Say No to Software Piracy - Downloading Serials or Cracks from Internet Could be Dangerous

Do not download pirated software or patches from the internet - When you download a crack, you can be almost certain that some bad things will be included.

If you really can’t afford the software you are looking for, contact the author and explain your situation. There is a big chance that you get a reduction or that you get the software for free.

Most crackers will include trojans that they have written themselves and are therefore not detected by virus scanners. Many cracks will include spyware.

The trojans allow the cracker to access your computer. If you use your computer to make payments by credit card or to do online banking, the cracker will have access to your passwords and pin codes and will use your credit card or bank account to buy things.

The spyware can break many things in your computer. It can make your browser unusable. There is also a good chance that viruses are included.

Now you may think that serials are safer. You don’t need to install anything on your computer to use them. But if you think this, you are wrong. The web pages where you find the serials are a dangerous place. Many of these web pages exploit security holes in your browser, and can install trojans, spyware and viruses on your computer just by visiting the web page.

Just searching on the web for web pages that contain serials can damage your computer, can give the crackers access to your credit card, and can install spyware that tracks everything you do.

Better Safe than Sorry. Alway buy original software.

MSN - You could not win my heart

Nor a place on my desktop.

The MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search was officially launched today. The toolbar also includes a pop-up blocker and form fill functions to enhance the browsing experience. Users of MSN’s line of services, such as Hotmail, Messenger and Spaces, will find one-click access within the product. To address some privacy concerns, you can control which files the software indexes and how often.

But are there enough reasons for me to switch from Copernic to MSN ? No, not yet.

1. MSN Desktop Search is only available on machines running Microsoft Windows XP/Server 2003/2000 & Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later. If you are a Firefox fan like me, stay away from it.

2. MSN added a preview pane similar to the one in Microsoft Outlook. This is a useful enhancement but according to SEW, Microsoft’s preview is painfully sluggish compared to Yahoo’s, to the point of being virtually unusable.

3. There is a toolbar everywhere. (See the image on the right) The suite includes three toolbars, one for Microsoft Outlook, a toolbar for Windows and Internet Explorer, and a toolbar for the Windows taskbar. Why not a standalone program ? I can’t live without the Google Toolbar and installing another toolbar decreases my browser preview area further. Why would I want to look at a toolbar all the time even though I would use only 2% of my time.

4. MSN doesn’t automatically index PDF files - Most of my official documentation is in PDF format but MSN requires you to download a separate plugin for indexing PDF files. I see some rivalry here. Microsoft is expected to release its own Metro document format which is being touted as Adobe’s PDF killer. Maybe that could be the reason for Microsoft not adding native support for PDF in their search suite. When MSN DS can index 200 file types, why not 201 ?

5. Microsoft plays some hide n’ seek - One of the non-public betas reviewed by PCMag actually added tabbed browsing to IE, a useful feature that has, unfortunately, been held back for further security testing. Hopes dashed.

6. Can I search for files in any language? - Not yet. MSN Toolbar Suite and Deskbar Search supportU.S. English only.

7. Do I really need MS Desktop Search ? No, It’s already there.

Some amazing software will cease to exist

In the battle for “Survival of the Fittest” - Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash are expected to survive the Adobe-Macromedia merger, while Fireworks, Freehand, and GoLive will be eliminated.

This is predicted in an NPD report cited by MacNN. Photoshop and Dreamweaver customers will be least affected by the merger, as these products will remain largely intact. However, the FTC regulations may require Adobe to sell GoLive, Fireworks, FreeHand to another vendor.

NPD believes that customers will “most definitely” benefit from the merger. For example, integration between Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Flash would enable animators, Web designers and advertising professionals to “streamline their workflows.” In the short run, the customer using both Photoshop and Dreamweaver “won’t need to do anything differently.” Later, this customer will “probably be able to buy a single suite of tools from Adobe, resulting in significant cost savings.”

Recently, Macromedia sold off its font editor creator software Fontographer to Fontlab. Fontographer is a software for creating fonts while Adobe, the leader in digital typography, sells fonts. A software for creating fonts may not interest Adobe much. Fontographer along with Freehand were both products originally born at Altsys.

