PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10.0.3.2

Turn your memories into multimedia slideshows PhotoStory on CD & DVD will allow you to burn your pictures on disc - Watch them on TV! The most exciting way to experience your photos & videos on TV! With PhotoStory on CD & DVD you become the director of your own cinematic slideshow. Transform your photos and videos into effect-filled, lively TV events – even in widescreen format! Ideal for beginners! With handy Task Wizards and 1-click automation: Create impressive presentations and shows in 16:9 widescreen format, wich movie-like effects, virtual camera pans and custom soundtracks. Create multimedia slideshows and impress any audience Import images from digital cameras, mobile phones, scanners, memory cards, as well as CD tracks, MP3s or any other media from the web. Enhance even poor-quality snapshots (originals remain unchanged / non-destructive optimization). Add background music, effects and personalized text. The program then automatically burns your slideshows to disc complete with a DVD player menu, so you can enjoy it on TV & your PC or present it online. Bring your memories to life! Do you own a digital camera? Then you can turn your most precious experiences into fascinating slideshows in no time at all and impress any audience! Here are some key features of "PhotoStory on CD & DVD": · 3D power effects add action to your slideshows · Fast optimization of entire image series · MAGIX Story Maker makes exciting movies from your photos · DVD menus with realistic 3D image fonts and new animations · High-definition quality for perfect PC slideshows · Automatic image quality warning · Global optimization for all slideshows · Design slideshows in full screen size · Save photos with effects · Improved Title Editor with many creative templates · Fast optimization for camera and mobile photos · Double-layer DVD burning · Fullscreen look for an optimum overview · Supports additional image files · Automatic PC shut-down after burning · New MAGIX Photo Clinic 4.5 for even more fun when editing images · MAGIX Photo Manager ? keeps your hard disk tidy · including MAGIX Online Services Requirements: · Processor: 1.83 GHz · 512 MB RAM · 1 GB hard disk space Limitations: · 7 days trial which can be extended to 30 days · Nag screen What's New in This Release: · Optimized user interface · Better performance · Play slideshows more smoothly · Zoomable preview monitor · Export assistant · Deco elements Reasons why this program is marked as ad-supported: · Offers to change the homepage for web browsers installed in the system · Offers to change the default search engine for web browsers installed in the system · Offers to install ASK toolbar that the program does not require to fully function

What's new in PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10.0.3.2:

May 27th, 2011

· Optimized user interface
· Better performance
· Play slideshows more smoothly
· Zoomable preview monitor
· Export assistant
· Deco elements

What's new in PhotoStory on CD & DVD 8.0.3.2:

June 23rd, 2009

· Slideshow wizard: Get the perfect slideshow quickly, easily, and without any prior skill.
· 3D titles & text animations: In gold, animated, or glowing – individually customizable 1-click templates give the text in your slideshow a little more zest!
· Direct YouTube™upload: This way, slideshow enthusiasts from around the world can see your pictures and even leave their comments.
· Supports screen resolution of modern mini laptops (netbooks)
· Including MAGIX Xtreme Print Studio for creating unique CD/DVD cases and labels.
· Quickly and easily adjust the shape and aspect of your pictures however you want.
· Even easier to use; more specific improvements to detail.

Downloads:

External Mirror 1 [EXE]

Softpedia Mirror (US) [EXE]

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Red HTC Desire S for Sale at Vodafone UK

Mobile phone carrier Vodafone UK has now a new mobile phone available for purchase for its users, namely a red flavor of the HTC Desire S.
Basically, this would be the one and the same Desire S that HTC unveiled to the world in February, but it comes with a red coat on it, and that makes it a little more special that other colored flavors of the device.

The red flavor of HTC Desire S is available in the UK exclusively through Vodafone, the wireless carrier announced. Those users interested in purchasing it should head to the wireless carrier's website here to learn more on it.
The mobile phone is available for free upon the singing of a new contract agreement with the wireless carrier, on monthly plans that start at £30 per month.
The red flavor of HTC Desire S runs under Google's Android operating system, and offers the same specs and capabilities as the original device.

“The HTC Desire S boasts a slim and stylish design shaped from a single piece of aluminum, making it feel more solid than the HTC Desire - and lighter too,” the wireless carrier notes on its website.

“And just like on the HTC Desire HD and Sony Ericsson Xperia arc the Desire S has an impressive 3.7" touchscreen that's perfect for showing off photos, enjoying video clips and making everything on the web look clear.”

The mobile phone is powered by a fast 1GHz application processor, and sports 1.1GB of internal memory, complemented by a microSD memory card slot with support for up to 32GB of additional storage space.

It also comes with a 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back, with HD video recording capabilities, and with a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front, for video calling.

The mobile phone would also provide users with enhanced connectivity capabilities, as well as with support for various Google services, and for applications available from the Android Market.

“It's easy to use, quick to learn and uses less battery life. Gingerbread also makes typing on a touchscreen simple, so you can send texts and emails quickly. And because Android is from Google, it works well with Gmail, Google Maps and more,” the wireless carrier explains.

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HTC Panache Now Available via Videotron

T-Mobile's MyTouch 4G also known as HTC Glacier has just made its debut at regional carrier Videotron as HTC Panache.

