Review: MediaMonkey organizes your MP3s

iTunes lets you do a lot with your music, but—let's face it—Apple's media management application doesn't really focus on music. It's simply too busy handling everything else. If you like the look and feel of iTunes, but wish that it kept its focus on music, you're going to love MediaMonkey. Especially if you use a mobile device that does not run iOS.

MediaMonkey bills itself as "the media organizer for serious collectors," and this free application lives up to that claim. The first time you launch the application, it will scan your computer for audio and video files. The process is quick: it identified almost 6000 files on my computer in just a few minutes. And once they are identified, MediaMonkey's organization features shine: you can browse files by their location on your PC, artist name, composer, album, genre, year, publisher, rating, and classification.

MediaMonkey's interface is text heavy, but this application includes plenty of useful tools, such as its ability to identify files in need of repair.

MediaMonkey also presents you with a section called "Files to Edit," where you can browse files that have unknown, missing, or inconsistent information. It also flags those that are duplicates, makes it easy to clean up and declutter your digital media collection. (The $25 MediaMonkey Gold includes an automatic library organizer, which can run as a background process, as well as faster CD burning and on-the-fly audio and video file conversions.)

MediaMonkey is more than just a media organizer: it's also a digital media player, where you can play your favorite tunes. I like how easy it is to make minor corrections to the files as you're playing them. You can easily level the volume of a track, for example, to equalize the volume between tracks.

The interface looks a lot like iTunes, with a similar layout and a white and blue color scheme. MediaMonkey's interface is rather text heavy, though, and its text is smaller and more dense than Apple's software. That flaw is easy to overlook when you consider how well MediaMonkey works with mobile devices, though. I tested it with both an iPhone and an Android smartphone, and it recognized both devices without issues, and was able to sync each of these phones with my PC easily.

This feature alone will make MediaMonkey a winner for any non-iOS users who have been searching for an application that will give them an iTunes-like experience. But iOS users too shouldn't overlook MediaMonkey: music aficionados and organization-mind iPhone and iPad users will like what it has to offer.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microsoft details law enforcement requests in new report

Following similar disclosures from companies like Google and Twitter, Microsoft has for the first time released statistics about requests it has received from law enforcement agencies for data about its users, and the criteria it employs to decide how it will respond.

The company is seeking to build further on the industry's commitment to transparency by releasing its own data, Brad Smith, general counsel, said in a post on Thursday, which also links to the report.

Last year, Microsoft got 75,378 law enforcement requests for customer information, which potentially affected 137,424 accounts or other identifiers, according to Smith. All of its major online services are covered in the report, including Hotmail, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Xbox LIVE, Office 365, as well as Skype.

In 2.1 percent of those cases, Microsoft disclosed what it refers to as customer "content," such as email text or stored photos. Recipients in more than 99 percent of these cases were law enforcement agencies in the U.S. that provided lawful warrants from courts, according to Smith.

However, in more than 56,000 cases Microsoft disclosed what it calls "non-content" data such as users' names, email addresses, IP addresses, country of residence and gender. In these cases, more than 66 percent of the data went to agencies in the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Germany and France. These non-content data disclosures don't include Skype.

Skype specifically received 4,713 requests from law enforcement, impacting 15,409 accounts or other identifiers, such as phone numbers. Skype provided no content in response to these requests, but it did provide non-content data, like SkypeIDs, names, email accounts, billing information and call detail records. For Skype, U.K., U.S., Germany, France and Taiwan accounted for 81 percent of all requests.

Microsoft will update its report every six months, according to Smith.

Microsoft said it requires a valid subpoena or legal equivalent before it considers releasing a customer's non-content data to a law enforcement agency. To consider disclosing actual customer content, it requires a court order or warrant.

