Friday, June 29, 2007

ACDSee Pro 2.0.174 Beta

ACDSee is the essential application for acquiring, organizing, viewing, enhancing, and sharing your digital photos and other media files. ACDSee's Browser lets you copy photos from your camera to your computer, categorize and rate your files, and manage photo collections of any size - from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand. Choose to view thumbnail previews of any size, or use a detailed list of file properties to sort your files. Can't find a particular photo? No problem - ACDSee includes a variety of powerful searching tools and a Compare Images feature to eliminate duplicates. ACDSee's full-featured image viewer and media player quickly generates high-quality displays of your images and media files. You can run slide shows, play embedded audio, and display multiple-page images in any of the more than 50 image and multimedia file formats. Also, ACDSee includes a wide variety of image editing tools you can use to create, edit, and touch-up your digital images. Use tools such as red-eye reduction, crop, sharpen, blur, and photo repair to enhance or correct your images. Image management tools, such as exposure adjustment, convert, resize, rename, and rotate, can be performed on multiple files at the same time. The user interface is completely customizable, and provides quick access to tools and features. You can customize the screen layout, the order of images, toolbar display, and many other options to suit your preferences. ACDSee contains extensive context-sensitive Help to assist you as you move through the application. ACDSee Pro Photo Manager is a fast, powerful, and easy-to-use image management system that everyone from beginners to professionals can use and enjoy.

New in Public Beta:

- Works on Windows Vista
- Processing and viewing images is faster than ever, and has been optimized for performance on multi-core processors.
- Better demosaicing and white balance.
- Images can be rotated and cropped in a single step.
- Quickly reapply RAW processing settings like White Balance and Exposure by copying and pasting.
- Export RAW images to multiple image formats and resolutions in a single step.
- RAW Image Proxies can now be generated in the background. This makes browsing and viewing and zooming RAW images much faster.
-Export to PowerPoint allows you to export images directly from ACDSeeinto a PowerPoint presentation. The arrangement of images isconfigurable as are the image captions and slide titles. This featureworks with PowerPoint (2000, 2003, or 2007) and more...

Note:ACDSee Pro 1 and ACDSee Pro 2 Beta can run side-by-side. Therefore, ifyou have ACDSee Pro 1 installed, there is no need to uninstall itbefore installing the ACDSee Pro 2 Beta. ACDSee Pro 2.0 Public Beta anduse it free. Application expires when beta test period ends September30th, 2007.

Home Page

Dell's New Mobile Workstation

Dell is revamping its high-end workstation line with a notebook that will include Intel's new Centrino Pro platform and enhanced graphics technology from Nvidia. The Dell Precision M4300, which debuted on the Round Rock, Texas, company's Web site June 27, is immediately available and is the eventual replacement for the M65 workstation notebook. In addition to the Centrino Pro platform and the latest Core 2 Duo processors, the M4300 will take advantage of Intel's TurboMemory, a feature that allows applications and data to be stored in a NAND-based flash memory cache, which enables the laptop to boot faster. The notebook also uses Intel's vPro technology—a series of management and security features that are built into the platform.

In addition, Nvidia's Quadro FX 360M graphics chip set gives the notebook 100 percent better graphics performance than previous offerings, said Mano Gialusis, a product marking manager for Dell's workstations. The enhanced graphics ability will allow Dell to pursue high-end customers and creative professionals.

eWeek

Google Desktop for Linux

Google Inc. plans to launch a Linux version of Google Desktop on Wednesday, almost three years after the product's launch for the Windows operating system. The application, designed for indexing and finding data in PCs, as well as for searching the Web, also comes in a Mac OS X version, introduced in April of this year.

Like the Mac OS X version, Google Desktop for Linux is a beta, or test, product. The Windows version shed its beta tag already, meaning Google considers it a more stable and mature product. At this point, Google Desktop for Linux does not feature the Sidebar and Gadget features present in the Windows version. Gadgets are mini-applications that display things such as e-mail, weather data, photos and news on the desktop. The Sidebar is a vertical panel where the Gadgets can be organized.

