Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch

Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch: "

Surely you remember Infinitec, right? You know -- that Dubai-based startup that first showcased its so-called Infinite USB memory device (IUM) at CES? Now that we've jogged your memory, we'd like to point out some new information on the product. We're told that the company is gearing up to officially launch the stick soon, promising ad hoc streaming from any Windows-based PC to just about anything you can think of: Blu-ray players, media streamers, printers, and practically any other gizmo with a USB port. New details provided to us by Infinitec ensure that game consoles are supported, as is high-def video content. The company has also laid out a number of use scenarios for those curious about how this thing could improve your daily life, all of which are just beneath the break. Stay tuned for more in the coming days -- pricing and release deets should be headed our (and in turn, your) way soon.

Gallery: Infinitec Infinite USB Memory Device (IUM)

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Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Top 10 Google Settings You Should Know About [Lifehacker Top 10]

Top 10 Google Settings You Should Know About [Lifehacker Top 10]: "

As the outcry over Google Buzz's privacy has shown us, it's smart to explore settings in Gmail, along with other places you're sharing data with the search giant. Let's take a look at 10 privacy, convenience, and annoyance fixers you should know.

10. Turn off auto-displayed pictures from Gmail contacts

By default, Gmail hides images embedded into emails from chain letters and unknown sources—and that's a smart move, given spammers' tracking tactics and malware tendencies. But it still shows images from contacts you've previously sent mail to, which can be a pain if you've got relatives who just love hi-larious forwards. Head to your Settings page, and look for the 'external content' setting, which you can switch off to always ask you to confirm showing images in any email. If you've got just a handful of offenders, open up one of the egregious emails, hit the 'Show details' link near the bottom of the to/from/subject details, and click the 'don't display from now on' link. (Original post)

9. Fine-tune Google Apps for your domain

Google Apps, formerly know as Apps for Your Domain, has a lot of goodies tucked inside it for anyone who owns their own site, runs a family name domain, or operates a small business. Unlike Gmail, however, the new features and disabled offerings aren't as apparent (or blogged about). Gina gave us a great tour of Google Apps, showing how you can control privacy and access, choose which Labs features make it into your domain's email, and otherwise set up your site to your liking.

8. Prevent Android from automatically signing into Gchat

Simple and easy, but also easy to miss: If you've got an Android phone and have launched Google Talk from it just once, you might notice that you seem to catch any and all chats throughout the day. That's because Talk can sit in the background upon launching, ready to pick up messages. That's fine if that's what you want, but if you want a choice in the matter, head to the Google Talk app, hit your Menu key, and choose Settings. Un-check the 'Automatically sign in' option, hit your back button, and then hit Menu and sign out of Google Talk. You'll need to sign back in if you're downloading apps from the Market (odd pairing, indeed), but you're otherwise free to chat when you want to. (Original post)

7. Turn off Buzz, Chat, and Labs in Gmail

Not big on Buzz? Chat more distracting than useful? Gmail Labs making your inbox feel lag-ish? You can kill all of them, if you'd like, and get back just a plain vanilla inbox. Scroll all the way to the bottom of any page inside Gmail, and at the bottom, you'll see two links to turn Gmail's chat sidebar and Buzz inbox on or off. Actually, you don't really 'turn off Buzz' so much as remove it from your inbox, so be sure and check your Buzz settings at your Google Profile, if you have a Google Profile. If Labs features seem to be slowing down, or even breaking, your Gmail experience, you can turn them off entirely by loading Gmail from this URL: https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0#. Bookmark it as your main Gmail link, or title it 'Gmail (Safe Mode)' if you'd like to still venture into all the goodies on occasion.

