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ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P-PU17-WT 10.1-Inch White Netbook

• Oct 02, 2010 from topbook99(mana chai) in Lifestyle
  ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P-PU17-WT 10.1-Inch White Netbook (Up to 11 Hours of Battery Life) Review.
  
  
  
  
  
  Elegant little travel companion2010-02-12By D. BaconThe overall build of this netbook feels very solid and keyboard is firm, no flex. I love this keyboard, touch typing is no problem. This is a very personal preference though; you should try out the keyboard on any netbook before you buy it.
  Cover and palm rests have textured finish that hides fingerprints. My husband asked, Is that carbon fiber?, and thought it looked cool. The textured surface also provides a better grip than a shiny surface.
  The Synaptics trackpad works great. Two-finger scrolling works smoothly, which is good because the up/down keys on the keyboard are pretty small. I dont use the trackpad rocker button very much, I just use tap gestures to simulate the left and right button clicks.
  Im really glad I went for the matte non-glare screen. It is easier to read in less-than-ideal lighting conditions while traveling. The 10.1 screen is clear and sharp, and easy to read at 1024600, no squinting. The screen swings back and down when open, so that it sits low; its good to have a low profile when working on an airplane tray.
  Windows 7 starter edition ran without lagging, but I can live without all the extras provided by Asus. So, having an extra upgrade license handy, I promptly did a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium on the C: partition, leaving the D: data partition, the ExpressGate partition, and the restore partition intact. I was able to download all necessary drivers and utilities from the Asus support website. Windows 7 Home Premium runs amazingly well with only 1 GB of ram! Im going to wait and see if I really want to upgrade to 2 GB.
  I was concerned that the wireless card was only 802.11g, and not 802.11n, but I really dont notice any difference when surfing the web. I was also concerned that the webcam was only 0.3 megapixel (640480), but it looks fine and works well with Skype, as does the built-in microphone.
  I agree with others that the connector on the A/C adapter is very thin, but it seems strong enough. Id rather have the pin on the A/C adapter break (which I can replace for a few bucks) than the power receptacle on the motherboard.
  When Im working from home via VPN and Remote Desktop, I like to connect my netbook to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, and wired ethernet. The EEE PC 1001p had no trouble with the 12801024 resolution on my monitor. The wired ethernet and USB keyboard work fine. Logitech doesnt provide a Windows 7 driver for my old bluetooth mouse, but I just put the netbook bluetooth into discovery mode and it found my mouse with no problem. Windows 7 had the bluetooth mouse drivers I needed built in.
  I inserted a 256 MB SD card into the memory card slot and it was recognized instantly. Im trying out the Windows Ready-Boost feature with this SD card, but since most of the things I do are not memory intensive (surfing the web, remote desktop, VNC), and its a fairly small memory card, I havent noticed much of a difference.
  It would have been nice if Asus had included a neoprene slipcase for this netbook. I recommend the Case Logic VLS-110 Sleeve for 7-Inch to 10-Inch Netbooks.
  The 1001p has everything I wanted in a netbook: good performance, a reasonable weight, nice screen and keyboard, slick design, and a great price.
  
  
  
  
  
  Excellent Quality! Surprising Features.2010-01-26By Ron Gonzalez (Boston)I was absolutely surprised by how well fabricated this little netbook is.
  The Quality is excellent, the keyboard, takes almost zero getting used to from a full size keyboard. I am typing this review from the unit itself, and I can type to 95% full speed.
  Most surprising in order:
  1. Speed! I wouldnt have imagined with a gig of ram and an N450 ATOM that windows 7 would run this fast. My wireless downloads come in as fast as my athlon multicore desktop. IE launches quickly, as well as other applications. Windows 7 Starter runs superbly. I dont imagine that a CAD CAM or any heavy duty graphical app will run fast on this at all but this is a netbook, and it is surprisingly snappy.
  2. Component Quality: I was so happy to find that the touchpad is a synaptics brand touchpad, everyone knows that the synaptics touchpad is the best and the driver software allows you all the advanced touchpad features.
  3. USB Ports: I can hookup a Smart Card Reader, a USB Logic Analyzer, and a 4gb Sandisk cruzer all at the same time. I imagine that if you owned a bluetooth mouse or a bluetooth smart phone you can also get that up and running simultaneously.
  Overall, an amazingly capable netbook.
  One more thing, the aesthetics were just what I was expecting, it is a sharp looking netbook.
  Good Job asus, 5/5!
  
