CBS Launches A Massive Wi-Fi Hotspot In Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan is getting a massive Wi-Fi hotspot from the CBS that will deliver news, sports, and entertainment free of charge to users of cell phones, laptops, and other devices.

The “CBS Mobile Zone” will cover a 20-block area from Times Square to Central Park and from 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue. Users will also be able to surf the Internet on the system.

“It already is up and running along Broadway,” said Shannon Jacobs, a CBS spokesperson. “We expect it to be fully running within a month.” CBS is giving out routers to local businesses, including restaurants and coffee shops, to help in the rapid deployment of the network.

Go read the full article it really sounds cool!! Maybe they will expand this to other areas!!

Gmail’s Best New Keyboard Shortcut

We already mentioned that the recent Gmail revamp includes new keyboard shortcuts, but this one deserves an individual shout: when you’re viewing a Gmail message, you can archive it AND move to the next or previous message in one keystroke. Use the square brackets:

  • [ to archive and go to the previous message
  • ] to archive and go to the next message

Alternately, you can press y, then o to archive a message and go to the next one. You must have the keyboard shortcuts enabled in your account (visit Settings to do so) for this to work.

Nice little shortcut for GMAIL I will have to try to remember that when I use it.

Hackintosh vs. Mac Pro vs. MacBook Pro Benchmarks

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On Tuesday I detailed how how I built a Hackintosh Mac from start to finish on the cheap, but one obvious question remained unanswered: How does my Hackintosh stack up to the Apple-built competition? To find out, I put my Hackintosh, a Mac Pro, and a MacBook Pro through the paces. Here’s what I learned.

First, it’s worth noting that none of these setups is a perfect match for benchmarking comparisons. The Mac Pro is running two dual core 2.66 GHz processors versus the single dual core 2.21 GHz Hackintosh and 2 GHz MacBook Pro processors. Likewise, the Hackintosh has a whopping 4GB of RAM versus a measly 1GB in the Mac Pro and 2GB in the MacBook Pro. Also, the Hackintosh and MacBook Pro are both running Leopard, while the Mac Pro is still running Tiger. These aren’t necessarily the ideal test subjects, but they’re the machines I have access to. That said, the results are still very interesting.

Show you the benchmarks for the Mac Pro Vs Mackbook, in with the Hacktosh. I do like the way he broke it down the complete article is in lifehacker. Hope you enjoy it.

Get It Done on the Go with Floppy Office

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Windows only: Thumb drive application packages like the Portable Apps Suite are great for taking your full-featured programs wherever you go, but those with smaller drives or working on slower computers might feel overwhelmed. Enter Floppy Office, a package smaller than 2MB that contains a rich text editor, POP/IMAP email client, PDF creator, spreadsheet program, and 10 more applications. All of them get the job done with minimal overhead, and most can be run without installation. Floppy Office is a free download that runs on Windows systems only. For more useful to-go tools, check out must-have portable apps.

Leopard 10.5.1 Update Coming, Here’s The List of Fixes

It looks like the 10.5.1 update has just hit, bringing with it fixes to Airport, Disk Utility, iCal, Mail, Printing, Security, Finder, and Time Machine. The big fixes that we can see are the finder network data loss problem that was reported last week, re-wording the firewall to reflect what it really does, fixing a read-only network share issue, and improving Back to My Mac functionality. Big list of changes after the jump.
Gizmodo has the list on there site it is quite extensive and all. Go check it out.