I’ve got hyped up over Adobe’s CS5 suite, released just yesterday 12th of April, after watching the new content-aware fill feature a week or two back. The results were simply magical. I myself have been using adobe products for quite some time mainly Photoshop, Flash (learning to use it) and a little Dreamweaver at times and after reading and seeing the new features that some of the software provides, I simply have to save up and get it when it arrives here (student edition of course. Much cheaper and that is a privilege a student gets!)

Here are some major new features added in to some of the products (just photoshop and dreamweaver for me. Scroll to bottom for links for more information) which I find the most interesting and exciting to look out for. For those already gotten their hands on the products, you might want to try them out just to see how fantastic and amazing the results you might get!

Adobe Photoshop CS5

Content-Aware Fill

Watch how photoshop magically fills up the surrounding and objects after you cut out parts of the image!

Puppet Warp

Some people use photoshop to adjust and bend images. Now with this new technology you can shift bend and modify images as if you were controlling a puppet!

Realistic Paint Brushes

Painting in photoshop never gets more realistic than this! Now you can even mix colours as in real life!

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5

Support for PHP-based content management systems

Now you can modify and edit sites based on WordPress, Drupal, Joomla etc and test them live! A great new features especially for people using such platforms (like me!).

PHP Custom Class Code Hinting

Display proper syntax for custom PHP functions to help you write code more accurately.

For more information of the other products do take a look at their official videos at their site or take a look at this post, an article of the global launch of cs5 with videos or the official press release.

Just wished that apple didn’t ban the use of flash cs5 to build the apps on the iPhone. Bah that is the only thing that sucked.
Are you excited about CS5? If you have used it already do share you experience with others!

Never once did I face such problems with an antivirus software. So far I’ve used quite a range of antivirus softwares ranging from free versions to the paid ones. BitDefender was one of the paid software I actually spent money on that works rather well, at least till my computer was destroyed. Around a day ago (Sunday 1 am in the morning?) did I face with the horrors I have never encounter before.

BitDefender was working as usual, protecting my computer from harm until it had an update. Suddenly while working on some documents, BitDefender started reporting infections that had made it into the computer. The infection was called “Trojan.Fakealert.5”. Immediately I went to google and search for information regarding the Trojan. I found out that the Trojan.Fakealert infections were rather serious but how exactly did I get such attacks? More and more of my files were quarantined for such infections. I felt that something was wrong, very wrong. Every single file I opened was deemed as infected and soon even my system files were quarantined. I panicked, and did the most stupid thing ever and that is to restart my computer. As you know, my system files were missing and thus the computer couldn’t start.

I went onto my laptop to search up on the issue and it seemed as though many people are affected with this particular problem. Many suggested to quickly turn off the real time scanning and best not to shut the computer off. I felt stupid and hopeless but I had no choice since I didn’t have the privilege of having such information at the time when I searched up. Sad but I knew my computer died. I had to reinstall and do every single thing again in order to change my computer back into working order.

What exactly happened? It seemed as though the people at BitDefender fell asleep and accidentally uploaded a faulty security update. What we do know however is that the update given by BitDefender was the fault as it resulted in the many false alarms. The good or bad (not sure) thing is that it only affects 64bit windows systems. Lucky or unluckily my computer was that of 64bit and thus affected and because of panicking and not staying calm it resulted in me wasting my whole Sunday just to fix up my computer.

What shocked me was the very fact that such an update could be uploaded and given to the users. That is the very first pointer that made me furious and pissed. Another was the fact that it took them so long, to even taken down that faulty update. People complaining and it took a few pages within their forums for them to finally respond. That is totally unacceptable. Lastly, they up till now do not have a definite fix for people’s computer who has their files quarantined. They do have some solutions and even some program to help but it seem as though it is not fully workable and is simple something they pulled up to try ease the chaos and anxiety within users. Just read this:

“IMPORTANT! It is possible that the Repair procedure may not work from the first time. If it fails, reboot the PC and run the procedure again as it should work in maximum 3 attempts.”

Maximum 3 attempts, is this a joke or what? My Dad tried using it (didn’t have the update till the next morning, no idea why they didn’t pull it out by then maybe some error again? Not sure but the “solutions” were out already then) and it didn’t work. Luckily he had a restore point (which I didn’t, got quarantined already) and restored to safety. Anyways what is done cannot be undone. Already reinstalled my whole computer and not going to extend my subscription with BitDefender. Not even going to use it till my license expires for like the saying goes, once bitten twice shy.

For those affected do take a look at these links:

http://news.bitdefender.com/NW1431-en–Trojan.FakeAlert.5-Update-issue.html

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/KnowledgeBase/consumer/#638

They apologized, but will you accept it? You decide, BitDefender or BitDestroyer.

