Android Media Player doubleTwist Hits 1 Million Active Users

Today, the Android media player doubleTwist reached a big milestone: 1 million active users between its mobile and desktop apps.

We’ve been following the media player closely for over a year now, watching to see if it would find enough adoption to make it the premiere Android alternative to iTunes.
Back in November, the company launched its wireless syncing software called “AirSync” that automatically syncs your music, movies, and photos whenever you’re in wireless range — and offers us a glimpse into the future of mobile tech. Add AirSync to doubleTwist’s already slick interface, the ability to import iTunes playlists, and support for audio/video podcasts, and you can see why the player has quickly become one of the most popular on the Android market. And now that the company has reached the 1 million user milestone, it’s clear that they’re more than just “on their way.”
In light of their impressive recent growth (300% active user growth in the 4Q 2010), doubleTwist announced it will also be both reshuffling current management as well as adding new members to their team. Co-founder and CTO Jon Lech Johansen will be taking over the role of CEO from Monique Farantzos, and Farantzos will become President and Chairman.
In addition, Farantzos told us that the company will be adding Blake Krikorian (the former CEO of Sling), who will be joining the board of directors; Stuart Collingwood, former Head of European Operations for Sling, will be the Head of European & International Operations, and Lucas Dickey (formerly Product Manager at Amazon for Amazon MP3) will become Product Manager for the doubleTwist mobile, desktop and cloud applications.
To round out doubleTwist’s bevy of announcements, the company is launching “AirTwist”, a free update to AirSync, which will allow users to stream their movies, photos, and music directly to their TV using an Xbox or a PS3. Plus, it will wirelessly sync data with your desktop. Look out, iTunes.

Study: Cell Phone Radiation May Cause Brain Activity, Whatever That Means

Do cell phones cause cancer? Some say yes. Some say no. Nobody knows. The frequencies and powers of the radiation used in them haven’t been in use long enough for us to get decent long-terms studies out of them. Sure, the FCC makes sure you’re not frying your cortex with clearly harmful emissions (talk radio doesn’t count), but it could be that after 30 or 40 years, we all get head cancer. Or we all get super powers. It could go either way.
A new study has shown that, at the very least, phones seem to have an effect on the brain. That’s not an insignificant finding; we’re all saturated by radio waves all day long, and it doesn’t appear to affect us, so it would be reasonable to think that mobiles would be the same. But the study found that mobiles raised brain activity near the antenna by about 7% on average.
What does this mean? They don’t know. That’s not how science works. They’ve gotten results from an experiment, and now it’s up to more scientists and more experiments to add to that data and give it meaning.

Personally, I find that when I hold my phone to my head, it stimulates the part of my brain that makes me walk around my apartment for no good reason. I can’t be the only one experiencing this phenomenon.

Install Google Android on PC with Google Android LiveCD/LiveUSB

We all are aware of Google Android OS Based mobile phones like G1-phone, HTC Hero etc.  Basically Google Android is Linux kernel based Operating system for mobile phones but you might have heard Android powered Netbooks will be soon coming to market meaning Google Android can be installed on Netbooks then why not on normal PCs ?
Well now you can also install Google Android on your PC with LiveAndroid a LiveCD/LiveUSB for Google Android for x86 platforms. Google Android LiveCD is useful for those users who want to test Android OS but don’t want to purchase G1 Phone.
LiveAndroid is open source project lets you download a LiveCD disc image of the Google Android operating system. Just burn the image to a disc, stick it in a CD-ROM drive, and reboot your computer and you can check out Android without installing it or affecting any files on your PC.

Screenshots of Google Android LiveCD in Action

 

You can also use Android LiveCD disc image in a virtualization application like VirtualBox or Microsoft Virtual PC if you want to try the operating system without even rebooting your computer.
Download LiveCD/LiveUSB for Google Android to install Google Android on PC.

 

Using CURL in XAMPP

There appear to be a lot of misguided people on the intarwebs claiming all sorts of varying things you have to do to get CURL to work on a Windows-based XAMPP install. I’d like to clear them all up here and now.

Using CURL in XAMPP

It’s really quite simple - uncomment extension=php_curl.dll in your php.ini file, then restart Apache¹.
A lot of confusion seems to stem from the fact that there are multiple php.ini files in a standard XAMPP install. This really isn’t as confusing as you’d think it would be, assuming you - and I know I’m going out on a limb here - read the documentation.
There’s a straight-forward XAMPP FAQ Entry about their php.ini stucture. For those looking for the easy fix, ignore everything but the /apache/bin/php.ini file. That’s the only one that counts, regardless of which PHP version you’re currently using.
What about all the .dll files you need? Well, you don’t need them. Everything you need to run CURL on a XAMPP install is included in the download. Stop downloading extra crap and sticking it all over your system. XAMPP knows what it needs, where it’s at, and how to use it. End of story.
This is all based on the XAMPP Basic Package for Windows, version 1.6.1, released on 4/18/2007. YMMV.
Update for XAMPP 1.7.x: As of the 1.7.0 release, the php.ini file is found in /xampp/php. When in doubt, consult the FAQ entry linked above for help. Thanks to several commenters for pointing out this change!
Restarting Apache is required on both Windows and Linux whenever you make configuration changes.

What does !important mean in CSS?