PCWorld

Thursday, June 28, 2007

7-Zip 4.48 Beta

7-Zip is a file archiver with the high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, CHM, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB formats. Compression ratio in the new 7z format is 30-50% better than ratio in ZIP format.

The main features of 7-Zip

* High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
* Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
* For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
* Self-extracting capability for 7z format
* Integration with Windows Shell
* Powerful File Manager
* Powerful command line version
* Plugin for FAR Manager
* Localizations for 63 languages
Changes:

- Encryption strength for .7z format was increased.
- Now it uses random initialization vectors.
- Some bugs were fixed.

Home Page

DriverMax 2.5

Easily back up all your drivers (for later use or when planning to reinstall Windows)!

DriverMax is a new program which allows you to easily reinstall all your Windows drivers. No more searching for rare drivers on discs or on the web or inserting one installation CD after the other. Simply export all your current drivers (or just the ones that work ok) to a folder or a compressed file. After reinstalling Windows you will have everything in one place! Most of the situations when Windows is running slower are caused by faulty driver installations. Windows stores all versions of older drivers just in case you want to go back; sometimes it messes up older versions with more recent ones. The Export Wizard will only export the drivers you select by copying the needed files to a folder or a compressed ZIP file. After reinstalling Windows all drivers will be back in place in less than 5 minutes - sparing you of searching, inserting disc after disk and losing precious time. The Import Drivers wizard allows you to install all the drivers that you exported earlier. The entire operation might take up to 5-10 minutes.

Just one single computer restart will be required after all drivers are reinstalled!

DriverMax is able to display a complete report of all drivers (versions, release dates) installed on your system. This feature can also be very useful when you want to analyze the differences between the drivers installed on different machines.

DriverMax Home Page

GPLv3 upgrade on Friday

A controversial update to the GNU GPL (General Public License) is set to be released Friday by the Free Software Foundation, a representative of the organization said on Tuesday. GPL version 3 is arriving 16 years after version 2 of the license for open-source software. Questions remain, however, about who exactly will adopt it. Among improvements is a copyright technology not found anywhere in the world with the goal of providing uniformity in different jurisdictions, said Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer for the foundation.

"There's a lot of copyright laws that talk about distribution, but they don't mean the same thing," in different places, he said. "Now, GPL talks about propagation and conveying," Smith said. With this new provision, the terms are the same everywhere worldwide, he said. Version 3 also works to ensure that users can modify software installed on personal computers or in household devices. If software is conveyed inside a device, users must be given enough information so they can modify the software in the device, Smith said.

InfoWorld

RealPlayer Beta Allows Video Downloading

The growing popularity of video on the Web has prompted RealNetworks Inc. to launch a beta version of its RealPlayer software that allows users to easily record and download videos to their PCs. The software, RealPlayer version 11, can be downloaded free, the company said Tuesday. With the new version, users can surf the Web and select clips or longer videos by clicking a "Download this Video" icon that pops up whenever they view video content. Videos are downloaded in the background, allowing users to view the content not only at their own convenience but also on the full screen of their PCs.

The full story

Laptop HDDs with 320GB Capacities

Two makers of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) platters for hard disk drives (HDDs) said recently they had started to produce platters with leading capacities that enable creation of 1TB hard drives for desktops as well as up to 320GB drives for mobile computers.

Both Fuji Electric Group and Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) this week said they had begin shipments of 334GB platters for 3.5” hard drives as well as 160GB platters for 2.5” HDDs to their customers. The 334GB platters are already utilized by Samsung’s SpinPoint F1 hard disk drives, but unfortunately it is unclear whether 160GB platters are already used by the companies’ customers.

The full story

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

hMailServer - open source e-mail server...

hMailServer is a free, open source, GPL-licensed e-mail server for Microsoft Windows. It supports all the common e-mail protocols (IMAP, SMTP and POP3) and comes with an easy-to-use COM library that can be used for integration with other software. It also has support for virtual domains, distribution lists, antivirus, antispam, aliases, distributed domains and much more. E-mail data is stored in a database server, MySQL or MS SQL, depending on your choice.

The hMailServer installation contains a minimal MySQL-installation, so if you don't already have a database server in your network, MySQL is installed automatically when you install hMailServer.

The current released version is hMailServer 4.4 and 5.0 is under development.

More @ hMailServer.com

Samsung 940UX USB LCD Monitor

With many manufacturers coming up with innovative new ways to make everything they can USB (even surround sound speakers are coming in USB now!), there are some things like our monitors that we may not have thought about in this fashion yet. Samsung isn't leaving this stone unturned for much longer, with the new 940UX monitor finding it's way onto the market. What makes this monitor different? Alongside the D-Sub and DVI connectors there's also a USB connector, giving the monitor full 2D USB functionality, eliminating the need to have a video card to power one of these displays. These displays are far more practical than you may think off hand, so it's time to read on to see just what this new product is all about!

More @ Here

Akasa Power+ iQ 650W Power Supply

Akasa have made a good name for themselves in the computer PSU market with their PaxPower series. While Akasa mainly offer fans and other computer modding parts, their first entry in the PSU market was a success as the PaxPower units were not only powerful but also exceptionally silent. Akasa recently revised most of their units and increased the number of models they offer. Today we will take a look at one of their new units, the Power+ iQ P650FH 650W unit. It has four 12V lines and boasts a load of features. Through the review we will try to find out if this particular unit can live up to the Akasa’s hard earned reputation throughout enthusiast circles.

Manufacturer specifications

  • nVidia SLI certified
  • Full range 650W (710W peak) ATX 12V 2.01 & EPS 12V
  • 4 x 12V rails giving safe optimised power distribution
  • Dual PCIe connectors
  • 24 pins EPS connector with detachable 4-pins for ATX version
  • Active PFC with 96% efficiency
  • 80mm 2 ball bearing long life Sanyo Denki fan
  • Efficient twin fan cooling with ‘straight through air flow’ design
  • Built-in bronze heatsink enhancing heat dissipation
  • Anti corrosive satin black coating
  • UL 240VA safety approval
  • Full safety approvals and protection

Icemat Siberia In:Ear Headset Review

With the VOIP market, online gaming, and MP3 players becoming all the rage, aftermarket headsets are becoming more and more popular. ICEMAT is a company based out of Denmark that is know for making some kick ass headsets with their ever popular Icemat Siberia Headset. Today we are going to look at another one of ICEMATS headset, the Icemat Siberia In:Ear Headset. Will the Icemat Siberia In:Ear Headset be as good as their Icemat Siberia Headset or will they be just another ho-hum headset on the market. Stick around and find out how they pair out.

MODFRENZY

Seagate Announces two new 1TB Drives

Seagate has unveiled two new hard drive lines that both offer a maximum 1TB capacity: the Barracuda 7200.11 (consumer) and the Barracuda ES.2 (enterprise). Expect both to arrive sometime this quarter and note that Seagate prices the consumer 1TB HDD at an MSRP of $399. As with other Seagate drives, the new Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2 come with five year warranties.

Seagate packs the 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 with 32MB of L2 cache, SATA 3.0Gbps and native command queuing support. The Barracuda 7200.11 makes use of four 250GB platters with second-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology. The company claims the new Barracuda 7200.11 can sustain a 105MB/s data rate and only draws 8-watts during idle as well as 11.6-watts during seek. Acoustically, the Barracuda 7200.11 generates around 27-to-29 decibels of noise during idle and seeking tasks. Seagate also offers the Barracuda 7200.11 in 750GB (three platters) and 500GB (two platters) sizes with the same 32MB buffer and PMR technology.

Seagate’s new Barracuda ES.2 models are offered with serial attached SCSI, or SAS, interfaces. Seagate has also raised the MTBF rating of the Barracuda ES.2 to 1.2 million hours, up 200 thousand hours from the previous Barracuda ES.

