Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » juillet 2, 2014

BetaNews.Com (17 non lus)

The three hour startup -- From idea to revenue in 180 minutes

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 9:56pm CEST par Michael Raven

Tinderus

At 5pm on Thursday 12th June 2014, I launched tinderus.com -- a $50 Tinder Profile Consultancy Service.

I came up with the idea in London at 3pm that exact day and within two hours I had tinderus.com up and running. I chucked it on ProductHunt and within minutes received a wave of traffic, two $50 bookings and a whole host of comments, including a nice little comment from Tinder Co-Founder Jonathan Badeen.

Since that day, TinderUs has received around 138 paid bookings for $50. I’ve been featured in Business Insider, Huffington Post, Venture Beat, Inside Mobile Apps, Tech and Bits.

The truth about the birth of TinderUs is that it started as a joke; "You should start a Tinder Consultancy for all the people out there who can’t get many matches". Thus, TinderUs was born!

In terms of the business' functionality, this is again a simple, stripped down process. Customers book through a simple PayPal button (with Contact Us form for queries). When we receive a booking, we prompt them for a time and date for a consultation to take place, including asking them to add us on Facebook so we can see their profile.

When the time arrives for the consultation, a member of staff will get online (I have a few friends who work in Fashion who are excellent at giving advice on appearance, conversation and overall personality). The consultant goes through five key areas:

Picking your best five photos from Facebook
Choosing your main image (this is key)
Curating your profile tagline
Giving you ideas and advice on opening lines
Providing you with expert advice on flirting and what to say in a conversation

Simple, quick and effective!

I created the site on Strikingly’s platform -- an incredibly easy web page editor that allowed me to produce a beautiful website in a rapid timeframe. I don’t have exceptional design or coding skills, so Strikingly is ideal for me.

Reaching out to journalists for press is another key angle to TinderUs' growth. This process is always over-complicated by startups -- just remember that journalists are real people, whose job is to write up interesting news. If you email or Tweet them with something interesting, there is a good chance they’ll get back to you.

This short journey proves that anyone can build a simple site and generate revenue with the correct idea. "Build something people want" is a fantastic mantra, but there’s a lot to be said about hacking stuff together for fun.

Michael Raven is Founder and Managing Director of TinderUs and Catch London, a PR & Strategy Agency focusing on Technology Startups. Based in London, UK, Michael has worked with Technology companies all over the globe.

Cloud sprawl: What is it, and how can you beat it?

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 8:23pm CEST par Steve Browell

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Today's workplace plays host to employees using a variety of cloud services side-by-side with corporate-sanctioned IT. This often results in incongruent information sourcing and storage, typically known as cloud sprawl. Whilst software as a service (SaaS) can boost smarter working and innovation in businesses, information disparity issues need to be addressed to sustain efficient working environments.

As businesses adoption and management of cloud services matures, some are still suffering organizational inefficiencies due to cloud sprawl. At the moment, different software is being selected for different solutions by different departments or even individual members of staff; there is a knowledge gap where businesses aren't fully informed about how cloud technology can respond to business challenges in a different way to on-premise solutions, and so the potential for better information management is not being realized.

From the mid-market to larger enterprise, businesses need to enable company-wide education about the benefits of cloud.

To avoid cloud sprawl, there are a host of things that need to be considered; things that IT managers don't often think about when moving to cloud. People are still figuring out what cloud means to their business, and this often leads to information sprawl as new and different clouds are being deployed. Eventually cloud computing will mature and become standardized and interoperable, but until then there are certain sprawling issues to be addressed.

Cloud sprawl is also partly down to CIOs losing control of their IT strategies and procurement processes. Software as a Service has enabled more business departments (whether HR, marketing or finance) to make purchasing decisions oncloud solutions. For the CIO, this can lead to chaos as there are lots of different systems running in siloes. This can lead to challenges meeting overall goals, with CIOs effectively taking on a supply management role as they fight to manage disparate systems and ensure interoperability and business agility.

With 'Shadow IT' (systems businesses depend upon not deployed or managed by the IT team) becoming increasingly commonplace in the industry, teams are now making decisions without the CIO. As a result, we are seeing fragmentation of ultimate decision makers; not the desired effect of cloud computing.

There needs to be clear direction from the CIO to the business in terms of where it is necessary for information systems to share data; they must be clear on the need to interrelate information.

