Premier Software Reviews & Technology in the News

Official Top Ten Cities - Way to go Sydney!

2008-06-11T09:46:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

When I publish my work on Now Public, I have an option to automatically post it here and on my So Opinionated web site. I forgot to un-check for this site and it appeared here also.

Still, I've decided to keep it here anyway. ;) Enjoy!

Honestly, there is no surprise there. Sydney IS beautiful, even if it would also make it into the Top Ten Most Expensive cities to live.

Compounding Sydney's successful placement is not the only gorgeous Australian city to make it into the top thirty-five cities either.

There are four others, making Australia a truly wonderful place to raise your children - as I did, in Melbourne.

Melbourne has stayed at seventeenth, as Perth has done, Adelaide improved by one, to hit twentieth and Brisbane came in at thirty-fourth place. I've been to three out of four, with a wish that one day, I'll manage to see Perth with my husband.

When my children were young, my family and I once took a road trip from Melbourne, traveling north to Alice Springs. My eldest son and I climbed what was then known as Ayer's Rock (now Uluru, since aboriginals won their right to claim it back,) and lay exhausted at the top, breathing heavily, with a little laughter at our struggle and the greatest sense of achievement that I've ever felt in my life. It was that good.

Australian cities usually make it into the top thirty-five list, but it's not often that four have made it there in the same year.

The factors which are considered when rating a city for inclusion are:

established infrastructure;

transport facilities;

quality housing close to the city;

a wide selection of restaurants and other amenities;

good education and environment.

In addition to these criteria, Australia also has one of the best standards of living in the world. Therefore it's no wonder that Australia has many Americans in their upper management sector who have requested transfer to one Australian city or another.

The Top Ten Cities global survey relies on data that's been collected over a period of three months to November the previous year, with last minute monitoring conducted to confirm results.

The quality of life factors that are considered are:

political and economic stability;

human rights and personal freedoms;

pollution;

crime rates;

health standards;

cost of consumer staples;

access to education, housing and entertainment;

public transport and traffic congestion;

climate and record of natural disasters.

With all these factors that are taken into consideration, I'd rather the Olympic committee used the same criteria to choose their host city - it would be far more appropriate and would certainly have cut Beijing out with it's ignorance of human rights as their major issue.

Two American cities also made it into the top thirty five - Honolulu and San Francisco. The latter I've been to and had many wonderful times there with friends but Honolulu, I keep thinking one day ....

Interesting Links:

About.com
Top 10 Free Sydney Attractions
by Larry Rivera

About.com
World's Best Concert Halls - Top 10 Concert Halls
By Aaron Green

Travel Industry Insider
Top 10 Things to do in Sydney, Australia
by Erin JulianTrip Advisor

Sydney, Australia Overview
by Erin JulianTrip Advisor

Vibe Hotels
Top Ten Tourist Attractions

Sources:

The Australian
Sydney cracks top ten cities

Image Sources:

Matthew Field
Wikimedia Commons

Fajitian2
Public Domain

Rob and Jules
Creative Commons

More information together with excellent photos of Sydney

Apology

2008-05-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

I'd like to offer my sincere apology for the lack of posts or any explanation over the past few weeks.

Suffice it to say, that I've been in hospital for some time but hope to be back full time at Now Public and writing here and for my other web site So Opinionated next week.

I nearly fell over when I checked my email this morning, only to be met with the pythonic figure of over 8,000 waiting for me.

Of course I'd never be able to wade through them all, so I plan to delete them altogether, except for those that catch my eye when I quickly scan them. If you have sent me an email, please resend it and I should be able to get back to you fairly quickly.

Till Monday, please everyone .. have a safe, happy and loving weekend.
~ Swan

P.S. The Bassett puppy isn't mine, mine is a blonde cocker spaniel and much cuter! ;)

It's Technology Friday!

2008-03-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon everyone!

So here we are at Technology Friday again and I've got a grrrreat lineup for you today!

Enjoy!

I do hope that you enjoyed the videos - I'll have more for you next Friday!

David and I are planning on visiting his brother at (oddly enough) Friday Harbour, which is part of the San Juan Islands, just past Seattle. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too!
~ Swan

PRESS RELEASE: Two Tickets to the Stars - See the Beauty of Space

2008-03-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

Well it's official - and I predict that it's going to be the ultimate honeymoon destination for very wealthy, adventurous young couples.

Ok, so maybe I'm projecting my own fantasies, but if I had the money I'd have bought my ticket long ago.

To me, the thought that 'normal people (as opposed to astronauts and 'experts' of one kind or another) are actually able to see our beautiful 'blue marble' from space, is mind-boggling.

Such a possibility had been spoken about back in the 90s, but I never once imagined that it would really happen in my lifetime. How truly amazing!

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2008) — A small California aerospace company has just unveiled a new suborbital spaceship that will provide affordable front-seat rides to the edge of space for the millions of people who want to buy a ticket.

The term 'suborbital' refers to a spaceflight that reaches space, but whose trajectory intersects the atmosphere, so that it doesn't complete even one orbital revolution.

The Press Release:

The company, XCOR Aerospace, of Mojave, CA, announced that its two-seat Lynx suborbital spaceship will carry people or payloads to where they will experience weightlessness and see the stars above and the Earth and its atmosphere below. This will launch XCOR into the emerging space tourism market, estimated at over a half-billion dollars.

The Lynx will offer affordable access to space for individuals, researchers and educators,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason.

“Future versions of Lynx will offer ever-improving capabilities for scientific and engineering research and commercial applications.

The spaceship, roughly the size of a small private airplane, will first take off in 2010 and will be capable of flying several times each day.

“We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial aircraft.

Its liquid fuel engines will provide the enhanced safety, durability, reliability and maintainability that keep operating costs low,” Greason said.

“These engines will also minimize the impact of these flights on the environment,” Greason added. “They are fully reusable, burn cleanly, and release fewer particulates than solid fuel or hybrid rocket motors.”

“Lynx will be the ‘Greatest Ride Off Earth,’” said XCOR test pilot, former pilot astronaut and Space Shuttle commander, Col. Rick Searfoss (USAF-Ret.).

“The acceleration, the weightlessness, and the view will provide you with an experience that is out of this world. And the best part of it all is that you’ll ride right up front, like a co-pilot, instead of in back, like cargo.”

XCOR has nine years’ experience developing reliable, reusable and non-toxic rocket propulsion systems and has already built and flown two different rocket-powered vehicles.

The firm designed, built and flew a rocket propulsion system on its record-setting EZ-Rocket aircraft. The XCOR team then developed a more powerful engine with an advanced pump-fed fuel system for a larger aircraft now being flight-tested for a commercial customer.

“The Lynx builds on our track record in rocket-powered vehicles,” Greason said.

“By addressing profitable near-term markets, the Lynx will strengthen the financial and technical foundation for increasingly capable future spaceships for suborbital and orbital markets.”

“XCOR’s mission is to radically lower the cost of spaceflight, because affordable access to space for everyone means far more than breathtaking views and the freedom of weightlessness,” said Greason.

“It means unlocking the material and energy resources and economic opportunities of our solar system for our children.”

XCOR Aerospace is a California corporation located in Mojave, California. The company is in the business of developing and producing safe, reliable and reusable rocket engines, rocket propulsion systems, and rocket powered vehicles.
[End]

Sources:

Space.com

Science Daily

Space Tourism: Suborbital Vehicle Expected to Fly Within Two Years

Wikipedia

Image Sources:

Space.com

Plasma TVs Out -------> Laser TVs In

2008-03-24T09:26:00.001-07:00

February heralded in the introduction of a successful new Australian company named Arasor International who have partnered with an American company by the name of Novalux.

As a result of this lucrative partnership - just when you thought it was safe to go out and buy a new television, it appears that big screen LCD and plasma TVs are possibly on their way - out.

David and I had been contemplating purchasing a big screen TV some time this year and now we're both glad we waited!

Laser TV is a form of rear-projection television that uses a mixture of red, blue and green lasers instead of traditional mercury lamps as a light source. The purity of laser light allows for images with far more color.
That is the top selling point for proponents of the long-awaited technology, who note that current high-definition LCD and plasma televisions display only about 40 percent of the color that the human eye can see. Laser TVs promise to show twice as much, resulting in richer images.

The new televisions will be sold by Samsung and Mitsubishi and it's developers claim that it will make plasma television obsolete, saying that it's to be the "next revolution in visual technology.

Novalux in Sunnyvale, California discovered that if you add a crystal of lithium Niobate to a gallium Indium arsenide laser, that the light output would be boosted, causing the wavelength to change from infrared to red, green, or blue.
Revealing the very first Laser TV in the world today in Sydney the pitch claims that:

... it would be half the price, twice as good, and use a quarter of the electricity of conventional plasma and LCD TVs.

Apparently, Mitsubishi has been extremely secretive about it's laser technology, only saying that the laser TV will use less power than current televisions and will go on sale later this year.

The new technology works thus:

The lasers shine on arrays of thousands of micromirrors that flip back and forth thousands of times a second to combine the light into new colors of different intensities, says inventor Aram Mooradian, founder of Novalux and former head of the quantum electronics group at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

The crux of the laser projection device is the unique optoelectronic chip, which was developed by Novalux.

While televisions will be the first commercial ventures which will use the 72 laser technology, mobile devices are currently being trialed using only 3 lasers each.

Aram Mooradian, founder of Novalux and the inventor of the new TVs, used to be the head of the quantum electronics group for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

I'll bet that Hollywood will one day be in his sites, if not already! I can only imagine what an amazing difference such technology will bring to movies and our grateful eyes.

Interesting Links:

Arasor International
Australian Securities Exchange: stock information:

Arasor International: web site

Sources:

Statesman/Business
Mitusbishi Moves to Lasers for New Televisions
New York Bureau - by David Ho

MIT - Technology Review
Laser Television - by Kate Green
News.com - Australia
Laser TV Unveiled by Adam Bennett

Image Source:

Statesman/Business

Technology Friday!

2008-03-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone!

So I'm a day late with Technology Friday - think of it as gaining a day!

Immigration Video Game - "ICED"

With immigration a hot issue in the upcoming U.S. elections, a new video game has launched called ICED which aims to show hardships faced by legal and undocumented immigrants:

Small is Big at NY., Auto Show

Small is big and green is the scene at the New York International Auto Show.

The show unveiled everything from a flying auto to a smashed up car, but small, environmentally-friendly vehicles took the spotlight.

Join the Torchwood Aliens On-Line

The BBC science fiction TV show Torchwood is generating a lot of discussion around its pioneering alternate reality game.

The spinoff from the hit Dr. Who series is engaging with Torchwood fans through an intricate and mysterious set of websites where fans are encouraged to interact with characters from the show to help solve weekly missions.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan visits Cardiff to talk to the people behind the show and the game to learn whether this multi-platform entertainment experience seems like a realistic model for the future of converged media.

On-Line Piracy Battle

New media websites hope by offering content to viewers they can curtail online piracy, but they face a tough battle.

Hollywood is dragging its feet when it comes to dealing with online piracy.

Computers Come to Havana

In a sign of new leadership Cuba's Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on computers and other electronic goods.

An internal government memo seen by Reuters said the government "at the highest" level had approved the sale of previously prohibited equipment, including computers, video and DVD players.

'Imperial Walker' Type Robots for War - A Reality!

2008-03-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

The Defence Advanced Research Project Administraion (DARPA) tasked Boston Dynamics with developing a robot that has the absolute ability to run, maneuver and jump to avoid obstacles.

Boston Dynamics have gone not one, but a dozen times better than they're original mandate with the creation of 'Big Dog' - which not only accomplishes all of the above, but is also able to successfully climb through the woods, is able to walk and climb through snow and even recover it's balance if it slips. It can also gallop (I kid you not!) along at 3.3mph!

In the video you'll even see a man lift his foot to deliver a hefty kick to the side of the robot, only to see Big Dog easily recover - and never hit the ground.

The latter is accomplished with internal actuators and a laser gyroscope to keep the robot upright. Just as impressive, is it's ability to climb a 35º slope.

DARPA handed over a US$10 million award to Boston Dynamics engineers last August, to create the camel-like robot, which measures only 1 meter tall and 2 meters wide.

According to Defence Dept., officials:

The goal of the project, which was slotted to last 15 months, is to produce a robot with animal-like strength, speed and mobility.

via Swan

When you view the video, I wouldn't be surprised if the scenes from The Empire Strikes Back spring to mind - imagine a different version of the Imperial Walkers.

We really do live in a super-technological age and the science fiction of yesteryear is today, becoming our reality.

The DARPA contract was actually commissioned by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego and provides for three additional annual contract renewals - which will top out at US$40 million.

What does that tell you? Certainly the military will be using a more advanced form of Big Dog - the one you see in the video is only the first prototype.

I have it all worked out: ;)

- Design it 10 times the size;

- Add a surface-to-air missile on Big Dog's back;

- Plus a grenade launcher;

- Add a couple of 50 caliber machine guns on each side.

Big Dog could definitely (and frighteningly) be the ultimate fighting machine, which can be sent into battle either ahead of our human armies, or accompanying them as tote-robots.

Smaller ones could be used for carrying medical supplies and ammunition (it can already carry up to 340lbs of gear) and whatever else soldiers have to tote in battle. I'm thinking it would be useful in jungle warfare also.

But then I'd be fooling myself to think that the Dept., of Defence hasn't already thought of these benefits and is planning it's implementation some time in the future.

Watching the video is eerie, creepy and left me with an unsettled sense of foreboding. The robot's movements are so real(!) and they also remind me of an arachnid - though it does only have four legs. The back and front 'knees' have been designed to face one another, making it quite odd looking.

One thing that would need to change, if our army plans to use it in stealth situations, is the dreadful sounding 2-stroke engine, (heard in the video,) which I'm sure is only being used in the planning stages, to ensure that all the components work well.

So tell me, do you believe this is a great invention for the U.S., or might it herald in an even newer age of war, destruction and loss of many more lives?

Sources:

YouTube

TG Daily
'Big Dog' Robot Walks on Snow, Rubble and Ice
by Humphrey Cheung

MHT - Mass High Tech Stories
Boston Dynamics Shows Off Lifelike Robot Dog

NowPublic

Tags: Tech & Biz

'Imperial Walker' Type Robots - A Reality for War!

2008-03-20T10:29:00.001-07:00

The Defence Advanced Research Project Administration (DARPA) tasked Boston Dynamics with developing a robot that has the absolute ability to run, maneuver and jump to avoid obstacles.

Boston Dynamics have gone not one, but a dozen times better than they're original mandate with the creation of 'Big Dog' - which not only accomplishes all of the above, but is also able to successfully climb through the woods.

The amazing robot is also able to walk and climb through snow and even recover it's balance if it slips - it can even gallop (I kid you not!) along at 3.3mph!

In the video you'll even see a man lift his foot to deliver a hefty kick to the side of the robot, only to see Big Dog easily recover - and never hit the ground.

The latter is accomplished with internal actuators and a laser gyroscope to keep the robot upright. Just as impressive, is it's ability to climb a 35º slope!

DARPA handed over a US$10 million award to Boston Dynamics engineers last August, to create the camel-like robot, which measures only 1 meter tall and 2 meters wide.

According to Defence Dept., officials:

The goal of the project, which was slotted to last 15 months, is to produce a robot with animal-like strength, speed and mobility.

