Spiderman’s Web

On most Macs and PCs (and even some Linux-based OSs) you’ll find a widget/gadget system. Wikipedia defines them  as:

Widgets are interactive virtual tools that provide single-purpose services such as showing the user the latest news, the current weather, the time, a calendar, a dictionary, a map program, a calculator, desktop notes, photo viewers, or even a language translator, among other things.

I used to be a Widget nut. I always was trying to find the latest Widget-engine which not only had good-looking widgets, but would also not take a huge chunk out of my memory. For years, I tried to center myself around widgets, but behold, I have seen the light.

Okay, so now I can understand where gadgets could come in handy. It’s basically a way to combine a ton of information into one location (your desktop). Okay, I don’t have a problem with that. Now, here’s the problem. Do you really ever see your desktop? For me, I always have iTunes open, a couple of Firefox windows open, and a blank Word document - all full screen. I will rarely ever make a pit stop to my desktop. In reality, if I ever did want to check the weather, see how horrible my portfolio is doing , or translate my French homework into English, I really just use the internet. Why? Because I’m probably already on the web and I don’t want to minimize all of my windows just to check one measly little bit of data. Besides, with all of those windows open, I need to find a way to salvage every little piece of the 1.5 GBs of memory I have. Let me tell ‘ya, whether it be Google Desktop Gadgets, Windows Vista Sidebar, the Yahoo! Widget Engine, or Samurize, they all take up a fairly hefty amount of memory.

I do think the sidebar-based gadget engines (Windows & Google) are better than the Desktop-based ones because of the fact that their always open on your screen. Then again, it still takes up memory and some valuable screen real estate. I also think Apple got it right when they created a Hotkey which would bring up your widgets and then they would go away one you are done looking at them. Still, valuable memory is at stake.

So, under certain circumstances, widgets do make some sense. Under most circumstances, I think they are extremely pointless. What do you think?

The only thing more annoying than having to march with a huge base drum for two weeks straight has to be lookin’ at those user folders (Music, Videos, Documents, etc) when they are missing their icons. You know, they’re replaced with an ugly, regular folder icon (eww). When you look at all of your user folders, it looks pretty ugly with only one icon being beige while the rest have cool green folders with pictures in ‘em. Chances are, you probably erased the “desktop.ini” file in the folder (it’s hidden). You probably didn’t do it yourself, but I bet you have a program that did.  I’ve seen many ways which highlight different ways to fix this problem. I find this way the easiest. Here’s how it’s done:

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A lot of people think that Microsoft wasn’t thinking when it came to Launchers. The closest thing they have come to that would be the new Windows Search function built into the Vista start menu and the Quick Launch toolbar, both found on the Windows Task bar/Start bar. Well, did you know there’s some hidden functionality in that ol’ taskbar of yours? Take a look and you’ll see what I mean:

To Small to See? Click it!

Using the “Create Taskbar” function on the toolbar, you can create your own categories of icons to put on the bottom of your task bar. It’s sort of like the Mac OS X Dock for PC, except without the eyecandy. If your going for something small and simple but quick, this little “tutorial” is just for you. Actually, this has nothing to do with using the “Quick Launch” toolbar, but it does make for a good title.

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Originally made for IP Administrators to scare their “inferior” co-workers (or students), this little trick is great for making your Windows PC just a little bit more personal. You can create a custom message which will display right before you login. Lifehacker had an easier way to edit the “Local Group Policy”, but it really only applies to Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Enterprise/Business, and Windows Server since this little tweak is aimed at companies. Though it requires some registry tweaking, we’re going to edit some pretty harmless strings and this will work on most, if not all, Windows machines! So here it goes:

1. Click Start > Run > Type in “REGEDIT” (no quotes). In Windows Vista, you can click the Start button (Windows Logo) and type in “REGEDIT” (no quotes) in the Search bar.
2. Once the Registry is open, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system
3. Find “legalnoticecaption”, right click it, press Modify.
4. In the “Value Data” field, type in something of your choice. This will be the title of your notification box. Press “OK” when finished.
5. Find “legalnoticetext”, right click it, press Modify.
6. In the “Value Data” field, type in something of your choice. This will be the body of your notification box. Press “OK” when finished.
7. Close out of the Windows Registry and Log Off (or Switch User) and enjoy your new greeting!

Pretty pointless to say nonetheless, but still kinda cool. If you want to add empty lines, you can try this. I wasn’t able to add any probably because I’m using Windows Vista Home Premium, but hey, why not?

The Hookup: Ask the Admin

Well, I’m not gonna lie: the banner says it all. If you haven’t already pledged I encourage you to do so. As of the date this post was written (Sunday, June 8, 2006), they are really close to getting 1 million pledges. Some people are a bit hesitant to download Firefox 3 because of Add-on support which, I will admit using Firefox 3 does suck since it’s not able to use everything since it isn’t compatible with Firefox 3. Even so, the memory performance is UNBELIEVABLE! Compared to its predecessor(s), IE7, IE8, Safari, and Opera, it fairs extremely well memory wise:

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Almost a year ago, I bought what would be my first “new” laptop: An Acer Aspire 3680 with 512 Mb RAM, 80 Gb HD, and Windows Vista Basic. Before that, I had gone through various “hand-me-down” laptops including a IBM Thinkpad T20 and a Apple Powerbook G3. Since both of these computers were made before 2000, you can only imagine how slow these computers were.

