1. Go to Bing.com and search for the product.
2. Look for the Bing cashback icon in the “Sponsored Sites” areas.
3. Click the cashback link

These promotional links usually take you to large retailer or auction sites such as eBay and BestBuy. On eBay, you’ll see the “Microsoft Cashback” graphic appear at the top of the page. At other sites like AT&T and Best Buy, a pop-up window will ask you to enter your e-mail address in order to get the cashback reward.

In “Mute every 13-year-old on Xbox Live automatically. ONLY hear what your friends have to say!” on Reddit, user IlIlIl describes a method for making communication on Microsoft’s online multiplayer gaming network a little more sane. writes:

I created this after noticing that not many people realize you can mute everyone on Xbox Live who is not your friend. Everyone seems to do this manually each time they enter a match.

Mute annoying kids automatically. Hear friends. Win.

According to “Voice Communication with Xbox 360” by Microsoft you can accomplish this by going to: Edit Profile → Privacy Settings → Voice and Text → Friends Only. Using this method, you are able to mute everyone on the Xbox Live gaming network except for those players in your list of friends.

Oh, and here’s one of my favorite comments from the Reddit thread.

I don’t think most parents realize that their kids are talking to intoxicated, foul-mouthed adults when they sit down in front of their Xbox and put on that headset.

Microsoft recently banned all modded Xbox 360 consoles from their Xbox Live network, and as a result cheap consoles have been showing up for sale online in droves. If you are in the market for a used Xbox 360, be very careful and know exactly what you are buying.

These modified Xbox 360 consoles have been altered by their owners in order to play unauthorized games. Some 360 owners make backup copies of their games as a security precaution, while others download games they do not own from the Internet and burn them to discs which are then playable on modded Xbox 360 consoles.

Microsoft considers all of this to be piracy, and has subsequently detected and banned all of these consoles from playing multiplayer games on the Xbox Live network. The modded consoles are showing up on sites like Craigslist in huge numbers for low prices, so you should be aware that if you purchase one of these cheap systems you may not be able to play multiplayer games online. Microsoft will not extend warranties for these consoles, even if the owner acquired it accidentally.

The complete function for adding a custom block of Lorem Ipsum filler text to your Word document is as follows:

=lorem(Number of paragraphs, Number of lines)

Just enter this function (starting with the equals sign) and hit Enter to generate your filler text. The parameters are optional, but allow you to specify how many paragraphs and lines of text should be generated. If this function does not work, click the Office Button, click “Word Options”, click “Proofing”, click “AutoCorrect Options”, and make sure “Replace text as you type” is checked off.

For more information about generating random text in your office documents, see the Microsoft Office KnowledgeBase article “How to insert sample text in Microsoft Office Word 2007”. It contains more information about the =lorem() function as well as instructions for inserting random text in older versions of Microsoft Word.

You can also generate Lorem Ipsum text using one of many online generators such as the Lipsum generator.

Tip via “Use Microsoft Word to Generate Lorem Ipsum Text”.

Netflix is working with a variety of partners to further the next generation of video rental — on demand rentals delivered to your television over the Internet. One of the latest announcements regarding this effort is Netflix’s partnership with Microsoft to bring movies to your TV over Xbox Live.

Requirements

In order to rent movies and tv shows from Netflix with your Xbox 360, you must have an Internet connection, and Xbox Live Gold membership, and a Netflix membership that allows for unlimited streaming. At the time of this writing, Xbox Live Gold costs $8.99 per month and a Netflix 1 DVD at-a-time unlimited plan is also $8.99. According to Netflix customer service, their 1 DVD at-a-time unlimited plan is the cheapest plan that can be used to rent through Xbox Live.

Getting started

Movies and TV shows added to your Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue are available through “Netflix” section of the Xbox Video Marketplace.

1. Go to the “Watch Instantly” tab on Netflix.com and add a few titles to your Instant Queue. Locate a title that has the blue “Play” button, hover your mouse over the play button and click the “Add to Instant” button that appears.
2. Boot up your Xbox 360, go to the Dashboard and navigate to “Netflix” under “Video Marketplace” to browse the titles in your Instant Queue that are available for viewing over Xbox Live.

If this is the first time you have used Netflix with Xbox 360, you will be prompted to install the Netflix application. It is a free download and installation takes just a minute or two.

What’s available?

Not every “Watch Instantly” Netflix title can be watched over Xbox Live. Those that cannot be watched over Xbox Live will have an warning message next to their listing in your Instant Queue on Netflix.com. The warning is displayed in red and informs you that the title is not currently available on Xbox 360. It may also say that the title is only available until a certain date.

From time to time, titles will drop in and out of your Netflix Watch Instantly Queue. This is not an error. The movie and TV studios require Netflix to disable instant rentals of certain movies and TV shows when those titles are run on premium or pay-per-view TV channels, since TV currently generates more of a profit for the studios than on-demand Internet rentals.

At the time of this writing, Netflix states that about 12,000 titles are available to watch instantly with roughly 300 presented in 720p HD (source).

How is the quality?

Over the course of my free trial I have watched roughly a half dozen Netflix movies and all 3 seasons of “Heroes” instantly with my Xbox 360. I have been very impressed with the video quality. There are times when viewing is interreupted by “buffering”. The title stops playing and a Netflix warning messages states “Your internet connection has slowed. We are adjusting playback to reduce further interruptions.” In these situations Netflix will often downgrade the video quality in order to get the title playing again.

Most of these interruptions occur during peak viewing times — during the evening and on weekends. It is difficult to say whether it is the Netflix system responding to high demand, or my ISP dropping connectivity (which it does quite often).

Finally, I am not a pixel peeper or a videophile but I do know enough to say that the Netflix movies and TV shows I have watched instantly look great on my plasma TV. I am very pleased with the results.

Netflix photo by Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar. Xbox 360 photo by aditza121.

“Tons” of Gizmodo readers are reporting that their Zune 30 players stopping working last night. The Zune Scene tech support forums are full of posts (and a sticky at the top titled “Stop Creating Zune 30 Frozen Threads Look Here First”), as are the Zune.net forums. Folks are dubbing the fiasco with amusing names such as Z2K9 and Zunepocalypse.

Microsoft acknowledged Zunepocalpyse at 10 AM. Later in the afternoon they posted an official update and explanation of the issue — their technical team says there is a bug in internal clock related to the handling of leap years, and they expect it to correct itself as the new year switches over to January 1^st, 2009. They urge Zune 30 users to let the battery completely deplete itself tomorrow, then turn the device back on.

Photo by ShinyHat1 used under a Creative Commons license.

You would then need to sign up with Live.com and use PayPal to purchase the auction item. See also: complete terms and conditions of the Live Search cashback program.

A friend sent me a .xlsx file. What is it, and how do I open it?

An XLSX file is an Excel spreadsheet that was created with Microsoft Office 2007. Office 2007 includes a new XML-based file format — files saved in this new format have an “x” appended to the file extension in order to differentiate them from the traditional MS Office file types — Word Documents are now .docx files, Excel spreadsheets are now .xlsx files, and PowerPoint files are now .pptx files.

If you do not own Microsoft Office, you can use the Excel Viewer from Microsoft to look at the .xlsx file. The latest version of the Excel Viewer software is compatible with the latest file formats from Microsoft Office 2007.

If you have Microsoft Office XP or Office 2003, you can open .xlsx files by installing the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.