280 Slides Lets You Create Powerpoint Presentations Online - the Proper Way

There are a few web-based services that let you create powerpoint presentations, such as Google Docs. But none of them can really be compared to desktop software. However, 280 Slides does come close. 280 Slides has a clean Mac-like interface that is easy to use and reminiscent of real desktop software. It’s also pretty resourceful. Notable features include the ability to export to pptx (Office 2007) format or to put your presentation directly on to SlideShare. You can also embed the slideshow directly on your web site and add photos and movies to your presentation directly using a built-in media search. Overall, you cant dispute these features, especially when it’s free.

Adobe Unveils Creative Suite 4

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Creative Suite 4 will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers www.adobe.com/buy and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/go/gn_store.

· Estimated street price for:

o Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium will be $1799USD

o Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium will be $1699USD

o Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium will be $1699USD

o Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection will be $2499 USD

o For a limited time, validly licensed customers of eligible versions of Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Production Studio and Macromedia Studio will be able to upgrade to Creative Suite 4 for the CS3 upgrade price. For more detailed information about features, upgrade policies, pricing, and international versions please visit www.adobe.com/creativesuite.

Microsoft AutoCollage 2008 Uses Face & Object Recognition to Create Collages

There is so much photo creation software out there, yet somehow when it comes to collage creation software choices, there are only a few - and they aren’t that great. Sure you can build a collage yourself using Photoshop, but some of us aren’t that skilled - or we’re just too lazy. That is why we’re excited about Microsoft’s new AutoCollage 2008 which automatically creates collages of your photos. “AutoCollage is an advanced computer vision and image processing program that assembles pictures into a seamless collage using methods such as object recognition and face detection. Having automatically identified interesting parts of pictures, AutoCollage combines the separate pictures into a composite collage by deliberately following natural features as a boundary between images.” Give AutoCollage images and it will automatically choose images that it determines are representative of the overall theme and it avoids duplications, it also tries to lay out collages in an interesting way, and makes sure to blend the images together so that he edges aren’t visible. Currently you can download a 30 Day trial of AutoCollage 2008 for WIn XP or Vista and you can purchase it for $19.95. You can also check out a video of AutoCollage in action. [Read more]

Memorex’s Suer Cheap SimpleSave Photo & Video Back-Up Disc

 

Memorex’s SimpleSave Photo & Video Back-Up Disc is a smart and super cheap way to easily back up your photos and videos. For the fraction of the cost of an external hard drive, you can pop one of the SimpleSave discs in to your computer and they will automatically back up and burn a disc with all your photos and videos. It’s dead simple, no software is required and it costs just $14.99 for a 5 pack. The only thing that is bothering us is that this technology is very similiar to Clickfree. So who copied who?

 

Free Exif Untrasher Software Recovers Erased Photos on Your Memory Card

One day, some unlucky soul is going to discover that they just erased some really important photos off of their camera’s memory card - without having backed them up first. And if you end up being that poor soul, you’ll want to be prepared by downloading Exif Untrasher. Exif Untrasher recovers JPEG images even after they have been deleted or your memory card has been formatted. There is actually a good amount of memory card recovery software out there, but most will cost you at-least $20 to $50 a pop. On the other hand, Exif Trasher is totally free. Unfortunately it’s only Mac compatible. Anyone know of a good alternative for PC or Linux folks?

Fight Depression with Optimism Software

We’ve seen all kinds of software over the years, but software that wants to replace Prozac? Optimism software, designed for both Mac and PC is a unique app that charts your lifestyle and helps you pinpoint causes for your bouts of depression so that you can eliminate and reduce those causes. “The program is an advanced health and mood diary. It helps you discover the things that trigger your depressive episodes, the symptoms that they produce, and based on this knowledge, effective strategies for staying mentally well. Its great strengths are its charts and report, which together give you a visual “birds-eye view” for identifying the important cause and effect relationships. Many people discover, when looking back over their health records, that their depressive episodes have been quite predictable.” Anyway, the reviews for this app are pretty good and for $19.95 it can’t hurt to try it? Depression is no joke, and as skeptical as we are about the idea of using software to fight depression - it cant be that crazy an idea, after all - computers do make US happy.

