Apple just released iOS4 for the iPhone and iPod touch, and now that you've downloaded and upgraded to the much-hyped iDevice update, here's a look at the new shortcuts, settings, and features you'll need to know—and want to use. More »
iPhone – Apple – ipodtouch – Smartphones – Handhelds
Ever wish you could get even more nit-picky about your Gmail filters? Free Gmail-based webapp Syphir filters messages by arrival time, number of recipients, and whether they “need” replies. It really works, and it might just scratch your last, hard-to-reach inbox itch. More »
The new Libraries feature in Windows 7 makes it easier to manage your files and folders. Today we take a comprehensive look at everything you can do with Windows 7 Libraries.
The Libraries feature in Windows 7 provides a central place to manage files that are located in multiple locations throughout your computer. Instead of clicking through a bunch of directories to find the files you need, including them in a library makes for quicker access.
Access Libraries
To access the libraries in Windows 7, type libraries into the search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.
The default libraries in Windows 7 will open up in Explorer which are Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
Anytime you’re in Windows Explorer, you’ll be able to access libraries from the Navigation Pane.
Using Libraries
In these examples we’ll take a look at the Documents Library, but the procedures will work for any library you want to add locations to. If you’ve been working in Windows 7 for a while and storing documents to the My Documents folder, when you open the Documents Library, you’ll see those documents. Some applications install folders in the My Documents folder by default and you’ll see those as well.
What if you have documents stored in a folder other than My Documents? You need to add it to the Documents Library. There are a couple of ways you can go about it. Right-click on a folder and select Include in library from the context menu, then choose the Documents Library. Keep in mind that when you add a folder to a library, that folder is still in its original location.
Or when you have the folder containing your documents open, select Include in library and choose the library to put them in from the dropdown.
Here we take a look at the Documents library that contains files that are located in different places throughout the hard drive, including some on another partition.
You can also remove items from libraries as well. When you’re in a library, click on the locations link.
The Documents Library Locations window opens up and from here you can add or remove locations.
Create New Libraries
The default libraries are all well and good, but if you really want to take advantage of this feature, you’ll want to create your own. While in the libraries directory click on the New library button and give it a name.
In this example we made a new library called Work Projects. The first time you open it you’ll be prompted to include a folder.
Browse to the location with the files you want to add then click Include folder.
Now the files included in that folder will show up in the new library.
After you’ve created some libraries they’ll be added to the list to select from.
Add Network Locations
While libraries are a handy new feature, it’s not perfect. Not all folders can be added to libraries as Microsoft has stuck some rules on them. You can pretty much add anything from a local drive, including other volumes or partitions. External USB drives formatted as NTFS or Fat32 can be added as well. Things get kind of weird when you’re trying to add network and non-indexed locations.
Thankfully there’s a handy free utility you can use that makes adding network locations a lot easier. Win7 Library Tool is small and straight forward to use. Just click on the Create a new library button.
Then add the network location you want included in the library. Notice this tool will also allow you to easily change the library icon which is a neat additional feature.
In this example we’ve added a home network share that contains music files to a library named MP3 library.
Conclusion
This should help get you started using Libraries in Windows 7, which at first might take some getting used to. Once you understand how they work and start creating your own, you’ll find they’re actually pretty useful. Once you get going, you’ll find the Win7 Library Tool makes adding network locations a snap. How about you? Do you use libraries in Windows 7? Leave a comment and let us know what you like or don’t like about the feature.
Chrome OS is a promising cloud-based operating system, but the big complaint most people have about it is that Chrome OS is entirely browser-based. New netbook OS Jolicloud is a lot like Chrome OS, but with the addition of killer desktop apps.
Before you even consider Jolicloud, you may want to look at their big list of compatible devices. It’s pretty huge, and I’d also suspect not complete. I’m actually testing it in a virtual machine and it’s working just fine, and it would probably work on a fair amount of other hardware.
Think you’d like to try it out? You can install it easily from Windows using a simple installer. Rather than wipe out your Windows installation, it simply carves out some partitioned space on your hard drive so you don’t have to worry about ditching Windows altogether just to try it out. Ready to give it a try? The installation is pretty straightforward, but if you want a little hand-holding, check out the gallery below.
Once your Jolicloud installation is complete, you’ll end up at the login screen.
Enter the username and password you created during installation, and when you log in, you’ll end up staring down the Jolicloud netbook launcher screen.
