TechLifeWeb

Sites that I found interesting for October 23rd 2009 through October 25th 2009:

• Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 – Help & How-to – Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7? Use this guide from Microsoft.
• How to automatically skip commercials in Windows 7 Media Center – Ben Drawbaugh has a great guide on commercials skipping in Windows Media Center and as we all hate commercials its well worth looking at. via @isdixon on Twitter.
• Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media – While you can't simply use Upgrade media to do a clean install of Windows 7 on an unused PC with a blank hard drive, the workaround this time is easier than ever. Assuming you know the trick.

Sites that I found interesting for September 17th 2009 through September 21st 2009:

• AT&T to Let You Patch the Dead Zone in Your House for $20 per Month – The telco has started offering the 3G MicroCell, a wireless network extender the company claims acts like a mini cellular tower in your home. With it, users can expect enhanced coverage for both voice and data for up to 5,000 square feet, with support for up to four users at any given time
• Batch Converting a Directory Tree of Videos Recursively with Handbrake for Streaming to an Xbox360 – This script takes every *.avi file in the current (.) folder, and all folders underneath it (-R), and for each of this files, creates a new filename with the word "-convert" inside. It then calls the HandBrake command line (yours may be in "C:\Program Files" so you might need to change that. It uses the Xbox360 preset.
• Media Center Studio – Media Center Studio is a free application for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that enables you to customise Windows Media Center. It is the successor of MC Menu Mender, bringing it up to date for Windows 7 and adding support for theme application and editing.

Sites that I found interesting for June 14th 2009

• Guide to Building a HD HTPC – Good place to start for choosing Home Theater PC Parts – Page 85 – AVS Forum
• Dell: Twitter Helped Boost Sales for $3 Million –
• Enable Concurrent User Sessions in Windows 7 – If you have Media Center powering your television, this will let you connect to another session on the PC to do maintenance.

This is pretty amazing. I don’t have the patience this would take to create.

Sites that I found interesting for June 1st 2009 through June 3rd 2009:

• Microsoft reveals native Win 7 video transcoding – Microsoft's Murray Vince revealed one of Windows 7's hidden features: native GPU accelerated video transcoding. via @isdixonon twitter.
• CrunchPad: The Launch Prototype – This looks very cool.
• Twitter Search/Ad Blocker Greasemonkey Script for Bing – If, like me, you love the Twitter Search Results in Google Search Greasemonkey script for Firefox, you'll need this one if you are testing Bing. The one for Google is here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/43451

Sites that I found interesting for May 20th 2009 through May 25th 2009:

• AT&T tips 32GB iPhone 3G through BlackBerry trade-in program – As part of AT&T’s efforts to get the BlackBerry Bold in as many hands as possible, the carrier has posted an as-yet non-existent 32GB iPhone 3G as being worth $355 when traded-in for a BlackBerry Bold.
• Kyocera Brings Solar to Prius Rooftops – Kyocera has won a deal to supply Toyota with solar panels for the new Prius.
• MediaInfo – Get technical information and tags of a lot of multimedia files. Supported formats : – Video : AVI/OGM/MKV/MPG/VOB/MP4/3GP/… – Audio : MP3/OGG/MKA/MP4/AAC/…

Sites that I found interesting for April 24th 2009 through April 27th 2009:

• Navy plane lost in '44 resurfaces – A World War II naval dive bomber was pulled from the bottom of Lake Michigan today, 65 years after it crashed on a training mission off Waukegan.
• Windows 7 Release Candidate April 30th for MSDN and May 5th for Public – Virtual XP mode? Could be interesting for businesses.
• Hacking Windows 7 Media Center and Extenders – Using small hacks to create a better Media Center experience

Sites that I found interesting for March 26th 2009 through March 30th 2009:

• Google Redesigns YouTube, Copies Hulu – Google is redesigning YouTube to make the site more attractive to the content creators who make the kind of stuff Google could actually sell ads against
• PicoCool – LEGO Twitter Fail Whale –
• Skype for iPhone to Be Released as Early as Next Week –

There are some web sites out there that make things hard to read. I don’t mean for quick browsing. Most of us who have been using the web for any length of time have trained ourselves to get the gestalt of a page fairly quickly. I mean for time when you really want to read an news or other type of long article.

Over at arc90 they have a new lab experiment where they have created a bookmarklet that you install easily in your browser. Then, when surfing to a page that you want to read for a while, you click the bookmarklet and instantly the page changes to a much more readable format.

Here is a quick video they put together to visually explain what they are doing.

Readability : An Arc90 Lab Experiment from Arc90 on Vimeo.

You can get the bookmarklet here: Readability

One of the things I hate about twitter is the lame email you get from Twitter when someone starts following you. This is where Twimailer comes in. Go to Twimailer.com, enter your email address and get a special email address for twitter to send all your follower notifications through. Twimailer then pulls lots more info about that user then Twitter gave you and sends it along to you. Helps you make better decisions on who to follow.

Below is a video to explain it in more detail:

UPDATE 05MAR09: Some people have worried about the security aspect of Twimailer and changing your email address in Twitter. @chrismessina posted a nice how to on using Gmail (you could use other email clients) to use Twimailer more securely and without making any modifications to Twitter. Nice!

Twimailer demo from jon on Vimeo.