"We take a close look in each instance to ensure that the requests we receive for a customer's information are in accord with the laws, rules and procedures that are applicable to requests for customer data and content," he wrote.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Defense spokesman says DoD not dumping BlackBerry

Skip the navigation

Computerworld

• White Papers
• Webcasts
• Newsletters

• Solution Centers

  • BlackBerry: Build up your BlackBerry® 10 knowledge
  • BMC Control-M Workload Automation
  • View all Solution Centers
• Events

• Magazine

  • Latest Issue
  • Magazine Index
  • Subscribe
  • Subscriber Services
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• RSS

• Topics
  • Applications
  • Cloud Computing
  • Consumerization of IT
  • Data Center
  • Data Storage
  • Government/Industries
  • Hardware
  • Internet
  • Management
  • Mobile/Wireless
  • Networking
  • Operating Systems
  • Security
  • All Topics
• News
• In Depth
• Reviews
• Blogs
  • Featured Blogs
  • IT Blogwatch
  • Jonny Evans
  • JR Raphael
  • Michael Horowitz
  • Preston Gralla
  • Richi Jennings
  • Robert L. Mitchell
  • Shark Tank
  • All Bloggers
• Opinion
• Shark Tank
• IT Jobs

• More

  • Enterprise IT
  • Hot Topics
  • IDGE CEO Interviews
  • Insider Articles
  • QuickPoll Center
  • Slideshows
  • Video

• IT Verticals

  • Financial IT
  • Government IT
  • Healthcare IT

Mobile/ Wireless

• Android|
• iOS|
• Laptops|
• Mobile Apps|
• Mobile Device Management|
• Mobile Payments|
• Netbooks|
• Smartphones|
• Tablets|
• Ultrabooks|
• Windows Phone|
• Wireless Carriers

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Are there 60 votes in the Senate for online sales taxes?

Skip the navigation

Computerworld

• White Papers
• Webcasts
• Newsletters

• Solution Centers

  • BlackBerry: Build up your BlackBerry® 10 knowledge
  • BMC Control-M Workload Automation
  • View all Solution Centers
• Events

• Magazine

  • Latest Issue
  • Magazine Index
  • Subscribe
  • Subscriber Services
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• RSS

• Topics
  • Applications
  • Cloud Computing
  • Consumerization of IT
  • Data Center
  • Data Storage
  • Government/Industries
  • Hardware
  • Internet
  • Management
  • Mobile/Wireless
  • Networking
  • Operating Systems
  • Security
  • All Topics
• News
• In Depth
• Reviews
• Blogs
  • Featured Blogs
  • IT Blogwatch
  • Jonny Evans
  • JR Raphael
  • Michael Horowitz
  • Preston Gralla
  • Richi Jennings
  • Robert L. Mitchell
  • Shark Tank
  • All Bloggers
• Opinion
• Shark Tank
• IT Jobs

• More

  • Enterprise IT
  • Hot Topics
  • IDGE CEO Interviews
  • Insider Articles
  • QuickPoll Center
  • Slideshows
  • Video

• IT Verticals

  • Financial IT
  • Government IT
  • Healthcare IT

Internet

• E-business|
• Internet Search|
• Social Media|
• Web Apps

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ready for a new Google Docs alternative? Meet open source OX Documents

As the free trial period for Microsoft Office 2013 draws to a close, it's a pretty safe bet that more users than ever are thinking long and hard about whether or not to buy or subscribe.

There's no doubt competitors such as the open source LibreOffice and the browser-based Google Docs offer compelling alternatives, but soon there will be yet another contender to consider.

Unveiled on Wednesday by Open-Xchange, OX Documents will be a productivity suite that's both open source  and browser-based, thus combining a bit of each of those leading alternatives.

'Non-destructive' support

OX Documents will eventually be a cloud-based office productivity suite, and it's due to be fully complete and full-featured later this year. For now, though, Open-Xchange is focusing first on OX Text, its in-browser word processing component.

OX Text offers direct editing capabilities for both Microsoft Word .docx files and OpenOffice or LibreOffice .odt files, but there's also viewing support for all major file formats. Billed by Open-Xchange as a "pioneering feature" of OX Text is what it calls the software's "non-destructive" support of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice or LibreOffice file formats.

"XML-based documents can be seamlessly read, edited, and saved back to the original format at a level of quality and fidelity previously unavailable with browser-based text editors," the group explains.

Multiple users can also view and edit the same document in real time using OX Text, allowing for structured collaboration.

'Formatted as originally intended'

OX Text was actually developed by members of the original OpenOffice development team, Open-Xchange says, with the goal of creating a cloud-based office suite from scratch using state-of-the-art HTML5 and JavaScript technology.