When you view the video, I wouldn't be surprised if the scenes from The Empire Strikes Back spring to mind - imagine a different version of the Imperial Walkers.

We really do live in a super-technological age and the science fiction of yesteryear is today, becoming our reality.

The DARPA contract was actually commissioned by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego and provides for three additional annual contract renewals - which will top out at US$40 million.

What does that tell you? Certainly the military will be using a more advanced form of Big Dog - the one you see in the video is only the first prototype.

I have it all worked out: ;)

- Design it 10 times the size;

- Add a surface-to-air missile on Big Dog's back;

- Plus a grenade launcher;

- Add a couple of 50 caliber machine guns on each side.

Big Dog could definitely (and frighteningly) be the ultimate fighting machine, which can be sent into battle either ahead of our human armies, or accompanying them as tote-robots.

Smaller ones could be used for carrying medical supplies and ammunition (it can already carry up to 340lbs of gear) and whatever else soldiers have to tote in battle. I'm thinking it would be useful in jungle warfare also.

But then I'd be fooling myself to think that the Dept., of Defence hasn't already thought of these benefits and is planning it's implementation some time in the future - even though they claim the research is for 'carrying.'

Watching the video is eerie, creepy and left me with an unsettled sense of foreboding. The robot's movements are so real(!) and they also remind me of an arachnid - though it does only have four legs. The back and front 'knees' have been designed to face one another, making it quite odd looking.

One thing that would need to change, if the army plans to use it in stealth situations, is the dreadful sounding 2-stroke engine, (heard in the video,) which I'm sure is only being used in the planning stages, to ensure that all the components work well.

So tell me, do you believe this is a great invention for the U.S., or might it herald in an even newer age of war, destruction and loss of many more lives?

Sources:

YouTube

TG Daily
'Big Dog' Robot Walks on Snow, Rubble and Ice
by Humphrey Cheung

MHT - Mass High Tech Stories
Boston Dynamics Shows Off Lifelike Robot Dog

Image Sources:

The Worlds of David Darling

This Week in Technology

2008-03-14T18:14:00.002-07:00

Good morning readers!

Because freelance reporting has been taking up so much of my time, I've found that this web site has somewhat suffered and morphed into something different.

The site now has a broader technology focus. I will still be doing software reviews from time to time, when time warrants it or when I'm commissioned to test and report on a developer's software product.

Introducing:

Premier Software Reviews & Technology in the News

The name accomplishes exactly what I want in terms of search engine optimization, because search engines crawling the site will easily be able to reveal the nature of the site to the surfer - good for them and good for me!

On another topic:

Since I'm doing research for my news reports anyway, I've also decided to incorporate a section here at the end of each week, named Reuter's Technology Friday.

This will consist of a series of short technology videos I've found at Reuters during the past week or so. Oh, and today just happens to be Friday! ;)

Russia's Flying Pod;
Electrolux's Super Quiet Vacuum Made From Recycled Cars;
Times Square's Eye in the Sky;
Nokia's Self-Cleaning Cell Phone;
Face Recognition Software.

Computers Come to Havana:

Space Shuttle Endeavor Docks With International Space Station:

Surveillance From a Bird's Eye View

Until next week my friends,
~ Swan

2008-03-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

Chinese Hackers Gain Access to Pentagon Files

2008-03-08T11:07:00.001-08:00

This is not the first time we've heard of the Chinese and their "expertise" in this area. The world is aware of their superior education system and what their students are able to produce as a result of this education.

ZHOUSHAN, China (CNN) -- They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.

Source: cnn.com via Swan

Just because the leader of this little group, Xiao Chen (on-line name) has come forward with this information, doesn't make it any better. We have no idea just how many of these small hacker groups are being used by the Chinese, as evidenced by this report just last month in Time:

Wanted: computer virus writers. Must be fluent in Mandarin. Or Russian. Or Portuguese.

Source: !domain via Swan

Hacker "help wanted" ads says McAfee Inc., appear all the time on underground internet channels.

Who places these ads?

Well first of all, given the various languages required, these hackers are used to launch specific attacks at targeted countries by Chinese malicious code designers. They are involved with such activities as:

Hackers want to craft compelling and grammatically correct Web pages and spam e-mails — which are crucial in fooling people to download viruses or reveal personal information like credit card numbers, according to the report.

By localizing their attacks, hackers can better target software and sites popular in specific countries — such as peer-to-peer network applications in Japan, online gaming sites in China, and banks in Brazil. They can also limit their attacks to countries where law enforcement is more likely to be lax.

Source: !domain via Swan

Xiao Chen explained that it's not possible to have a 100% safe web site. While some may have high-level security, there is always a weakness to be found and exploited.

While Chen of course does not want to reveal his true identity, he did reveal that there are only two others in his group. Experts tend to call such groups, "civilian cyber-militia" as they follow their mandates to launch attacks on (not only) government web sites but private ones too, all over the world.

If you've ever received a suspicious email, telling you to confirm your PayPal or bank account details - and you do exactly that - chances are you could be relieved of a LOT of your money.

These emails should be discarded immediately and NOT even opened, as various code can actually be triggered by opening it. Be careful and view your email with a careful and alert eye.

If an email looks suspicious, expand the header and examine it carefully - also make sure that the URL you're supposed to click through to is genuine.

David Marcus, Security Research and Communications Manager with McAfee had these comments:

"It speaks to the underlying professionalism and understanding of business that we've seen in the past few years, and that we haven't seen in the past," [...] "They're approaching malware as a business and are looking to build their businesses globally." [...] "It doesn't take a huge investment in time to craft this stuff perfectly,"

Source: !domain via Swan

Recruitment for virus writers and hackers is usually accomplished in one of two ways:

Hackers wanting to employ virus writers who are able to design effective spam and web sites in local languages;

Hackers wanting to trade malicious programs in different languages.

The trio who claim to have hacked into the Pentagon, consist of a former computer operator in the People's Liberation Army; a marketing graduate and Chen himself is a self-taught programmer.

It doesn't take much to cause mayhem in the world. Chen had these gems of wisdom to teach us:

"First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must

know what program it is written with," says Xiao Chen. "There is a

saying, 'Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.'"

Source: !domain via Swan

Thank you Mr. Xiao Chen.

While CNN refuses to divulge their web site - Chen advised that they have been operating for more than three years and have 10,000 registered users. He also divulged that hackers are able to use tools, articles, news and flash tutorials on hacking from the web site.

Private computer experts in the United States from iDefense Security Intelligence, which provides cybersecurity advice to governments and Fortune 500 companies, say the group's site "appears to be an important site in the broader Chinese hacking community."

Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks of on-again, off-again e-mail exchanges. When they finally agreed, CNN was told to meet them on the island of Zhoushan, just south of Shanghai and a major port for

China's navy.

The apartment has cement floors and almost no

furniture. What they do have are three of the latest computers. They are cautious when it comes to naming the Web sites they have hacked.

Source: !domain via Swan

What's the matter Mr. Chen - don't the Chinese pay you enough to own furniture and somewhere nicer to live? Figures.

With regard to the Pentagon, Chen claims it wasn't actually he that did the hacking but two of his other "colleagues" - not part of the aforementioned in this report.

He went on to tell how they hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information - though he wouldn't describe what kind of information. He also said that he was paid by the Chinese government.

Of course, Beijing has denied everything - what are they supposed to say? "Uh yes, we paid hackers to infiltrate your Pentagon and now we have some of your top-secret documents?" Unlikely!

To set the record straight, Chen said that the attack was a freelance operation and nothing to do with Beijing - however he also says that they did pay for it "after the fact."

James Mulvenon from the CIA Research and Analysis division had this to say about them:[q]"These hacker groups in my opinion are not agents of the Chinese state - they are sort of useful idiots for the Beijing regime."

Here are other recent stories - all about hackers:

* Official International Hackers Going After U.S. Networks by Jeanne Meserve - CNN

* China Denies Hacking into Pentagon by Barbara Starr, Brian Todd and Ed Payne - CNN

* China Denies Hacking Pentagon

The Chinese government called allegations that its military hacked the

Pentagon's computer network over the summer "groundless", the state-run

Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday.

Article removed!

* The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies (And the Man Who Tried to Stop Them)

Article Removed!

* Data stolen from 146,000 People on Govt., Website

About 146,000 people using a jobs Web site sponsored by the U.S.

government have had their personal information stolen by hackers who

broke into computers at Monster Worldwide Inc., a government spokesman

said on Thursday.

Article removed!

* Hackers Extract Main Key to iPhone Unlocking, Freedom Closer Than Ever by Gizmodo

After uncovering its communications core's secrets, today hackers have reached a big milestone towards freeing the iPhone from the AT&T network:

they extracted the full content of the radio memory. In other words:

now they have the plans for the fucking Death Star —"the main key to

achieve true unlock." Want to help the iPhone Dev Team but you are no

expert?"

There are hundreds more and I'm sure you can locate them with Google.

Source & Image:
CNN - Chinese Hackers: No Site is Safe by John Vause
Time - Hackers Recruit for Local Language Skill by Jordan Robertson/AP

Image Sources:
Gizmodo

NowPublic

King Google Kneels to Emperor Military

2008-03-07T09:54:00.001-08:00

Benjamin Franklin once said:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Source: !domain via Swan

One would have to wonder whether or not Mr. Franklin could possibly have forseen such events as the following - and was attempting to warn the masses.

The Pentagon said that Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s Street Views is a threat to national security and made Google pull images taken on streets near U.S. military bases. Google complied with the governmental order, even though the images were taken from public streets. Freedom of information and security butt heads once again.

Source: informationweek.com via Swan

Where is the line drawn between freedom of information and security?

Which becomes more important in these modern times of war, mutual distrust, bombings, murder, rapes and other mayhem?

Personally, I think we need to support our government in protecting that which (if stolen, traded or bargained for) could harm our country and it's people in the long run.

Our military is looking at the big picture, while those individuals who would protest that their own freedom is being taken away.

If one weighs personal wishes against the country's security and protection - surely this should be a no-brainer.

Unfortunately it's not though, my view is an unpopular one as Americans scramble and continue to complain in all areas about our government and our military, year after year.

To me, this request is a different kettle of fish - entrances to military bases should be protected - and we must help them to protect whatever secrets they have, in order to protect the people in the long run.

Most people have lost faith in Bush and I have too, but not to the degree of calling for he and Cheney to be tried for war crimes, as has been touted in the news over the past few weeks.

We have to put things into perspective and attempt to separate government decisions against those of the military - we can't just say to hell with them all - we should not become a mob mentality calling for Bush and Cheney's head - that won't do anyone any good, least of all America at this point.

We need cohesiveness - not division.

The government was concerned

that the [Google] images, which included views of the entrances to military

bases, were a threat. Gen. Gene Renuart, head of the military command

responsible for homeland defense, said, "It actually shows where all

the guards are. It shows how the barriers go up and down. It shows how

to get in and out of buildings. I think that poses a real security risk

for our military installations."

Source: !domain via Swan

This sounds perfectly right to me and not a measure of taking away our personal freedom simply by a request that Google remove their cameras from outside their military bases, as Eric Zeman claims in the original article.

He goes on to say:

But the images were taken from public streets,

where anyone could walk and take the same pictures and/or video and

post them to the Internet. The question remains whether the government

had the right to request that the images be removed.

Source: !domain via Swan

I've visited Embassy City in Canberra, Australia. Unlike here, all the international embassies have been built in one area. Tourists constantly visit the area because all the embassies are built in their own cultural architectural style.

I tried to take a photo of the Thai embassy because it was spectacular in it's colorful and bold architecture, however an official came out to ask me not to take a photo for security reasons. I was quite happy to comply, because it made perfect sense to me.

Google spokesman Larry Yu said, "We have been

contacted by the military. In those instances where they (the U.S

military) have expressed concerns about the imagery, we have

accommodated their requests."

Source: !domain via Swan

Now, if a major entity like Google is happy to comply once the facts are understood, then I think the people should make some effort to support them in their decision, instead of whining about personal freedoms being taken away.

Street Views has caused controversy from the

start. Many privacy advocates claimed that even though images were

taken in public places -- where no reasonable assumption of privacy

really exists -- people were being exposed doing things they might not

wish to have plastered on the Internet for all to see.

Source: !domain via Swan

I see a very simple solution to this little "problem." Don't do anything in public that you shouldn't be doing - or don't want people to see!

If Joe A., is exposing himself outside public toilets to women and gets filmed, frankly Scarlett I don't give a damn! If Joe B., is meeting his mistress outside somewhere and gets busted by the cameras and his wife sees it on Google - I mean it Scarlett, I still don't give a damn!

According to this Reuters

report, "a man was pictured exiting a San Francisco strip club. In

another case, a woman was shown sunbathing. Complaints have even

included a woman asking that a picture of her cat be taken down, a

request Google denied."

Source: !domain via Swan

So what if he was entering a strip club - practically everyone does these days at one time or another - even I've been to one with my husband.

Of course if it's going to cause strife in his marriage, then he simply shouldn't be doing it - this is his problem. As for sunbathing, where the heck was she when this happened - I'd like to see some evidence of that one.

Am I worried about the monopoly Google is acquiring on the internet as years go by?

Yes I am - their computers must have personal information on billions of people by now, including everyone's emails sent via G-Mail - which they do keep by the way. No email is ever discarded, it just sits in the computer banks at Google forever as does anything that people use Google for, including all profiles etc.

THIS is what everyone should be worried about, not whether or not they're caught walking down the street. However, now with the advent of Google Streets, I must make sure to smile pretty and make sure that I wear lipstick when I go for a walk with my cocker spaniel!
~ Swan

Sources:
Information Week:
Google Caves to Pentagon Wishes by Eric Zeman

NowPublic

And Now For Your Technical Viewing Pleasure ......

2008-02-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

Good afternoon everyone,

I'm just adding these videos today, which comprise several pieces of news regarding the tech., industry. If this is something you'd like to see me do on a regular basis - say once per week, please let me know in the comments section.

So what does anyone think about the Big Three huh?
~ Swan

Hostile Takeover of Yahoo, by Microsoft!

2008-02-02T13:16:00.001-08:00

It's been two years of grueling on-and-off negotiations, with Microsoft's current offer to Yahoo standing at USD$44.6 billion (USD$31 per share.) It's just another attempt in Microsoft's plans to oust Google as the dominant search/advertising industry on the internet.

Is Google making you nervous Microsoft?

In one earlier attempt to close the gap between themselves and Google, Microsoft launched a web advertising platform and overhauled its MSN search engine.

However, this unsuccessful move didn't even make a dent in Google, as the internet giant climbed higher and higher in the search engine ratings.

In a takeover of Yahoo! - whose shares have declined (more than 20%) this year, Microsoft would be able to add Yahoo's search engine traffic to it's own, not to mention increase its own advertising profile for current and potential advertisers.

Merrill Lynch claim that the deal could trim Microsoft earnings next year by 5c per share in 2007.

In layman's terms, that means that after the proposed acquisition, Microsoft's shares are likely to descend to 5c per share, because they are buying a losing company with a loss in profits.

However, this will surely take an upturn again as people become used to the idea and slowly forget the name of Yahoo!

Perhaps an even better explanation comes from Justin Post, a Merrill Lynch analyst:

Post arrives at the possible EPS hit by noting that the acquisition would reduce Microsoft's cash hoard, cutting its interest income. Issuing debt would boost interest expense. "The higher the price Microsoft has to pay the the acquisition, the more debt and interest expense necessary," he notes in an email.

