|
Issue 445 - April 25, 2007
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2007
==== 1505 Subscribers in 50 Countries ====
Welcome to the 445th 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
Since the weather has been quite good the last week or so we've been able
to start puttering around the yard. I've planted 19 Canna
Lilies in small planters so they can be kept inside at night. They should
be ready to plant outside by mid-May. We've done some clean-up in the perennial
garden along the back of the house, and it looks like we'll have to cut the
lawn soon. For the next few days it looks like the April showers will be here,
but hopefully they will bring the May flowers (at least on my Canna
Lilies).
This coming Sunday we're having a family dinner to celebrate Alisa's and Julia's
birthdays who both had birthdays earlier in April. There were two families
at Church that had babies this month, and one baby was born on Alisa's birthday,
and the other was born on Julia's birthday. I wonder what the chances of that
were...?
Graham editor@pcin.net and
Chris chris@pcin.net
News Highlights
Bill Gates: No End to Tech Revolution
Technology will keep getting better and better rather than plateauing out,
with the humble keyboard making way for speech recognition software as standard,
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Thursday.
"I'm often asked, is the technology revolution going to reach an end? Is
the improvement in the chips and the software, will that start to slow down as
we reach some limits?" he told a forum in Beijing.
"The answer is?certainly in the decades ahead?we don't see any limits. We
see in fact the power will just get better and better."
Read the Red Herring
article...
Leave a comment...
Religious websites ape MySpace, YouTube
In the name of MySpace, YouTube and the holy Internet, amen.
A number of religious websites are aping the names and styles of some of
the Web's most popular sites. Chief among them are GodTube.com, a video-sharing
site for Christians, and MyChurch.org, a social networking realm.
The explosion of niche social networking sites that divvy up your personality
into various identities has extended into religion with MyChurch.org. The
site describes itself: "This is NOT 'MySpace for Christians,' this is
MyChurch for EVERYONE."
Read the USA Today
article...
Leave a comment...
Google's Only Foe: High Expectations
Google owns the Internet advertising business, generates gobs of cash and
can keep competitors at bay simply by opening its checkbook.
None of this seems to impress Wall Street. Analysts expect the Web giant
to post another quarter of go-go growth on Thursday afternoon: They are looking
for the company to reports earnings per share of $3.27, up 42% from a year
ago, and revenues of $2.5 billion, up 63%. And yet investors now treat the
company as if it is stalling: After a breathtaking run, the company's share
price has been bouncing between $450 and $500 all year.
So, what's a poor Internet advertising behemoth supposed to do to impress
investors?
Read the Forbes article...
Leave a comment...
MySpace to test news service
News Corp.'s MySpace social network launched on Thursday a service that
scours the Web for news stories and lets users rate them, aiming to attract
more advertisers to the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company.
The service, called MySpace News, resembles a mix of Google's Google News,
which collects stories and arranges them based on thematic similarities,
and Digg.com, which displays stories suggested by its readers and displays
them according to their popularity ranking, executives said.
Read the USA Today
article...
Leave a comment...
Return to the top
Digital Photography
Tip of the Week
Keyword Tagging in Adobe Lightroom - Digital Photography Tip of
the Week
Today's tip is another tip for Adobe Lightroom users.
The third
tip that I wrote dealt with organizing your images. Today's tip is how
Lightroom can help you with that.
Using the Library Module in Lightroom, tagging images with keywords could
not be any easier. With your thumbnails visible, select an image or a series
of images (hold down Shift when selecting all images between two selected images,
or hold down control while selecting individual images that are not in order)
and type keywords in the Keyword Tag box located in the right hand pane of
the Library Module.
You can also add keywords buy selecting your images as above then clicking
on any of the keywords listed in the Recent Keywords list. On top of the Recent
Keywords, you can create you own list of up to nine keywords and save them
as a custom set for future reference. Lightroom includes three of these keyword
sets, Outdoor Photography, Portrait Photograph and Wedding Photography, but
of course you can create your own for your specific photo needs. To change
to any of these sets, or to one of your own, simply click the small down arrow
just right of keyword set menu. This menu will then let you pick a keyword
set, add or delete sets.
