Are Pocket Video Cameras A Dying Breed?

       

 As one-time owners of a Flip pocket video recorder, it
saddened us a bit when Cisco announced in mid-April
it’s killing its Flip division as part of a “comprehensive
plan to align its operations.” Cisco purchased the Flip
business from Pure Digital Technology in 2009 for
roughly $590 million. Cisco’s alignment, meanwhile,
includes an expected 550 layoffs by Q4. Although some
experts are calling for continued smartphone sales and
usage to eventually kill the pocket video camera sector,
that hasn’t stopped Samsung from releasing its waterproof
W200 Pocket Cam ($159), a 1080p model with
2.3-inch LCD and 5MP CMOS sensor, which also sports
a ruggedized, shock- and dust-proof exterior.

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Samsung & Apple Exchange Lawsuits

         

         We live in a sue-happy world, and Apple and Samsung aren’t immune. After Apple
filed a lawsuit against Samsung in April essentially alleging Samsung’s Galaxy tablets
and handsets copied the iPad, iPhone, and iPod, Samsung countered days later with
its own lawsuit. Apple’s lawsuit, which it filed in a U.S. District Court in California,
specifically cites 10 patent-infringement related charges against Samsung, with complaints
reportedly going so far as to read Samsung’s “copying is so pervasive, that
the Samsung Galaxy products appear to be actual Apple products.” Samsung’s
claim, meanwhile, doesn’t directly answer Apple’s claims but does seek “to protect
our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the
mobile communications business.” Coincidentally, as the Wall Street Journal quoted
Apple COO Tim Cook as saying, Apple is “Samsung’s largest customer,” buying its
chips, screens, and other components.

Thank to Computer Power User Magazine

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ECS Does The B3 Shuffle

        

For those who caught our reviews of ECS’s
Intel 6 Series-based P67H2-A Black Series
motherboard in April’s issue (page 63) and
the Black Deluxe Series P67H2-A2 board
in March’s issue (page 32), here’s an update.
ECS is now shipping new versions of the
boards based on the B3 stepping revision,
thus rectifying the Cougar Point chipset/
SATA 3Gbps port issue related to the B2
stepping chipset. Beyond displaying a B3
logo on the new boards’ retail boxes, ECS is
also slapping a B3 logo on the PCBs to avoid
confusion. ECS indicates the new boards will
feature the same hardware and specifications
as the previous boards, though various BIOS
issues are addressed via new BIOS versions.
ECS indicates on its global site that it will
“provide an equivalent new motherboard
replacement” for those who purchased
B2 boards beginning in late April.  

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What Do You Do With Your Tablet?

 

So, what are tablet owners doing most with their devices? According to a
survey of 1,400 U.S. tablet owners by Google’s AdMob, 84% are playing
games, followed by searching for information (78%), emailing (74%),
reading news (61%), social networking (56%), consuming music and/or
video (51%), and reading ebooks (46%). Interestingly, 28% now use their
tablets as their primary computers, while 43% spend more time with their
tablets than their PCs or laptops. Those last two percentages seem to jibe with
PC-shipment numbers IDC recently released, citing that Q1 2011 global
shipments sank 3.2% year-to-year to 80.6 million units from about 83.2
million, marking the first contraction in the global market since “the end of
the recent recession.” HP shipments dropped 2.8%, Dell 1.8%, and Acer
15.8%. Though “good-enough computing” is now a “firm reality, exemplified
first by mininotebooks and now media tablets,” IDC’s Jay Chou stated,
falling PC shipments are also tied to “extended PC lifetimes and the lack of
compelling new PC experiences,” stated IDC’s Bob O’Donnell.