The bids are being managed by some of the biggest names in the tech., industry - Steven Ballmer (Microsoft Chief Executive;) Ray Ozzie; Jerry Yang (Yahoo! CEO) and Terry Semel (Yahoo Chief Executive.)

A research note from another Merril Lynch analyst, said:

“possible acquisition of Yahoo! would be a strategic positive” for Microsoft. Specifically, such a deal would help advance Microsoft’s strategy on the Web, an area in which the software behemoth is something of an underdog.

With $34 billion in cash in it's coffers and in an interview with the New Yorker, Mr. Semel said:

Microsoft taking over Yahoo — that conversation has never come up … [We discussed] search, and Microsoft co-owning some of our search. I will not sell a piece of search. It is like selling your right arm while keeping your left — it does not make any sense.

That statement was made only a few weeks ago - when it was clearly known that the buy out would be put on the table.

Steve Ballmer (pictured,) has long been known in the tech., industry as a "famously fierce competitor," to whom the idea of failure, is never considered - it's simply not an option to the high-powered tech., executive.

When he called Yang (pictured below) it clearly shocked the Yahoo! CEO., as he heard that Microsoft planned to make a hostile takeover, with the offer of USD$44.6 billion. He hadn't called Yang to negotiate, simply to inform him of what was planned - causing Yang to rush to his directors.

In an earlier interview Ballmer said:

“If we don’t get it right at first, we’ll just keep coming and coming and coming and coming,”

This explains the hostility of the takeover of Yahoo! He's clearly placing all his eggs in one basket, when he said:

A Yahoo deal, would represent “the next major milestone in Microsoft’s transformation.”

As end users, we can expect great things from Microsoft after (if?) this hostile takeover occurs. Steve Ballmer further claims that a 25% increase in advertising is planned for the future.

This news has also rocked the technology industry, including Google, which was founded by two Stanford graduate students, as was Yahoo! Microsoft has never been able to top Google in search and advertising and this fact is definitely a sore spot for Ballmer.

If the takeover goes through - this leaves the only two internet "big guys" duking it out for the prime position of top search engine and advertisers on the internet.

Do we really want Microsoft to dominate the internet?

It could also mean that end-users will be divested of choice.

Microsoft will benefit from the billions of dollars that Yahoo!, has spent in the latter years to develop more efficient search and advertising technology.

Even with these improvements, Yahoo has not grown as hoped and a layoff of 1,000 workers was announced this week.

There's a rather interesting article in the New York Times, that sounds like Semel is being used as a scapegoat for Yahoo's downturn. One shareholder states to him:

"I am surprised that you didn't apologize for the last three years of performance," activist shareholder Eric Jackson said at the company's annual meeting last year, shortly before Semel stepped down as CEO.

That's a bit nasty, wouldn't you say?

Interesting Link:

Microsoft Proposes to Buy Yahoo for #$31 per share in $44.6-Billion Deal by Information Week Staff

Sources:

Dealbook - Mergers and Acquisitions
Microsoft-Yahoo, From Rumor to Reality

Dealbook - Mergers and Acquisition
More Chatter About Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

The Street.com by Jonathan Berr
Merrill Note Massages Yahoo!

Image Sources:

The New York Times
Microsoft to Put More Money into MSN by Bloomerg News

New York Times
Competing With Google
Chart by Bloomberg; eMarketer

Alibaba.com

FBI and Police Installing Spy Equipment on Rooftops

2008-01-27T09:35:00.001-08:00

Good morning everyone!

Coming out of the FBI is news of a private sector crime fighting technology named ShotSpotter. Though it sounds very much like Science Fiction, this new technology:

"..... is a new crime-fighting tool that helps locate and track gunfire using “acoustic triangulation”—caused when sound waves are recorded at two or more locations."

In layman's terms, that means that the FBI are now able to track and pinpoint exactly where a shot came from, by installing sensors on top of buildings. This must definitely give them the edge against snipers.

The technology was suggested to the FBI by Special Agent Ron Chavarro, who had apparently heard of the technology elsewhere. I put the details into a search engine and got multiple listings, so ShotSpotter is widely available to anyone who cares to buy it - and if they have the money.

ShotSpotter costs police departments around USD$325,000, which includes the sensors placed on the top of buildings which are hooked up to a central computer. I'm sure this price varies, depending on the location, how many sensors are required and ease of installation.

What worries me about the technology being publicly available, is that terrorist technophiles would easily be able to reverse engineer the software and eventually be able to combat the way it works, by developing something else. I don't pretend to know exactly how the actual software works, but how difficult would it be to introduce something like a "scrambler" to distort the electronic information that the FBI receives?

ShotSpotter's first real public test-run, was conducted along I-270. It was only a matter of hours before the software registered the sound of gunfire. The data was so incredibly spot-on, that investigators were able to immediately recover shell casings from the shooting - which led to the arrest of Charles McCoy Jr.

Currently in America, (and very quietly installed,) there are now 27 cities protected by ShotSpotter;

82.7 total miles are protected by the software;
543,548 citizens are protected;
40 gunshots detected per night during December.

In Palo Alto, California, just earlier this month, Frost and Sullivan presented ShotSpotter for its "Innovative Gunshot Location System that Enhances Public Safety." Krishnakumar Srinivasan, a research analyst for Frost and Sullivan, said:

“Irresponsible firearm use is an increasing problem worldwide and ShotSpotter has been very successful at developing a proprietary technology that detects and locates gunshots in urban and war torn environments,”

So here's a couple of questions:

If the technology is so fantastic (I'm not questioning it,) why aren't the military using it in Iraq and other war zones? Surely it would save hundreds of lives there. A good example would be the current American/Iraqi war. Before taking over a town, could not a reconnaissance soldier, covertly install temporary sensors (that don't have to be removed,) before the rest of the Army moves in?

They could also carry a (smaller) central computer to immediately interpret the data and turn any snipers waiting for them, nto dust

"In addition to providing the exact location of gunfire events, the system captures the actual audio of gunfire events heard by its sensors. This information allows dispatchers and law enforcement officers to have invaluable situational awareness prior to arriving at the crime scene. Additional information available to dispatchers, patrol officers, and investigators include the number of shots fired, the number of shooters, and moving speed of the shooters if they are in motion."

There are numerous police departments and County Sheriffs' Departments that have now endorsed ShotSpotter. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, they are placed in high crime areas all over the States.

Very impressive are the patent-protected technologies not available anywhere else, which include:

* Low Sensor Density – ShotSpotter’s patented spatial filter technology makes ShotSpotter the only company to offer sensor densities lower than 25 sensors per square mile. (In fact, ShotSpotter systems generally use only eight to twelve sensors per square mile.) No other company can offer a sensor network with fewer than 25 sensors per square mile. And sensor density is critical, not only for the speed and ease of installation and low cost, but also for accuracy.

* GPS-Synchronized Sensors – ShotSpotter holds patents on GPS-integrated gunshot detection sensor. This key advance allows ShotSpotter users to “install and forget” sensors—with no difficult surveyor’s tools, external GPS devices, or data entry required. Moreover, because the clocks in GPS-enabled devices are accurate to 20 nanoseconds or less, ShotSpotter sensors are always precisely time-synchronized, thereby eliminating the time-consuming and costly task of time-calibrating disparate arrays of sensors.

Even more impressive is that the product is easily able to distinguish shots from other noises that can sound like gunshots; such as car backfires; bottle rockets and even nail guns have confused past witnesses who thought it was gunfire.

If you want to be even more impressed, read this report coming out of Wired, which describes how Stanley Bai, a computer programmer with ShotSpot rode with Officer Dadgar on his shift in Oakland, to first test the software. The officer describes how there had been "a shooting spree on pretty much every block we just passed." Scary stuff.

It was in that article that I found a reference to their mobile version of the gunshot-location system, so yes it seems I was on target - the Army can definitely make good use of ShotSpot. It really is a very good article.

You might also enjoy this article from Jolt at the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology.

This statement coming from police in Gary, Indiana is high praise for the product:

“As fast as bullets went into the air, we were arresting shooters.”

Even people on the street (see in one of the movies,) are saying how much safer they feel with the sensors installed in their area. I know that I would too.

If you'd like to see exactly how ShotSpotter works, you'll probably be interested in this short movie explanation.

When I've finished this article, I'll be uploading a few movies to do with this amazing crime fighting technology - so if they're not visible here (on the right) yet, they'll still be uploading to Now Public.

That's it from me today - if graphics and movies aren't showing yet, it's because I'm still uploading them to Blogger.
~ Swan

Sources:

FBI

ShotSpotter

Frost and Sullivan on ShotSpotter

Wired

Jolt: UCLA Journal of Law and Technology - by Christopher Benjamin

Image Sources:

ShotSpotter

MacBook Air ...... Where?

2008-01-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

A computer that fits into a manila envelope. Seriously.

I watched Apple CEO., Steve Jobs as he walked on stage for his keynote address, with a manila envelope that he placed on the desk beside him.

Many wondered what was contained in there, myself included.

So let's have a look at the specs., for the techs that read here:

13.3-inch, LED-backlit display;
Full-size illuminated keyboard;
Generous track-pad;
Multitouch gesture support;
Intel Core 2 Duo processor;

Built-in iSight camera;

Between 0.16 and 0.76 inch;
Weighs 3 pounds

1.6GHz version - USD$1,799
1.8GHz version - USD$3,098

Pretty impressive!

The photograph to the right, shows how the circuit board measures just a little bit longer than a pencil.

I can understand how a lighter computer alternative for traveler's, is an ideal solution, but other than that, I don't understand the frenzy to make technological inventions, smaller and smaller, until they find that it doesn't work very well and have to come up with a new design that is perhaps slightly larger, but more functional.

Electronics that are so portable, are just as easy to steal, so I'd feel as though I needed to take additional precautions to protect my property.

The multitouch trackpad mirrors the gesture controls that will be familiar to current iPhone users. Apple says:

"It's a smart move on Apple's part; not only are the gestures easy to learn, but they're difficult to forget, making it far more likely that users will stick with Apple products once they've become used to the interface."

One would never have suspected that a full sized keyboard had been included, which is similar in look and feel to the standard MacBook.

So let's have a look at what's missing in the new svelte notebook:

Those that have used Macs before, will be disappointed that some traditional key functions are missing.

* The battery is not user-replaceable. Meaning you can't swap your batteries out to extend the OS's operating life. You'll probably need to seek a professional to replace the battery when it inevitably loses capacity of fails altogether.

* No optical drive! This means that you'll be unable to boot from an inserted DVD, such as the Mac Leopard install disc, unless you purchase the "optional" external SuperDrive - currently prices at USD$100.

However, there is built in, high capacity USB Flash Memory, instead of a normal hard drive. This is supposed to mean that booting the computer; accessing files and loading of programs will be much faster.

It's doubtful that you'll be able to boot from an optical drive in an alternate Mac, using the "remote disk" function.

Now here's a question: How will the user be able to install the next big upgrade if traditionally, Mac OS X installers require the system to boot from a disk?

* No built in Ethernet port. You'll need to pay an additional USD$30 for a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.

* No FireWire port. You'll be unable to use FireWire target disk mode. For those new to Macs, Firewire is invaluable as a troubleshooting and data transfer tool.

This means that a host of digital video cameras that are FireWire only, will be unaccounted.

* 2 GB ram only. Cannot be upgraded.

* No audio input port.

My comments:

The LED backlit display replaces the electroluminescent back panel that notebooks currently carry. This is an innovation that is more efficient, reliable and durable than the former method.

Users will not have to do without an optical drive; it can simply be accessed differently by using either an external drive or accessing one in your wireless network (either from another computer or from a Hard Drive/Access Point like the "Time Capsule".)

You also don't have to do with only one USB port. If you use a USB hub, you'll be able to have as many as you like.

Interestingly and as a contrast to the utterings of Steve Jobs, the MacBook Air is not the thinnest notebook ever made. 1998 saw the launch of the Pedion, which was the baby of a collaboration by Mitsubishi and Hewlett-Packard - it measured only 18.4 millimeters thick or 0.7244 inches.

Unfortunately it came at a price of USD$6,000 which definitely determined it's sad fate.

Will Steve Jobs' new baby, MacBook Air also fall by the wayside? Comments?

Source and Images:

C|net News.com

Crave

Images:

C|net News.com

Crave

All About

Till next time my friends,
~ Swan

Teaming Up - Google, YouTube and Natsushita

2008-01-18T07:27:00.001-08:00

Technology, people either love it or hate it.

Now in a move that will ensure people remain even more rooted to their living rooms, we're soon going to be able to watch internet enabled television.

"Tuesday morning’s Nikkei is set to publish a story that Google and Matsushita have agreed to join forces and develop internet-enabled flat panel televisions that will allow watchers to access Google’s YouTube and Picasa (whatever that is) services with the touch of a remote control button…but only in the US, for now."

Yep, there will no longer be a "need" to even buy a laptop in order to have both computer and television on hand at the same time. I know several people who do this, though I have no idea how they can seriously watch a movie and be cruising the internet at the same time.

As technology trends usually go, when the new television sets do appear on the market, the older models will become quite a lot cheaper, making television well affordable for many extremely low income families.

I found the fact that the writer of the above quote had no idea what Picasa was .. amusing. But only because it feels weird to conceptualize someone not knowing what Google's premier photo cataloging software happened to be. Then again not everyone is aware of what happens in the on-line world.

This new technology comes at a time, when the permanent changeover from analog to digital television (DTV) is soon to hit America.

Matsushita, Japan's largest consumer electronics producer has their head office is in Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture and they received an extremely high profile visit in late December of 2007.

Greeted with around 150 waving Chinese and Japanese flags, Li Ruihuan, the #4 official of the Chinese Communist Party was shown around the headquarters. So Google at least is getting into bed with someone (roughly) as large as itself.

It has also been announced that Matsushita will officially be renaming itself to Panasonic from October 1 of this year. Since more people know their televisions by that name, the head honchos feel that it will help their company be a more powerful competitor in the world of electronics.

The change of name will set the company back around 30 billion yen.

It's like putting everyone into a tumble dryer to see what comes out in the end.

Source:

Japan Economy

Image Source:

Japan Economy

Website Update:

2008-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I apologize for my absence here and will try to resume as soon as possible. However, to bring you up to date - I've been busy with freelance reporting and freelance writing for various organizations on the web, such as Associated Press; Public Now; Helium; Pay-Per-Post; and others and found it to be quite a bit more lucrative than providing software reviews.

The reviews take me hours to complete and begin with extensively testing the software, making notes, documenting bugs and other issues and ensuring that each program is able to do what it claims to be able to do.

For all this, I used to charge only $20.00 because I enjoyed the work and didn't want to 'rip people off.' I simply wanted to provide honest reviews for the public.

Freelance work (including research,) takes half the time and mostly pays triple the amount of money I'd been earning.

So I've come to a decision. I will continue to provide software reviews - but for PC games only, which will allow me more time for my writing. This way I can do justice to both.

I understand that I will lose a few of my subscribers and other readers - and I would like to thank them for their continued support of my work.

I've had a few very positive comments about the widget I created, (below) which showcases my work on Associated Content, so I'll be leaving that here as a convenience to those who like to check both web sites.

As for the Entrecard at the top of this web site, it collects electronic 'business cards' from others that belong to the organization. If you're in business, I highly recommend this service, which will also allow you to advertise on other people's websites for free.

