Ashampoo Photo Commander 6.5 (free download)

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Get Rid of DSL and Go Wireless

When it comes to gadgets, there’s only one hard and fast rule: If it has a wire today, it won’t have that wire tomorrow.

Even things you wouldn’t expect — yes, someone actually is working on wireless electricity — will probably one day be wireless.

You may think of your wireless router as, well, wireless. But of course it’s not, it needs the DSL or cable telephone land line to actually connect you to the rest of the world.

Today your internet has a wire. Tomorrow, it probably won’t.

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Thoughts on the (iTablet) iPad- Connectivity, apps, Multitasking, integrating with Macs

A couple of thoughts I had last night (written on 13.01.2010) about interfaces, the current state of development for the iPhone OS, how Apple could build a hybrid of Mac and iPhone OS, and how the company could build multi-tasking into its rumoured tablet. My thought were the following:

a. A new category: I don’t think the iTablet, if it exists, will be either a Mac or an iPhone. My super-superficial reason: it doesn’t fit in the Mac line-up depicted on the online Apple Store (see pic), but a more underlying reason is that I don’t see space for it in either a Mac-category or a Mobile phone/media player category. Which is not to say that it won’t do either well, but I think it will more fall into the class of Netbooks, though of course with the purpose of bombing those low-tech, low-innovation devices out of the water… just like Apple did with MP3 players and with Phones. Note from today: as it turns out, the iPad is depicted below the iPod, iPhone, and Mac lines, but time will tell where it will be once it’s on sale.

b. The Keyboard: I think that any 10″ screen will demand more connectivity to secondary (Apple) devices than the iPhone allows for. That means, an external keyboard and mouse, which transforms the tablet into a desktop. I have less complaints about the software-keyboard now, after working with a Touch for a while, but I still don’t see it as an alternative for longer texts, which a larger screen would warrant. Some months ago, I made a stupid mock-up of the iPhone + a keyboard (see pic), which is how I envision it looking (only better).

c. The App Store: 3 Billion Apps downloaded, Apple just reported, which also suggests a kind of lock-in. For better or worse, developers have accepted the App-store and I think it works for several reasons for both, namely more protection from pirates, more predictability for developers when developing for the black hole that is Apple, and more control by Apple, which is what Apple likes, not to mention new income streams for both. I think the App Store will continue to exist and will present new challenges when talking about a larger screen. Note from today: I don’t believe that what we will get to see in less than two months will be that what people were playing around with after the Apple keynote. iPhone apps inflated to a larger screen, come on?

d: The User Interface:  Previously, OS X also introduced Dashboard into Tiger (I believe), whose interface, on the surface at least, resembles the iPhone. My view is that Apple will give developers the option to just keep the same resolution apps as they have offered before, though not exclusively of course. But imagine “Quick Looking” an app and still having it run inside its “Icon,” while the user does something else. For the rest, I of course think that full-screen Apps will exist, which is where Dashboard comes in, or at least a type of Dashboard. (Note: that was wrong. More below.)

e. Integration with the Mac: One of the most underused interfaces, at least on my Mac, is Dashboard, which allows people to have continuously open widgets on anything from news, to games, to radio, to system monitoring. It’s useful for those purposes, but not really something i spend more than a few minutes at a time with. Yet the first thing that came to mind when thinking of a “Tablet,” using both iPhone and Mac interface components, was Dashboard. It creates a new layer on top of a traditional desktop, allowing for user-input and information display. When I envision someone running the apps that would work on the “iTablet” also, I think of it either being that you open up a new layer on your Mac and run the very same apps on it through something like a Dashboard-like interface. Or, and the simplest solution is usually the best, through having the Tablet sync through iTunes with regular applications on the Mac.

Note from today: well, obviously this was wrong, but there have been several theories aired of having a type of Dashboard on the iPad for apps like calculator and weather, which don’t at all make sense to run in single focus on a larger screen than the iPhone.

Further thoughts from today: I do think that we will see a new OS update for both the iPhone and iPad before the release of the iPad. This will address the concerns that people have about it just being a larger iPod Touch. For the rest, to me the only downside to this device is the lack of a front-facing camera for video-calling, and some minor things. And I also think it’s the perfect “parent device!” What the Wii was to gaming, the iPad is to computing, addressing a very very blue ocean.

As previously stated, I’m still in line to get one this year, though only after trying one first

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Pirate Movie Privacy Case Set For The Supreme Court

Should copyright holders be allowed to get the identities of Internet users behind an IP-address for private prosecutions, or should that ability be left solely with the police? That’s the key question behind a pivotal hit movie camcorder case which is set to move amid an unusual amount of secrecy to Norway’s Supreme Court.

Released in 2008, Max Manus is a Norwegian World War II movie based on the real-life events of resistance fighter Max Manus. Created at a cost of NOK 55,000,000 it was the most expensive Norwegian film production to date.

Shortly after the movie’s 19th December release date an illicit copy of the movie appeared on the Internet. According to producer John M. Jacobsen the recording was made in an empty theater, prompting suspicions that a projectionist was involved.