You'll also be prompted to set up your Jolicloud account at this point, but unfortunately the specialized Jolicloud accounts—which is part of what makes Jolicloud so cool—requires an invitation code, so you'll probably want to sign up for one ASAP. If and when you do sign up with a Jolicloud homebase, you'll get access to the Jolicloud App Directory pictured below.
It's from this directory you can install your favorite programs—from Skype and Dropbox to Boxee and Spotify in a single click. When you're logged in to Jolicloud, you've also got access to your social stream:
…and a convenient update manager:
In short, Jolicloud is a very impressive looking netbook operating system. Sure it's just a specialized interface running on top of Ubuntu and powered by a lot of Mozilla Prism packages. The App Directory makes the operating system—as TechCrunch accurately put it—feel like an iPhonesque OS for netbooks. And unlike the current state of Chrome OS, the current alpha release of Jolicloud is actually pretty well supported.
It's probably a little unfair to compare Jolicloud to Chrome OS, since they are ultimately very different in their approach, but they are both aiming for the same market—your netbooks. If you've given Jolicloud a try in the past or just want to weigh in on its looks from the screenshots, let's hear your thoughts in the comments.
The Boxee team unveiled its upcoming beta release tonight. From the outset, it looks a whole lot more pretty and user friendly. Native search powers, media queues, much improved looks, and easier navigation are coming to computer-connected TVs soon.
Boxee is based on the same core code as the XBMC project, but has differentiated itself with a different (and, in our opinion, not quite as appealing) look and a social, net-connected focus. The new home screen brings a new look and those social/feed aspects front and center.
It’s divided up into three columns of items on the bottom: friend recommendations on the left, featured media from Boxee and its partners in the middle, and items you’ve queued up on the right.
Anywhere you go in Boxee, you can quickly pull up the universal menu, which lets you rate, recommend, and queue an item, shut down or configure the system, and get access to the major media categories. The very bottom is a kind of bookmark bar, filled with shortcuts to your favorite media channels or files.
Whether you’re looking for a TV show episode you’ve downloaded or a show available for streaming anywhere in Boxee’s ecosystem, you can find it by doing a quick search from the sidebar. There’s a tiny keyboard built in for remote users, and quick filtering tools below. In general, Boxee treats your local media and streaming content as pretty much one and the same, in search and in handling.
Beyond being just a media player and Netflix/Hulu portal, Boxee’s photo, video, music, and even social networking apps set it apart. We’ve already thought about the possibilities of Clicker on Boxee, and more apps are likely on the way.
Want even more peeks at what the Boxee beta’s got inside? Check out Gizmodo’s screenshot gallery.
Under the hood, Boxee’s beta will feature a number of bug fixes from the alpha, and will switch from OpenGL to DirectX graphics on Windows, along with enabling DirectX video acceleration, allowing for much speedier and less resource-intensive playback. There’s also going to be baked-in support for NVIDIA’s cheaper-but-powerful Ion graphics chips, likely pointing to the pre-built Boxee box. Coincidentally, this also makes this editor’s homemade Boxee media center an even more badass investment.
Boxee’s beta is rolling out now to approved early access users (you can sign up here if you feel lucky). Next up will be those already using the alpha, and then, on Jan. 7, the general public. Tell us what you think of Boxee’s new look and direction, and what else you think it needs, in the comments.
Windows/Mac OS X: The biggest software announcement at today’s Apple event comes in the form of iTunes 9, the newest release of the popular desktop media player.
It’s a solid update containing a few features that we’d be really excited about if only they were just a little bit better (see Home Sharing, for example).
Worthwhile/notable features in the new release include:
Better App Management: If you’re syncing apps to your device through iTunes, iTunes 9 adds the ability to organize your synced apps on your iPhone pages from your desktop. Photo via Gizmodo.
iTunes LP: Apple has introduced their new music format called iTunes LP. The new format intends to take digital music to a new world of multimedia integration, including videos, liner notes, credits, and more. Think of it sort of like the music version of DVDs with special features.
iTunes Extras: Well, if iTunes LP is sort of like a DVD with special features, iTunes Extras is exactly like it. Now when you buy a movie from the iTunes store, you also get some special features, including cast interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, photo galleries, etc.iTunes 9 is a free download for Windows and Mac. It’s not available just yet from Apple’s servers… Update: iTunes 9 is now available.
