The News Review:
- New Tools to Bolster Mac’s World
- The Complex Crux f Wireless Warfare
- Technophile | Technology | The Guardian
- Resizing Drives for Extra Room
- PC World – Business Center: Samsung BlackJack II Review
New Tools to Bolster Mac’s World
New York Times – Jan 24, 2008
Whatever the reason a virtuous cycle may soon kick in: More Mac sales lead to more software titles which lead to more Mac sales which lead to — well you get it. Indeed this month two important software programs make their debut. ne is a minor upgrade from a big company:. The other is a big deal from a tiny company: MacSpeech Dictate a new speech-recognition program… The fonts color schemes and tool panels look like they’ve come straight from the designers at Apple — especially the palette that lets you drop your iPhoto pictures into Word or the other programs. Considering the four-year gap since the last version came along Microsoft hasn’t added much. For example you get a global search in Entourage formula auto-complete in Excel control over PowerPoint slide shows with the Apple remote and a terrific page-layout view in Word complete with linked boxes with auto-flowing text. ffice 2008 also lets you save your documents if you like in the new more compact file formats of ffice 2007 for Windows (ending in. Blockbuster new features however are nonexistent.
The Complex Crux f Wireless Warfare
Washington Post – Jan 24, 2008
Boeing and the Army said they chose not to use Microsoft’s proprietary software because they didn’t want to be beholden to the company. Instead they chose to develop a Linux-based operating system based on publicly available code. Microsoft which does substantial business with the military declined to comment. Boeing’s Schoen said that it is designing software so that if soldiers lose their connection the software will automatically "heal itself" retrieving the information within seconds without rebooting. The software in the name of speed will find an efficient mathematical algorithm to reconnect the soldier. The design is a combination of commercial software and code written from scratch by many software developers he said. Instead of Microsoft Boeing said it is using software developed by a hodgepodge of companies including… Boeing’s software and related hardware will cost about $250000 per combat vehicle about 10 times the cost of Blue Force said Dan Goure a defense expert at the Lexington Institute. Muilenburg of Boeing said his company’s software will be much more advanced than Blue Force saying that if Boeing’s SSCE is like the Windows operating system then Blue Force is akin to one of its applications like. Army officials said they were taking a harder look at the two systems among others. The Army recently held a battle command summit looking for one integrated common platform that would link its forces within five to seven years.
Technophile | Technology | The Guardian
Guardian Unlimited – Jan 24, 2008
So is ffice still necessary? It depends which one; Microsoft now offers three versions. Most people will get the Home and Student edition (SRP £99. 99) which includes everything you need – Word Excel PowerPoint Entourage (the Mac version of utlook) and Messenger. The ffice for Mac Suite (SRP £349. 99 upgrade version £199… So is ffice still necessary? It depends which one; Microsoft now offers three versions. Most people will get the Home and Student edition (SRP £99. 99) which includes everything you need – Word Excel PowerPoint Entourage (the Mac version of utlook) and Messenger. The ffice for Mac Suite (SRP £349. 99 upgrade version £199. 99) adds Exchange support and support for Apple’s Automator scripting system. The deluxe version ffice For Mac Special Media Edition costs £449.
Resizing Drives for Extra Room
New York Times – Jan 24, 2008
I have been told that repartitioning the drive is a risky business. What do you suggest?A. Hard drives are filling up faster than ever with all the digital photos music and movies taking up space not to mention the documents PowerPoint presentations and e-mail users collect. Many drives are divided into separate partitions which are sort of like separate containers on the same disk. Windows needs room to move though and if your drive gets too full the system may become sluggish. The Disk Defragmenter utility program that comes with Windows may not be able to function if your drive gets too full. When you find your main C drive partition is filling up faster than you can bail data over to the D drive repartitioning the disk can help.
PC World – Business Center: Samsung BlackJack II Review
PC World – Jan 24, 2008
n the software side the Windows Mobile 6 S comes with a couple of enhancements including push e-mail support (messages automatically download in the background as opposed to your manually retrieving them) and a slightly better Internet Explorer browser. It’s worth noting that instead of the Picsel Viewer app used in the original BlackJack for viewing and editing ffice documents the BlackJack II runs Microsoft ffice Mobile with Word Excel and PowerPoint. Though Picsel Viewer and ffice Mobile work similarly I miss the pan-and-zoom capability that the Picsel software offers. Call quality on the BlackJack II was just as good as on the older model thanks in part to its 3G antenna. Though the speaker was loud enough to hear clearly it sounded too tinny for our taste. As for missing pieces the phone conspicuously lacks Wi-Fi a touch screen and a standard headphone jack (it uses a proprietary port).