PaulSpoerry.com

There’s a test version of the new Google customizable homepage (startpage), iGoogle, available to play with. When you start it up, the first thing you’ll notice are the pretty rounded corners on all your gadgets. The second thing you’ll notice are the tabs along the left side of the page, rather than across the top.

It appears to be organized this way: each of your tabs appear in the left navigation and listed under each tab are the gadgets included in that tab. When you click the link for a gadget, it appears on its own in the main portion of the window. Click the tab name and all the gadgets appear as before. The switching between gadgets and tabs is very fast, almost instantaneous, so when you open the Gmail gadget on its own, for example, it’s much faster than opening Gmail itself. Of course, you’re not getting all the Gmail features, only the ones that are part of the gadget. Google calls this feature, canvas view and you can also access it by clicking on the maximize button on the gadget itself when viewing an entire tab.

It all appears to be very much in the experimental stage. Things don’t seem to work even as Google’s Help page describes. For example, the Help page shows a screenshot of a feed in canvas view, which looks an awful lot like Google Reader.

When I try it though, I get what appears to be a single gadget on a page, with no extra functionality and a “you might also like..” list of suggested gadgets.

Finally, the new iGoogle integrates with Gmail chat, so you have access to the same IM in iGoogle as you do in Gmail.

Are you salivating yet? Dying to try it? Well sorry, it’s only open to developers. But wait, can you keep a secret? OK don’t tell anyone but if you go and sign up to play in the iGoogle sandbox, you’ll instantly have access to the new test version.

You do have to give them a few pieces of information about yourself but it’s mostly stuff Google knows about you already (email, name etc.)

Don’t want to play with it anymore? Go back to the same link and the experimental version will be turned off. (But remember, if anyone asks, you’re a developer, right?)

The full rollout of the new iGoogle is expected next month.

Again, noupe tracks down an awesome resource. It’s really amazing how much good stuff you can find daily on one single website. One of the best web resources out there is Web Resources Depot.

Web Resources Depot is loaded with amazing free web design resources which can simplify your web design and development process. The resources are updated daily and categorized in a simple and efficient way to help you find what you are looking for.

You can browse through their categories to grab resources related to brushes, buttons, texture, fonts, icons, colors, security, xhtml & css code, CMS, project/newsletter management applications and, more.

Don’t forget to grab the RSS feed to get new resources everyday.

Guy buys an old Showbiz Pizza animatronic band and reprograms it to play various songs. Freaking AWESOME.

Here’s his Usher video:

You can find a ton more on his website: Programblue

By default, Windows Explorer in Windows Vista will try to automatically detect the contents of a folder and display the correct detail settings, however in some situations you may wish to disable this behavior and customize the view settings manually as desired.

NOTE: This involves editing the registry. It is always recommended to create a back-up of the registry before making any modifications. Before performing any of the actions below, please save your work and close any Windows Explorer windows, as you will need to log off for these changes to properly take effect.

Automatic method

• Download the command script that they have created and extract the files to your Desktop. Once you have extracted the files, simply double click on “disable_automatic_foldertype_discovery.cmd” and read the precautions in the command prompt window that appears.This file has been scanned for viruses and does not perform any malicious tasks, it simply automates the task required to reset the Windows Explorer view settings and then proceed to disable the automatic folder content discovery.

Manual method

• Click on Start, and in the Start Search field type “REGEDIT”, and then press Enter.
• If User Account Control prompts you, provide consent by clicking on Continue or entering a password.
• In the left hand pane, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell
• Right click on the “Bags” sub-key and click on Delete. When asked to confirm the operation click on Yes.
• Right click on the “Shell” sub-key and from the menu that appears click on New, and then click on Key.
• Give the new key a name of “Bags” (without the quotes).
• Right click on the “Bags” sub-key and from the menu that appears click on New, and then click on Key.
• Give the new key a name of “AllFolders” (without the quotes).
• Right click on the “AllFolders” sub-key and from the menu that appears click on New, and then click on Key.
• Give the new key a name of “Shell” (without the quotes).
• Select the “Shell” key that you just creaited.
• In the right hand pane of the Registry Editor, right click on an empty area and from the menu click on New, and then click on String Value.
• Give the new REG_SZ (String Value) a name of “FolderType” (without the quotes).
• Double click on the FolderType String Value and give it a value of “NotSpecified” (without the quotes).
• Close the Registry Editor.
• Click on Start, press the arrow next to the power buttons, and select Log Off from the menu that appears.
• Log back in and customize your Windows Explorer folder view settings as desired.

