Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

I’ve been using my MacBook to edit the movies I take with the Kodak Zi6, but now that I see this, I may have to play on the PC a bit to see how well it works.

VideoSpin is the free video editor that I kind of wish Windows Movie Maker was. It’s easy to use, and it doesn’t lock up on me the way Windows Movie Maker likes to after I’ve made a few splices. I first checked out VideoSpin back in early 2008, but today Pinnacle has released an updated version that adds a handful of new features and support for a bunch of new video formats.

Firefox is busy patching holes again.

Mozilla published a critical security upgrade for Firefox Friday evening. Version 3.0.8 for Windows, Mac, and Linux fixes two security holes listed as “critical.”

One patched an arbitrary code execution hole through an XUL element, and the other corrected an XSL stylesheet exploit. Both fixes patch crash-based security holes in which remote codes could have been run.

Funny, I didn’t notice. Oh yeah, because I have been testing Safari 4.

Fresh out the door, users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 are complaining of glitches one day after the IE8 final build was made available at noon Eastern time on Thursday. Dozens of posters are complaining about printing from Web sites, search functions, and disappearing images.

The browser, which was supposed to make navigating a Web site easier and faster by adding a new favorites bar, address bar, and tabs bar, is instead making the user experience not so easy.

And this surprises who? Anyone, who’s anyone, especially anyone who enjoys the wine of the month knows that this is just another typical Microsoft release.

Developers just got used to all the quirks of IE7 and now they have IE8 on their hands. Wonderful.

Microsoft publicly launched Internet Explorer 8 on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser.

The application, an integral part of Microsoft’s eagerly awaited Windows 7 operating system, could be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific time, free for people using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

IE8, as it is commonly referred to, has been in public beta testing for about a year, but Thursday’s launch marks its full public rollout.

If you didn’t know it already, the crew over at Download Squad is really good at pointing out some of the coolest (and most useful) applications.

Though Adobe Reader has come a long way in the past couple versions, there are other good options available for displaying PDF files. For Windows users, Perfect PDF Reader may be an enticing alternative.

My wife will love this one. The Adobe Reader locks up her system all the time.

After the last beta release, I have been hesitant to try any Firefox beta for a while.

Mozilla on Thursday released the third beta version of Firefox 3.1, aka Shiretoko, one of the frontrunners in the current race to improve Web browsers.

According to the Firefox 3.1b3 release notes, the new version includes better “Web worker” multitasking abilities, a faster Gecko rendering engine for showing Web pages, and upgrades to the TraceMonkey engine for faster, more stable execution of Web sites’ JavaScript programs. (Follow these links to download Firefox 3.1b3 for Windows and Mac OS X.)

I’ll wait for the full release, and until then, I will keep testing Safari 4, so I can compare the two when the time comes.

Are you using the beta? If so, how is it working out for you?

The PortableApps.com application suite is a package of Windows programs that you can run from a USB flash drive. The platform comes with a program menu that pops up when you insert your USB stick, or when you launch the program, and a suite of apps including a web browser, instant messenger, and office suite.

I have been using Portable Apps for a long time. I highly recommend keeping a copy on a thumb drive in your pocket because you never know when you’re going to have to plug in.

I wondered why my installation of Firefox updated itself. Now I know.

The latest update to the open-source browser shores up a number of security risks, including some that Mozilla says could be exploited by an attacker to run commands on a vulnerable computer. But the flaws still affect the current Thunderbird release, 2.0.0.19.

One of the bugs involves a library used for PNG images, and could presumably be triggered by a poisoned image on a Web page. The second would be harder to exploit, as its description says you’d have to reload a page specially crafted to target a memory management flaw to get hit.

I hope Thunderbird updates itself soon.

It sure is a different story when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?

Microsoft on Wednesday said it is steering Netherlands-based vehicle navigation systems firm TomTom to court for infringing on the software giant’s patented technology.

Microsoft filed complaints against TomTom in US district court and with the International Trade Commission, according to Horacio Gutierrez, deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft.

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Patents involved in the case relate to vehicle navigation technology and computer software that Microsoft has licensed to other firms, according to Gutierrez.

If Microsoft made furniture, we’d all have wobbly tables and couches with springs popping everyday.

Palm has pulled the plug on its Palm OS operating system.

Instead, the company will bet its future on its newly unveiled but still mysterious Palm webOS, built to power the new Pre smartphone, according to company CEO Ed Colligan, who spoke Wednesday at an investor conference in San Francisco.

The current Centro smartphone will be the last to use the Palm OS. “There will be no more Palm OS products,” Colligan said. “We will transition to webOS as our core OS, in addition to supporting Microsoft Windows products in the enterprise segment of the market.”

Oh great, more phones running Windows applications. Just what the world needs.