Till my next PC game review,
~ Swan

Romeo Burner 2.0

2007-12-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

Good morning readers!

Burning CDs/DVDs in the 21st century has become not only big business, but it's also put what was once only the domain of paid professionals into the hands of the layman.

These days, just about anyone who is prepared to read help files, is able to choose and use the plethora of CD/DVD burning programs on the internet to achieve their desired outcome.

Today, we're going to examine Romeo Burner 2.0 which is created by the same people who put out the excellent program Sticky Password, which I've also revie wed here.

Developer: Romeo Development Group

Supported Languages: English (support planned for other languages in the future.)

System Requirements: Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

Additional Requirements: None.

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

The people at Romeo, tell us that their latest release of the product, is terrific for "recording, ripping, mastering and editing of CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs." That's a whole lot of functionality for the home user.

While I could work it out, less experienced people might have been confused by the first option given to us during installation of the program. I've included a screen shot here, but basically it says: "Allow to use Romeo for users without administrative rights."

The person who wrote the dialog is assuming that the person installing the software is the administrator of the machine where it's being installed, which makes one wonder if the software can even be installed by a non-administrative person.

With children in the house that think they can already do everything on the computer ;) I installed it strictly with administrative rights, meaning that no-one else in the house is able to burn CDs with this software. I found this to be a very nice (protective,) feature of the software.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

I was completely thrown when I looked for a GUI and didn't find one! The installation places an icon on your desk, called Romeo Projects. Clicking on this, launches what looks like a normal folder, but with the Romeo logo in the bottom right corner.

The folder contains two links; one called New Project and the other one called Disc Images. (Note to developer: 'Disc' should be 'Disk' for American release.)

New Project:

To begin, the user clicks on New Project, which brings up the dialog to the right. You're asked for a both a project name and a project type. You can choose from three types: Data; Audio and CD Extra Project, which apparently is Romeo's way of identifying CDs that contain both audio and data.

I was surprised that there wasn't an option for creating video projects, given that this is DVD burning software! Data projects also have two types: Link to Files and Direct Files Copy. The dialog says that, if you choose Link to Files; all files adding to the project, will be linked to the source files and if you choose Direct files copy, all files added to the project will be copied to the project.

However, it's not clear why you'd choose one over the other, though I'm guessing the link option would save space on your hard drive.

Because I chose Link to Files when I set up the first project, I noticed that the Romeo Folder now had three icons, the last representing the new project I'd created.

Disc Images:

This was the second icon already in the Romeo folder after installation. Clicking on this, revealed another icon, called; New Group. I had no idea what this actually meant.

When I clicked on it I got another dialog, which asks for a Group Name and has a checkbox labeled; Open group after creation.

But there's no explanation for what a 'group' is, or why I'd create a new one. Not seeing any kind of help available, I checked back to the installation folder where a help file was stored.

It would have been nice if you could access the help file immediately from the folder, so I created a short cut for the help file and tried to place it in the Romeo folder with the other two icons. For some reason it just refused to let me do this, which annoyed me to no end.

Groups are a way of collectively storing certain projects; so you can have a group for disk images and another for something else - it's all up to you. (See first image in review.)

When you create a new project, you see an almost normal Explorer window which has a couple of new icons on the toolbar: Burn and Additional actions. The latter is a drop down box that gives you the choice to: Erase disc; Copy disc; Burn video disc; Burn disc image; Grab Audio disc; Grab disc image; and Create disc image. The same options are there for Audio and Data projects.

The burn button, brings up the appropriate dialog for Audio or Data CDs. The dialogs have all the options I ever use. Data CDs & DVDs can be made bootable. There's even a ruler bar at the top that tells you how much data your project has in it.

With no disk in my burner, the ruler topped out at 702Mb (which should be MB or MiB...Mb is Mega-bits, which is incorrect.)

When I inserted a DVD, the ruler changed to top out at 4.38Gb [sic.] For Audio CDs, most of the options I would normally use are available; however, there were a couple functions missing:

There's no setting to control the gap between tracks on the CD and there's no way to write in Disc at Once mode. There is a dropdown box for Write mode, but it only contains one option; Track at Once. It's not even worth being a drop down box.

The most noticeable item missing that appears in other similar software burn dialogs, is the ability to write a disk image to my hard drive. The Create Disc Image option partially fulfills this role, however there doesn't appear to be any way to create an image of an audio disk.

Also, it doesn't seem that you can choose between multi-session and non-multi-session disks when creating an image. You can, however, create a bootable disk image. All in all, it would have been better had Romeo followed the convention of other disk burner software and just provided a way to select a virtual CD/DVD burner as the output device and dispensed with the Create disc image tool altogether.

Options:

Erase disc contains the options you'd expect. Unfortunately, I don't have any erasable disks, so I couldn't test it.

Copy disc does about what you'd expect. Again, it would be nice to be able to use this to copy to a disk image, but Romeo does do the same thing with the Grab disc image option.

Burn disc image lets you copy a disk image from your hard drive to a physical CD or DVD. Three formats are supported: ISO, NRG (Nero's proprietary format) and MDS (Alcohol's proprietary format.) Surprisingly, the widely supported BIN/CUE format is not supported by Romeo.

Grab audio disc is a CD ripper. You can rip CDs to MP3 (with the LAME encoder) or to WMA. You can also rip the uncompressed audio to WAV files. When MP3 or WMA are chosen, you can select the bitrate, but there's no option to select a variable bitrate. There's also no indication of whether ripping to WMA will add Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management,) to your ripped files or not.

As mentioned above, the Grab disc image option lets you copy a CD or DVD to an image file. This option supports ISO and MDS formats. These are fairly adequate.

As I said earlier, the Create disc image option lets you write your CD or DVD project to a disk image. But this is only for data disks. There's no support for creating images from audio projects.

Burn video disc lets you create a video CD or DVD. Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), and Digital Video Disk (DVD) formats are supported. Unfortunately, this feature is very sparse. There's no way to create menus or chapters or any of the features one normally finds on video disks. You can simply copy some video to a disk.

Help File:

I found the help file for Romeo Burner to be excellent. It contained many screen shots, with explanations that would teach the novice how to use the software easily.

My only negative comment is that the grammar really needs reworking and that it lacks a bookmarking feature found in most other help files. If I think I'm going to forget something, this is a feature that I use all the time in other help files.

Features:

All the "Additional Actions" are available as individual programs in the Romeo Start Menu folder. So you can simply navigate to the Romeo folder in your Program Files and see them all listed there. This is a nice feature;

The integration into the Windows context menu is always appreciated by users;

Built-in media player for preview audio;

Built-in MP3 Tag editor;

CDDB support;

Able to use Romeo Burner via command line. I've found that many tech., types prefer to work this way - frankly I was happy to leave a DOS interface behind, when Windows came out with the first version of their OS. ;)

Negatives:

Help file should be immediately available from the Romeo folder where you're working;

No ability to choose between a multi-session and non-multi-session disk when creating an image;

While 'disc' is the correct spelling in Europe and Australia, it is not here in the United States. (Americans have bastardized the English language anyway! ;) All instances of this needs to be changed to 'disk.'

Software should be able to include the BIN/CUE format when burning a disk image;

Software should include support for creating images from audio projects;

Software should include the ability to add menus and chapters when burning video disks.

Serious Errors:

When I tried to burn some video to a disk, I got an incomprehensible error, with no indication of how to correct it:

'Error :: StarBurn_DVDVideo_Create() failed, exception 5, status 2, text "CStarBurn_ScsiTransportSPTI::ExecuteCDB(): Command failed'.

My husband who has been a professional software developer for the past 25 years or more, looked on and said, "No end user should ever see an error like that.The error dialog helpfully offered to send the error to Romeo for me. However when I clicked that button, I got another error dialog:

Unable to send e-mail to: support@romeoburner.com. Reason: Invalid pointer operation.

Apparently their Send Error function is not fully debugged as yet.

When I tried to burn an audio CD on a non-blank CD-R, Romeo did offer to erase the disk for me. But when I accepted the offer, I got yet another incomprehensible error:

ERROR :: StarBurn_CdvdBurnerGrabber_Blank() failed, exception 8, status 31, text "CStarBurn_ScsiTransportSPTI::ExecuteCDB(): Command failed"'

Points:

Originality: 6/10
Functionality: 7/10
Intuitiveness: 6/10

Price: USD$19.99 (one license.)

When Romeo Burner has all its problems fixed, the price will be worthy of the softwares functionality.

Summary:

As a very simple data and audio CD burner, Romeo is adequate. There are lots of other more fully featured programs out there, but Romeo has a nice clean (when no errors are present) user interface.

The error handling needs a lot of work. Users should never see the kinds of error messages I quoted above. Those messages are useful to the developer to see what went wrong, but that's all.

I couldn't get the Video CD/DVD burner working at all. Even if I had, unfortunately it's just barely adequate, though perhaps good enough for a beginner who just wants to put some video on a DVD.

The lack of ability to create menus and chapters is, perhaps, ok for beginners, but even beginners will soon want to step up to something better.

Recommendation:

While there are still some teething problems with Romeo Burner 2.0, I do have hope that it will improve with future releases. This was a commissioned review, and the person I spoke with knows that I don't pull any punches with my testing and subsequent reviews of software.

This shows me that the people at Romeo Burner Development Group are serious about it's current abilities, what the software lacks and how it can be improved.

At the moment, I'm unable to recommend Romeo Burner to you, but I do suggest that you keep an eye on their web site for the next version, which I'm sure will address all the issues mentioned here.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

I'd also like to thank Aleksandr at Romeo Development Group for commissioning this review.

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article at the top of the page - ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

Ahhh Agloco!

“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)

Puzzle Mania: Chronicles of Unicorn 1.3

2007-12-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone,

It occurred to me that we haven't had a game in a while, so I've chosen Puzzle Mania for you today. The annoying thing about having to do manual jigsaw puzzles, is that you have to keep all the pieces laid out once you've begun and hope to high heavens that no-one else in the house jogs it off the table by mistake.

Personally, I used to value my puzzles so much, that I used to keep a part completed jigsaw puzzle under my bed for protection when I wasn't using it.

Publisher: Elefun Games

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows ME/2000/XP/VISTA

Additional Requirements: Processor: 800MHz (or faster;) RAM: 128; Video card: 16MB Video Card

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

The edges of the puzzle pieces used in Puzzle Mania, often change design, from simple (early in the game,) to more challenging as the player proceeds. An exciting element of the game, is that with 300 puzzles, they never repeat throughout the entire game.

Graphics:

It probably doesn't show as well in the screen shots, but the graphics are just gorgeous. The colors have been designed well in the scenery, especially for skies, flowers and trees, all of which can stump you for a short while - but not for so long that frustration sets in.

The game definitely presents itself in a fantasy setting, that is probably more appreciated by the fairer sex, than by the stronger sex, whom I'm sure would prefer something like the inside of an engine or a computer chip for a jigsaw design! ;)

One of my favorite scenes shows multicolored butterflies flitting across the screen over a field of exquisitely colored wildflowers. Think you can put all those butterflies and flowers in the right place, fast? Think again, this particular one had me going for a good 35 minutes.

The animation is good in some places and not so good in others. Eg., in the opening graphic, the waterfall and lake behind the unicorn, is lovely and seems to be animated well, while the plants in the foreground could use a little more work.

I'm sure the graphic artist had intended for the plants to be gently swaying in a breeze, when in fact they look as they might be moving sideways instead. This is no big deal, since I really only noticed this when doing the review and seriously studying the graphics. As I said earlier, the graphics are just gorgeous.

Settings/Options:

The opening scene shows you that the unicorn resides on a spectacularly beautiful island, from which all the puzzle pieces will originate. It's as if someone has traveled around the island taking these beautiful snapshots of fantasy scenes. (See the first graphic in this review.)

The links on this page include: Start; High Scores; Options; Change Player; Show the Place; Credits and Exit. The only one that needs explaining is Show the Place. Choosing this link, causes all the peripheral decorations to disappear off the screen, including the text - so that you can really see how beautiful the island is without any obstructions. Pretty cool idea actually.

The options themselves, include individual music sliders for both music and sound; video mode allows you to change the (preset) resolution from 640x480 up to 1024x768. You also have a choice whether to play the game in window or full screen mode.

I've used both, but have stayed with full screen mode, since it seems to immerse you in the scenes a little more fully.

Gaming area

At the beginning of each jigsaw, you can see a muted picture of the end result. You'd think this would help you enormously, but it doesn't really. You have no indication of what the colors should be at all. For example; the one I'm working on for this review, has a completely olive colored background, even though it shows the scene.

You can really only make use of knowing where the mountain is (big deal! ;) where the grass and plants are etc. You'll still have to work the jigsaw out the way you normally would. At least with the box tops on manual jigsaws, you can see the full picture with colors!

When you begin, a string of small jigsaw pieces (from top left,) enters the gaming area and follows a anti-clockwise path around the outside of the puzzle area, till it reaches the end. (top right.) Each time you use a piece, another one will enter the area from top right. So you do not have all the puzzle pieces out at once, which definitely adds to the difficulty.

Unique (as far as I know,) to this game, is the fact that the puzzle pieces themselves change shape with various levels. The pieces that extend out from the puzzle pieces can sometimes look bizarre to say the least, but are still a lot of fun to use.

Game play:

There is a little back story to the game, which doesn't interfere with the playing of the game. Sometimes I think back stories on games just go on for far too long, and find the gamer wishing he could just get on the with the game.

There are two game modes that you can play. You can choose to play a more competitive game where the pieces enter in the same way, but there is a hole at the end, where the puzzle pieces are not allowed to enter. If you cannot place enough pieces to keep the string of jigsaws from disappearing down the hole - you've lost.

Relaxed mode is very enjoyable, if you simply want to relax. You can take all the time you want, as there is no hole.

As you pick up one of the small pieces, it immediately enlarges to the size it's meant to be. Having the smaller sizes around the edge of the playing area, allows more pieces to be visible to you at once, however, it also makes it more difficult to judge where each jigsaw should be placed until you actually pick it up.

To let go of a piece you don't want, simply right click.

As the levels become harder, some puzzle areas on the board (see left,) become black holes. When you find their pieces, they just drop through and have no points value to you at all. Fill in all the other areas first, then the holes will fill in with the muted background again and you can place the puzzle pieces successfully.

You can also win tips and magnets. As you can see in the two images, one is represented by a magnet; the tips, by a circle. If you can place pieces where these appear, it can help you tremendously.

However, there is one catch - if you don't get to them in time, they move around or disappear altogether!

Bonus Rounds:

I'm not going to explain these for you. It'll be nice for you to experience something that I haven't described. I will however, give you this sneak peek. ;)

Music:

The music is perfect for this kind of game play! It's serene and has the ability to amplify your focus. The main instrument used, sounds to me like a merimba, but it could also be a xylophone or a glockenspiel, since all three are similar percussion instruments.

Help File:

I couldn't find one, either within the game or on the publisher's web site. But seriously, how difficult could it be to learn to put an electronic jigsaw together? You don't need to know anything else before playing, since you learn something new when its ready to be shown.

However, a good feature for children, is that the game does show you a little video of how to pick the pieces up in the beginning. If you feel that you still need to know a little more, here's another video that I found on Big Fish.

Features:

Gorgeous graphics;
NO repetition;
Good music;
Return playability.
For adults or children.

Negatives: None.