Individual departments may work perfectly well alone, but they still need the CIO to provide mechanisms to connect with each other and ensure compatibility. Many SaaS solutions have overlapping and duplicate functions, such as social or messaging plug-ins, which is another feature of cloud sprawl.

The key lesson to be learnt from the cloud sprawl issue is about the interconnection of business systems. This highlights particular problems for SaaS since linking systems together is critical to achieving maximum return. Organizations need to learn that systems might potentially overlap, and that solutions being too siloed or having too many overlaps may cause sprawl.

Steve Browell is CTO at Intrinsic

Microsoft brings better document collaboration to Office 365

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 7:16pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

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With the introduction of Office 2013, Microsoft brought software as a service to the table -- something some analysts had long expected would happen. Under the moniker of Office 365, the company introduced a subscription model that allows for a monthly or annual fee and grants five licences to each person or family.

Today the software and services company rolls out an improvement to this offering, adding what it calls better document collaboration. The feature was actually announced earlier this year at the Exchange Developer Conference, but only now do we see the final product. Microsoft hopes this will eliminate the need to share documents via emails in an effort to work with other people on the files.

"Today, we’re thrilled to introduce the first of these enhancements which aims to improve the way people interact with files as attachments in their email. Now, you will be able to edit a document straight from Outlook Web App and attach this edited document to an email response in just a few clicks", the Office 365 team announces.

Added are side-by-side comparisons, which allow for viewing of the attachment and email next to one another, as opposed to flipping back and forth between the two. Users will also no longer need to download the attachment, as the document can be edited and returned right from this new view.

Finally, Microsoft promises a better user experience overall, with attached files being easier to see during the send process, and the ability to download multiple attachments in one single ZIP file.

"We are excited to deliver the first step in this enhanced document collaboration experience in Outlook Web App. We’ll have more enhancements to share later in the year. In the meantime, we look forward to your feedback on how we can continue to meet your needs", the team concludes. The company also promises more enhancements are on the way.

Vaio launches its first laptops without Sony

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 6:40pm CEST par Barclay Ballard

Vaio_Pro_and_Fit_contentfullwidth Sony agreed to sell Vaio earlier this year, but the latter has wasted no time in getting back into the laptop market.

Vaio has said it will continue to be a "small" PC maker after the sale and will have to alter its output accordingly, but the first two laptops that have been revealed look very similar to the Pro and Fit ranges that were launched 12 months ago under the Sony brand.

The Vaio Pro is listed in 11.6in and 13.3in models on the company's website, with up to 4GB RAM, Intel Core i7, 11.5 hours of battery life and a Windows 8.1 operating system. The Vaio Fit has a 15in screen, with largely similar specs.

Both laptops contain HD Triluminous displays, which was previously a Sony-only technology, and are currently only available in Japan.

There has been no word on an overseas release.

Sony agreed to sell its Vaio PC division to Japan Industrial Partners Inc. for an estimated $493 million earlier this year and while the two latest releases don't reveal much of a change in the company's output, it'll be interesting to see if Vaio can be a success without the Sony brand.

Radical.FM launches 25 million ad-free songs on Android

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 4:39pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

music woman tablet headphones

Is there room for one more music app in the market? Radical.FM is hoping so, and it has big plans to become your service of choice, competing with the big names like Spotify and Rdio. Today the company is planning an ambitious app launch for the Android platform.

"The app is free, commercial-free, and available for immediate download in the Google Play Store", the company states. This is the first foray into the Google mobile platform, but the service was already available for iOS.

The iOS app will also be receiving improvements, and Radical.FM promises a desktop app is in the works too, though no release date for this has yet been announced.

"Tremendous effort has gone into making these powerful new apps faster and more intuitive,” says CEO Tom McAlevey. “But unlike Beats, which offers nothing Spotify hasn’t offered for years, or Amazon Prime Music, which is missing half the music iTunes has offered for a decade, Radical.FM offers a truly unique concept built on one of the world’s most comprehensive music libraries".

The company operates under a unique business model. It compensates all artists and labels for the music streamed, doing so through ads. However, there is an ad-free model and it has no set price -- users pay what they can. "If treated with respect, people tend to do the right thing. As users discover Radical’s outstanding service, many of them will be proud to support it", McAlevey claims.

