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Your Daily Techology News, Tutorials and How To's

Most announcements from Microsoft today have been about the impending release of Windows Phone (Windows Mobile 6.5), featuring updates to MyPhone, as well as updates to the Mobile Client and an improved web experience for Windows Live. At this point in time, it seems that it’s only a minor update, with mostly stability issues, UI changes, and the addition of Windows Live Home.

If the features below seem appealing, you can grab it from mobile.live.com. However, thanks to the usual stabillity fixes and so on, it’s probably worth downloading the free update anyway.

Windows Live Home – an entirely new feature!

• View you and your friends “What’s new” feed from Windows Live and other major 3rd party social networking sites.
• View Windows Live photos and comment
• Upload photos to Windows Live and other 3rd party sites through integration with the new My Phone client
• View your Windows Live people
• Update your status and accept network invitations from others

Improvements and Updates like

• Entirely new launcher screen
• Significant touch investments that shine with new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices
• Bing search integration
• Abuse reporting
• Automatic uninstall of previous versions

Virtual memory improvement and reduced installation file size through client refactoring

It doesn’t have the most appealing icon to look at, being nothing more than an orange traffic cone, but VLC player is, well, basically a tank, when compared to most other media players, premium or free. Before you judge the player on it’s interface, the fact that it’s an Opensource, means that it supports a ridiculous amount of file types. Unlike Windows Media Player, or iTunes, you don’t need to search for codecs, or use a converter. The best thing about VLC Media Player, is that basically everything just… plays.

Also what doesn’t matter how obscure your file type is, if it’s MP3, or Alaw, VLC probably will support it, unless the file is corrupted, or damaged in some way. VLC is also supported across a wide range of modern Operating systems, including all versions of Windows, OS X, Linux, as well as Tarballs, and Familiar Linux.

And of course, if you don’t like that Traffic Cone anyway, you can just download some skins to make it look more modern. You can grab VLC HERE

Here’s how to minimize/hide the ribbon in Microsoft Word 2007:

1. Open Microsoft Word 2007. At the very top of the window, click on the little arrow pointing down. (The arrow is next to the default shortcuts on the right of the Office Menu button)
2. In the drop down menu, click ‘Minimize the Ribbon’.

You can make the ribbon appear again by perform step no.1 and then unselect ‘Minimize the Ribbon’ by clicking on it in the drop down menu. The ribbon should appear again.

Confirmed by Microsoft with a bunch of ‘meh’ racing games, Audiosurf: Tilt is by far, the most exciting game currently announced for the Zune HD. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much else confirmed about it, apart from the fact that it’s in development for the portable media player.

The Original Audiosurf featured the tagline ‘Ride your music’ and allowed gamers to pick a song from their collection, and play an arcade game, where they had to collect bricks in order to make matches. But, unlike games such as Guitar Hero, or Rock Band, the game will allow you to use any .MP3 file to play with. The game detects the frequencies and intensity of the song, and as a result, one is literally able to experience their music in a colorful, and surreal experience.

According to a very short interview with an Audiosurf developer, the Zune HD version has full access to the music library, and will be controlled using the tilt interface (Obviously). There have been no plans to make an Audiosurf for the iPhone just yet, with the music binaries on the iPhone still locked. Tapulous has announced a game much like Audiosurf for the iPhone though, ‘Riddim Ribbon”. The first game in the series will be with the Black Eyed Peas, a wise move by the developers.

Being perhaps, one of the first ways for the public to own their own webpage, Geocities will close this month, on October the 26th. With a almost non-existant user base, as people continue shifting towards Myspace and Facebook, this relic of the internet will finally be laid to rest.

Back in 1996, this company was purchased for an amazing $3.65 Billion, just before the dotcom bust. Now, with the rapid development of newer Social Networking sites such as Twitter, and Block Party, it was probably inevitable for Yahoo to close the antiquitated website. Archivists are working tirelessly to save the pages, and users have been advised to transfer their data elsewhere, but otherwise, the sites will be deleted off the Yahoo servers.  

Of course, there are a lot of places where one can shift their data to. For the majority of active  Geocities users, it’s probably going to drive them into the open arms of Blogspot, or a Wordpress powered blog.

PeaZip is a file compression, encryption and file split utility. It’s quite similar to WinRar and WinZip, but PeaZip is free. Although it maybe not as powerful as it’s paid competitors, PeaZip is definitely something to try for normal users.

To download PeaZip, please click HERE

Basically being one of the cheapest E-Readers on the American Market, Amazon executives have announced that they will release the Kindle internationally, with wireless books being able to be downloaded in 100 different countries. Obviously, this is a move designed to penetrate foreign markets, as well as allowing international travellers to be able to get new reads wherever they are in the world.

“These are smart moves for Amazon, as a good proportion of early Kindle adopters have been business travelers, who were frustrated by the inability to download new books outside the country,” Larry Fisher, a research director at consultant ABI Research wrote in an Oct. 7 note. “It also opens up the rest of the world as potential markets for Amazon and the Kindle, at a time when competing e-book readers have been trying to make the transition from other countries to the US market.”

What’s also interesting is that Amazon have noted that the E-Reader is still cheaper overseas than many of it’s competitors, even with import taxes, and local taxes included. Obviously, Google and Sony are sure to respond in the coming days.

Yes, TDK Corp has made an optical disk that can store more data than a Bluray disk, or most small portable hard drives. The Disk itself has 10 layers, each containing 32GB each. The composition of the disks have been improved in order to combat the problem of a weakening signal, with the usage of multiple layers.