Originality: 8/10
Game intuitiveness: 10/10
Features: 8/10
Fun factor 8/10

Price: USD$19.95

Considering that you can pay up to around $80.00 for one quality wooden puzzle, I think $20.00 for 300 electronic puzzles is well worth it.

Summary:

With repetition eliminated, there will be plenty to keep the gamer coming back to Puzzle Mania for more. Children of around 9-11 should be able to get through the initial few puzzles without any problems, but as they proceed, they will probably need a parent's assistance.

Playing Puzzle Mania, would be a great way to teach children about spatial relationships, not to mention that it could also increase their attention span. This might even be a good exercise for those children diagnosed with ADD. It might be a great question for a parent to ask their specialist, next time their ADD child needs to see him/her.

For adult gamers, if you prefer to be truly challenged, the competitive choice is the way to go, rather than choosing the relaxed mode - I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Recommendation:

I think it's obvious by now that I definitely do recommend Puzzle Mania. I've played it for weeks and I still keep coming back for more. With Christmas coming up, this would be a great gift for anyone in the family that enjoys jigsaw puzzles.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article (below.) Ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site (and my reviews,) for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

Developers, Software Houses and Web Designers:

Please contact Swan if you'd like to purchase a candid, constructive review, under privately agreed terms, of your software; games; or web site design.

Advertisers:

Please contact Swan, if you'd like to arrange for advertising your product on this web site.

Ahhh Agloco!

“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)

TNT Screen Capture 2

2007-12-05T17:51:00.001-08:00

Good morning everyone,

There are times that we need a more exact screen shot than what 'PrintScreen' is able to give us, as well as the ability to edit the images and then save our work, without having to launch a separate program.

Today's software will do all that for you and even provides a wizard, until you get used to the process and are able to do it on your own. I found I was able to forget about using the wizard, after just a couple of times.

Developer: EC Software, Austria

Supported Languages: English, German?

System Requirements: Windows '95/'98/ME/NT 4/2000/XP and Windows 2003 Server

Additional Requirements: RAM 32 mb (64 mb recommended), disk space 15 mb.

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

If you're a person who deals with graphics fairly often - there isn't going to be much of a learning curve with this software. Even if you're new to editing images, you'll find that TNT is fairly straight forward in its implementation.

The GUI consists of four parts (refer to the image above;)

The left column, is a preparation area for using this utility. The radio buttons define what kind of capture you want to perform. (Referenced later under the System Tray heading.)

If you plan to capture a fixed size region, you define the size by width and height, (pixels only.) Next, you define your image shape by choosing from several shapes in the drop-down box. There are a few good ones to choose from, including torn paper for effect (right.) You can also define specific corners and/or borders for the 'tear' effect.

I also like using the fade out options for certain effects. It can be a valuable option to change the mood, such as in this image. If I were to again capture the altered image (left,) and apply the fade option again, but this time to the lower part of the image, it would look as if this adorable little bear had been caught in a white-out.

The last option allows you choose your background color.

The center column is your work area, where you can see the image you want to work on, and see the results of your editing.

The right column, you may as well refer to as your 'tool box.' If you work with images, the icons there won't be anything new to you.

Included is the paint bucket; text tool; an arrow tool for you to point to something specific on your image; auto-shapes; add a sparkle to the tip of your cursor, (if you've chosen to include it;) the pen tool; paint brush; color pic; and the ability to add various shaped call-outs. It's actually a pretty good set of color and editing tools.

The penultimate region is the menu bar, where there are other great choices, such as autosizing; resizing; flip/rotate; various color adjustments and a limited number of effects, such as blur and embossing options; bleeding and wind effects also.

The last region to explore is what I refer to as a button bar (just underneath the menu bar.)

1st button: Causes the giant crosshairs to appear, so that you can begin to capture a free region to your own specifications. You click at the top left corner of your image, then while still holding down the left mouse button, click again at the bottom right corner - it's so simple!;
2nd button: This one seems redundant to me, as it simply minimizes the software. Redundant because it also has the common Windows minimize/window/exit out buttons on the top right;
3rd button: This button will be one of the most useful for those new to TNT. It's the Wizard's hat and as would be expected, a wizard launches in order for you to tailor the capture that you want;
4th and 5th buttons: Open and save files, respectively;
6th; 7th; 8th and 9th buttons: Print; email picture; cut and copy to clipboard, respectively;
10th; 11th buttons: Autosize image; undo; zoom from 25% to 600% and a couple of help buttons, (explained later.)

These buttons are not named and there aren't any normal tool tips. However if you let your eye wonder downwards while you're hovering over a button, you'll see a 'tooltip' appear in the status bar of the software.

System Tray:

When launched and minimized, you'll see a camera icon in your system tray. A simple right click will give you a choice of capturing;

A specific window or menu;
Capture a free region, (same as print screen;)
Capture a fixed region, (such as a dialog box.)

The right click action, also gives you the option to restore or exit TNT.

Well that's the entire interface, and I think you'll agree that even reading through the review, you're already telling yourself that you'd have no problem with TNT's functionality.

Options:

Options are intuitive and include a 'Customize TNT' option. There are four tabs in the resulting window. On Start; Hotkeys; Program and Auto Save.

On Start: Define the behavior of the program when it's launched.

Hotkeys: Here there is a choice to define two hotkeys. One to begin a screen capture (I chose the print-screen key,) and the other to minimize and restore TNT.

Program: Choose a skin, nothing flashy or creative here - you just get to choose between different Windows systems presentations - it's simply a choice for what you prefer. Under Program, you can also choose to enable audio support and enable a warning message that warns you when the program is about to flatten an image.

Auto Save: If it's useful to you (it is to me,) in this section you can choose to add a file name prefix for new screen shots. I've chosen 'clip' which indicates to me that it's a screen capture, as opposed to any other kind of images. You can also choose whether or not to save your screenshots to disk and in what format. The most widely used formats (only) are supported.

Help File:

There are two other buttons (round, to the right) on the button bar with big question marks on them. The first one allows you to click on it, then click on another button and/or area, which causes explanatory text to pop up. The second button actually launches the help file. It's comprehensive and logically laid out; with explanatory text that is easy to understand at the layman's level.

Features:

Where do I begin?

Very useful image manipulation tools included;

Ability to set up all your configurations as a profile, so that they're there for you next time;

Manual color adjustments for contrast; lightness; addition and gamma;

When you resize your images, resolution remains perfect with no distortion. I blew up a small image to 3 times it's size and was surprised at its clarity;

The 'tips and tricks' in the help file is excellent and well worth reading;

If your audience requires explanations, you can annotate your image with callouts, text and arrows. Excellent for tutorials;

Capture main menus and floating menus;

You can also strikingly emphasize a particular detail in your screenshot.

Negatives: None!

Points:

Originality: 7/10
Functionality: 10/10
Intuitiveness: 8/10
Features: 8/10

Price: USD$39.90

While I feel that for a basic screen capture utility this would be an insane price, considering all the freeware that is on the web. However, the software is bundled with some pretty cool image editing software which makes TNT worth every penny.

Summary:

While the software may not be Corel's Paintshop Pro, it's a whole lot more than just a screen capture tool. I have found it invaluable in my work, especially for writing up these reviews. I've used it now for several weeks and never encountered even one bug. That's pretty impressive.

Recommendation:

This small program is most definitely recommended. If you usually have to use two different programs to accomplish your end result, (screen capture and an image editor,) then you'll find TNT a joy to use.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article. Ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

Desktop Icon Toy 2.9

2007-12-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

Notice to the Blogvertise administrator: This blog is recreated from my old site. It has actually been existence since July of this year.

Notice: To all my Blog Catalog readers - I'm reopening our neighborhood
(left column.) Please add yourselves.

Good morning software seekers!

Today's software, though marketed as a toy, is very useful for keeping your desktop organized and uncluttered. I've been using it for a few months and this software is definitely a 'keeper' for me.

Developer: iDeskSoft

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Additional Requirements: None.

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

~ Or surprise someone with a Kindle for Christmas ~ ---->>>

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

This software consists of configurable options that are all controlled via the tray on your desktop. There is no other interface to use. Icon Desk Toy is simplicity multiplied by infinity (as our younger kids would say ;)

Preferences:

The settings don't need any explanation. A 10 year old child could configure this software, without any problems whatsoever. They really are preferences as opposed to settings, so you just need to choose what suits you best.

Help File:

The help file unfortunately, is only located on-line at the developer's web site. I must admit that it's a pet peeve of mine to have to launch a browser just to have a question answered. It's not difficult to bundle one in with the program and I believe it to be laziness on the programmer's part.

At any rate it is on the website and seems to cover anything you might want to know. But as I said, Desktop Icon Toy is incredibly easy to use and I only found the help file today, to see if there was one for this review. It's just a scrolling window and includes tips and FAQ in a question and answer form, along with contact information for further support if needed.

Features:

There are so many features bundled in with this small, unobtrusive software, so I'll just list a few of them here - trust me, you'll have far more fun discovering them all for yourself, as I did:

Numerous icon layouts from which to choose; from a fully working clock, to various polygons, circles, a selection of different hearts (have fun girls,) stars, crosses and ellipses;

The software has the ability to restore your icon layout after:
- a resolution change (with games especially;)
- when you add or delete icons;

You can also choose your icon size; 32x32; 48x48; 64x64 128x128. This is a great idea for those with impaired eyesight. Personally, I shrink my icons;

You can lock the icons in place (you can still open and delete) so that they don't become untidy on your desktop again;

Select various icon animations, if you like that sort of thing (blink; dance etc;)
Choose icon background and text colors;

Remove background color on icon text completely, so that the text seems written against your desktop background (this is one of my favorite features!)

Choose the items you want to see in your tray menu;

My basic settings include NO icon text showing. I've given each folder/program an easily recognizable and descriptive icon, such as a camera icon for my photographs folder, so that identifying what each icon represents, is just plain simple.

The tool tips that appear on each each icon when you hover them, is attractive, nicely designed, descriptive and leave the standard Windows tool tips for dead.

Negatives:

If you haven't rebooted in a while, you may need to shut Desktop Icon Toy down and relaunch, if you want to change the layout. It's a bug, but not a serious one that actually interferes with the softwares implementation.

Summary:

Whether you think of it as a toy or a useful piece of software, the fact is, that the Desktop Icon Toy can clear any clutter on your desktop and keep it tidy. It runs in the background all the time (you can shut it down if you prefer, configuration of your desktop will remain,) and is extremely light on CPU resources.

You can have even more icons on your desktop now, because with this software, you can also shrink your icons if you prefer, as I do.

Recommendation:

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

~ Or surprise someone with a Kindle for Christmas ~ ---->>>

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

Developers, Software Houses and Web Designers:

Please contact Swan if you'd like to purchase a candid, constructive review, under privately agreed terms, of your software; games; or web site design.

Advertisers:

Please contact Swan, if you'd like to arrange for advertising your product on this web site.

Ahhh Agloco!

“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)

Blogsvertise!

2007-12-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

Notice to the Blogvertise administrator: This blog is recreated from my old site. It has actually been existence since July of this year.

Notice: To all my Blog Catalog readers - I've reopened our neighborhood
(left column.) Please add yourselves.

Good morning readers!

I ran across a company the other day that I hadn't heard of before called Blogsvertise. Spending some time on the web site and reading all about it, I realized what a great boon this system is for both advertisers and publishers alike.

So naturally I joined. ;)

The rules are not too dissimilar from other programs, except this one behaves more like Associated Content, for whom I'm a freelance writer.

Administrators at Blogsvertise assign writing tasks to their members, which are cogent to the subject of their member's blogs. You're not constrained in your thoughts, and have pretty much carte blanch to write your own thoughts on any product. All they ask is that you include 3 links to the advertiser's web site in the blog and send your blog entry into them for approval, within 5 days of it being assigned to you.

There are other guidelines with Blogsvertise but nothing more than you'd see on other similar sites.

Blogsvertise is unique in its expectations of its members, in that only 2-3 paragraphs is required! Now at Associated Content, I'm expected to write no less than 4-500 words, so working with Blogsvertise is going to be a piece of cake, compared to other places.

I wanted to share this information with other bloggers, since I have received a lot of great information on all topics from them in the past.

Blogsvertise here I come! ;)
~ Swan

Wowzers! Browsers!

2007-11-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

Notice: To all my Blog Catalog readers - I'm reopening our neighborhood
(left column.) Please add yourselves.

Good morning everyone!

I thought I'd reproduce an article here, that I've already written for Associated Content, in my capacity as a freelance writer for them. I usually submit my articles to them as an exclusive, but since this was tech., related I wanted to be able to publish it here also.

Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ---->>>

Or surprise someone with a Kindle for Christmas ---->>>

There are four types of internet power users who use browsers:

Diehard Firefox users;

Diehard Opera users;

Diehard Safari users;

Diehard IE fans; (possibly aka as the dying browser, fans ;)

You'll rarely find people that will have a mediocre view of their browser - you'll always find that they'll hotly describe their browser as "the best!"

Because of this web site, I'm a member of numerous tech., forums and an affiliate for a growing number of companies, including Roboform and Firefox, which also happens to be my preferred browser. However I do have the other browsers installed on my machine, as I also continue to do a little web design and like to design for cross platform compatibility.

Around 1999 I used Netscape religiously, while my husband swore by IE. Together, we would have enjoyable debates over each, without any real winner surfacing. But that was then. The "War of the Browsers" goes back even further than that, in fact it's since:

Windows users seemed to be split evenly between Netscape and IE:

Macintosh users also seemed to have a split following, with iCab and OmniWeb;

Linux users also had Konqueror and Galeon.

It can be quite amusing in various forums, to watch discussions between long time users of each of these three major operating systems. All three would be willing to sacrifice their bodies to a volcano, while telling people why their choice is 'definitely' the superior OS (operating system) and browser.

Personally, I think Firefox; Opera and Safari just about have it covered, though I'm not prepared to throw myself into a burning inferno just to prove it.

However if you're looking for features, each of these browsers will appeal to you. They all include:

Tabbed browsing; download manager; bookmark importing; ad and pop-up blocking; Java; search and plug-ins; cookies (and managing cookies;) pages that support - HTML; CSS; SSL and Javascript;

The browsers that I'm hearing more about these days are:

Flock
Mozilla based; open source, cross browser - more for those into social networks;
K-Meleon
Windows - lightweight; based on Gecko engine; open source; supports mouse gestures; macros;
Camino
Macintosh - native Mac OS X technologies and toolkits, based on Gecko engine; open source; highly extensible;
Epiphany
Linux - for the GNOME desktop - free software, based on Gecko engine; highly extensible.
These latter four browsers all support the same features mentioned above, including the fact that they're all programmed to be cross platform compatible.

As I mentioned earlier, at this point in time (2007) IE only marginally leads the pack, just slightly ahead of Firefox; while we see the other three major browsers being: Opera; Firefox and Safari, which make up the "Alternative Browser Alliance" and are the three browsers that make up the tri-emblem to the right.

It's important that users consider their own needs before choosing the appropriate browser for them. When I choose a browser, the things I take into consideration are; that they must be cross platform; there must be constant ongoing development and finally - it must be open source, which guarantees ongoing improvements; safe programming and amazing innovation.

However, different strokes for different folks and other people may have different considerations.

The many strengths of being an open source project:

A few interesting links for you;

Definition:
Wikipedia:
History:
Reasons to use open source software:
Millions of developers all working on the same project at the same time;
All additions and changes have to go through an approval process;
Did you know that Wikipedia itself is implemented by using Wikimedia (which is also open source;)
People who download and use open source software are covered by the GNU GPL (General Public License,) which also covers most free software packages anywhere on the net.

