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Home theater speaker buying tips

First thing, determine your system's priorities. Will you watch movies or listen to music? Most folks do one or the other.

Since more home theater speaker buyers watch movies than listen to music, I'll start there.

It's hardly an overstatement to claim movie-oriented home theater systems succeed or fail based on their center channel's performance and sound quality. The center speaker delivers virtually all the dialog and it can, depending on the mix, convey upward of 80 percent of a movie's soundtrack. The center speaker has a big job.

So invest 30 percent of your 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 system budget on the center speaker, the Center Centric HT approach. As always, when it comes to sound quality, size matters. Bigger centers tend to sound better than small ones.

The subwoofer is the next most important player in a home theater sound system. Invest the next 30 percent of your dollars on the sub. The sub is largely responsible for home theater impact and power. … Read more

Nintendo Wii exclusive gaming rundown

We already showed you what exclusive titles you can expect for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, now let's wrap things up with the Nintendo Wii.

Historically, the Wii has benefited from a large amount of solid first-party titles like Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda. It's certainly refreshing to see third-party publishers getting into the mix this year with offerings like Dead Space Extraction and The Conduit.

With the release of Wii MotionPlus, we're beginning to see games that require the accessory to work. Titles like Wii Sports Resort and Red Steel 2 … Read more

Improve your Outlook

The Xobni Outlook add-on is at its heart a tool to search for and find e-mail and contacts faster. As an interesting, but far less crucial, secondary function, Xobni also collects statistics, like the frequency you e-mail a contact and at which hour, that can eventually help you manage your social relationships.

Visually, Xobni displays as an attractive sidebar that slides in an out from the right and over the reading pane. It features a Xobni search bar, faster-acting than Outlook's own by miles, and a Google search bar for more general queries. The search results pull up people, … Read more

Xobni gives Outlook a premium boost

A few months ago, CNET Editor Rafe Needleman lauded Xobni, an e-mail search plug-in for Outlook, but wondered where the money would come from to keep the company afloat. On Tuesday night, Xobni responded with a version update, Xobni 1.8, and the introduction of a new premium service, Xobni Plus.

The free version of Xobni 1.8 features a slightly revamped interface that loads faster thanks to a switch from a slightly draggy custom UI (built using C#) to HTML rendering. More important to most users, Xobni's sidebar has gotten richer on the whole, searching the subjects of … Read more

The best Firefox extension: AutoCopy

Oh yes, I did just go there. Hands-down, without a skerrick of doubt, AutoCopy is the best Firefox extension. It may also be the best Firefox extension you've never heard of. Here's what it does, and then I'll tell you what makes it so great.

Developed at Mozilla, AutoCopy is a lightweight, single-feature add-on that copies any text you highlight to your clipboard. No more hitting CTRL+C, or using the context menu. That in and of itself is not so revolutionary. The feature has been around for a while in other programs. What makes it the … Read more

Wii Sports Resort: Hands on with new Wii smack-talk generator

As we mentioned previously, this week we got all close-up and hands-on with Nintendo's E3 lineup for the holidays, courtesy of a meeting in a NY hotel room deep in midtown Manhattan. And to our surprise (and clearly, Nintendo's delight), they've gone a little hardcore competitive on us all of a sudden.

We told you about New Super Mario Bros. Wii (a.k.a. "Super Mario Smash Bros."), and now we'll let you in on our three-game session with Nintendo's ace-in-the-hole, Wii Sports Resort.

While you've probably heard a lot about this game, did you know it's including updates of classics like bowling and golf? While we didn't spend time with those, we took on whole new challenges that provoked a bit of smack-talking between Jeff and Scott.… Read more

There's a lot you don't know about New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Last night in New York City, Nintendo treated two of our CNET editors to some lengthy hands-on demos of major upcoming titles for the Wii and DS. We'll have impressions of our time with Wii Sports Resort and other games later on, but first we wanted to talk about New Super Mario Bros. Wii.… Read more

The 404 369: Where even in the future nothing works

This is what we get for calling our show "The 404." Despite literally everything going wrong on today's show (sorry, live listeners!), we get it in gear for what turns out to be a hilarious show, thanks to CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy who comes in and saves the day. Today, Jeff previews us on the latest Nintendo Wii games, including the new Wii Fit Plus, Super Mario Bros, Wii Sports Resort, and more!

Caroline McCarthy of CNET News' The Social comes on the show today to give us her unique take on a bunch of different stories. First off, we want to apologize to ALL of our beloved live listeners. For one reason or another, our broadcasting engine pooped out and we were unable to broadcast live. All is not lost, however--you can still definitely download or watch the stream here! Rest assured that Jason Howell, aka Superman, is on the job. Thanks, Jason!

First up, Jeff tells us all about yesterday's Nintendo event, where he got a chance to preview a bunch of exciting new games, including the new Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. He also got a chance to try out the new Wii Fit Plus. Last year, when Jeff went onto the balance board to demo the original Wii Fit, the machine actually gave up and unplugged itself, committing console suicide, so we're all anxious to see if Nintendo beefed up this new version.

Caroline also surprises us with a very positive review of the new "Transformers" movie. It turns out that the movie is geared toward...teenage boys. Which makes us question why Caroline was there in the first place--what a cougar! She also tells us even more horrifying news about the upcoming Facebook movie based on Ben Mezrich's upcoming book, "The Accidental Billionaires." Caro tells us that Shia Labeouf and Michael Cera are being eyeballed to play the role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but the rest of us think those are both terrible choices. Actually, maybe it should be Labeouf; his portrayal of Zuckerberg would at least be more believable than his relationship with hottie biscotti Megan Fox in "Transformers 2." There's NO WAY a woman of that caliber would even sneeze in Lebeouf's general direction!

EPISODE 369 Download today's podcast Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Altec's stylin' Expressionist Plus PC speakers

Altec Lansing is adding to its line of Expressionist PC speakers with the Expressionist Plus, which goes by the model number FX3021 and carries a list price of $99.95.

The compact, 24-watt, 2.1 system includes a sub with a 5.25-inch driver and two angle-adjustable satellite speakers with 2-inch drivers.

Don Milks, Altec Lansing's Senior Manager of Product Management for PC Audio, says, "The Expressionist Plus subwoofer packs tremendous punch for its tiny size," and he declares this "the best performing $99 PC speaker on the market."

OK, Don. We look forward to … Read more