"A crucial factor in the development of OX Text was not to introduce yet another proprietary file format to further add to the productivity compatibility jungle," explained Open-Xchange CEO Rafael Laguna. "Existing cloud-based tools insist that you adopt their format before you can begin the edit process that creates ugly conversion artifacts, putting a brake on fast adoption of collaboration in the cloud."

The software also keeps original document formats by "not attempting to alter or convert non-compatible native formatting features," Laguna added. So, when you reopen a document in Microsoft Word, "it is formatted as originally intended, without any alterations."

Roughly 80 percent of a Word document's elements can be edited by OX Text, according to a NetworkWorld report, but 100 percent of the document survives with its formatting preserved.

A preview version now available

OX Text will be available in early April under a GNU General Public License 2 and Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License, as well as under commercial licenses that offer support-based subscriptions to telecom and mobile carriers, hosting companies, cloud providers, and others, Open-Xchange says.

It will be available both separately and as an extension of Open-Xchange's existing OX App Suite. Later in 2013 we'll see the arrival of presentation and spreadsheet components. In the meantime, you can check out a preview version of OX Text online.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

HP quashes investor unrest, looks to servers for salvation

Shareholder meetings are almost boring affairs, but today, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, HP's Board quietly prevailed in several intense battles, including the preservation of its very own membership. The overall message: Let's look forward to the future, and leave our checkered past behind.

HPHP's shareholder meeting seemed design to project stability.

There's plenty the Board would no doubt like to put behind it, including six quarters of declining profit and revenue . Though HP isn't doing quite as badly as expected, sales of its bread-and-butter PCs, workstations, and printers, continue to fall. As a result, shareholders have agitated to oust two of HP's Board members along with its outside auditing firm, Ernst & Young. And many continue to question the company's 2011 acquisition of Autonomy, and a Department of Justice investigation isn't helping. Meanwhile, back at the garage, HP is embroiled in a lawsuit with Oracle over server support.

Against this ragged backdrop, HP's Board seemed extra-determined to project both sober responsibility and immense excitement. It made no mention of its declining businesses, instead pointing to new opportunities in IT and servers for the burgeoning big-data revolution. In addition, none of the controversial shareholder proposals prevailed.

Shareholder drama fizzles

The biggest flap concerned a campaign by CtW Investor Group to vote down two of HP's current Board members. CtW blamed John H. Hammergren for his role in the extremely expensive Autonomy acquisition. It also targeted G. Kennedy Thompson for his role in maintaining the high non-audit fees paid to Ernst & Young, which it saw as a conflict of interest with the firm's role as the company's financial auditor. When the shareholders voted, however, each Board member received over 50 percent of the votes needed to stay on team HP, and the retention of Ernst & Young as HP's outside auditor was favored by a very high margin of over 84 percent.

"What's emerging is an entirely new style of IT driven by cloud, mobile, and big data."

HP's Board nevertheless seemed to indicate that there might be room for change, though clearly on its own terms. During the meeting's Q&A session, Board Director Ralph Whitworth responded to a shareholder by saying, "This Board is among the best I've seen, and every single Board member contributes in their own way and has a strong dynamic. Having said that, all Boards should evolve, especially one with the recent past that this one has had…. You can expect some evolution of the Board over the coming years, months, maybe."

IT and servers could be HP's new cash cow

At the meeting, Meg Whitman's enthusiastic speech to shareholders underlined HP's core strengths in engineering and innovation. The CEO noted the company had filed more than 1300 patents in 2012, the most for any company in Silicon Valley. Every CEO likes to show a chart with the lines moving upward, and Ms. Whitman did just that, showing a chart of HP's strategy for recovery through 2016.

"2013 we think of as a fix and rebuild year," she said, "where we're focused on the great products and services that HP continues to deliver to its customers."

HPHP's Meg Whitman

As she looked to the future, Whitman trumpeted HP's enterprise business. "What's emerging is an entirely new style of IT driven by cloud, mobile, and big data. It's also changing how end users engage with that technology." She pointed to HP's IT and server solutions as, perhaps, the company's new bread and butter. "Only HP can provide solutions for the new style of IT. Our diverse portfolio sets us apart—device, hardware, software, and service from the enterprise to the consumer."

