How To Instantly Send Any YouTube Video To Your TV, Using XBMC

How To Instantly Send Any YouTube Video To Your TV, Using XBMC:
Send any YouTube video to your television, instantly. It’s perfect for YouTube parties or anytime you want to comfortably watch a video from your couch. All you need to make living room dreams come true is a media center powered by XBMC and a simple browser extension.
Here’s the scenario. You’re sitting on your couch, browsing the web. You stumble upon a hilarious video and – being a social creature – you want to share it with the people around you. The usual solution is to tell everyone in the room to crowd around your laptop. Sure, it’s a great way to get close to people, but it can get old fast. Which is why I propose to you another solution – hitting a single button below the video to make it play on your TV. It’s easy with the magic of XBMC.
In case you didn’t know, the latest version of XBMC, Eden, is faster and prettier than ever. If you have a computer hooked up to your TV there’s no reason not to install it. It catalogs your media for easy browsing and watching, supports amazing add-ons including Hulu, offers a wide collection of cool skins and generally makes life without cable fantastic for any TV fan. Even better, you can instantly send any YouTube video you find on your laptop to it.

How It Works

You’re browsing the Internet, minding your own business, when it happens. You discover Ze Frank, the original video blogger, is back. The second coming is upon us!
This is clearly a moment you want to share with everyone in the room, right now. Luckily, you’ve got a television with a XBMC center, and this fancy button:

Yep, the one with the XBMC logo. Clicking this button causes happiness, as Ze Frank’s face makes its way to your TV screen.

Now you and everyone in your immediate vicinity can witness amazing. Ready to set this up yourself? You’re obviously going to need XBMC running on a computer hooked up to your TV. It runs on Windows, Mac (even PPC!), Linux and Apple TV, so pretty much any setup should be covered. Once you’ve got that working, follow the next three simple steps.

Step 1: Set Up YouTube On XBMC

First things first: you’re going to need to install the YouTube plugin for XBMC. On your TV, head to the “Settings” screen and you’ll find the “Add-Ons” menu. YouTube is easily found under “Video“; no special repository is needed.
This plugin is awesome: you can sign in and browse your subscriptions from your couch. Feel free to play with this, but for now I’m moving on.

Step 2: Find Your Network Settings

Now that you’ve got YouTube installed on your computer, you should pull up the “Network Settings” page of XBMC. Open it, turn on control by HTTP and allow programs on other computers to control XBMC.

Also set a username and password, if you like. Keep this screen open – we’re going to need it for the next step.

Step 3: Set Up Your Browser Plugins

Ready for the browser plugin? Grab your laptop and head to the YouTube page on the XBMC wiki. Here you’ll find links to extensions for Firefox and Chrome. Install whichever extension you like (or both if you’re a browser polygamist).
Once you do so, you’ll see this settings screen:

Fill this in using the information from the settings screen still open on your TV. Follow the pattern they offer – username:password@host:port – and all should be well. The default plugin will work fantastically, so don’t mess with the second field.
Now head to YouTube and find whatever video you like. The button for playing media will be found beneath your video, as depicted above. Awesome!

Conclusion

I love the Internet way more than I love TV. Having access to the Internet on my TV is pretty much amazing.
Do you know of any other cool television-related YouTube hacks? Share them in the comments below.

Sleipnir – A Speedy And Stylish Web Browser [Mac]

Sleipnir – A Speedy And Stylish Web Browser [Mac]:
With a large part of today’s applications in the cloud, it should come as no surprise that the choice of a browser is one near as weighted (and as fickle) as the choice of an operating system.
A number of things should be taken into account. This includes the speed of the application itself, the speed of page rendering, but also the general usability of the application. Countless applications with the required technical prowess have nevertheless faded from the spotlight when the usability was lacking and their users were left behind.
I admit, the first time I heard about Sleipnir, I wasn’t impressed. After skimming through the description I passed it off as yet another run of the mill, slightly revised take on web browsing. Ten minutes later, after taking it for a run, I was forced to revise my opinion.

Sleipnir 3 for Mac

Sleipnir is an honestly refreshing take on web browsing. Most of this is thanks to the interface. Sleipnir renders pages about as fast as your average modern web browser, but speeds up your workflow with a slick interface and great ease of use.