But now I'm so confused! Which browser should I use?

I suggest you simply pick one and use it for a couple of weeks to see how it suits you. If you like it but aren't thrilled with it, keep it for now but download another one and use that one alone, for another couple of weeks. Given that they're all free, you can take all the time you want testing these browsers, to see which one is your ultimate preference.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

Above all don't get frustrated, there really isn't any need. If you proceed slowly and expect not to make your final choice for at least a couple of months, you'll actually enjoy testing out all the various features; customization and extensibility - and you'll even find that you pick up quite a few knowledgeable tips along the way.

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article at the top of the page - ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site (and my reviews,) for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!
~ Swan

City Magnate 1.0

2007-11-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone,

I do hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and found much to be thankful for in your life.

We have an economic strategy game to review for you today, one that is in the same vein as Monopoly.

I first want to mention the game publisher, Alawar Entertainment - whom I believe to be one of the more intelligent, consistent game publishers on the net. Regardless of the outcome of this review, remember that Alawar really is worth checking out. I have around 20 of their games on my machine, that I consider to be 'keepers' and I'm sure that I'll buy more in the future.

Developer: VSP Game Studio

Publisher: Alawar Entertainment

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows: NT/2000/XP

Additional Requirements: None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

My first couple of comments are that;
This game is a Monopoly clone - almost exactly;

If you suffer from motion sickness, play this game cautiously and turn your head away from the screen when the board spins around to locate each player's car. I say this because a few people I know, have actually said that it triggered motion sickness in them.

Monopoly and City Magnate Comparisons:

Monopoly has various icons to represent each player on the board;
City Magnate has different colored cars to represent each player.

Monopoly uses paper notes for money;
City Magnate just keeps a running tally on each player.

Monopoly has a square playing board;
City Magnate has a octagonal shaped playing board.

Settings/Options:

As you can see by the thumbnail to the right, there are only three options available, each controlled by percentage arrows to the left and right, except for the tutorial:

Sound: I found a comfortable percentage for me was 40%;

Music: The only way I could deal with the music, was to turn it right down to 10%;

Tutorial: This option is a toggle - either on or off.

Game play:
Up to 4 human (or 4 computer players) can play.

Setup and game play that I was grateful NOT to have to do:

Choose/be banker;
Deal out paper money;
Trying to keep my paper money tidy!

The game can be played against the computer or against another human player, however, it's a shame that the game can't be played over a LAN. I really dislike sharing one keyboard in a game.

That said, I guess it wouldn't be so bad on my keyboard, which is a 10PK 111 key PS2 PRO Internet Keyboard Being larger than the normal QWERTY keyboard, at least you wouldn't be sitting on top of one another while you play the game.

So, with all that said, let's move on:

The game launches and immediately asks you to key in your name. The screen following that, gives you the chance to pick the color of your car for your token on the 'board'.

The next step is to choose whether or not you want to play against the computer, or another person. You can also remove a player on this screen (odd, since it doesn't retain names anyway!) and finally begin your game.

The Board:

At the bottom of the board are eight circles; each one representing clusters of property types. If your opponent lands on any that you own, he must pay you. (Automatically computed by the game.)

Just as in Monopoly, the more of each cluster (3 total) you own, the more money your opponent has to pay you. Once you own all three properties in the cluster, you're able to upgrade in order to collect even more money, if your opponent should land there.

To the left of the board are two dice which you roll, to indicate how many spaces to move ahead on your next turn. Just above the circles, are two buttons; roll and close. At bottom right of the board, you're shown how much money you have. When your opponent has his turn, you can also see his monetary balance.

As mentioned earlier, each person's token is a colored car, which gamers do not need to move themselves. Once someone has rolled their dice, the car simply zooms around to the relevant square.

When you land on one of the various gambling squares, there's a pop-up screen that tells you you must pay $n to play that particular gambling game. The outcome of course, is reflected in your balance when you return the game.

You can also click on 'more info' which will explain the game to you if you don't understand it immediately. You don't have to play these games, you can choose simply to click on 'close' and return to the main game.

The '777' square, is a bit of a surprise and I think meant to be similar to the 'chest' cards in Monopoly. You could recieve money or have an amount taken away from you. The 'Mafia' square claims 10% of all your cash - ouch!

The dartboard will either give you money or take it away, same as the '777' square.

Once you have a negative balance, a window will pop-up telling you to either, mortgage or sell one of your properties. You can refer to the property circles at the bottom of the board, which will show you how many stores you have in each cluster.

Click on one the cluster circles and you'll be presented with information: sale price; profit; and next level. Choose which building you want to sell (if you have more than one in the cluster,) then click either; Sell; Trade; Mortgage or Close.

There is also a 'done' button for you to click after that, which is totally redundant in my opinion. It's obvious that you have completed your turn, and it should immediately go to the next player for them to have their turn.

There are a few other details that I haven't explained, but they won't be difficult for anyone to work out and I'll leave you to discover these for yourselves.

Music:

The music is reminiscent of 80s elevator music. If the game lasts more than 20 minutes, I think you'll find yourselves reaching for the options to turn the music off as I did. Recently I've chosen a few songs from my hard drive that go well with certain games. Then I just play the game with the music turned off, but my game playlist active. Hey! It works for me! ;)

Help File:

At the top left of the screen is a large question mark, which you can click to reach various explanations of the games and managing your stores etc.

So help is available at all times throughout the game. The game is so easy to play though, even if you'd never read any of the help files.

To win the game, you must bankrupt all the other players. A player loses the game by becoming bankrupt.

Graphics:

Bright and colorful, but badly in need of some strong anti-aliasing. This graphics designer needs to double check his work and see the same thing that I'm able to see and improve all of the graphics. Even something as simple as the circles surrounding the property clusters at the bottom of the board are unprofessional and need to be addressed.

Features:

Game is able to be saved, for players to resume playing at another time - I don't see any other features.

Negatives:

Absolutely no way to minimize the game. No window option and no [x] that you can use, as with other games;

Doesn't retain your name for subsequent games (unless you're resuming a game,) you have to key it in every time;

Game quickly becomes boring if you play against the computer;

Graphics aren't great at all.

Points:

Originality: 2/10
Game intuitiveness: 7/10
Features: 1/10
Fun factor 1/10

Price: USD$19.95

I couldn't believe the price of this game when I saw it! City Magnate is worth $10.00 in the bargain basement only.

Summary:

As an introduction to the more superior Monopoly game, I do believe that City Magnate will be a good game for young children (8-11.) But only if played with an adult who doesn't mind explaining a few things, in order for children to learn a few basics in economic strategy.

I don't believe that any adult would enjoy playing this game. Instead, I'd suggest downloading Monopoly to have a lot more fun.

Recommendation:

No recommendation - at least not yet. This is only version 1 of this game. Perhaps with newer releases, the game might become more interesting and fun, along with the option of playing the game over a LAN.

Personally, I think the board needs to be a little larger, so that it can accomodate more properties. At the moment the board is small even though it has eight sides - and passing Home, happens all too frequently.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article at the top of the page - ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site (and my reviews,) for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

Recover Keys

2007-11-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

~ Swan has recently been accepted as a freelance writer with Associated Content: Her first article can be found here:
Alternative Ways to Express Your Gratitude on Thanksgiving

Good morning software seekers!

Today's software is designed to make the user's computing life a little easier, by retrieving activation and registration keys from more than 140+ supported programs.

Along with these, the company tells us that that the registration information, includes usernames; the company that made the software; product ID and the authorization key.

If this software works as claimed, you can then export the data to HTML; TXT; or CSV (comma separated value,) formats, giving you a nice tidy list of all your software, when the time comes to reinstall everything again - as it inevitably does.

Publisher: Recover Keys

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows 2000/ME/NT/2003 Server/XP/Vista

Additional Requirements: None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

Notably, the company's web site says nothing about itself, who they are; how long they've been in operation - not even any contact details are given (except for support,) nada. To me, this is a red flag and I had to wonder who these people are, who chose not to identify themselves.

Just in case, I ran the software inside my sandbox, (I use Sandboxie,) in case it was bundled with any virii or trojans.

Taking a second look at their overview, I noticed that the developer said,

" For this reason I have created this software."

So even though there is no company involved, perhaps the developer is kosher after at all, but threw up a minimalistic web site and developers aren't always the best web site designers. ;)

Feeling a little more confident in the product, I launched the software outside of Sandboxie, to find that when the interface actually appeared, it had already listed some of the software I had installed. However, I wasn't impressed at all (see main screen shot above,) as it only found:

Windows XP;
Microsoft Office Professional;
Microsoft One Note;
Microsoft Office Professional;

Internet Exporer;
My Sims games.

6 software titles! 6 out of - what was it - oh yes .. "over 140+ programs." Well I guess I had a mind trip somewhere, because I know that I have well over 140 software titles on my machine.

The list of supported titles, includes the Adobe products. Really? Well I own Adobe Creative Suite 3, which includes quite a few of their software titles - yet it didn't even detect one. Further to that, it didn't even find its own key! This isn't looking good - not good at all.

What I don't understand, is that if the software manages to scan a user's system and match any titles to what it supports, why can't it simply scan your programs and report back the information? I'm no registry buff, but I've seen other programs manage this function quite easily.

Settings:

There are no settings - other than to decide which of the available columns you'd like to show. This function is located in the View menu, which is an odd place for it to be, considering that most of us would expect this function to appear under Settings/Options. But while we're on the subject, let's examine the latter further.

Choosing the columns that one wants to see, is a rather a neat function that supports drag`n`drop. A small pop-up box appears with column headers that the user can drag to the position chosen. Similarly, one can change the order of the columns by dragging their headers to where the user prefers to see it.

Printing:

The print preview function is very nice with a great display of your page. If there are multiple pages, thumbnails representing these are found in a column to the left of the screen. You can either click on the thumbnail to see the preview, or on a numbered tab at the bottom of the current page you're viewing.

Interestingly, when your document prints, it has a notice at the bottom saying, "Please do not share this page with anyone, due to copyright infringement." You can imagine that if you did share it with someone unscrupulous, they would be able to download software and using your information, register each title illegally.

A close button at the top right of the screen, returns you to the normal interface again.

Tech., Support:

The help file is non-existent. The only reference to any kind of help, was tech. support, and who wants to email tech. support every time you need to know something? However, contact was made with the developer about the lack of programs the software found and here is his response:

"Software titles is mostly added by request. Initially after release program had around 100 software titles and other was added by users requests.

Please send me your list of software which RK doesn’t support and you want to get act.keys from and I will add them.

Recover keys also comes with auto-updater, so you will not need to reinstall it .....

support@recover-keys.com
Thank you,
Ostap"

Well at least we have a name to go with their tech. support email address! So I will send the other 200+ titles (to Ostap,) that I currently have installed on my machine and run another test after he includes them. I must say, that if that test also runs fast, then we're in business.

Features:

Simplicity of use;
Information is displayed well;
Fast response from developer, if you have questions;

Drag`n`drop is very nice and always helps to save time with an application;
Very nice print preview presentation;
Easy interface - a child could open the program and the software will have supposedly done its job.

Negatives:

Web site doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the product;
Doesn't find all software titles on its supported list;
I'm sure that the developer speaks English as a 2nd language - the grammar needs cleaning up.
No help file.

Points:

Originality:6/10
Functionality: 6/10
Intuitiveness: 8/10
Features: 6/10

Price: USD$19.95

This is a ludicrous amount for today's product: Recover Keys. At the moment it may be worth only $10 at best.

Summary:

While the software doesn't require all that much, except a few bells and whistles, it does still need an internal help file that people can refer to. The help file should also include explanations of the information that it finds, for those that are not too sure with registry items.

This program does not do all that it claims to do; Recover Keys doesn't find all the programs that it says it supports. As I said earlier, I have the entire Adobe Suite, but the software failed to report even one Adobe title.

Recommendation:

None at this point. This product is obviously still in its infancy and should not have been released as commercial software yet. It is a simple program that should include more features, to give the user better results. At the moment there are only a few supported programs and it can't even find all of those.

~ Buy your Christmas Gifts at Software by Swan ~ ---->>>

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article at the top of the page - ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

East-Tec Dispose Secure

2007-11-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

Good morning everyone!

Well, this web site is finally up to date I'm happy to say - so you can expect fresh reviews to be the order of the day.

I'd like to encourage my readers; to take a few moments from time to time, to write some constructive comments at the end of each post, so that I can either improve my reviews for you, or your experience at this web site.

Now on to the review!

Developer: EAST Technologies

Supported Languages: English, Romanian?

System Requirements:

Any version of Windows 3.1 up to XP Pro (Not Vista?)
Any Linux distribution; FreeBSD; Solaris;
SCO UNIX, UNIXWARE OS/2, BeOS, etc.

Additional Requirements:

286 or higher processor (386, 486, Pentium, etc;)
550 KB of free conventional memory;
Bootable 1.44 MB floppy disk drive or CD/DVD drive;
The OS doesn’t seem to be a factor in the operation of this product.

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

Requirements to create the bootable floppy disks or CDs/DVDs:

300 MHz or higher processor;
128 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended;)
5 MB of available hard disk space
Windows XP Home/XP Pro/2000/NT/Me/98;
1.44 MB floppy disk drive or CD/DVD drive.

Credit:

My husband (David,) has been a software engineer for many years. He was largely responsible for the technical information on this software. Thanks babe!

So what does the program actually do?

Securely removes all data from hard drives or disk partitions. (Consider if you’ve only leased your computer.) Even if you’ve reformatted, there is still information readily available to the tech., who knows what he’s doing.

However, this software can be used in a current working environment also. It would be especially useful to companies who lease hardware all the time; or to companies looking to safeguard their sensitive information. Of course there is also the home user who doesn’t want anyone to know what he had been storing on it.

As you can see by the above requirements, East-Tec Dispose Secure appears to be two programs:

A bootable media creator for the software and something called “Network Sanitizing.” At the end of the install you’re asked if you want to launch both. I said yes, and two programs launched. I was somewhat confused that both windows that popped up were labeled “East-Tec DisposeSecure 2007 Enterprise” and I had to enter the install key for both. It’s not clear why I couldn’t simply enter the key once, since both programs use the same key.

Today’s software is not for the computer neophyte. Unless you comprehend this type of software; what it does; and how it works, I am steering you clear. However, having said that, this is no reflection on East Technologies, only on the complexity of running such software to acquire a specified safe output.

Network Sanitizing:

As indicated by the title, the Network Sanitizing program wipes the disk of a networked computer. However, I was perplexed that the documentation implied that you must first configure a computer to boot over a LAN.

Question: Why do you have to physically access the computer (to be wiped,) in order to set it to boot over the LAN? I’m not quite clear on why you’d have to bother with wiping over the LAN, instead of using booting media while you have physical access to the computer in question?

The only thing that I could think of was that you already have computers to wipe, that already boot over the net. However, I thought that most “boot over the net” computers are diskless workstations, which don’t have any disks to wipe.

I suppose I could be wrong. Also, many (most?) computers don’t have a boot ROM on their network card, making it impossible to “configure the BIOS to boot from the network.” However, East Technologies, solution for this problem is to create a bootable CD for the networked computer.