No mention of PCs, printers, and tablets

Through all this happy talk, only that passing mention was made of HP's struggling consumer products, even though Todd Bradley, the Executive Vice President of the Printing and Personal Systems Group, was sitting there with all the other execs. While Ms. Whitman bragged, "our product lineup is the best [we've had] in a decade," the reality is that HP still lacks the tablet and smartphone solutions that would help it remain competitive at the consumer end, where all the big data starts.

While Ms. Whitman has recently stated HP's commitment to PCs, how that and other struggling businesses will fit into HP's future is a lingering question. "HP has maintained that they are in the client business for the long term. I think that right now, they are focused on building out a client strategy that's broader than Microsoft OS based PC's. This includes Android tablets, and Chrome-based PC's. We believe HP wants to hedge its bets in the client space," said Crawford Del Prete, Chief Research Officer at IDC.

By the end of the shareholder meeting, HP had succeeded in maintaining the status quo, while hinting at possibility for change. We are all waiting to see whether it'll come soon enough.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

We're buying smartphones and tablets, but PCs still reign supreme

Smartphones and tablets are taking over our lives, but don't forget about the PC.

There are now 500 million Internet-connected devices in U.S. homes, according to a Monday report from technology research firm NPD Group. Mobile devices are driving that growth, with 26 million added in the last three months.

But the PC is still the top dog when it comes to gadgets. In U.S. homes with Internet access, 93 percent had PCs.

That number isn't budging much, though it's nothing to sneeze at.

Smartphones and tablets each are in 57 percent and 53 percent of U.S. homes, respectively. Separately, the devices significantly lag behind PCs, but combined, there are more homes with mobile devices than desktops or laptops.

Tablets alone have seen a huge surge in the last three months. From the last quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of this year, tablet penetration jumped from 35 percent to 53 percent.

The increases are higher than they normally would be because of holiday sales, says John Buffone, director of devices for NPD's Connected Intelligence division. First-time tablet buyers drove the increase. Buffone expects more basic cell phone users to switch to smartphones in the next year or two, continuing the momentum.

We aren't choosing one device over another (like turning to a tablet and getting rid of the family PC), but instead stockpiling new gadgets as they're released. The average number of Internet-connected devices per household increased in the first three months of the year from 5.3 to 5.7.

The average home has 2.4 desktops or laptops, which has remained steady.

"What we are seeing is more shifts in usage," Buffone says. "Thirty-seven percent of PC users migrated some activity to their mobile device."

Both tablet and smartphone owners list Internet browsing and Facebook surfing as the top two activities they moved from PC to mobile devices, according to a February report from NPD Group.

Despite the rise of mobile, Buffone said desktops and laptops are still by far the most popular devices in U.S. households, and that likely won't change anytime soon.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nvidia CEO disappointed with Windows RT, prays to Outlook god

Add Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang to the list of people disappointed with the debut of Windows RT.

"We expected to have sold more than we did," he said Tuesday. "I think everybody expected to have sold more than we did."

Huang was speaking to financial analysts on the sidelines of Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California.

Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 for ARM-based chips like Nvidia's Tegra processors. Traditional versions of Windows are written to run on Intel and compatible chips, but they won't run on ARM processors. With ARM becoming so popular in tablet computers, Microsoft developed Windows RT to match Android.

The operating system's debut has been met with some confusion by consumers because Windows RT tablets won't run Windows software. They are restricted to apps written specifically for the platform and downloaded through the Windows Store.

Sales of the first round of Windows RT devices have been weaker than many expected, as Huang indicated. The operating system is expected to win just a 2 percent market share this year, according to an estimate published last week by IDC.

Despite the slow launch, Microsoft should continue to concentrate on the Arm platform, said Huang.

"They have to find a way to get into that ecosystem because it's so disruptive. I think it's of some importance to Microsoft to continue to invest in RT," he said.

Nvidia has an interest in the success of RT and the ARM platform because of its Tegra chips.

Huang said one thing he's still hoping for is a version of Microsoft's Outlook email client for Windows RT.

