’ve done something wrong.

Remember that the original file that was being launched was something similar to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft LifeCam\icepick.exe” depending on your platform. Mine is 64-bit, so you’re may not need the “ (x86)” specific Program Files directory (if you’re using a 32-bit computer).

If I find some free time soon I may write a simple program that can be called to do more than just open your messenger. Possibly start a video chat with someone who just signed on. We’ll see in time.

Enjoy this little hack!

Microsoft LifeCam VX-1000

Published on October 19, 2009 in Entertainment, Linux, Microsoft, News, Picture, Product Review, Ubuntu and Windows. 4 Comments Tags: chat, lifecam vx-1000, Linux, microsoft, Video, webcam, Windows.

I just recently bought a new webcam via eBay for a great price of $5.50 and have been catching up with some of my Skype friends just for fun.

What’s great about this little webcam is that it has an excellent turning radius and can tilt to just about any angle you need it to.

Another great feature that this webcam offers is the ability to be mounted are rest just about anywhere. The base of the camera opens if you need to hang it somewhere rather than resting it on your desk or tower. The clip can be used to mount it onto your desktop monitor whether it’s an old CRT or a new LCD and it even mounts on very sturdy to my HP Pavilion dv4000 laptop screen.

The picture quality of this little camera is great. Not surprisingly, you can pay a little more and get even better cameras such as the VX-3000 or the VX-6000.

With a built-in microphone, I was able to give away my old microphone and maintain the same capabilities.

My only complaint is that the focus ring around the lens was never mentioned on or in the packaging so it took me a little while to figure out how to get rid of the blur (just rotate the lens to adjust).

The camera even offers a one-click access button on the top of it that can launch video calls instantly for Windows Live Messenger. I don’t use Windows Live Messenger much myself (read: at all), but I figured I could play around with the drivers in a hex editor and figure out how to make the button customizable…maybe open the Digsby or Trillian contact list (who knows) so I wrote an application to make this button customizable.

I had plug-and-play luck in Windows 7 with this webcam, however, Ubuntu 9.10 x86_64 has been less than forgiving. I’ve been searching around for a little while trying to configure my webcam that seems to be detected, but the video that’s displayed is corrupt. It seems that it’s a small problem with a fairly easy fix, but I just haven’t found it yet. At least it’s recognized! Hopefully I can write a script or a guide to get this webcam working in Ubuntu for others…once I get it working for myself of course.

If you’ve been looking for a webcam and debating whether or not to buy one then I would suggest this one. It’s affordable, has everything you need and extremely good picture quality!

Windows 7 Wallpaper Slideshow

Published on October 15, 2009 in Entertainment, Microsoft, Operating Systems and Windows. 0 Comments Tags: microsoft, wallpaper, Windows, windows 7.

Kyleabaker.com never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday, after fooling around with the default Windows 7 Wallpaper, I decided to find more Dual Monitor backgrounds and remembered that I had previously uploaded several to my site for others to grab (I do not claim any ownership of these) and I realized that I should use them if I spent the time to upload them for others.

So….I downloaded several of them to my Dropbox folder (to sync my background for Ubuntu and Windows 7). After opening the personalization window (for the first time) I quickly realized that you can use more than one image as you desktop background. You can in fact “check” multiple images to cycle through in a sorted order or in shuffle mode.

I threw a few images in a folder and quickly found out that a continuously changing background can be fun! You should try it too.

My next goal….write a program that fetches the hottest photos from Flickr (and the likes).

Windows 7

Published on September 16, 2009 in Microsoft, News, Operating Systems, Picture and Windows. 3 Comments Tags: microsoft, Windows, windows 7.

I’ve been using Windows 7 Professional for a short time now, but I’m already very much impressed.

Not only is Windows 7 faster and more responsive than Windows Vista, it’s also a lot better looking!

Windows Vista had a sorry excuse of an update for the Taskbar, but in Windows 7 the Taskbar has been dramatically improved. The ability to re-arrange programs and icons in the Taskbar freely as well as pinning frequently used icons to the Taskbar is a major enhancement that I now won’t be able to work without!

While many past reviews from others have related and/or compared the new Taskbar to the pre-existing Mac Dock, I beg to differ. While skin deep the Taskbar and Dock appear to have a great number of similarities, they are far from the same.

One of my favorite features of the new Taskbar is the way the application icon appears to be stacked when multiple windows are opened. The thumbnail view of applications and windows is also a very nifty feature, especially when you have several multiple windows open that you can choose from.

Windows 7 has an awesome new focus feature that basically makes every application that isn’t in question become transparent. In the image below, I’ve hovered over the Taskbar thumbnail for Opera. The effect is that only this window will appear and others will fade away, as seen by the translucent appearance of the Windows Media Player window.

If you want to view the desktop, there’s still a button to do that. However, the button is no longer just a quick links shortcut and is now a built-in part of the (end of the) Taskbar. Clicking this button will minimize all open windows. Clicking it again will restore those windows to their original state.

The cool new feature, however, is that if you hover this button for a few seconds, the open windows will fade out so you can see through to the desktop and not actually move any windows.

For some reason with Windows Vista I never found the Desktop Gadgets to be useful. Somehow they always managed to be, or seemed to be, in my way. With Windows 7 the Desktop Gadgets can be very useful and have thus far seemed to be completely out of my way.

