Watching this I’m left wondering what will happen more to the culture and progression of music as a whole. By this I mean in regards to the fringe elements of music as, (like it or not), this is where a lot of the innovation comes from otherwise we’re left with an industry that could potentially become stale as a whole. I realise this might be a fairly clichéd line of discourse to take for many now, (‘whatever happened to the old fashioned vinyl stores’ yada, yada), and I recognise what’s being said in that music needs to generate a stream of revenue in order to continue. But, I just feel we could still be potentially shooting ourselves in the foot creatively by in effect homogenising our listening habits, (I heard the term ‘Zynga for music’ a while back and it shuddered me to the very core).

As I say, I’m not naïve enough to think that the music industry hasn’t changed and that we do need some way of subsidising it I just think some consideration is required as to where technology is taking us and how we can evolve into it.

Either way I’ll definitely be interested to see what comes about from these guys.

Check them out for yourselves here.

At Electronic Farmyard we have decided to give a few options for you to try out.

we7 – Our first option for you to try it we7. This service offers in browser listening of 000′s of tracks and albums. So your thinking, ‘well obviously, thats what im wanting to hear from you’, so what else do they offer. Well personally i don’t think a lot, they have recently released an option to stream through android and have social integration links such as facebook, msn, myspace ect. Other similarities to spotify include playlists, bookmarking (starring) and sharing music with friends.

I feel the downside to the website is the amount of adverts they have dotted about the place, at any one time there are about 4 image adverts on the site linking to various products. But after all, it is free music. Their premium options are £4.99 for no adverts listening and premium content. Their Premium+ subscription allows offline listening of tracks.

Overall i would rate this service 3.5/5

Check it out at www.we7.com

MFlow – Remember when you signed up to Twitter after using Facebook for so long, you were like ‘so, it’s just status updates? where’s farmville?’. MFlow’s kinda like that, no ads, no interruptions (well, when you sign up/in there isn’t). You can search by artist, album or track. See what your friends are listening to, tag songs, follow tags. It is very much a twitter of the audio streaming world. And it is truly free, you can purchase tracks from around £0.79; which is the general price these days.

Whats nice is it takes on a Last.FM approach of music, suggesting tracks, allowing you to have random suggestions. Also, if you and a friend join (referals) you both get £1.00 credit for FREE!

Personally for features it doesn’t suit me, id rather use Last.FM which has more songs and an ever-increasing user base. I’m going to give it a 3/5

Check it out at www.mflow.com

Grooveshark – Argh I don’t like this one at all, but it did come up off the top of my head when planning this article. Grooveshark is a music streaming service, providing adverts between tracks. But here’s the catch, the users upload the music. I can see a copyright notice being served to them at some point. And in fact it has already by several music services and authorities.

When i have used it, i’ve always found tracks i like, generally UK top 40 stuff and the odd album i like. I find the user interface to be quite slow when compared to other services and applications.

Overall i would give GrooveShark a 2/5 but feel free to try it, you may find your experiences different.

Check it out at www.grooveshark.com

Youtube Disco – Now for those who like to watch their favourite artists music videos while they listen, or if you are just a YT junkie then this feature they have released is great. YouTube offer a playlist feature, so you can add videos to a playlist, and when one finishes it moves onto the next.

YouTube Disco takes the artist you want and grabs their music videos, trying it’s best not to duplicate tracks (not all tracks are provided by the same user/record label). Then you have a great one artist playlist with music videos to enjoy

As a music streaming service I wouldn’t give it such a good rating, a lot of the tracks i tried had been removed or weren’t available in the UK. But as a YT feature i think its 5/5 . But in this situation I will give it 2/5

Give it a try at www.youtube.com/disco

Well there you have it, it’s not all of them, im sure i have missed one or two out but have a gander and let us know what you think

Dropbox is to announce 25 million users Today! With an amazing figure of 200 million files per day going through dropbox! Dropbox allows users to share and sync files between users and multiple PC’s (including mac ). Its free service offers a hefty 2GB allowance, which is plenty for the basic user.

Now you may be thinking, 25 million, so what. But if you compare it to late february 2010 when they had 4 million users, an increase of 21 million in just over 12 months is, well, out standing.

Dropbox itself is an innovation,with its great use of bandwith and storage. Only unique files are uploaded, if say user 1224 uploads unique_song1.mp3 and user 6574 uploads the same file on their end, dropbox wont re-upload, it will simply use the current file uploaded. Now the process can’t be explained in a simple paragraph as this, but that’s the jist of it.

Personally i love Dropbox, i could promote it all day (as long as i get free space, i’m upto 8GB woo!). I use multiple computers, working on multiple projects, sharing films, music, images and documents throughout everything i use. Most recently my Windows Phone.

With its funding of $7.2 million from several investors i cant wait to see where Dropbox will go. Check out our low down on Dropbox from earlier last year.

Heres a few interesting things to check out about Dropbox

• Download Dropbox
• Dropbox Cribs Tour (source: techcrunch)
• Dropbox Blog

The attack was carried out using SQL injection where correctly formatted text is ‘injected’ into a database, forming a query which is the executed by the SQL host. In this case an advert/link to the malicious website was shown on the affected websites.

“Security experts say it is the most successful SQL injection attack ever seen. Currently the re-directs are not working because the sites peddling the bogus software have been shut down.”

The malicious advert advises you that your PC has been infected and suggests you download the bogus ‘Windows Stability Center’. It then runs and shows that you are infected and recommends you pay for the full version. Which obviously does nothing.

Some people may be thinking why? The only reason is money. This is a million £/$ market where attacks such as this can bring is 000′s of £/$ at a time.

If you have downloaded and installed this application, then it is recommended that you uninstall it and do a full scan with a legitimate anti virus application. Be sure your definitions are up to date.

(Source – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12933053)

Spotify announced today that it has reached 1 million paid subscribers. That is either premium or unlimited users. Spotify has been a big player over the past few years in the music streaming business.

Surely this isnt spotifys highest milestone, I am sure even more is to come from this great service!

“It seems like only yesterday we were hatching ideas for a new music service in a tiny office-cum-apartment with a broken coffee machine, and the party we threw having reached one million users almost two years ago today was one to remember.

So it’s with a sense of real pride and excitement that we can announce a new milestone today, having welcomed our millionth paying subscriber to the service. It’s a testament to our fantastic users who continue to support us and spread the Spotify word, either by telling friends or sharing some of the 200 million playlists that you’ve put together so far.

From everyone at Spotify, we’d like to give you all massive thanks. We’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible, and look forward to adding even more cool new features over the coming months. What’s really exciting is that this is only the beginning.
Thanks for listening!”

Source – http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/

Check out our review of Spotify

There right, it is easy peasy. Just think, your on your phone, laptop, and you wanna show everyone something, a photo, a song, even a word document. Currently its JPG, GIF, PNG, PDF, Word and Excel files as long as they are no bigger than 20MB. But as its only in beta im sure it will change.

This is one of the many new ways to use twitter. Its hard to do what you want in 140 characters, TwileShare; and many others, are changing this, bending the rules

Its a 3 step process

1) Login! – Now TwileShare is still in beta so you may have to register your interest.

2) Upload – Pick a file and go!

3) Share – Done and Done

You may be thinking, why a i reviewing this? theres plents of file sharing websites which i can use. TwileShare had over 20,000 visits, rave reviews and 24,000 search results on Google – all in an incredibly short space of time. Social media has allowed websites such as TwileShare to go viral over night.

File sharing is something people will always do, combining it with a popular social communication tool and you have a recepie for success.

But brad its invite only – Head over to TwileShare’s blog (http://blog.twileshare.com), they often relese invite codes!

http://twileshare.com

Social Media vs. Traditional Media

First, social media is inherently different than traditional media. The invention of high-speed internet has fueled the creation of a host of social technologies that were never possible 15 years ago—and the technology continues to improve. Primarily, these technological innovations have allowed for the reduction in cost and skill level required for the creation of media (print, video, and audio). For example, 20 years ago, it would have been extremely difficult for any random citizen without television broadcasting experience to have their own weekly television show. The cost was too high for one person to shoulder and the barriers of entry were gigantic, including the gatekeepers of the old media who could only allow space and time for a select few people and opinions on public airwaves.

Today, virtually anyone with a camera and a computer can post their own weekly (or daily) video podcast, which is essentially their own TV show—on a computer screen. Blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, and more, make it possible for just about anyone to make or do anything they want and upload it for accessibility by anyone in the world. It is generated socially, in real time, and accessible to anyone.

Why Is It Taking Over?

Social media is taking over our lives precisely because it is so easy to generate and because it fits our social needs specifically. In other words, not only is social media easy to create and generally free, but there is such a wide variety of blogs, videos, pictures, and other content, that we can explore our interest in just about any subject at any time.

For example, under old media there were only a handful of TV stations and newspapers that we had access to at any given time. And those media sources tended to pander to the general population—they had to in order to survive financially. So if a citizen was interested in a very specific type of media that was not mainstream, they were basically out of luck.

Today, because the cost and barrier of entry are so low to produce and distribute media, previously hard-to-find media is now accessible—generally for free. The excitement in joining online communities of people (both formal and informal) who care about the same things is fantastic. And the fact that over 5,000 results can be found on YouTube for “prairie dogs” means we don’t even have to participate in old media ever again.

About the author: James Gunter lives and works in Utah, where he writes about social media, online schooling, and runs a content creation company.

Google’s search engine will always be its headlining tool.  Gmail, Google Voice and a host of other services have made themselves a major part of people’s online, and even offline, lives.  But what about when it comes to business.  Which tools and applications of this powerful company are the most useful when it actually comes to getting work done and bringing in a paycheck.

Here are the most useful business tools from Google.

Gmail and Google Voice are basic but useful tools.  Voice allows call forwarding, messaging and voice mail in addition to allowing multiple phones to ring when the number associated with the account is called.  Gmail allows email forwarding and message sharing.  Google Apps for Business takes this basic connectivity to the next level.  One of the most universally useful of these applications is Google Docs.  There is no need to worry about file formats and emails being sent to spam folders because everyone who needs access to the document can get it online.  All the administrator has to do is invite them to the document and they have all the access that they need.  In addition to Word-like word processing, people can work on or upload .PDF files and spreadsheet files.

Google Calendar is another useful tool.  It is integrated with Gmail.  Each calendar can be shared by members of a group, a small business or an entire company.  This can be invaluable when you are making a schedule for a meeting or for a project.  Employees and work partners can even send invitations, meeting and event announcements through Google Calendar and can also manage responses.  The app can be accessed through smart-phones and can also send SMS reminders for important events.

Google Groups can take project group or company-wide communication to the next level.  The app offers document sharing and calendar access as well as message boards for photo and video sharing.  All the discussions are archived so that members can access past information easily.  Administration is also easy with this application as the admin has control of settings that enable different levels of access and participation in the group.  Mailing lists and address books are another useful part of this app.  All important contact info can be stored in one place and accessed from anywhere that there is internet service.

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Other tools are more specialized.  These depend on what you want to do with them.  Blogger can make it easy to post announcements and communicate with customers and employees.  The social aspect of Blogger also makes it possible for members of the general public to communicate with you and your business.  Google Reader, meanwhile, makes it possible to organize your news and web browsing in one place.  It is one of the better RSS feed readers available and an obvious choice if you are already using other Google products.

The Google Translator Toolkit does a fairly good job at translating pages and documents from and to foriegn languages.  The toolkit supports dozens of languages, from Arabic and Chinese to Swahili and Korean.  Most of the major languages used on the internet are available to translate.  This is a useful tool in the age of modern business.  For Adwords users, there is a tool that translates your keywords into other languages so that you can reach a wider audience.  Of course, Google Translate is not perfect, but it does a fairly good job considering that it is completely free to use.

Adwords itself is the most muscular of Google’s advertising tools, but it is not the only one.  Google Product Search is not just for shoppers.  Online retail businesses can submit their products to Google Product Search so that the goods will appear online whenever someone searches for that type of product.

Nicole Rodgers has been blogging about business for 3 years; she currently contributes to blogs that deal with heatmapping software and ways for companies to utilize cloud computing.

So Last.fm. Im assuming most of you technos know it and some of you may actually use it, but what about those who dont know about the great pearly gates of music hiding behind Last.fm?

There are plenty of ways to listen to music online these days, radio compromises of an Internet radio site, allowing the streaming of individual tracks. Merged with a website and sister called AudioScrobbler.

Scrobbling is where Last.fm knows what music you listen to, in any player, Itunes, WinAmp, Windows Media Player are common examples. It then reccomends music to your taste, from 1000′s of tracks. Last.fm isnt far off Pandora if anyones ever used that.

When you first arrive at Last.fm youll notice a very snily sleek red and white ‘interface’. Looks nice but well, its not that useful as it does nothing . Where the fun lies is when you register and have access to the 1000′s of reccomended tracks and playlists.

So now youve registered, now what? Well you need to download the Last.fm scrobbler, its only about 3mb and works on all Windows OS, not sure about linux or mac now i come to think of it (runs off to check), yes it does, and linux!

So youve got scrobbler, your just chilling in itunes and you run scrobbler for the first time. It runs through all your songs, gets information such as playt count, track names, artists ect and sends it to home (Last.fm). They then analyse it and give you several radio stations to work with.

Your Library Radio – Your music, randomised into a radio station playlist.
Your Mix Radio – A mix of your music and new music with similar genres and artists based on Last.fm’s predictions.
Your Recommended Radio – All new music based on last.fm’s predictions of what they think you will like.

Ofcourse they arent always correct, so they have a like dislike button in the last.fm player to fine tweak what your hearing.

Ofcourse I haven’t covered every single feature of the site as that would take all the fun away of visiting it yourself. Other features include mobile versions of the site, ipod, iphone, windows phone, android. All different versions are avaliable for while your on the move. Although recently last.fm announced the mobile services are no longer free on most platforms. A £3 subscription (monthly) is the price for using it on your mobile device, or if you have the latest Windows Phone 7 device, its still free!

Now i love listening to new music, anything thats different, old, new, different genres. Thats why last.fm is ideal for me, i use it at home and on my Windows Phone 7 device. I cant say it will be for everyone, there are people who have specific music tastes. There are those who listen to the same 25 tracks over and over and know every word.

Maybe one day it will become much more mainstream with the likes of spotify. I have to strongly recommend the site and suggest that you give it a try.

http://last.fm/

If you have been active on Twitter for some time you will have quickly noticed that Twitter is not a service that stands still. User patterns and unofficial rules are made and broken at a rapid pace.

One thing that is very interesting to observe though is that the overall seriousness of Twitter has increased sharply. It’s no longer the black hole it started out as, where you post random thoughts to everyone and nobody. Twitter turned into a powerful device to drive both traffic, but most importantly high quality conversation we can get great value from.

In order for you to make the most of twitter, I want to introduce you to a new twitter tool called Buffer that will help you to increase consistent tweeting in a genuine, yet intuitive and simple way.

What is different about Buffer?

Buffer is a service that sends out your tweets at pre-set times if you have put tweets in your Buffer beforehand. Intuitively you might associate Buffer with one of the many Tweet Scheduling functions of Hootsuite, Social Oomph or Tweetdeck out there. However read a little further.

In this case, all you do is add tweets to a queue in your Buffer. Buffer then has pre-set times for you at which your tweets will go out to your twitterstream during the day. Of course you are able to adjust these times if you wish.

Additionally you neither need to visit a site to add your tweets, but you can do it right there from the page you want to tweet about. You can do this with the neat Chrome Extension or Bookmarklet that exists together with your home account.

If your Buffer is topped up with tweets, it will tweet for you at your pre-set times during the day, which you can always change.

Buffer explained in 38 sec:

Why would I rock with Buffer?

Buffer makes your life easier, because you are able to plan ahead with tweets without additional effort to your browsing routine. Like something? Hit the icon and add to Buffer. Logically your quality will increase, since you can choose to produce your tweets at a time when you are in “content-production mode”.

Due to consistent, high-quality tweeting, we saw that many people increased their followership at a fast pace when using Buffer.

And as goodie, treating yourself to a topped up Buffer is also something that simply gives you a good feeling of having planned out your timeline on twitter.

Make sure to leave a comment with your thoughts, I will reply to every single one.

BitDefender, the leading provider of internet security solutions warns users to be prepared for more complex, sophisticated malware on the e-threat landscape in year ahead

BitDefender® has released its latest e-threats landscape predictions report, warning computer users to prepare for a range of increasingly complex and sophisticated malware in 2011. A number of dangers are highlighted including a rise in DDoS attacks, rogue software, malware targeted at social networking sites and infections designed to infiltrate mobile devices.

One of the most significant observations of the study is the use of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks as a means of social protest, fuelled by the advent of the Stuxnet worm and against institutions that withdrew support for Wikileaks. While increased activity from conventional botnets is expected, the importance of voluntarily enrolled PCs is also forecast to rise. These computers are likely to focus on forming ad-hoc botnets designed to launch DDoS attacks as a means of social protest against institutions regulating the internet.

“In 2011, not only do we expect the number of malicious applications to increase, but we also believe these e-threats will become increasingly complex,” said Catalin Cosoi, Head of the BitDefender Online Threats Lab. “In addition to DDoS attacks, we are likely to see a greater range of rogue software utilities, a rise in malware using HTML5 or Java and the infection of mobile phones to capture sensitive data such as e-banking or social networking details.”

The growth in use of social networking sites and the introduction of HTML5 are likely to have a major impact on the e-threats landscape in 2011, according to BitDefender’s security experts. Malware authors are expected to capitalise on these increasingly popular online channels to disseminate their creations and compromise a great number of users’ security.

The study predicts a rise in the creation of rogue software that misleads PC users into paying for the fake removal of malware. This could range from rogue disk defragmenters to tune-up applications. In addition, malware signed with a genuine digital certificate that is in fact stolen or forged has been highlighted as a potential new threat. Finally, with the popularity of smartphones, other mobile technology and the availability of software development kits for mobiles, the report forecasts an increase in cyber criminals targeting such devices.
For a full list of BitDefender 2011 features and benefits by product, please visit www.bitdefender.co.uk or follow @BitDefender on Twitter for daily malware alerts.

What is Spotify?

“Spotify is a new way to listen to music

Music is everywhere. Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre – all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you can listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.”

Thats what they say anyway, and there right! Spotify is probably the best free music streaming tool out there. You can pick any song that they have in their extensive library, their search tool allows you to pick an artist, song and album.

“Think of Spotify as your new music collection. Your library. Only this time your collection is vast: 8 million tracks and counting. You can create as many playlists as you like from this collection – just drag and drop the tracks you want. And because the music plays live, there’s no need to wait for downloads and no big dent in your hard drive. You can listen at any time, no matter where you are. Through your computer or your mobile phone.”

Features

Playlists

Drag and drop your favourite tracks into playlists to save them until the next time you listen. The playlists are saved to your account, and accessible from wherever you use Spotify.

Share

You share music by copying the link of a playlist or a track and send it to your friends. They open that link and – voilá – Spotify starts playing your music on their computer. Another great sharing feature is the playlist which you and your friends can manage together. Simply right-click any of your playlists, select ‘Collaborative playlist‘ and then share it. Whoever receives the collaborative playlist is now able to add or remove tracks or even rename the playlist all together. Music made simple.

Mobile music

Or even better, with Premium you can also use Spotify with your iPhone or Android where music is streamed – or saved as an offline playlists – on your mobile phone.

Offline mode

Taking your computer outside where there’s no internet? Don’t worry. With Spotify Premium, you can select which playlists are to be ‘available offline‘, and you can keep listening.

Spotify is Available Offline

Top lists

The most popular music on Spotify is regularly gathered and displayed. You can filter by individual country or just display your own personal top list. All tracks have a popularity meter that measures its total amount of recent plays.

Music purchases

If you want even more freedom, we give you the option to buy individual tracks or albums by simply clicking the Buy button. From streaming to MP3 files in seconds.

Simple search

To dive into our huge music catalogue, simply type the name of an artist, album or track and hit enter. We’ll give you the results instantly, and our automated suggester will help you remember the spelling, all to make it easy to find the music you love. If you want to be more exact in your search query, check out the advanced syntax.

Artist radio

Top artists have a dedicated radio stream (that you control using the ‘next’ button). The stream plays songs that are similar to the songs of that artist.

Use from anywhere

Your account can be used from any computer; just login with your existing username. With Premium, this works even if you’re abroad.

Biographies

The top artists include biographies from the All Music Guide and we’ve got cover arts and images for thousands of available albums.

Similar artists

Each of the top artists contain a list of other artists that are similar, giving you the ability to surf around between artists and discover new music.

So How Do i Get Spotify?

Well… there are three ways, free, day pass or premium.

Spotify Account Types

Free

“Financed by advertising, the free version of Spotify is the place where most people start. Simple to download and install, in no time at all you’ll enjoy having all the music in the world at your fingertips, instant access to whatever song you want with no restrictions, and the ability to create and share playlists with friends.”

Unfortunatly Spotify free currently is an invitation only platform where members with a premium account get so many invites for free accounts, up until recently there was a loop hole around this invitation only system but this has since been rectified and invites are a must.

