360Desktop Solves My Media Center Control Issues

I’ve been having a few challenges with my multi-monitor HTPC setup. Control via iPod Touch with Mobile Airmouse is fantastic, and Vista Media Center is pretty slick. However, my problem is that occasionally I want to do a little more than just launch and navigate Media Center on my tv. The simplest example is web browsing. Firefox defaults to my computer monitor, where I use it 99% of the time. If I launch it via iPod remote while watching tv, it still of course displays on the monitor, not the tv. There is no simple way for me to get Firefox over to the tv while viewing the tv only. I can move my mouse over to the monitor, but since I can’t see the monitor I’ve no idea what I’m doing.

What I need is a “clone” mode where each display is a window to full control of all the PC’s features. I use only one display at a time, so everything can be on the same single desktop rather than an extended one. There is in fact a standard Windows clone mode where each display shows exactly the same single desktop, which would be the perfect solution except that clone mode forces each display to the same resolution. My monitor (1280x1024) and tv (1280x720) are not, and I do not want them to be, the same resolution. Scratch that.

I have read about several multi-monitor utilities, most notably the famed UltraMon, freeware taskbar extender Multimon, and open source DisplayFusion. I have not tried any because from the feature descriptions they do not seem to address my particular issue. They are geared toward the more typical multi-monitor setup where all screens are in front of the user and one is seeking to maximize the potential of spreading one’s computing tasks over a multiple display area. None address my one computer, two monitors, two rooms scenario (though I don’t believe this is an uncommon setup). Even with these applications the individual monitors act independently as their own encapsulated regions with their own functions, rather than a single space duplicated on two displays.

360Desktop is a very cool application I tried a while ago, but abandoned because I didn’t have much use for it and my old machine didn’t run it very well. It’s a twist on virtual desktops, but instead of replacing one complete screen with another, it stitches the virtual areas together into a seamless scrolling panorama. I never liked it as a virtual desktop solution because I preferred the instant complete screen swap rather than the prettier and more dramatic, but also more cumbersome and manual, panorama scrolling.

However 360Desktop’s design has a simple feature that makes it a pretty good solution to my problem. Instead of creating virtual desktops tailored to individual displays and their settings, 360Desktop creates a large virtual space and maps both displays, at their own resolutions, onto that space. All my apps can run wherever I want them and I can slide the virtual space side to side to move the view back and forth from monitor to tv. Now I can watch Media Center on the tv, and if I need to browse the web I can launch Firefox on the monitor and slide the tv display over to Firefox, and then slide it back to Media Center when I’m done.

I’m still not sold on 360Desktop as the most efficient control of virtual space, but so far it seems to be the only app that solves my issues.

Windows 7 Beta Ending This Week

Thank god(s).

I'm really tired of the Windows 7 beta hulaballoo (sp?), especially since a chunk of it it just about how people can't even get in on the hulaballoo.

It's a great move on Microsoft's part. On one side they cultivate fluffy happy goodwill by letting people try the shiny new OS free, something heretofore decidedly anti-M$. One the flipside they will reap the benefits of a cynical, evil marketing ploy which gives people 8 months to get hooked on the thing before pulling the plug. ("When the Beta expires on August 1, 2009, you’ll need to reinstall a released version of Windows to keep using your computer." -Microsoft Technet)

I have not bothered suffering the interminable delays in acquiring my copy of the 8-month-till-death OS. Call me a late-adopter, but I'm still acclimating to my new Vista install. And to the death-clocked beta OS that will soon pass, good riddance. Maybe my tech blogs can find something else to discuss now.

Get Great Software Free*

Trialpay is an alternative payment service that lets you buy online services and software by trying or making minor purchases of other software or services instead of paying. The net result is that you get the software you want, or even 2 programs or services, for free (or very cheap). This article goes into great detail about the whole process, including the nearly comprehensive list of almost 300 products you can get. Here I’m going to point out a few gems form the overwhelming list that I think are really worth getting.

 

Clipmate 7 (homepage)

Great very full-featured clipboard manager. I posted a link about free clipboard utilities, but for free this is a great application.

Flashpaste Pro (homepage)

Another full-featured clipboard utility, this one specializes more in simplicity and speed and keeping frequently needed text just a keystroke away.

Outpost Firewall Pro (homepage)

The best firewall out there. A little complex and geared towards power users, but the best performer in most head-to-head firewall tests.