You can visit the website to find download links for both the new Android app and the improved iOS version.

Photo Credit: Poprotskiy Alexey/Shutterstock

Almost 1 in 5 websites now blocked by censorship filters in the UK

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 3:59pm CEST par Wayne Williams

censorship

Browse the web in the UK, and sooner or later there’s a good chance you’ll stumble across a website that’s been blocked. Sites like The Pirate Bay, Fenopy and H33t are no longer viewable due to court orders preventing access, and other sites -- many perfectly legitimate -- are being blocked by censorship filters.

It’s not quite as bad as living in China, but according to a new project by the Open Rights Group, ISPs are currently blocking 19 percent of tested websites.

The Blocked project is an online tool that lets you check whether a website is being censored by filters. So far it has checked over 105,000 websites, and disturbingly found over 20,000 which have been blocked by one or more ISPs.

The filters are designed to prevent children and young people from viewing content aimed at over 18s, including pornography and sites that talk about alcohol, smoking, anorexia and hate speech.

However, the Open Rights Group says the filters are routinely blocking sites which are not harmful to children -- sometimes seemingly by mistake, and at other times deliberately.

Executive Director of Open Rights Group, Jim Killock said: "Through, the Blocked project we wanted to find out about the impact of web filters. Already, our reports are showing that almost 1 in 5 websites tested are blocked, and that the problem of overblocking seems much bigger than we thought. Different ISPs are blocking different sites and the result is that many people, from businesses to bloggers, are being affected because people can’t access their websites".

One of the blocked sites is the political blog, Guido Fawkes whose Editor Paul Staines quipped: "We would really appreciate it if TalkTalk would remove us from their block list. The only people who block us are them and the Chinese government".

Other sites found to be blocked include a feminist rights blog and a Porsche dealership.

UK users can check to see if a website has been blocked by filters using the free checking tool at www.blocked.org.uk. It tests services from 3, Andrews & Arnold, BT, Everything Everywhere, O2, Plusnet, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vodafone.

Photo Credit: Rommel Canlas/Shutterstock

Nokia Lumia 635 comes to T-Mobile

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 3:23pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Nokia Lumia 635 T-Mobile

Now is a great time to be looking for a new Windows Phone 8.1 smartphone. The entry-level Nokia Lumia 630 is already available, while the Lumia 930 flagship will launch shortly, as will the more affordable Lumia 635. For those living in US, however, their options are far more limited.

The only Windows Phone 8.1 smartphone that is set to launch in US is Lumia 635. It will reach mobile operator T-Mobile, as well as its MetroPCS subsidiary, in just a couple of days. For Simple Choice customers, it goes for $7 per month for two years (the total cost is $168, when taking into account the $0 down payment).

It will be available first through Home Shopping Network, starting July 5, and through T-Mobile's online shop afterwards, starting July 9. MetroPCS customers will be able to buy Lumia 635 for less only days after, starting July 18, as it will be offered for $99 -- the "promotional price" is available both online and in "select" brick and mortar stores. So-called "participating" T-Mobile stores will also sell the MetroPCS version for $99, starting July 16.

Lumia 635 highlights include: 4.5-inch IPS display, glove-friendly, with a resolution of 480 by 854; 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor; 512 MB of RAM; 1,830 mAh battery; 8 GB of internal storage; microSD card slot (can house cards up to 128 GB in size); 5 MP back-facing camera with 720p video recording (there is no front-facing camera, however); Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; GPS with Glonass; Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 2.0. The physical dimensions are 129.5 x 66.7 x 9.2 mm and weight is 134 grams.

T-Mobile also announces that both Lumia 521 and Lumia 925 will receive an over-the-air software upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1. There is a vague estimate for when this is expected to happen -- "later this year".

Stella makes it easy and fun to emulate classic Atari 2600 VCS games

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 3:22pm CEST par Nick Peers

Stella

When it comes to tapping into our fondness for old computing and gaming platforms, Stella has always been at the forefront. This cross-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator first saw the public light of day back in 1996, and now -- 18 years later -- it may just have delivered it most significant update yet with the release of Stella 4.0.

Version 4, also available in 64-bit form, sees the emulator ported across to SDL2, which brings many new features and performance improvements.

