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Picasa gets even more amazing. Make a 'face movie' and make your wife cry like I did.

Look before I get hate mail, I didn't intend her to cry, and it was 'happy tears' I'm told.
Yet like the movie sample above, you can see that this can be a very emotional and pretty stunning feature.

I've raved about and promoted Picasa (over twenty five times on this site alone) over the years so I think you get the message I like it, yes? Good.

Google engineers make it incredibly simple to use, and I simply clicked on T's face, pressed a button, and boom, ten years of hairstyles, some embarrassing outfits, and friends along with her in the middle.

Powerful stuff.

I don't get paid by Google (currently) but this is very, very worth trying out. This release (3.8) turns a piece of software in to a deeply powerful and emotion rich tool, adding a layer of experience for the user that most software rarely goes near.

Just have a box of tissues handy when you use it : )

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Google Chrome, a browsers browser.

If an advertisment becomes something you like and want to share with someone... it's already surpassed it's goals. And when they are as beautiful as the one below, what's not to like?

Great production, editing, music, AND an amazingly simple, and highly usable product. This is one in a short series of vidoes on Google Chrome all which are related videos in the player below.
The awesome tune is by Tim Myers, the track is called 'the lucky ones'

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Five star simple software #5: Ashampoo Burn Studio

To me it's rare in software when things just work as you really need them to, and that's the point of this not very regular spotlight series. You may have many pieces of burning software installed and often vying for attention, particularly if you have a new machine. [Nero, Roxio trials anyone?]

However this is free, simple, light, and comes with the ability to burn just about anything. Cd, DVD, even Blu-Ray discs are on offer. With enough tweaks under the hood for those that need it, but clean enough for newbies, it does an excellent job, and makes sure you don't end up producing DVD coasters.

Completely Free, no spyware, simple, and...just works. Enough said.

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Picasa 3.0, It's all grown up and groovy.

A five star price of software I've mentioned many times before, Picasa, has had a massive update. Overshadowed by the equally uber cool Google Chrome, Picasa 3, brings features that truly wipe the floor [and walls] with many paid for offerings out there. A new, mega idiot proof red eye feature, video editing, syncing free web albums, face tagging, image previewer, the list goes on. It's a monster release, and all for $0.00.

Check the whats updated video, their great blog or click the title link and just download and have a blast with one of my all time essential favorites.

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Five star simple software #4: Ant Renamer

If your doing some organising of your digital files, you'll invariably come across piles of music , photos or other items that from a naming point of view aren't named correctly, are misspelled or just plain all over the place with no structures or order. With better things to do with your time I'm sure than name each item one by one, help is at hand with the Swiss army knife like, 'Ant Renamer' from Ant Software.

Allowing you to rename files or folders in one go, or rename/remove extensions, change case, delete characters en masse from any part of the file name, even use mp3 meta data info to rename the file, and much more. You might not use it every day for sure, but when you want something to just simply do what it says it will, and save you a load of time, this is one of those great little apps that's just indispensable.

100% Free, with no nags or spyware.

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Five star simple software #3: SyncBack

Making backups is often something many don't think about, or make the time to do. Until of course the day that it all goes pear shaped, and you wish you'd done something about it. I'm an efficiently geeky kinda guy, so I try and do this regularly, and I've tried many different types of back up software. I don't want, or truly need anything complex, don't want real time back up, I just want it to back up all my stuff, when I say, from place A to B, end of story.

Simple you'd think to get software for this, but many just don't do what you want. They either limit you, or charge a fortune to do something basic. By default Windows 2000, XP & Vista have their own offerings, but none cut it for me. I was close to giving up, especially after a disastrous attempt at the other offering from Microsoft called Sync Powertoy. However the only 'power' involved was the waste of power I used in testing it out. Firstly having to validate my copy of Windows, then to be told I can only download it if I use Internet Explorer. Nice guys. Stupidly, I persevered, but the app itself has easily breakable logic behind the so called syncing, so I ended up with multiples of the same files, and worse still, it deleted some which were perfectly legitimate. Awful, awful, piece of software. And I only bash Microsoft here in the hope you avoid this, and try out the real piece of five star software...

...Which is by a company called 2Bright Sparks. Their offering is called SyncBack, and is a fantastic, light, and simple application, that just works, and very well at that. The logic, layout and overall experience of using it, is simplicity itself. Admittedly, the first time you set up a profile for the sync to run, you have to think carefully about the process and set options, but once done, it works like a dream, and simply does what it says on the tin. The paid version comes with more features than I think I would ever use, and I find their older freeware version: SyncBack Freeware V3.2.14 [Click for a direct link to the file] to be more than adequate, with full reporting, and plenty of other options to get advanced, should you wish, its pretty perfect. Click the title to go their main download page with all their products, or visit the direct link just above to get straight to the freeware version.

Simple, it works, and free. Now go get backing up.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Five Star Simple Software: #2 Picasa.

I'm a Google fanboy, sure I admit it. Regardless though, this software deserves a major mention.Picasa is a Photo and Movie manager and does so much I just couldn't cover it all here, but it's good enough that even Microsoft & Adobe have tried [in vain] to bring similar offerings to the table, such as Windows Vista's Photo Manager [Make that 'Photo Mangler'-try it, you'll see what I mean] & the utterly pointless, severely hobbled, nagging at every turn, Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. What a spectacular train wreck of software that is.

Both Microsoft & Adobe's efforts are a pale comparison though to Picasa and make managing your media a turgid, complex, enthusiasm zapping experience from start to finish, and will nag you to pay to upgrade the software regularly, or buy photos from their sources online [and normally only in the USA] at most turns. Both are clunky, overly complex and no fun at all.