6. Disable SafeSearch (or lock it in semi-permanently)

Google's SafeSearch isn't an entirely comprehensive solution to preventing impressionable eyes from the worst realms of the internet. It is, however, a good stopgap until they learn to grow up and install other browsers, wipe out cookies, and customize user scripts. Whether you don't have any young ones in the house and want to turn SafeSearch off altogether or you want a complete SafeSearch lockdown on your computer, head to your search preferences, scroll down to the SafeSearch section, and find the setting that fits you. (In Google Image Search, they've helpfully placed the control right under the search box on your first result.) If you want to permanently enable SafeSearch, click the "Lock SafeSearch" link—and repeat for any browsers the little ones use. Now when they're performing a Google search, you should see some giant Google-colored balls in the upper-right corner—or else they've gotten too smart.

5. Set your default SMS location

For those without web-connected smartphones, or at least a decent data connection, Google's SMS service is seriously helpful—it's how I (used to) get by with just an iPod touch and a standard phone. To make it even more helpful, text set location, followed by the city and state or ZIP code where you spend the most time. Now you can just text 'weather' or 'pet store' to get the skinny on what's happening. (Original post)

4. Link and integrate your apps

Taking off the privacy and preference hat for a moment, Google's apps have a lot of neat settings just beneath their surface that make using them all together a tight experience. You can turn emails into tasks, and then map those tasks on your calendar. You can send voice messages and SMS from Google Voice to Gmail, and mark them as read when you open them there. Gina previously ran down seven easy ways to integrate your Google apps, and even more seem to come along every week.

3. Turn off Search History, logged in or not

If you're logged into Google for Gmail or any other service, there's a good chance Google's keeping tabs on all your searches, months after you made them. If you aren't logged in, Google's probably still tracking and personalizing your searches based on what you previously typed in. This one-stop solution should work for most users, but if it doesn't, log into Google and head to google.com/history. A notice at the top will tell you if you've 'paused' or otherwise stopped your search history, or else you'll see your recent searches listed with dates and times. You can clear out this history by hitting the 'Remove items' link on the left. If you aren't logged in, look for the 'Web History' link in the upper-right corner. From there, you can choose whether Google tracks your searches via cookie and IP address and customizes your results.

2. Back up Google apps' data

For all you've heard about Buzz, privacy, and Google this week, you still can't fault them too much for their efforts to let you take your data with you if you decide to leave their app ecosystem. The Data Liberation Front site, a pet project from Google's engineers, explains how you can pull your information, documents, and other data out of nearly any Google product. Gina's also covered some of Google's apps in a cloud backup feature, and Adam tackled the best-at-that-time tools for Google backups in 2007. (Original Data Liberation Front post)

1. Control what Buzz says about you on the web

Google's new social service Buzz showed up suddenly in everyone's Gmail accounts this week, and right away it wanted to get you connected with the people you contact over email and chat the most. Before you let it turn you loose, though, consider whether you want the world to see exactly who you 'follow.' Google has since improved the on/off visibility, but if you want to make sure you're not broadcasting your inbox to the web at large, we suggest visiting your profile and checking your follower counts. If you don't see a profile at all, or don't see the followed/following numbers, you're likely in the clear, but as with many aspects of Buzz in this early stage, you can't be too careful. And when you actually start using the thing, be careful not to broadcast private email addresses yourself. (Original posts: Buzz update, private emails).

Bonus item: Open search results in new tabs

Lifehacker copy consigliere Dustin Luck mentions yet another reason to hit up your search preferences from time to time. With a single click, you can choose to open the results you click on in new windows. If you've set up your browser the right way, those new windows become new tabs, and little research projects on Google just became far more convenient.

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What settings do you always make sure are set in your own personal Google universe? What settings do you wish existed for better control and privacy? Tell us about them both in the comments.

Boxee Integration App Plugs Boxee Into Windows 7 Media Center [Downloads]

Boxee Integration App Plugs Boxee Into Windows 7 Media Center [Downloads]: "

Windows: Maybe you're a Windows Media Center fan with an occasional jones for Boxee apps, or a Boxee fan who'd like a little DVR action. A free utility can integrate Boxee into Windows Media Center, giving you the best of both worlds.