Chief among these improvements is support for native hardware acceleration support on all three builds: Direct3D in Windows, and OpenGL on Mac and Linux. The transition to SDL2 also means it’s now possible to port Stella to iOS and Android platforms via OpenGLES.

Support for hardware acceleration is now mandatory, so users must ensure they’re using up-to-date drivers to support it; software rendering remains in place for now, but is no longer optimized and is no longer supported.

With hardware acceleration now a requirement, TIA TV effects have been extended to all video modes. Another notable improvement is that switching Stella to full-screen sees it use the current desktop resolution rather than resizing the desktop.

Users gain a more detailed view of a cartridge’s extended RAM via a new Debugger tab, while both AtariVox and SaveKey controllers gain the ability to complete erase the virtual EEPROM data in the debugger itself.

A new "savesnap" debugger prompt command has been added -- also accessible via the debugger’s TIA output area context menu. Selecting this saves the current TIA image as a PNG file.

A new "hidecursor" command line option has been implemented, allowing systems without a mouse to complete disable the cursor from view.

Version 4.0 is rounded off by updating the included PNG library to the latest stable version. Stella 4.0 (32-bit) and Stella 4.0 (64-bit) are both available now as a free, donationware downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux.

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Check files for malware before they’re downloaded with VTzilla/ VTchromizer

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 3:19pm CEST par Mike Williams

VirusTotal200-175 VirusTotal is an excellent free web service which scans any file for malware against 50+ of the top antivirus engines. But it can take a moment to use, as you must visit the site, choose the type of scan you need (file or link), then point VirusTotal in the right direction.

VTzilla and VTchromizer are Firefox and Chrome add-ons which simplify this process by integrating VirusTotal scanning options into the browser, enabling you to check any file or URL with one or two clicks.

If you’re unsure about a particular link, for example, you can right-click it and select "Scan with VirusTotal". This immediately runs a regular VirusTotal URL check, and displays a detailed safety report in just a few seconds.

A normally safe site might occasionally host something dangerous, of course, and both VTzilla and VTchromizer add an addition "Scan with VirusTotal" option to the right-click menu for a download.

VTzilla then goes one step further by adding a "Scan with VirusTotal" button to the Firefox download box. This is good, as it acts as a permanent reminder to be careful about what you’re downloading, and enables you to run a scan with just one click. But it’s also more intrusive, and may not appeal to everyone.

VTzilla takes a similar, more "in your face" approach elsewhere. In particular it adds a toolbar where you can search VirusTotal for hashes, URLs and more, or launch a scan of your current site; this works, but it takes a lot of screen real estate and isn’t customizable (although you can at least turn it off). Meanwhile VTchromizer is more subtle. It only adds a single button to the Chrome toolbar, but this still gives access to a VirusTotal search box and a "Scan current site" link.

VTchromizer would be our preferred extension, then, but VTzilla is also useful, and both add-ons make it easier to check downloads for malware on demand.

No CyanogenMod 12 until Android L is ready for prime time

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 2:06pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Now Later

After making factory images available for Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, Google releases the source code for the Android L preview through AOSP (Android Open Source Project) for most of its compatible Nexus devices. And for many enthusiasts this means development for the next CyanogenMod version should kick off shortly.

The team behind the popular custom distribution, however, announces that CyanogenMod 12 development will not start until the final bits of code are available. "'So let's get the flood-gates started on CM 12!' -- right? No", says the team in a new blog post, aptly named The "L" is for Later.

The reason is directly connected to Google's decision to give developers early access to Android L. While the preview source code will make way for more better-designed and compatible apps at launch than before, it also allows Google to make various changes until Android L is deemed ready for prime time, and that can impact the development time for CyanogenMod 12.

"We could spend the next three weeks working on integrating CM features against this new platform, and then have it suddenly change dramatically and break in the final release of 'L'. This would boil down to a waste of time", says the team.

"Now, just because we aren’t switching gears to CM12 right away doesn’t mean we won’t be checking out the code release from today. This opportunity gives us the ability to cost out the level of effort for each CM feature, identify gaps in 'L' and possible solutions for them, figure out what CM features can go, and run preliminary assessments on how badly device support will break", adds the team.

Based on my personal experience running the Android L preview on my Nexus 7, this is the right call to make. It is unstable at this point. I have experienced app crashes -- which are to be expected in early development stages -- numerous times. To top it off, there are missing features, and some of the available ones are poorly implemented. I am confident Google will fix most of them come launch time, but, in the meantime, I am going to stick to running Android 4.4.4 KitKat.

