Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012: Another Microsoft Office wannabe
Not long ago, investing in an office suite meant parting with a fairly substantial amount of cash, and while it is still possible to pay a great deal for a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool, there are also an increasing number of free options available. One newcomer is Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 which can be used both at home and in the office as an alternative for Microsoft Office.
The suite comprises three tools; Kingsoft Spreadsheets Free 2012 (to help with number crunching) Kingsoft Writer Free 2012 (for processing words) and Kingsoft Presentation Free 2012 (for the creation of slideshows and presentations). Each application is fully compatible with files created in their Microsoft Office counterpart. Each of the programs is impressive in its own right and all manage to look the part as well. While some free software has a tendency to look cheap, the offerings from Kingsoft are good-looking as well as functional.
Adobe buys TypeKit
>Watch out Tumblrs and WordPress bloggers, Adobe just announced that it has acquired font-subscription service TypeKit. Is it the end of cheap web fonts?
TypeKit founder and CEO Jeffrey Veen is "thrilled. There honestly is no better place for us to continue building our platform. But perhaps even more significantly, this represents a huge step forward in bringing fonts to the web".
Got a question? Ask Quora for iPhone
When it was unveiled, the potential for success for Quora was questioned by many, but in a fairly short space of time, the questions and answers service has gone from strength to strength. It was only a matter of time before an iPhone app was released to make it easy to ask and answer questions via the site, and that time it now; Quora for iPhone is here.
If you have a question about anything, and we mean anything imaginable, Quora should be your first port of call. Whether you are looking to discover how many people live in China, or you have a more practical query such has how to troubleshoot an error message that has been thrown up by Windows, there is sure to be something on hand who is able to help.
Economic woes push more enterprises to the cloud
Whoa, think enterprises are rushing to the cloud? Think again. It's still early days and slow going. Seventy percent have used software-as-a-service projects for less than three years, says Gartner. That's less time than consumer cloud services like Facebook and Twitter have been around or even Apple's iPhone. One-third of organizations have migration plans in place -- from on-premise to SaaS solutions. Among those enterprises already in the cloud in some way, 95 percent plan to maintain SaaS investments or increase them.
Gartner surveyed 525 organizations from nine countries -- in June and July. That may seem like old data but at the pace enterprises make IT changes, it's current; the survey might as well have been taken yesterday. :) Organizations adopting SaaS cite two major reasons: ease/speed of deployments and lower costs. Global economic crisis is a major factor driving SaaS adoption. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the US stock market collapsed three years ago last week, and the majority of enterprises started deploying SaaS solutions since.
Paint.NET 3.5.9: small changes make big impact
There are few programs that can honestly be described as ‘must have’ tools, but for anyone who works with images, this is something that can be said of Paint.NET. What started off as a development of Windows’ own Paint tool has quickly become a highly respected image editor that is a serious alternative to expensive tools such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
The update to version 3.5.9 is a relatively minor number increment, but the changes and additions that have been made are important ones. Previous versions of the program had problems with the DirectDraw Surface configuration screen as well as DirectDraw Surface themselves, but these issues have now been addressed.
Sharp to make LTE smartphones & tablets for LightSquared network
LightSquared, which could become the newest built-from-scratch nationwide mobile broadband network if it can achieve regulatory approval, has partnered with Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp for the network's 4G LTE consumer devices. This announcement comes one year after Lightsquared announced its first hardware partnerships with Qualcomm, Nokia, AnyData and BandRich.
“Sharp has a rich history of producing unique products that push the extremes of design and functionality, and we’re proud that they will be developing innovative devices for LightSquared’s 4G-LTE network,” said Sanjiv Ahuja, chief executive officer of LightSquared. “LightSquared’s wholesale-only business model and open network will provide Sharp with a platform from which they can aggressively expand into the U.S. wireless market with an exciting portfolio of smartphones and tablets.”
My God, does ANYONE use Internet Explorer?
You might think almost no one after looking at results so far to Betanews poll: "Which is your primary web browser?" Only 9.88 percent of respondents answer some version of Internet Explorer, while 50.01 percent choose Chrome. These results could change dramatically, particularly if a fanboy war erupts or simply thousands of IE-loving Microsoft employees take the poll. But for now, the (currently) 1,812 respondents hugely favor Chrome. I'm shocked.
Betanews readership tends to be highly technical, with tech enthusiasts, IT managers and Windows fans core among them. So I expected early poll results to skew towards Internet Explorer. Instead, Chrome 14, which only released about two weeks ago, locked 35 percent in early polling and has stayed there since. Who are these people using Chrome?
I'm giving up Google Chromebook
My real journey with Chrome OS started with a family trip on July 31. But some journeys come to an end. As much as I like the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, which I have used continuously since July 31, we must part ways. In a few days I will return to running Windows 7, which is another journey and story to go with it that will get brief explanation here. That is really topic for another post.