Thank to Computer Power User Magazine

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Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite

Paragon’s hard drive management suite
includes some basic functionality
that would be useful for newbies (drive
backup, defragment, etc.), but it’s really
aimed at techies. Paragon Hard Disk
Manager 2011 Suite includes a library
of drive-related utilities, some simple and
straightforward and some complex and
potentially dangerous in the hands of
a neophyte.
Obviously, the suite will handle all
the day-to-day stuff: You can back up
selected files, a specific partition, or an
entire drive; wipe or defrag a drive; create
recovery discs; and clone a drive or a specified
partition. This is all stuff that other utilities
handle pretty well; the advantage here is that
Paragon has gathered all of the tools in one
place and provided an elegant UI that makes
them accessible and easy to use.
But Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011
Suite also provides some more advanced
functionality. Unless you’re a reseller or
technician, you’ll rarely need these tools, but
when you need them, you really need them.
The advanced tools include sophisticated
features, including tools that let you create,
format, delete, undelete, hide, or unhide
a partition; label a partition as active or
inactive; change drive letters or labels; and
convert file systems. You can also merge
partitions to consolidate disk space, or
redistribute a volume’s free space.
There’s also a migration tool that can
move Windows from a regular hard drive
to an SSD (even one of a smaller capacity
than the source drive), and a P2P Adjust
option that lets you plug an OS drive
from another system into a PC and
adjust that drive’s OS to the new hardware;
thus, you can quickly and easily migrate
both a drive’s OS and its other data.
If you occasionally find yourself with
complex drive-management needs,
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite
can help you address them.


$49.95
Paragon Software Group
www.paragon-software.com

Article From : Computer Power User Magazine
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Axonic Lookeen 2010 Professional

Google Desktop Search, Windows
Search, and Copernic Desktop Search
have all flourished because “searching is
easier than filing.” And when you have
thousands of files and tens of thousands of
emails hanging around, it’s easy to see how
this argument makes sense. Microsoft’s
Outlook, however, seems especially prone
to letting you save emails (and tasks, and
appointments) that are tough to find, even
with a built-in Search feature, because
its search results generally lack context
and filtering the results takes too long to
keep up with your thinking. Lookeen 2010
Professional solves this problem (and others),
though it doesn’t exactly look attractive.
Lookeen adds a new toolbar to your
Outlook window, along with a Taskbar
Tray icon. From either spot, just type in
something you’re looking for (some words
from an email or someone’s name) and a new
window instantly pops up with email headers
 and dates on the left and the email’s contents
on the right. Simply moving the mouse over
the headers instantly displays the message’s
contents—no clicking or waiting required.
This may not seem earth-shattering,
but contrast this to seeing a list of results,
clicking one, waiting a beat for it to appear,
reading it and not finding what you’re
looking for, clicking something else, waiting
for another beat, and so on. In other words,
it not only finds results fast but also
lets you scan through the results fast. It
makes a big difference.
Lookeen manages this by generating
and updating its own index in the
background, though we never noticed
a slowdown when it was working.
The Lookeen Window looks a little
dated and out of place against Outlook
2007 or 2010, especially in Windows 7’s
Aero desktop. There’s a compatibility
glitch with the 64-bit version of Outlook
2010, too. But for searching through
thousands of messages, we know of
nothing better or faster.

$39.80
Axonic
www.lookeen.net

Article From : Computer Power User Magazine 

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Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium

Various permutations of Dragon

NaturallySpeaking have been around

since the late 1990s, but only recently has

the technology underlying the product

advanced to the point where we could

say this about the newest version: This is

awesome. It works. You want it.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium

gives you complete control of your Windows

computer and of the apps that run on it.

Sure, you can dictate text—and Dragon will,

after some minimal training, convert that

dictation almost flawlessly, entering it into

just about any app.

But the newest version of Dragon also

makes it easy to control the applications and

even Windows itself: Want to change the

spelling of “Windows” in a document to

“Windoze”? Say, “Select Windows.” Dragon

selects every instance of “Windows” and

numbers them; then say “Spell that,” and

the program lets you change the spelling

of any or all instances. Looking for info on

blade servers? Just say, “Search the Web [or

a specific search engine] for blade servers.”

Dragon will open your browser (if necessary)
and enter your search term.
Of course, none of this clever functionality
would do you a whole lot of good
if the system did not accurately recognize
your speech. But it does. It’s eerily accurate,
in fact, and with only about five minutes’
training (compared to the 15 minutes
required by earlier versions). And if you’re
using a voice recorder while away from your
PC, no problem: Dragon lets you create
and export multiple voice profiles for use
with approved recording devices or multiple
computers, or if multiple people will be
dictating into one PC.
If you have occasion to dictate documents,
emails, memos, and the like,
you won’t be disappointed; Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium is worth
its premium price.

$199.99
Nuance
www.nuance.com

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