DailyTech

Google logs half of all US searches

Overall, Americans are searching more than they did a year ago: queries have increased by 11% since 2006.

Google, the only search engine among the top five to gain market share, logged more than half of all search queries last month. Research firm comScore recorded 7.6 billion search queries in May, 3.9 billion of which were made from Google, giving the search engine a 50.7% market share. The figure is a 1% increase from April, when Google claimed a 49.7% market share, and an increase of more than 3% since the start of 2007.

Yahoo saw its market share drop from 26.8% to 26.4%. The firm has seen its share of the search market fall by more than two per cent since the beginning of the year. Time Warner's search services, which include former net giant AOL, dropped from 5% to 4.6% in May. All other search engines combined accounted for 3% of all queries. Of the top five search engines only Microsoft's saw its share of the market remain constant, logging 782 million queries last month and giving the company 10.3% of the US market.

vnunet

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

DVD Flick 1.2.1.4

DVD Flick is a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take several video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. DVD Flick is Open Source, meaning that anyone can download and view or modify the program's source code. It also means that it is absolutely free of charge. Several external programs are used by DVD Flick to do the dirty work like encoding and combining of video material. All of these programs are free, some are Open Source too. Supported file container formats are, amongst others, AVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, ASF, FLV, Matroska and MP4. Supported codecs are amongst others, MPEG-124 (XVid, DivX, etc.), Windows Media AudioVideo. MP3, OGG Vorbis, H264, and On2 VP56. For a full list of supported container, audio and video formats, see http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC20

Changes in version 1.2.1.4

- Added: Improved support for MPEG type container files.
- Added: Option to specify the amount of threads FFMPEG uses. This is set to the number of logical CPUs by default. Multi-core and (less so) HyperThreading CPUs will get a significant speed boost from this when encoding video.
- Added: Detects iTunes DRM encrypted files and says they cannot be encoded.
- Added: Options to select what should be done when a title has finished playing, as well as whether or not to loop the DVD's playback.
- Added: Option to force re-encoding of MPEG2 video even if it looks to be MPEG2 compliant.
- Added: Option to change encoder process priority during encoding.
- Added: Option to force a subtitle to be displayed.
- Added: Better support for interlaced file sources.
- Changed: It is no longer possible to combine video sources together into one title which are not of equal width, height, framerate and compression.
- Changed: errorlog.txt is generated with all the other encoding log files' most important info in it and more.
- Changed: Folder deletion before encoding starts now only deletes files that could be generated by the encoding process and only looks in the DVD subfolder. Also the warning is made much more agressive.
- Changed: Progress dialog for more application layout consistency.
- Changed: Removed audio adjustment options for simplification. Option to force encoding to stereo or mono might return if there are requests for it.
- Changed: Adjusted disc sizes.
- Changed: Audio encoding bitrate is raised from about 64 Kbps per channel to 96 Kbps.
- Changed: Removed Panavision aspect ratio and rewrote video scalingresizingpadding calculations.

DVD Flick Home Page

SharkTorrent 0.1.7 Beta

SharkTorrent is an open source C++ BitTorrent client for all platforms supporting c++, libtorrent, WxWidgets and boost library. That is at least Windows 9x, 2000, XP most Linux/Unix OS-es and Mac OS. So far, SharkTorrent has only been compiled and tested on Windows XP, Debian Linux 4.0 and Wine with Debian.

Changes:

- User can now control wheter DHT will be started or not.
- Lot of stats about each torrent are now displayed.
- Main window status bar shows lot of session stats.

SharkTorrent

Google To Acquire GrandCentral

Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we’ve learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price.

The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.

Tech Crunch

Friday, June 22, 2007

Gom Player 2.1.6.3499

GOM is a freeware media player that supports many features for advanced users who desire to watch video files at the best quality.