This Windows Media Center plug-in comes courtesy of the same folks who gave us the Hulu Desktop Integration, and acts much the same way. Click on the Boxee option from Windows Media Center's main menu, and Windows Media Center will close down while Boxee opens up. Watch your NBC/ABC/Fox/Hulu, see what's new on the Onion News Network, and then close Boxee—back up comes Windows Media Center.

The real benefit comes from using a remote on your couch to navigate both applications, never having to get up and mouse around or VNC into your home theater PC from a laptop to get just what you want on your big screen. With both Hulu and Boxee available as temporary switches, Windows Media Center balances out a few of its weaknesses in a head-to-head comparison.

Boxee Windows Media Center Integration is a free download for Windows 7 only. As with Hulu Desktop Integration, it won't work with media center extenders like the XBOX. Thanks to Hector, who both tipped us off and, apparently, inspired this app's creation!

Boxee Windows Media Center Integration

Which Social Network Is Right For You? [Lifehacker Explains]

Which Social Network Is Right For You? [Lifehacker Explains]: "

Between Twitter, Facebook, and Google's new social networking tool, Buzz, it's hard to turn a corner without running into another social network. But how do you know which networking tool fits you best? We're here—with big charts and all—to help.

Last week Google Buzz made us ask ourselves what we wanted out of social networking. To answer that question, we charted what we liked and disliked about setup, privacy, usability, and other aspects of Buzz, Twitter, and Facebook. Here's the result.

This chart doesn't cover everything about every network out there. MySpace is (seemingly) on the decline or, at best, re-purposing itself. LinkedIn is really a business contact pool, FourSquare a geo-location game, and other networks generally too niche to be compared in the same aspects and categories.

For the simple read, here's the full chart of our Buzz, Twitter, and Facebook comparison. We color-coded each answer to give a context of where it stood, in comparison to what we know is possible and what a smart user would like to see. Red means that you can't rely on this network for this feature. Yellow indicates that the network offers it or makes due, but could definitely be better. Green means something works, and can be considered a selling point.

Click on the chart for a bigger view, or right-click to download the full-resolution file.

Ollie the bluebird/Twitterrific © The Iconfactory, used with permission.

There's a lot of text there already to parse through, but it's obviously segmented and specific to each function. Having dug into the settings of each network and debated it with my fellow editors, I'll try to offer up a concise take on how I'd explain each network to someone completely new to any of them. I hope it might spur some thought about which network you're using now, too, and why.

Facebook

Facebook's strongest feature, as it stands now, is that it's relatively easy to figure out who your 'friends' are. You can pull them from your webmail address book, sure, but you have to check off those you want to be a friend with, and they have to reciprocate. After that, you start seeing their status updates, photos, and other activities on Facebook.com, right when you log in. Simple enough, right? Not exactly.

You can't, or at least shouldn't, create two separate Facebook accounts for personal friends and work contacts/co-workers/casual acquaintances, all of whom are likely to hit you up on Facebook sooner or later. So it's up to the user to create groups of friends and set what those different friends can see. Also, your Facebook identity is tied to certain "networks"—an employer, a school, a location—that you have to remember to set controls for, too. Dig around and you'll almost certainly find the very fine-grain controls you might need. But then, every few months, Facebook changes up their offerings, for better or worse, and it's up to the user to notice and re-learn how to decide what's private, to whom, and, in a much more worrisome way, what's being made public and search-able on the web.

Facebook does have a pretty great iPhone app, and offers a good amount of access to third-party clients like Brizzly and TweetDeck. But they're still limited in some ways meant to drive you to the web site, and their non-iPhone mobile apps and sites are tough to love.

