Run Silverlight Plug-In on Google Chrome [Google Chrome]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/gexWVTj9qO0/run-silverlight-plug+in-on-google-chrome

For those Google Chrome users who need access to one or two Silverlight sites, a Microsoft developer offers a file-tweaking work-around to get access to certain sites.

The Chrome/Silverlight hack requires grabbing a few .js files normally intended for Silverlight developers and tweaking them to have Silverlight sites accept and provide content to Chrome. By downloading the .js files and modifying them a bit, you should be able to access, as the developer rates it, "most" Silverlight apps, but your mileage will certainly vary.

Moonlight 1.0 Released, Silverlight script updated – and a Chrome hack [Tim Heuer via FavBrowser.com]

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How Can I Sync Bookmarks Across All Browsers? [Ask Lifehacker]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/tUR3xOwENwQ/how-can-i-sync-bookmarks-across-all-browsers

Dear Lifehacker,
How can I sync favorites in Opera, IE7, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox? Is there any way to do it, beside manually export everyone and then painfully editing the HTML?

Best Regards from a Daily Reader

Dear Daily Reader,

For Firefox and Internet Explorer, at least, we'll whole-heartedly recommend the newly IE-friendly and Safari-friendly Foxmarks. It doesn't have the password support of its Firefox iterations, but it does do an admirably swift job of keeping your bookmarks and toolbar favorites synced up in the background.

As for Chrome and Opera, well, that's a trickier task. If you're using all four browsers equally, you might want to consider using the long-standing, well-tested Delicious as your primary bookmarking tool, since its accessible from anywhere, keeps everything in sync with or without your action, and has handy bookmark bar tools for reading and saving bookmarks from any browser. When you import your bookmarks from any browser, they'll be set to private by default, saving you a whole bunch of work. The minor pain is that new bookmarks can't be set to private by default (correct me if I'm wrong, readers!), but it's truly the only way to keep your bookmarks in sync without a lot of import/export/save shuffling.

Unless, of course, one of our readers have a smart solution for shuttling or syncing each browser's HTML bookmark files around—maybe an AutoHotKey script? A clever use of syncing tool Dropbox, simila! r to how we utilize it as the ultimate password syncer?

Peace and soul,

Lifehacker

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So Who's Selling the Most Flat Panels in America? [Televisions]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/urZ6Ko6lc2c/so-whos-selling-the-most-flat-panels-in-america

Samsung. They're still on top, leading the US flat panel market with 20% of the market share. But Sony, who used to be in second place, has been pushed to third. The culprit? Vizio.

Here's how the flat panel television market looked as of Q4 2008:

20.2% - Samsung
14.3% - Vizio
13.5% - Sony
10.7% - Panasonic

So why is Vizio doing so well? We're guessing people like buying cheap televisions. But incidentally, if you're in the market for a cheap set, we recommend the Toshiba Regza. [Reuters]

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Mac Mini 2009 'Leak' Analyzed, Declared Fake [Rumor Smash]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/IM7spch2h_E/mac-mini-2009-leak-analyzed-declared-fake

In the age of Photoshop, it can be impossible to discern a forgery with the naked eye. But one PCB (and imaging) specialist has analyzed the recent Mac Mini "leak" and declared it fake.

As you can see in this image, the general "dispersion of artifacts" is not consistent with an unedited picture. In other words, all of that confetti you're seeing around the ports and power plug are pretty suspect. Zoomed in to the pixel, the image also reveals the use of multiple macroblock types.

But apparently the expert's most damning argument has nothing to do with the image quality itself. It's the placement of the Mini DisplayPort and Mini DVI—the ports don't appear to be lined up with the motherboard, which is a big design no-no. [9to5Mac]

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The Life of an iPhone App: Nasty, Brutish and Short [IPhone Apps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/tdqxv-K6ULQ/the-life-of-an-iphone-app-nasty-brutish-and-short

Our breakdown of the 500 million apps populating the App Store was correcto: A study by Pinch Media shows only 20 percent of people use free apps again after the first day they download it.

After a month, the rate falls off to about less than 5 percent. Paid apps fare a little better, but not a whole lot, as you can see. It's pretty remarkable that the average app is so crappy or disposable you only use it for a single day, and within a month, you're almost definitely not using it. The presentation says that long-term users are "generally 1 percent" of total downloads. These stats—and a wealth of others in the presentation—are based on over 30 million downloads tracked by Pinch.

For developers, the big takeaway is that it doesn't pay to just give your app away—unless you're in the uppermost echelon of successful apps, there's no way you'll make any money with ads in a free app. There is, however, evidence that offering a free lite version of a paid app can boost sales.

But generally speaking, your app is going to have a short shelf-life: In the App Store, because of the way it's designed—for "maximum turnover—and because of the way people appear to be using their apps. It helps if your app is a game, which fares a little better than other cateogries, and you know, maybe if your app doesn't just make fart noises. [Pinch Media via TechCrunch]

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