Many months ago an online friend of mine (Swift) requested my help in enriching his website with more content. After some initial rejection, I eventually took up the offer & began writing some tutorials but my interest died fast due to 2 main reasons:

• As a poor soul serving my 2 years NS liability I do not want to burn my precious weekends writing content for the public.
• I’m just a procastinator who fails at life.

But—this little application gave me a little hope. With WordPress for iPhone, I could write some blog posts on my iPodTouch during my free time in bunk & with the application’s website announcing the application will be moving towards iPhone OS 3.0, I figured it will be a good time to review this application & hope future versions of it contains what I wished for. As an application built for a mobile device, it spots an uncluttered interface with a design aimed at people making short posts in my opinion. I will focus on mainly 2 functions of writing a blog post, entering text & adding pictures.

Writing a post

Entering the page to make a post, I noticed there isn’t a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. Depending on which sides you take, you may applaud or cry at this decision. Not including a WYSIWYG editor gives you more visual space to look at your content while keeping your post clean & neat (you know what I mean…fonts abusers). However having to type HTML codes to make items such as list or links is quite tiring too. So I suggest either the use of a logical markup language or a very minimal WYSIWYG editor that contains only features that relates to logical markup (lists, links) & which can be easily hided to reveal more screen space.

Adding Pictures

For the photos obbessed blogger, adding photos in your post couldn’t be easier by just snapping photos with your iPhone & adding them on the go. However for the iPodTouch user, getting photos to post would be quite a hassle. You would be better off posting with a computer (except for screenshots of an app from your iPodTouch).  All images added are appended to the end of the post. This inflexibility is not something I like although I understand not many people write such a long post on a tiny mobile device.

Conclusion

At its current state (Version 1.3), the application is still in a very simple state with some bugs which make the experience a half enjoyable one. More can be done about freeing up more visual space to write content. I will be looking forward to new features future versions were to offer.  I would also like to see some features added to help in the construction of simple long posts. Final Rating 2.7/5 (assumptions the bugs I encountered are fixed) with a prediction that a near future version could rise to a score of 3.4 in some months time.

This post is typed with my iPodTouch, sorry for the lack of screenshots for my first review :S.

ExitReality is a browser’s browser. To elaborate further, it is somewhat like a plugin to be run in a browser to provide the viewer with a whole new way of browsing. Therefore, it is a browser’s browser! What is so special about this browser is that it gives you a whole new way of looking at one’s website; in 3D. Yes you can type in any Tom, Dick or Harry’s website and it will transform it into a 3D way of viewing. In addition, one can edit how his site looks like in the 3D view to his heart content. Whether is it adding a new car or some kind of decorative item, you can do so by just dragging and dropping the items you want. Then place it at the position you like and you can finally save your masterpiece. One problem though is that it does not work really well with blogs. This is because the plugin reads all links of each individual blog post, and convert it to one of its own link. For example at my site I have ShareThis links. The plugin would then convert all the sharethis links into one individual 3d object, causing the place to look cluttered up and disgusting at times. Nonetheless this is an extremely interesting way of browsing and viewing websites but the debate of whether 3d would be the new-gen of web browsing, I would firmly stand on the side of a definite “no”. This is mainly because it is too slow, and destroys the purpose of web design anyway (since it converts the website to its own 3D design).

Just take a look at the screenshots as well as the videos done by their own production team and experience it yourself by downloading it. I would advise that people with rather old computers or poor internet connection not try it out as it is rather internet-computer intensive.

At long last my site got approved. The screenshots they provided were awesome. The features they promise sound fantastic. Finally, I got to try it for myself. Just a brief introduction what Woopra is. Woopra is a traffic statistic tool used by webmasters to record down traffic details etc. Just take for example google analytics. It is somewhat like that but more of a desktop application. In addition, it uses beautiful and detailed graphs to display information, adds more features such as chatting with the users that is currently online etc. A small but great little tool for webmasters to use.

The information Woopra provides is detailed and well displayed. Using a world map to display where the users come from, a line graph to show the number of visits per hour for the day, the ability to switch between bar or pie charts for displaying of most of the information etc. Whatever you need, Woopra actually provides it. However, what makes Woopra something more special is its ability to show the current users that are browsing the page in real time. Meaning every time a user enters the site, it will immediately show it on its screen. Therefore, you get live statistics and is extremely useful for example when a sudden surge of traffic comes in, you know how to react or what measures to take.

One feature that actually makes me even more excited and pleased about Woopra, is the fact that it has the ability to link the current visitor with the webmaster. Woopra is empowered by a simple yet powerful chat tool that enables to create a bridge that connects the visitor with the webmaster by allowing them to chat over the net. It is that simple! Just talk about the importance of feedback and the need of communication, it is simply magnificent! Community is current discussed as one of the most important aspects of websites besides content and with such a function, it will definitely boosts the visitors’ impressions as well as the webmaster’s relationship with them.

