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Posts with tag spaces

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

Customize your Spaces on OS X with Hyperspaces

Hyperspaces is an app that lets you customize the behavior of Apple's built-in screen-switching app, Spaces. If you're not familiar with Spaces, it basically gives you multiple desktops and lets you assign different apps to them. This keeps your screen uncluttered, so you can work in Photoshop on one Space and keep all those chat windows in another. Spaces is one of those features that users either love and rely on find completely useless. If you're in the latter camp because of interface and usability issues, Hyperspaces may just convert you.

Hyperspaces was developed by Tony Arnold, creator of VirtueDesktops, which introduced screen-switching to the Mac before Apple came out with Spaces in OS 10.5. With Hyperspaces, you can tell your spaces apart more easily, by naming them, adding labels to them, and assigning individual desktop pictures to each one. It also introduces a neat little visual navigation menu, which makes getting to right space less of a hassle. One thing Apple got right about Spaces was the hotkeys, so naturally Hyperspaces gives you more of them, for easier control.

Filed under: Blogging, Web services, Microsoft

Is Windows Live (MSN) Spaces the world's biggest blogging service?

Windows Live SpacesAccording to Richard MacManus, Windows Live General Manager George Moore told an audience at Microsoft's TechEd 2006 conference in New Zealand yesterday that Windows Live Spaces (formerly MSN Spaces) is "now the largest blogging service on the planet," and his assertion is causing a bit of a stir. Microsoft says there are 72 million Spaces in existence, but former Microsoftie Robert Scoble says maybe that's so, but are they really all blogs? Scoble says no, and outlines his idea of what makes and doesn't make blog. "First, let's define what a blog is, at least enough to count for this purpose.
  1. Have original content. Spam blogs that are copied off of somewhere else don't count.
  2. Have at least 500 words of new text-based content every month. Things that look like Flickr streams aren't blogs, sorry.
  3. Have at least two posts in at least the past 30 days. If you aren't posting, you're not blogging.
  4. I don't care if you have comments, have trackbacks, have blogrolls, or any of that."
That seems pretty reasonable to me, but many of the commenters disagree. But Scoble is soldiering on, setting out to collect some data on what Microsoft is counting as a blog. His first sample isn't very promising, with only 2% of the recently-updated "blogs" meeting his criteria. Microsoft's Mike Torres piped up on the original post to tell Scoble his methodology is flawed, because over half of all Spaces are private, to which Scoble replies that a private blog isn't a blog at all. So, who's full of what, here? Is Microsoft blowing up its numbers to inflate its ad rates (or something else?), or is it Scoble whose ego is out of control and who's picking on the low-hanging fruit?

Apple previews Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at WWDC

Apple previews Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at WWDCApple today previewed the next major update to Mac OS X, version 10.5 (aka: Leopard), at their annual World Wide Developer Conference in California today. Our sister sites Engadget and TUAW covered the event well, but there are some great new features in this next version that are definitely worth a look here at DLS.

The big 10 new features (with more secret ones promised) can be previewed at Apple's new Leopard preview site, complete with video tutorials. If you're not down for watching all those videos though, I'll summarize some of the big ones for your shortcut pleasure.

Read more →

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Web services, Microsoft, Social Software

Windows Live Spaces launches, succeeds MSN Spaces

Windows Live Spaces

Last night Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft's shiny new successor to MSN Spaces, was launched. All old MSN Spaces blogs now redirect to their new Windows Live Spaces URLs. Apart from a newer, slicker interface and home page, the biggest new features in Windows Live Spaces are the friends module and--you guessed it--gadgets, a.k.a. widgets. The friends module is Microsoft's stab at social networking, and has the distinct advantage of being integrated with MSN/Windows Live Messenge, allowing you to navigate your Live Spaces friends, and their friends, inside Live Messenger. Gadgets are integrated with Live.com, meaning you can have the same gadgets on your MSN Space as you do on your Live.com personalized home page. As with many of Microsoft's new Live tools, I'm pretty impressed with the features and polish of Windows Live Spaces. They have a lot of work before truly competing with MySpace, but it's a start.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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