While pending for the new Office 2010 out from the oven and Office 2010 public beta to be launched, Microsoft has rolled out the trailer for Office 2010: The Movie, a pretty funny trailer with shades of Keanu Reeves’s The Matrix and Angelina Jolie’s Hackers characters. Directed by Dennis Liu, the action film is about a IAT agent seeking out a rogue font uploaded to the internet by a hacker. The hacker is responsible for the death of his partner and the agent must destroy the rogue font. However, when the font is viewed, the reader is hit by a temporary period of hypnosis which makes the reader believe whatever is written in that font. The whole video clip is rather amusing and funny.
Don’t expect the full Office 2010: The Movie when we say it is a trailer. The video clip is just a promotional ads/video to make way for the upcoming Office 2010, where its first technical preview had been leaked.. Users can watch the interesting trailer from Office 2010 The Movie site. Users need to install Silverlight before they can watch it. Alternately, they can watch it in YouTube:
Easy File Locker Safeguards Your Confidential Files and Folders in Windows Systems
There are many software utilities that can be used to safeguard your confidential folders and data such as previously mentioned Safehouse Explorer, My Lockbox, Hide Folders and 1 Second Folder Encrypt , but in case you are still looking around for alternatives, you may want to get a quick try on this freeware. Named as Easy File Locker, it enables files and folders locking in different security levels so that all the sensitive data can be kept securely in Windows system without the need to worry about being accessed by third party especially in shared PC systems.
Once installed and launched the software utility, you will be brought to a simple GUI. Over here, users have option to either add files or folders by simply browse and add into them into the list. To be more user friendly, users can tick the files/folders restriction to be ‘Accessible’, ‘Writable’, ‘Deletable’ or ‘Visible’ so that they can be refrained from different level of accessibility. For instances, you may want to restrict certain files to be read only, or don’t want them to be deleted intentionally, or even better is ability to hide them from others’ visibility. After all have been defined, users can set a master password to lock the lists from being accessed by anyone else, so that no change can be made without your authority.
Compatible to run with any Windows system, the tiny utility consumes only 230kB and is free for download [url=http://www.xoslab.com/download/EFL1.1_Setup.exe]here[/ur;] for immediate use.
Samsung Spinpoint N3U 1.8″ 250GB Hard Drive Utilizes Native USB Interface
Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of its new 1.8-inch 250GB hard disk drive – Samsung Spinpoint N3U, which sports a native USB controller right on its printed circuit board, eliminating the interrupt service time for bridge circuit board to convert PATA into USB signals, aiming for smaller foot print, less power consumption as well as optimized performance that ideal for portable storage devices.
In addition, Spinpoint N3U also eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections, consuming about 40% less power compared to 2.5-inch hard drive of an equivalent storage capacity. “The new high-capacity 1.8” 250GB drive enhances Samsung’s product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage,” commented Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics. “It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G.” The new Samsung Spinpoint N3U native USB interface device is expected to hit the market starting mid-July 2009 for a MSRP of $199.
Firefox Add-on: HistoryBlock to Block Browsing History
If you don’t want anyone to know about some websites that you have visited before, turning on incognito mode in Google Chrome or private browsing mode in IE and Firefox is probably one of the good solutions. However, if you already have a list of identified websites which you for sure don’t want to be known by anyone, instead of turning on incognito or private mode each time you visit to the site manually, now Mozilla Firefox has released a new add-on, named as HistoryBlock that is able to clear all information stored locally about your browsing session.
HistoryBlock allows you to specify a list of URL to be blocked from history entries, recent closed tabs entries, download manager entries, cache entries and cookie entries. To enter the block list, just go to Tools -> Add-ons, then go to HistoryBlock and click Options button, a small window will pop up to ask you add a host to be blocked. Alternatively, you can right click on the page and select “Block This!” from the context menu, the URL of the current page will be added automatically to the block list. When comparing against incognito or private browsing mode, HistoryBlock will constantly block your pre-defined domains without the need to remember turning it on/off each and every time. By having this add-on installed, you will never forget to turn on incognito or private browsing whenever you visiting the website.
HistoryBlock is definitely a great Firefox add-ons to be installed in your system. If you feel it is useful to you, just go and download it at [url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8631]here[url].
LaCie 500GB LaCinema Rugged HD Portable Hard Drive For Ultimate Multimedia Experience
The leading provider of external storage solutions that help professionals and everyday people easily manage their digital lives, LaCie has released its new compact, portable LaCinema Rugged multimedia hard drive, named as LaCinema Rugged HD, which the company claims as the first high-definition multimedia player in its class that allows users to store and instantly enjoy full HD (1080p) content on any HDTV, supporting most of standard and high-definition video codecs including H.264, MKV, WMV9 and MPEG-4.
LaCinema Rugged HD that includes 500GB internal memory is both practical and user-friendly with its smart and simple user interface, connected to computer for easy, bus-powered multimedia loading via hi-speed USB 2.0, and access the content later through a HDTV thanks to HDMI connection, bundled with a remote control for navigation.