My two-month journey to the cloud can offer lessons to Google, which has much work to do yet before Chrome OS is really ready for the masses -- that is unless the problems I observed are specific to my Chromebook (which I highly doubt). The browser-based, Linux OS is still an early-adopter product -- the bleeding edge that cuts quick and sometimes deep. I'm not convinced even Chrome OS should have a future at all. But I can see where Google is going with this thing, particularly following last month's release of Chrome 14 with native code. I'd rather see one Google operating system -- Ice Cream Sandwich or successor running Chrome.
Sony announces Fall VAIO refresh
It must be Monday in Japan. Why else would Sony announce new laptops on a Sunday morning here? Today, the electronics company revealed autumn upgrades to its VAIO S & F series laptops and L desktop. The new systems are available immediately.
VAIO S series laptops come with 13.3-inch or 15.5-inch displays, with prices starting at $999. These models are thin, less than 1-inch thick, but nowhere as petite as Sony Z series notebooks. F series laptops are thicker, heavier and cheaper to buy. Prices start at $719, $749 and $799 for models with 14-inch, 15.5-inch and 17-inch displays, respectively.
Pale Moon 7 is fast, really fast
Firefox 7 was finally released this week, to promises of improved memory management and better performance than ever before.
But if it still doesn’t quite deliver the speed you need then you could always turn to Pale Moon 7, a browser that takes the same Firefox source code and makes more use of compiler optimizations to increase its speed and efficiency.
Your PC needs one of the 24 updates released this week
It was another busy seven days of software releases, with the much anticipated final build of Firefox 7 hitting the severs. With improved memory usage and performance, this is a great upgrade to the popular browser. Firefox Portable 7.0 was also released, and the relentless Firefox update cycle continues with the release of Firefox 8.0 Beta 1, Firefox Aurora 9.0a2, Firefox 10.0a1 (Nightly) and Firefox 10.0a1 UX, which is a sideline project of Nightly, introducing a brand new Firefox user-interface.
Also released by Mozilla is SeaMonkey 2.4.1, a suite of Internet tools including an email client, IRC client and web editor. Again a portable version is available in the form ofSeaMonkey Portable 2.4. Rounding up Mozilla’s trio of releases is Thunderbird 7. This email client includes more tools than ever to help you to manage your inbox and while many of the changes amount to little more than minor tweaks, this is now a solid and impressive piece of software. Fans of portable software will be pleased to know that Thunderbird Portable 7.0 has also been released.
Google Chrome usage rises as Firefox and Internet Explorer fall
Internet Explorer lost market share (again) in September, with Google Chrome collecting the difference. Meanwhile, Firefox share is stagnant, as Chrome pushes ever closer to the No. 2 spot in global browser usage share.
It's first day of the month, and that means new browser share data from Net Applications. Internet Explorer usage share is 54.39 percent, down from 60.35 percent in November 2010. Firefox fell to 22.48 percent from 23.52 percent during the same time period. September marked the fourth consecutive month of decline for Firefox. Meanwhile, Chrome usage share rose to 16.2 percent from 9.57 from November to September, consecutively gaining share for all 11 months.
Is that Google Chrome or malware on your PC?
Is Google Chrome suddenly not working for you? If Microsoft Security Essentials is installed on your PC, that's likely explanation. It seems that, well, ah, that the security software is misidentifying the browser as malware. Oh, Microsoft you wish! With Chrome market share going up, surely someone at Microsoft sees the Google browser as an infestation to be purged.
But ribbing aside, it's just one of those glitches that sometimes occurs with software. But surely there's a script here somewhere for how Microsoft would like to remove unwelcome software on your Windows PC. Gone it is. If you're affected, it's possible Security Essentials has identified Chrome as "PWS:Win32/Zbot" and removed it from your PC. Quick! Where's the Internet Explorer 6 installation disc? :)
Apple copycats can't compete with iPhone 5
Next week Apple will announce new iPhones. There will be a backlash. There will be praise. Much of the significance will be lost in the noise.
Instead, Apple’s metrics should focus rivals’ attention on the importance of multi-year strategies.
Will you buy Amazon Kindle Fire?
The hottest tablet to debut in months has pretty puny specs. There's no camera, no Bluetooth, no sensors for orientation and no 3G radio. The device runs Android 2.1, but it's customized such your existing apps probably won't run -- and Amazon has developed its own web browser, too. But the $199 price is compelling, and seemingly everyone is talking about it. So I have to ask: Has Kindle Fire set your wallet ablaze? Amazon is taking preorders for November 15 release. As usual you can answer in comments or email joe at betanews dot com. Then there is the poll below; please take it.
I must admit to having a hearty laugh at the news coverage. For weeks, as Amazon tablet rumors mounted, bloggers and journalists posted story after story asserting that the iPad killer was coming -- like some new-found messiah they worshiped sight unseen who would vanquish the Jesus Pad from Apple cultdom. Over the last two days, many of those same sites posted about how "Kindle Fire is no iPad killer". I laughed my ass off. Seriously, there really needs to be some kind rumor-control meter for the Internet.
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