Photobucket Pro (homepage)

Excellent image hosting and online photo album service. Their free service is already very good, but through trialpay you can get 1 year pro service which doubles image size, vastly increases storage, and enables goodies like flash support and ftp access.

Magic Workstation (homepage)

I was surprised to find this on on the list! This is a cool program for the Magic: the Gathering collectible card game (of which I was a huge fan). Catalog your entire collection, build game decks, and play online. I actually bought this program several years ago for $20.

Mobile PhoneTools (homepage)

Good program for connecting your mobile to your computer. Easy file transfers.

Kaspersky Antivirus (homepage)

One of the better antivirus applications available. As with all antivirus the program is only secondary to the regularly updated service, and trialpay will get you 1 year of updates.

RoboForm (homepage)

The world’s premier password management software.

WinRAR (homepage)

One of the simplest and most effective archiving utilities. The only way to make RARs.

ThreatFire (homepage)

A cool PC security solution. Instead of relying upon instantly obsolete virus databases, it monitors the activities of processes running on your machine for suspicious virus-like activities and blocks them before they can do any damage.

 

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New Songbird 0.4 media player released, and I still don't get it.

Songbird is a project to mash together desktop media player software with a web browser. The idea is to enrich your media experience by feeding you and letting you discover information about the musicians, directors, songs and movies you play. I imagine most avid digital media fans (like myself) already so this, scouring the web for info and details while their player of choice churns alongside or in the background. The aim of the project is to integrate the two experiences into one platform, 1) to make it more convenient to do this, and 2) to encourage those who might not interact with their media in this way to start.

Songbirdnest.com | Songbird Media Player via kwout

The idea is great, because they are taking something I do and think is good to do and trying to make is more convenient. The problem is they are not making it more convenient.

Despite their marketing as "a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web", that's backwards. Songbird is really first and foremost a browser, built on Firefox technology, "mashed up" with your local media. And it runs more like a browser than a media player, including the significant consumption of system resources and often sluggish GUI. If it replaced Firefox as my complete browser plus full-featured media player, that would be something. But it doesn't, and never will. Songbird will never support all the customizations and extensions Firefox does, so will never replace it.

So while listening to music or watching a movie, I might want some extra info about it and then it's handy to be able to get that in the same application. But what if I want to more fully browse the web, or compose blog posts, or use my newsreaders while listening to music? There are lots of tweaks I've done to Firefox to make those activities more convenient and enjoyable that can't be done in Songbird, so I'll have to fire up FF in addition. That taxes a lot of system resources, as Firefox alone, despite it's merits, is notoriously greedy about memory, and Songbird is no better. So now I'm browsing with FF, and Songbird is eating up lots of additional memory powering a browser that I'm not even using. Why am I running two big browser apps at the same time?

I think the whole project is off on the wrong foot, starting with a browser and turning it into a media player. If media is what it's all about, how about starting with a media player and turning it into a browser? There are lots of great open source media apps out there that already do a splendid job with music, video, and library organization. Browsing web content is really secondary to playing and organizing your media, even in the Songbird experience, so why not focus more heavily on that and less on the browsing? Then the whole app can be slimmer and conveniently run side-by-side with a full-fledged browser of one's choice.

For Windows users, media-first-browser-second project is already done: Winamp. Winamp is a great free media player, and beats the pants off iTunes. Plus, it has a web browser and even a limited widgety news feed interface, and will automatically look up online info about your playing media. And on top of all that it's small. The memory it's using in this screenshot is with this blog displayed.

Without the browser it's a lot less, and minimized Winamp takes next to nothing. CPU usage hovers around 1%. This app does everything Songbird does, better (built-in iPod and external drive support, Songbird requires extensions for each), and minimizes it's impact on your system so that you can use other superior tools for other things.

When it was first developed, Songbird was an interesting idea, and certainly looked slick. But it's been very slow to develop and in the meantime Winamp has packed in tons of features without bloating (too much), so unless you're mired on a Mac or Linux machine without too many options for media apps, I just don't see the benefit of Songbird.

"Blogware, FIGHT!"

I hate composing anything online: emails, forum posts, and especially blog posts. I always feel restricted by the limited features and clunky interfaces that always need cumbersome page reloads, I can’t easily swap from what I’m composing to another web page because of tabs instead of windows, I can’t drag-and-drop efficiently, and I have lost more than a couple lengthy messages due to browser crash.