There are a great number of other enhancements to Windows 7, but the updated Taskbar is by far the most useful for me. After using Ubuntu for so long and developing a pride in Linux, it’s amazing how quickly Windows 7 has won my support!

The visual effects found in Windows 7 can be implemented fairly completely in Linux using the KDE environment. I’m personally not a big fan of KDE, preferring Gnome much more instead. To me, KDE is a great environment in concept, but the icons and graphics in general seem to be off very poor taste and KDE feels overly complicated for such a shiny interface. This is where Windows 7 has done a great job with a clean and simple interface as well as a nice set of icons and graphics.

One very useful program that I highly recommend is UltraMon. Another alternative application for this is DisplayFusion, though I’ve never tested it. I’ve been using UltraMon for a few years now as a way to extend the Windows Taskbar across multiple monitors for XP, Vista and now Windows 7 (with the latest beta).

I’m still unsure as to why Microsoft refuses to implement the ability to stretch the Taskbar across multiple windows by default. This is very easily accomplished on most other platforms.

I’m sure others have found Windows 7 to be a major improvement. I’d really like to hear some opinions on Windows XP vs Windows 7 since there is still such a large group of Windows XP supporters. I’d especially like to hear some views of XP being better than 7.

Trillian Astra Now Open to the Public

Published on June 9, 2009 in Applications, News, Picture, Product Review and Windows. 1 Comment Tags: download, free, im, instant messenger, messenger, trillian, trillian astra, Windows.

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog for a while, then you may know that I’ve been testing Cerulean Studios’ latest version of Trillian which has been coined for some time as “Astra”.

Trillian gained a great deal of popularity in recent years when Trillian 3 was released and harnessed instant messenger features that had never before been seen.

Today, Cerulean Studios officially removed the restricted access and have made Trillian Astra available to everyone! Just head on over to the download page if you want to check it out!

While Trillian Astra is still not in a final release stage, it should be close enough for you to depend on as your main messenger.

I will be interested to see how Trillian Astra competes with Digsby now that they are both openly available to the masses.

Free Windows Vista to Windows 7 Upgrades

Published on January 8, 2009 in Microsoft, News, Operating Systems and Windows. 1 Comment Tags: free, microsoft, Operating Systems, upgrade, Windows, windows 7, windows vista, windows vista ultimate.

According to Tech ARP, Microsoft has been drafting a plan that will allow some Windows Vista users to upgrade to the next version of Windows, Windows 7, for free.

This upgrade plan, which is temporarily named “The Windows 7 Upgrade Program,” is being developed in order to “assist Microsoft’s OEM partners in minimizing the number of end users who may postpone acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system. This program allows OEMs to offer an upgrade to Windows 7 to end users who qualify.”

While plans and drafts have been developing since December 10, 2008, there is still no official word on the exact eligibility rules. However, according to a draft, eligibility will apply as follows and a requirement must be met before you are eligible.

End users must purchase a new PC that is pre-installed with an eligible Windows Vista Operating System (OS), during the program eligibility window.

The PC must have a valid Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached.

The only Windows Vista® versions eligible for the program are :

Windows Vista® Home Premium
Windows Vista® Business
Windows Vista® Ultimate

* Microsoft Windows Vista® Home Basic, Windows Vista® Starter Edition, and Windows® XP (all editions) are not qualifying products under the program.

The Program does not support multiple upgrades for medium, large, or enterprise customers. Customers that want to upgrade multiple PCs should use the appropriate Microsoft Volume Licensing program. See www.microsoft.com/licensing for more details.

The following are the only valid upgrade paths under the program :

Windows Vista® Home Premium -> Windows® 7 Home Premium
Windows Vista® Business -> Windows® 7 Professional
Windows Vista® Ultimate -> Windows® 7 Ultimate

For those of us who forked out the cash to buy Windows Vista Ultimate, it looks like we are getting the shaft end of the deal to the extreme. If the program is revised and Vista Ultimate users are allowed an upgrade then I will continue to support Microsoft with future releases. However, if I am forced to purchase Windows 7 after having purchased Vista Ultimate with absolutely no benefits then I plan to simply boycott Microsoft. (Period).

Mac and Windows, Netflix and Silverlight

Published on November 17, 2008 in Mac and Windows. 0 Comments Tags: Mac, netflix, Windows.

I’ve not been very pleased with Windows lately and have found that Ubuntu seems to have more to offer. However, after booting up in Windows Vista today for updates I wondered what the new Netflix Watch Instantly looked like and how well it worked.

After installing Silverlight it was time to check it out. If you want to use the silverlight version, which now supports Mac and Windows both, then you will have to opt-in here first.

I was surprised! The new player is great! I would even say it’s better than the old player. I just can’t wait until it’s supported in Linux.

Anyone have any opinions on the new player or Netflix Watch Instantly in general?

Windows 7 Preview

Published on October 28, 2008 in Microsoft, Multimedia, News, Operating Systems, Picture and Windows. 0 Comments Tags: gallery, Operating Systems, Windows, windows 7.

Today Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 7. Below is a short gallery of Windows 7 screenshots. For more information about the details of the Windows 7 and what’s changed or new just click on one of these links.

Just to point out a few things that you should pay attention to, I’ve made the following list: