Tech

New phone

They say the iphone is great. But what is better?

Mytouch by HTC from Tmobile with Android – OS made by Google.

Google > apple.
Tmobile service < ATT (not by much)
Tmobile price < ATT

All this means iphone has a very strong competitor which is great for us consumers.

Windows Themes

Sam and I just purchased a new laptop for me as my three year old one is no longer sufficient and we will be sending it to the Philippines.  So I started looking for possible themes for the new laptop.

Windows 7RC

The next Windows os is almost complete with promise of release by Holiday Season 2009.

Windows 7 Release Candidate

Prism

Prism Mozilla

Prism is designed to create a better environment for running your favorite web-based applications. Much of what we used to accomplish using an application running locally on our computers is moving into the web browser. Thanks to advances in web technology, these apps are increasingly powerful and usable. As a result, applications like Gmail, Facebook and Google Docs are soaring in popularity.

Unfortunately the web browser, which was originally designed for reading documents, is not an ideal environment for running applications. It is frustrating and time-consuming to wade through a mass of browser windows and tabs just to find your email client. Unstable applications can slow down or crash your entire browser. And many of the conveniences offered by modern operating systems are unavailable to web apps running in the browser.

The Best of Both Worlds

This is where Prism comes in. Instead of running all your web apps in the browser, Prism lets you run them in their own window just like normal applications. A single faulty app or web page can no longer take down everything you are working on. In the future, we will be releasing web app bundles from the Prism developer community that let you customize your application to use many of the operating system features common to a desktop application.

Prism is based on the same world-class browsing engine as Firefox to ensure maximum compatibility with the entire range of applications available on the web, today and in the future.

Lifehacker – Exercises That Protect Against Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Ergonomics

demonstrates a few hand and wrist stretches and motions that helped him ward off the desk worker’s curse.

via Lifehacker – Exercises That Protect Against Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Ergonomics.

Labs/Ubiquity – MozillaWiki

Ubiquity is an extension that allows you to enter commands that have knowledge of page content and return new information.

via Labs/Ubiquity – MozillaWiki.

Google Calendar Agenda Puts Your Schedule in the Vista Sidebar

Sidebar gadget Google Calendar Agenda adds quick access to your calendar right in your Windows Vista sidebar.

via Lifehacker – Google Calendar Agenda Puts Your Schedule in the Vista Sidebar – Featured Windows Download.

Belvedere : Self-Cleaning PC Tool

Lifehacker – Belvedere Automates Your Self-Cleaning PC – Downloads.

This could be usuful for those that download pictures from email using Firefox.  By default all downloads go to “Download” folder on Vista.  With this tool, you can move all downloads with a picture extension into your “Pictures” folder.

Courtney Malone » How To Fix the Vista Network Speed Issue While Playing Sound (Updated)

So far I have been pleasantly surprised with my Vista install, a few things needed upgrading but no show stoppers. At least not until I copied a file from the media center machine. I was getting only a few mb/s despite the fact that both machines are connected via gigabit ethernet and have striped raid arrays. It only seemed to occur when playing audio…any audio, regardless of source. This wasn’t good at all.

via Courtney Malone » How To Fix the Vista Network Speed Issue While Playing Sound (Updated).

Vista Gigabit Performance Issues: Fixed – Jayson’s Blog – jaysonKnight.com

Like quite a few folks, I’ve been plagued by issues with Vista on a Gigabit LAN, namely seeing throughput that’s a fraction of what it should be. I tried the fixes Scott Hanselman outlined in his excellent Vista Gigabit post to no avail. The Google gods must have been smiling on me yesterday because I found an article I had not seen before: Disable Vista network autotuning. In a nutshell, open an elevated command prompt and run the following:

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable

I’m now seeing sustained throughput between Vista and other machines on my network in the neighborhood of 80-100 MB/s. From what I’ve read, none of these ‘fixes’ are needed when all machines are utilizing SMB 2.0, e.g. Vista <-> Windows 2008 or other Vista clients. Regardless, it’s great to finally be able to utilize all of my LAN bandwidth after almost a year of frustration.

via Vista Gigabit Performance Issues: Fixed – Jayson’s Blog – jaysonKnight.com.