Despite the web-app revolution, I’m still a fan of the local desktop application. They are more powerful, feature-full, and faster. (And really we could skip this whole web-app thing by just building seamless sync and web integration into the desktop apps.) I’ve got emails and forum posting sorted out, now I need a blog editor. This blog is hosted free on Blogger, and as long as my needs are casual enough that this free service suffices, I think it only apt that a free blogware application should give me what I want as well, so that’s all I’ll be considering.

Good blogware includes the necessary WYSIWYG composer, which I consider critical to blogging prolificacy. WYSIWYG is important, but of course not infallible so it must also have html view. The main thing that separates blogware from a simple text editor or even word processor is handling of online media, most notably images but also videos, audio, and hosted document. Like interesting websites, interesting blogs include interesting media. The task of building and maintaining a media-rich website is realms beyond the kind of effort one ought to put into a blog, so the challenge to blogware is to make the transition of media-rich documents from your desktop to the web as painless as possible.

There are lots of apps out there, and I've toyed with a lot of them, but in the end only three end up being worth discussing: Post2Blog, Zoundry Raven, and Windows Live Writer. All compose in both WYSIWYG and html, hook into several blogging platforms (of course including Blogger) and were simple to set up, and automatically handle post and media uploading. What's especially cool about these apps that makes the rest not worth discussing is that they all will automatically upload your media to online hosting services and rewrite links in your posts to point to the files online, saving you the trouble of uploading content and copying links yourself.

Post2Blog used to be a $39 program, but the newest version 3 is now freeware. Probably free because it's now longer updated or supported. It's the oldest of the three and perhaps the simplest, but still chock-full of all the features a persnickety blogger would want, including nice skins and "quick snippets", bits of text and code that can be automatically inserted and substituted as you type saving you lots of redundant typing. E.g. I could type "solus" and it would replace it with Solus | Ipse, including the hyperlink.

Zoundry Raven is just an alpha release right now, Zoundry's "next generation" editor to replace their current BlogWriter. BlogWriter is well-reviewed, but I figured why not leap ahead and place with what they've got planned. There are the expected rough edges for alpha software, but it works well and has great blog management features letting you review all your posts as well as review separately all the links and embedded media and images. It's really cool to see your whole blog broken down into constituent links and images without the text.

Windows Live Writer is pretty awesome. I wasn't surprised. I'm impressed by most Microsoft's products. The web is sodden with M$ haters and open source champions who deride MS software, but I find most open source and freeware applications are only satisfactory free replacements for MS products. (If Open Office charged even half what the equivalent $150 Home & Student version of MS Office costs, no one would use it.)

Oh, as I was saying...

Live Writer does it all, looks great doing it, and niftiest of all let's me compose in an editor tricked out with my own custom blog theme, so I don't even need a "preview" to see what it would look like, it will look just like how I'm writing it. It has a user designed plugins as well, promising interesting extension in the future. The current offerings are haphazard, but no plugins are necessary to do any regular blogging features.

So Live Writer is what I used to complete the rest of this post, what I'll probably be using for many more in the future (until I need it to do something it can't and then I'll go on the prowl for a replacement), and what I recommend. Neither Post2Blog nor Zoundry Raven are slouches by any means, and I particularly look forward to what Raven will develop into by the time it makes 1.0.

Upon further testing and after the dust of this battle royale settles I may even find I've been dazzled by Live Writer's pretty interface and lulled by it's comforting Office-ness, and that it's not the king of the ring. In which case the Blogware War rolls on.

Easy remote access to your home computer.

I toyed with remote access apps a while ago, mostly for controlling other pcs on my home network without having to run back and forth from room to room when troubleshooting connections. I used UltraVNC, of the best programs based on the open source Virtual Network Computing protocol. I was pretty unimpressed. It worked, but the lag was pretty bad, and I was only using it on a 10 Mbit LAN. I can't imagine the grind of using it over internet. Anyway, I got the problems I had solved and then uninstalled the software from all my computers. I didn't have a laptop and did no computing away from home, so I never explored other options.

Well now I both have a laptop and do routine computing at the office, and the need to remotely access info on my home system is growing. I haven't explored too much, primarily because one of my first tries has so far impressed me. I'm using LogMeIn Free. The free version is more feature limited than the VNC family of applications, but two advantages struck me immediately: 1) as a service rather than just peer-to-peer networking, it required almost zero configuration, and 2) it's way faster than UltraVNC. I ran it as full resolution and full colors, and it was still very functional.

