When we talk about recording on optical supports like CDs, DVD, Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD, one of the programs that almost always shines is Nero. And now even more so, after consolidating itself as a complete disk and multimedia content authoring and burning suite. It doesn’t try to replace specialized video or image editing programs, but nor does it fail to offer a little bit of everything. However, it does stand out for video recoding in its own Nero Digital format and in playing multimedia files. It also offers the proper tools for creating slideshows from photo collections, along with an image editor that is enough to touch up snapshots with problems with color, exposure, or incorrect framing. In addition to these multimedia functions, Nero 8 includes a tool to create backup copies of the system or specific files that need to be protected against accidental deletion or a hardware problem.

As a burning application, it is compatible with practically all current standards, including virtual units and new formats like Blu-Ray and the now defunct HD-DVD. The interface is the usual “drag and drop” and it has a “simple” mode along with a more polished version to give you total control over the process of sending your data to the optical disk or a CD. Nero 8 also captures video from external sources for later editing and use in your own creations, and can process sound and music with specific audio authoring tools.

On the whole, Nero 8 is the perfect complement for any computer that records not only optical disks: multimedia, images, backup copies, or video and audio authoring are some of the other extremely valuable functions of this program.

You can download the program at: Nero.

Tags: Utilities, Video by admin
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The internet is an exceptional source of knowledge. With thousands of resources within reach of the minds most hungry for information. The down side is that you can’t always access this information quickly. In a world as globalized as ours, it’s no longer unusual to depend on translation tools to browse web pages with content in even Chinese or Japanese. Or to convert units of measurement or currency if you visit British or American websites. The normal method for accessing resources for translation - of information or communication - is to copy the text to be translated or being researched and pasting it in the corresponding box on the website with the online resource in question. However, this method is complicated and is incompatible with the rapid execution of tasks on a PC.

The solution to this lack of speed is provided by Babylon, a tool that establishes a direct link between text, numbers, or entire paragraphs and internet and thousands of resources available to translate or access knowledge bases. This link involves selecting the words, numbers, or text that you want to process and then pressing a combination of keys defined by the user to open the Bablylon window with all of the results obtained from the dictionaries, glossaries, translation tools, or conversion tools defined previously. There are more than 1,300 online dictionaries and glossaries, without forgetting that it is possible to create and edit your own glossaries and dictionaries without too much effort.

The program hardly uses any system resources and responds almost instantly to user requests without being a nuisance on the system. The visual configuration can be configured, along with the combination of keys that launches Babylon or the range of repositories that you want to use as sources of information.
A program that shouldn’t be missing on the desktop of any advanced and global user of internet and technology.

Download the program at: Babylon.

Tags: Entertainment, Learning by admin
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As we all know, computers have failures. They even do so quite often. Once they are switched on for the first time, their performance decreases systematically. At the beginning, it is not a big issue, but after several weeks, start up time, registry consistency or spyware can become a problem.

System Mechanic is a complete suite of tools, covering almost every aspect and element of the computer. Hard drives repair, creation of recovery CDs, network analysis and optimization, advanced options for configuring the whole system, hard drive defragmentation, start up analysis, are only a few examples of all the possibilities and features of this suite.

Every tool offers a simplified or an advanced mode. Our advice is to use the simplified version, as limiting or changing some options can change or disable some required processes of the computer. Anyway, the simplified version grants almost total control of every function of the computer, from applications, software, operating system and hardware.

Extremely useful is the detailed description appearing with every active process. Definitely, a good assessment for our decision of activating or deactivating functions. Note that the control panel in Windows offers almost no information. Start up and recovery CDs are one of the most interesting features of this suite, as with them, it is no longer required to reinstall all the system if a system file is missing or deleted by mistake.

If you want to keep your computer as efficient and performant as the first day, System Mechanic is absolutely mandatory.

Available in: System Mechanic.

Tags: Security, Utilities by admin
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Distance has become meaningless with applications such as Google Earth, allowing us to travel virtually all around the world. The starting point is a user friendly interface and terabytes of information loaded in its database. From there, there are simply no limits. Thanks to its layers architecture, Google Earth is continuously growing with add-ons from users. Adding your pictures, real time localization (objects and people), flights, and many others, are some examples of the amazing potential of this software.

There are private, corporate and public projects focused on adding 3D graphics from buildings to the 2D basis. Thanks to this, “visiting” cities, museums and other interesting places without leaving your room is no longer a dream.

Obviously, it is also an excellent tool for looking at maps, and travelling all around the world in a few minutes is perfectly possible. The information is downloaded in real time while we “travel”. Therefore, for a satisfactory experience, we recommend a good internet connection.

Planning your holidays, re-visiting the places we have seen during a trip, or even search for an address or a place, are some of the things we can do with impressive Google Earth. Other interesting features are measuring distances, saving journeys, and learning thanks to the related and accessible information from Wikipedia, National Geographic and other integrated information sources.
Last versions of Google Earth include Information from the Space, with stellar and planet maps, and digital Information from satellites.

Google Earth is probably one of the greatest available sources of fun and information.

Tags: Entertainment, Internet by admin
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With release of Windows Vista, Windows XP future was not very bright. Initial plans were to stop all the updates of XP, while people started to adopt massively the new Operating System (Vista). Nevertheless, hardware requirements forced many people to stick on XP instead of embracing Vista. Microsoft itself had to make a step back, and finally decided to launch SP3, which is the last loop of an extremely successful and satisfactory Operating System.

In fact, SP3 does not include any amazing update. It is more a recompilation of a series of updates and some interesting feature, such as the possibility to install the O.S without having to specify the serial number (the contrary than in Vista).

Prior installation of SP1 and SP2 is required. As usual for this kind of installations – especially when it comes from Microsoft – the process can take many minutes. You better have enough time and your laptop plugged to the power.

It is worth mentioning that, from an installation CD plus XP3, an installation CD including SP3 can be created.

Go to Service Pack.

Tags: Plugins, Utilities by admin
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