Features of Gom Player:

- GOM Player supports most of the condecs (AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, and plus more) by its own embedded codec system that you won't have to look for appropriate codecs every time when you can't play a certain video format.
- GOM is also able to play incomplete or damaged AVI file by skipping the damaged frames. And it can also playback Locked Media Files while downloading or sharing (with real-time index rebuilding under certain condition: AVI downloading in consecutive order).
- GOM also supports HTTP Streaming ASF/OGG/MP3/AAC/MPEG PS/MPEG TS: Only work with internal splitters).
- GOM also support its own skins, Subtitle, Overlay Mixer features,Optimized buffer for streaming Automatic ASF source filter,Keys Remapping, Superspeed/High Mode, Enhanced Filter Rendering and full-Unicode.

This release has the following changes:

- works without skin information file (skin.xml)
- properly plays VoxWare audio using Gretech ASF Source 2
- fixed a bug where keyboard shortcut settings weren't saved properly
- fixed screen size issue in VMR7-Renderless mode
- supports H.264 video codec for HDTV files (TS)
- fixed a bug where the video title wasn't displayed correctly
- smaller application window when launched
- supports DAVC video codec
- other minor bug fixes

GOM Player Home Page

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

F-Secure BlackLight 2.2.1064 Beta

F-Secure BlackLight Rootkit Elimination Technology detects objects that are hidden from users and security tools and offers the user an option to remove them. The main purpose is to fight rootkits and all kinds of malware that use rootkits. The F-Secure BlackLight Rootkit Elimination Technology works by examining the system at a deep level. This enables BlackLight to detect objects that are hidden from the user and security software.

* F-Secure BlackLight can detect and eliminate active rootkits from the computer. Traditional antivirus scanners can't detect active rootkits.

* On a normal system F-Secure BlackLight does not confront the user with a long list of suspected objects. This makes F-Secure BlackLight useful even for non-technical users.

* F-Secure BlackLight Rootkit Elimination Technology can be used in the background during normal system operation. Other available scanners require a reboot during scan or may produce false positives if the system is used during scanning.

F-Secure Home Page

InfraRecorder 0.43.1

InfraRecorder is a free open source CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

Main Features

- Create custom data, music and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical compact discs or disc images.
- Create and record disc images.
- Create direct disc copies, on the fly or by using a temporary disc image.
- Erase (blank) rewritable discs using four different methods.
- Import session data from multi-session discs and append more sessions to that kind of discs.
- Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from beeing added to the disc).
- Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect detailed information about their capabilities.
- Display detailed disc information.
- Read and save audio and data tracks to files (wav. and .iso)
- Scan selected tracks for errors.

Environment

- Modern customizable Windows Explorer like interface.
- Drag and drop files from the explorer view of the program and Windows Explorer to the project view.
- Uses different poject view layouts for different type of projects to make the users work easier.
- Features a separate express application designed to guide the user to the most essential tools as quick and easy as possible.
- Fully translatable interfaces for the main application, express application and the shell extension.

Explorer Integration

- Integrates with explorer and adds new shell context menu options.
- Record saved projects and disc images.
- Open and edit saved projects.
- Highly customizable, can be displayed in a submenu and with or without menu icons.
- The shell extension can be registered with any file extension that the user wants.

InfraRecorder 0.43.1 Changes:

* Updated the cdrtools to version 2.01.01a26.
* Included a Finnish translation, thanks to Rami Aalto!
* Removed the error message related to ckEffects.exe.
* Improved the erase feature with support for more recorders.
* Fixed a bug causing the size and position of the main window not to be remembered.
* Fixed a bug causing the explorer view to turn white when double-clicking on a folder in the explorer list view (Windows XP only).
* Improved the program log functionality.
* Fixed a bug making it impossible to import sessions from certain disc types.
* Improved the explorer view performance. Expanding anything under "My Computer" in the tree could on some systems result in a long delay because of slow queries to floppy drives.

Note: TheInfraRecorder installation package does not include the plug-inneededtoencode MP3-files due to patent license restrictions. This doesnotaffect all countries. Visit this page to download the sources or binaries.