The smartphone's price tag is a bit cheaper than the one suggested by previous rumors, so customers can purchase the HTC Panache for as low as $169.95 with a monthly service fee of at least $40 or for $479.95 off-contract.

It appears that Videotron came out with a better price for the Panache than Mobilicity who is offering the device for $499.99 off-contract.

However, the two carriers are not really competing each other as Mobilicity operates in four major Canadian cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary), while Videotron targets customers living in Quebec.

Rumored several days ago, when a leaked Gingerbread ROM for the HTC Glacier, also known as the HTC Panache or MyTouch 4G, has been spotted in the wild, the Panache was introduced by the Taiwanese handset manufacturer on its official website yesterday.

Specs-wise the HTC Panache is equipped with a single core 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8255 processor and packs 768 MB RAM, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).

The handset runs on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform, complemented by the latest HTC Sense user-friendly interface and is fully compatible with Videotron's 4G network.

Furthermore, the smartphone features a large 3.8-inch TFT capacitive multi-touch display with 16 million colors support, 480 x 800 pixels resolution, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and Swype input method.

Additionally, it sports a 5-megapixel photo snapper with autofocus and LED flash, as well as a secondary VGA front-facing camera for video chat.

The handset is fully packed with connectivity features such as Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, DLNA capability, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, integrated GPS with HTC location experience including turn-by-turn directions, as well as Wi-Fi spot capabilities.

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Dynamical Casimir Effect Demonstrated

The first experimental evidence that the Casimir effect actually exists were obtained by researchers from the Chalmers University in Sweden. Using a rapidly-moving mirror, virtual photons were turned into real ones, the team reports. 
The dynamical Casimir effect manages to confirm one of the most interesting and surprising predictions included in modern quantum theories, which holds that particles whiz in and out of existence even in vacuum.

According to these predictions, elementary particles appear out of nowhere, pair up, annihilate each other, and then disappear entirely. If this were true, experts proposed a decade or so ago, then the theory should be able to be proven.

“One of the most surprising predictions of modern quantum theory is that the vacuum of space is not empty. In fact, quantum theory predicts that it teems with virtual particles flitting in and out of existence,” Wilson says. 


Since 1948, physicists have been carrying out experiments in which two flat mirrors were held very close to each other, and parallel to one another. If the predictions were true, then these two surfaces should theoretically be pushed away from each other by the elementary particles.

This is known as the static Casimir effect, and two research teams in the United States managed to demonstrate that it exists through measurements conducted in 1998, Technology Review reports.

On the other hand, the dynamical Casimir effect is a bit different, and concerns the behavior of the particles emerging and disappearing in empty space when they pop up between two flat mirror moving at relativistic speeds (reaching a significant proportion of the speed of light).

Whenever the two mirrors move slowly, the particles within can adapt. However, when the mirrors reach a relativistic speed, some of the photons that spring in and out of existence lose their pairs.

The end result of all of this is the ability to produce light out of nothing, using only two mirrors. The experimental setup to test this is however tremendously complex. Until now, it was nearly impossible to conduct the validating experiments.

But Wilson and his team used a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to accelerate the analog of two mirrors on an transmission line just 100 micrometers long. The mirror simulation moved only about a nanometer in each direction, but at 5 percent the speed of light.

After the system was set into motion, photodetectors installed near the experiment detected photons emitted in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.”We believe these results represent the first experimental observation of the dynamical Casimir effect,” the team concludes plainly.

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Download AMD Catalyst Driver 11.5b Hotfix

Advanced Micro Devices may have released its newest driver quite a while ago, but it looks like circumstances forced it to go ahead and deliver a new hotfix that fixes quite a few game-related issues that may have induced headaches by means of frustration.
High-end video cards of today definitely serve to make benchmark score records and the like, but the fact is that playing games is the most they will be doing.
While low-end boards handle the basics, along with some multimedia, mainstream boards can more or less manage with any title.

This means that high-end cards get to use their might to allow their owners to play games at the highest settings, maybe on more than one monitor at once.

Still, all hardware depends on a software component, and it just so happens that the most recent, complete one from Advanced Micro Devices has some issues.

For one, intermittent flickering can occur on systems using a Radeon HD 6000 graphics card with DDR3 memory, in DirectX 9 mode at least.

Those games are Fallout 3, Mafia 2, Dead Rising 2, Civilization 5, NBA 2010, Starcraft 2, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, NBA 2010 and ShenGuiChuanQi.

Advanced Micro Devices provided a hotfix that will resolve the above issues, in addition to other things, like transcoding video lagging issues during conversion of multiple H.264 clips to MPEG2 Blu-ray video.

Additionally, the hotfix optimizes performance and deals with some quality issues that were plaguing the upcoming release of Brink.

Other things that the new package does is enable support for more stereo 3D displays, boost Dirt 3 performance and enable CrossFire scaling for The Witcher 2 and Brink.

Owners of AMD Graphics adapter can download the appropriate driver version from one of the links below.


Downloads :


AMD Catalyst Hotfix 11.5b for XP    


AMD Catalyst Hotfix 11.5b for Win7

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IE9 vs. IE8 - More, Better and Faster

One recent announcement made by the IE team provides an illustrative example of Internet Explorer 9’s superiority compared to its predecessor, Internet Explorer 8. 
Vishwac Sena Kannan and Kevin Luu, Program Managers, Internet Explorer revealed that Microsoft is expanding the language support for IE9 as of this week, effectively doubling the number of languages available to customers running the latest iteration of IE. 


A part of the announcement is focused on the evolution 
from IE8 to IE9, with the two IE team members noting that “With IE9, our goal was to deliver more languages faster. More specifically, our goals included the simultaneous release of final IE9 in more languages than IE8, and a shorter interval between the final release of IE9 and the remaining languages.”

IE9 was released in no less than 40 localized version earlier this year, with the availability of the Japanese version postponed due to the natural disaster that hit Japan.

As of May 25th, 2011, there are no less than 93 localized versions of Internet Explorer 9 available for download to customers worldwide, more than any browser, including Firefox 4, Chrome 11, Opera 11 and Safari 5.

It’s also great to have a look at a comparison between IE8 and IE9 in terms of language support.

IE8 Beta 1 shipped in just 3 language versions, with the number growing to 25 for Beta 2. When it released IE9 Beta in September 2010, Microsoft provided support for 33 languages.

With IE9 Release Candidate, the number of localized IE9 versions grew to 40, compared to just 25 for IE8 RC. At the same time, IE9 RTM was offered in 40 languages, IE8 RTM just in 25.

At 14 weeks after general availability, the number of supported languages for IE8 increased to 63, while that for IE9 jumped to 93 in 11 weeks.

Of course, more, better and faster applies not just to IE9 language support in comparison to IE8, but also to other aspects of the browsers, from performance to security, usability, UI design, standards support and compatibility, etc.

It will be interesting to see what the IE team has in stored for Internet Explorer 10. 




Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) Platform Preview 1 (PP1) is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.

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New band from Mick Jagger and Damian Marley!

As mentioned, the frontman of the Rolling Stones prepare his solo career and was found to record new songs with the ... guitarist Eurythmics, Dave Stewart, the son of the great Bob Marley, by Damian Marley, Joss Stone and the Oscar-winning producer AR Rahman.


Indeed, the reports go even further saying that the band called Super Heavy, is already in discussions with major record companies and soon to be released and the video clip of the song have been prepared. On the side of the rock gerolykou alone has officially reported that it found together because they found it very interesting to play music and have a good time. There are no video clips or record.

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A twelve-year old boy watching the news asks his dad

- Dad, what is politics? The father, who is obviously pleased that his son is showing signs of maturation, the answer with an example:- Look at my boy ... A country is like a family. Take for example our own.Mom is like the government regulates everything in the house.I, the father, I'm like a big business, support the economy of the house.The maid is like the working class, do all the work to be done.You, you the public to notice what is happening around her.Finally, we have the baby home symbolizes the mellon country.Think about all the evening, and tomorrow we will discuss the findings turned out, okay? - Okay Dad, answers the small, thoughtful and goes to bed.During the night while thinking about the wisdom of his father, he hears cries from the cradle. He gets up close and see the crib that the baby has soiled ..He goes into the bedroom to tell his mother opens the door and sees only his mother in bed asleep. His father disappeared! In panic!On the half-open door of the room service, listens ... suspicious noises coming, looks and sees his father with the maid in four! Rails that kid!
- What to do? ", He thinks," to wake up Mom? Will see her dad with the maid, stop Dad? Ashamed, and who will change the baby???, I do not know how to do it ... "Decides therefore to make the duck and go to sleep. The next afternoon, after eating, says father to his son:- Well? Thought what I said yesterday? - Yes, father of the thought.
- And what conclusion it turned out?
- When the government is asleep,
big business screwing the working class,

When the government is asleep,

the public is indifferent,

and the future of the country is immersed in deep shit!

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Recent Project Cafe Videos Confirmed as Fake

A widely seen YouTube video which was rumored to show the first images of Project Cafe, the next home gaming console from Nintendo, has been proven as being a fake with the company saying that it will only reveal actual images of the new hardware at the E3 trade show.

The video was posted by a site called Strategy Interactive from France and was seen close to 700,000 times.

It seems that it was the result of a student project, created in order to get as many views as possible in a limited amount of time.

The European branch of Nintendo has officially said that the video represents just “purely rumor and speculation.”

The video attracted a lot of attention because it was said to show off the much talked about touch screen controller that would be at the core of the new Nintendo home console experience.

The console is also barely visible a couple of times during the video and the screen the protagonists are watching seems to be showing a number of technology related slides.

The fact that the YouTube video has no sound and is pretty low quality were early signs that it was not the real deal.

Rumors about a successor for the Wii have begun appearing more than six months ago and they have intensified after the current Nintendo console has begun performing worse than usual in monthly sales numbers in the United States.

Current information suggests that Nintendo is aiming to deliver a hardware platform that delivers the same amount of powers as the Xbox 360 and quite a bit more storage space than the current Wii.

Rumors also talk about a controller which integrates a touch screen, allowing the player to receive information about the games he is planning and control a part of the experience through it.

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Download Opera 11.50 Alpha Codenamed Swordfish Build 1015

The second Alpha development snapshot of the next major version of Opera is now available for download and testing.
Early adopters can grab Opera 11.50 codenamed Swordfish Build 1015 and take it out for a spin, to see the improvements introduced since the first Alpha was released.