  
  
  
  
  Eye-Catching, All Day Netbook2010-01-28By Kevin E. JohnsonI really like the Asus 1001p. I am typing this review on it and the non-chiclet keyboard feels big and spacious. Very easy to type on. I...

Create A Realistic Loaf of Bread in Photoshop

• Sep 29, 2010 from envato(Envato) in Technology
  A while back I saw a still life photo of a loaf of bread sitting on a table. That photo inspired me to attempt to recreate this still life photo using Photoshop. In todays tutorial, I will demonstrate how to create a realistic looking loaf of bread in Photoshop. Lets get started!
  
  
  Step 1
  Begin by creating a 1000 x 550 px document. Create a new group called BG. Inside this new group, create a new layer called Tile BG and fill with a medium brown color.
  
  
  Step 2
  Set your Background Color to white and add the Tiles filter (Filter > Stylize > Tiles) with the following settings:
  
  
  Step 3
  Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the white with a light gray color. (Repeat the Fill several times). To add some color variation to the tiles, select the square brush and set its size to the same size of the tiles (in this case, it is roughly 108 px). Use this brush to Dodge and Burn individual tiles.
  
  
  Step 4
  Keep going until you are happy with the variation in the tiles. Next, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and set the amount to 12%, Distribution to Gaussian, and check the Monochromatic box. Next, add a Gaussian Blur of 1.4 px
  
  
  Step 5
  Now that we have a good sampling of some tiles, we can start to build the back two walls. To do this, we need to resize and reposition the tiles. Copy and paste this layer as you see fit to fill in the back wall. Transform one of the layer copies to resemble a side wall as shown below. Before we continue, we can merge the extra layers back into one layer named "Tile BG." (For the sake of this tutorial I am merging into one layer, however, you can also merge to a new layer if you prefer).
  
  We need to adjust the lighting on the tiled walls. Start by selecting the back wall (not the side wall) with the Polygonal Marquee Tool to adjust its levels. Do the same to the side wall, but make it lighter.
  
  
  Step 6
  Create a new layer called Shadow 1 and use a dark brown color and a large brush tool with 0% hardness to add some shadows in the corner. Set the Blending Mode to Multiply and the Opacity to
  53%. Add a second layer called Shadow 2 and paint in some more shadows toward the bottom. Set this layers Blending Mode to Multiply and Opacity to 74%.
  
  
  Step 7
  We want to get a nice depth of field effect, so we need to blur this back wall. To do this, select the Tile BG layer and give it a Gaussian Blur of 7.0 px. For added detail, create a new layer called Sunlight and use white to paint in some areas of direct sunlight on the side wall. Give this layer a Gaussian blur of 20 pixels and set its Blending Mode to Overlay and its Opacity to 90%.
  
  
  
  Step 8
  Now its time to add a counter top to our image. Create a new layer called "Table Top" and fill with a brownish-gray color. Open up the Layer Style and add a Gradient Overlay and Pattern Overlay as shown below. In order to properly edit this layer in the next step, we will need to merge the Layer Styles to the layer. Do this by right clicking on the Effects sub-layer and selecting Create Layers. This will expand the Layer Style on to their own layers. We can now merge (Cmd/Ctrl + E) these layers.
  
  
  Step 9
  Now that the Table Top layers have been merged, we can Transform (Cmd/Ctrl + T) this layer into perspective to resemble the counter top.
  
  
  Step 10
  We want to make the counter appear out of focus towards the back. To do this, we are going to use smart filters. Start by converting this layer for smart filters (Filter > Convert for Smart Filters). Now you can add a Gaussian Blur (set to 6.1px) and it will appear as an editable layer. We will complete the effect in the next step.
  
  
  Step 11
  When the Gaussian Blur Smart Filter was added, it also added a mask for the filter. Select this mask and with your foreground and background colors set to black and white, add a gradient to hide the effect as it gets closer to the foreground.
  
  
  Step 12
  The counter looks a little too blurrywe can easily change this since were using smart filters. Double click the Gaussian Blur effect to open the properties and change the Radius to 4.4 px. We are now done with the background!
  
  
  Step 13
  To start the cutting board, create a new group called Cutting Board and add a new layer called Board inside it. Position this above the BG Group
  
  
  Step 14
  Use the pen tool to create the shape of a cutting board. It may help to turn on the grid. Fill this with a tan color.
  
  
  Step 15
  To add a texture to the cutting board, start by setting your foreground and background colors to a light and dark tan (such as #CCAA7B and #A07349). Next, go to Filter > Render > Fibers and set the Variance to 8.0 and the Strength to 12.0. You can click Randomize until you have a good texture. When youre done, Transform (Cmd/Ctrl + T) this into perspective.
  