But then that puts us back to going from one computer to the other and booting it using a CD. Another disadvantage to using this method, is that the user would need a different boot CD for each type of network card you own; that is unless the network card has a boot ROM, as mentioned above. It’s not clear what you do if your network card isn’t among the (admittedly long) list of supported cards.

Possible Solution:

I think you’d probably have to just try using the regular bootable CD. Regardless, the main advantage to Network Sanitizing seems to be that you can have the sanitizing process logged to a central server.

A disadvantage is that you need a different boot media for each type of network card (which implies that you know what type of network card is in the PC to be wiped!) Also, you can’t create floppy boot media for Network Sanitizing. You must boot from a CD. All in all, using the bootable version of East-Tec DisposeSecure seems simpler and easier (unless you the centralized logging feature.)

Creating the PXE media for the computer I wanted to wipe went smoothly. Initially I thought the program had hung at the start of the CD burn process. The burner appeared to be doing something, so I waited and the burn was complete in less than a minute.

Now What?

Once that had completed, I had to choose between Implementing Network Sanitization based on “MAC Address” or “Successive Boot Sequence.” Not actually knowing what these meant, I checked out the help file which explains:

MAC Address Based Sanitization allows you to sanitize only the computers with their MAC Address specified in a list. If you try to network erase a computer not in the list of MAC Addresses, you will not be able to do so, until you enter it in the list.”

From that statement, it still wasn’t clear why the program makes it possible to attempt to sanitize a computer that’s not in the MAC list if it’s impossible to actually do the sanitization.

However the answer is found a little further down in the same help file. Apparently it is possible to sanitize a computer that’s not in the MAC list. You just get a warning and can override the warning. Alternatively you can add the computer to the MAC list. I suppose this later feature would be useful for when you wish to sanitize a computer multiple times.

The Successive Boot Sequence lets you sanitize the first (n) computers booted on your network. The example in the help file says that if you have 150 computers and want to sanitize 25, choose “Successive Boot Sequence” and set the number of computers to 25. The first 25 booted over the network will be sanitized! This seems dangerous to me. How do you know that the first 25 booted will be the 25 you want? On the other hand, I’m not an IT professional, so maybe this really is useful.

Hopefully EAST Technologies will visit this review (since they commissioned it!) and enter a few comments answering these questions, in the comments section at the end of this review.

Uh Oh!

Ultimately, I found that I was unable to configure and use Network Sanitize. The documentation appears to say that you must be running a DHCP server (which assigns IP addresses) and a TFTP server (which serves the boot image for Network Sanitizing) on the Network Sanatizing server. Also, the boot ap (from the CD) appeared to assume that the DHCP server and the TFTP server are at the same address.

Our network’s DHCP server is on a Linux box (which can’t run the East-Tec Network Sanatizing server because it’s a Windows application). You cannot run more than one DHCP server on a network segment. It seems likely that this will be a significant hurdle for many East-Tec customers.

It would have been much better if the program was capable of booting the Sanitizing application from a TFTP server that was at a different address from the network’s DHCP server.

Then again:

After further thought, I realized that it might be possible to run a TFTP server on the Linux box that runs our DHCP server. But I’m afraid that’s way too much work for me within the scope of this review.

All in all, I do suspect that the network sanitizing feature could work as well as East-Technologies’ other products - I just can’t know for sure. (We use several of their products at home.) In addition, the network product appears to have only one small advantage over the “bootable media” product: centralized logging.

Bootable Media:

The other way to use East-Tec DisposeSecure is to create a bootable media that will work on any computer. You can create media on CD or floppy.

Oddly, you must choose your sanitizing options at the time you create the boot media. I can see that being useful when you want to enforce a particular set of options for your customers. But if your IT department is going to be using the program, it would be nice if they could choose options (e.g. “Perform a last sanitize with zeros”) at run time instead of at media creation time.

Written later: Apparently you can choose your options at run time. It appears that the set of options chosen here becomes the default for the sanitize disk. You can change any of them when you actually use the sanitizing application.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

Character mode applications are pretty archaic. I’ve even seen BIOS’ that have a GUI. It seems like this software could use one too. Especially if EAST Technologies would really like to sell this product to people at the user (not IT.,) level. Having said that, the character mode does work very well (just like it does for most BIOS’s.)

Partitions -v- Hard Drive:

As mentioned in Features, you can choose between wiping a hard drive or only a partition on that hard drive. After choosing the list of partitions to sanitize, I was presented with a list of twelve sanitizing methods. Each method is nicely described, along with some indication of when each method is appropriate to use (e.g. Single Pass with Zeros is approved by the US Department of defense for clearing most disks but not for disks with “secret information”.)

After choosing my sanitizing method I was presented with a list of options (the same options I had when I created the boot CD.) Apparently, the options chosen at CD creation time are only used to set the defaults for the program.

Logging:

I found it odd that there’s an option to create a log file which is saved in the “default installation directory.” I’ve booted from a CD. There is no default installation directory. Besides, I was trying to wipe the disk. If I wrote a log file onto it, it wouldn’t be wiped! The help file suggests that you write the log file onto a floppy disk, which is a good idea. In fact, it seems like this should be the default. The log file option also says the log can be re-directed to a printer, though there’s no indication of how to do this.

After choosing your options, you’re presented with a warning screen telling you of the dire consequences of proceeding: meaning that you’ll unrecoverably wipe out your drive. I allowed the process to proceed.

The actual sanatizing process went very smoothly.

At the end of the process, I had a disk filled with zeros. Since I had chosen to wipe partitions instead of the whole disk, my partition table was still intact, and each partition was filled with zeros as intended.

Help File:

The sanitizing applications help file, is in the form of a scrollable page that appears to be the text from the DisposeSecure help file. It’s not clear why I’d want information on the network version when I’m running the non-network version, but information for both applications is available. Conclusion: built-in help files are always copacetic, but it would be preferable if the help were tailored to the actual program I’m actually running.

Features:

The first feature has to be that East-Tec Dispose Secure 2007 was chosen specifically by the Dept., of Justice for their erasure needs;

Ability to view the raw data on a drive before you sanitize it;

For hard drives; choice between sanitizing physical drives (the entire disk) or partitions on a drive. This is very useful, as you may only want to wipe one partition while leaving others intact;

Ability to determine how fast sanitization will run before you begin. Each drive to be wiped can be tested separately and the time-to-sanitize is estimated. On the other hand, I had to check each drive (there are two in the computer I checked) separately, and add the estimated times together to get the total time.

East-Tec DisposeSecure 2007 has been positively reviewed by many places.

Negatives:

A simplification process is definitely necessary for the installation procedure (eg: only enter the registration key once!) and a more informational name given to the windows caption heading, to distinguish one window from the other;
When you boot the media (floppy or CD) on the computer to be sanitized, you’re presented with a character mode application. The first screen asks if you agree to the East-Tec license. It’s a little irritating to be asked to agree to the license every time you use an application. I agreed to the license when I created the media. Why do I need to agree to it again?
There should be an option to estimate the total time to sanitize for all drives on a computer. See my note under Features.
There should be two help files, one for each program.

Points:

Originality: 8/10
Functionality: 8/10
Intuitiveness: 6/10

Price: USD$199 and upwards, depending on how many technicians will be using the software.

At this price, it’s probably more palatable to companies, since ordinary users will tend to buy other kinds of software before considering the need to wipe their hard drives. I’d like to see a significant drop in price for a single home user license.

Summary:

Incidentally, it appears you can sanitize any media that can be accessed via the BIOS’s INT13 interface. On my computer that meant SCSI hard drives and floppy drives. However, I was confused again when DisposeSecure offered to sanitize Floppy A and Floppy B even though I have only one floppy drive.

This is an antiquated holdover from the early DOS days when computers with only one floppy drive would assign drive letters A & B to that drive. Micro$oft’s relentless pursuit of backward compatibility means that this feature is preserved even today.

That being said, there’s no reason why EastTec’s program could not probe and discover that there’s really only one physical floppy drive to sanitize. I didn’t pursue this to find out what would happen if I asked it to sanitize two floppies even though I have only one.

The program on the bootable media is easy to use and does what it says. There are some confusing design choices, but no IT person will have any difficulty using this application to wipe hard drives.

Oh, and at the end of the process I was asked to approve the License Agreement again. Grrrrr.

Recommendation:

Again, this software is only for those that understand the consequences of running the software. I suspect that it’s why the License Agreement appears so often. This would cover EAST Technologies‘ liability, should any user lose critical information in the process.

Why not spend a little time shopping at ~ Software by Swan ~

This was a very intensive review to conduct, plus David went into so much technical information that the need for screenshots seemed like overkill for this review.

Thank you EAST Technologies for the opportunity to review yet another product of yours. We do love the other products of yours that we have!
~ Swan

ZSoft Uninstaller 2.4.1

2007-11-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

Originally posted - October 22nd, 2007

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Please adjust your bookmarks.

Good afternoon everyone,

Once again, I apologize for my absence due to ill health. However I'm back on track, and have been thinking about paying homage to a few free programs over the next week or so, including open source, which I do support wholeheartedly.

Today's review is about an uninstaller I've been using for about 6 months, with great success. The software is called Zsoft Installer 2.4.1 and it saves a wealth of time by avoiding the Control Panel to uninstall programs, among other things.

Publisher: I couldn't find who they are anywhere!

Supported Languages: English; Danish; Dutch; French; German; Hungarian; Italian; Portuguese; Russian; Spanish; Valencian.

System Requirements: Windows XP; Vista.

Additional Requirements: None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

You'll be amazed at how fast this small application locates all your installed programs. You have to wonder why Windows takes SO long to do the same thing. This uninstaller also has a rather unique feature that lets you analyze your drive/s both before and after installing a program.

This process ensures that when you decide to uninstall a program, ZSoft Uninstaller will make sure that every last file of an application is removed - something that Windows does not do well at all. This is a major boon for people in my profession, who are constantly downloading; testing and uninstalling various software.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

The interface is easy to navigate and understand; it's mostly intuitive and has a toolbar and a buttonbar. The toolbar comprises File; Functions; Filters; Settings; Language and Help.

The buttonbar has four buttons which are: Uninstall; Analyze; Temp File Finder and Help.

To the right of the interface, is a search box to quickly locate any installed program.

The main list has three tabs:

Installed programs;
Analyzed programs;
Hidden Programs.

Settings:

Uninstall Priority: Set to high; normal or low;

Show Icons: This shows small icons to the left of the program listing;

Big icons: Which will show the the main program list in the same way as changing a normal folder to 'show icons', instead of showing a detailed file listing etc.

Sort List After: This setting allows you to sort your list in two four different ways:

Name; ascending or descending;

Time; ascending or descending.

This option allows you to sort your list in the order you installed your software. I tend to use this (descending) option, since it's unlikely I'll want to locate any early installations after I had to reformat my C: drive. I'm basically only interested in software I've installed from then on.

Change the Background Color: Here you can change various backgrounds within the program to suit your own tastes.

Show Grid Lines: Toggle on or off.

Edit Hide Filter: Since the only programs that I hide in the uninstaller are Windows updates, my filter is empty. However, you may choose to hide certain programs for your own reasons. You can always locate them here and edit them as you wish.

Choose Font: Brings up your normal Windows font selection dialog box.

As many settings as there seems to be, quite a few of them deal only with aesthetics, rather than actual program functionality – and therefore incredibly easy to manipulate. It also indicates the true simplicity of the software.

So let's go through the basics first:

First: Analyze the drive where you want to install the new software by clicking the Analyze button and choosing “Analyze an Installation.”

Second: Install the new software. When you return to Zsoft Uninstaller you will see that the program now appears under the 2nd tab “Analyzed Programs.” If you ever want to uninstall the program in the future, you would return to this tab, click the relevant program and then the large Uninstall button.

At first, the program attempts to use the programs own uninstaller. This would often leave trace files, folders or shortcuts behind - and this is where ZSoft Uninstaller steps up to the pace by deleting them all for you as well. This has really been one of the most useful and functional uninstallers that I've ever used.

Filters:

Given that some unethical programs like to install programs without your knowledge, these filters are especially useful for determining which “kind” of files you'd like to see displayed, in order to perform some other command, such as 'delete.'

Dead links:

These are defined by ZSoft Uninstaller, which will have determined won't work because the .exe file that the uninstall string points to - doesn't exist. If a program exists or if the string points to msiexec.exe, rundll32; regsvr32 or rundll.exe it will not be considered a dead link. Dead links are safe to delete, as there's no good reason for them to stay in the registry.

Crapware:

These are programs like the Alexa Toolbar; Gator; BonziBuddy; Purity Scan; Internet Optimizer etc, that are known to install files other than the obvious. However, this is one filter that doesn't work 100% - generic names like the latter crapware I mentioned, might easily come up on the list if it happens to be Swan's Internet Optimizer Pro., as well. Make sure you apply logic and good sense before uninstalling anything.

There are several other filters that don't need any explanation.

Help File:

The help file explains all the functions and features of the software well, even though it's incredibly brief - again showing the ease of using Zsoft Uninstaller.

Features:

Find and delete temporary files;
Hide Windows Updates;
Hide entries from the list that should never be uninstalled (drivers etc.) making the list more concise and therefore easier to manage;
Gives a lot more information on each installation than you'll ever see in Add/Remove Programs;
Automatically find entries from programs that are most likely already uninstalled;
Export functionality;

Points:

Originality: 7/10
Functionality: 9/10
Intuitiveness: 9/10

Price: FREE

Summary:

As I mentioned earlier, ZSoft is my personal choice for uninstalling unwanted programs. Because of my profession, I am constantly installing; testing and uninstalling software and this program seems to have met all my needs.

Simple to use; time saving; functions extremely well and has the right price. :)

Recommendation:

I would bet on this uninstaller against many others I've tried in the past, including a popular one that you need to pay for called - Cleanse Uninstaller which requires you have .NET installed and to pay $20.00.

ZSoft doesn't need you to be a rocket scientist, just read the brief help files and awaaaay you go!

Why not spend a little time shopping at ~ Software by Swan ~

If you enjoy my reviews, please vote for this web site - votes are always appreciated and give more visibility to my clients and their products, which therefore obtains more work for me - thank you! :) Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Have a wonderful day everyone!
~ Swan

Archmage 1.04

2007-11-17T22:36:00.000-08:00

Originally posted - October 15th, 2007

Good morning gamers and other software seekers!

I have another game for you today, called ArchMage. This is a great game of the overhead shooter genre, that has you take on the persona of a witch or a mage, riding either a dragon or a unicorn.

I expect that the game designer thought that all players would choose a specific character depending on their gender – though there's nothing stopping the female player from choosing the mage and vice versa. Each of them has slightly differing abilities, though one doesn't seem any stronger than the other.

Publisher: 300AD.com

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows 1GHz or - Mac 1GHz, OS X 10.3

Additional Requirements: OpenGL + 128MB

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

While overhead shooters are far from original, I think you'll find that there is enough originality and creativity in this game, to make it worth buying and playing.

Graphics:

The graphics are excellent, (though the colors are somewhat muted,) with animation that is almost flawless. However, I found that the unicorn didn't quite match the skill of the graphics designer.

Obviously the graphics are very professional and even beautiful with obvious attention to detail. As the player shoots and the explosions appear, it gives the gamer a lot of satisfaction to watch them happen, especially with the great explosive noises that accompany them.

Game Play:

Map:

I do wish that the couple of pages explaining the storyline had an option to skip them when you return to the game each time. As it is, you have to wait for them to pass each time, before you can begin the game.

