Friday, August 31, 2012

800 Posts!

It's that time again -- and if you are a regular at Techman's World you know what I am talking about. Every 100 posts I do a post that covers what changes have been done to the website, and maybe some of the news I covered.

NFL Football app making its return to the PS3 for this football season

If you are a lover of sports, especially football, and you enjoyed using the NFL app on your PS3, I have some good news for you. It has just been announced on the PS Blog (US) that the NFL Sunday Ticket app will be making its way back to the PS3 for this football season.

If you were a user of the MAX plan from last year, you will be able to download the app for free, and watch all of the games you want in full HD. Of course, black outs still apply

You will also get access to DirecTV's Red Zone channel. RED ZONE delivers the final yards of every scoring drive and other exciting moments from all Sunday afternoon games as they happen, and it’s a great way to stay on top of the day’s highlights. 

Disqus Performing Scheduled Maintenance again, some services won't be available

Well, I guess it is that time of the month again (no pun intended at ALL). Disqus is performing scheduled maintenance, and some services might load fine and some might have issues.

GNOME based Ubuntu coming out this fall

If you love the Ubuntu or at least have used it before to know about the desktops that it is using and what it used in the past, you would know that back then Ubuntu used GNOME 2. Then when GNOME started to go down their own path, away from Canonical's beliefs, Canonical created Unity, a desktop shell that sat on top of GNOME. So you were still running GNOME and some GNOME applications, you were just using a shell instead of stock GNOME.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

PS Vita System Software Update V 1.80

Playstation has announced on their US blog that there is a new Vita firmware out, and it adds  an "enhanced experience", as well as PS One Classics support.

Microsoft SkyDrive App for Android Released

When Microsoft made a promise a few days ago to bring an Android app for SkyDrive, many users got their hopes up. To put it short, they delivered.

The app was just released today, and I discovered it via some type of notification on my Android phone. I didn't download it at the time, but I'll have to play with it in the coming days. One thing I do have to say, is, why can you not upload files via SkyDrive's mobile web interface? All you can do is view files, but you can't upload files. Maybe Microsoft should look into that, because that is a feature that is really lacking, and it doesn't have to be lacking. If anyone sees this feature, please let me know.

As you might expect, the list of features follows suit with the existing iOS and Windows Phone applications -- including multiple photo or video uploads, file sharing, opening stored files and file management with the ability to sort folders. While the app was built to work best with Android 4.0, it'll play nice with any handset that runs Gingerbread and above. If you're ready to install, a few clicks will do just that via the Google Play link below.

Source: Windows Blog     Download: Google Play

If you want to share your thoughts on this, you can post your thoughts in the comments below.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Recent CCleaner update adds Windows 8 support

A few weeks ago, I did a review of CCleaner. It was also an in depth look if anyone was also interested in that. Recently, there has been a CCleaner update that came out, and it adds one thing that is really important -- full Windows 8 support. If you run CCleaner, you will get an alert about another update being ready, but you can also check for updates by going to the about area of the software.

The change log release can be found here. Let me know of your thoughts on this.

More changes coming for search

If you have been following Techman's World recently, then you know about the search box changes. I ended up ditching the Blogger gadget, and instead replacing it with a search form for Google.

Now I am proud to say that Techman's World is moving away from Google also, and now in its place is Gawk.it. This is a search engine that aims to redefine search imo, and it indexes comments as well as the blog posts.

So by the time you see this post, the search box will be replaced with Gawk.it's search form. If you wish to use Google at the moment, just open your browser's developer tools and highlight the Google attribution and form, and uncheck the display: none rules.

I would like to give thanks to Kevin Marshall for helping me get this set up, and I hope you all enjoy better search. If you want to submit feedback, you can in the comments below.