All praise then to Picasa then which from the word go, is simply, simple. The install is clean and informative enough for all levels, and intuitive enough to find and catalogue your photos & movie media automatically should you let it. From there on in you have support for TIF, JPG, GIF, PSD, MPG, AVI, ASF, WMV, MOV & more. [As if you'll need more]

The usability of it really stands out, and I've met people from 14 to 65 who've all said they love it. And it's the easiest way to share photos with friends and family out there, because aside from the numerous photo touch up tools, slide shows, wallpaper makers, gift cd's, back up facilities and more, the most recent addition to Picasa is what makes it stand out from the crowd.

Free 1Gigabyte Web albums.

Previously even a fairly awkward thing to do for many, even with web skills, and so for most people it was nigh on impossible to get their photos up on the web. With Picasa it's two or three clicks. Literally. Everything else is automated. And before you know it, your photos you want to share are on the web on your own clear, memorable and useful web address such as: http://picasaweb.google.com/yourname

Now try doing this in Microsoft's offerings and your on to an unusable, almost never ending, indecipherable web address. Not friendly at all. [Adobe have no web offering as yet]. Another hidden Picasa gem is to get your friends to add you as a Picasa favourite [one simple click on your Picasa web page] and then every time they add a photo or album you get an email to let you know. All of which is fully editable and controllable. You can even have the option to allow people to download the entire set of your photos' to their Picasa in one click. Now thats sharing. And incredibly simple to do.

I could spend all day on how good this software is, as many of my my friends and family will testify, but if you haven't tried it, get on it, you wont regret it. After all taking photo's is great, but sharing them is half the fun.

Picasa is 100% free, Web Albums have 1Gigabyte of free online storage.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Welcome to the WOW WTF?

It's been a great year for software, computing and the Internet.

Except however, if your Microsoft.

Amongst many, many things that have not went well for them recently, the item in discussion here is Windows Vista. [In all of its overpriced and many, many flavors] Five years in development, almost the same in billions of dollars spent in research & development, and don't even mention the advertising budget. All for the spectacular damp squib that was the release of Windows Vista.

Sure this isn't breaking news, and plenty of sites exist listing all the many things wrong with this operating system, but being the 'computer guy' for my family and some friends, I've had it with trying to get anything working as it should on Vista. I'm not in the habit of kicking anyone when their down, but I've first hand used this, struggled with it, tried to fix it for others, and literally just sat bewildered as many have, being just utterly gobsmacked at the total mess this is. With glaringly obvious, Grand Canyon sized holes in usability, scalability and common sense. It's frankly had just odd, and very strange choices made in this software, and is overly complex, despite it's supposed simplifying from XP, and it's just a real 'wow' how this ever got released...

Apple of course are loving all this, and their long running PC vs. MAC ads are celebrating it loudly. [Their ads have been so successful have created a whole spoof market of their own such as this Wii Vs PS3 ad.] Apple are not without question either though, with themselves having many dubious tactics and plenty of dubious software, however, they do tend to get the aesthetics and marketing on the money. For many the best choice out there is [and it seems like heaven when] reverting back to Windows XP.

So if you've just bought a new latop or computer and it has Vista installed, be warned, you will experience the 'Wow'. Just not quite the wow you hoped for...Click this posts title to view an Apple Vista ad.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Five Star Simple Software: #1 Gom Player.

The first of a long promised series of software recommendations, where I'll highlight the picks I've found in my travels and experiences online. As we all seem to get more time poor these days I just don't have time for software unless it sticks core guidelines that tend to be along the lines of;

Simplicity, in design, operation & usage.
Lightweight in file size & processor usage.
Just get the job done well
No sneakiness. So thats no nagging or overtaking your system. [A la' usual suspects Adobe, iTunes/Quicktime & Real Player.] So that means no making useless folders in your 'My Documents' or shares or phoning home.

So up first, the unusually named GOM player. While most people have Windows Media player or Quicktime by default on their platform, why do you need one more? Well, probably because the other two try painfully hard to be the center of attention on your system. Both are large in file size [Quicktime needs a diet for sure], one prompts you to have a license just to listen to your music, or the other hogs your system tray and asks you pay to do anything other than basic features. No thanks.

With those two trying to compete and hog your system whenever they can, it's a breath of fresh air with software that just does as it says on the tin. Being the 'Computer guy' amongst many family and friends, I've throughly road tested this for over a year on many different machines. To date I've heard zero complaints. As the Gom player site says, its free, light and just works. No spyware or ads, and with some excellent features such as intuitively playing the next file in alpha/numerical order such as a tv series your watching, and also finding the codec you need, without you having to all the work.

With an excellent set up process, and enough advanced features there for those that want to get technical with it, it makes it a great all rounder for everyone. It keeps its interface, simple, clean, and effective. Playing MP3,WMA,OGG and most other music formats as well as XviD, DivX, FLV, MP4, H263, MOV [sadly you'll still need Quicktime or Quicktime alternative as its a closed codec to get .MOV's thorugh it] but once done, it truly is one app for the lot. With low CPU usage, skins should you need them, and much more, this is one of those essentials I install on every machine.

Oh yeah, it's also 100% free.

Posted by Stephen Scott

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Picasa gets even more amazing. Make a 'face movie' and make your wife cry like I did.

Google Chrome, a browsers browser.

Five star simple software #5: Ashampoo Burn Studio

Picasa 3.0, It's all grown up and groovy.

Five star simple software #4: Ant Renamer

Five star simple software #3: SyncBack

Five Star Simple Software: #2 Picasa.

Welcome to the WOW WTF?

Five Star Simple Software: #1 Gom Player.