This review will only cover the Mac version of Sleipnir. However, the Sleipnir browser family encompasses more than one platform. Its namesakes tend to Windows, iOS and Android as well, and the Sleipnir synchronization agent, Fenrir Pass, can synchronize your bookmarks cross-platform.

Compact Address Bar

One of the first things you’ll notice about Sleipnir is its slick address bar. Well, rather the absence of it. During browsing, the address bar you’ve come to know is collapsed to its base domain, as you can see in the screenshot below.

If you click on this collapsed address, or after pressing cmd + L on your keyboard, the traditional address bar will unfold. Point Sleipnir to a new page and it will collapse again. This keeps it from taking up any unnecessary screen real estate. Also, it looks decidedly pretty.

Polished Tab Management

Have a look at the tab bar. It’s undoubtedly quite different from what you’re used to. Instead of actual ‘tabs’ with page names, Sleipnir shows a succession of screenshots. Hover over one of these tiles with your mouse, and the page name will appear.

Clicking on the grid icon to the left of the tab display (or pressing CMD + ALT + T) takes you to the TiledTab window. This is similar to the tab groups you may know from Firefox. TiledTab is structured according to six tab groups, shown on the bottom of the screen. You can rename and replace these to your heart’s content. One of these groups will show you the currently opened tabs.
Other default groups include Read Later, Research and Shopping. You can drag and drop pages between the different groups, or add new pages altogether. These collections will be preserved in between different browser sections.

Use of these tab groups is intended to replace the idea of having different browser windows open. In fact, it’s not possible to open multiple Sleipnir windows. In general, this works better than expected. It keeps your browsing structured even when opening a very large amount of pages. However, some browser capabilities, like opening two pages side by side are sorely missed.

Touch Gestures

Sleipnir is fitted with a bunch of touch gestures; perfect if you have a multi-touch trackpad. This is what makes the stranger features of the application still feel inherently natural.
With your mouse hovering over the tab views, use two fingers to scroll left or right between a large amount of tabs. If you keep your mouse in the center of the screen while doing this, you can pull over the adjoining tabs, as shown in the screenshot below.

Using two fingers on your trackpad to pinch out will take you to the TiledTab panel. Inversely, pinching in takes you back to the currently selected page. In TiledTab, you can also scroll left and right to switch between different tab groups. I suggest you try out these gestures, even if that’s not normally your cup of tea. It makes Sleipnir a breeze to use.
Do you think these changes are for better or for worse? What browser do you use, and why? Drop a line in the comments, and let us know!

Looking for a great free docking launcher? Winstep Nexus is one of the best

Looking for a great free docking launcher? Winstep Nexus is one of the best:




If you have a case of Mac-envy, or if you’re looking for a launcher that combines both form and function, then check out Winstep Nexus. This docking launcher has been out for a while, but the latest release (ver. 12.2) is a quantum leap forward in terms of speed and performance, as well as a host of other improvements (e.g. the email checker can now check webmail services).
There is no shortage of excellent, stylish-looking free docking launchers out there, of course, but Nexus is one of the best for many reasons (1) its many features and options are streamlined and laid out in a way that make sense, (2) it is fast and consumes little resources, (3) it can display both your running applications and system tray in the dock, giving you the option to forgo using your Windows taskbar altogether, and (4) it offers a very nice drag and drop user experience, with convenient on-dock modules, etc.

5 Things I like about Nexus:

(Which is kind of not fair, because I already listed 3 things I like about it already in the intro above, but here goes…)
1. Wonderful skins and effects: I typically find 80-90% of skins, animation effects, and reflections to be redundant. But some of the skins in Nexus are impressive, and the effects very well done. Also,  although probably not foremost on most users’ list of considerations, the sound effects are really well done and add very nice atmospherics (especially the default sound scheme). Nexus can even import and use Objectdock themes.
2. Performance and resource usage: this program takes up about 20 megs on my Windows 7 system. Which, for a program such as this, is relatively very little. The speed and responsiveness  is impressive. Note that you can actually tweak the performance vs. memory usage tradeoff to your liking.
3. The option to display running applications and system tray in the dock: making the Windows taskbar dispensable, if you like. As with the Windows taskbar, you even get the little Aero previews on mouseover (see screenshot below).

