Tag Archives: Windows

Adobe Audition Mac Free Beta Download



Making the switch to Mac OS/X a few years ago as my primary computing platform was not without its sacrifices. Among these was Adobe Audition. Sure, I could use Audition in a Windows virtual machine, but it just wasn’t the same thing and entailed its own sacrifices.

Sacrifice no more. Adobe finally heeded the call for Audition for Mac OS/X, and has released a public beta that can currently be downloaded for free available at

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition/

After a cursory look at this new beta, I’m impressed. They seem to have succeeded in bringing the Adobe Audition user interface I love in Windows to OS/X. I’ll be buying the final product once it is released for sale to the public.


WobZIP, An Online Unzipper



Have you ever downloaded some data off the ‘net only to find it’s in a compressed or archive file format that your PC doesn’t have a helper app for? Or you’re fixing up a friend’s PC, you download some drivers and ditto, you can’t get them unpacked?

If so, you’ll be interested in WobZIP. It’s a web site where you can upload an archive file and it will uncompress it for you.  Once uncompressed, you can either download the files one by one, or else the site will bundle the files back up into a zip archive for you to download.

The site is still in beta but claims to support the following archive formats – 7z, zip, gzip, bzip2, tar, rar, cab, iso, arj, lzh, chm, z, cpio, rpm, deb and nsis.  Obviously quite a few of those formats are Unix and Linux, but there’s a fair collection of DOS / Windows ones too.  As it’s a website, it doesn’t care what OS you’re running either. From the FAQ, WobZIP uses the open source 7-zip program as the decompression engine.

Cleverly, there’s also a feature to unpack or uncompress from a URL so you don’t always have to download to your PC and then upload back to WobZIP – you can just enter the URL and it will go and get the file for you.  Also, it will scan the unpacked files for viruses.

Put this site in your bookmarks.  You may not need it right now, but you will one day.


iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows



The iPad has been available for a while and it’s clear that the product is a runaway success. Say what you will, but it’s now obvious that Steve Jobs and Apple have shown us how tablet computing should be implemented. It should be a very thin, flat touch screen device that has built-in WiFi with an option for 3G. The operating system running on it should be fast and nimble. The device should be a pleasure to use and offer great battery life. In other words, a popular tablet-computing device should be everything that Windows-based devices have not been to this point and cannot currently offer.

It is said that the iPad is outpacing iPhone sales. The iPad is currently selling 4.5 million units per quarter according to CNBC. It is set to become the 4th most popular consumer electronics item.

When Apple brought the first version of the iPhone out, there was no real same-league competition. This equation finally began to change dramatically in 2010. Android-based phones are now offering the iPhone true competition. Android-based phones are on track to dominate the smartphone market. Because the average consumer changes cell phones about every 18 months, this market can and often does change very quickly.

Right now the iPad dominates the newly-Apple-minted consumer tablet market. If the history of the iPhone is any indicator, it may be a year or two before a serious tablet competitor comes along to challenge the iPad’s market dominance.

That eventual effective iPad challenger will almost certainly be an Android-based device. Microsoft and Windows don’t stand a chance in the iPad-style tablet arena.


Android Pros and Cons



I’ve been using Android for a while now and feel I’ve been using it long enough to make some meaningful observations.

I like Android. It’s quick. It’s powerful. It has some astounding voice recognition capability built right in that even the iPhone can’t touch. For example, hold down the search button and when the voice search box pops up say “navigate to” and then speak either a street address, the name of a business or a business category, and watch what happens. The results are something right out of science fiction and nothing short of amazing. Try THAT with your iPhone.

In other areas, Android seems to fall rather flat. While it’s possible to create, name and populate folders, the process seems clunky and rather counter-intuitive.

How about allowing me as an end-user to rename application icons to something useful? Many apps have names that don’t bear any relationship or give any hint as to what their functionality is as an app. If I could just rename the text under the app icons it would help me out as an end user quite a bit. Either give me a direct icon name that describes functionality succinctly, or give me the ability to rename an icon myself just like I can in Windows or OS/X.

Another area that falls somewhat flat is how to discover great apps. There are a ton of apps, but it’s often difficult to find the best ones. I’m willing to spend money on apps, however I want the best bang for my buck. How can I be assured if I buy an app I’m buying the best possible one?


GNC-2010-09-21 #612 Go Ivi Go!



We knew this was coming, Ivi is in a battle for their survival. I am going to do my best to do a interview with their CEO this week to have available on the The Morning Tech Show. I am at a turning point with the Podcast Awards, info in todays show, plus how your host is operating with a scratched eyeball all that and more in the show.