  
  Step 16
  Copy the Board layer and rename it Board Shadow. Postion this layer below the original. Now, move the Board Shadow down on your canvas and adjust the Levels (Cmd/Ctrl + L) to make it darker.
  
  
  Step 17
  Create a new layer called Board Side and place it in...

Glasser X-Series Carbon Fiber X-Bow with Horsehair (4/4 Cello)

• Oct 23, 2010 from aihumnoi(anso) in Technology
  The 4000X44 is a Glasser carbon graphite bow made using their patented graphite molding technology for your full size cello. Bow comes with ebony frog with faux pearl eyes and slides, synthetic grip. Read more Glasser X-Series Carbon Fiber X-Bow with Horsehair (4/4 Cello)

Launcher Pro Plus - Revisiting the Review and Checking out the Widgets in Plus.

• Sep 19, 2010 from chanatown(David Chan) in *
  Image via WikipediaIt has been just over a month since my original post and review of Launcher Pro, and it has easily been one of my most viewed posts. So, I thought I'd revisit the application to see what's new, and why there's been considerable buzz regarding the home screen launcher. I'll also dive into Launcher Pro Plus, and giving you the lowdown on all of the native widgets that your $2.99 upgrade includes.
  
  To be honest, I had actually reverted back to the stock launcher not long after posting my original review. I experienced a bit of a lag with both LP and ADW, and I never got accustomed to this. However, after reinstalling LP during this go around, not only did I not experience the lag, but I gained a whole new appreciation for the slick launcher.
  
  Smooth as Silk
  Launcher Pro reinvents the look of the phone, in my case, a Motorola Droid X. We'll get into the Plus widgets in a little bit, but the free application does a great job of adding functionality to your stock launcher experience. I discussed many of these features in the first review, but I gained a new appreciation for the dock this time around, as I moved all of my frequently used shortcuts to the dock. This keeps my home screens clear from clutter and allows me to just keep those well designed widgets there. I also discovered the "Swipe gesture action" feature which allows users to assign shortcuts or commands to the icons in the dock. An example from my experience: I hid the notification area (that white bar really stood out against my dark wallpaper), so I assigned a swipe gesture to my middle icon in the dock to open notifications, thus keeping the functionality and improving the look.
  
  Launcher Pro Plus
  One of shortcomings of the free Launcher Pro application is the inability to resize widgets. For $2.99, you can upgrade to Launcher Pro Plus, and this functionality comes standard with the premium. So, I decided to test the upgrade, and to my delight, found that the resizing was just the beginning as the included Launcher Pro widgets proved to be main attractions.
  
  Widget by Widget
  On each of my 7 home screens, there's some widget action. My center screen contains Beautiful Weather and another screen holds the ESPN Sports widget, still my favorite of the Android options. Each of the remaining five holds a Launcher Pro Plus widget.
  
  1) Agenda - A nice calendar display that contains all of your synced Google calendars, color coded and interactive with touch. Scrollable, you can view all future events, but no past ones, unless you go through the monthly calendar icon. Very smooth and easy on the eyes.
  
  2) Messaging - All of you text messages on a scrollable widget. You can click to respond to a message and enter the current thread. Also available is a checkbox to mark as read, though I wasn't quite sure what to do with this feature.
  
  3) People - Links to all of your contacts or specific groups shown as photo icons. A quick tip for those that have pictures linked to Facebook: Use the free app "Syncmypix" to download Facebook photos to your contacts, and you'll no longer see the generic silhouette. I would also like one-touch calling added in the future, but otherwise, this widget is pretty slick.
  
  4) Bookmarks - Visual thumbnails for your websites sorted in numerous ways such as alpha, most visited, and last visited. Very well designed and great eye candy. Speedy as well.
  
  5) Twitter - Enter your login credentials and get your Twitter feed updated as a widget. Mentions and Direct Messages are available as is a new Tweet option.
  
  9/11 UPDATE: Facebook Widget released. Similar to the Twitter widget, after confirming your FB login credentials, your wall or news feed is nicely displayed on the widget. A compose option is also incldued. Can't wait for the combo FB/Twitter widget, and Federico promised something really cool coming soon...
  
  So, these are the available widgets as of this post. A great selection, and each takes up the 4x4 size of the entire screen. Add an included black carbon fiber wallpaper, and you've got a great looking revamped Android phone interface. I'd say that it now rivals HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz, and certainly bests the Motorola stock. Once again, I give high marks to Launcher Pro. With Plus, you've got an A+ product.
  