“When it comes to viewing High Definition content, it is hard to find a mobile form factor that that doesn’t compromise important features and functionality, like built-in storage, format versatility, and integrated HDMI connectivity,” commented Christelle Dexet, LaCie Multimedia Product Manager. “The LaCinema Rugged HD not only provides the ultimate mobile design, but it allows users to store large amounts of HD content and play it wherever they desire.”
In addition, the hi-def multimedia hard drive features an unique scratch-resistant aluminum shell, internal anti-shock absorbers and shock-resistant rubber bumper to deliver better protection for your media files wherever you go.
The new compact, reliable 500GB LaCinema Rugged HD that compatible with all common digital formats is now available for about $350.
A Handful of Free Media Converters To Convert Unsupported Media Formats
We have full resources of entertainment media surrounding us in this techno age. One can easily download his favorite movie, song, TV drama, etc from the internet. However, users usually face a common problem with these interesting media files – the format compatibility. The media file downloaded probably can be played on the computer but not so much in other devices such as mobile phone, portable media player, MP3 player, etc.When encountering this problem, the best solution to resolve your media format compatibility problem is to seek help from some media converters. Media converters can convert the unsupported format to the supported format for your entertainment pleasure. There are a handful of free media converters available which users can download and use.
Format Factory
Format Factory is a multifunctional and full-featured media converter which supports to-and-from media converting for various popular media formats as follows:
* All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF. * All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV. * All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA. * Rip DVD to video file , Rip Music CD to audio file. * MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format. * Supports RMVB.
The converter features a simple and easy to use interface where users can find all the conversion options within the interface. Besides the conversion feature, Format Factory also can repair damaged video and audio files and reduce the multimedia file size. This application has lately unveiled its latest Format Factory 2.0 which has shown some significant changes:
* Added “All to RMVB” * Added “Audio Joiner” * Added “AviSynth” to support AVS script and SSA effect. * Fixed bugs of missing MP3,WMA tag info. * Fixed bugs of MOV convertion. * Fixed problem of selecting MKV audio stream. * Fixed error H264 level of IPod,Zune Mobile Device.
Format Media supports more than 50 languages and works well in all Windows OS platform only. Users can download it via the direct link.
Quick Media Converter
Quick Media Converter is another free yet powerful and feature-rich universal video and audio conversion program. Developed by cocoonsoftware, this application has existed in the industry for some time. Simplicity and user-friendly is the main focus and emphasis of this media converter. Users are given both easy mode and expert mode to handle this application. Non-tech savvy users who opt for the easy mode can easily convert their media files by dragging and dropping them onto the application to get the work done. Skilled users who opt for the expert mode can play around with the built in features to customize the conversion settings such as cropping bitrates frequency rates, sizes, aspect, etc.
Quick Media Converter allows conversion to and from for various formats such as flv, avi, divx, xvid, mpeg4, ipod, iphone, psp, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, DIVX, XVID, TS, DVD, VCD, MPEG, MPEG2, MP3, WAV, amr, m4a, mp4, vob, mov, h264, h263, wmv, wma. The application supports only Windows OS and users can download the program via the direct link.
MediaCoder
MediaCoder Mediacoder is an open source video converter which supports video and audio conversion to and from for various media format. Users can find new features and new conversion formats added to it from time to time to support the new devices. Mediacoder proclaimed itself as the “swiss army knife for media transcoding”. Unlike Format Factory and Quick Media Converter which only support Windows OS only, MediaCoder is available on all platforms inclusive of Linux and Mac. The key features of this converter are as follow:
* Converting to between most popular audio and video formats in batch * Multi-threading design, optimized for multi-core processors (average CPU utilization on quad-core processors over 90%) * Full control over transcoding parameters * Simplified UI for popular mobile devices (e.g. PSP, iPhone/iPod) * Fully standalone, no dependancy on system codecs/splitters * Media Transcoding Platform to expand UI and improve user experience
Support only for Windows OS, Super is another simplified universal player encoder and render. Technically this program acts as a graphical front end tool for the many powerful command line tools such as FFmpeg, MEncoder, MPlayer, x264, musepack, monkey’s audio, true audio, wavpack, ffmpeg2theora and the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. Super supports a large number of video and audio formats such as DIVX AVI, MOV, MPEG, flash video, real media, PSP video, 3GP, etc. Unlike other media converters, the user interface for this conversion tool is a bit messy and cluttered. Users need to spend some time to explore and familiarize themselves before using it.
HandBrake
HandBrake is another open-source and multiplatform media converter support Mac, Linux and Windows. This application available in both graphical and command line flavors. This converter is more suitable for people who want to encode video from DVDs to other formats.
Any Video Converter
Similar to HandBrake, Any Video Converter is also a video converter which can convert video files to various formats. This application supports input formats such as avi, asf, mov, rm, rmvb, flv, mkv, mpg, 3gp, m4v, vob, YouTube videos, and others. It can convert video files to output formats such as avi, mp4, wmv, flv, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, mpg (PAL or NTSC), mp3, wma, ogg, aac. The plus point for this converter is users friendly and fast converting speed. The Any Video Converter would be suitable for Non-tech savvy users due to its easy to use advantage. Users can download Any Video Converter (AVC) via the direct link.
