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Filecrate Remote File Backup

The backup system you have working — in this case automatic, off-site file backup — is the system which will save your business some day. This one is very good.

Read Mark Goldstein's full review!

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Premiere Elements 8

A common organizer, auto-analyze, powerful JPG and RAW processing and wonderful video production make it a tough act to beat.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Digital Photography Books to Kick Off 2010

Camera makers should dump their dense, boring user manuals in favor of Busch's guides. There's more including WordPress, photo tools, blogging.

Read Howard Carson's reviews!

Rolling, Medium Size, Carry-On Camera Cases

Carrying too many bodies and lenses? Probably. Something sturdy, secure and carry-on compatible is needed.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Uniblue DriverScanner 2009

When the latest Windows update mangles a video card or network card driver, think about how nice it would be to have a really good driver updater.

Read Mark Goldstein's full review!

Think Tank Urban Disguise 35

Think Tank Photo seems bent on making itself the gold standard in pro camera bags. Is this shoulder bag one of the most versatile ever?

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Handy Folders v3.5

Productivity and organization fall flat when they run into the rather limited Windows file explorer. Fast access to regularly used folders is easier than you think.

Read Mark Goldstein's full review!

Think Tank Shape Shifter Photography Backpack

Medium size photo/laptop backpacks come and go. The best stay with us for years. This is one of the best we've seen.

Read Mark Goldstein's full review!

Think Tank Airport AirStream Rolling Camera Bag

If you travel with more than a shoulder bag full of gear, you need something that will protect the load and make it easy to go places.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Think Tank Skin Set Modular Component Camera Gear Carry System

Pros know that if you don't get the shot, you're out of business. Tough, crowded, fast moving situations require special solutions.

Read Jack Reikel's full review!

Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home Camera Shoulder Bag

Crumpler is a bag maker which insists on being different. Care and attention to detail help create wonderful photography products.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Think Tank Urban Disguise 40 Camera Bag

The mid-size entry in the Urban Disguise series provided us with enough incentive to physically beat it up and overstress it. The bag took it all.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Think Tank Urban Disguise 30 Camera Bag

There are camera bags and then there are Think Tank camera bags. Lots of competition means better products. Think Tank is at the top of its game.

Read Howard Carson's full review!

Nik Color Efex Pro 3

The best Photoshop plug-ins get better because the developers listen to end users. Nik Software listens. Digital photographers are demanding sophisticated processing effects.

Read Mario Georgiou's full review!

ION Slide2PC Scanner

If you've got boxes full of old 35mm slides and negatives, it's probably time to start scanning before everything falls apart, gets lost, or gets soaked in a flood.

Read Mario Georgiou's full review!

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TetherBerry v1.0.7

Connect a laptop to the Internet, anywhere you've got cell phone service, through your BlackBerry's data connection and avoid some really crazy per-megabyte carrier charges

HTC Touch Diamond Smartphone

HTC has steadily grabbed more market share by regularly turning out superb smartphones offering slick designs wrapped around great features

The Ultimate HTML Reference

A concise desktop reference guide for all standard, W3C-compliant HTML, which uniquely also includes browser compatibility charts for each element

UpStrap Shoulder Strap for SLR & Prosumer Cameras

Superb quality, purpose-built SLR and prosumer camera shoulder strap that's made in the U.S. and made to last

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Microsoft Loses Again, But It's Almost Irrelevant

Microsoft just lost it's appeal against the patent infringement verdict handed to Toronto-based i4i. It's all about the Custom XML function integrated in Microsoft Word, in both the standalone Word 2007 and the bundled version in Office 2007.

Copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007 with the feature removed will be available for U.S. sale by Jan. 11, and "beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, don’t contain the technology covered by the injunction," said Microsoft's Kevin Kutz, after the judgement.

i4i developed a custom XML editor and patented parts of its software product. The courts have ruled that Microsoft knowingly infringed on the i4i patent when it included a similar custom XML editor in Word 2007. The whole idea here is that a great, big, multinational corporation such as Microsoft can't willfully eradicate a market being developed by small companies. Competition is one of the things that helped make Microsoft what it is today: highly successful. Now that it's a vast multinational, proceeding ethically (and legally) through the competitive business world is much harder work.

Microsoft must be more careful. I'm still using Office 2007 though, and if you're using it too, there's no need to switch. In fact, the alternatives are basically inadequate anyway.

So what's the effect of the ruling against Microsoft? Aside from the fact that it now owes i4i about $290 million, not much else. Big enterprise users of Office 2007 and (late next year) Office 2010, can use i4i's excellent custom XML editor (just like they were doing before), or one of any of the dozen or more custom XML editors on the market. Existing boxed versions of Word 2007 and Office 2007 are unaffected by the patent ruling. OEM versions of Office 2007 have already been patched. In the meantime, at this time of year Office 2007 and Word 2007 are selling at comparatively bargain basement prices at Amazon.

Get Word 2007 here. Get Office 2007 here.


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posted by Howard Carson, Managing Editor at 10:05 AM

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Microsoft to Release Office 2010 in June

The problem with all the alternatives to Microsoft Office is mainly that they aren't reliable enough for serious business use. OpenOffice is good and apparently getting better. Our aging review was quite enthusiastic, and we even pointed out that OpenOffice was most likely all that most home users would ever want or need.

Business use is another matter. Complex text, spreadsheet and presentation documents containing unique formatting created with Microsoft Office often break the import filters in OpenOffice. In a business environment - especially considering the time constraints which severely restrict the number of cycles most small business owners have available to fiddle around fixing messed up documents - Microsoft Office is the absolute standard.

Google's online office software applications are interesting, limited in features and scope, and work only as well as the speed and stability of your Internet connection allows. The same is true for ThinkFree. Both lack the complex filters needed to import (or create) complex formatting (no indexes, tables of contents, footnotes, etc.). The Microsoft Live products online fare somewhat better, and they perform clean imports of complex documents.

Use the others if they suit your needs. For me, Microsoft Office is still the king of the hill now and for the foreseeable future.

Get Microsoft Office from Amazon.

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posted by Howard Carson, Managing Editor at 11:31 PM



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