Archive for: November 13, 2007

micro Torrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint micro Torrent was designed to use as little cpu space and memory as possible while offering all the functionalites expected from advanced clients With BitTorrent you can download files faster and contribute by sharing files and bandwidth
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Changes in micro Torrent Version 1 8 Beta build 6102 2007 11 13
Feature Support for file URLs
Feature Use RSS feed title as alias if available
Feature Last Active column
Feature Use RSS feed TTL value if available
Feature RSS title parsing available for all torrents in main window
Feature Codec parsing from title
Feature Smart episode filter will download repack for most recent episode with rss smart_repack_filter
Feature More support for http web seeds including support for torrents with multiple files torrent creation with web seeds and changing web seeds on the fly via torrent properties
Feature Elapsed time column
Feature Program start time in statistics window
Feature Improved hashfail banning system special thanks to the Azureus devs for describing their method
Feature Faster resume after a crash does not re check finished or flushed files
Feature Support FAST extensions
Feature Basic auto download setup available while adding RSS feeds
Feature Metadata extension
Feature Support s search term and v version identifier in search engine list
Feature Support btsearch files to add to search engine list
Feature support for relative paths with torrent files
Feature Improved uTorrent UPnP mechanism Should map correctly on routers that only send NOTIFY packets uses XP API where functional and maps UDP port now too
Change User Agent for web usage ...

micro Torrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint micro Torrent was designed to use as little cpu space and memory as possible while offering all the functionalites expected from advanced clients With BitTorrent you can download files faster and contribute by sharing files and bandwidth
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ChangeLogs 2007 11 13 Version 1 8 alpha build 6104
Feature Support for file URLs
Feature Use RSS feed title as alias if available
Feature Last Active column
Feature Use RSS feed TTL value if available
Feature RSS title parsing available for all torrents in main window
Feature Codec parsing from title
Feature Smart episode filter will download repack for most recent episode with rss smart_repack_filter
Feature More support for http web seeds including support for torrents with multiple files torrent creation with web seeds and changing web seeds on the fly via torrent properties
Feature Elapsed time column
Feature Program start time in statistics window
Feature Improved hashfail banning system special thanks to the Azureus devs for describing their method
Feature Faster resume after a crash does not re check finished or flushed files
Feature Support FAST extensions
Feature Basic auto download setup available while adding RSS feeds
Feature Metadata extension
Feature Support s search term and v version identifier in search engine list
Feature Support btsearch files to add to search engine list
Feature support for relative paths with torrent files
Feature Improved uTorrent UPnP mechanism Should map correctly on routers that only send NOTIFY packets uses XP API where functional and maps UDP port now too
Change User Agent for web usage is now quot ...

AnyDVD is a driver which descrambles DVD Movies automatically in the background This DVD appears unprotected and region code free for all applications and the Windows operating system as well With AnyDVD 39 s help copy tools like CloneDVD Pinnacle Instant Copy InterVideo DVD Copy etc are able to copy CSS protected Movies You can remove the RPC region code thereby making the movie region free and viewable on any DVD player and with any DVD player software With the help of AnyDVD you can watch movies with non matching region codes with every DVD Player Software you like
AnyDVD is capable of removing unwanted movie features including subtitles and prohibition messages such as copyright and FBI warnings It also allows you to launch an external application whenever you insert or remove a disc or prevent 39 PC friendly 39 software from automatically launching when you insert a video DVD AnyDVD decrypts not just DVDs AnyDVD allows you also to play copy and rip protected Audio CDs
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Changes in version 6 1 9 8 2007 11 12
New HD DVD amp Blu ray Support for all MKBv4 titles requires internet connection
Note It is possible that the AnyDVD update server may be shortly unavailable during the beta test phase
New Blu ray AnyDVD ripper copies BD titles
New Blu ray Removed quot BD not supported quot warning as all available BD titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD Reports indicate that burned BD titles work on PS3 and standalone players as well
Note to Twentieth Century Fox As you can see BD didn 39 t offer you any advanced security it just annoyed some ...