The first layer (L0) is made of an inorganic Si-Cu alloy, whereas the rest is a material made of bismuth peroxide and germanium dioxide. Apparently, TDK enhanced the transmittance by adjusting the density of germanium dioxide, as well as introduced materials which can lessen the damaging effects of heat.

The new medium will utilize the same laser found on Blu-ray drives – a blue-violet semiconductor laser with an oscillation wavelength of 405nm and an objective lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.85. The symbol error rate is said to be less than 10-4, which the company claims is commercially viable and the laser output is less than 30mw. The prototype will be showcased at CEATEC Japan 2009.

The uses of a 320GB disk are going to be debatable however, but, considering that Blu-Ray players might be able to support them, it’s going to be good for Movie Pirates, Wedding Cameramen, and hopefully, game developers.

Microsoft’s Zune has always been smacked around on the Portable Media Player market, always being outdone by Sony, and the ever vicious Apple. But, after taking a massive beating from the two companies, Microsoft has clawed it’s way up to 2nd place in the PMP market. Unfortunately, the market share it possesses stands at around 5-6%. Not a bad figure, but when compared to Apple’s iPod dominating the market with a 63% lead, Microsoft will obviously have an uphill battle trying to increase it’s market share.

But the future isn’t too bleak for Apple Haters, or individualists. The Zune HD has been released in the United States to a pretty big reception, with Amazon and most retailers commenting that there is a massive wait for the new Zune. The 16GB model has a 1-2 month wait, whilst the 32GB model has around a 1-3 week wait.

Featuring a beautiful 3.3″ OLED touch compatible screen, it easily outperforms all of it’s competitors in terms of brightness, contrast, and sharpness. Reportedly, the screen is good enough for some reviewers to remark that the screen literally shimmers with color.

The Zune HD also features a pretty decent battery life, with Microsoft reporting that it’s battery can have 8.5 hours of video playback, as well as 32 hours of audio playback. It’s a nice touch by Microsoft, meaning that users don’t have to carry a USB cable around with them all the time, sneaking a short charge here and there. Also according to Microsoft, the Zune should charge pretty quickly, obtaining a full charge in two hours from a wall charger, and 3 from a Computers USB port.

The Zune is also a fairly light, portable device, weighing in at a mere 74 grams. Being slightly thicker than the iPod touch at 8.9mm, it’s only 2.1″ wide and 4.0″ tall. Microsoft obviously haven’t ignored the failings of the original Zune lineup, with one being the irritating fact that, it simply looked ugly. Fortunately, the R&D has noticed this, and have presented the Zune HD in two colors, with the 16GB version appearing in a matte black finish, and the 32GB Zune having a platinum exterior. The case has a brushed metal finish, dealing with fingerprints fairly well, and of course, the minimalistic, but beautiful GUI makes Microsoft’s baby a beauty to behold.

Of course, video playback on the Zune HD is phenomenal, supporting 720p resolution videos, and playing them back for the user to behold at 30 FPS. The device also supports a wide range of Video formats, including MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV. Powered by Nvidia’s Tegra processor, it’s not surprising that the powerful PMP is able to do so.

There is the problem of Microsoft’s apps store, and music library. Unfortunately, as of now, the Zune HD has exactly 6 applications. Not funny, when compared to Apple’s 75,000 applications. Hopefully, the powerful onboard hardware will encourage developers to jump aboard in the future. And the music library is generally smaller than iTunes at the current point in time, but features a more intuitive membership system. Hopefully, these features will be improved on by Microsoft, an important thing to consider when taking on the Jack of all trades iPod touch. Of course, the Zune features an onboard Accelerometer, and a FM HD radio tuner, as well as crystal clear audio playback.
For international Apple Haters, the Zune HD hasn’t been released internationally yet, but hopefully, Microsoft will sell the Zune overseas as well. Perhaps, for the first time in it’s long reign, Apple will finally have a competitor on the PMP market.

So now that most entrepreneurs and businesses are familiar with Google Voice let me tell you what you are missing out.

I have been with Grasshopper for over a year now, formally well known as GotVMail.
As an entrepreneur taking on different aspects of business deals Google Voice was just not cutting any deal for me. It’s nice tool but nothing I would switch to for many reasons and here are some that I think business owners or entrepreneurs as my self should not consider cheap over business.

1. Cost with Google Voice is cheap but that’s what most people think! It really isn’t because A. you are paying for minutes with your mobile provider or B. you are paying national call with your home phone service.

2. Did you know that people in Cali did not have any service with Google voice “Phone Number” for 2 days? Or your phone-call get’s dropped after 15 minutes (Gizmodo) or many more (Google Dropped Calls).

3. Customer support: All I can say is Good Luck With That!

I mean there is many features that google voice needs to improve over regular 1800-1888 phone services to be a “good competitor”

Grasshopper on the other hand I really can do with my phone number what I want.

• Record custom voice mail
• 24/7 live customer service
• I can navigate customer/caller to anywhere I want (Example: Create faq. Press 1 if you have issue with iPhone Wifi…. Press 2 if you are calling Joe Hobot etc…..
• I can set my schedule business hours, I don’t want people to call me on my cell after 10pm period!

I mean those are just some of the things that people just don’t see and think oh I have Google Voice it’s cheap , Yeah… but if you are business man or somebody that relies on phone calls cheap isn’t the answer,when you are loosing customer’s. On top of that seriously….. would you rather have somebody call you via 515-123-4567 or 1-888-123-4567 TOLL- FREE?

Fell free to call me: 1-888-720-1934

To be continued….