Imagine a music app with instant access to any song you wanted to hear. Imagine creating a playlist from those songs and quickly, easily sharing it with friends. Such an app does exist, it’s called Spotify, and it could change music forever.
Hyperbole alert! I admit it, I'm over-the-moon about Spotify—both over what it currently is and more importantly over the potential it has. If you get a chance to try it out, I think you may feel the same way.
(Click any of the full-width images for a closer look.)
In short, here’s how it works: Spotify is a peer-to-peer music streaming service; it’s a desktop application, but its content all comes via the cloud. Think of it as though the entire iTunes Music Store were actually just your library, and that instead of the poorly designed mess that it is, imagine that it was refreshingly streamlined, fast, and easy to search and use. That gives you a little bit of an idea what Spotify is like. It also works under Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (using Wine).
The best part: It’s completely legal. Spotify seeks out licensing deals with the music industry before going live, meaning it sits comfortably in the 100% legit territory.
The catch: Oh, you knew there’d be a catch, didn’t you. Although they’ve told me they hope to make it stateside before the end of the year, Spotify is currently only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain.
But after just one day of playing with Spotify, I was convinced it could change the way I listen to music. After a week, I’m absolutely hooked.
First, just because it’s really well done, let’s take a look at the official Spotify commercial:
The best part about Spotify is that it could not be easier to use. Currently Spotify boasts around 3.8 million tracks (not as impressive as iTunes’ over 10 million songs by any stretch, but they’re adding songs regularly and could easily someday match iTunes). Here’s a quick overview of the best features you’ll notice as soon as you fire up Spotify for the first time:
You can access your music from any computer: Each time you open Spotify, you log into you Spotify account—meaning that no matter where you're logging in from, all of your playlists are ready and waiting for you. It's not synchronization—it's better than that. That's because you don't have to worry about moving gigabyte after gigabyte of music from one computer to the next. Spotify simply streams the music to wherever, and so logging into the application is essentially like logging into your Gmail account—except instead of all those emails, you've got all your music ready and waiting to play.
Sharing any of your playlists is as easy as sharing a link: iTunes and other desktop players do a fair job of playlist creation, but if you want to share a playlist with a friend, your best bet is still to burn the mix to a CD. Yeah… old school, right? We’ve featured plenty of web-based music players designed to make sharing playlists a breeze, including MixTape.me (particularly notable to me because I created it).
With Spotify, sharing a playlist you’ve created is as simple as right-clicking any playlist in the sidebar and selecting Copy HTTP link or Copy Spotify URI. Send either link to a friend via email and clicking on it should send them straight to that playlist in Spotify. It’s dead simple. A web site has already sprung up dedicated to sharing Spotify playlists. On top of that, Spotify already has tools built in for quickly sharing a playlist via Facebook or Delicious. Pretty cool stuff.
Collaborating on playlists is a breeze: But let’s say you’re not impressed with the simple playlist sharing. Spotify also lets you turn any playlist into a collaborative playlist by, again, simply right-clicking the playlist and then clicking Collaborative Playlist.
It’s clean and easy to navigate: Spotify’s navigation is a little like a hybrid between traditional music players and the web. (Don’t let that confuse you, it’s not like Songbird.) All you get when you start is a search box, a home page, some Spotify radio stations, and a play queue.
The first time you search, you’ll notice that Spotify saves your most recent searches in the sidebar. As soon as you start creating playlists, they show up below your saved searches. Click on any artist to go straight to every song by that artist in Spotify, along with their top hits, a biography section, and a radio station for that artist. Likewise, clicking on any individual album will take you to an album overview page containing all the tracks for that album and an album review. You can navigate backward and forward through your history with the forward/back buttons in the top left of the app—just like in your web browser.
In Spotify’s free version, your music streams at approximately 160kbps using the Ogg Vorbis q5 codec (an open-source codec). Premium subscribers (that is, folks who pay 10 Euros a month, or around $14) stream at a higher bit rate of 320kbps (among other benefits).
No, you don’t have to pay for it, but yes, there are different versions of Spotify. The free version is supported by ads, but apart from those ads, supports all the same search, radio, and sharing features I mentioned above.
Spotify ads are actually audio ads occasionally inserted into your playlists. I haven’t actually heard one in the time I’ve tested Spotify, but presumably they’re there, and yes, one might imagine that such ads could get a bit annoying. (One user described Spotify ads thusly: "It was streets ahead of most desperate, shouty radio ads: polite, informative and reasonably unobtrusive. The ad for Watchmen that turned up a dozen songs later was a bit more traditional "In a world…" movie trailer voiceover fare.") Of course, that's where the Premium subscription—or even the $1 day pass if you just want a breather for a day—comes in.