Photo Credit: alexmillos/Shutterstock

Microsoft takes down legitimate sites during crackdown on malware servers

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 1:47pm CEST par Jamie Hinks

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Microsoft has taken unprecedented action against million of cybercriminals by shutting down a barrage of servers used to infect PCs with dangerous malware across the globe.

The firm, which obtained a court order, gained control of a large number of domains being used to spread malware and in the process shut down legitimate sites due to what the domain owner called "heavy-handed" tactics.

"In a civil case filed on 19 June, Microsoft named two foreign nationals, Mohamed Benabdellah and Naser Al Mutairi, and a US company, Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC [doing business as No-IP.com], for their roles in creating, controlling, and assisting in infecting millions of computers with malicious software -- harming Microsoft, its customers and the public at large," read a blog from Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel of Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit.

Microsoft stated that No-IP’s infrastructure had been used to facilitate the spread of the Jenxcus and Bladabindi malicious programs in 93 percent of cases that it has seen and in the past year the virus has been detected in some form over 7.4 million times. The two pieces of malware allow offenders to steal data, record keystrokes and even listen to sounds that were happening around the computer.

Federal court in Nevada granted Microsoft ownership over the domains as it managed to convince the court that No-IP didn’t do enough to prevent them being used for malicious purposes.

No-IP is unhappy at the level of disruption caused and doubts that Microsoft had any idea at the number of innocent customers that would be affected by the move.

"Millions of innocent users are experiencing outages to their services because of Microsoft's attempt to remediate hostnames associated with a few bad actors,” it wrote in a statement, according to the BBC.

The original owner of the domains also added that Microsoft hadn’t made enough of an effort to contact them in relation to limiting the sites.

"Unfortunately, Microsoft never contacted us or asked us to block any subdomains, even though we have an open line of communication with Microsoft corporate executives," No-IP added.

Photo Credit: Oxlock/Shutterstock

Post-Snowden era will make physical location of data irrelevant

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 12:17pm CEST par Ian Barker

world globe hard drive backup

A new report from research specialist Gartner says that the physical location of data is becoming increasingly irrelevant and that by 2020 a combination of legal, political and logical location will be more important.

Gartner research vice president Carsten Casper says that the number of data residency and data sovereignty discussions has soared in the past 12 months, and that this has stalled technology innovation in many organizations. Originally triggered by the dominance of US providers on the Internet and the Patriot Act, the perceived conflict has since been fueled by revelations of surveillance by the NSA made public by Edward Snowden.

"IT leaders find themselves entangled in data residency discussions on different levels and with various stakeholders such as legal advisors, customers, regulatory authorities, employee representatives, business management, and the public," says Casper.

Gartner identifies four data locations for the new era. Physical location has in the past been associated with control but, now that data can be easily accessed remotely, Gartner advises that concerns about physical location should be balanced against other risks.

Legal location is determined by who controls the data, though there could be other organizations, such as service providers, that process and store it. Political location takes into account factors such as law enforcement access requests, cheap labor and international political balance. Gartner argues that these are only really important to public sector bodies or companies whose reputation is already damaged. Casper says, "Unless you fall into one of these categories, you can discount media reports on data residency concerns. While public outrage is still high about data storage abroad, there is little evidence that consumers really change their buying behavior".

Finally comes logical location which is determined by who has access to the data. All this can lead to quite complex situations where data can be in four places at once. As Gartner points out, what happens if a German company signs a contract with the Irish subsidiary of a US cloud provider that has its information physically stored in a data center in India? While the legal location of the provider would be Ireland, the political location would be the US and the physical location would be India but, logically, all data could still be in Germany. Confused? Thought so.

"None of the types of data location solves the data residency problem alone," says Casper. "The future will be hybrid -- organizations will be using multiple locations with multiple service delivery models. IT leaders can structure the discussion with various stakeholders, but eventually, it's the business leader who has to make a decision, based on the input from general counsel, compliance officers, the information security team, privacy professionals and the CIO".

You can read more in the report The Snowden Effect: Data Location Matters available on the Gartner website. The issue will be discussed further at a series of Security and Risk Management Summits, held in Sydney, London and Dubai in August and September.