Day Pass

“No recurring fees. No advertising. Just you and your favourite music. You might be planning a romantic dinner for two, or partying with friends into the early hours of the morning. A day pass is ideal for the casual Spotify user who decides that all they want right now is music.

Day pass does not give access to premium features such as mobile and higher bit rate.”

I did trial the day pass, personally it wasnt worth the 99p i paid for it at the time, all it meant was that i had no adverts dueing my listening times, the adverts play for about 1:30 and come on very 5-8 songs, now personally that isnt an issue for me, they are quite often entertaining or informative so from my point of view just dont ;P

Premium

“Spotify in its purest form. As a Spotify Premium member you’ll enjoy unlimited access to a world of great music without advertising. Plus the ability to take your music with you anywhere on your mobile phone.

With Premium you can also make your precious playlists available offline, and stream at a higher bit rate of 320kbps – so you can listen to all your favorites in hi-fidelity. You’ll also hear new albums before they’re released, get entry into exclusive ticket lotteries and VIP competitions and take advantage of unrestricted travel access. To listen to your music whenever and wherever you want, just go Premium.”

Now ontop of the free spotify platform you receive the following

Mobile music – Use Spotify on your mobile phone (iPhone, Android and Symbian devices).

If i had an iphone this would be perfect for me, unfortunatly i dont so i havent had the opportunity to test this app, maybe ill find someone who has

Offline mode – Make your playlists available for those times you don’t have an internet connection.

When i purchased a months subscription this is why i did it, its perfect, i listen to music on it at home, make a playlist, switch offline mode on then jump on a train for 2 hours and i have my music right there!

Higher sound quality – Stream music in a higher bitrate, up to 320kbps.

For those music buffs who notice the bad sound quality then Premium would be for you, instead of streaming at 128kbps Premium gives you 320kbps. Personally, not a clue what the difference is and as long as it sounds good im happy.

Travel access – Go anywhere in the world and listen to your favourite music.

Now some of the music on Spotift can only be played in certain countries with the Free and Day Pass Platforms, Premium gives you the ability to listen to the complete Spotify library with no restrictions.

Spotify Interface

Spotify Interface

Overall Opinion

Spotify is a great tool, if you can get it. With it being invitation only is is very restrictive and unless your willing to pay for premium your going to have to wait until it becomes open access. The music on there can be outdated at times, it can take upto 3 or 4 weeks before the latest UK chart songs are put on there but then again si that really an issue? Spotify has opened me upto a new world of music with its suggestions and it is almost comparable to Itunes Genius which does a similar job.

I really cant wait until i get enough money to pay for a years worth of Premium, maybe one day ill buy a monthly subscription or ask for one as a gift, at £9.99 a month is it really worth it? would it be used Would i rather have the music on my PC?

You can download Spotify From spotify.com and can either get on the waiting list for a free account or pay for premium.

Never miss your home TV shows, regardless of where you are. With the Slingbox® SOLO take your TV with you on the road. Easily connect the Slingbox SOLO to practically any one of your home-theater devices and watch your standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) TV shows, sporting events, or special programs on your computer or mobile phone over the Internet from anywhere in the world.

Slingbox Solo

Slingbox Features

FULL SET OF PASS-THROUGH CONNECTIONS

Easily connect to one of 5,000 compatible standard-definition or high-definition devices. Component, composite, S-Video and ATSC connectors.

SLINGPLAYER EPG AND REMOTE CONTROL

View your TV programming schedule with the electronic program guide (EPG). Change channels, pause, fast forward or rewind, and set up DVR recordings with the on-screen virtual remote control.

WINDOWS AND MAC SUPPORT

Access your Slingbox via any high-speed Internet-connected Windows or Mac laptop or computer.

Requirements and Specs for Slingbox Solo

1. Windows or Mac Based PC
2. High-Speed Internet Connection
3. Home Network Router

Getting Started with Slingbox SOLO is Simple

1. Connect the Slingbox® to an A/V device, such as a DVR, a cable set-top box, or a satellite receiver (there are over 5,000 Slingbox-compatible devices).
2. Connect the Slingbox to your home network (if your router is too far from your Slingbox for a direct connection, use the SlingLink or other Ethernet bridge for connectivity).
3. Fire up your home network-connected desktop, Mac, or laptop computer, complete the Slingbox set-up, and enjoy your very own home theater via the Web.