Obviously, the Alpha label should be sufficient to inform users that this release is an early development Build of Opera 11.50, as such coming with a range of issues, as all pre-release software does.

According to Ruarí Ødegaard, from the Opera Desktop team, codenamed Swordfish Build 1015 brings to the table a range of enhancements including to Opera Next, Password Sync and the Plugin installation.

“The latest Swordfish snapshot [comes] with a nice collection of bug fixes, plus improvements to some of our new features,” he stated.

“This is a development snapshot: It contains the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes, and data loss situations. In fact, it may not work at all.”

For those not familiar with the evolution of the browser, Opera Next is a new development channel designed specifically to serve testing releases. In this particular case: Opera 11.50 Alpha Codenamed Swordfish Build 1015 is offered through Opera Next.

Testers will be able to tell the difference immediately when compared to the stable version of Opera 11.11 for example, from small details including the icon, but also additional visual elements such as the menu.

Password synchronization is a new feature introduced in the first Alpha development snapshot of codenamed Swordfish.

Now Opera Software has also provided testers with a few fixes designed to improve their user experience. As the label of the feature implies, password synchronization is an Opera Link enhancements set up to allow users to sync passwords via Opera Link.

Opera 11.50 Alpha Codenamed Swordfish Build 1015 is available for download here.

Snapshot - 11.50 (International Installer) [EXE] Final (International Installer) [EXE] Snapshot - 11.50 (WebGL) Softpedia Secure Download (US) [EXE] Softpedia Secure Download (RO) [EXE] United States installer (11.10) [EXE] United States installer (Classic 10.63) [EXE] Russian installer (11.10) [EXE] Multiple installer (11.10 Indian_English) [EXE] China installer (11.00) [EXE] Viet Nam installer (10.63) [EXE]

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Crazy Rumor Puts iPad 3 Launch in September 2011

There are now just enough reasons to speculate that a third-generation iPad will hit by the end of the year, which would mean Apple is cutting its annual refresh cycles in half, at least for the tablet computer.

What T3.com and TechRadar have is more of an iPad 3 wish list, rather than actual evidence that the tablet is indeed coming later this year.

But they do cite the relevant people in the tech industry, as well as resurrect a number of reports with information that would add up to corroborate a September launch.

The most credible information seems to come from an old blog post by Apple pundit John Gruber, of the Daring Fireball.

Gruber, very connected and knowledgeable in all things Apple, weighed in on the HP TouchPad's potential summer release, saying "If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3."

His post emerged shortly after an unnamed Apple employee was quoted as saying that the iPad 2 was a bit of a rush job, and "the third generation iPad is the one to make a song and dance about."

And so the speculation begins:

· Apple is now believed to prepare an iPad 3 with a Retina display, a brand new processor (though Apple just recently introduced the A5), better cameras, an NFC chip, more storage, a Thunderbolt port, and an SD card slot.

· If the iPad 3 doesn’t boast a Retina display, it will most certainly have an HD screen at the very least, the rumor mill goes, and evidence of that comes from a DigiTimes report that said Apple was asking panel makers to provide screens that are capable of displaying higher image quality.

· Finally, a carbon fibre case is rumored. Indeed, if Apple wants to grab the spotlight yet again, it will have to do so with a tablet that does everything better tenfold, and that includes portability. The company is also known to have hired a person who knows their carbon fiber - senior composites engineer Kevin Kenney.

The price is also being debated. If released this year, the iPad 3 would have to be something like an iPad Pro, therefore its price would be slightly higher, the rumor goes.

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Just Like Windows 8, Office 15 Also Sports Hidden Goodies

It’s not only Windows 8 that packs a range of goodies under the hood, Office 15 also comes with new features and components hidden from prying eyes.
It appears that the teams inside Microsoft building the next major iterations of Windows and Office share the same strategy when in regards to how to introduce evolution but keep it away from testers until it’s baked and ready to make its debut.

According to sources that managed to get their hands on Office 15, the successor of Office 2010, sports at least one hidden component, namely the new Moorea application.

At the time of this article, it does appear that Office 15 Milestone 2 (M2) Build 15.0.2703.1000 found its way out of Redmond and into the hands of some unofficial testers.

Still, the actual Office 15 bits have yet to leak in the wild. But despite this, there has been a healthy volume of Office 15 details, including screenshots, and even a few videos of Moorea in action that were shared with the public.

Also as is the case with Windows 8, Microsoft is keeping mum on Office vNext, in fact, sharing even fewer details than it did for the Windows vNext, for which at least it confirmed officially support for System on a Chip architectures, including ARM.

Testers that got to play with Office 15 revealed that Moorea needs to be unlocked in order to be available as indicated by three videos leaked recently.

Early adopters outside of Redmond also already found a range of future features and enhancement proving the evolution to Windows 8, including the Ribbon / Fluent UI, Modern Task Manager, Modern PDF Reader, Auto Colorization, Webcam App, Immersive Browser, Pattern Logon, Logon Metro and Applications folder.

It will certainly be interesting to see what else Microsoft packs into both Windows 8 and Office 15 especially as the two products near their respective Beta development milestones.