Photo Credit: Andy Harbin/Shutterstock

Sony Walkman turns 35 years old

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 9:51am CEST par Marcus Michau

Walkman

Sony launched the first Walkman in 1979, and this is this week the tech breakthrough is celebrating its 35th birthday.

Nowadays there are iPhones, devices that one can use as a phone, a computer and a music player. Before that, there were just iPods that enabled people to put their favorite music all onto one device and create playlists to fit their mood or preference. However, what many younger kids today won't know is that what started this whole process and changed the way we listened to music entirely was the introduction of the Walkman.

It was revolutionary. The idea that someone could listen to the music of their choice without disturbing anyone else really changed the impact music had on society, as it meant people could discover their own unique genre of music and just put on some headphones to listen to a whole tape of it really was something special.

Many features that the iPod now has originated from the Walkman like the small headphones that truly were different at the time but now are extremely popular with millions of people using them daily and thousands of different designs and types.

The Sony Walkman certainly did affect all areas, such as exercise due people were able to create their own music to exercise to which actually caused a boom in exercise. It also was used a lot during travel; in fact, the reason the Walkman made headphones was due the co-chairman of Sony wanting something that meant he could listen to his opera music while travelling on long journeys and that of course has led to the mass use of headphones and iPods being used today on a very regular basis.

So even though in this day and age we see the Walkman as a chunky, old fashioned MP3 player, it actually was the main and maybe only reason that iPods and other handheld MP3 were even thought of so for that reason and many others, it was and still is brilliant.

View your rooms in any color with Dulux Visualizer

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 9:32am CEST par Mike Williams

dulux

You’re bored with your home’s look. It’s time for a change. Repainting could make all the difference, but which color scheme will work best? Dulux Visualizer is a smart iOS/ Android app which can show you. Just point your camera at the wall and it’s repainted, in real time, to match whatever color you like.

This all starts by selecting your preferred color. One option is to browse a color picker covering the entire Dulux range. Alternatively, you’re able to take a picture of any scene and extract a color you like.

With that done, launching the Visualizer displays a camera view of your room. Tap any wall and Dulux augmented reality technology automatically displays it in your chosen color, even as you move the camera around, helping you see how it matches everything else.

Does it work? Some elements are surprisingly effective, considering the total lack of any setup. We found Dulux Visualizer accurately detected the edge of our walls, filling the areas we asked, and keeping this updated as we panned the camera around. If you like the results then you’re able to view matching Dulux products or order testers in a tap or two.

But there are also problems, particularly in low light. If there’s "too much" shadow at the edge of a wall then the new color won’t quite stretch far enough, leaving a line of the original color remaining. The edges of the recolored area tend to flicker and pulse as your camera moves, too, which can be very distracting.

We’re also unsure why the app needs permission to access your calendar and contacts. More fundamentally, it won’t work at all if your Android device doesn’t have the movement sensors it needs.

Dulux Visualizer is generally well-designed, though, and so easy to use that it’ll probably only take 5 minutes to find out if it works for you. If you’re looking for some interior design inspiration then we’d give it a try.

New company Icecream Apps debuts its freeware range

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 4:30am CEST par Mike Williams

Icecream200-175 Icecream Apps is a new company which recently launched three freeware Windows tools: Media Converter, PDF Split and Merge and Image Resizer. Polished and professional, available in several languages and with Mac versions available “pretty soon”, the software suggests Icecream wants to be taken seriously. We downloaded the new range for a closer look.

Icecream Media Converter is a free tool for converting video and audio files between all the main formats (and most of the minor ones). The program can import multiple local files, or download its source videos from web URLs, before converting them to your preferred device, audio or video format.

What you don’t get here is any real control of the converted file. There are no options to set resolution, codec, bitrates or anything else: just a single “Quality” setting with four options (Best, Good, Average, Bad).

Still, the conversion process is fast, a useful History tab displays details of your recently converted files (good news if you’ve forgotten where they were saved), and overall Icecream Media Converter is an easy-to-use audio/ video conversion tool which handles the basics well.

Icecream PDF Split and Merge is a well-designed tool for splitting PDFs, merging them, or just removing pages that you don’t really need.