Twitter

What's easy to like about Twitter is the simplicity. You get an account, you see a suggested list of famous users that you can feel free to ignore, and then you're asked to write 140 characters about something, anything. It will be made public, search-able, and able to be re-broadcast by other users, unless you've decided to lock your entire account and require your permission to view it. You can follow other people, block the occasional jerk from following you, reply to others' posts, message other users privately (if you both follow each other), and, over time, you'll learn about third-party apps and context tricks that make the service make more sense. I started using Twitter one day into my first SXSW, and I had it mostly figured within one or two over-eager days.

That simplicity, and reliance on third-party sites and apps for picture posting, link shortening, and the like can be confusing to newcomers that aren't into digging around, for sure. And the speed and volume of the main stream can be overwhelming and off-putting. But Twitter has grown slowly into a network that adapts to users' needs, whether by force or through user innovation. If you don't like how noisy and fast your main feed is, creating a list of high-priority friends and thinkers will do the trick. As you figure out what you like and don't like about Twitter, you'll be able to find third-party apps and interfaces that cater to those interests. We'd love to see expanded features here or there (for discovering who's following you, and perhaps hiding certain posts from all but a few close followers, for example), but Twitter is a pretty novel solution for those who like to share short updates with the web at large.

Buzz

Whatever we write about Buzz will be slightly inaccurate in a week's time, most likely. Buzz is brand new, and already it announced an apology and upcoming 'fixes.' From what we've seen, though, it seems like it wants to be the solution that FriendFeed never was to tracking your friends and contacts' multi-varied interests. Some friends change their IM status to say what's up, while others post on Flickr, Twitter, their own blog, and other places. Rather than making you head to each site, or make those friends become endless self-promoters, Buzz aims to connect you to everything your friends are doing from a place you're already familiar with—your Gmail and Google contacts.

And that, of course, is where the uproar started. Buzz showed up, suddenly, inside Gmail, and when asking users to sign up, assumed too much that they'd like to turn their email contacts into people they 'follow,' and maybe make that following status public. If Google could reassure Buzz users that what they did on the network was only among their followers they've individually approved, it would be more appealing. The service also needs a dedicated home, instead of being spread across mobile sites, Gmail, Google Maps, and elsewhere, and gain better controls for how much 'buzz' flies at you. But it's promising, still, because it's not a public-type Twitter, or a walled-off Facebook, but something else entirely.

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Now that we've run down the three biggies above, give us your take:

Which Social Network Fits You Best?(survey software)

How would you revamp our chart of social network strengths and weaknesses? What did we get right, wrong, and miss entirely? We're open to your ideas, suggestions, and links, in the comments.

FlipSync Charges and Syncs Your USB Device, Fits on Your Keychain [Stuff We Like]

FlipSync Charges and Syncs Your USB Device, Fits on Your Keychain [Stuff We Like]: "

Charged and synced portable devices keep us connected and get us through the day, so it's extremely annoying when you need to connect but don't have the right cord nearby. FlipSync puts one on your keychain for iPhones and generic USB devices.

There's not much else to know about these keychain-friendly gadgets. They're about the size of a key fob, and they come in two versions—one with micro and mini-USB connectors that'll work with most USB devices, the other with an iPhone/iPod connector.

A FlipSync will set you back $20, which isn't cheap, but you're paying for the idea and convenience on this one.

flipSYNC - USB 2.0 Charge and Sync Cable for iPod & iPhone [Schosche via Gizmodo]

flipSYNC - Micro & Mini USB 2.0 Charge and Sync Cable [Scosche]

Picasa Album Downloader Snags Entire Albums in a Few Clicks [Downloads]

Picasa Album Downloader Snags Entire Albums in a Few Clicks [Downloads]: "

Windows/Mac/Linux: If you're looking for a quick way to download a photo album from Picasa without installing the desktop application, Picasa Album Downloader does just that—and you don't even need to register at the Picasa website.

Picasa is a terrific online photo storage service, but if you aren't a regular user, you may not want to register for an account just to download some pictures from your nephew's birthday party. Picasa Album Downloader lets you grab all the public photos you want without signing up for an account.

