Latest Technology News

If you find Finder frustratingly limited, then you’ll be in the market for a replacement/enhancement tool. There are plenty of paid-for Finder enhancements out there, but over the past year or so they’ve been increasingly put to the shade by a fabulous, and rapidly developing, free tool called XtraFinder 0.16.1.

We’ve been checking back occasionally to see how XtraFinder is developing, and with version 0.16.1 now out, there have been a staggering 20 updates since we last looked at it back in September, so we thought it was the perfect time to bring you up to speed.

Microsoft's newest and oldest supported PC operating systems share some strange similarities. Windows 8 and XP launched during times of tepid computer sales, forecasts of low adoption and initially weak sales. Neither lifted PC shipments during the launch quarter. Yet the older software went on to be such a workhorse, as much as 40 percent of the install base clings to the OS -- nearly 12 years after launch. That's the future I see. Windows 8 isn't the new Vista, as so many pundits proclaim, but the new XP.

I am quite vocal about the changing of computer eras, a position taken up before Apple started selling iPhone in early summer 2007. But the change is a process gradual at first that accelerates over time. In the case of Windows or the typical personal computer set against cloud-connected devices there can be redefinition, and, with it, renewed relevance. No one should underestimate Microsoft or ignore the past when evaluating present trends. The PC and Windows died before and resurrected.

Back in the 1990s, I coined the phrase "cusper" -- or thought I did -- to refer to people like me who were born at the end of the Baby Boom era but didn't share the generation's values. In January 2001, I registered the .com, .net and .org variants of cusper and cuspers. For a reason. I am a Cusper. But I never properly used the domains (someday! someday!) and later let the .org variants go. This year I re-acquired cusper.org for $3.99 domain registration. Some nutcase wants $3,000 at auction for cuspers.org. Good luck.

So much aimed at Boomers doesn't apply to me, or others of my tweener generation. Amazon's new "50+ Active & Healthy Living", which opens today, is another affront. If being over 50 is a lifestyle that Boomers boast, or Amazon wants to sell them, let me out of here. I want no part of it. I don't read their kind of books or listen to their style of music or swallow vitamins like they popped pills of a more illicit type in their youth.

What’s the one thing that is missing from Windows Explorer? Actually, there’s probably more than just one thing missing, but what is the most obvious? Tabs. They are now so ubiquitous in web browsers that it’s unlikely you give them a second thought; they’re just there and you use them. Why should your file browser be any different? This is an anomaly that the developers of Clover felt had to be put right with the latest release.

Aside from the addition of tabs to Explorer -- which means that it is possible to deal with multiple folders in a single window -- there are a number of other changes in this latest released. For anyone concerned with aesthetics, support for themes means that the look of the program can be completely changed.

Saving a document as a PDF generally produces a very small file, which is one reason the format is such a popular way to share information.

This isn’t always the case, though. And so if it’s important your documents are as compact as they can possibly be, then you might like to try shrinking them even further, with a little help from the free (for personal and non-commercial use) ORPALIS PDF Reducer Free.

Later this year, November 22nd to be exact, part two of The Hunger Games, titled The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, will hit the big screen. Microsoft's Internet Explorer team has partnered with Lionsgate to set up a new IE-optimized website for the sequel to the blockbuster movie with the hope of not only getting you excited about the film but also about the "browser you loved to hate".

The Hunger Games Explorer launches on the heels of the MTV Movie Awards which premiered the trailer. Microsoft's Roger Capriotti says "with the global launch of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire trailer, fans can now visit The Hunger Games Explorer to be immersed in this world, track every development of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, including tweets, exclusive images and videos, and then share their thoughts and excitement with others around the world creating a global conversation".

Even though Google has yet to release an official Google Maps app for Windows Phone, third party developers already offer a number of competent alternatives. One of the most popular ones, and my personal favorite, is gMaps which comes with a comprehensive feature set and, bar its name, could even pass as the real deal.

Today, DreamTeam Mobile, the team of developers behind gMaps, announced a new update to the popular Google Maps client. The app now touts further improvements for Driver Mode, Latitude and Street View. Let's go through each, one by one, and see what changed.

The VHS is about to celebrate its 57th birthday, and in honor of that milestone, Google has added a new tape mode to some of the videos on YouTube.