Again, the interface looks good, and there are plenty of options. The program can split your source PDF into single pages, groups (sets of x consecutive pages starting from page y) and ranges (any specified range, like 3-9 or 12-14), while you’re also able to delete any specified page numbers.

There is one significant annoyance, in that you’re only able to split one file at a time. But the program is easy to use, and supports splitting and merging encrypted files (as long as you know the password), and on balance it’s a good start.

The final package in the range is Icecream Image Resizer, which works almost exactly as you’d expect: drag and drop individual files or entire folders, choose your target resolution and a few options (preserve aspect ratio, reverse the resolution for portrait images), and resize everything with a click. Nothing too advanced, but once again it handles the basics well, looks good and is easy to use.

There’s a lot to like about the Icecream Apps range. The interfaces are clean and simple, performance is good, and there are signs of ambition here, with the programs already including features you wouldn’t necessarily expect (downloading videos, handling encrypted PDFs). They’re entirely adware-free, too.

Yes, there are notable gaps in functionality (and competitors like Freemake are a very long way ahead), but that’s no surprise for version 1.0. These first releases are still very usable, and if Icecream Apps can respond to feedback, develop and improve them, add support for other platforms, they could become very interesting.

Icecream Media Converter, PDF Split and Merge and Image Resizer are available now.

PlayOn giving away free Chromecast with lifetime subscription

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 3:17am CEST par Alan Buckingham

PlayOn's main menu on the Wii PlayOn is one of the best cord-cutter services that flies largely under the radar. The online TV and DVR service is completely legal, thanks to the way it operates and, in the past, has partnered with Roku to distribute devices. Now PlayOn and its PlayLater service are going to distribute even more devices to customers.

The company is announcing that new "lifetime subscription" customers will receive a free Chromecast with the purchase. "With Chromecast and PlayOn, smartphones and tablets become powerful remote controls for TV viewing. Users can browse through hundreds of channels and thousands of movies and shows in an easy-to-navigate interface on their mobile device. PlayOn's PlayLater software gives Chromecast users DVR capability to record almost any online video for casting later when they are no longer available online. The included PlayOn browser extension gives users the ability to cast almost any full screen video from any browser on their PC to their TV with ease and without any web browser frames", the company says.

This does require some effort on the user's part, though it's minimal. You will need to download the free apps for the PC and mobile devices that you wish to use.

"PlayOn and PlayLater when used in conjunction with Chromecast is a really killer cable-cutting solution”, says Jeff Lawrence, CEO of MediaMall Technologies, which produces the software.

The company did not state how long to deal will be on, so sooner, rather than later, would be the wise move if you wish to take advantage of the option.

Convert images directly from Explorer with SendTo-Convert

Publié: juillet 2, 2014, 1:35am CEST par Mike Williams

SendTo-Convert200-175 Image conversion tools are supposed to save you time, at least in theory, but after you’ve chosen your source files, specified exactly what you’re likely to do with them, and set up your destination options, it doesn't always feel that way.

Send-To Convert makes your life easier by allowing you to set up a conversion task, and run it directly from Explorer. At its simplest you might select a few images, right-click, select Send To > Send-To Convert, and that’s it: your images are converted right away.

The program is a compact 744KB download, and installs easily. The only minor issue is that, although the entire point of the program is that it’s available from Explorer’s "Send To" menu, it won’t add itself there by default. You should either choose the "Add to Send To menu" option from the setup program, or launch Send-To Convert after installation and check the "Add to…" box there.

Once configured, basic conversions are very straightforward. Select a few source images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF) in Explorer, right-click and choose Send To > Send To-Convert, and you’re prompted for a destination format (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP). Click a button for the option you need and your new images are saved in the same folder as the source.

If you always use the same destination format then SendTo-Convert can be set up to use that automatically, saving a click as it won’t need to prompt you.

There’s good control over the destination folder. By default converted files are saved in the same location as the source, but they can also be output to subfolders, or a single custom folder of your choice.

Send-To Convert also has a resize option, but this is extremely basic, and can only shrink images while preserving their aspect ratio.

The other highlight is an option to preserve transparency when converting between PNG and GIF. This seems like a good idea to us, but it’s not enabled by default: if you’re interested, check "Keep Transparent Color" in the Settings dialog.

Send-To Convert isn’t exactly stuffed with features, then, but the program delivers where it matters, and provides a quick way to run the basic image conversion tasks that most people need.