ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2008
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Welcome to the 483rd issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news highlights and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!
You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments.
Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php
I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I got a digital picture from my sister for Christmas. We finally got around to selecting some pictures and setting up the frame tonight. There are all sorts of options of how to play the slideshow and what transitions to use. It plays pictures and movies, and accepts a variety of memory formats. It looks good.
I had a strange experience the other day while I was out for a walk at lunch. I had my headphones on and was walking along listening to the podcast of 60 Minutes when a police officer waved their arms at me to stop. She came up to me and asked for my name and birth date. I told her and then asked why, and she said because I matched the description of someone they were looking for. I thought, "Yikes!" but she let me go. As I left, she said, "You're not going to kill yourself, are you?" I laughed and said, "No" and she let me go. Weird!
Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net
Windows Vista, Office 2007 Expelled From British Schools
The agency that governs educational technology in the United Kingdom has advised schools in the country to keep Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system and its Office 2007 software out of the classroom and administrative offices.
"Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended," said the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, also known as Becta, in a report issued this week.
Becta officials said a study the group commissioned found that upgrading school systems from Windows XP to Vista and Office 2007 would increase costs and create software compatibility problems while providing little benefit.
What Does a Falling Dollar Mean for Tech?
A weak dollar may not be all bad news for the tech sector.
The value of the U.S. dollar has been sliding for more than 36 months, monitored dolefully by observers who recall the years when the dollar was the rock-solid underpinning of the global economy and are not used to the U.S currency's chronic weakness.
Yet not all view the effects of the falling dollar as negative, especially within the tech sector.
"A weak dollar can be good-technology is a big exporter, so this makes their products fare well in international markets," Carl Steidtmann, chief economist with Deloitte Research, told eWEEK.
Some argue that any impact that the greenback's value has on the tech economy is a long way off, noting its diminishing role in international markets.
Jobs wows the faithful; Wall Street is underwhelmed
Steve Jobs gave it his best, delivering a new must-have gadget called the MacBook Air, deals with a full house of compliant Hollywood studios, and more bells and whistles on his existing products and services in a 90-minute speech than most technology companies do in a year.
But Wall Street was not impressed; shares of Apple got hammered, falling more than 10 points during the course of the keynote despite the impressive sales figures Jobs rattled off: 4 million iPhones, 5 million copies of the Leopard operating system, 4 billion songs, 125 million TV shows, 7 million movies.Read the Fortune Magazine (via CNN Money) article...
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Steve Jobs' Video Dreams
At last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, most of the 140,000 attendees were buzzing about the future of the cell phone-and how Apple Inc. (AAPL) had stolen the spotlight by announcing the iPhone at its own Macworld conference. But this year, the hot topic at CES is the future of video entertainment, and there's a lot less fear in the air about what Steve Jobs may have planned. "I have great admiration for Steve," says Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts. "But I also like cable's position as the video leader. We offer more movies, TV shows, and video content than anyone else-and we intend to expand our position."
It's a sign of the challenges ahead for Jobs & Co.
Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:
Paragon Software Group Hard Disk Manager 2008
http://PCIN.net/help/software/paragonhdm2008.phpAdobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/photoshopEL5_Premiere3.phpExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.phpParagon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.phpUpdate PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/
Shell Tools - free shell extensions and utilities from Moon Software
I've reviewed Password Agent from Moon Software before. I recently noticed they have new utilities called Shell Tools:
Shell Tools is a collection of free Windows shell extensions and utilities. This package contains updated versions of our old shell extensions FontLoader, FileNote, RegisterEx, CopyURL and new ones, including nice control panel that allows you to control all the extensions in one place.
I've installed the tools and depending on the folder you are in, it gives you right-click (context) options to:
- Copy Filename
- Filenote
- Show Hidden Files
- FontLoader
- CopyURL
- RegisterServer
The Moon Software Shell Tools page does a great job of explaining each one. It also shows some screenshots.
More free PDF tools
A couple of years ago the only option for creating or modifying PDFs was to purchase Adobe Acrobat. These days there are lots of free utilities that let you create your own PDFs and manipulate them. I've previously covered PDFCreator, CutePDF, and doPDF.
The Reader to Reader section of the December 2007 issue of Windows IT Pro magazine mentioned PDFTools 1.3. I haven't tried it, but the site explains it this way:
PDFTools is a PDF management application. It can encrypt, decrypt, join, split, stamp, create and rearrange a PDF file.
Version 1.1+ includes a very powerful and simple to use XML to PDF converter.
Also, Download Squad recently mentioned a different utility called PDF Split and Merge. You can use the utility to extract pages from a PDF, break up a PDF into sections (a 100-page PDF can be made into 5 20-page PDFs), or merge multiple PDFs into one file.
Need a pronunciation tip? Ask Howjsay
Download Squad linked to this neat site in early December:
How often have you started arguing with a friend over the correct pronunciation of a word? You know, the kind of word that you read all the time, but suddenly realize you've never heard spoken out loud. Well, before you beat your friend to a bloody pulp, you might want to check out howjsay, an online pronunciation dictionary.
Howjsay is simple, yet effective. You type in a word and if it has the word, it will highlight it in pink on a new screen and you'll hear how to say it. If they don't have the word, it will bring up words that are close to the spelling.
Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check them out from time to time for updates:
PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying the tips in this newsletter.
Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2008, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php