No operating system launch is without a few bugs, but it seems like iOS 7 has had more than it’s fair share of blunders. From iMessages not working to lock screen exploits, here are some of the biggest bugs, and how you can fix them. Read more…
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iOS 7’s Most Common Bugs (and How to Fix Them)
Depending on where you get your DVR, it may or may not have the ability to skip commercials. The best ones have a button that lets you jump forward, but if your DVR was issued by a cable or satellite company, they may have hidden or removed it. Here are some semi-secret ways to do it anyway. Read more…
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How to Enable a Hidden Commercial-Skipping Button on Any DVR
It doesn’t matter how efficient we make their engines or how many solar panels we install on their decks, the world’s largest cargo ships—those water-bound leviathans on which international trade depends—will require massive amounts of fuel for the foreseeable future. However, this conceptual super-carrier could potentially save billions of barrels of petrol every year just by harnessing the wind. Read more…
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This Massive Cargo Ship Will Harness the Wind With Its Hull
MediaPortal 1.5.0 Released We are proud to announce the release of the Final version of MediaPortal 1.5.0. The download link is at the bottom of this news item. Thanks to our great community for a lot of testing during the last four weeks. Because of this we were able to provide many bugfixes in all areas and hopefully make this release the best one ever! New features PowerScheduler++ Integrated In previous releases PowerScheduler was installed during the MediaPortal installation and PowerScheduler++ could be installed as an extension. With MediaPortal 1.5 we’ve integrated the PowerScheduler++ functionality into MediaPortal. This change should make configuration easier (Plug&Play) and provides lots of new features like scheduled system reboot, configurable away mode and more options for remote clients. Improved IPTV Support Today most of us receive our TV via terrestrial, cable or satellite transmissions. However, the global increase in stability and speed of the internet over the past few years is making it possible for more and more internet service providers to offer television services which you can receive via your internet connection. MediaPortal has been able to receive so-called IPTV for about 4 years. In order to keep up-to-date with the newest IPTV transmission techniques, we’ve overhauled our IPTV support to ensure MediaPortal 1.5 is capable of meeting your IPTV needs now and well into the future. CableCARD™ Tuner Support If you live in America, are passionate about HTPCs, and haven’t heard about CableCARD… chances are you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years! For those of us living in other parts of the world who have no idea what a CableCARD is: maybe you’re familiar with using CAMs and CI slots to receive encrypted channels from your TV provider? Well, a CableCARD is similar to a CAM. Up until a couple of years ago if you wanted to use an HTPC to receive encrypted cable TV in America the only option was a complicated and sometimes temperamental IR blaster setup. CableCARD has finally given Americans (and some Canadians) the ability to easily use their HTPC to receive encrypted cable TV. With MediaPortal 1.5 we’ve added support for CableCARD tuners… with one caveat. Some channels or programs may not be receivable due to digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on the content. Exactly which channels are available varies between cable providers. Generally speaking, premium and “subscription” channels such as HBO, Showtime, PPV and XXX will not be receivable… but other channels like TBS, FX, TNT, USA, ESPN, NFL, MLB, Fox Sports are usually no problem. For people who are savvy with technical jargon, that means you’ll be able to receive “copy freely” content. ViewModeSwitcher Plugin Enhancements A major update of this plugin to fix some long-standing problems, improve the performance and add continuous Black-Bar detection/removal capability. ViewModeSwitcher enables automatic changing of the zoom mode/aspect ratio selection and can optionally perform continuous or one-shot ‘Black Bar’ removal, for both TV and video playback. It provides similar functionality to the Intelligent Frame Correction plugin. Improved Video & TV Recording Thumbnails With MediaPortal 1.5 we’ve added an option to change the time offset for thumbnails. Furthermore, if you use composite thumbnails (e.g. 2×2 tiles) the time between the thumbnail parts will be calculated automatically from the video duration. This means no more useless thumbnails! Full list of changes Aside from the main features listed above there are also many other smaller enhancements and bug fixes in this release. A big thanks goes out to all our developers who have carried on working on MediaPortal even in the European summer when there are so many other things they could do with their time. You can review the complete change log for MP 1.5.0 at the following link: Changelog: MediaPortal Documentation of new features can be found at the following link: What’s new for MP 1.5.0 Compatibility There are no changes in MediaPortal 1.5.0 that will break compatibility with skins or extensions. Every plugin and skin which worked in MP 1.4.0 will also work in MP 1.5.0. Windows XP support ends – Support for Windows 8.1 added In this release, Windows XP is no longer supported. When you install MediaPortal on Windows XP you will get a warning that the OS is unsupported. However, as far as we know everything still works (and we even put in a couple of XP-specific fixes) so there is no need to panic. Moving forward, in the interest of further improving MediaPortal we will start a long process of cleaning up the code base. This will involve updating the system requirements to the point where maintaining any semblance of Windows XP compatibility will be simply impossible. So, if you are using MediaPortal and Windows XP, this is a good time to think about upgrading to a more modern OS. Installation, Upgrade, Download and Feedback Installation When doing a clean installation of MP 1.5.0 there is nothing special to worry about. Upgrade Upgrading from 1.2.x, 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final, 1.4.0 or 1.5.0 pre-release to 1.5.0 All MediaPortal 1.2.x, 1.3.0 Alpha/Beta/RC/Final, 1.4.0 and of course 1.5.0 pre-release installations can be upgraded to 1.5.0 without losing your settings. Plugins: If you are running MediaPortal 1.3.x , then it is possible that some of your previously installed plugins will be shown as incompatible after the upgrade to 1.5.0 ! Whether or not a plugin is incompatible