  Related articles by ZemantaLauncher Pro + QuickDesk: Probably The Best Android Home Replacement Combination (maketecheasier.com)
  15 great widgets to enhance Android (zdnet.com)
  Feature: Review: LauncherPro offers improved home screen for Android (arstechnica.com)
  Battle of the Android Home Screen Launchers: ADW vs. LauncherPro vs. HelixLauncher [Android] (lifehacker.com)

The Pirate Bay

• Oct 06, 2010 from getnewstoday(Drilon) in Technology
  The Pirate Bay (commonly abbreviated TPB) is a Swedish website that indexes BitTorrent (.torrent) files. It bills itself as The worlds most resilient bittorrent site and is ranked as the 91st most popular website in the world and 19th in Sweden by Alexa Internet since 2008. The website is primarily funded with advertisements shown next to torrent listings. Initially established in November 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrn (The Piracy Bureau) the website has been run as a separate organization since October 2004. The website used to be run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij who are known as anakata and TiAMO, respectively. They have both been charged with assisting in making copyrighted content available due to their involvement in The Pirate Bay.
  On 31 May 2006, the websites servers in Stockholm were raided by Swedish police, causing it to go offline for three days. According to the Los Angeles Times, The Pirate Bay is one of the worlds largest facilitators of illegal downloading, and the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright or pro-piracy movement. On 15 November 2008, The Pirate Bay announced that it had reached over 25 million unique peers. As of December 2009, The Pirate Bay has over 4 million registered users, although registration is not necessary to download torrents.
  The Pirate Bay has been involved in a number of lawsuits, both as the plaintiff and as the defendant. On 17 April 2009, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundstrm were found guilty of assistance to copyright infringement and sentenced to one year in prison and payment of a fine of 30 million SEK (app. 4,200,000 USD; 2,800,000 GBP; or 3,100,000 EUR), after a trial of nine days. The defendants have appealed against the verdict and the judge was accused of bias.[8] On 17 May 2010, due to an injunction against their bandwidth provider, the site was taken offline.[9] However, access to the website was later restored with a message laughing off the injunction on their front page. On June 23, 2010 the group Piratbyrn disbanded due to the death of Ibi Kopimi Botani, a prominent member and co-founder of the group.
  Website setup
  The Pirate Bay allows users to search for and download BitTorrent files (torrents), small files that contain metadata necessary to download the data files from other users. The torrents are organized into categories: Audio, Video, Applications, Games, Other and Porn.[11] Normally the Porn category is only visible for registered and logged-in users who select the show pornographic torrents option in their settings page. However it is currently not necessary with a workaround, allowing unregistered users to search for the content, but not browse through it.[12] Registration requires an email address and is free; registered users may upload their own torrents and comment on torrents.
  The website features a browse function that enables users to see what is available in broad categories like Audio, Video, and Games, as well as sub-categories like Audio books, High-res Movies, and Comics. The contents of a category can be sorted by file name, number of seeds or leechers, date posted, etc.
  According to Piratbyrn, The Pirate Bay is a long-running project of performance art.[13] Normally the front page of The Pirate Bay features a drawing of a pirate ship with the logo of the 1980s anti-copyright infringement campaign, Home Taping Is Killing Music, on its sails.[14]
  Technical details
  Initially, The Pirate Bays four Linux servers ran a custom web server called Hypercube. An old version is open source.[15][16] On 1 June 2005, The Pirate Bay updated its website in an effort to reduce bandwidth usage, which was reported to be at 2,000 HTTP requests per second on each of the four web servers,[17] as well as to create a more user friendly interface for the front-end of the website. The website now runs Lighttpd and PHP on its dynamic front ends, MySQL at the database back end, Sphinx on the two search systems, memcached for caching SQL queries and PHP-sessions, and Varnish in front of Lighttpd for caching static content. The Pirate Bay consists of 31 dedicated servers including nine dynamic web fronts, a database, two search engines, and eight BitTorrent trackers.[18]
  On 7 December 2007, The Pirate Bay finished the move from Hypercube to Opentracker as its BitTorrent tracking software, also enabling the use of the UDP tracker protocol for which Hypercube lacked support.[19] This allowed UDP multicast to be used to synchronize the multiple servers with each other much faster than before.[20] Opentracker is free software.[21]
  In June 2008, The Pirate Bay announced that their servers would support SSL encryption (accessible via https://thepiratebay.org) in response to Swedens new wiretapping law.[22][23]
  On 19 January 2009, The Pirate Bay launched IPv6 support for their tracker system, using an IPv6-only version of Opentracker.[24]
  On 17...