The game begins with the player choosing a path from the map and clicking on a red dot to start the game. This can be confusing to the first time player, as I happened to be last year.

You just have to realize that the player can choose from several start points on the map to go in any of several directions that the path may lead. Once you've chosen your direction, several small screens appear, which dutifully explain the power-ups and spells. The power-ups
are fairly fresh - not just a rehash of of the same old/same old from other similar games.

Cauldron:

This screen shows a number of runes that you can choose, which when mixed in the cauldron, create powerful spells. Certain power-ups collected during play are added to the runes table to create spells later, which you can use whenever you like.

Very creative! A simple right click during play will bring you back to this screen, if you feel that you're running out of fire power.

I haven't very often enjoyed overhead shooters before as many of them use the keyboard only, however this ArchMage can alternatively be played with a mouse or game pad and doubly so for me because of the mouse controls. :)

Options:

The options screen includes volume sliders for master, sound and music volumes and max/min window. There are surprisingly few options for a game of this caliber.

Help File:

There is no help file at all, other than the few screens that are shown to you at the beginning of the game to explain the power-ups etc. Apart from these, there really isn't any need for a separate help file.

Features:

If you enjoy the game, you would find it of great benefit to join their forum and communicate with other players. There has always been some great topics in there (including location of hidden spells!) and actually, it's now been split into the old forum and the new forum.

Once you exit the game, it does automatically save your score and the level you’re up to.

Great graphics and lots of action with explosions that are somehow very satisfying. Great to play if one is angry at something else, and need to vent one's frustration or anger.

Seamless play, with no identifiable bugs.

Negatives:

There seems to be no way to have the power-ups explained to you again, once you have played the game for the first time. BIG flaw. 300AD need to address this, as there were many times that I wanted to do exactly this to identify certain power-ups and anti-bonuses.

So my advice at the moment, is to take a screen shot of the page when it appears the first time you play.

Points:

Originality: 8/10
Functionality: 8/10
Intuitiveness: 8/10
Fun Factor: 8/10

Price: USD$$12.95
(This is a reduction in price from USD$19.95)

ArchMage will be well accepted at the reduced price. It's worth stands out and at the reduced price, it would be great to add to your child's Christmas stocking, if it's the kind of game they enjoy.

Summary:

I enjoy this game, (though I'm not known to like shooters in general,) else I wouldn't have kept it for so long. It would interesting to see an optional game play; as a dual-play game, where one person is the witch and the other the magician and they could fight the enemies together as a team. There certainly are enough enemies to go around!

It would bring added variety to the game. Of course the options screen would need to include a choice of one of two players.

The game plays well and the story line is not excessive (like some games!) clouding the actual game play itself.

Recommendation:

I do recommend this game, especially since it can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages. The controls are easy, no matter if you use the mouse or game pad and could easily be understood by a child of 8 years old to adults of 99 years of age! ;)

While I definitely respect the individual choices of parents for their children, it's my personal belief that this game is not harmful to children's tender psyches. It's just lots of good, fun, explosive action, blowing up giant ants and rocks that are hurled your way, along with similar other “baddies.” No blood is shown at any time.

This is your lucky day too! If you head on over to my good friends at Game Giveaway of the Day, you'll actually be able to pick up a legal, fully licensed copy.

Why not spend a little time shopping at ~ Software by Swan ~

Word Challenge Extreme 1.0

2007-11-17T01:01:00.000-08:00

Originally posted - October 12th, 2007

Good morning everyone!

I thought we'd relax a little today, and explore a game collection, especially for those who enjoy the word game genre. Word games are actually one of my favorites (English Major ;) and I couldn't wait to plunge into what I hoped were new and original games for the wordsmith!

Word games are often my choice during the late evening, when I want to wind down for the day. It's usually not long before my eyes begin to droop and I know that I'm ready for bed.

Title: Word Challenge Extreme 1.0

Publisher: Alawar Entertainment

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Additional Requirements: None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

Today's software offers a bonus, in that it's actually four games in one. While the publishers don't claim that the games are original, there are hundreds of ways you could construct word games and I found myself hoping for at least a new twist on some older games.

However, having read the documentation before playing, I could see that none of them were original at all, no twists, nada. Having said that, - I will admit that they are long time favorites of a few children and even adults who played them as children.

Graphics:

They truly are nothing to write home about, in fact I'd have to say that it's the weakest attempt at graphics that I'd ever seen. While I don't see any particular anti-aliasing or other issues with the images, they are ordinary and very basic. It's as if the the graphics designer thought that the game design wasn't worth his work.

Music:

Extremely repetitive. I knew within a minute or so that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on a word game with it playing. It was definitely going to be turned off!

Opening Screen:

Knowing that there are several games in the package, I took a look at the titles that were available in the package. For the benefit of those that happen to be new to these games (is that even possible!?!? ;) I'll also give a brief description of each:

Word Jumble - Out of a jumble of words in the grid, see how many words you can make out of the letters shown;
Word Whiz - This is similar to Word Jumble, except that you can only make words by connecting adjacent letters together.
Hunt a Word - Word search in any direction - find the words in the grid that appear in the left column;
Hungman (not a spelling error;) Same as Hangman, except that you look for an invisible word, instead of a topical word.

Ok .. So you recognize these games, who wouldn't? Well let's give them a run and a fair chance for the sake of this review shall we?

Options:

Incredibly, the sliders for the music and sound volumes are fixed. The user cannot alter them in any way from within the game! So if you want the music to be on but softer, the only way you can lower the volume is to:

Adjust your speakers;
Adjust with the icon in your tray, or;
For those who have the Logitech ergonomic keyboards (fabulous!) use the volume + or - or even the mute button;
There are the also the normal toggles for full screen/window mode;
Allow word input - the default is mouse;
Show game tips.

There is also a display of the 'Word Count' which shows in my game as 28133. I'm not quite sure what the significance of this number is yet and I haven't found any reference to it in any documentation.

Help Files

The help files are brief and to the point. Not that any of us probably need to be taught how to play any of these games! There are four separate help files, one within each game; which I think is better than having one help file for all four games.

Features:

Saves your progress till the next game;

Negatives:

The game doesn't recognize some simple words and I found myself continually having to get rid of my letters in order to try with another word;

The online documentation says that the game supports custom word lists (which would help with the above point,) however- I have not been able to find any reference to this within the word game;

Navigation around the games is definitely not intuitive.

Points:

Originality: 0/5
Functionality: 3/5
Intuitiveness: 3/5
Fun Factor: 3/5

Price: USD$39.95

I could never see myself paying this price for four word games that were created between the 1950s and early 1980s. Not to mention that ALL these games can be played on a piece of paper and would cost the players zip!

When you hold this software up against a compendium of word games such as Babel http://swan-reviews-almost-everything.blogspot.com/2007/08/babel.html (25 word games - $20.00!) which you can buy for USD#20.00, unfortunately Word Challenge Extreme doesn't even compare.

Summary:

I would have said that this game would suit younger children, but the difficulty does rise quickly and therefore not appropriate. However, if you have a younger child with a pretty good vocabulary, this might be ok for them.

As a game for adults, the game fails miserably. With the very ordinary graphics and nothing brought to the old game play, I can't imagine any adult being entertained for more than a few scant minutes and I certainly don't see them coming back for more.

Recommendation:

This game is not recommended, certainly not until the game designer grows into his profession a little more. I got the feeling that he/she is fresh out of game designer school (what is it called?) and just wanted to test the waters before doing anything more to the game.

If you did happen to want to test it out for yourself today, you can pick up a free fully licensed and registered copy with my good friends over at Giveaway of the Day. However you only have the next few hours to download the software. http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Why not spend a little time shopping at ~ Software by Swan ~

If you enjoy my reviews, please vote for this blog - votes are always appreciated and give more visibility to my clients and their products, which therefore obtains more work for me - thank you! :) Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

If you enjoy my reviews, please rate my article (at the top of the page) - ratings are always appreciated and help me to improve this web site for you. Not to mention that it improves your own karma!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

East-Tec Eraser 2007

2007-11-16T08:55:00.000-08:00

Originally posted - October 10th, 2007

Hello and I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday. :)

I'm really happy to present another East Technologies product to review for you today!

Have you ever worried about other people accessing your computer and finding confidential files that you've deleted?

What about the hacker who knows exactly what he's doing and accesses information such as that contained in old back-ups that have been deleted to your recycle bin; or even the sensitive files that you used to keep in My Documents, but thought you'd permanently deleted by pressing SHIFT-DEL.

A sophisticated user would know how to access this information and retrieve it easily and a hacker or sniffer would find it easier still. East-Tec Eraser, erases data from your computer in such a way that the data can never be recovered – not by you or anyone.

Publisher: East Technologies

Supported Languages: English; German; French

System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

Additional Requirements:None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

Did you always think that particular information was safe as long as you deleted your emails? Well you're not. Your email program doesn't actually perform the deletion, Windows does, so all your deleted emails are just sitting on your hard drive, waiting for someone to come along, retrieve them and read them all.

Perhaps you're also a little worried about your on-line travels and being tracked by cookies or other devices downloaded onto your computer without your knowledge. That's where East-Tec Eraser also comes in handy.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

The opening GUI is attractive to work with, as you can see in the opening image. The four large buttons on the right hand side represent the main commands that you would need to execute with the software.

They are:

Privacy Guard;
Erase Deleted Data;
Add Files and Folders;
Erase Files and Folders.

Across the top, are five other actions that you can perform:

Recycle Bin Files;
Deleted Email;
Scheduler;
Entire Drive Wiper;
Updates.

Privacy Guard:

This is a really neat usage of this software. Privacy Guard can erase data that is generated as a result of you using your computer. For example:

Your browser keeps track of where you've been on the internet;

Many programs generate temporary files that can be used to show what you've been doing on your computer. The temporary files folder and the recycle bin can be rich sources of revealing information for anyone.
This software tries to remove all evidence of what you've been doing on your computer, both locally and while browsing. Used properly, the user will be well protected from being tracked while browsing the internet and can set your mind at ease when doing anything while working with your computer. (You will still need your virus software!)

There are two ways to use the Privacy Guard: Basic and Advanced:

Basic Privacy Guard:

This appears to run Privacy Guard with East-Tec's pre-programmed defaults. Unfortunately, the default may or may not protect all the applications a user would want to protect. I strongly recommend that you read the help file before erasing anything.

Advanced Privacy Guard:

There are a dizzying array of options and as such I won't be going through them all today. I doubt that most users will know what to turn on and off – and this is always a danger when using software of this genre. Make sure you know what you're doing if you plan on changing any of the defaults.

Options:

Among the options is a long list of Windows features; browsers; applications; peer to peer applications; news and email readers that can also be privacy protected.

I did expect that Privacy Guard would have the ability to scan my computer to see what applications I currently have installed and automatically protect those applications (in fact, even the Basic Privacy Guard could handle this.) This is not something difficult to implement in any program and I hope that in the next release of this software, it will be included.

Instead I had to go through the list turning on the ones I use and turning the others off.

Erase Deleted Data:

As it implies, this erases the data from files that you've deleted. As I said above, it tries to do it in such a way that no one can ever recover the data after erasure. Note: The program offers several methods to erase data with an explanation of what each method does and it's pros and cons.

Unsophisticated users should probably stick with the defaults, but it's nice for the experienced users who can make the appropriate trade-offs. This feature can optionally erase files in the recycle bin and erase deleted files from multiple drives.

It's odd that it offers to erase files on my DVD drive, as DVDs cannot typically be erased. I would have liked to see it only offer to erase files on drives that are truly erasable.

Erase Recycle Bin Files:

This is a sub-set of "Erase Deleted Data" that works only on your recycle bin.

Erase Files and Folders:

This is like "Erase Deleted Data," but it works on files that you've not yet deleted. It's kind of like using Windows to delete the file and then using East-Tec Eraser to erase the deleted data, - but accomplishing it all in one step.

Entire Drive Wiper:

This lets you erase all the data on a drive. Normally, when you format a drive, the data still remains after the format (although it's inaccessible to most users.) This action wipes all the data from your drive so that it can never be recovered – even after formatting.

After erasing some data, I was surprised to find that there's no log kept of what was done. As a person who always like to check what has been done, it would have been nice if the software kept or at least offered to keep a log of its activity so I could see if I was erasing too much, too little, or just the right amount of data (little Goldilocks - 3 Bears reference there ;)

Scheduler:

The scheduler can be used to regularly execute the program. This is very useful to advanced users. It can also run in the background, erasing things as they're deleted and constantly protecting your privacy.

Personally I wouldn't want my files to be permanently deleted if they had just been placed in the recycle bin – Given that I'm one to delete files in error occasionally, I'd like to make sure that I didn't want to retrieve them - so I'd probably schedule erasure once per week.

Update Feature:

As with other software, this launches your browser and takes you to the East Technologies web page where you can get the latest version.

Help File:

The help file is set out as any other, in a Windows tree format, with the familiar search functions and favorites storage.

I used File Scavenger to search for the files I deleted and found that it reported the files as still being available for recovery. While it couldn't recover the actual files, I was confused as to why the file names still appeared. Checking the help files, I found that this was to be expected, however the reason for this was not explained.

Otherwise I found their help files to be comprehensive, well laid out and explanatory.

Features:

Running the software causes its addition to the Windows context menu when you right click on a file - Erase Beyond Recovery.

Privacy Guard can also create custom Sensitive Areas, which can be automatically erased when cleaning your computer. The Sensitive Area can include files, folders and registry keys.

This is a very powerful feature in the hands of a sophisticated user, unfortunately it's also an easy way to destroy your computer in the hands of a novice;

East-Tec Eraser 2007 can also be run from the command line

Negatives:

I noted that the Peer2Peer list mentions uTorrent1.5 which hasn't been current since February 2007. uTorrent is currently up to version 1.7.5.

The list of email programs Privacy Guard can protect is different in the program and in the help file. The documentation needs to be addressed so that it matches the program!

Points:

Originality: 7/10
Functionality: 8/10
Intuitiveness: 6/10

Price: USD$49.95 - One license

There are other prices for varying licenses on the East Technologies web site.

The price is a little high for a program that would like to have a significant amount of the market share in it's category. There are other cheaper programs, however I'm not sure how they would stack up against the great functionality of East-Tec Eraser 2007.

Summary:

East-Tec Eraser 2007 is definitely a nice privacy protection program with a lot of incredible features. My reservation, is for those unsophisticated users who may never have used such software, or as I said earlier, will not know which options to turn on and off, or know how best to use the program, even with the help that's provided.

The defaults may or may not do what the user wishes it would do. Sophisticated users, on the other hand, will find a whole lot of power in the software to protect their privacy.

When using the update feature, it would have been nice if the software had first checked to see whether or not I actually needed the latest version before launching my browser. Most users get ticked off at a browser launching when it's not needed.

It would have been nicer still, if once determining that I did need the latest version, that it automatically downloaded and installed the latest version for me. As it works now, you have to check Help - About to see what version you're running, compare that to the version on the web site - and then you can choose whether to manually download and install.

Recommendation:

I strongly recommend East-Tec Eraser 2007 to sophisticated users who will be able to make use of all the functionality within the program. It does what it says on the tin and functions brilliantly.

I would caution new or inexperienced users to be very careful about what they decide to delete until they become more au fait with the program. Reading the help files is an absolute must!

Why not spend a little time shopping at ~ Software by Swan ~

Other reviews for East-Tec Eraser 2007:

Security Software Zone.com;