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New Motorola DROID 3 Specs Emerge

Now that Motorola DROID X2 is already official and available for pre-order in the United States via wireless carrier Verizon, all that remains to be seen is when the next DROID device might come out from Motorola Mobility's labs on the airwaves of Big Red, namely the DROID 3.

The smartphone has been long rumored to be on its way to the market at Verizon, following the DROID line, which kicked off with the first such handset from Motorola in late 2009.

The yet unannounced Motorola DROID 3 has made it into the wild before, and new info on its specifications and capabilities have just started to emerge.

Apparently, the same as the DROID X2, the new Motorola DROID 3 would arrive on shelves with a large touchscreen display (of 4-inches in size, or larger) capable of delivering a qHD (960 x 540 pixel) resolution.

Moreover, it would pack a 1GHz processor, which is expected to be a dual-core chip from Texas Instruments, complemented by a PowerVR SGX540 graphical processing unit.

These details leaked courtesy of handset's emergence on the NenaMark website, and have been just confirmed through TechnoBuffalo.

In a recent article, the news site notes that Android-based DROID 3 would indeed arrive on shelves with a four-inch qHD screen, complemented by a five-row QWERTY keyboard.

Moreover, it seems that the smartphone could include an Nvidia dual-core application processor, along with a dedicated HDMI-out port.

On the back, it would sport an 8-megapixel photo snapper with video recording and all, complemented by a front-facing camera meant to enable video calling on the carrier's network.

Verizon customers would enjoy the capabilities of this device only on the carrier's CDMA airwaves, as there will be no LTE support included into the mix (support for 4G would arrive on DROID Bionic, which was delayed indefinitely).

Rumor has it that Verizon would aim at making the Motorola DROID 3 available in June, so stay tuned to learn more on the matter.

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Acer Iconia Tab A500 Preview

Unveiled earlier this year at the 2011 Mobile World Congress, Acer Iconia Tab A500 has been recently launched on the market. The company is silently pushing its tablets in various parts of the world, which will probably take its toll on the device's sales.

Even though the manufacturer has yet to announce a release schedule for the Iconia Tab A500, it is expected that it will be available worldwide, by the end of the year.

Furthermore, the tablet can be purchased from various major retailers in several countries, but prices may vary by a lot. For example, the 16GB Iconia Tab A500 can be purchased for $450 in the United States via Best Buy, for $615 in India via Future Bazaar, or for no less than $730 in Romania.

However, Acer must face a fierce competition on each market that introduces its Iconia series tablets. Apple iPad 2, Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 are among the high-end tablets available in the market for attractive prices in comparison with the Iconia Tab A500.

The 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 is now $500, only $50 more expensive than the Iconia Tab A500, while customers who wish to buy the XOOM will have to pay about $600 for the 32GB Wi-Fi only version.

Acer Iconia Tab A500 is one of the lucky tablets to be 'blessed' with NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chipset with dual-core processor. The simple fact that it embeds a powerful dual-core processor manufactured by NVIDIA (yet, not the most powerful) should be enough to convince Android fans to spend a small fortune to acquire it. 

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Facebook Friend Request, Notifications, & Messages Alerts + Facebook Like Button description

A Facebook toolbar add-on for Firefox

Hate going to Facebook just to see if there are any new notifications, messages, friend requests or Invites?

Now you don't have to!

Easily customize this add-on by going into the prefrences and decide specifically which notifications you want included in the toolbar notifier count. Everything from unread messages, active pokes, pending friend requests, pending group invites, and pending event invites. All of which would be added to the total number of notifications displayed on the toolbar. Just simply move the mouse over the facebook button to see specifically how many notifications you have for each category.

Now, the simple change in a button's state will alert you to how many new:
☎ Facebook Notification
✉ New Facebook Message Alert
✈ Event Invites
♥ Group Invites or
☛ Facebook Friend Request
you have waiting for you.

In addition, you will have a simple button that lets you "Facebook Like" a page with just one click!

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LimeWire Saga Ends in Settlement

Lime Wire LLC, the company behind the former LimeWire peer-to-peer file sharing application, has agreed to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $105 million in order to settle a 5-year-old copyright infringement lawsuit.

Until last October, when it was shut down via court order, LimeWire was one of the most popular and oldest file sharing applications on the Internet.

The Java-based program was cross-platform and supported the gnutella P2P network, as well as the BitTorrent protocol.

RIAA's lawsuit against claimed that Lime Wire LLC knowingly facilitated and encouraged copyright infringement on a massive scale.

After it was awarded a permanent injunction that ordered the software company to stop distributing, selling, advertising or otherwise supporting LimeWire and also disable its functionality, RIAA filed for damages of an astonishing $75 trillion.

The industry association asked for the maximum statutory damage of $150,000 for each of the 11,000 infringed works specified in the lawsuit, a claim the judge described as absurd.

"We are pleased to have reached a large monetary settlement following the court's finding that both Lime Wire and its founder Mark Gorton are personally liable for copyright infringement.

"As the court heard during the last two weeks, Lime Wire wreaked enormous damage on the music community, helping contribute to thousands of lost jobs and fewer opportunities for aspiring artists," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), according to CNET.

However, it's unlikely that RIAA's legal success will have any real long-term impact on gnutella P2P file sharing traffic. It's true that following LimeWire's shutdown, file sharing activity levels plummeted, however, people are slowly discovering a program called FrostWire which is built on the LimeWire source code.