Gossip Girl Neighborhood on Second Life

Are the new Gossip Girl ads making you wait with baited breath for the new season to begin? Well if you just can’t seem to manage, why not check out the new Gossip Girl neighborhood in Second Life.  Design your own avatar and have them be as stylish and cliquey as you want. The neighborhood where Gossip Girl is, is obviously called the Upper East Side and you’ll get to hang out at all the same hotspots like in the show - and even with the same characters. There is a calendar of events over at the CW that will tell you of all the latest happenings. To get started you’ll have to download the game and be 18 years of age. Come on, you know you want to hang with Blair and Serena - don’t you?

The Art of Office Showcases Masterpieces Created in Excel, Powerpoint & Word

The Art of Office is a collection of artwork that has been designed and produced completely using your favorite boring old Microsoft Office apps. We’re talking Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. Whether it’s an Excel Spreadsheet turned Mona-Lisa portrait or just some funky abstract art created with Powerpoint’s shape tools, we’re pretty impressed by both the talent some of these people have, as well as the free time on their hands. But don’t trust our word on it, go and check it out for yourselves.

SpoofApp Offers Caller ID Spoofing for the iPhone

If you’re brave enough to own a Jailbroken iPhone, then SpoofApp is one app you’ll want to try out. The software lets you call other phones using whatever caller ID you choose. The software also lets you disguise your voice in a fake male or female voice, and it also lets you record your phone call. We tried it out ourselves and had a good laugh at the victim’s expense. You get 5 minutes of spoofing free with the app, but additional minutes will cost you with prices starting at $10 for 60 minutes. But the price of a good joke at someone else’s expense? Priceless.

Advanced WindowsCare Personal 2.6 is a Great Free Fixer Upper for Windows

Chances are if you’re reading this blog, you’re a pretty savvy computer user who makes sure to keep your computer free of spyware, and you also know how to keep things running smoothly by routinely running a registry cleaner application. Unfortunately the majority of Windows users aren’t that savvy and they are unlikely to be running all of these kind of applications. That is why we recommend Advanced WindowsCare Personal 2.6, and we recommend that you recommend it to your less computer savvy friends as well. The software is an all in one fixer upper - and it’s free too, though you can upgrade to the professional version for $29.95. Anyway, the software diagnoses PC problems, fixes registry issues, finds and removes spyware, prevents spyware from being installed, and cleans out junk files so you can save disk space. Not bad for a free app.

LocalCooling App Lets You Fight Global Warming from your Desktop

Here is an easy, hassle free way to contribute to be Green. LocalCooling is a free software application for Windows that automatically optimizes your PC’s power consumption and gives you detailed information on how much power your PC is using, whether you want to know or not. It adjusts your power mode settings and predicts how much you will save based on past PC usage and “statistical data”. So in other words it will save power by turning off your display, putting your hard drive to sleep when it’s not being used or shutting down your computer when you aren’t using it.

iTunes Sync App Lets You Sync iTunes with Any MP3 Player

Do you really like iTunes, but you don’t have an ipod? iTunes Sync is a free software app for Windows that lets you sync your non Apple made MP3 player with iTunes. The software works with many popular MP3 players as well as many popular cell phones like the RAZR, and the Nokia N95 just to name a few. However it is not compatible with the Zune - why are we not surprised. iTunes Sync is not compatible for Mac but there is a similar program called SyncTunes available for free for Mac users as well.

iPlayMusic Software Teaches You How to Play a Real Guitar, Not The Guitar Hero One

Learning how to play the guitar is something I’ve always wanted to do but have never gotten around to actually doing. I’m sure that a lot of people can relate to that. iPlayMusic’s software makes it easy and affordable to learn how to play and they even have great starter packages that come bundled with a guitar of your choice. For example their Beginner Guitar Bundle comes with a full size guitar in your choice of color, as well as a tuner, DVD, picks, and strings. There are software versions for both Mac and PC and even packages for kids. This is definitely an affordable alternative to paying for lessons, or just a great way to learn how to play at your own leisure.

