bars

We use a Windows machine for work and a Mac for pleasure, and one thing we love about our Mac is the dock. This strip across the bottom of our screen contains shortcuts to all our favorite applications, documents, and folders, giving us quick access to the things we use the most. LaunchBar Commander is a similar utility for Windows, and although it doesn't have the sleek interface or animations of the Mac dock, it works just as well at keeping our favorite things handy.

LaunchBar Commander has a plain interface, just a skinnable gray strip that can be … Read more

Sound bars are often thought of as replacements for full 5.1 home theater systems, but the Vizio VHT510 is a sound bar that is a 5.1 home theater system. Its unique design includes two rear speakers that connect directly to the wireless sub, which means you can stash the sub in the back of your home theater along with the rear speaker--no need to run cables from the front of the room to the back. More importantly, it has outstanding sound quality for a sound bar in this price range.

The VHT510 isn't perfect, as its connectivity … Read more

Over the years Apple has made the iPhone and its iTunes software do more in the way of syncing files, applications, and other settings. As a result, it's arguably become a more complicated process than it was just a few years ago, which is why iOS 5's iTunes-free and iCloud-powered features are a big deal.

According to a report by former Macworld writer David Chartier on his personal blog, a data point to back that up is that "about 50 percent" of people coming into Apple's retail store Genius Bars for a fix are coming in with iPhones that have never been synced with a computer. That's besides the computer used to set it up in the first place, a service Apple offers in its retail stores free of charge.… Read more

Urbanspoon is a location-aware mobile app that helps the indecisive among us figure out where to eat. Open it up, and the Home screen presents you with a number of ways to receive restaurant recommendations or to simply search for a restaurant in your vicinity. You can Browse via category, see what's Nearby, or look at your Friends' profiles. There's also a built-in tool for booking reservations. If you're more into visual stimulation, the bottom of the Home screen displays a virtually endless slide show of photos from restaurants nearby. Swipe through them, find one you like, … Read more

I remember the sound of the very first Zvox sound bar, the 325, for one really good reason: it sounded amazing. Zvox still sells it for just $249. The "secret" to the Zvox sound isn't radical new technology or wildly innovative design; no, Zvox speakers are just a lot bigger than most of the competition's sound bars. The 325 is 17 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 4.8 inches high. Yes, folks, when it comes to sound quality, size is a biggie. Zvox speakers always sounded great, but were light on features, the new models … Read more

I view the rising popularity of sound bar speakers as proof positive that more and more people are rejecting the notion of deploying five or more speakers in their home theaters. It's not just the number of speakers, people are also not thrilled by the idea of running wires to the far corners of their home theaters. Truly "wireless" surround speakers are a recurring fantasy, but I've yet to see a wireless surround speaker that doesn't have at least one wire; most have two (one for signal, one for power), which as far as I … Read more

When you boot OS X 10.6 to Safe Mode by holding the Shift key after hearing the boot chimes, you will see a gray progress bar appear at the bottom of the initial gray Apple screen. While this bar is showing the system will run various maintenance tasks such as checking the filesystem and clearing some caches, after which it will load into Safe Mode. This process should only happen if you intentionally boot into Safe Mode, but there may be instances in which you see it happen at each boot, even if no keys are held during bootup.… Read more

Flagfox is what Firefox extensions are all about: ultracompact, free, open-source, and uniquely useful. When you visit a Web page in Firefox, Flagfox identifies the country hosting the site's server with a small national flag in the address bar. You can customize the information Flagfox retrieves and displays, too.

We installed Flagfox and restarted Firefox. The first thing we noticed was a small American flag in the Firefox address bar, just to the left of the Bookmark icon. Hovering the cursor over the flag icon produced a small pop-up listing the site's domain name, IP address, and server … Read more

Anyone who owns an HDTV has no doubt discovered an almost universal truth: built-in speakers stink. Unfortunately, as I noted the other day, you can't just plug in a set of external speakers; usually you need a receiver to act as the go-between, and that gets expensive.

Note that I said "usually." Another option is a sound bar, a speaker/receiver combo that sits above or below the screen and does the work of two or more standalone speakers. Of course, these can be pricey, too.

Not today: TigerDirect has the refurbished Vizio VBS200 HD Sound Bar for $69.99 shipped. … Read more