CERN is moving away from expensive Microsoft software and embracing open source
CERN -- the European Organization for Nuclear Research best known for its particle smashing Large Hadron Collider -- has decided to eschew Microsoft in favor of open source software.
For many years, CERN benefited from hefty discounts on Microsoft products, but this is coming to an end. Rather than paying hugely increased licensing fees, the organization is instead implementing its own Microsoft Alternatives project, known as MAlt. CERN says it is "taking back control using open software".
VLC 3.0.7 includes more security fixes than ever thanks to the European Commission
Version 3.0.7 of VLC has been released, and while it may seem like a minor x.x.x update, it includes more security fixes than any other previous release -- including two high security issues.
Jean-Baptiste Kemp, the president of VLC-maker VideoLAN, says the number of fixes included in this version is due to the EU-FOSSA bug bounty program, funded by the European Commission.
Locate and recover lost data using EaseUS Data Recovery Free
Let's face it, most of us don’t lose data that often, but when you do, it takes time to scurry around and find a tool to attempt recovery. Time is important for finding deleted files. The more often your computer writes to the drive, the less likely you’ll be able to recover data.
Although it’s rare for a hard drive to fail or for an individual to 'accidentally' delete important data you need in the future, once it happens, you’ll want software to help you recover, swiftly.
SyncBack v9 released with an improved UI, new SFTP engine and much more
Backing up your data is hugely important. You could just rely on the cloud, but this means you need to remember to keep the files synchronized and you might not want to store your most important personal information there. Would you want your accounts and tax records in the cloud?
The solution is a backup tool where you can configure the data you want to back up, when you want to perform the backup, and the location. You can then simply leave the tool to action your request.
PDF Shaper 9 gains a new interface and a wealth of improvements
There are plenty of applications you can use to view and print PDF files, including Microsoft Edge. Some of them offer editing features, but they are usually a bit limited.
PDF Shaper is a collection of tools which will let you merge and split PDF files, rotate and crop pages, extract text and images, edit metadata, add a page number watermark, and convert PDFs to images (and vice versa) or to text.
Add a second layer of security with the new Malware Fighter 7
Can you ever have enough security? We often wonder after being told what our users have installed. It’s not unknown for people to have a full security suite alongside a second on-demand scanner and additional browser plugins warning them of potentially malicious websites.
As individuals tend to stick with a security suite which has worked for them in the past and, as long as their system isn’t compromised, continue to pay for a yearly subscription. With this in mind, developers are adding functionality to enable their security tools to run alongside and not interfere with your daily use. These are on-demand scanners where you’d need to schedule a scan or manually run a scan when required.
Microsoft's core platform isn't software, it's trust
For the first time in a half-decade, I watched a Microsoft Build keynote this morning. Time gives fresh perspective, looking at where the company was compared to where it is today. Listening to CEO Satya Nadella and other Softies, I repeatedly found myself reminded of Isaac Asimov's three laws or Robotics and how they might realistically be applied in the 21st Century. The rules, whether wise or not, set to ensure that humans could safely interact with complex, thinking machines. In Asimov's science fiction stories, the laws were core components of the automaton's brain—baked in, so to speak, and thus inviolable. They were there by design; foundationally.
Behind all product design, there are principles. During the Steve Jobs era, simplicity was among Apple's main design ethics. As today's developer conference keynote reminds, Microsoft embraces something broader—design ethics that harken back to the company's founding objectives and others that share similar purpose as the robotic laws. On the latter point, Nadella repeatedly spoke about "trust" and "collective responsibility". These are fundamental principles of design, particularly as Artificial Intelligence usage expands and more corporate developers depend on cloud computing platforms like Azure.
TechSmith releases Camtasia 2019 with automatic audio leveling
We’ve given up on people reading through instructions supplied with their order. You can write important points in bold and people still ignore what’s supplied. Rather than replying to everyone individually, we’ve found it easier simply record a live demonstration of how to solve a particular issue and send them a video of the results.
You need a quality screen recording tool to produce a video which is professional enough to reflect your business. We recently wrote about Captura 8, which is an excellent freeware screen recording tool, but you’ll want to step up a level or two if you’re recording for paying customers.
Mountain Duck 3.0 adds offline support with smart synchronization
Bern software developer iterate GmbH has released Mountain Duck 3.0 for Windows and Mac, a major new version of its paid-for tool offering users the ability to access server and cloud storage directly through File Explorer and Finder.
Version 3.0’s headline new feature is "smart synchronization". This basically adds offline support, allowing users to access storage even when not connected. Any changes are then uploaded when the connection is re-established.
COMODO Internet Security 2019 adds Secure Shopping, manual unblocking features
Comodo has unveiled its 2019 security line-up with the release of Comodo Internet Security 2019 Free, Pro and Premium. Also released are Comodo Antivirus Free 2019 and Comodo Firewall Free 2019.
All editions are compatible with PCs running Windows 7 or later, but the new release debuts a brand new component exclusive to the full Internet Security Suite: Secure Shopping, a sandboxed environment inside which applications can be run invisible to -- and beyond the reach of -- malware.
Microsoft decides to keep Paint in Windows 10... for now
For all of its simplicity and limitations, there are still a lot of people who -- for some reason best known to themselves -- love Microsoft Paint.
As such, when it was announced a while back that Microsoft intended to strip the utility from Windows 10 and replace it with Paint 3D -- an altogether different beast -- there was a collective wailing and gnashing of teeth. But now it seems that Paint has been given a stay of execution.
Hackers are exploiting critical WinRAR bug exposed last month
Towards the end of last month, security researchers revealed details of a critical bug in that stalwart of the compression world, WinRAR. The bug is many years old and although it relates to the rarely-used ACE format and has since been patched, it has been discovered hackers are actively exploiting it since it was made public.
The 19-year-old bug in the file UNACEV2.DLL (CVE-2018-20250) allows for an attacker to execute malicious files hidden in compressed archives. Over 100 exploits have been found that take advantage of people who are yet to update to a secure version of the software... and that number is growing. McAfee reports attackers using Ariana Grande's album "Thank U, Next" as a lure to encourage victims to extract dangerous archives, but other security researchers report the use of images.
CCleaner 5.55 adds a software updater (but only in Professional)
Install software on your computer and you’ll be forgiven for not having the spare time to search for updates. Most applications do not have a software update facility, so unless you go checking, you’ll often never know it’s been updated.
With this in mind, and software developers running out of key ideas to add to future revisions to encourage paid upgrades, we’re seeing 'Software Updater' tools being released to the market or added to system maintenance applications. IObit recently released a standalone Software Updater tool this year which we wrote about this month.
Securely wipe your entire drive or individual files and folders using O&O SafeErase 14
We had a shock the other day when cleaning out the office. If you’re anything like us, you tend to hold on to old drives simply because it’s hard to dispose of the data securely.
You soon realize you have old hard drives you’ve never dealt with and even obscure NAS drives collected over many years. We found old drives going back to 2000. One solution is to pay for a professional company to pick up, wipe and dispose of these used drives, but this is a costly procedure. Why not do it yourself and save a ton of cash in the process?
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 unveils Mac version as part of 30th anniversary celebrations
Corel has unveiled CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 as part of its 30th-anniversary celebrations for Windows and -- for the first time -- Mac. The brand-new Mac release is fully native, and includes all components found in the Windows version, including CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
Also new in the 2019 release is a brand-new Objects Docker for controlling document structure, non-destructive effects, and a new web app (CorelDRAW.app) for accessing and editing cloud-hosted Corel documents through other devices.
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