FrostWire was forked from LimeWire in 2004, in anticipation to legal action froom RIAA against Lime Wire. It was designed to provide an open source alternative in case LimeWire closed down and that's exactly what it currently does.

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Windows 8 Form Factors from Microsoft, and Next Gen Subscription-based PCs

Sometime toward the end of 2010, I don’t remember exactly when, I was chatting with a few Microsoft employees in one of the company’s headquarters, and I remember saying what a great idea it would be if customers could rent Windows 7 computers instead of buying them.
Everybody around the table agreed that the concept could work for both end users and businesses. Granted, the employees I talked with weren’t top company executives, but I don’t doubt even for a second that subscription Windows machines have been at least considered by the software giant’s top dogs.

Meanwhile, Google will start selling the first subscription based Chromebooks in approximately a month.

For business customers the Mountain View-based search giant will offer netbooks powered by Chrome OS at $28 per month, including a web-based management console, support, and the guarantee that the hardware will be replaced at the end of the refresh cycle, some odd there years.

Considering the explosion of the IT-as-a-service trend the move makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is Microsoft not even piloting such a business model for its volume customers, especially since it could simply expand Software Assurance licenses to also include hardware, as an added benefit.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s another of Google’s moves that the Redmond company should “use as inspiration,” namely branded form factors.

Microsoft relies heavily on its OEM partners to sell Windows, especially since over 80% of the operating system’s revenue comes from copies of the platform preinstalled on new machines from original equipment manufacturers.

Still, if the success of iOS and OS X devices is any indication, the software giant’s partners are not really all that capable of tackling Apple.

Google showed the world that it’s very much possible to work together with OEMs but also provide your own product on top. Microsoft should also expose this strategy.

Windows 8 offers an excellent opportunity as far as I’m concerned to see some Microsoft branded next generation form factors hot store shelves.

Thinking back to the Zune devices, it’s clear that success is relative, but it’s also a measure of the company’s commitment and investment.

Microsoft touts choice as the core philosophy of the Windows device ecosystem. Well, it’s time for the company to also allow customers the option to choose Microsoft branded devices.

The software giant can reserve the privilege of building products tailored especially to the consumer base of rivals Apple and Google. A tablet, a PC, a laptop, a netbook and a smartphone, all running Windows 8 and designed specifically to win back the users that strayed.

Wouldn’t this be a better idea than waiting for OEM partners to stop the growth of Google and Apple on the emerging form factors market?

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BottomFeeder 4.6 Review

Offline newsreaders are useful for reading news when Internet access is not available. Particularly when you're looking to actually read them instead of browsing through titles. BottomFeeder is such a tool,with one clear feature in mind: geeky simplicity.
Installation

Installing Bottomfeeder is not a complicated procedure. After downloading the archive file from Softpedia, unpack it and then run ./bottomFeeder bottomFeeder.im within the unziped directory.

Running the executable opens a BottomFeeder window with a three panel view: a feeds tree, an item list and the item viewing window itself. The fonts and menu aspect make BottomFeeder look more like ten years ago. Thankfully, at least the font size can be changed from System->Settings → User Interface → Text size and the style from the “Stylesheet” menu entry.   Be warned: simplicity is the 'language' BottomFeeder uses. The closest you'll get to something less “terminal” lookalike is the “Lookout” stylesheet. Personally, I'd recommend using it... unless you're in a particularly geeky mood.

Us, RSS addicts enjoy knowing what other people's newsreaders look like, so reading through the predefined feeds BottomFeeder comes with can be quite a treat. BottomFeeder supports .opml files, so you can use the import button from the “File” menu to add your saved feed sources.

It loaded all my feed sources from the file in a folder tree view in the left panel. Coming from a Google reader background, the easiness off adding/removing/renaming folders is refreshing. Simply right click on  any folder to add/rename or move a folder.

The Good

If you enjoy simplicity, BottomFeeder also includes some potentially useful plugins alongside the console looking news reader. The plugin menu comes with a blogging tool, BottomLine, but also with what I call “entertainment” plugins: MSN, IRC and a consistent list of classic games (remember Minesweeper?).

Bottomfeeder allows for tabbed news browsing. This can be useful when you need to have multiple feeds opened  at the same time. It also uses syndic8 to discover new feeds based on a subject that you've typed in. You can do that either by going to Feeds → Feeds auto-discovery, or by accessing the right click pop-up menu on any feed. Unfortunately, BottomFeeder 4.6 refused to do anything when adding a query so we weren't able to actually check how this feature works. It'd be great to hear if you managed to get this feature going.

As a short guideline for BottomFeeder, the easiest way to know what this software allows doing and what features it has, is to use the right click pop-up menu on any folder, feed or item. You'll soon discover that a particular feature of BottomFeeder is that it organizes your searches in feeds. Just go to Items → Search BottomFeeder to define a search.

The Bad

BottomFeeder for Linux doesn't display images. Quite often it doesn't display accompanying text neither, so you'll end up with bits of a news entries or an actual empty blog entry whenever trying to view an article with pictures. Also, it takes a while for a feed to load. And this isn't particularly attractive when most of us are used to instant news updates.