On Sunday, my trusty Acer Aspire 3680’s video card went crazy and died. Though I tried to revive it, nothing worked which ended up with me having to call up customer service. It was a very easy process and (luckily) it was still under wanrranty so I didn’t have to pay for it to get fixed.  Today, I finally sent out the computer after finding the box and hopefully I’ll go through a smooth process. Even with today’s customer complaints and lack of customer service, I feel pretty confident that everything will go smoothly (I have a feeling that phrase will come back to haunt me).

I’m actually kinda suprised that it lasted this long since I pretty much kick the crap out of this computer (this computer was built for the typical email and internet user, not for someone who creates websites).

Anyway, though most of you guys probably don’t care about my computer, I felt like telling you anyway.

P.S. Even though everybody always says I post very little anyway, it should be noted that it’s going to be a bit harder for me to post since I’ll be using the family computer.

If anybody else has downloaded the first version of Qtrax, I think that we both share a common viewpoint: It Sucks (a lot).

Yeah yeah, it has only been out for two weeks, but come on, the way it is right now, it really shouldn’t have been released this soon. On some of the other posts that were on Spiderman’s Web, we were taking our guesses about how the music was going to be from file format to song availability. Though there is only one problem about reviewing the song availability, format, quality, and overall music selection: you can’t download anything. Wait, isn’t this a DOWNLOAD service? I guess not. Though it has a ton of songs on that can be found when you do a search, you can’t download any of it. I even tried to download the songs that Daft Punk released specially for Qtrax, but still no download available. When I first tried out the program, I was searching for some artists to download and got really excited because they had nice big “Download” buttons right next to the songs. Oh, how wrong those buttons were. The only thing I got was a nice little box saying, “Downloads Are Coming Soon!”. So what the heck am I supposed to do with this “program” if I can’t download anything?

Now, looking past the fact I can’t download anything, let’s look at the program itself. Basically, it’s just a fancy Firefox browser (literally, the whole Qtrax “Download” area is a web site). It’s got a built in Library where you can upload all your music to the library and listen to whatever you want (as long as all your music is DRM free of course). You’ve also got the ugly ads on the top and bottom of the program, making this program free. Though at the moment, it seems like we’re just getting a media player with a built in browser (which is what Windows Media Player is for, I guess). It also lets you make playlists for your library. Overall, there really isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.

So the only logical explination that I can think of as to why there is no music is that Qtrax is trying to build up its user base so that it can start using its P2P action. Although, this is going to take a while since not everyone has the same exact library. I’m not really sure how this is going to work, but I guess we’ll just have to see. Anyway, I guess I’m using iTunes for now.

Pictures & an UPDATE After the Break

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No, I’m not kidding.

Qtrax, a peer-to-peer music sharing program, is finally hitting the market. Unlike Limewire and Bittorent, it is SUPPORTED by all four major music labels. It might (key word: might) start up on Monday (January 28), with 25 MILLION SONGS!!!! That is 4x the songs that iTunes has. Though it will only support Windows Vista and XP, Mac boys can get their hands on it on March 18th. According to the Qtrax site, it is:

• 100% Free and Legal Unlimited Downloads
• No Adware
• No Spyware
• No Spoofing
• Comprehensive Search Results
• Fast Downloads

As I was browsing through the Qtrax site, there is one catch: Product Placement. So, yeah it’ll have some louzy ads on the side, but still, FREE MUSIC! It even has album art when you download the song, a “last night” download song button (more about that later), and you can even buy tickets for a concert on the Artisits page. Now, the “last night” download song button is a feature on Qtrax that allows to download a song from the specific artist from a recent concert of theirs. Cool Right? You can also listen to a full preview incase you don’t want to download the song right off the bat. Seems too good to be true right? The Boy Genius Report seems to think so with Gizmodo a little hesitant to believe something too good to be true. Even so, CEO Allan Klepfisz says,

“We will provide a vastly better service than unauthorized sites with superior technology, alluring and vast content, and free music that won’t get you arrested. QTRAX makes other services look as outdated as the cassette tape.”

Well, we’ll have to see what happens. Expect to see a review once it comes out.

(UPDATE: You might wan’t to check out the investigative research done by What! in the comments. He does a great job of exploiting Qtrax)

The Hookup: Gizmodo & Qtrax

Finally, a fix for the flawed Vista and XP hibernate mode. CNET outlines how to do some easy fixes that can, ultimately, save you some power (or some money!). The one thing that I was disappointed about in Vista was that the hibernate and sleep modes never work. There are two reasons why I am not at all satisfied with Windows hibernate and sleep. First off, if you want to go into hibernate mode, it will turn everything off alright, but good luck getting it back on! Second off, sleep mode is horrible. Since it will only turn off your monitor, your notebook will become an indoor barbecue. Once again, Microsoft has proved that they can perfect everything that a consumer would wouldn’t like to see on there PC.

The Hookup:

CNET.com