Recycle Bin coming to SkyDrive soon

Ah SkyDrive, it is Microsoft's personal cloud service. I was using it since its roots, and I love it. Have you ever deleted something on SkyDrive on accident, and couldn't get it back? A good example is if you upload something to SkyDrive, then deleted the local copy of the file off of your computer's storage device. Well it appears from certain reports that a Recycle Bin feature is in fact in the new SkyDrive, but Microsoft has not flipped on the switch yet.


The code appears to be some sort of on/off switch. And there are reports that when the feature is switched on, there will be an menu option for it to the sidebar on the left.

Right now no one knows how the feature will work, but it is expected to work similarly to how the Recycle Bin works on Windows. Perhaps if you delete a file in a SkyDrive folder and it is moved to the local Windows Recycle Bin, it is moved to SkyDrive's also?

Another thing we don't know is when this feature is coming. We see hints of the feature coming, but we don't know when it is coming. It might be a while until we see this feature if it is included in the next SkyDrive update, which might take a long time depending on what Microsoft wants to do.

Either way, let me know of your thoughts in the comments below.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Closing summer with some DISQUS "swag"

You all know Disqus, right? Well if you don't know they power the community here on Techman's World. It is our commenting tool. It powers comments, and our community widget.

Twitter now the newest member of the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation has some pretty impressive backers, and now everyone's favorite micro-blogging service is set to become the latest addition to the Linux Foundation.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Angry Birds Space might be coming to the Red Planet this fall

Image Credit: Rovio/Engadget
Do you love Angry Birds or the entire series? Well the most recent game was Angry Birds Space, and right now Rovio is hinting an update coming this fall. The hint is mostly via a trailer that will be embedded below, but let me explain first.

It appears that Rovio has once again teamed up with NASA to make a special Curiosity themed episode of Angry Birds Space. The game will have 20 levels of the martian landscape with bonuses thrown in as well.

There is also good benefit to this game, and that is that you can learn more about the Curiosity's exploration while you are not fighting and destroying those pigs.

Android and iOS users can tap into the new chapter right after they update, but that's not even the full extent of Rovio's plans. If the environs of Gale Crater are too limiting, you'll be glad to hear that the game developer is teasing a full-scale Red Planet variant for the fall.

The teaser trailer is embedded below.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Introducing "Search This Site 2.0"

If you have been visiting my blog the last day or two, then you know that the normal search box is now gone, and in its place is another, but it is different. Before I dive in too deep, let me give you a little bit of back story.

Microsoft has a new logo

Do you remember that Microsoft Store logo? Well if you remember that, you already have a gist of what the new logo looks like.

YouTube in-stream ads coming to mobile devices

Image Credit: Engadget
Thought that you would get away with not having to view ads by taking to your smartphone device? Well you're parade of "winning" is officially over. Of course, the bad news is hinted in the title. I'll go ahead and explain.

Yesterday, the site implemented TrueView in-stream ads for the mobile platform, and like you've become accustomed to on the desktop, you'll begin to notice these commercials on your smartphone and tablet. If you don't notice the difference between TrueView ads and other YouTube ads, it is the ability to skip the ads after about 5 seconds. You all know what I'm talking about -- you're bound to see it eventually if you don't have an ad blocker installed.

This sorta represents the end of an era, but we all understand that content producers have to make money. You can take pride in knowing that the publisher is getting a little money, and (most likely) more content will continue to flow.

Do you use the YouTube on your smartphone? You can answer in the poll below.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

YouTube to begin streaming political events for the US

If you live in the US, you know that the political debate is heating up, and with good reason. With the Republican National Convention literally days away, and the democratic national convention coming a week later, it is going to be a hard battle to the finish. But I'm not here to talk about politics. I'm here to talk about what YouTube is doing with this.

Finally- More settings for Disqus 2012 in the admin panel, including language support

While there was all of these Disqus problems I wrote about a few days ago, I just noticed this feature in the admin panel. I'm not sure if I caught this zero-day, but at first I thought it was just normal settings from the classic Disqus - but Disqus 2012 was enabled. I know, silly me. Of course, this tutorial/in depth look is about Disqus 2012, so make sure you have your option checked like mine.