If you would like to reset Windows Explorer back to the way it should act by default:

• Click on the Start button, and in the Start Search field paste the following bold text command: REG DELETE “HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders” /f
• Press the Enter key to execute the command.

Folder content auto discovery will be enabled on any folders that have not been previously opened. However, if you would like to reset the view settings on all folders so that auto-sensing is automatically enabled, simply download the “Reset Windows Explorer View Settings” command script, extract the .cmd file from the Compressed Folder (ZIP file) and execute the command script, paying attention to the on-screen information.

Windows Vista includes a feature, “Receive Window Auto-Tuning,” that you’ve likely never seen mentioned on your desktop, but which can cause noticeable drag and even crashing when browsing certain web sites or using some routers or other network hardware. If you’re noticing browsing glitches that only occur in Vista, the Wise Bread blog has a tip, pulled from PC Magazine’s recent issue, that explains how to turn off auto-tuning and skip the spinning blue circle of death.

To determine you current settings launch a command prompt as an Administrator (type “cmd” into the Start box, right-click on Command Prompt and select “Run as Administrator), then enter the following line:

netsh interface tcp show global

If the line Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level does not say “disabled,” enter this command:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=restricted

If that doesn’t help the simplest way to turn off auto-tuning is to enter the following line:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disable

That should do it, and turning it off won’t likely have any adverse consequences. You should notice the difference in browsing speeds immediately. If you find otherwise, turn it back on with:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal

Those guys at Noupe just keep on cranking out the goodness. Here’s 23+ Impressive Tools for Faster Javascript/Ajax Development. Javascript applications are still one of the most complex issues when it comes to web-development. Many tools and applications could make your developing life pretty fast and simple. Today we wanted to share with you a wide range of tools and applications that could really help you build, test and debug Javascript and Ajax applications.

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Announced in April, the new version of iGoogle that brings social applications is tested in a small number of randomly selected Google accounts.

The new iGoogle places the tabs on the left-hand side of the page and you can expand the tabs to see the list of gadgets and status information, like the number of unread Gmail messages. There’s a new chat feature borrowed from Gmail that lets you chat with your contacts while visiting iGoogle - that means iGoogle gets a sense of presence because you’ll know when your contacts are online. Since the chat feature will be enabled by default, it’s obvious that Google will be able to add options for sharing items and discussing posts with the contacts that are online.

iGoogle also adds a list of updates from your contacts similar to Facebook’s newsfeed: you can see stories shared by your contacts in Google Reader, recent photos uploaded to Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk status messages, shared iGoogle themes and gadgets.

Another change is that gadgets have an expanded interface, called canvas view. Gadgets authors will take advantage of this to display more information and make their gadgets more interactive, while your feeds can be read in a Google Reader-like interface. In the future, iGoogle will support OpenSocial applications and the transformation to a social site will be complete.

Google announced that the canvas view will be rolled out to a small percentage of users this month and to more users in July, while the OpenSocial applications “will not work in production until later this summer”.

The official update has been released… click this link to see the post.

A crafty fellow who goes by joe11223 posted a question to the Sprint Developer website and received a response that it should be early July.

We are currently working on the ROM update for HTC Touch and the official release date is not finalized. However, we are targeting to release the update in first part of July. Once the update is officially released, We are going to make the update available on our ADP website and we will also be notifying our developer community via this forum.

Thanks,
Ram Koya,
Sprint Nextel ADP Team

Of course they didn’t say July of 2008 (after all the initially said it HAD GPS and then they said it’d be updated in Q12008). LOL. Seriously, the wait is out of control and I’m sick of Sprint and this experience has led me to want to switch carriers. Here’s to hoping we actually see it in July.

The post date was June 23rd, 2008 and you can find the post here.

It’s often trumped in the media just how powerful the “religious right” is, as well as how fervent they are in their beliefs. We’ve come to know our country as this highly Christianized version of America. However, a recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life study released yesterday indicates that many are contradicting the teachings of their own faiths, saying that truth comes in many forms. Large majorities of Americans say that many religions - not just their own - can lead to eternal life, and that there is more than one way to interpret religious teachings.

“As Americans rub shoulders with people of other religious traditions, they are less judgmental, and less likely to offer pronouncements about other people’s eternal life,” said Rice University sociologist D. Michael Lindsay.

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