Ever been doing some work at the command line when you realized… it would be much easier if I could just use the mouse to the task? A command later, you’ll have a window open at the place where you are.

This trick works well in more than one operating system, so we’ll detail how to do it in every way we know how.

Open a file browser in Windows

We actually covered this before when we told you how to open an explorer window command prompt in the current directory, but we will briefly review: Simply type the following command in your command prompt:

explorer .

Note: You can actually just type “Start”. Place. Continue Reading ->

If you are a Windows Media Center user, you’ll really want to check out Media Browser. The Media Browser plug-in for Windows Media Center takes your digital media files and displays them in a visually appealing, user friendly interface, complete with images and metadata.

Requirements

• Windows 7 or Vista
• Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework

Preparing your Media Files

For Media Browser to be able to automatically download images and metadata for your media libraries, your files will have to be correctly named. For example, if you have an mp4 file of the movie Batman Begins, it needs to be named Batman Begins.mp4. It cannot be Batmanbegins.mp4 or Batman-begins.mp4. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that Media Browser will display images and metadata. If you find some of your files aren’t pulling cover art or metadata, double-check the official title of the media on a site like IMBD.com.

TV Show files

TV show files are handled a bit differently. Every TV series in your collection must have a main folder with the show’s name and individual subfolders for each season.

Here is an example of folder structure and supported naming conventions.

• TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\s01e01 – episode 1.mp4
• TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\South Park 1×01 – episode 1.mp4
• TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\101 – episode 1.mp4

Note: You need to always have a Season 1 folder even if the show only has only one season. If you have several seasons of a particular show, but don’t happen to have Season 1, simply create a blank season 1 folder. Without a season 1 folder, other seasons will not display properly.

Installation and Configuration

Download and run the latest Media Browser .msi file by taking the defaults. (Download link below) When you reach the final window, leave the “Configure initial settings” box checked, and click “Finish.”

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The end of Browser war is here. The news is out that Microsoft will now push out a update on 1st of march, (I am guessing to the EU people) that will allow them to choose from a set of 12 pre chosen browsers that they would like to install. The option will only be available to people who are currently using Internet Explorer I presume since this update won’t affect those who are already using a different browser. The update is for Windows XP, Vista and 7. The full story can be found here on BBC. Europeans offered browser choices.

A Browser War in first place, seriously?

Back in the days.
Till now I don’t get it why was there a war in the first place. I understand a need for such stuff back in the days when the operating system was still very basic and different companies were involved in making different applications for that operating system at a certain cost. There weren’t many applications that time anyway and the only kinds of applications out there were limited to business use. And since these applications were so exclusive and hard to make, they cost a lot and thus established these application specific companies.

Now?
Well now it’s all different. Continue Reading ->