So far I’ve been talking about how perfect and sleek Woopra is but haven’t touched on the disadvantages etc. The fact that Woopra is so cool and smart is undeniable. However, some minor bugs are present and that the server sometimes is unstable is kind of a problem. Since it is still in its beta stages and free for the moment, I am sure that in future all the problems would be resolved in due time.

For now here is a little video of the application I made and showing some of its functions and information is provides. (P.S Of course the chatting as well)

I will go straight to the point. “No”, it does not help much in preventing your laptop being stolen nor does it help you in retrieving back the laptop. All it does is ask for a password (which adds on to your worries and clogs your brain memory space trying to remember one more password) and if the person gets it wrong, it sends an email with all the useless details (mostly) into your email address. I know within those few sentences above I might seem extremely hostile and harsh towards the software. However, whatever I speak of it is actually true (for me).

Alright, how about me going constructive like how my Literature teacher always teaches me, whenever you state a point, there must be an evidence to support it. If not it is just a useless statement with no substance or potential at all. In other words bullshit. Verey I, is made for the Macintosh first before finally porting over to the Windows operating systems. Whatever it is, I find it not much of a use and not worth the price tag that carries with it.

P.S All pictures are taken from the manual itself.

I quote

“How it works?

Upon connecting to a wireless or wired internet network, an authentication dialog will pop up requesting the user to enter a password.

If the user fails to enter the correct password within the pre-defined timing, hidden alerts and information* (see Technical) will be sent out to any pre-defined email address(es)!

Repetitive alerts can also be set according to the number of times and number of minutes to unlimited number of email alerts!” – http://www.bak2u.com/vereypc.php

Okay, so now let’s analyze how it works. Alright, so if your computer is stolen and the user does not connect to the internet at all, the software is practically useless. If the user connects and fails to enter the password, information that saddens you even further is sent into your email. Hmm, I quote again:

“Verey I will send out alerts together with other important information; IP addresses, machine serial number, MAC Hardware Address and even details of nearby wireless networks out immediately!

The alert message(s) is send out silently in the background with no indication that the software is sending information when connected to the internet. It is also difficult to remove the program from the system as protection are in placed to ensure that only the administrator will know how to do that.” – http://www.bak2u.com/vereypc.php

IP Address does nothing in helping you find where your Laptop is (yourself that is), machine serial number and mac hardware address just helps you fill in a form at the police center and lastly the details of nearby wireless networks are just gimmicks to fill out the email that is sent to you. It is like, okay I know the person taking my laptop is connected to a wireless network called “SwiftWorld”, now where on earth (alright let say Singapore), is there a wireless network SwiftWorld? Bugis, Hougang? Changi? Jurong? Practically information that is not needed.

About the IP Address, well perhaps if you file in a report to the police with the IP address, mac hardware address etc the police might be able to find it. Just MIGHT. However, I believe that the chances of your laptop being returned or found are still extremely slim whether you have or not the software. Of course verey increases the percentage of success but just a little.

Enough of words, some screenies I took from the manual:

[Show as slideshow]

Conclusion

Verey’s most important information it gives is the IP Address. The rest are actually not much of a use at all. Because of that, carrying a price tag of $39.90 USD is extremely costly and heavy. Of course if your laptop is worth thousands of dollars or carries information if missing gets your head beheaded, the price is worth it (to make sure the percentage of retrieving back is higher). However, that is just basically the whole thing. Verey I gets IP Address and some information you would never write down unless in emergency to your email address. Still it is considered not too bad as current technology does not allow much stolen laptops to be returned (GPS tracking looks awesome. Not sure if its used here in Singapore)

Previously I have talked and touch on a tiny little bit on the software and showed you an example as well. Well because of that, I was rewarded with a free license key to create my own talking photos! (singing for my case). I just tested it out (just received the email with my key) and found that it is pretty easy to use, and is definitely fun to play with. However there were just a few disappointments here and there. Still, it is a pretty fun software to have but for the price of $50 is what I am quite worried about. Nevertheless, let us move on to the review.

Worthy to be mentioned

Extremely easy to create your first ever talking/singing/shouting/whatevering photo! A few clicks and you’re actually done! It is that simple!

If you think you want to edit when your photo blinks etc, you can! There is an advanced script editor whereby you can insert or take away emotions etc.

Unworthy but still mentioned

You have to have an external audio recorder in order to record your own talk etc. The software itself does not have an internal audio recorder but only a tool that allows users to import in mp3 files.

You CANNOT convert the talk show nor save the talk show as anything else but the software’s own format.

You ONLY can host it at their website and then embed it to your website. (good and bad, saves your bandwidth but you have to bear with their web player which advertises their own company.)

Conclusion

It might be useful to some to a certain extend. But it is definitely not worthy for the price tag of $59.90. (They currently have an offer whereby you buy some other software you get it for free). I had some fun with it though, and below is a quick talking photo I made (within 2 mins in actual fact. The song is provided).