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Point your phone at Planes.
No Digging in the Sand.
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Why the change at GNC. Stats are Like a Bikini.
The YouTube Copyright Detection System.
Must See Blogworld Session.
Want a Stargate?
Skype blocking Competitors?
4chan and DDOS.
Windows Phone 7 goes Global.
Pirated Shows on your iPad?
Scribd Bait and Switch.
O2 Bait and Switch.
Verizon LTE Info Page.
Streaming Netflix to Canada.
ABC New Interactive Sniffer App.
Vidabox
New Microphone for Flip Recorders.
Fair Set Top Box Comparison?
Live TV to Apple TV?
Ivi in fight for survival.
Will Sat Based Stars go Internet Only?
Crazy Bill Introduced in Congress.
Nice try AT&T.
Adobe Air for Android Pending.
Correction NewsWeek in Business?

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Is Google Cursed?



Back in the very early part of the 1990’s, the tech world villain of choice was IBM, and the underdog was Microsoft. As the 1990’s progressed, IBM began to move into the background and Microsoft took over the role as tech villain.

Windows 3.0 was the version that really started making waves in a big way. It was buggy and unreliable, but it offered a glimpse of the potential personal computers presented. Windows 3.0 made it possible to pick from a wide variety of standardized computer hardware parts and put them together and have a working personal computer that could do rudimentary multitasking. Windows succeeded because it worked on an open hardware platform. That same open platform forever cemented The Windows’ Curse.

In 2010 the new tech villain is Google. Smartphones are the new computers of choice. Google Android is the new Windows 3.0 morphing into 3.1, 3.11, and Windows 95.

My fear is that Google Android is doomed to repeat the muddled path of Windows.

Here is why.

My HTC Evo was recently updated to Android 2.2 “Froyo.” All well and good. However, the Android apps I have installed are constantly being updated. Fine – I can see how that would happen. However, I’m noticing that some of them no longer work. Incompatibilities are creeping in. The latest victim of Android upgrade fail is the latest Android version of the Foursquare app, which causes my phone to spontaneously reboot a few seconds after I open the app.

The Windows Curse is in very real danger of becoming The Android Curse.

The open platform is both a blessing and a blight. Open platforms are great so long as they are small. Once they become the majority market leader, their very openness makes them vulnerable to of errors of confusion as well as a giant security target.

It’s probably time for some company to start producing antivirus and antispyware software for Android phones. And it may also be time for some of us to start fleeing for the higher ground of walled garden dictatorships.


Microsoft Opens Source Code to Russian Government



I am not really sure how I feel about this one.  It’s a rather strange story.  Here’s a snippet of what Computer Weekly recently posted:

“Microsoft has signed an agreement with Russia to share the source code of multiple products, according to US reports.

The agreement expands co-operation with Russia under Microsoft’s Government Security Program set up to help governments build more secure IT infrastructures.

According to Microsoft, more than 60 governments are eligible for the Government Security Program in which the UK, China and NATO are active members.”

From reports, they handed over source code for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SQL Server, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2000, and, of course, Windows 7.  I can’t take credit for noticing this, but when pointed out, I found it amusing that they didn’t ask for access to Windows Vista.  Even the Russians had no interest in Vista.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but I noticed China listed here, and I can’t help but remember that China recently hacked Google and various other US tech companies via a hole in Internet Explorer 6.

The US also recently traded a group of Russian spies back to their homeland in exchange for the release of a few captured US spies.  It all sounded very cold war-esque except for the technology slant to the story.  Which, again, can bring us back to wondering if holes in any of this software allowed some of this to happen.

Curious to see what security experts were thinking I did a quick web search and came across this from Cambridge University’s Richard Clayton:

“If a government has the source code it can find different sorts of security vulnerabilities and perhaps exploit them, [but] it’s unclear whether access to the source code makes people better or worse off,” said Clayton.A number of different factors made the situation complicated, said Clayton. Access to the code could allow close analysis, which would enable the discovery of holes such as buffer overflow flaws, but equally it is possible to run a fuzzing program which throws random data at parts of an operating system or software to find different vulnerabilities.”

And this one from ZDnet:

“Despite the security benefits, having access to a source code can also carry security implications.

“Having a number of different governments with access to Microsoft code meant it was possible that a government could find holes in the code and use it to exploit another nation-state’s systems,” a senior security source with links to the U.K. government told news source ZDNet.”

So, Microsoft makes it sound benign, security experts make it sound less so.  There’s seems to be nothing from the US government, but I have to assume they allowed this to happen.  And, I also have to assume that they vetted this and found no reason to put a halt to it.  Hence I guess I won’t worry…yet.