Now that I’ve hyped it up, it’s time to acknowledge where Spotify isn’t quite ready to replace your traditional desktop music player (like iTunes).
First, these songs are all trapped in the cloud: So how does one go about playing music when no internet connection is available? Actually, Spotify automatically saves some of the music to your hard drive as it plays (you can adjust just how much in the Preferences), so you’re not entirely out of luck. Still, those 3.8 million songs shrink pretty quickly when you can only cache a portion of the music.
You can’t sync the music to your MP3 player: If you want to Spotify music with you on your MP3 player, you really can't, right? Well, actually, that's partly—but not entirely—true. Spotify will probably never work on your old MP3 player, but if your player has Wi-Fi access (or, better yet, 3G access), that's another story. In fact, Spotify already has submitted an iPhone app to Apple, which you can see in the video below:
Let’s pretend for a second that Apple would ever consider approving Spotify, despite their lame, indefensible app approval habits. Think about how convenient Spotify on the iPhone would be: You would never have to plug in your iPhone to sync your music. Just fire up Spotify and stream any of your playlists and tunes using your iPhone's data plan or Wi-Fi connection. It even supports offline playback the same way the desktop version does. (Okay, so we cheated on that one. It's not really that much of a bad thing—in fact, it's exactly the kind of easy "syncing" we'd like on an iPhone, Android phone, Pre, or any other cellphone.)
If a song isn’t in the Spotify catalog, you’re out of luck: Spotify has a finite catalog, and unfortunately—for the time being, at least—you can't add anything of your own to that catalog. (I was knocked on my face when I wanted to play some ELO and realized they didn't have Flashback in their catalog, for example. In fact, it actually demonstrates another Spotify annoyance of mine: Artist pages are often filled with kind of lame compilations; it'd be nice if you could filter artist releases and compilations.)
This, to me, the inability to add your own music is clearly the biggest limitation of Spotify's potential. Even if the service managed to support every major and even relatively minor label in the world, there'd still be those tracks—like from your friend's band—that will likely never make their way to Spotify. Naturally, the folks at Spotify are aware of this problem, and they've even said they’re considering some form of personal uploading, but right now it’s not available, and implementing it is likely problematic for their licensing.
It’s not available in my country yet: Okay, so I said the library limitation above is the biggest problem with Spotify. To be fair, that’s the biggest problem for people who can actually use the application. For the whole of the United States and several other countries, Spotify’s biggest problem is that it’s not even available. As I said above, Spotify is working to change that; they’re already in talks with the major U.S. labels (Wired quotes founder Daniel Eks as saying that “the labels want to see Spotify in the U.S.”), so it’s likely just a matter of time.
I realize this review is awfully glowing, but I also know that some of the problems with Spotify I've mentioned above are absolute showstoppers for some. In fact, some folks, the digital packrats—likely the people who have a hard time getting rid of their old CD collection despite having burned it all to their computer—may have no desire to ditch their hard drives full of music for a cloud-based alternative. We respect that.
Whether or not you’ve had the chance to play around with Spotify, love it or lump it, let’s hear what you think about the app in the comments.
The iPhone 3.0 software update hit servers a few hours ago, and we spent our afternoon playing with every new feature we could find. Step inside for a look at our favorite new iPhone 3.0 features.
Spotlight Search: Possibly the best feature from a productivity standpoint, just press the Home button from the Home screen (specifically the first page of your Home screen) to bring up a quick search box that searches across the breadth of your iPhone. That includes contacts, bookmarks, music, applications, notes, calendar, and even email messages. Incidentally, you can also now switch the double-click Home button behavior to launch Spotlight (or the Camera). If you don't want an item indexed or you want to change the result order, just head to Settings -> General -> Home and tweak the the Search Results (this is also where you change the double-click behavior).
Copy and Paste This one wins the award for the longest-time-coming iPhone feature. Just double-tap or tap-and-hold a bit of text to bring up your copy context menu, adjust the start and end points of the text you want to cut or copy, then tap the Copy/Cut button to finish the job. When you’re ready to paste, just double-tap again in an input field. If you changed your mind about a paste or cut, you can also shake to undo.