System Mechanic reg 7 Professional is five complete products in one integrated package everything you need to keep your PC safe fast and error free Fix problems boost performance eliminate crashes defend against spyware viruses and hacker threats and much more Use one centralized system dashboard to automatically perform all vital PC maintenance
More than just Internet security System Mechanic reg 7 Professional is a complete solution for PC protection system optimization and trouble free maintenance You need more than just security software to keep your PC running right Without regular internal maintenance even the best protected PC will suffer problems and eventually grind to a halt System Mechanic reg 7 Professional contains all of the tools you need to defend against threats and also keep your PC running smooth fast and healthy from the inside out

The New York Times has a profile of Bonnie Brown, a former in-house masseuse for Google who, like everyone else employed by the company, makes far more money than you. In 1999, the recently divorced Brown answered a help-wanted ad with the start-up.

For $450 a week she provided stress relief for the 40-person staff. The company also sent her home with stock options--a nice sentiment, but let's face it, how often are start-up stock options worth the paper they're printed on?

After five years, Brown cashed in her options, left the gig, and retired as a millionaire. Now 52, Brown lives in Nevada and is shopping her book, Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.

The company's stock, which hit $700 a share last week, has made an estimated 1,000 employees more than $5 million each.

[Photo courtesy of The New York Times.]

Time to show my (advanced) age: Kids today have it so easy! Back in my day, when it came time to apply for college, you had to get individual forms from each school you were interested, on paper, and fill them out by hand, individually. Real overachievers might have pulled out the old IBM Selectric and typed on the form.

Now they can apply for school from their favorite social network.

Today, Embark, uh, embarked upon a venture in a new venue: FaceBook. High school students can add the Embark FaceBook tool by clicking Applications and searching on "College Planner." Embark president Adam Park says they can use it to see school information and what schools their friends are interested in--and to fill out their application to send to multiple schools simultaneously.

Of course, these things aren't groundbreaking, but they do make for a unique combination. For example, Academia Group's Skool Pool is a FaceBook app for discussing your favorite seats of higher education. And the Common Application for Undergraduate College Admission has been around for years--since 1975. As of 2006, all Common Application member schools accept the app online (via CommonApp.org). That's great, but a lot of schools still require some supplemental materials be filled out. And the two don't work together.

Embark combines the application process, where it can, with the social networking aspect. It's been doing something similar to CommonApp.org for over a decade, mainly for colleges that double as clients--Embark's main business is selling software to school admission departments to track kids from first inquiry all ...

Google's no stranger to the wide world of Web lawsuits, but for the most part, their legal confrontation are usually handed down from other media and tech companies or wacky users. The latest suit comes from a more unusual source--an American University.

Boston's Northeastern University is suing the search company for patent infrigment. Filed last Tuesday, the suit claims that Kenneth Baclawski, one of the school's professors, is the rightful owner of key aspect of Google's search technology.

According to MediaPost, "Baclawski was awarded patent No. 5,694,593, 'Distributed computer database system and method, 10 years ago, but reportedly didn't become aware of the allegation that Google's search system violated his patent until two and a half years ago, when approached by a Boston law firm."

Google isn't buying it, however. "We believe the complaint to be without merit based upon our initial investigation," said company spokesman Jon Murchison.

CloneDVD Mobile converts your DVD movies quickly and easily into a format that your mobile equipment Sony PSP Apple iPod Video iAudio X5 Creative Labs ZEN Vision etc can play You can also convert your DVDs to other file formats such as DivX XviD AVI MP4 etc With CloneDVD mobile you can put your favourite movies or TV series on your mobile video equipment and watch them wherever and whenever you want Let the kids watch their favourite cartoons in the car Incorporating the user friendly interface of Elby 39 s CloneDVD and the well engineered open source project FFmpeg as the conversion engine makes CloneDVD mobile a fast easy to use and quality product that is very reasonably priced Copying a DVD to your mobile video machine is achieved in a few mouse clicks and without the need to rip it to your hard disk Note that copying protected DVDs also requires AnyDVD
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Features of CloneDVD Mobile
bull Convert movie DVDs to play on mobile video equipment like the Sony PSP Apple iPod Video iAudio X5 Creative Labs ZEN Vision etc
bull Convert movie DVDs to other file formats like DivX XviD AVI MP4 etc
bull Utilises a high quality picture conversion engine
bull Supports multi angle movie DVDs
bull Video Preview shows an overview of all selectable DVD titles
bull Target size freely adjustable
bull Supports chapter trimming
bull Very easy to use Our unique Filmstrip assistant will guide you step by step through all settings easy for beginners
bull Picture snapshots while converting
bull Logging window available
bull Stable fast and does not require an ASPI driver
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Version 1 1 5 5 beta 2007 11 12...