Slingbox Solo Back Connectors

What Devices Can i Connect?

• Basic Cable TV Set-top Box
• Digital Cable Set-top Box
• Digital Video Recorder (DVR) such as Comcast, ReplayTV, DISH or one provided by your cable/satellite provider
• DVD Player/Recorder
• HD component input support with resolution up to 1080i (down-converted for streaming)
• Satellite Receiver such as DIRECTV or DISH
• Video/Security Camera
• Apple TV
• Windows Media Center

Ive been looking at buying a Slingbox myself for quite a while (Still haven’t got around to it). Being able to watch TV content over the internet on a laptop, mobile phone or PC would be a good way to reduce costs, especially when you need to buy a TV licence to watch Live TV in the UK. Slingbox do a variety of different products for different purposes, Slingbox SOLO, Slingbox CLASSIC and Slingbox PRO are a few of these products. HD support is now also available.

You can find out more info on the Slingbox product range at their Website

Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. For example, webmasters can use Gears on their websites to let users access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location. As an example, if you have Google Gears installed in your browser and you visit Google Maps it will provide you with an approximate location of where you are, i was extremly suprised at how accurate this data was.

Gears was designed to be used on both Google and non-Google sites. A number of web applications currently make use of Gears, including two Google products: Google Reader and Google Docs. Additionally, Zoho and Remember the Milk have been using Gears since its original launch. If you’re running Windows Mobile on your cellphone, Picasa Web Albums also makes use of Gears.

Google Gears offline capability is something very innovative, web developers can design there website to be offline compatible. As an example Google Files can be used in offline mode where users can edit and submit files without an internet connection, then when they connect they are submitted online to Google’s Cloud.

Google Documents Sync

What browsers support this?

Currently Gears is compatible in;

• Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) with Firefox 1.5+, Internet Explorer 6+ and ofcourse Google Chrome (My Browser of Choice).
• Apple Mac OS X 10.4+ with Firefox 1.5+
• Linux with Firefox 1.5+
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 or higher, with Internet Explorer 4.01+

Google’s proof-of-concept implementation of Gears was with its Google Reader feed reader–which can now download RSS feeds for offline browsing. It does what it says it does, and does it well. But it also serves as a good example of how truly Webby apps may not work very well offline: Any RSS feed that includes just a snippet of text, with a link back to the originating site, is useless when you aren’t able to connect to that site.

Put simply Google Gears is a Web browser extension that allows offline access to some online applications by downloading data to your hard drive. Google Gears is not restricted to making online tools work offline. It also allows for enhanced online functionality.

Google Gears: Google Documents Config

My Opinion

Google Gears is something very innovative, it allows you to work truly offline. Although it can also be used in other ways. The Word Press software which is used for this blog site has implemented Google Gears to cache several highly used files to make browsing and writing articles extremely fast.

Hopefully more developers will being to implement the Google Gears plugin into their websites allowing users to submit content to their favorite networking sites offline such as photos and status updates.

Read more about Google Gears

My Phone is an online service with a companion mobile client application from Microsoft. The service, which launched on October 6, 2009, provides a free mobile phone back-up solution by wirelessly synchronizing contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, text messages, browser favorites, photos, music, video and documents with a password-protected online portal where users can access and manage their information.

My Phone supports Windows Mobile OS versions 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5 and is available globally in 25 languages. The service uses Windows Live ID for authentication and the Windows Live server infrastructure for storing user information.

My Phones Sync Items

These include;

My Phone Sync Summary

After purchasing an O2 XDA Zest in July 2009 and having several issues with loss of data (mainly text messages and contacts) due to faulty software on the phone. I chose to look around for a form of backup application for my phone. The first thing i found was Microsoft’s My Phone and i didnt have to look any further.

In december 2009 i had to take my mobile back in for repair, after 2 weeks waiting (Im not moaning honestly!) they sent me a new XD Zest instead of my old one, meaning i didnt have any of my contacts or old text messages. Luckily i had them all saved onto My Phone, so all i had to do was download the My Phone application and run a sync. My Phone recognised that it was a new device and and downloaded all my old infomation…Job Done.

Alternatives

For those who dont have a windows mobile based phone you may want to try Mobyko although it isnt a free service.

Microsft My Phone can be found Here