Freeware Pick: Bookskin by Stardock.com

Changing the Window's splash screen may already be old news but this handy tool caught my eye. Stardock.com is offering it's Bootskin software as a freeware to apply a new splash screen from their library and a full version to create your own.

Overview:

Stardock BootSkin Vista is a program that allows users to change their
Windows boot screens.

Unlike other programs that can change the Windows boot screens, BootSkin
Vista does so in a safe manner. It doesn't patch the Windows kernel. Nor does it
require the user to download replacement Windows kernels to do so.

Boot screens that use BootSkin Vista are typically under 20K compared to
other boot screen programs whose files are over 2 MEGABYTES.

Windows XP and Vista versions available.

Flash Fix for Firefox

Sound like a tongue twister? If YouTube and Flash videos stutter when you view them in firefox, but are fine when viewed in IE or Chrome, the issue is not in the video but in the way Firefox handles session restore.

By default Firefox is set to take a "snapshot" of all your open tabs every ten seconds so that if you close your browser you can pick up where you left off when you reopen it. A nice feature but doing so every ten seconds is what causes this video stutter experience. The simpliest solution may seem to be just shutting the restore feature off completely, but consider the fix posted by downloadsquad to lengthen the time between snapshots.

The fix:
In the Firefox toolbar type: about:config
In the filter box type: browser.sessionstore.interval
The default is 10000 miliseconds. If 1 minutes = 60,000 milliseconds, you can up it to 2 minutes (120,000), 3 minutes (180,000) and so on as you see fit but keep the number to one that still makes the session restore useful.

Office Gadget: DJ Mouse

Be the life of your cubicle farm with the DJ Mouse by DJ-Tech.

Scroll spreadsheets and and channel your inner-DJ by scratching MP3's of your favorite bands. No doubt your bosses will be so impressed with your multi-tasking skills that you'll be climbing up the corporate ladder and thanking DJ Mouse for your success.... or just wear headphones.

Currently available for $79, it has an aluminum "feel", jog and scroll wheels, the all important scratch button and bundled software to make it all work.

Freeware Pick: USB Drive Fresher

USBDriveFresher from Affinity Tools is our pick for Freeware of the Day! Check out these great features: Customizable cleanup patterns; Predefined patterns; Cleanup USB drive with a mouse click; Autocleanup USB drive when it is plugged in; Folder cleanup

This lite utility runs on everything from Window 98 forward and is a useful tool for all folder maintenance, not just USB drives.

Taxi Pods

As promised two years ago there are now driver-less little pods buzzing around Heathrow airport, transporting travelers from terminals to parking garages 4 at a time, luggage and all. A glimpse at the future? Well it is way cute!

Quoted from Engadget:
"The ULTra Personal Pod cars are fully automated battery-powered pods that zoom around at up to 25mph on a special road network, and can transport four passengers and their luggage between Heathrow's Terminal 5 and its business car parks."

ULT stands for Urban Light Transit... see it in action and check out the gallery

Microsoft Surface Table...

Read this review over the weekend and was really impressed by the technology, if not the price tag:

"The folks over at the Media Interaction Lab have taken on the complex task of designing a usable interface for one of those fancy multi-touch coffee tables; their response to the challenge was quite simple: if you're virtually controlling the devices in your home, shouldn't it seem a lot like when you control them in real-life? Makes sense to me. This simply brilliant yet brilliantly simple idea is being manifested in the Media Interaction Lab's CRISTAL project. Similar in hardware design to the Microsoft Surface, CRISTAL uses a large multi-touch display, generally the size of a small coffee or book table. The main interface, however, differs in paradigm completely. Where most multi-touch user interfaces today consist of a "virtual desktop," CRISTAL's interface literally puts a live image of your living room on the screen, by means of a wall-mounted or ceiling-mounted camera. The camera view (which hopefully has all your controllable electronics in sight) gives users a projection of their real room to interact with; one of the examples shown in MI-Lab's video demonstrates the user controlling the lights in his room by simply touching the image of the light on the table and dragging his finger to control the brightness. Another user also controls the movie playing by tapping his TV to get a DVD menu right at his fingertips.

CRISTAL's not production-ready yet, and like the Surface, it's not going to be cheap. But, you have to admit, it sure is cool. Check out MI-Lab's videos to see just how cool it is."

Latest WIP

Working on putting together a fantasy football website (see www.ipick-football.com/beta1). Under my association with Levine Martin we're working on a site for David Kritzer & Associates and Sitetec Construction, as well as email blasts for EEHall and Yooj Solutions...