InfraRecorder Home Page

Windows Live Bug - Door for Scammers

Microsoft Corporation has fixed a bug in its Windows Live ID registration that let users deceptively register a false e-mail address. The false e-mail address could then be used as an ID for Microsoft's Live Messenger program, which could trick a user into thinking they are chatting with someone who is not whom they appear to be. Erik Duindam, a Web developer in Leiderdorp, the Netherlands, reported the problem to Microsoft on Monday. Microsoft acknowledged it had fixed the bug but did not have further information on the flaw's impact.

It's unclear how long the flaw may have existed or how many accounts with deceptive instant messenger IDs could have been created. If a user attempts to create a Windows Live ID, Microsoft sends a confirmation e-mail to the e-mail address entered by the user. Without confirmation, Microsoft includes a warning with future messages sent by instant message, which appear as: fake@emailaddress (E-mail Address Not Verified).

However, accounts created over the weekend with fake e-mail addresses were still active as of Tuesday and carried no such warning. Microsoft should try to shut down the fake accounts as soon as possible but it could be difficult, especially if Microsoft was not aware of the flaw and can't track the spoofed accounts. An attacker could use the flaw as part of a social-engineering ploy, where users are tricked into doing something that puts their machine at risk. Users could be tricked into thinking they are talking to someone they trust.

PC World

Dell - Selling Unlocked Mobile Phones

Dell seems just as interested as anyone else in terms of the ultra-high-end mobile phone market. The world's second largest PC-maker is using its online store to sell Nokia mobile phones which are completely unlocked, meaning the devices will work with just about any GSM carrier in North America. Currently, Dell the following contract-less Nokia phones: Nokia E61 for $383.40, Nokia E61i for $423.77, Nokia N80 for $447.78 and Nokia N95 for $736.53. Dell's pricing on the phones is competitive with boutique vendors, but generally more expensive than the imported devices listed on eBay. However, since the phones are available through the Dell Small Business website, coupon codes and bulk purchasing will bring deep discounts for the prudent technophile. At this time, Dell does not carry any other brand of unlocked phones.

DailyTech

AT&T quietly offers $10 DSL plan

AT&T Incorporated has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, cheaper than any advertised plan. The DSL plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corporation approved last December. The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, confirmed spokesman Michael Coe. Local phone service and a one-year contract are required. The modem is free.

On the AT&T Web site, a page describing DSL options doesn't mention it, but clicking a link for "Term contract plans" reveals the new offer. It's also presented to customers who go into the application process, Coe said. The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching the speeds of the cheapest advertised AT&T plan. The agreement with the FCC required the company to offer the plan for at least 2 1/2 years. Another concession to the FCC is yet to come: a plan for DSL that doesn't require local phone service. AT&T has another six months to introduce that option, which should cost at most $19.95 per month.

MSNBC

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Gizmo 3.1.2.291

Gizmo Project uses your internet connection (broadband or dial-up) to make calls to other computers. With the click of a mouse, you’re connected to friends, family, and colleagues anywhere on earth. It’s just that simple. You talk clearly. For as long as you want. For free. And with inexpensive add-ons like Call In and Call Out, you can talk to any telephone–mobile or landline–on the planet. Any phone? Yes.

Feature Details :

1. Sound effects - Add Sound Effects to your calls. Open the Dialpad at the bottom of Gizmo Project window and press the emoticon button during a call. You can choose other sounds (or upload your own) from the options menu.
2. Check call quality - Click for the Call Quality Assitant to see bandwidth quality.
3. Online status. Gives the current status of all your contacts.
4. Click Map It to view map of call locations. Get a detailed map of the location of each call.
5. Instant Messaging (IM) - Chat instantly with your contacts.
6. Person being called receives call subject. Let them know immediately the purpose of your call.
7.You can record any call on your Gizmo Project phone with the click of a button. The call record button is in the active call window, next to the mute and hold buttons.
8. Type in Gizmoname or number here to make a call. Gizmo to Gizmo call always free. Youcan also call any traditional phone using Call Out.
9.GizmoProject3 offers meta-voice capabilities, enabling freecalling toYahooMessenger, Google Talk, Windows Live, and GizmoProjectusers. GizmoProject 3 can now call more users for free thanany other VoIPservice. [ view all features ]

Gizmo Home Page

Apple iPhone delivers up to eight hours of talk time

Apple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours-more than 10 days-of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.