“I think this is totally reprehensible, and I wish we knew who is behind it,” Jacobsen told Norwegian media. “Anyway we will go after those who have done this quite mercilessly. There are ways to track these things down.”

An investigation was immediately launched by the Filmkameratene studio, to be handled by the Simonsen law firm with notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel at the helm. Technicians went to work, systematically going through every copy of the movie sent out to find a match – that meant checking 103 analog and 20 digital copies.

Their detective work paid off. Simonsen said they had not only tracked the correct copy but also identified the IP-address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet. They took the information to the police but were notified that the case would not be a priority for them. Simonsen responded by taking the case to the courts.

Simonsen, a law firm which since 2006 had held a license to monitor alleged pirates and collect their IP-addresses, demanded that the ISP connected with the IP-address hand over the identity of the subscriber, something it had thus far refused to do. The request had the support of the Norwegian telecoms authorities which in this case made a special exception to the country’s Privacy Act, enabling the person’s identity to be handed to a group other than the police – if the court agreed.

On May 5th 2009, Simonsen received the decision from the court but the verdict was kept a secret from the public. Espen Tøndel said this was to prevent the possibility of evidence being spoiled. This lack of transparency caused an uproar, with thousands of Internet citizens demanding to know the verdict in this important case. Many argued that if there was evidence to be spoiled, it would’ve been spoiled by now.

Today in 2010, the verdict is still a mystery to the public, but at least one of the parties is disappointed with the court’s decision.

“I can confirm that the case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I can not confirm which of the parties has submitted the appeal, as that may indicate what the results were in the previous hearing,” said movie industry lawyer Rune Ljøstad.

The Supreme Court will now have to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.

Despite the leak, Max Manus did incredibly well in Norway, breaking all records. Its 2009 theater run yielded almost NOK 200 million across 1.16 million tickets and the DVD sold 400,000 copies in the same year. From recording a loss in 2008, movie company Filmkameratene made a profit in 2009.

“There is a dramatic change for the better for us in 2009,” said producer Sveinung Golimo. “So we are not now concerned about the future.”

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Open source disk tool UltraDefrag hits version 4.0

If you haven’t heard it mentioned before with other disk defragmenters, UltraDefrag is a solid open source alternative to tools like MyDefrag and Auslogics’ Disk Defrag.

Ultra Defrag is packed with functionality, offering whole disk defragmentation and optimization, file and folder defragging (via your right-click context menu), boot-time defragging, and scheduled jobs. The boot-time job allows UltraDefrag to take care of locked system files like pagefile.sys and your registry hives, which are locked while Windows is running.

While UltraDefrag v4.0 isn’t the project’s first major release, its developers consider this to be the first ‘non-beta’ due to past issues with reliability. The new version is fast, and after testing it on three different Windows 7 systems (including x64) those problems seem to have been fixed.

Downloads are available for both 32 and 64-bit Windows versions, and both an installer and portable option are provided.

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IbarraReal font download for Windows Users

IbarraReal is a public-domain font of Ibero-American character, created in 2005 as a revival of the types cast by Jerónimo Gil for the Royal Spanish Academy’s edition of Don Quixote, printed in Madrid by Joaquín Ibarra in 1780. Its elegant design mixes tradition and modernity and is a genuine badge of Spanish culture.

Download details IbarraReal font download

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Cisco adding iPhone app for voice-over-Wi-Fi

Cisco Systems Inc. plans to add voice-over-Wi-Fi capabilities to its existing iPhone app by April, part of a continuing effort to expand its unified communications technology into the mobile space.

The current iPhone Cisco Mobile app requires users to have a Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage server installed at a business. The server is usually administered by a company’s IT department.

Cisco Mobile already gives iPhone users quick access to many of the standard Cisco IP features, such as visual voicemail and Mobile Connect, software that can route calls from a work number through a company’s phone switching network and then out to an iPhone. The iPhone client software is free.

Cisco sees voice over Wi-Fi for the iPhone as a less expensive way to communicate because it would eliminate the need to use cellular voice minutes when placing a call in a Wi-Fi zone, said Laurent Philonenko, general manager of Cisco’s unified communications business unit.

The upcoming version, to be called Cisco Mobile Voice, will also be free and is expected to be available by April. Among the new features it will offer is “shake to lock,” which allows a user to end a call with a simple shaking gesture of the phone, he said. Another, named “call preservation,” allows a phone call to stay connected, even if a user opens a different application in the iPhone.

Cisco is also developing another iPhone application for voice-activated dialing. That app can be launched by bringing the phone to the ear and speaking, since the iPhone’s accelerometer detects the movement. It will be part of the Web 2.0 IP Telephony Widget.

Philonenko spoke to reporters in Boston and other cities from San Jose, Calif. via videoconference and was joined in Madison, Wisc., by Pat Scheckel, vice president of converged infrastructure solutions for CDW, which resells computers and related gear to businesses.

CDW, which has 3,500 customer deployments of Cisco’s mobile and unified communications technology globally, has already worked with one manufacturing company that has implemented voice over Wi-Fi using Nokia smartphones and Cisco 7925 IP phones, Scheckel said. “They had exorbitant cell phone bills and now just use Wi-Fi,” he noted.