Nintendo Power Magazine is closing its doors

Image via Engadget
If you are a fan of Nintendo, or have bought a console for you are a friend, then you might have saw something about Nintendo Power. It is a game magazine for those that didn't know. Lots of you might have had this when you was a kid, and some of you still do.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

How to change your browser's user agent in Google Chrome

When you use a web browser, it contains a user agent. This data contains info about the browser, such as its rendering engine, platform version, browser version, etc. Sites often use this to customize the site to your browsers' layout engine. An example is sites defaulting to its mobile view if it detects a mobile browser viewing the web page. My site is an example of this, if you use Android or iOS, the site should default to the mobile view automatically.

$14.99 Windows 8 Upgrade Offer is Live; Register to Get Your Copy Now

When you buy a new product, knowing that there is a newer version of the OS coming out soon, what do you do? Well most of the time OEMs offer some sort of deal program to make it really cheap to upgrade. Today, Microsoft announced their deal program. customers who purchased a Windows 7 machine beyond June 2 can pick up Windows 8 Pro for just $14.99.

I've uninstalled RealPlayer, and installed VLC

If you were looking at the article I posted the other day about RealPlayer using Flash to play MP4 videos. I said that I might uninstall RealPlayer, and I did later that day. Personally I find that RealPlayer is bloated, and consumes a lot resources (I can't show you a CPU graph, because I'm not installing that software again). And I guess it also loads lots of plugins as Flash is an example.

Uninstalling RealPlayer was very simple, and the uninstall looked normal. it was no fancy graphic uninstaller like some programs. After uninstalling, the RealPlayer uninstaller did not reset my icons for my media files. Now I have broken icons for my flv files and other files that I don't open in Windows Media Player, or MediaGo. Guess I have a project to do.

DISQUS comments and availability here on Techman's World

If you have been on Techman's World lately, you might have noticed some issues with the comment embed not loading. Now if you live in the US, you might not have these problems because they mostly happen during 12-3 AM. If you live in countries like Australia, where it would be already be the next day and the time would be in the afternoon, then you might be getting these issues.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Sony has sold 2.2 million Vita's as of June 30th

Image credit: Sony
We finally have some sales numbers. Sony has announced that they have sold 2.2 million PlayStation Vita's as of June 30th. If you do the math, that amounts to roughly 250,000 a month since it passed the 1.2 million mark back in February. In an interview with PlayFront, German boss Uve Bassendowski blamed the slow sales on the company ignoring young customers to court a more grown-up demographic -- but would redress that balance soon.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Site Update: Contact Form Added

Starting today, Techman's World will now have a contact form. Previously, you had only a few options to contact the people behind Techman's World, but one of the major ways to contact a site was missing -- a contact form!

Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at 'Sub-Zero' data center

When you back up data, you have plenty of methods to choose from. Most consumers have an external hard drive/solid state drive, and/or back up their data to various cloud services like SkyDrive, Dropbox, and iCloud. What about Facebook?

Google Alerts: Do you use it?

Google Alerts is a service from Google that allows you to enter a certain search term and you get an email daily (or how ever you set up your notification settings) telling you of new results for that search term. A good way to use this is to see when people are talking about something you are interested in.

Need a good format converter for Ubuntu? Check out FormatJunkie!

Project's
Official
Icon
If you are a user of Ubuntu or use Linux, you might have known about the Ubuntu App Showdown. During that contest, this app churned out of a man named Alex Solanos. This app is called FormatJunkie. This app is an all around media converter. It converts a variety of audio and video formats, and even can convert ISOs to other disc images (in this case the CSO disc image). In addition to audio, video, and disc image files, this converter even converts images.

This applications has a nice interface, although some people think that the icons can be smaller. I personally don't think that is a problem, though.