The free utility works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and really couldn't be easier to use. Once installed, just fire it up, tell the downloader what user name and album you're after, and it does the rest for you. The tool collects all the images in the album, then files them neatly in a folder on your hard drive.

Picasa Album Downloader was just released a couple weeks ago and still bears the beta label, but it worked just fine for us. What apps help you manage photos you download from online storage services? Talk about them in the comments.

Picasa Album Downloader [SourceForge via AddictiveTips]

Best Netbook Operating System: Windows 7 [Hive Five Followup]

Best Netbook Operating System: Windows 7 [Hive Five Followup]: "

Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite netbook operating system, then we rounded up the five most popular candidates for a vote. Now we're back to highlight the winner and runners up.

At the front with a nearly 10% lead was Windows 7, the newest offering in the Hive, with 36% of the vote. Ubuntu took second place with 27% of the vote, followed by a near tie between OS X and Jolicloud—12% of the vote each, with a 58 vote margin pushing OS X slightly ahead. Pulling up the back of the popular crowd was Linux Mint and its 8% share of the vote.

For a closer look at the winner and runners up, check out the full Hive Five. Have an idea for a future Hive Five? Send us an email at tips at lifehacker.com with 'Hive Five' in the subject line.

XBMC Integration Integrates XBMC with Windows 7 Media Center [Downloads]

XBMC Integration Integrates XBMC with Windows 7 Media Center [Downloads]: "

Windows: If you were jazzed by the free utility we mentioned recently that plugs Boxee into Windows 7 Media Center, then you'll love that there's a similar utility for XMBC. It a lickety-split way to flip back and between XBMC and WMC.

Once installed, the utility resides in the main menu of Windows Media Center. One click fires it up, closes WMC down, and opens XBMC at the same time. When you're done, hit escape to shut XBMC and return to Windows Media Center.

The app gives users a super-easy way to switch back and forth between XMBC and WMC with a remote, instead of having to mouse around a computer screen. It's especially handy if you've got your computer hooked up to your TV or a larger monitor across the room.

XBMC Integration 1.0 was created by the same folks that came up with the Hulu and Boxee utilities for Windows Media Center. Between the three of them, you've got a pretty awesome trinity of tools to turn the native Windows media app into a powerhouse for watching TV, movies, and more.

Thanks, Hector!

XBMC Integration 1.0 [Official Homepage]

Sweet Home 3D Models Your Home, Rearranges Your Furniture Without Breaking a Sweat [Downloads]

Sweet Home 3D Models Your Home, Rearranges Your Furniture Without Breaking a Sweat [Downloads]: "

Windows/Mac/Linux: Next time you get the urge to rearrange your furniture, don't strain your back randomly shoving your sofa around the room. Download Sweet Home 3D and do the heavy lifting on your computer screen before moving a stick of furniture.

This slick free interior design app recreates the dimensions of a room, and displays the furniture you add in 3D. Drag and drop tables, chairs, and plants around the room until you find an arrangement you like. Drop in windows, doors, and even change the color of the walls to replicate your room as closely as possible.

If you happen to have a blueprint available of the room you're redecorating, Sweet Home 3D will accept an import of the file in BMP, JPEG, GIF or PNG formats. Sorting through the furniture is easy—it's arranged in a tree view, just select the room you're decorating and drag what you like onto the 2D room grid. The app displays a 3D representation in real-time in a pane directly underneath. Check out an overhead view, or walk through the room as a virtual vistior for another perspective.

If you want to try out Sweet Home 3D before you download, there's an online version you can try out for free. Register to save any plans you create, or play with the app without signing up. Check out the video below to see Sweet Home 3D in action.

Sweet Home 3D [via Download Squad]

Boxee Release a New Version of the Boxee Beta Software

Boxee Release a New Version of the Boxee Beta Software: "

Today Boxee have released a new version of their Boxee beta software, version 0.9.20.10708.

We looked at the beta a few weeks ago – click here to have a refresher.