Screencasting Software Guide - Review of Desktop Screen Recording Tools

Screencasting to help your mom is a software buying guide to help you choose the right software for screen capture and for screencasting or recording movies of your desktop screen activity.

How often friends visit you to learn how to use email, how to search Google or how to install a software. Or how do you teach Microsoft Office to mom who is sitting miles away. Well, the answer is simple - just record a screencast video of your screen with voice narration (aka screencast) and upload it a website like YouTube.

What is Screencasting (Desktop Screen + Broadcast)

Screencasting (see glossary) is a process of creating interactive demonstrations and software simulations by capturing a series of screenshots of any running software application. The screencasting software (like a video camera) records all your actions and instantly creates a simulation or screencast. These screencast movies can be exported in a variety of formats like Standalone EXE, SWF, Flash Video, Windows Media, AVI, QuickTime or MPEG-4 incase you want to distribute your screencast on a portable device like an iPod or a cell phone. These formats are widely supported so you may easily import screencasts into any video editing software for more advanced editing.

Screencasts can be used for describing software features, reporting bugs, or for interactive e-learning. Just as a screenshot is a picture of a user’s desktop screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of what a user sees on his or her monitor. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a movie is worth a thousand pictures. Software Tutorial companies like TotalTraining.com, lynda.com and vtc.com also use one of these screencasting tools to create their instructional video DVDs.

Screencasting Software - Tools for Recording Screencasts

Here’s a list of some of my favorite screencasting tools along with a quick review.

Commercial Screencasting Tools

1. Qarbon Viewlet Builder - Qarbon patented the Screen Capture technology and prefer to call their flash movies as Viewlets which are basically .swf files. Qarbon seems to have the best Flash file compression algorithm around. However, another software called ViewletCam is required to enable moving screen captures. This is Windows only as Qarbon recently discontinued ViewletBuilder for Mac.

2. Camtasia Studio - From the developers of SnagIt, Camtasia is probably the best screencasting software for Windows. Camtasia Studio can produce 720p HD screencasts with minimal effort and Camtasia for Mac is expected soon. Camtasia can also record and export your PowerPoint presentations as a movie.

3. Turbo Demo - With Turbo Demo, you can create screencasts in either Flash or Java. The screencasts projects can be exported to plain text files, that are editable and can be imported back into Turbodemo. In the screencast editing mode (after screen capture), you can change the cursor style or reposition the mouse anywhere on the slide.

4. Adobe Captivate - Captivate (earlier RoboDemo) is a screencasting cum e-learning program and at $800 a license, Captivate is the most expensive screencasting software tool that I know of. Other than basic screen capture, you may use Captivate for creating interactive simulations, soft-skills training in organizations, quizzes and e-learning courses. The software can export your screencasts as SWF, FLA, FLV (with closed captioning), and MP3 (for audio podcasts).

5. Camtasia Relay - University professors can use Camtasia Relay to record and publish their classroom lectures on the web in almost real time.

6. Demo Builder - It sports a very pleasing interface and can record full motion videos (like in Camtasia) or through manual screenshots (as in Qarbon Viewletbuilder). Demo Builder can automatically add visual hints (in the form of text balloons) at relevant points in the screencast (like closing a button with the mouse). You can also edit cursor motions after the screen capture.

Free Screencasting Software

7. Capture Fox - This is a free add-on that turns your Firefox browser in a screencasting application. It can record Firefox as well as the entire desktop screen and will save it as a video file.

8. Screen Toaster - This is an excellent online screencasting tool that requires no installation and works on Windows, Mac and Linux machines. You record the screencast on the desktop and it instantly becomes available on the web as a flash video. ScreenToaster can directly upload screencasts to YouTube and they also a community site like YouTube.

9. Community Clips - Another free screencasting tool from the Microsoft Office team that is not as polished a Screen Toaster or Jing but can used for creating quick screencasts from within Microsoft Office.

10. BB Flashback - This was a earlier a paid software but now the basic screen recorder software is available as a free download. BB Flashback installs a separate capture driver for Windows Vista to record the Aero effects of Vista at a high frame rate even on a slow PC.