Latest version of RealPlayer uses flash to display .mp4 videos?

While firing up real player to play a quick MP4 clip (otherwise I use Sony's MediaGo software), I wanted to right click on the video and try to set the video to replay over and over again. When I tried to do that, I got a little right-click menu that is flash. It had no options, but instead the normal flash settings and stuff like that. Right clicking anywhere outside the video does nothing as far as I can see.

EBay to ban sale of spells, hexes

If you love spells or some other form of magic, and love to buy these items on Ebay, then I have some bad news. It appears that you're time is running out, because soon Ebay is banning the sale of these items.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Sports Champions 2 Available In North America on October 30th

If you are familiar with the PlayStation Move, you might know about the game Sports Champions. Well it turned out to be a popular game, and there is a second game coming. With today we now know about a North American release date.

Have you heard of the Raspberry Pi?

The price above is the B model, not the A model.
If you follow the Linux community a lot, or focus a lot into software development, you might have heard of this device called the Raspberry Pi. This device is a credit card sized ARM based computer, and I thought that I should share my thoughts on it even if you might have never heard of it.

First off, yes, the image to the right is not a joke. A major selling point of the Pi is the price. The hardware on this device is part of why it is so cheap -- and why it is so popular. Model A is $25, and Model B is just $10 more at $35. All money is USD.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Introducing the Techman's World Help Docs

Starting from this day forward, Techman's World will start producing help docs for questions about the site. As of this post, there are currently two docs. One talks about the Unity Web Apps integration, and the other talks about the comments here.

Facebook will start truly deleting your photos

When you delete your photo's on facebook, did you know that you're photo's are NOT really deleted? In fact, those photo's can be looming around their CDN (content delivery network) for months to years, waiting to be seen again by a FB employee of someone else.

Well from this day forward, Facebook has changed its deletion policy. For now on, deleted photo's will no longer loom on their CDN for more than 30 days. Although this sounds good to people who are concerned with privacy, this still nowhere near as fast as Instagram's delete policy, where deleted photo's vanish almost immediately.

Disqus 2012 adds self deletion of comments? (Update: Disqus responds!)

I'm not sure about all of you, but I just experienced this new feature in Disqus 2012. When on a site that uses Disqus 2012, I now get this option to delete comments that I make. And the most interesting part about this is that I am not a moderator at said site.

Now of course this leaves a lot of questions to be answered. I'm sure that Disqus will probably publish an update to their change log, but once again I have a good eye for catching changes.

Here is all of the picture proof that you need:
 Now, take a look at the drop down.
 I'll go ahead and reach out to Disqus for comment. If I get a response, I'll post here.

Update: Ok, after a late response, Daniel Ha from Disqus has sent me a message back explaining that yes, this small change has been added. His exact text can be seen below. I'll ask if this functionality will also be added to the classic Disqus, maybe for compatibility reasons.
"We did make this small change and you are able to remove your own comments."

Thursday, August 16, 2012

CCleaner -- a good way to clean your Windows PC

When you use Windows, your system creates hundreds of temporary files and other files that are not needed on your system. For example, installing software does this. You also have cache items from your browser, your recycling bin is full, etc.

Before I start talking in depth about CCleaner, just wanted to touch on a few things when it comes to deleting files. When you delete files from browsers like IE, those files are not "really" deleted. They also exist in other directories that don't get touched. The Recycling Bin also does this, because if you view your Recycle Bin directory, you'll see about 4 different bins.

Judge rules Facebook users can share friends' profiles with the feds

If you were ever thinking of sharing items on facebook in hopes of keeping them private, then you thought wrong. In addition to the privacy policies that FB has, you now have to keep an eye out for the feds.

