New Software

Adobe Flash Player Goes High-Def

Aug 21, 2007   10 pm
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flashplayer Adobe Tuesday announced an update to its Flash Player multimedia player, now in beta testing, that will support higher quality audio and video than previous versions via standard H.264 video — used in cable boxes and high definition DVDs — and High Efficiency AAC audio.

The update, code-named Moviestar, is a likely welcomed step toward better performance by Flash Player, especially in the wake of Microsoft(MSFT)’s announcement earlier this year that its Silverlight technology would support high definition by using the VC-1 codec used by Windows Media. Also supporting H.264 and High Efficiency AAC going forward are Adobe’s AIR rich Internet application runtime and Adobe Media Player, the company’s new desktop multimedia player.

Click for more on Adobe Flash Player Goes High-Def »

New Software

Daemon Tools 4.10 Update

Aug 20, 2007   3 am
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daemontools DAEMON Tools is an advanced application for Microsoft Windows which provides THE best optical media emulation in the industry. It is able to emulate nearly all known copy protections on the market today.

Today, with the 4.10 update, the best CD emulation get even better.

Click for more on Daemon Tools 4.10 Update »

Business

No More BitTorrent for Comcast Users?

Aug 17, 2007   5 pm
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No More BitTorrent for Comcast Users

No simple way to work around this issue at this moment. The only solution is encrypting the whole traffic through SSH proxy or VPN, which are not so feasible for normal users. ISP wins this time?

ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for almost two years now. Most ISPs simply limit the available bandwidth for BitTorrent traffic, but Comcast takes it one step further, and prevents their customers from seeding

Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease in download speeds, and even worse, they are unable to seed their downloads. A nightmare for people who want to keep up a positive ratio at private trackers and for the speed of BitTorrent transfers in general.

Unfortunately, these more aggressive throttling methods can’t be circumvented by simply enabling encryption in your BitTorrent client. It is reported that Comcast is using an application from Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. Sandvine breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds if it?s not a Comcast user. This makes it virtually impossible to seed a file, especially in small swarms without any Comcast users. Some users report that they can still connect to a few peers, but most of the Comcast customers see a significant drop in their upload speed.

The throttling works like this: A few seconds after you connect to someone in the swarm the Sandvine application sends a peer reset message (RST flag) and the upload immediately stops. Most vulnerable are users in a relatively small swarm where you only have a couple of peers you can upload the file to. Only seeding seems to be prevented, most users are able to upload to others while the download is still going, but once the download is finished, the upload speed drops to 0. Some users also report a significant drop in their download speeds, but this seems to be less widespread. Worse on private trackers, likely that this is because of the smaller swarm size

Although BitTorrent protocol encryption seems to work against most forms of traffic shaping, it doesn’t help in this specific case. Setting up a secure connection through VPN or over SSH seems to be the only solution. More info about how to setup BitTorrent over SSH can be found here.

Last year we had a discussion whether traffic shaping is good or bad, and ISPs made it pretty clear that they do not like P2P applications like BitTorrent. One of the ISPs that joined our discussions said: ?The fact is, P2P is (from my point of view) a plague - a cancer, that will consume all the bandwidth that I can provide. It?s an insatiable appetite.?, and another one stated: ?P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.?

Customers on the other hand like to fully use their connection, and don’t agree that traffic shaping is the correct solution. One reader commented: ?If you pay for an internet connection, that’s what you should get from your ISP ? an internet connection. Not a connection that will let you browse the web and check email, but little else. If an ISP has issues with the amount of data a customer is transferring, then the ISP needs to address that issue with that customer, and not restrict every user in one class of traffic.?

I guess this battle will go on for a while and I would advise Comcast users to try setting up a VPN connection to get around the traffic shaping, other users who find out that they are throttles might try BitTorrent encryption first, that seems to work quite well in most cases.

More details about the Sandvine application can be found here.

Source: torrentfreak

New Software

New Updates from Microsoft: Office 2007 SP1 beta and more

Aug 17, 2007   5 pm
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notifications_sidebar Microsoft release several new downloads today, which include Office 2007 SP1 beta for testers, which has been leaked on torrent network, and some more:

Office 2007 Service Pack (SP) 1 Beta 1. Microsoft made the first test build of Office 2007 SP1 available to Technology Adoption Program (TAP) participants only. Microsoft declined to discuss plans for the final SP1 ship date or feature set. (One anonymous poster on this blog provided what s/he said was a list of what?s included.)

Windows Live ID software development kit. Windows Live ID is Microsoft?s single sign-on authentication technology of which Microsoft Passport is a subset. On August 16, Microsoft released version 1.0 of two SDKs, allowing users to move between Windows Live services without having to log-in multiple times, and to do the same among third-party Web sites that make rely on the Windows Live ID technology. The SDK runs not only on Windows, but also on Linux, believe it or not.