depends on the MediaPortal subsystems the plugin uses. If you are running earlier versions of MediaPortal, it is likely that none of your plugins are compatible with 1.5.0 . If a plugin provides skin files for MediaPortal’s Default skin, then the author should also check the Skin related changes. Skins: Warning ! Due to the new features and changes introduced in 1.4.0 , none of the 1.3.x skins are compatible with 1.5.0 ! Please contact the author of the skin you use for further information and updates. Upgrading Extensions: The easiest way to upgrade your extensions is by launching the MediaPortal Extension Installer , and let it check for updated versions. However this only works for extensions that use our MPEI system. If the author of the extension releases it as a stand alone installer, you must contact them for an updated version. Upgrading from 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier to 1.5.0 All MediaPortal installations starting with 1.1.0 RC1 can be upgraded to 1.5.0 without losing your settings. If you are running MediaPortal 1.2.0 Alpha or earlier, then none of your extensions (plugins and skins) will work after the upgrade to 1.5.0! You must update your extensions after the upgrade! So, please make sure that 1.5.0 compatible versions of your extensions are available before you start the upgrade! General note about Upgrades Manually stop TV-Service! On some systems our installer is not able to update the TV-Server installation because files are locked or the service can not be stopped. For upgrades to 1.5.0 we recommend that you manually stop the TV-Service and make sure, via Windows Task Manager (enable the “all users” option), that the TvService.exe process is really gone before starting to upgrade. Custom TV-Service properties If you manually changed the properties of the TV-Service (like restart on error options) , then you must redo these changes after the upgrade. The installer is not able to save and restore your custom service properties when it installs the new version of the TV-Service. Feedback Bugs If you think you found a bug then please post a detailed report in our Bug Reports Forum . Make sure your report includes all the required information . Incomplete reports will be removed to keep the forum clean. Known Issues – My Videos Downloading Fanart and Actor Details Due to API changes scraping Fanart and Actor details in “My Videos” is currently broken. Furthermore you are not able to change covers in GUI (e.g. if you want to have a cover in your language). We think this is a main feature of MediaPortal but it was too late (and therefore not well enough tested) to include it in MP 1.5.0. Nevertheless, in our opinion it is worth to provide a build that is MP 1.5.0 + those MyVideos scraper fixes which you can find under the link below. Link: MediaPortal 1.5.0 Final + MyVideos internal scraper rework In the linked Area 51 thread you will find instructions of how and what to test. We need your help with testing this so that we can include it in 1.6.0. Thanks! Download Finally – the download. We hope that you took the time to read this release news entirely because it includes vital information about the major changes. If you would like to support MediaPortal, we would be happy to receive a small donation ! The Team wishes you a lot of fun with this new release! .::. Download – MediaPortal 1.5.0 Final .::. Post a Comment in Forum
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MediaPortal 1.5.0 FINAL Released
We’ve seen real laser guns before, pulling off tricks like starting small fires, or popping black balloons . That’s cool, sure, but it’s got nothing—and I mean nothing —on this crazy handheld laser rifle that eats metal for breakfast. Read more…
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Holy Crap, This Real-Life Laser Rifle Cuts Through Metal Like Nothing
An anonymous reader writes “With a new audio core, hardware decoding and encoding, port to mobile platforms, preparation for Ultra-HD video and a special care to support more formats, 2.1 is a major upgrade for VLC. The popular video player app also features support for 4K video as well as a partial Windows 8 and WinRT port for all those folks out there who don’t know what else to do with their Surface RT.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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VLC Reaches 2.1
Usually, uninstalling an application in Windows is as easy as using the built-in Control Panel utility. You’ve heard us recommend third-party uninstallers like Revo before, but when are they really necessary? Our friends at the How-To Geek explain when it’s worth using a more aggressive uninstaller. Read more…
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When You Do (and Don’t) Need a Third-Party Uninstaller
Less than a year after the ambitious Windows 8 hit the scene, the updated version 8.1 is officially headed for consumers on October 18th starting at $120. Read more…
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Windows 8.1 Will Start At $120
New submitter TinTops writes “Speaking in a keynote at Intel’s Developer Forum, Microsoft’s vice president of marketing, Tami Reller, said the firm has ‘now seen about three quarters of Windows enterprises moving to modern desktops’ from Windows XP, with the last leg of Windows XP migrations being spurred by the imminent availability of Windows 8.1. However, Reller did not offer a breakdown of the enterprise uptake of Windows 8 compared to Windows 7, both of which are counted by Microsoft as modern desktops.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Majority of Enterprise Customers Finally ‘Migrating Away From Windows XP’
crookedvulture writes “Seagate has begun shipping hard drives based on a new technology dubbed Shingled Magnetic Recording. SMR, as it’s called, preserves the perpendicular bit orientation of current HDDs but changes the way that tracks are organized. Instead of laying out the tracks individually, SMR stacks them on top of each other in a staggered fashion that resembles the shingles on a roof. Although this overlap enables higher bit densities, it comes with a penalty. Rewrites compromise the data on the following track, which must be read and rewritten, which in turn compromises the data on the following track, and so on. SMR distributes the layered tracks in narrow bands to mitigate the performance penalty associated with rewrites. The makeup of those bands will vary based on the drive’s intended application. We should see the first examples of SMR next year, when Seagate intends to introduce a 5TB drive with 1.25TB per platter. Traditional hard drives top out at 4TB and 1TB per platter right now.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Seagate’s Shingled Magnetic Recording Tech Boosts HDD Capacities to 5TB and Up