Unfortunately, BottomFeeder can't handle special characters such as “ș,á ” making it difficult to read blogs in non-English languages. Aspect wise, the actual thread pane is lacking in margins for most stylesheets. It would be much easier to read if it had some margins.

Conclusion

Unless the BottomFeeder team considers us Linux users know-it-alls, I was a bit disappointed to see that the documentation for a Linux installation is absent in both the online or downloaded documentation files. This leaves us plenty to look for in future releases, particularly since the existing documentation is written in a rather friendly and careful style.

Personally, I train myself to close my browser when I write. It helps me stay focused. If you're like me, offline news readers are a good way to stay in touch with the world while keeping away from all the distractions. The simpler the better.

But, unfortunately BottomFeeder does not exploit its potential to the maximum. Image browsing and special characters shouldn't be an issue in this day and age. And, let's not forget the looks. Seriously, it's like an application from early 2000.

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Totem Movie Player 2.32.0 Review

Long gone are the days when users had to search for a balanced media player that could do most tasks without any hassle. We're used sifting through at least a half a dozen software programs before we can find a suitable player, and even have two of them installed in the same time, each complementing the other ones shortcomings.

Installation

It’s hard to find faults with Totem Movie Player, its success being based on a solid performance and stability. Sure, maybe some of the younger and not so savvy audience doesn't know what Totem is, but if you’ve installed Ubuntu then you've most probably used Movie Player (for some reason Totem is not in the name), albeit not at its full potential.

So, Totem Movie Player is the default movie player in Ubuntu, but it can run on any OS that uses the GNOME desktop environment. It used to come in two separate versions, one based on GStreamer multimedia framework and the second one based on Xine. After GStreamer introduced the ability to play encrypted DVDs, the developers stopped supporting the Xine version, although it can still be found and installed from Ubuntu Software Center.

The stable version and the one tested by us is 2.32.0, but users can also install 3.0.0, which has become the new stable version.

If by some freakish accident you no longer have Totem Movie Player installed, getting it back is rather simple. Just open the run command dialog (Alt+F2) and type sudo apt-get install totem-gstreamer. For yum-based distributions the command is sudo yum install totem and for portage-based distributions is sudo yum install totem. After installation, Totem Movie Player can then be found in the Sound & Video menu entry.

Features

You mustn’t be fooled by the simple interface because the power resides in the wide base of plug-ins, a few of them even being provided by default, although most of them are rather useless.

The first thing users notice is the smooth integration with GNOME, manifested in small nuances like thumbnails, while browsing in Nautilus (through a plug-in though).

Sure it plays all kinds of format like avi, flv, mkv, mp3, ogg etc, but it also provides support for DVDs, users getting the same access to chapters, root and play options exactly like a simple DVD player. Even more, it can also play encrypted DVDs which is much appreciated if you are a movie fan and have lots of original discs at home. Totem also has support for m3u, asx, SMI and shoutcasts files.

Preferences

Files can be maneuvered in a simple playlist attached at the side of the player, with easy access to shuffle, repeat and other similar commands from the right click menu, including volume control. You need to access Edit > Preferences > General in order to enable play from last point and automatic loading of subtitle files.

In the next tab, in the Edit > Preferences > Display menu, there are further options, this time to enable deinterlacing, to disable the use of screensavers during playback (not sure why this is not default, without an entry in the Preferences menu), and to resize the window according to the resolution of the video.

In the Edit menu there's also an entry for important plugins. A few plugins are already installed, but only one is of some use. The Subtitle Downloader, for example, sounds great on paper, but the implementation is faulty and it's not making use of the subtitle repositories out there.

Good and Bad

Even if Totem Movie Player is lightweight and easy-to-use, it's also lacking in features. If it wasn't offered by default in the Ubuntu distro, it probably wouldn't make its way on to many computers.

First off it doesn't has any settings for audio and video. There's no bass, treble or boost control, and nothing like color, contrast and brightness settings. Everything has to be done right from the system, which is not such a great method.

Secondly, subtitles cannot be adjusted, except for the font and encoding. There is no time sync, color or any other feature for that matter.

On the positive side, the player can be used on displays connected to TV-out or other monitors, and everyone will be able to just open it and use it, without trying to figure out its features or how everything works.

Conclusion

Totem Movie Player is a good player, but not a great one. If we factor in the existing features and the lack of needed features, the sum is not in its favor. The only thing that's keeping this player above all others are its amazing stability and the ability to play almost anything. Know this: there are better and nicer media players out there, but if you're contented with what Totem is offering, there is no need to replace it

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Sabily 11.04 Is Based on Ubuntu 11.04, Has Unity

The Sabily developers proudly announced the immediate availability for download of the new and improved Sabily 11.04 operating system.

Dubbed Al-Badr, Sabily 11.04 is now based on the recently released Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system and features the new Unity desktop interface. The release includes lots of new applications and various system improvements.

"The Sabily team is proud to announce the release of the new version of Sabily 11.04, codename Al-Badr." - was stated in the official release announcement by the Sabily developers.

Highlights of Sabily 11.04:

· Based on Ubuntu 11.04;
· New artwork;
· New GDM theme;
· Unity 2D available on the DVD edition;
· Classic GNOME session enabled by default;
· New Firefox Persona.