Camera/Photos tweaks: Your Camera and Photo apps both saw some minor but cool feature updates. Pictured, you’ll see that the Camera app now sports a tiny thumbnail of the last picture you took that, when tapped, takes you to your Camera Roll. When you’re sending, copying, or deleting photos from your iPhone, you can now select multiple photos at a time (handy for iPhone reviewers emailing images to themselves).
Form AutoFill in Safari If you’re anything like this editor, you spend a lot of your time on the iPhone in Safari. I even use Gmail via Safari rather than Mail. Sure I’m always checking that Remember Me box when I log into web sites, but now I can simply hit the AutoFill button and be done with it. It’s a security concern, to be sure, but it’s also extremely convenient.
Open Link Options: Anyone who’s gotten used tabbed browsing on the desktop probably feels a little suffocated by the lack of options for opening links on the iPhone. That’s all gotten a bit better with the improved Open link options in the new and improved Safari. Just tap and hold a link for a convenient pop-up that allows you to choose where you want to open the link (and lets you copy it for pasting elsewhere).
Search in Mail Like I said, I still do most of my iPhone emailing with Gmail in Safari, but if you use Mail regularly, the new search option, complete with filters, is gangbusters.
Voice Memos App: At this point voice recording applications are a dime a dozen in the App Store, but it’s still great to see a really nice one come with iPhone 3.0 out of the box.
Landscape on Everything: Okay, not everything, but you now get landscape mode in Messages (SMS), Mail, Stocks, Contacts (strangely, though, just in the Contacts app and not in the Contacts section of the Phone app), and Notes. Big improvement.The big iPhone 3.0 feature that we still can't try out here in the U.S. is data tethering, which, unfortunately, is still in the works with AT&T and will likely cost much more than it's worth.
If, like us, you've spent your afternoon getting to know the ins and outs of the new iPhone 3.0 update, let's hear how you like it so far—and what features stand out to you—in the comments. For a more extensive look at some of the finer additions—like stereo bluetooth—check out our siblings-in-gadgetry Gizmodo’s review.
Windows/Mac/Linux: A test version of Opera’s formidable alternative browser introduces Unite, a plug-in that lets users share music, pictures, files, notes, and chat rooms straight from their desktop. Check out its services and features in a quick screenshot tour.
Before jumping into the big pictures, note that Opera 10 with Unite is a “Labs” release, meaning some features may not work as intended and might run a bit buggy. I created Unite services in an Opera window and accessed them with a Firefox browser, and all but the straight-up web serving, oddly enough, worked just fine.
Once you’ve signed in, or signed up, with an Opera account, you can hand out your sharing URL (in the form of computername.username.operaunite.com and, when you start up your Opera Unite services, your friends will see the same landing page as you. Streaming music and full-res pictures from your system can obviously be a bandwidth and system resource drag, but if you’re using Opera Unite mostly while you’re away from your system, that’s probably not an issue.
Opera Unite is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems; using and serving up files and media requires a free Opera account sign-up. Click the screenshots below for a gallery-style tour of Unite’s features, and be sure to hit the “800×600″ links for full-size shots.
The controls for Opera Unite mostly run out of a pop-in sidebar, allowing you to start, stop, and configure services you want running. Oddly enough, to set a password for each service, you have to visit it from the browser instead of set it in your configuration panel. New services can be installed with a few clicks from Opera’s site, but it appears this Unite test version comes loaded with everything that’s out there, for the moment.
The Fridge is a pretty neat, simple, and ingenious little service. Anyone who knows your sharing name can stop by and write a little note to tack to your fridge, though you can tweak the accessibility from the configuration options.
The straight-up web server. Doesn’t support PHP, mySQL, or any of the other modern web services (though those may arrive in the future), but could be helpful for selective web access to your-eyes-only documents, or hosting docs from crashed/overwhelmed servers.
Photo sharing is straight-up and simple. The server points to whatever folder they want shared, and the user sees thumbnails and bigger pictures when clicked, and can download the full-res version from there.
Music streaming is also fairly straightforward, but offers preview streams along with full downloads. If you’ve got a whole lot of music you want to offload to friends, you’d be better off running the more direct File Sharing service (not pictured, but pretty much how you’d imagine it).
The chat service works well and is really snappy in relay time, at least in our own browser-to-browser tests. Then again, there are a whole bunch of web-based services that let you create instant chat rooms (TinyChat and Chat.io come to mind) without having to make your browser the center of repetitive pings.