Unity 2D has been removed from the Ubuntu 12.10 repos

If you love using Ubuntu, but love to use Unity 2D for whatever reason, I have some bad news. As shown in the title above, "Ubuntu 2D" also known as Unity 2D, has been removed from the 12.10 repos. Existing users of Unity 2D in the current builds in 12.10 will be automatically switched to the Unity 3D interface.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

How to disable the Windows XP Windows Update restart nag

If you still use Windows XP, you know that after you install updates that require you to restart, you are shown an initial message to restart. But if you choose not to, a alert keeps popping up nagging you to restart. Well if you are busy or playing a game in my case, you don't want window focus to go to that nag alert especially if you are facing enemies.

In short, you want the nagging to stop. Well if you didn't know, this nag alert is actually a service, and a processes. Stopping the service also terminates the process, so I'm going to show you how to terminate the service.

Another in depth look at the multiplayer in Black Ops 2

A few days ago, I posted the official multiplayer trailer of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. In that video a whole load of new grenades, weapons, and defense systems was introduced. Lots of questions are to be answered, and XPlay's look at the new multiplayer is going to answer a few questions, including mine.

Make sure you have updated your Windows machine

If you haven't already, today is Wednesday, the day after patch Tuesday from yesterday. If you have your machines set to not automatically update, you need to update now to make sure that you are getting the most up to date software.
  • For Windows XP, open IE and type in update.microsoft.com, or navigate to Windows Update from within the start menu tree.
  • For Windows Vista and 7, navigate to the control panel and then click Windows Update.
I'm not sure about Windows 8, but I imagine that the option for Window Update would be in the control panel.

Over 3 billion addons have been downloaded for Firefox

Today I got an email this morning from Mozilla, and guess what I found out. It appears that there has been over 3 billion addons downloaded to Firefox.

Ubuntu One Challenge

Ubuntu One is a cloud syncing and storage service that is owned by Canonical and by default you get a free 5GB when you sign up. With Ubuntu 12.04, it only took a few clicks to get that free 5GB.

But how about getting an extra 20GB tacked onto that, so no win total you will get a while 25 GB to stuff with anything you want.

Introducing the new SkyDrive (in depth look)

I wrote about it earlier today, and what do you know -- the new SkyDrive is out.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Two weeks after launch, Outlook.com obtains over 10 million users

Outlook.com adoption is outstanding. With over one million users jumping on in one day, it is a good sign that everyone is liking the new Outlook webmail service.

While the adoption rate has dropped off since then, the rate is still pretty high at over 10 million people adopting outlook.com in just two weeks.

If you want to see all of my Outlook.com coverage, including some other info about other online Microsoft services, you can click the Outlook.com Coverage link in the page bar at the top. There you can see info on how to claim email addresses using different methods, stats on adoption, and more. You can also expect a review of Outlook.com as well here on Techman's World due to the extensive coverage. Earlier today I posted about SkyDrive getting a new Windows 8 UI look, but the new changes have not rolled out to me yet. When they do, you can expect a SkyDrive in depth look as well.

Microsoft debuts revised SkyDrive website, includes Windows 8 UI

More recently, Microsoft has been giving some Metro remakes to its online services, and after some rumors and leaks, Microsoft is now finally ready to reveal this to the public.

PlayStation Plus coming to the PS Vita this year, cloud storage increasing from 150MB to 1GB

You love PlayStation plus, but you hate one thing about it: the storage space for cloud saves. This is by far one of the biggest drawbacks from PS+ from its earliest days. If you were looking for a storage increase, I got some good news for you.

Courageous sixth-grade teacher built a 70 computer lab for children equipped with Ubuntu, costed $0

While I wouldn't really call this as Ubuntu in the wild, I guess in some cases it is. Most computer labs in the United States run one thing or the other, and this case they either run Windows or they ran MacOS. You hardly see computer labs in the US running Linux, and those that do most likely run Ubuntu, like in this instance.

Site Update: Unity Web Apps Integration Coming!

Today I have some news to relay to you regarding Unity Web Apps integration. I have covered it in the past, and now I am looking to add this to the site.

