CrystalGraphics PowerPlugs

I have never tried any of these, but CrystalGraphics has a number of what they call PowerPlugs. These are plug-ins to various Office products. There are PowerPlugs for PowerPoint, FrontPage, Outlook, and Excel. The PowerPlugs can either be purchased as a suite, or individually. I’ll probably ask to review the PowerPlugs for Outlook at some …

Audio and Video Codecs

http://www.fourcc.org/codecs.php Definitions of raw and compressed pixel formats used in Windows video programming. If you’ve ever downloaded a video, you probably come across ones that you cannot play because your system needs a decoder. Windows Media Player will play AVIs, MPGs, and many other standard formats, but not every one. Check out the above site …

Lycos’ anti-spam screensaver draws fire

From InfoWorld: A screensaver developed by Lycos Europe that gives spammers a dose of their own medicine is attracting plenty of attention, but not all of it good. The company officially launched the ‘Make Love, Not Spam’ screensaver Wednesday but a beta version had already been widely distributed. Offering to ‘spam the spammers,’ the screensaver …

Publisher: ‘Blog’ No. 1 word of the year

From CNN: A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year’s presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster’s list of the 10 words of the year. Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as ‘a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments …

At Museums, Computers Get Creative

From the NYT: At the Exploratorium, the hands-on science museum here, there is an exhibit called ‘Energy From Death’ that staff members refer to as ‘the rotting carcass.’ In a small terrarium hundreds of dermestid beetles eat the flesh and bones of a dead baby mouse over several days. Next to the live beetles is …