Philonenko said it is important for Cisco to bring its mobility apps to iPhone, which has gained ground in large businesses in the past two years. Cisco eventually plans to bring all of its mobility applications to Nokia and BlackBerry devices, and, later, Android phones, he said. “Android is not yet a big factor in the enterprise ,” he said. “And we think Windows Mobile will re-emerge….

“The iPhone came from nowhere and companies like CDW are now deploying them by the thousands,” Philonenko said. With smartphone devices proliferating, cell networks seem to have saturated the globe, “but there’s still not enough 3G bandwidth for what people want to do.” As a result, Wi-Fi is seen as a relief valve, raising the value of voice over Wi-Fi, he added.

Cisco, which offers Webex collaboration software as well, is tracking the growing importance of social networking, Philonenko added. “Everything we do [at Cisco] is going to be mobilized,” he said.

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$459 Million Worth Of iPhone Apps Pirated Till Date

The success of iPhone and the App Store has spawned a new bunch of entrepreneurs who now earn their livelihood developing applications for iPhone users.

With close to 135,000 iPhone apps on the App Store today, the revenues made from the App Store constitute a very significant chunk of income not just for the app developers but for Apple as well. 

Back in September of last year, Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research had estimated the revenues from the App Store to be between $240 million to $440 million a year for Apple. The sale of iPhone apps also brought a cumulative revenue of nearly $560 million to $1 billion to the developers. Since then a lot of things have changed – The number of iPhone apps downloaded have nearly doubled to 3 billion today. Also, with in-app purchasing enabled, the revenues the developers stand to make from their apps is much higher.

However, this only constitutes the tangible part of the app economy. As with the producers of any other digital content like music or video, iPhone app developers too have been victims of piracy. An analysis conducted by the folks at 24/7 WallSt reveals the extent of impact that piracy has been causing to these small time app developers. According to their study, there are nearly 7.5 million jailbroken iPhones in the world today and close to 40% of these devices make use of pirated software. 

In their study, the authors point out that paid applications have an average piracy rate of 75% which would mean that the total value of pirated apps today stand at $4.59 billion. Conservatively assuming that only 10% of these users would have actually purchased the app in the absence of piracy, the revenue lost comes close to $459 million.

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Important Windows Dates

Even though February is the shortest month of the year, it is by far one of the busiest for announcements!

With the end of support (EOS) coming for several products, moving to Windows 7 and utilizing the many features built into the product can help you achieve a more secure and compliant platform for your users, reduce your help desk costs, and increase performance and reliability for your end users. Here are some key dates to remember:

March 1, 2010 – Windows 7 RC pre-expiration shut downs begin.
Beginning March 1, the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will start to shut down every two hours in preparation for its expiration on June 1, 2010. That means you will need to migrate your RC systems to a released to manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7; or your previous operating system. Remember to back up all your data as either option will require a clean installation. For more information, read this post on the Windows Team blog.

April 13, 2010 – Support for Windows Vista RTM ends.
To help ensure your Windows Vista PCs stay secure and up to date, make sure they are running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Service Pack 2 (SP2).

July 13, 2010 – Support for Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000 ends.
If you are running Windows XP, stay more secure by moving to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) or migrating to Windows 7.

Updating your Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista–based PCs before the end of mainstream support dates will ensure that your PCs stay supported and receive security updates. Migrating to Windows 7 provides the longest support lifecycle for your organization, helping to ensure protection, support, and timely updates.

For more information, visit our new End of Support center when it goes live later this month at www.microsoft.com/eos. Need more time to test your application and hardware compatibility in Windows 7? If so, the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial provides a great opportunity for you to finish critical testing with a full version of Windows 7 Enterprise.

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LG Shows How To Play Pirated Movies On TV

Some of the newer LG TVs have USB support, allowing consumers to hook up an external drive to their screen in order to view photos, listen to music, or enjoy a movie. In the manual that comes with these devices, LG doesn’t try to hide the most popular use for this feature as they show customers how to play a pirated movie.

Using pirated films as promotional material to sell consumer electronics is nothing new. The John Lewis store has used aXXo rips to sell iMacs in the past and Saturn, Europe’s largest retailer of consumer electronics, showed pirated films to sell Macbooks.

In these previous cases the pirated films were only on display in the stores, but the multinational electronics company LG takes it a step further. The company is selling TVs that have the functionality to accept a connection from an external USB device. This allows customers to enjoy pictures, music and videos directly on their TVs, all with a piracy endorsement from the manufacturer.

In the packaged English language manual, LG does not try to obfuscate the true purpose of this nifty USB feature – playing pirated movies. In the picture below, LG included pirated versions of The Incredibles and The Aviator, while explaining how easy it is to play the films directly on a TV.

LG seems to understand perfectly what customers want, but we doubt that the movie studios will be very excited about this piracy endorsement from the Koreans. Whether the pirated films were included intentionally is unknown, we expect that a company employee simply downloaded the movies off a file-sharing service out of habit or convenience.

Life’s Good isn’t it?

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