Answer: Cascading Style Sheets cascade. This means that the styles are applied in order as they are read by the browser. The first style is applied and then the second and so on. What this means is that if a style appears at the top of a style sheet and then is changed lower down in the document, the second instance of that style will be the one applied, not the first. For example, in the following style sheet, the paragraph text will be black, even though the first style property applied is red:

p { color: #ff0000; }
 p { color: #000000; }

The !important rule is a way to make your CSS cascade but also have the rules you feel are most crucial always be applied. A rule that has the !important property will always be applied no matter where that rule appears in the CSS document. So if you wanted to make sure that a property always applied, you would add the !important property to the tag. So, to make the paragraph text always red, in the above example, you would write:

p { color: #ff0000 !important; }
 p { color: #000000; }

User Style Sheets

However, the !important rule was also put in place to help Web page users cope with style sheets that might make pages difficult for them to use or read. Typically, if a user defines a style sheet to view Web pages with, that style sheet will be over-ruled by the Web page author's style sheet. But if the user marks a style as !important, that style will overrule the Web page author's style sheet, even if the author marks their rule as !important.
This is a change from CSS1 to CSS2. In CSS1, author !important rules took precedence over user !important rules. CSS2 changed this to make the user's style sheet have precedence.

Dell Streak

Dell Streak

We fit the whole world into a 5-inch screen Introducing the Dell Streak. The perfectly-sized, go-anywhere entertainment, social connection and navigation device. Widescreen display optimally designed for mobile web, video and movies Integrated social networking widgets and apps, plus tons of apps through the Android Marketplace Crystal-clear damage-resistant Gorilla®  glass screen Google MapsTM  with navigation and text-to-voice Multitasking Google Android OS that give you the freedom to do what you want Free upgrade to Android 2.2 (Froyo) coming soon To know where you can buy Streak, please call 1800-425-4050 (Toll Free, from BSNL/MTNL landlines) or 080-25108049 (standard charges apply) __USERID__ http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/mobile-streak?ref=hbn&c=in&l=en&s=dhs&cs=indhs1 www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/ReviewsSubmit.aspx/mobile-streak?ref=hbn&c=in&l=en&s=dhs&cs=indhs1 The perfectly sized, go-anywhere device Watch, listen, play and connect with a 5" high-quality screen that fits perfectly in your hands. Now that's entertainment. Take good times with you, wherever you go. A brilliant 5" screen lets you surf, watch videos and stay connected*, with less squinting and pinching, plus front-and-back cameras capture photos and videos on the fly with 5MP* resolution. Watch streaming video on YouTubeTM , then post your own movies directly from your Streak. With compact 6" wide x 3.1" high x .4" thin dimensions, there's plenty of space to take full advantage of the multi-touch display, plus the high-quality scratch-resistant Gorilla®  glass means your view stays crystal clear. Ultra-intelligent facial proximity and ambient light sensors automatically adjust screen brightness, optimizing your battery life. Think fast. Play faster. The Dell Streak ensures that you can multitask and play without delay (including music and games), with the powerful yet efficient 1GHz Qualcomm SnapdragonTM processor speeding things along using Google's Android-based OS with multi-touch Dell user experience. 3G mobile broadband, WiFi and Bluetooth®  mean you've always got an easy way to connect, while swappable microSD memory cards mean virtually limitless storage for movies, music and pictures. The road awaits. Where are you headed today? Find the quickest route with real-time maps from integrated A-GPS and e-compass functionality. Text-to-voice direction let you keep your eyes on the road, while Google Maps' live traffic functionality helps you avoid those dreaded red zones (requires 3G connection). The best part: The Streak multitasks, so you can play your favorite driving tunes and receive calls at the same time. Get face time, any time. Facebook® , TwitterTM , Gmail, a phone call — however you like to stay connected*, the Streak keeps the lines of communication open. The Streak is a full-function 3G phone with IM and SMS/text capabilities, plus you can take photos for sharing using the rear-facing camera with dual-LED flash. Integrated real-time Facebook and Flickr®  upload abilities put your photo or video online in no time.

Ajax Talk at .NET Developers Association

Thanks everyone who came to my Ajax talk tonight at the .NET Developers Association! The slides and demos from the talk can be downloaded by clicking the following link:

• ASP.NET Ajax: What’s New? 

You need Visual Studio  2010 to view the code samples. The first project, named Demos, contains the following samples:

• ASPAjax4
  • 1_CompositeScripts.aspx – Demonstrates how to use the ScriptManger to combine, compress, and cache JavaScript files automatically.
  • 2_EnableCdn.aspx – Demonstrates how to retrieve ASP.NET Ajax framework scripts from the Microsoft Ajax CDN automatically.
• jQuery
  • 1_Selectors.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery selectors
  • 2_WebForms.aspx – Demonstrates how to use the client tablesorter plugin with ASP.NET Web Forms.
  • 3_MVC.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery animation and the templating plugin with ASP.NET MVC.
  • 4_OData.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery with the Netflix API by using JSONP and odata.
  • 5_Templating.aspx – Demonstrates how to use jQuery client templating.
  • 6_TemplateConditionals.aspx – Demonstrates how to use logic within a jQuery template.
  • 7_DataLinking.aspx – Demonstrates how to perform data-binding in jQuery.
  • 8_Converters.aspx – Demonstrates how to defines converters that work with data-binding.

The second project, named ACT_Tools, illustrates how to use the Microsoft Ajax Minifier and the JSBuild JavaScript preprocessor. When you perform a build in Visual Studio, all JavaScript and CSS files are minified automatically. Furthermore, any *.pre.js file is processed using the JSBuild preprocessor and the output is saved to the ScriptOutput folder. Select Show All Files in Visual Studio to see the generated results of the minifier and the preprocessor.