For now, all integration with Unity is going to be slim, meaning that for now it is going to be a bookmarked app. As I learn more from the API, I might even be able to set up notifications, menu options, and more.

If you want to take a look at the Unity Web Apps API, go here. It is actually very simple, and personally I found it odd that it wasn't hard. You do have to put this in between <script> tags. Right now, many popular websites support Web Apps integration, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, GrooveShark, and more.


If you want to provide feedback on this, you can in the comments below.

Monday, August 13, 2012

How To: Remove IE7 compability view from your Blogger template

Recently, Disqus has published a help doc for Disqus 2012 that explained that IE7 is currently not supported in Disqus 2012. Many blogger sites have templates that tell IE to render the page using IE7 standards, and this creates a lot of problems, not just for Disqus 2012.

IE7 is starting to become a really old browser, and right now Microsoft recommends you are on IE8 (for Windows XP), or on IE9 for Vista and 7. Also, newer versions of IE do have more standards support set by W3.

Today I am producing a tutorial showing you how to remove this tag. I will talk about the risks of this after the tutorial. Although, there aren't many risks. For this tutorial, I will use one of my old blogs, Michael's Tech Tips, which merged with Techman's World a few months ago.

Did you know that there is a wine named Ubuntu?

A photo of Ubuntu running on a laptop, as seen on the Ubuntu homepage.
Ubuntu is a very popular distribution of Linux. I have covered in the past wild spottings of Ubuntu, such as on license plates, in fields, etc. Now, there is an Ubuntu wine. To most people, this is something new.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

What tutorial would you love to see next at Techman's World?

Today I was inspired to ask a question to all of you because my tutorial on how to install Disqus on your mobile Blogger template was very helpful. I know that I haven't been doing that many tutorials here lately, but right now I am asking you on what do you want to see next.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Faults in online security these days

Recently, a Gawker Reporter's entire online presence is hacked, and all his devices wiped. This was a very interesting report, and it shows the faults that companies have for security systems. The sad part is that some of these faults are because of humans themselves.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Outlook for Mobile

For about 9 days now, Microsoft has had its Outlook.com email service out, still in its preview phase. If you didn't know, if you have opted in on the Outlook.com interface, you'll also see it on the mobile interface.

My horrible experience using Safari for Windows

Me being myself, I use many web browsers in my day. Of course you all know that I use Chrome as my default, but I also use IE (for testing stuff only), Firefox, Opera, and Safari for Windows. If you never knew, I do use Safari for Windows, and I use it basically for one thing - hits development tools. Specifically, the ability to change user agents from the develop menu. I can change from IE 7, 8, and 9, Opera 11.64 (outdated, but I'd just use Opera by itself anyways if I need to use it), mobile Safari for iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and so on.

Blizzard Suffers Security Breach

If you have Blizzard accounts, now would be a good time to reset your password and other security details (like security questions, etc.).

Blizzard's security team found that its internal network has been illegally accessed, and answers to personal security questions, authenticator data and cryptographically scrambled Battle.net passwords have found their way into the perpetrator's hands. The team is confident, however, that the compromised data isn't enough to give the attacker access to user accounts. Right now there is no lead if the attackers got their hands on financial data, but then again you can't rule that out.

Blizzard President Mike Morhaine recommends that users update their passwords all the same, and I couldn't agree more.

You can update all of that account info from the source link below.

Source: Blizzard

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Multiplayer Trailer released

If you are interested in Black Ops 2, I have some more trailers to feed you. Previously the trailers were focusing on single player, but this trailer focuses completely on multiplayer.

'Just for Kids' now available on Netflix for the Xbox 360

Last year, Netflix introduced the "Just for kids" section of their entertainment listings. Despite it being not popular back then, it has grown to be a great success, and other consoles have gotten updates reflecting this. Previously the Wii and PS3 have got some love, and now love for Xbox 360 owners has arrived.