Proof that Microsoft’s Beloved Office Assistant, Clippy is Alive and Well

Last year we sadly reported that Clippy, Microsoft’s favorite office assistant had passed on. But it turns out that we were lead to believe a falsehood. We spotted Clippy on a pretty recent episode of the Simpsons. And folks, this is getting more scandalous by the moment. It turns out that not only is Clippy alive and well, he also has children! Skip to 8:40 to see the Clipster in action. [Read more]

Paint.net Makes a Great Free Photoshop Alternative

Photoshop is an incredibly powerful tool, but it’s also incredibly expensive. There is Gimp which is a great free alternative, and now we’ve discovered yet another cool free Photoshop alternative. Paint.net has “an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.” There is even a strong online community and many free tutorials for Paint.net available. While this software probably wont suffice for a serious Photoshop user, for someone just starting out in digital design, or someone who just has basic needs, Paint.net is highly recommended.

iCalShare Offers Free Calendars for iCal, Mozilla Calendar and Other Apps

For most of us, our digital calendars, whether it be Apple’s iCal or the one built in to Microsoft Works, we can’t live without them. But perhaps you’ve been living in the dark like I have and you’be been under the presumption that in order to add special stuff like holidays, you had to do it manually? Turns out, I’ve been missing out. iCalShare offers over 2500 free calendars in more than 35 different categories. You can preview them and than download them so that they integrate with your calendar software of choices. They have everything from useful holidays calendars to interesting ones like a neat astronomy calendar. I’ve downloaded a few calendars with iCal and it integrated beautifully. [Read more]

NTFS for Mac OS X is a Must Have for Boot Camp Users

Boot Camp is a very powerful tool but it has its limits. For instance, if you’re using the Windows side of the computer, you can’t read, write and access the Mac side. That is where the software Mac Drive comes in, it allows you to read/write and access your Mac drive from your windows drive, and it does a good job of it. However, the picture isn’t complete with MacDrive alone because if you’re on the Mac side, you still can only read the Windows side but not delete or modify files. Paragon’s new NTFS for Mac OS X completes Boot Camp by allowing the Mac side (Leopard is supported as well) to read, write and format all of your NTFS windows drives. I tried it out and installed in a cinch. The most time consuming part was the requirement to restart the computer. After that, all of my NTFS hard drives are now both readable and writeable. I can’t begin to describe how helpful this is. So often I have files that I need to access and modify but they are on the Windows side. [Read more]

ThreatFire Software Tries to Stop Viruses & Malware Before Your Antivirus Software Can

You might have anti-spyware and antivirus software on your Windows PC, but it turns out that that isn’t even enough. The traditional problem with most anti-virus software is that they can only identify and stop malware once the software has been updated and is aware of the malware via new signatures. ThreatFire is a step ahead of traditional anti-virus software in that it is “constantly monitoring the activity on your PC, ThreatFire’s ActiveDefense technology is able to hunt down and paralyze threats that are too new or too clever to be recognized by traditional security software.” So even if you haven’t updated your anti-virus’s signatures, ThreatFire has a good chance of detecting it, much more so than other security software. [Read more]

Scribd Publishes Your Masterpieces for the Whole Web to See

Do you have a screenplay that you would love to share with the world? Maybe you’re working on a whitepaper that you would like some feedback on, or perhaps a powerpoint presentation? Whatever it is, Scribd will store it for you online so that anyone with a web browser can view it, even if they don’t have the software that the document was created in. Scribd’s large community also enables you to get feedback on your work, if that is what your after. Scribd in general also works as a great online storage service of a sort because it will host an unlimited amount of documents. Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Open Office, text, PDF, Jpegs, PNGs, Gifs and HTML are all supported by Scribd. [Read more]

PC Fly USB Key Also Offers Remote Access to Your Computer

The PC Fly is essentially an ordinary USB key that comes preloaded with remote access software on it. Has no on ever heard of LogMeIn Free or GoToMyPC? Really, why would you spend money on this? The 128mb version retails for £29.00 and the 512mb is £49.00, which is a total rip off compared to ordinary USB key prices. Sure, they throw the PC Fly in a fancy case with a purple cloth, but you’d have to be kind of daft to see the value in this product.

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