Windows Mobile/Windows CE/Palm OS: Although development has halted on the project, The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) remains a robust option for media playback on Windows and Palm-based mobile devices. TCPMP supports video streaming and a wide variety of video formats including AVI, MP4, ASF, MPEG 1 and 4, WMV, DivX and XviD, to name a few. TCPMP also plays back several digital audio file formats, including MP3, OGG, and WAV. TCPMP’s interface is simple and clean with emphasis on ease of playback and a light memory footprint. TCPMP is a free download for Windows Mobile/CE and Palm OS. The Core Pocket Media Player [via FreewarePPC]
Having last week withdrawn any fixed date for making PayPal the sole acceptable payment method for Australian auctions, eBay has finally shown the white flag and officially killed off those plans. While users will still be required to offer PayPal to users who want it, other options such as cheques, money orders, bank deposits and rival services like PayMate will still be allowed. Good news for sellers and buyers everywhere, though it may take some time for the apparent decline in eBay usage by sellers and buyers annoyed by the proposed policy to reverse itself.
Food writer and uber-cook Mark Bittman keeps it timely with 101 picnic-friendly dishes that can be made, he claims, in 20 minutes or less. As with his other 101-item lists of 20-minute party appetisers and 10-minute meals, there’s bound to be a few fudges on the timing (especially with anything involving boiling noodles), but the list is bound to inspire a great picnic idea. Photo by Miss Pupik. 101 20-Minute Dishes for Inspired Picnics [New York Times]
Linux.com writes up a helpful guide to creating your own custom system recovery boot disc using an Ubuntu 8.04 CD image, a little command line work, and a few recommended emergency tools, including the partition format/restore tool GParted, e2undel, a file recovery tool, and anything else you might need if your hard drive, RAM, or anything else on your system suddenly decides it doesn’t want to work. The guide requires a good bit of command line work, but it also lets you add whatever programs you’d like to have when you come back from the brink, and helps you strip out programs you don’t to boot faster. For a similar (but pre-compiled) hard drive-fixing tool, check out Gina’s guide to using the System Rescue CD. Build your own ultimate boot disc [Linux.com]
Google just launched an iPhone-friendly interface for its web-based Google Talk client—point your mobile Safari to google.com/talk to see it in action. Firefox users, this also means, as the Digital Inspiration blog points out, you’ve got a friendly little GChat client you can keep loaded in your sidebar (create a bookmark, check “Load in sidebar”), but any browser can access the interface through talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m.
Firefox with Stylish or Greasemonkey: The talented designers who redesigned your Gmail are back with that similar look for Google Calendar. The Google Calendar Redesigned user style is now available for download as a public beta, and gives your GCal that slick look you’ve come to love in your inbox. After the jump, get a few full screenshots of what your GCal looks like wearing the Redesigned style.
Just posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox Extension which updates the gorgeous Redesigned skin to its latest and greatest version. Download version 0.5.1 here.
Optus is the first Australian iPhone vendor to reveal its full range of iPhone prices, ahead of the launch on July 11. We’ve analysed the plans to work out which options offer the best deals for typical users. (We’ll repeat this exercise for the other carriers as their full details get released.) Click after the jump to pick the right plan for you if Optus is your chosen carrier.
Windows/Mac only: Freeware application and web service Dropbox instantaneously backs up and syncs your files over the internet and to any computer. After you install the application, it will create a Dropbox folder on your hard drive. Any file you put inside that folder will automatically be synced and monitored for changes, and each time a change is saved, it backs up and syncs the file again. Even better, Dropbox does revision history, so if you accidentally saved a file and wanted to revert to an old version or deleted a file, Dropbox can recover any previous version. See the video above for a full demonstration.
Mozilla officially announced today that Firefox 3 set the Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours, totaling at an impressive 8,002,530 downloads. Now that it’s official, don’t forget to get your personalised Download Day certificate.
