Mouse wheel scroll background inactive windows with WizMouse
If you’ve ever used Mac or Linux, and if you’re a heavy user with dozens of open windows, you most likely have come to admire the simple cool feature that allows you to use your mouse scroll wheel to scroll the open windows in the back, without clicking and bringing them to the front. This is pretty useful when you’re reading a document or article, which relates to say your open code editor in the front. For some reason however, even with Windows7, Microsoft still failed to realize and copy this simple feature.
Luckily, little Googling revealed the lightweight WizMouse tool which does simply and exactly just that. I’m usually very reluctant to installing softwares that interfere with the OS and run in the background, especially on Windows. But this one seems quite light, and is extremely handy, I don’t think any Windows user should live without it.
[via LifeHacker (through Google search ;)]
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Google Opt-Out Privacy Feature
To all those who question Google’s ethics, fear their privacy violation, and have DOUBT about “Do Not Do Evil” motto, Google proudly gives you this.
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village
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Seriously Twitter? You Wanna Share My Phone Number?
No really? You wanna share my email address and phone number so that my friends can find me? And you’re setting it to default? Here are two simple words for you Twitter SPAMMERS & PRIVACY.
For the first time Twitter has really failed me. It seems the Google Buzz is doing it’s things already on them.
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Is Sony Vegas Movie Studio Windows 7 Supported Or Not?
Few years ago, I got this HD Sony Camcorder to enjoy HD video quality family videos, and it has served me quite well, despite it’s few short comings. Sony, which have developed the technology with Panasonic, use the AVCHD high definition recording format to record their HD videos, making it compatible with Blu-ray Disc format. But here comes the problem. Dealing with these large HD files turns out to be not easy at all.
For first, sharing these videos files with others is not easy because of size, and the difficulty to find a suitable player for it. Converting it to regular formats would always compromise the quality. Second, editing these HD videos, on top of being intensive on resources, is not easy to accomplish at low cost as well, for there is a huge lack in good reliable free or cheap AVCHD editing software out there. But having made the huge investment already in the camcorder, I swallowed the extra bullet and bought what seems the best AVCHD editing tool out there that is affordable, which happens to be Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Mac Final Cut handles AVCHD files, but only directly from the camcorder while they’re in their original file structure. Pretty silly if you ask me.
Sony Vegas Studio could make better conversion than the freely provided tool with the camcorder. Something to wonder about really, given that it’s from the same company selling the camera. Looking the other way however, I managed to enjoy a slow-life video editing on my old XP machine, until it could handle no more all the pressure. Now I have a new Quad-core Windows 7 machine, a beast hungry for giant task to do. But what I realized when I started editing 5 Gigs of videos is that Vegas Studio kept crashing on me on and on. I split the videos into halves, and then into 3 parts, to no avail. And here I wasn’t even dealing with HD videos, but normal SD ones from the same camcorder. It would get to the point where it crashes once I open the project, giving messages like:
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) READ:0×0 IP:0×0In Module ‘VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe’ at Address 0×0 + 0×0Thread: ProgMan ID=0xDF4 Stack=0×5DBF000-0×5DC0000
I Googled and found this is a pretty common error, to which Sony tries to claim has nothing to do. Some say it doesn’t support multi-core hardware, others say it’s Windows 7. But if you go to Vegas Movie Studio System Requirements, you see that it supports Windows 7.
And frankly, multi-core is old stuff now, and for such video editing, you would assume they will support it. But hey, let’s ask them just to make sure. I filled up the long form, answered all questions, and once I submit, this is what I got.
Really? It’s “not supported on any Windows 7 operating systems”? That’s weird, cause I could swear your page still reads Windows 7 supported! So now I’m like out of luck?
Ohh well, guess I’m gonna have to upgrade my self to Vegas Pro 9… for FREE ;).
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Color e-book readers fall this year?
Could this happen so soon? Qualcomm is showing off a new colored e-reader that is based on what they call “Mirasol” technology, which they claim draws less power than the e-ink technology, but gives back colors instead, [update] and has no backlight[/update]. Not just colors, but not bad video quality as well.
If anything is gonna drive me away from the Kindle it would be that thing I bet. The new gadget is promised by the fall of this year. Will keep my eyes peeled, and so better you do.
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What Happened In My Birth Year?
whathappenedinmybirthyear.com is a fun site that asks for nothing from you but your birth year, and then starts telling you the stories of that year.
I tried to sneak into the year 2012 to see whether the world ends, but alas, it does not have information for that year yet. Maybe it’s because the world has ended then, and all records were lost. Or maybe they just read the past.
[via ResearchBuzz]
UPDATE: OK This is fun. My brother followed the link from my blog, and this is what he got.
Apparently, the site reads the Referral URL.
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Create your Audiobooks on iTunes
More than a year back, I developed the habit of being a regular audiobook listener, and I usually get a book or two monthly through Audible. The Teaching Company is another source I’m quickly falling in love with, though a bit pricey. In both however, it’s quite easy to download all the media files, and import them into the iTunes as Audiobooks. On other occasions, you might find your self importing the MP3 files from an Audio CD, or downloading them as separate files from the internet. If you try importing such files to the iTunes library, you’d be frustrated to see at first that they are imported as regular ungrouped Music.
For an audiobook you usually want all your audiobook files grouped, in order, and to have your media device remember your last location. This CNET article explains how to do just that in 8 simple steps. A separate article suggests converting your audio files to AAC as part of the process to save more space if you like. I didn’t bother.
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