It's exceedingly easy to use. Just go to the website and login, and then every computer you have installed and configured the LogMeIn software on appears on a list, and you just click the one you want to connect to and control. The main cool feature missing from the free version is file transfer; I can't move a file directly from the remote desktop I'm viewing onto the computer I'm using. Not a deal breaker, but it makes the occasion transfer a laborious roundabout several-step process.

In the future as my remote access needs increase I will look for more sophisticated solutions and probably revisit the VNCs (when I'm in the mood for a session of tech tweaking to get it working right), but for simple access to those bookmarks, emails, and documents I haven't synched online (which is still quite a lot) it's very handy.

If I find a solution I really like, I'll start handing it out to friends who are always asking me to troubleshoot their machines. Then all I need to do is start charging for my IT services...

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Even easier screen captures with Jing Project.

In my post about the SnagIt screen capture app I meant to include the experimental project from the same company, Jing Project. I didn't, but that's okay because after using it a little bit Jing is really growing on me and is worthy of separate mention.

Jing Project is an attempt to simplify and streamline screen captures and videos and seamlessly integrate them with online hosting for easy display on the web. TechSmith has long had extremely high-quality commercial capture and screencasting services. Jing Project is a step away from the commercial solutions and toward the free and simple social Web 2.0 thing. The app puts a very attractive glowing widget at you screen edge, which expands beautifully with a mouseover into a simple choice of Capture, History, and More.

The Capture function pulls together the separate region, window, and object captures of SnagIt into a single intuitive tool, and it nicely highlights what it thinks you want to capture with the hallmark Jing orange glow. Then just click and it either grabs your selection into an image or gives you the option to record a video of your screen in the captured area. Then it goes into the simplified but functional and good-looking editor where you can add text, arrows, and other markups. Then it jump right into the option of saving to your hard drive, and ftp space, Flickr, or TechSmith's own hosting service.

The History keeps a local record of every capture you make, letting you go back and review and even re-edit them, and then single-click re-upload them. the theme of simplicity is carried on to the More button, and the options there are just setting a hotkey, defining upload parameters, and deciding which side of the screen to dock the widget.

They also give every Jing Project user a free trial of Screencast.com, their media hosting service. Normal trials are 60 days, but all Jing Project users will get free use for the duration of the Jing Project testing (a yet undetermined period of time).

Definitely worth checking out as long as it's a free. It will have to turn into something more full-featured to warrant my cash, but researching a future commercial application is what the project is for.

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Grab That Screen

At some point, everyone wants to make images of what's on their computer screen. If you want to take screenshots with any frequency at all, the built-in Windows PrintScreen function just isn't satisfactory. Luckily there are many better options.

This was going to be a comparative review of several good freeware and open source screen capture utilities, until I read that Techsmith is giving away version 7 of their SnagIt screen capture software free.

I've been using SnagIt 7 for a year or two now and have been 100% happy with it. My testing of a handful of good free screencap utilities was out of a desire to eliminate my dependence upon payware. Many of these apps are good (MWSnap and FastStone Capture are my favorites), but none as complete as SnagIt. Now that it's free, there's no need to review the others because SnagIt is the best screencap software I've used. (Ironically, as the $40 commercial SnagIt gets a freeware version, the long-time freeware Faststone has just recently become $20 payware. But the last freeware version, which is what I used, can still be downloaded.)

Snagit has a clear interface with easy access to multiple capture profiles and options. As with any decent capture utility it can grab screens, windows, single objects, text, custom areas, even irregular shaped areas, and also make videos of your screen activity. What's especially cool after you grab something is the slick image editor which let's you add all kinds of markups to the image, so you can point things out and add commentary text. It doesn't look too great on this little thumbnail image nor on my black background, but it also adds awesome drop shadows.

One of my favorite features is what SnagIt does with images after they are captures and edited. Other apps usually just save to a file, but it can do that or send the images directly via email, print them or put them onto the clipboard, IM them, open them directly in another app (like sending it right into Photoshop for heavy editing), or coolest of all upload them directly via ftp. I can capture an image, play with it, and then fire it right into my Photobucket account where it's ready to be posted. (Photobucket is a great online photo service and currently offers "free" pro memberships via Trialpay. I did it and have pro for a year and all I paid was $5.45 shipping on a set of free business cards. Previously I was even considering paying their very reasonable $20 annual.)

The app is small enough to leave running all the time (~5Mb), so you can always take a shot of anything at a moment's notice (customizable hotkeys, too). Very cool app, and if you know any better freeware solution, let me know!