"If Outlook were to show up on RT, my life would be complete," he said. "I am one Outlook away from computing nirvana. Outlook god, please..."

He guessed it's probably something Microsoft can do, if it so decided.

"They own the source code and I know there are smart people up there."

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Gender gap? In tech salaries, it's all gone, Dice reports

The field of IT is notorious for being persistently male-dominated, but that doesn't mean women still suffer from a gender gap when it comes to pay.

In fact, the compensation gender gap has disappeared for tech workers, according to the latest salary survey from IT careers site Dice. Specifically, ever since 2009, average salaries have been equivalent for male and female tech professionals, the company reported  on Tuesday—as long as you're comparing equal levels of experience and education and parallel job titles.

Men actually did outearn women overall in the 2013-2012 Dice Salary Survey, earning an average annual income of $95,929 compared with women's $87,527. However, that difference is driven by the fact that the two groups tend to hold different positions, Dice says. Whether that's the result of personal choice or institutional bias is unclear, it added.

Equally satisfied

Whichever the case, project manager is the only title shared by the genders in their top five positions. That's the No. 1 position for women, in fact, followed by business analyst, "other IT," QA tester, and technical recruiter.

For men, the top five positions are software engineer in the No. 1 spot followed by systems administrator, project manager, IT management, and applications developer.

Dice

Women also tend to be about as satisfied as men with their salaries, Dice found, with 58 percent of women stating they were satisfied, as compared with 56 percent of their male counterparts.

In general, technology salaries in the U.S. saw the biggest jump in more than a decade in this report, showing a greater-than-five-percent increase in average annual wages to $85,619, up from $81,327 in 2011.

The Dice Salary Survey was administered online to 15,049 employed technology professionals responding between September 24 and November 16, 2012. Also reported earlier was the jump in salaries for those with Linux skills.

'A skills-driven marketplace'

Of course, it's worth noting that Dice's latest report focuses purely on salary, so all the many other factors that may still serve as obstacles for women are not included.

Still, it's encouraging news that the pay gap isn't what it once was, and there are clearly more than a few women who have become leaders in the IT world, providing inspiration for future generations.

"When it comes to technology employment, it's a skills-driven marketplace," concluded Tom Silver, a senior vice president with Dice. "The ability to apply that know-how to a given problem remains the core of employment—why tech professionals get hired and how they are compensated."

Does that ring true for you, based on your own experience? Please sound off in the comments.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Review: Defishr removes fish-eye distortion from video

Is your video giving you the evil eye? The evil fish-eye? Well, Prodad's Defishr has you covered. A companion to Prodad's Mercalli V2 and Mercalli Easy video stabilization software, Defishr renders your fish-eyed video into the flat-horizon variety without a whole lot of work on your part. Defishr costs $99, and has a free demo.

Defishr's separate calibration module lets you optimize the process for your own cameras.

I tried correcting three fish-eyed videos from different cameras with Defishr, and it worked very well on all of them. The interface is simple, and lets you preview the either the original video, the de-fished video, or both side-by-side. If the video has stabilization problems, Prodad recommends that you take care of those after using Defishr. That said, I took care of it up front with decent results. Jitter and other artifacts are more noticeable in de-fished video.

While Defishr comes with 14 profiles, including one generic, to handle a number of cameras, you can also create your own by recording the provided calibration grid, then feeding the video to the program. There's an embedded link to an instructional video in the separate calibration module.

Defishr does have some rough spots, all interface-related. It's apparently not bright enough to discontinue the looping playback when you want to export a file. The program sat there, failing to export until I cancelled said export, stopped playback manually, and restarted the export process. The inability to paste in the product serial number rather than type it in is a nuisance, but at least it's just a one-time nuisance. Also, without the third-party codecs Defishr wants to add to your system during installation, Defishr wouldn't open MP4 files, even though I have Xvid installed to handle that particular codec(and the reason I initially skipped installing the others).

The Defishr interface is clean and lets you see the original and de-fish-eyed video side by side.

Minor annoyances aside, Defishr's core functionality is top-notch and the program is easy to use. You don't even have to take my word for it. The demo's preview function will let you see for yourself if it fixes your fish-eye problems. Video produced in demo mode is limited to five minutes and is watermarked.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More