How to Use Windows

Panasonic is a superstar of the Blu-ray world. Year after year, its new players are greeted with the sort of unbridled enthusiasm usually reserved for Tom Cruise’s red carpet walkabouts in Leicester Square. The reason for its techno-celebrity is simple: innovation. Profile 1.1, BD-Live, Blu-ray recording – you name it, Panasonic did it first, and over the years no-one has done more to push the format forward. However, Panasonic’s position has been under threat from deck’s like LG’s brilliant BD390 , which offers built-in Wi-Fi, PC streaming, unrivalled digital media support and top-drawer performance at a consumer-friendly price.

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In Windows XP, you could change the icon associated with a file type in Windows Explorer. In Windows 7, you have to do some registry hacking to change a file type’s icon. We’ll show you a much easier and faster method for Windows 7.

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Most industry figures suggest starting design and development jobs with a pencil, paper and a semi-optional flurry of sticky notes. However, the internet is a digital medium: sooner or later you have to move to software. So which tools are best?

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RealNetworks tried to fight the good fight against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), but in the end, someone had to lose, and that someone is RealNetworks. A U.S. District Judge has issued a permanent injunction barring RealNetworks from selling RealDVD, the company’s controversial DVD copying software. In addition, the two sides reached a settlement offer that will also have RealNetworks forking over $4.5 million to the movie studios to pay for legal fees.

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Acer has announced it is to return to the wonderfully small world of pico projectors, with the K11. Announced this week at CeBit, the K11 on paper sounds like a pico on steroids. It has double the light power of the K10 – at 200 ANSI Lumens – and also packs a punch when it comes to memory and connectivity.

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GPS enabled smartphones make it easy to get directions, weather, and many more location based services since they automatically know where you are.

With a Virgin Media tie-up looming in 2010 , US PVR giant TiVo has announced its latest boxes, with the Premiere and Premiere XL set-top boxes bringing a host of new features that take advantage of an internet connection. Virgin Media’s UK customers will be keen to see exactly what the next-gen features offered by TiVo are, with many of the concepts likely to feature in the new V+ boxes that will arrive later in 2010. So the TiVo Premiere – billed as ‘one box to rule them all’ – will be particularly exciting, showing what the US company believes is the future for personal video recorders. Internet meets TV Those features include a major new way of integrating internet content, with the Premiere’s search functionality offering users the ability to find programmes from many sources – including YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand or Blockbuster On Demand plus ‘options from the web.’ The user interface is obviously key to a product that taps into so many sources, mixing IPTV with cable television in a format that will also allow you to seek out information on actors, series and individual programmes. “Premiere is at its best when you want to browse, discover and explore the almost infinite array of TV options,” says TiVo’s release.

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If your family uses Windows 7 Media Center to watch a lot of Movies and TV, you might want to block certain programming from your younger ones. Today we take a look at the Parental Controls feature in Windows 7 Media Player which will let you block certain TV and movie ratings. Setup Parental Controls To setup Parental Controls in Windows 7 Media Center (WMC), scroll to Tasks in the main menu. In the Settings section click on General. From the General Settings list click on Parental Controls.

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A court order to rid Pirate Bay of all copyright-infringing torrents has been ignored, despite the promise of hefty fines if the links stay on the site. The ruling stems from owners of The Pirate Bay losing an appeal back in October , against Dutch anti-piracy lobbyists BREIN, which meant that the site had to be blocked from the Netherlands and all offending links cleared. This was to be done by 1 March, but it seems that the site is exactly the same as it has always been. Currently, there are links to all the latest episodes of 24 and FlashForward

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If you use the Movie Library in Windows 7 Media Center to access and view your movie collection, you know that the interface leaves a little to be desired. Today we are going to show you how you can add movie cover art and metadata in your Movie Library with a program called YAMMM. For Windows Media Center Movie Library to be able to display metadata and cover art, each movie file must be stored in an individual folder of the same name with an xml file to display metadata, and a folder.jpg file to display cover art. YAMMM automates the process of downloading the folder.jpg and .xml files from the Internet into your movie folders. Setting Up Your Folders If you currently store your movies in one large folder and dread the thought of having to manually create individual folders for each file, rest easy

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