Here is what Boxee had to say:

The new version of the Beta includes almost no new features, but rather is focused on bug fixes. We focused on stability issues. Many hangs and crashes were identified and resolved. We spent a bunch of time trying to improve the never-ending saga of handling SMB shares.

All-in-all, more than 500 issues have been resolved.

Here are some of the changes and updates:

• Multilingual keyboard support: under settings->appearance->region to add keyboards


• Significantly improved video quality of our DXVA support


• Regained support for older graphics cards (pre-2.0 pixel shader) which was broken after move to DXVA


• Improved file scanning performance


• Hardware acceleration of H.264 on Intel HD4500 cards


• Hang on FLAC tag read over SMB


• SMB crashes when canceling SMB operations


• Hang on shutdown due to wait for SMB and file scanner


• Hang in file scanner when manually scanning a folder


• Hangs due to excessive locks around database pool


• Hangs when left idle due to UDP sockets leak


• Corrupted graphics on some ATI cards (X1600)


• Log file cycling (every 32M, old log overrides boxee.old.log)


• Present action dialog when clicking on DVD icon to allow browse/eject


• Optimization to file scanning making it less IO intensive


• Fixes to iPhone remote keyboard under Linux


• Added support for m4b playback (audio books)


• Crash in ID3 tag reading (playback and background scanning of some mp3 files)


• Crash in some wav files which contained extra-info in the wav header (playback and background scanning)


• Crash on some rss feeds caused by mis-parsing of empty http headers


• Crash on image extraction from mp3 tags (in some cases)


• win32: fixed runtime error in some cases where vc90 runtime was not installed properly


• Dual screen issues. sometimes a movie would only show black screen when switching screens.


• Allow apps to define properties for rtmp streaming


• Playback of some internet video streams, mainly coming from playlists (partial read of the network buffer was causing wrong codec detection)


• Playlist playback of internet video streams was sometimes using the music player instead of the video player


• Playback of music from history (was not working and now it will open the folder played from)


• Logout was broken enabling logging-in even after password change (was using stored cookie)


• Win32: when launching boxee while another instance is running it will just bring the other instance to front

Download the new version from http://www.boxee.tv/download and help them continue to improve!

Vodafone iPhone SIM-only deals outed

Vodafone iPhone SIM-only deals outed: "

Vodafone’s just slipped out a seriously tempting SIM-only deal that offers up plenty of data, Wi-Fi hotspot access and minutes on a short contract, and for £25 per month. The iPhone isn’t mentioned specifically, but read between the lines, and it’s clear the network is trying to get O2 Apple owners just out of contract to jump ship. Should you?

Without fanfare, Vodafone’s just whacked up an enticing new deal, giving you a SIM card with 900 minutes, unlimited texts, and for the first time, 1GB of internet and unlimited Wi-Fi hotspot access on the move, for £25 per month on a short term 12-month contract.

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Read our Vodafone iPhone review now

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You’ll have to bring your own handset to Vodafone of course, but if you snapped up an iPhone 3G on launch and are now out of contract, there’s nothing to stop you ringing up O2 and getting it to unlock your phone for you. We’ve confirmed that these SIM deals will work with an iPhone, although you won’t get Visual Voicemail.

You can check out the deals right now over on Vodafone’s store – this Cold War on iPhone pricing is starting to heat up.

Out Now | £25 per month | Vodafone (Via Fonehome)

Publish your Outlook Calendars on WHS

Publish your Outlook Calendars on WHS: "

The Home Server Show has a post for Outlook users which shows you how to publish your Outlook calendars using the WebDAV capability of the Windows Home Server.

WebDAV is a protocol used to publish content to the IIS web server which is built into Home Server and also enables you to manage that content too.

This comprehensive which takes you step by step through the process is available to read here.

Rip audio tracks from your DVDs

Rip audio tracks from your DVDs: "With some simple tools, you can pull the musical content off your favorite DVDs to listen to on your iPod or in iTunes.