Sabily 11.04

The following application were added in this release:

· islamic-date: a Firefox/IceWeasel extension to displays Hijri date;
· zakat-calc: provides zakat calculations for Muslims;
· gufw: a graphical user interface for the Ubuntu firewall, ufw;
· desktopnova, replacing wallpaper-tray;
· autoKey: an utility to avoid typing of frequently used words;
· recordmydesktop: a software to record desktop sessions;
· anki: an extensible flashcard learning application.

Sabily 11.04

The following features were borrowed from the Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) release:

· Linux Kernel 2.6.38 (with the "wonder 200 lines" patch included by default);
· Unity interface;
· Firefox 4 web browser;
· LibreOffice office suite (replacing OpenOffice.org);
· Banshee media player (replacing Rhythmbox).

Sabily 11.04 also includes Gnome Nanny, the popular parental web control software. In order to add blacklists to Gnome Nanny you can follow the instructions provided by the Sabily team on the release announcement.

About Sabily

Sabily is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution intended specifically for Muslims. It comes bundled with a number of dedicated applications like Quran study tools and prayer time notifications. Sabily also comes with great support for the Arab language and with an Islamic calendar.

Download and try Sabily 11.04 "Al-Badr" right now from Softpedia. It's free!

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Puran Defrag Free Edition

Whether you like it or not, defragmenting your hard drives, at least from time to time, is a necessity on all Windows systems. Puran Defrag has been created as a dedicated solution to defrag the data on the hard disks and prevent future performance drops.

The landscape for disk defragmentation software has definitely changed a lot in the past years when it was quite a task to find a good application to keep the files contiguous and thus maintain the performance of the storage device at optimum standards.

Puran Defrag comes in two flavors, one paid ($19.95) and a free one, which is the object of this review. Feature-wise, there is no gap between them as they both allow you to run the optimization procedure on lower priority or defrag individual files. Moreover, both have support for command-line usage.

Actually, as the developer mentions, the two versions are one and the same, except that you have to pay the fee for commercial use. Otherwise you have to restrict its benefits for private and non-commercial usage.

Installation runs quickly and with no fuss at all and at the end of the process you can choose the application to start automatically.

The interface is clean and simple, with few menus, but it makes available all the necessary options for quick, efficient optimization runs. In the main screen there are listed all the drives available to the system together with details like size and amount of free space.

The options at hand include analysis of the selected drive, defragmentation and boot-time defrag choices. For the latter there is the possibility to combine multiple actions, such as defrag operation preceded and followed by a system restart/shutdown or disk checking.

If you want the optimization session not to affect your work on the computer you can enable it to run in low priority mode. This will assign the minimum of system resources to the process and will require more time to complete, but you will be able to work on the system without its performance being compromised in any way.

Unlike other defraggers out there, Puran sports only one defragmentation method, which can be tweaked with additional operations in order to get the desired result. Thus, you can instruct the program to fill gaps between the files in order to prevent future fragmentation, place directories on the fastest section of the disk for quicker access or reserve free space on the faster tracks of the disks for Windows’ temporary data.

Furthermore, the application brings its own optimization algorithm, PIOZR (Puran Intelligent Optimizer), which moves frequently used data to the faster areas of the disk in order to improve performance.

Exceptions can be set so that the application skips data according to their size or you can add specific files to be overlooked during the optimization process.

Automating the defragmentation procedure, both regular as well as during boot-time, is also a possibility. You define the parameters and when the operation should start: when the screensaver kicks in, system is idle for a specific period of time or after a user-defined period of time.

Feature-wise Puran Defrag meets all the standards required to carry out an optimization procedure. The settings are presented in a different form, but their effect is the same as in any first class free defragger.

The results of our tests showed that it can do well on drives in poor health. We faced it against a 2GB drive with 10% free space available and a fragmentation level detected by Puran at 92%. Other defraggers were in slight disagreement with this fragmentation degree and would give 92.2% or go higher, at 97%. Regardless of this, they all fell in with the amount of fragmented data and showed the same files and number of fragments they were split into.

It managed to up the performance of the said drive to 84.5% by reducing file fragmentation to 1%. However impressive this may sound, in order to reach this outcome we needed to insist with the optimization procedure nine times.

Despite the positive results, because of the total amount of time required to obtain them and the effort of initiating the procedure every few minutes (that’s how long a run takes to complete) Puran Defrag does not come as the easiest to use in its area of expertise. As such, unless you have the time to waste, for heavily fragmented drives we would recommend a different solution, one capable to achieve the same outcome in fewer sessions.

On the upside, the program achieved its purpose and showed it can handle difficult jobs successfully. This means that the ordinary Joe would be satisfied with results on a less fragmented storage device.

The Good

It is easy to use and installs with minimum effort from your part. There are few settings to tinker with and all of them are extremely easy to access thanks to the minimalist interface.

It can handle regular defragmentation jobs with no problem, delivering improved performance, but heavily fragmented data is also dealt with successfully, even if there is as little as 10% of space available.

The Bad

We do not totally agree with filling in the gaps between the files since this would improve free space analysis results but files would continue to be fragmented.

The Truth

Puran Defrag Free Edition is a great solution for the average user as it can up the performance of your drives with little effort and time. High fragmentation levels are brought down to a minimum even if there is little free space on the drive, but you may find that tackling this task is time consuming and requires plenty of effort.

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