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Issue 442 - April 04, 2007

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2007
==== 1504 Subscribers in 50 Countries ====

Welcome to the 442nd issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news highlights and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments.

Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php

Contents

Opening Thoughts

Spring is here, finally! This weekend is supposed to be cool (there is some light snow falling right now), but overall the weather is much nicer and you can see the flowers starting to grow. Another sign of Spring is that baseball is back as well (I'm a big fan). Hopefully the Jays will do well this year.

I tried to install Vista on my laptop the other day, but it only has 256 MB of RAM, so it wouldn't install. It's not that it was so or failed, it actually told me there wasn't enough memory so it wouldn't even start installing. I was a little surprised at that. I've got more memory on the way, so I'll try again another time.

Happy Easter!

Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net

News Highlights

Malware plague hits 40 per cent of firms

Nearly half of companies globally have suffered a business disruption owing to malware, according to Webroot Software's latest State of Internet Security report.
The organised nature, rapid growth and severity of cyber-crime has pushed it to the FBI's number three priority behind counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.
Webroot's research discovered that 4.2 million, or 1.7 per cent, of 250 million URLs around the world harbour malware. Almost three million of these malicious sites were discovered in 2006 alone.

Read the Vnunet article...
Leave a comment...

R u rdy 4 wrlds fastest txt msg?

Warm up those thumbs.
What's billed as the first text messaging competition will take place in Los Angeles on Saturday, pitting scores of players in a race to determine who is the fastest.
The snag is that popular text shorthand will not be allowed.

Read the Reuters article...
Leave a comment...

Is Google Too Powerful?

It's the year 2014, and Googlezon, a fearsomely powerful combination of search engine Google Inc. and online store Amazon.com Inc., has crushed traditional media to bits. Taking its place is the computer-generated Evolving Personalized Information Construct - an online package of news, entertainment, blogs, and services drawn from all the world's up-to-the-minute knowledge and customized to match your preferences. And it's all collected, packaged, and controlled by Googlezon.
This is the future according to EPIC 2014, a faux documentary posted to the Web in late 2004 by young journalists Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan. Thanks to their slightly tongue-in-cheek, Twilight Zone-inspired tone, the short video drew as many chuckles as gasps of dismay from the legions of mainstream media types and Web digerati who viewed it. Today, nobody's laughing.

Read the BusinessWeek article...
Leave a comment...

Retirees find Wii not just for the grandkids

Until two weeks ago, Ruth Ebert never had the slightest interest in the video games favored by her one and only granddaughter.
"I'm 82 years old, so I missed that part of our culture. Soap operas, yes. Video games, no," chirped Ebert, who recently started playing a tennis game on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s new Wii video game console at the Virginia retirement community she calls home.
"It was funny, because normally I would not be someone who would do that," said Ebert, who picked up the console's motion-sensing Wiimote and challenged the machine to a match.
"I played tennis, if you can call it that, as a high school student. I had such fun doing it," she said.

Read the Reuters (via CNN) article...
Leave a comment...

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Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Adjust White Balance - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

I am just finishing up my review of Adobe Lightroom. So far I am very impressed with Adobe's new offering with only a few issues. This week's tip is for Lightroom users.

I have talked in the past about how important proper white balance is in your photographs. If your camera has the ability to shoot RAW you have the ability to control white balance after you take the image. With Lightroom, you can now adjust your colour balance whether you shoot JPG or RAW in a non-destructive way.

In the Develop module of Lightroom, click on the White Balance Selector. As you move the eye dropper around your image, the image in the Navigator provides a live preview of the changes that will occur in your image with a new white balance selection.

If you regularly hide panes when working on an image, you may be missing out on some great features that Lightroom offers.

Until next time, Happy Shooting.

Leave a comment on this week's Digital Photography Tip of the Week

The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.

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PCIN.net Site Update

Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/photoshopEL5_Premiere3.php

ExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.php

Paragon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.php

Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/

Microsoft Digital Image Suite Plus Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/msdimagesuiteplus.php

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Tips and Other Stuff

Unbiased product reports, available at ProductWiki

I read about this on Download Squad...

Want to get a total unbiased report on a new product you are thinking about purchasing? ProductWiki can help.

ProductWiki is a product information site that is based off of a collaborative wiki format. The website is entirely maintained by visitors and users who share information or review consumer products from around the world.

I've browsed the site briefly, and it appears to have thousands of reviews in various categories. If you are looking at buying something, it would probably be worthwhile to browse ProductWiki before making your purchase.

Leave a comment...

Allway Sync

The Toolbox section of the April 2007 TechNet Magazine highlights a tool called Allway Sync.

No matter what kind of IT job you have, chances are you spend a lot of time moving files and directories from one place to another - whether from your desktop to a USB key or from server to server over the network. Often, it's important to keep those directories synchronized to ensure you aren't creating unnecessary duplicates and that you're working with the latest version of the files. Sometimes you may need to synchronize files and directories across many machines, as when deploying static XML or HTML files across a set of Web servers. Allway Sync from Usov Lab is a helpful tool for handling these kinds of tasks.

Leave a comment...

101 Fantastic Freebies

Late last year I linked a list of PC World where they had 101 Fabulous Freebies. The list has been updated:

Once upon a time you actually had to pay for great software and services -- hard to believe, but true.

We revved up our cable modem and searched for the most intriguing free offerings out there. After we took each download or service for a test-drive, we picked the very best, and came up with the following list of 101 great freebies

Be sure to check out the latest101 Fantastic Freebies list!

Leave a comment...

PCIN.net Affiliated Sites

Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check them out from time to time for updates:

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Disclaimer and Other Stuff

PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying the tips in this newsletter.

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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net

Copyright 1998-2007, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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