4. Extremely customizable: most everything can be changed to your liking, from auto-hiding to the placement on the dock on any side of the screen to the animations, skin, and sound effects as mentioned previously. The varying options are laid out nicely, in a cascading style menu or
5. In-dock commands and modules/docklets: there’s quite a few of these and they are very well made. I am very keen on the ‘Weather’ and ‘CPU usage’ docklets in particular (see the former in the screenshot below). You can add icons that to control your media player from the launcher as well.

Differences between free and paid version: a number of these, but the one that I really miss in the paid version is the ‘shelf’, whereby you could link and access the contents of folders or the desktop from the dock (without having to put them there first, that is).
The verdict: a solid, zippy docking launcher that proves that the ‘free’ version of something can still be pretty darn awesome. Try using this in combination with a program like Standalone Stack 2 for more usage options.
Version tested: 12.2
Compatibility: Windows 2000/2003 Server/XP/Vista/7/8; 32 or 64 bit.
Go to the program page to download (~31 megs). For more on what’s new in version 12.2, go to this page.

How To Enable Windows 7 Aero Effects Inside VirtualBox

How To Enable Windows 7 Aero Effects Inside VirtualBox:
VirtualBox is an amazing application. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is one of the most important applications you could install on your computer, if you care about your privacy, security, and the general repair of your system.With VirtualBox, you can browse the Web, test applications, and perform potentially risky operations – all in a completely protected environment, separate from your “real” operation system.
But up until recently, VirtualBox had a pretty major limitation: There was no way to use Windows Aero effects when running Windows Vista or Windows 7 inside VirtualBox. If you are testing software, this makes a big difference: You are not getting the Aero experience most Windows users would get, and your screenshots look wrong. Fortunately, with the advent of VirtualBox 4.1, this can be fixed.

What You Need To Get Started

The first thing you need is VirtualBox 4.1 and up. You can get it here.
Next, you need an instance of Windows 7 running in VirtualBox. Back in 2009, we’ve shown you How To Install Windows 7 on a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox, and the process hasn’t really changed since. Make sure you load that instance of Windows 7 before the next step.

Installing The New Guest Additions

Even with VirtualBox 4.1, you will see something like this when you fire up Explorer:

Meaning, no Aero. That’s because you need to install the latest version of VirtualBox Guest Additions. This is a software package you install within the guest OS (the “virtualized” one), and allow it to integrate better with its host (both guest and host are Windows 7 in my case).
To install the Guest Additions, select Devices > Install Guest Additions:

VirtualBox will then insert a virtual CD into your VM, and run it:

Mind your step now: Aero support is still experimental, and is switched off by default. So we can’t just Next-Next-Next our way through this installer:

Above you see the crucial step. Note that Direct3D Support is switched off by default. You must check this box on for this tutorial to work. As soon as you do, VirtualBox Guest Additions tells you you’re on the right track for Aero:

This is a trick question: Click No. You don’t want the basic Direct3D support: You want the new, experimental stuff. Living on the edge! Once you click No, VirtualBox will explain the memory requirements:

No problem; we’ll get to that part in a moment. Now click Install and let the setup utility do its thing. Windows will ask if you want to install a driver; obviously, you do:

Again, the wrong default is selected for you. Make sure you click Install. This popup will appear more than once, so keep an eye on the VM during this process. Once it’s done, you will be asked to reboot the VM:

Yup: Reboot now.

Confirm Machine Settings

While the VM is rebooting, let’s make sure we have enough display memory for Aero to work. Click Machine > Settings, and then Display:

You can’t change this when the VM is running, so if you see a setting lower than 128MB on the Video Memory slider or “Enable 3D Acceleration” unchecked, shut down the VM and fix that, then load it again.

Enabling Aero

Now that we’re all set, the moment of truth has arrived. Right-click the desktop in the guest system and select Personalize. The Personalization window will open:

Under Aero Themes, just click any theme you like. I went with the default Windows 7 one, and a brief moment later, lo and behold:


Victory! Aero is now switched on within the VM, and any application you install there will work just like it does on a native instance of Windows 7! You can now take screenshots to your heart’s content, and enjoy a better virtualized Windows 7 experience.