11. Tip Cam - It’s a free screencasting software that can also record a remote computer screen provided your computer is running the VNC server.

12. Go View - From the developers of GotoMeeting.com, Go View offers desktop screen recording (with audio) as well as free hosting for your recorded screencast videos with no bandwidth limitations.

13. Debut - This can transmit your desktop screen or webcam video to a remote computer and can therefore be used as spy camera for monitoring the desktop screen from any internet connect camera.

14. Live Screencasting - Procaster from Mogulus is a free software that helps you broadcast your desktop screen (live streaming) on the Internet to any number of users.

15. Techsmith Jing - Jing can capture a still snapshot of your desktop screen as well as record screen movies. Jing Pro can record HD screencasts and both versions are available on Mac and Windows. Related: Compare Jing with Skitch

16. Demo Studio - GPL-licensed screen capture application for Microsoft Windows (open source). DemoStudio records by default to AVI format, but you may use Demo Studio Producer for converting screencasts into Flash (SWF) files.

17.  Windows Media Encoder - encodes other formats to WMV which can be progressively download and can even broadcast a live event from your webcam.

Open Source Screencasting Software Programs

18. CamStudio- GPL-licensed screen capture application for Microsoft Windows (open source). CamStudio is a simple, straightforward program to record screen activity to AVI or SWF format. You can also record audio from your speakers or microphone.

19. Wink (freeware) - Wink, available for Windows & Linux, can capture screenshots, mouse movements and you may also add annotations to your screencasts. You can also add voice narrations at the time of recording and screencasts can be exported as Flash, PDF or EXE for distribution on a CD.

20. vnc2swf - This can capture live motion of a screen through VNC protocol and converts it a Flash movie. Implementation available in Python and C - the former supports Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Windows while the C version of vnc2swf only runs on platforms which support X11 (i.e. Unix, Linux or Mac OS X).

21. Istanbul: GTK-based Open Source Istanbul for Linux can record the desktop screen into an Ogg Theora video codec. The software works on GNOME, KDE and XFCE.

Screencasing Resources

• How to Embed MP3 Audio Podcasts
• How to Embed FLV Flash Screencasts
• Screencasting on a Mac - Use Snapz Pro X or create screencasts on an Apple Mac using free software tools like osxvnc, X11 and vnc2swf.
• Disable the Print Screen Key in Windows
• How to prevent blank screen captures from DVD movies

U.S. Government RSS Library

The U.S. government’s official web portal now offers an RSS Library.


My favourites are the NASA RSS feeds available in the Science Section.


General Science Information from NASA

Image of the Day


At the time of writing this post, the link to U.S. Army News was broken. You can even suggest a Feed here.

Guide for Google AdSense Publishers

If you are a regular visitor to my site, you might have noticed some changes in the style. Well, I drew most of the inspiration from the picture above also known as the “heat map”.

This “heat map” illustrates ideal ad placements on a sample page layout. Google folk have published an elaborate Optimization Tips page for Google Adsense publishers.

Looking at my recent adsense statistics, I must admit that the above illustration is fairly nice. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). All other things being equal, ad placements above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.

Google has done an impressive presentation to woo new Adsense Publishers.

Adsense for Content remains my primary source of revenue from this blog. I do not use “Adsense for Search" as Googlebot doesn’t index my site too well. Yahoo! spiders do a better job, atleast in my case.

Microsoft Office 2006

Microsoft has established an internal Office 12 ship calendar that pegs Office Beta 1 availability for August 29, 2005. Beta 2 is slated for December 5, 2005. The internal release-to-manufacturing target is May 22, 2006. And the target for “street” availability for the Office 12 System is July 17, 2006, the sources said.


Looks like Microsoft is sticking to the deadline. The next version of Microsoft Office would be coming in 2006.


With Office 12, Microsoft is expected to release more server products designed for workgroup collaboration. Industry observers and analysts have speculated a new Excel server might be in the works, for example, but Microsoft has declined to comment. Existing server products in the Office System family include Project Server, Portal Server and Live Communications Server.


Microsoft originally planned to ship Office 12 alongside the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn. The Office release is now likely to come before the new Windows version, which Microsoft has said will be broadly available in late 2006. [Via]