PRNewswire.com

Monday, June 18, 2007

MyPhoneExplorer 1.6.0

Connect your Sony Ericsson phone via cable, bluetooth or infrared and you'll be surprised how easy and efficient you can manage your phone with this compact software.

Features:

* Adress book
* Organizer with calendar view
* SMS - archive, export, import, excessive messages,...
* File browser with cache system to minimize data transfer...
* Set phone clock based on atom time
* Handle your calls via PC
* And much more. e.g.: call lists, edit profiles, phone monitor,...

Change log:

* Photo-Sync: full featured transfer of your mobile-photos to PC
* ImageWizard: easy fix the size of pictures for optimal display on phone
* direct, bidirectional calendarsync with Google
* calendarsync for iCal files now up to 15 files possible
* New filterengine for calendarsync
* support of multi-addressbooks for Thunderbird
* Optional connection to Zip-Code-Database - avaiable for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Liechtenstein and Norway
* Google-Maps integrated
* better SMS and Contactview
* Playlist-Editor (only if suppported from phone)
* Direct printing for SMS and Contacts
* automatic MultiSync if connection to the phone is initiated
* Own window for Reminders and missed calls
* adapted for new models (f.e. W880i)
* fixed many bugs

Home Page

WinHTTrack 3.41-3

HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.

Changelog WinHTTrack 3.41-3

+ Fixed: text/plain advertised files renamed into .txt
+ Fixed: broken configure.in

HTTrack Home Page

VideoLan 0.8.6c

VideoLAN is an excellent multimedia player with it's own plugins for playing different formats, so it doesn't need any codecs to be installed. It works great for previewing partially downloaded files too as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

Changes between 0.8.6b and 0.8.6c:

Various bugfixes, notably:
* Windows Vista compatibility
* Cropping in Direct3D
* Fullscreen change crash on Mac OS X
* RSS filter string overflow
* Few memory leaks
* MKV demuxer crash (related to seeking)

CDDA / Vorbis / Theora / SAP plugins:
* Security updates (VideoLAN-SA-0702)

Demuxers:

* Fixed a problem with detecting embedded subtitles (GAB2 format) in AVI

Decoders:

* Updated FLAC API compatibility

Input:
* Support for new v4l2 encoder API

Localisation:
* New localisation: Arabic, Persian

VideoLan.org

Friday, June 15, 2007

MessengerDiscovery Live 1.3.0321

MessengerDiscovery Live is a free Windows Live Messenger add-on. MessengerDiscovery Live adds extra features to Windows Live Messenger that are not included by Microsoft. You can tell which of your contacts have deleted you, imitate your contacts, remove advertisements and protect your custom emoticons. That's just the tip of the ice burg though, check out the features page for a full list of what MessengerDiscovery Live can do for you!

Features:
Advanced Contact Manager
- See contacts who have deleted you
- See Yahoo! contacts
- View contact MSN/Windows Live Messenger version
- Messages received count
- Messages sent count
- Message ratio statistic
- See the last message received and when
- See the last time contacts came online (since MessengerDiscovery was installed)
- See when contacts came online (since MessengerDiscovery was installed)
- Display picture stealing

Advanced Contact Functions
- Remove contact 'now playing' and personal messages
- Alert when a contact returns from away/busy/idle
- Alert when a contact comes online
- Alert when a contact goes offline
- Alert when a contact deletes you
- Alert when a contact adds you
- Alert when a contact opens a conversation
- Alert when a contact closes a conversation

Instant Message Tools
- Imitate your contacts (using command !imitate)
- Auto reply to certain messages (accepts wild cards too)
- Message holding while away/busy/etc.
- Conversation nick name
- Remove your 'is typing' message
- Flash scroll lock upon receiving message
- Always be shown as 'typing a message'
- Remove your 'is recording' message
- Stop window flashing
- Show IM window upon receiving a message
- Auto response to any message

Protection
- Block web links from un-trusted contacts
- Block application invites
- Block winks, nudges, custom emoticons and voice clips
- Profanity filter
- Message flood protection and more...