What good is tagging your images if you cannot use those tags to find your
images later. Adobe has made this easy as well. To search for images using
the keywords you have just created, expand the left hand pane if it is not
already and then the Keyword Tags section of that pane.
You will see all of your keywords you have created along with a listing of
the number of images tagged with each keyword. Selecting a keyword (or multiple
keywords using Control and/or Shift) will then show in the image list all of
the images belonging to your selected tags.
Properly labeling your images will make finding and sorting them easier for
you, and the few seconds it takes to do this initially equates to a lot of
saved time in the end.
Watch for my upcoming full review of Adobe Lightroom which is still on sale
for a reduced rate of $197.99 US until the end of the month when the introductory
price expires and the price increases to $299.99 US.
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.
Return to the top
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
Return to the top
Tips and Other Stuff
Image Assistant 3.0 - comfortable and quick image processing
Several weeks ago I received this press release from ExtraLabs
Software:
The ExtraLabs Software company, a developer of software for creating RSS
feeds, announced the new release of the Image Assistant graphic editor
that has some new features improving the usability of the product. These
new improvements take into account users' most urgent needs.
Image Assistant is a multifunctional and yet easy-to-use program for batch
image processing. The main advantages of the product include the intuitive
interface allowing you to resize images and automatically rename image
files, generate HTML preview pages and also apply all kinds of text and
graphic "watermarks" and filters to images (remove the red-eye
effect, correct colors and much more).
The program can be used for quite a wide range of purposes, both at home
and in office. With Image Assistant, any user - no matter how experienced
- will be able to create an album of home photos, correct colors, protect
image files with "watermarks".
I haven't tried the software, but I figured I'd pass along the information.
Leave a comment...
Paragon Software Launches New Version of NTFS for Linux
A few weeks ago I received this press release from Paragon Software Group
about the latest version of NTFS
for Linux:
Paragon Software Group, the technological leader in innovative data security
and data management technology, announced that it has released Paragon
NTFS for Linux 6.0, the latest in its family of software. The product's
purpose is to provide reliable, rapid and transparent read/write access
to NTFS volumes under Linux. Among the new improvements and features in
this release are complete support for 64 bit CPU architecture, Windows
Vista NTFS file system, the latest Linux kernel and also includes performance
enhancements.
You can read the entire press release
in PDF format on the Paragon web site.
Leave a comment...
All My Movies - cutting-edge tool for creating personal video
collection
I recently received this press release from Bolide
Software about All My Movies:
Bolide Software today announced a new release of its well-known solution
All My Movies. Designed for Windows OS, this product allows users to easily
and efficiently create and manage private video collections. All My Movies
turns your idea of sorting and cataloging various data upside-down making
it an extremely captivating task. Compared with its competitors, All My
Movies possesses an unexampled feature suite such as support of various
plug-ins, export into HTML, XLS, CHM, support of templates and enhanced
database. One of the remarkable features of All My Movies is the possibility
to import information from Internet databases (for example, IMDB) and the
scanned data (covers and bar-codes) which brings considerable time-saving.
Above all, All My Movies allows to take stock of lent discs, keep various
bases for preview on PDA and implement full text search. Intuitive, user-friendly
interface of the program developed in accordance with user-demands is fully
customizable and supports a variety of skins.
You can learn more about All My
Movies on the Bolide Software
site.
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:
Return to the top
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.
- If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to cut
and paste.
- To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit http://PCIN.net/ and
follow the appropriate links.
- The only way to become a subscriber is by asking. You have either filled
out the subscription form or asked me directly.
- If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please email me at editor@pcin.net and
I will add it to the subscriber web pages that I have on my site.
- Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php or
by clicking on the PayPal link below:
Return to the top
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.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author
is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php
PC Improvement News Home Page
PC Improvement News Archive
|