Expression Blend 2 August Preview. Microsoft posted for download on August 14 a new test release of the next version of Microsoft?s Blend user-interface design tool. The tool fixes issues that some developers dabbling with test versions of Visual Studio 2008 have encountered when trying to build early versions of Silverlight apps.

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Tool 2.1. Another new release of this tool (following by just a few weeks the 2.0 version, announced in early July) includes a number of additional features, including SNMP discovery and IP range scanning. This tool is designed to help companies assess whether their systems are ready to upgrade to Vista and Office 2007.

PerformancePoint Community Technology Preview (CTP) 4: As the Microsoft bloggers promised, the company did deliver this week a new test build of Microsoft?s forthcoming scorecarding server.

Microsoft Update Catalog Version 1.0: The catalog allows users to search for updates available via Microsoft Update and download them. Users also can import updates fromt he catalog into WSUS 3.0, System Center essentials 2007 or System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

Final version of Office Outlook Connector: On August 14, Microsoft made available for download the final release of the free connector enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live Mail from inside Outlook 2003 or 2007.

New Software

Software Update: mIRC 6.30 with full Vista support

Aug 17, 2007   4 am
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mirc-logo It has been 9 months since the last 6.21 release. The popular IRC(Internet Relay Chat) client updates today.

This version of mIRC offers full Vista compatibility with support for limited user accounts, U3 support, support for tips (those small text balloons that pop up near the Windows tray) to notify you of various events such as incoming messages or users in your notify list coming on or leaving IRC, support for positioning the Treebar at top/bottom of the mIRC window, and a feature that allows you to switch between Normal and Compact modes. Compact mode makes mIRC behave like a messenger with the treebar filling the main window, all windows opening on the desktop, and so on…

As always this new version of mIRC addresses many, if not all, of the issues reported since the last release. A lot of time was spent tweaking new features, fixing bugs, and a handful of other things. In total there are over 100 changes in this version, making this a great new mIRC!

Download page for mIRC 6.3

Source: mirc

New Software

Software Update: Sysinternals Utilities

Aug 17, 2007   3 am
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swiss_army_knife The Admin’s Swiss Army Knife, utilities from Sysinternals, get some update today, which includes the popular ProcessMonitor and TcpView.

Process Monitor v1.22: This update adds the ability to specify the level of information saved when you export to XML.

Tcpview v2.51: This fixes a bug in the endpoint status bar statistics when you toggle between showing unconnected and connected ednpoints.

DebugView v4.7: This update allows you to enable or disable verbose kernel debug output.

Autoruns 8.72: Version 8.72 fixes a couple of minor bugs.

Source: Sysinternals

Apps

Check Hotmail Email Using the Office Outlook Connector

Aug 17, 2007   3 am
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office While Hotmail doesn’t offer POP3 access, Microsoft has released a free utility called Microsoft Office Outlook Connector that allows you download email from your Windows Live Hotmail account to local Outlook or Outlook Express.

With Outlook Connector, you can not only send or receive email - you get all the goodies of Outlook including the Junk Mail filter and powerful Rules Wizard of Outlook to help you auto-sort the incoming email.

To configure your Outlook with Windows Live Hotmail, just download the 3 MB Outlook Connector, type in your Hotmail username+password and you’re done.

The best part is that if you have multiple accounts, you can manage them from one central location - your Outlook. Supports both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

Get Outlook Connector here [OutlookConnector.exe] directly without WGA check.

Apps

Be Geek: 10+ keyboard shortcuts to work with Outlook

Aug 16, 2007   9 pm
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outlook The user universe is divided into mousers and keyboarders, with the latter group stoutly insisting that it’s faster to keep your fingers on the keyboard than to stop and pick up the mouse to execute a command, and looks much cooler as well. If some of your users are in the keyboard camp, these basic shortcuts will be right up their alley.

Action Shortcut
Create an Appointment Ctrl+Shift+A
Create a Contact Ctrl+Shift+C
Create a Folder Ctrl+Shift+E
Create a Journal entry Ctrl+Shift+J
Create a distribution List Ctrl+Shift+L
Create a Message Ctrl+Shift+M
Create a Meeting request Ctrl+Shift+Q
Create a Note Ctrl+Shift+N
Create a Task Ctrl+Shift+K
Create a Task request Ctrl+Shift+U
Create a Fax Ctrl+Shift+X
Send a Message Alt+S
Reply to a message Ctrl+R
Reply All to a message Ctrl+Shift+R
Forward a message Ctrl+F
Mark a message as read Ctrl+Q
Delete an item Ctrl+D

Source: TechPublic