Home Page

AIMP Classic 1.77.6

AIMP Classic is a powerful audio player that allows you to listen to your favorite music with an outstanding sound quality. Its appearance resembles that of another classical audio player (Winamp), so you'll get used to it very quickly. It can also be customized with skins. The program includes a 18-band equalizer, a visualization window to display rhythmic visual effects and a playlist editor to organize your audio files. A nice fading effect makes your list of songs look like an endless music loop and a handy volume normalizing feature avoids drastic volume changes between tracks. Also, the player's main functions can be conveniently controlled by global hotkeys. Besides playing music, AIMP Classic features three extra utilities which also enable you to record any sound on your computer, convert audio files from one format to another and view or edit tags. AIMP Classic is based on the well-known audio engine BASS, so it's easy to connect new plug-ins (from the plug-in library included in the program) and expand the player's functionalities.

Home Page

SanDisk inks agreement to support DivX

DivX and SanDisk have announced a licensing agreement allowing SanDisk to include DivX technology in SanDisk's Sansa line of video-enabled products. As a result of the partnership, future SanDisk video products can include interoperability with the DivX Stage6 video website. This partnership is designed to provide SanDisk consumers with seamless access to the growing library of professional and user-generated video content available today in the popular DivX format, according to the companies.

Products that bear the DivX Certified logo have undergone a rigorous testing program to ensure a high-quality DivX media experience, including reliable video playback, interoperability with other DivX Certified devices and the visual quality users expect from DivX. SanDisk expects to announce plans later this year for DivX support in its product lines.

DigiTimes

Samsung Launches 70" LED-backlit LCD TV

With the retail launch of its new 70" LCD TV in Korea, the Samsung LN70F91BD forgoes the traditional CCFL backlight in favor of an LED backlight for improved picture clarity.

Also new to the TV is what Samsung calls "local dimming backlighting" – compared to traditional CCFL LCDs, an image displayed on the screen can range from maximum brightness (LEDs at full power) to complete darkness to produce true black (LEDs turned completely off). Samsung says that the use of the LED backlight gives the LCD TV a dynamic contrast ratio of 500,000:1 while power consumption is cut by as much as 50%. The LN70F91BD reportedly features ACAP, three HDMI 1.3 port and a USB 2.0 port. Samsung's 1080p 70" LCD TV is on sale now in Korea for 59 million won ($63,425 USD) and will be available worldwide during the second half of 2007.

DailyTech

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The Lord of the Rings Online first free content expansion...

Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online which only launched about two months ago has just gotten one of its first free "expansions" today. Launching around 2PM EST today, Book 9: Shores of Evendim greeted everyone as they happily patched the game up. Though the patch was quite large (about 600 megs or so), considering the amount of content included I doubt anyone complained much. Just taking a look at the three page long changelog and you can see how much stuff is here. Over 100 new quests, an entire new zone to explore (Evendim, with around 70 of the new quests) new armor sets, new deeds, monster play additions, character class changes (hear that Champions??), you name it - it'll probably be here.

Of course there are the usual bug fixes and game changes, way to many to list. Normally I would list some of the changes/additions etc, but not this time. There are just way, way to many. Turbine, known for giving lots of content away for free, did not waste much time with its newest MMORPG hit. Turbine has four (4) major content updates planned, Shores of Evendim being the first obviously. Just to compare, the new Evendim area is roughly the size of The Shire in the game.

Multiplayer Online Games Directory also has a nice interview up with Turbine, explaining what the update includes, the new raids available and monster play changes among other topics.

Multiplayer Online Games Directory Turbine Interview