Although it’s not widely available at the moment, a few clips have a tape icon under them which, when clicked, makes the videos look as if they are playing on a VHS recorder.

There are lots of questions concerning Windows 8 -- does Microsoft need to make changes to it? Is the OS responsible for the death of the PC? How many copies has it actually sold? And last Friday financial-services company The Motley Fool asked the question in my headline, which I know a lot of people have been pondering too -- is Windows 8 Microsoft's biggest failure ever?

Like all tech firms, the software giant has had its fair share of hits and misses. Microsoft isn’t the greatest risk taker out there, but it does make gambles occasionally that don’t pay off and it has experienced some major flops over the years. People talk about Vista, but there have been plenty of other past disasters, including Windows Me, Microsoft Bob, Zune, Kin… But is Windows 8 its worst catastrophe to date?

Popular cross-platform, open-source VLC Media Player 2.0.6 has been released, focussing on fixing a number of regressions introduced in previous builds since its initial 2.0 release. The update also adds support for Matroska v4 files, tweaks the user interface on the OS X build and implements a new compiler for the Windows version.

VLC Media Player offers support for all major video and audio formats, and also supports playback from DVDs and unencrypted Blu-ray discs, making it an excellent choice for systems, including Windows XP and 8, where native support for video disc playback is missing.

Windows 8 is not the direct cause for poor PC sales, and to suggest this is simply sensationalism. True, the operating system received cool reception from some people, but most  don't realize that Microsoft had little choice to do what it did. The company distributed the first Preview during the BUILD developer conference in autumn 2011, and I immediately recognized what was going on. Windows 8 is all about touch and mobile. Mobile touch devices are replacing computers among many consumers. Microsoft likely saw this and had to do something. That something is Windows 8. I discuss this consumerization of the PC market in my late-March BetaNews story.

What some people fail to appreciate is that a PC is more than a consumer device. Windows is more than a mobile operating system. It is very complex, designed for heavy-duty work. Microsoft had one of two choices: Create a totally new operating system for mobile and leave Windows as is; merge a mobile operating system into Windows so it is a hybrid. That the company chose the latter is ingenious, but risky. Likely we won't know until years from now whether or not Microsoft wisely, but it is a noble undertaking nonetheless.

Perhaps Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are geeks of similar kind. Gates, along with buddy (and chief executive) Steve Ballmer, is known by us old-timers for a series of self-effacing videos spanning more than a decade -- many distributed internally or shown publicly at tech trade shows. Zuck is ignored -- gasp, is there a metaphor here -- in the first commercial for Facebook Home. The app is now available on Google Play.

While Zuckerberg introduces Home to Facebook employees, he is ignored by one using the Android skin. The video, which is posted to YouTube, had about 7,000 views when I peaked yesterday; the number is nearly a quarter-million today. The commercial spot is fun, festive and does what many of us wish we could do in a room: Ignore Zuck. Something so self-effacing makes him more human, too, less the geek or the privacy-invader critics call him. Put the CEO in more videos, I say.

Back on March 28th Ouya president Julie Uhram announced the tiny Android-based gaming console started shipping, but only to backers of the Kickstarter project. Additional details were added such as a software update which would be run upon first boot up and that the device would officially hit retail stores on June 4th.

As we have seen around the web, some have already received their boxes, but what if you did not get in on the Kickstarter ground floor, but instead placed a pre-order when those went live back in August of 2012? I happen to fall in that category and so I inquired about the timeframe and received a response from Ouya's Carmelo Martinez.

Already well known for its easy-to-use iOS and Android photo editing apps, Fotor has just entered the desktop market with the release of the free Fotor 1.0.0 for Desktop and Mac.

And while the program is relatively simple, oriented more to quick optimizations rather than complex edits, it’s also very easy to use, and has more than enough functionality to justify a download.

Say, do you use WordPress? Button down the hatches and check your patches. A new brute-force attack is underway across the Internet. We know from first-hand experience. BetaNews took some heavy fire earlier today. Hackers use a botnet to hit blogs with fast-fire log-in attempts, seeking to snag passwords. The initial objective is to add more numbers to the botnet.

Brute-force attempts aren't all that uncommon, but this one is generating a fair bit of attention, with some reports that the core botnet is 90,000 computers and growing and an escalating number of attempted logins, too. It's all a guessing game really. Attempt enough logins and some will succeed, revealing passwords.