Acronis True Image 11 Home offers you improved point in time backup strategy It has user friendly interface and the ability to bring your machine back online even if it has crashed and is unbootable Acronis True Image 11 Home is an easy to use affordable backup and restore solution for home and home office users that can protect family pictures videos music and important documents stored on your home PC It helps make certain that you are adequately protected ensuring that you can recover your data in case the machine fails or your computer hard disk is damaged by a virus
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What 39 s New in Acronis True Image 11 Home
Backup
Try amp Decide Create a temporary safe place on your hard disk where you can perform changes to your system that otherwise might not be advisable such as installing new software downloading files from the Internet or opening e mail attachments If the operations are successful you can apply those changes to the real system or discard the changes as you wish
Exclude Files and Folders from Image Backup Save space when creating backups by ensuring that you are not backing up the information you don t want to keep
Backup your system state Registry boot files as well as important system files from system crashes
Automatic catalog of all your backups Easily locate your archives as system automatically remembers their placement
Raw Images support for other partitions and corrupted file systems
Recovery
Message level Outlook restore Quickly locate and recover your important messages from mail backup
Search and explore archives Easily search for and recover particular files from all your known backup archives
Preserve files and folders during restore Make sure your ...

Trillian is a multi network chat client that currently supports IRC AIM ICQ MSN and Yahoo Messenger It supports all of the features you rsquo ve come to expect from a good IM client including but not limited to docking multi line edit boxes buddy alerts multiple connections to the same medium a powerful skinning language easy importing of your existing contacts skinnable emoticons logging ldquo global rdquo away invisible features and a unified contact list It is completely free with no nag screens or built in ads

So, SnoCap's BoomShuffle just launched today, and as I'm writing a post about it, a press release hits my inbox saying Mixaloo is leaving its beta days behind and launching for real. Mixaloo lets users create "digital mix tapes" (what we nowadays call "playlists") from its catalog of tracks...that's just what BoomShuffle lets you do!

One of these apps just entered public beta today, and one just left public beta today. Only they're mixed up--the BoomShuffle beta is exceedingly easy to use and relatively bug-free from my experience. Mixaloo needs a bit more time to iron out the kinks, tho (they could start by removing the beta tag BEFORE sending out the press release saying they're not in beta anymore).

Ok, so here's the rundown of Mixaloo: Make your "digital mix tape" (hereafter referred to as "playlist"), embed a commerce link for it on your social network profile, blog, or Web site, and Mixaloo will pay you a percentage everytime someone purchases your playlist.

So, you get paid $$ for your playlist. So far that's Mixaloo 1, BoomShuffle 0. And that's where Mixaloo's scoring stops. BoomShuffle has a MUCH (much, much) bigger catalog of available tracks to pull from. BoomShuffle's search is much better--Mixaloo couldn't find The Arcade Fire or The New Pornographers when I searched on "Arcade Fire" and "New Pornographers." (!!) BoomShuffle is easier to use. BoomShuffle didn't pop up an error message every 30 seconds. And, from the user side, listening to your own or your friend's BoomShuffle playlist is free...they arent trying to sell anybody anything. (Although BoomShine does include a commerce ...

There's an ongoing conversation among comics reviewers about the value of publishing comics on the Web. The most obvious benefit is the potential exposure that the Web provides--for up-and-coming creators too green to start thinking about book deals, the move is a no-brainer. Perhaps it's something of a generational thing, but the conversation inevitably comes down to the actual experience of reading comics on a computer screen.

More and more, works are being designed specifically for the Web. One of the major reasons that the strip format is growing in popularity is that it's easier to read a few panels at a time on a screen than to get through an entire issue, or god forbid, a story arc.

When works that were created to be consumed in book form go online, things get rougher. It's the literary equivalent of trying to surf the Web on your phone. The layouts just don't look right, and there's a lot of scrolling involved. I was discussing the matter a few weeks ago with a fellow comics reviewer; she said that after taking an informal survey of our peers, she discovered nearly everyone would rather receive a comic in book form or even as a galley (a paper-clipped preview of the book) than as a PDF.

That said, it's tough to argue with free. Marvel Comics, the home of Spider-Man and the X-men--and arguable the most popular publisher in the medium--has announced plans to republish original issues online.

Several years ago, the company re-released a good chunk of its back catalog in thick anthologies on low-quality black-and-white paper. The Essential books all carry $16 price tags and ...