Reviews related to : Software
A picture, so they say, may be worth a thousand words but sometimes the image does not tell the complete story. Images, especially those of celebrities, have sometimes been doctored to enhance and modify the original image by specialist using software such as PortraitPro 19 from Anthropics Technology.
This product is available in Standard, Studio and Studio Max versions with this review being based on the top-of-the-range 64-bit PortraitPro 19 Studio Max offering. As its title should indicate, this software's main focus is concerned with the facial features of the subject featured in an image. This software does work best when dealing with a full face or profile view of the main character featured in the image.
While oil and water are incompatible, the two major players in the arena of operating systems can co-exist on a single computer as Parallels has proven with its Desktop software.
Firmly established as the top-selling software for running Windows applications on a Mac system, Parallels Desktop is now available in its version 14 offering for the Mac with its 2018 release. As with the previous version of Parallels Desktop, the software does require a MacOS base in order to operate.
While most will use Parallels on their MAC to give you a virtual Windows Box there are advantages for running a different version of Parallels software on your Windows machine and it can even do things in Windows that cannot otherwise be done natively.
Certain things in Windows are possible but not easy, other things are easy – if you know how – but some things are not possible. Of course if you are a Windows user only you know this and do not even try. Currently it works on Windows 7, 8 and 10 and there are twenty little separate programs.
As the lingua franca of electric documents, PDF (Personal Document Format) allows for a ranger of documents to be distributed between users with different system set ups.
Nuance, a leading provider of voice and language software for business and consumer users, has released the latest version of its Power PDF software.
Generally upgrades appear frequently but not in this case.
While perhaps not quite qualifying for the full Rip Van Winkle award for dormant arousals, MAGIX has awoken its ACID PRO software from a period of slumber that has lasted ten years. In the interim period since the software’s last release in 2008, ACID PRO has undergone a change of ownership as the product departed from Sony Creative Software and made its new home with the MAGIX family of graphics, audio and video products.
Recently I told you about the first system that I have seen with Windows 10 v1703 installed when it arrived from Dell, I was not aware that v1703 could be publicly downloaded, with my delving and an extra week of review time from Dell’s PR agency and my own Tablet/Notebook with its small hard drive and limited 2GB of RAM I tell you of my own experiences.
First you will need a fully updated Windows v1607 system and then follow the link and possibly clear out some space you will need at least 8GB of free space to do the upgrade. My Tablet/Notebook was running build 14393 and to get windows v1607 upgraded to Windows 1703 the version you get build 15063. Three things are checked CPU, Memory and Disc Space. In my case I needed to manually delete v1511 (6.55GB). This left 10.6 GB of free disc, space I started at 12.
Version 2 of Power PDF from Nuance is an update that has also been designed to take into account the latest features in Windows 10 including touch screen technology.
The more you use Windows, the more reluctant your computer will be to perform at its optimum level. This next product offers to help.
Over the years Nero (the company rather than the Roman Emperor of old) has developed from a company producing burning software (hence the name) to one that has developed a number of titles dealing with topics such as media manipulation and data backup. The latest string to Nero’s bow to appear concentrates on the area of keeping Windows computer and Android devices running smoothly.
While many, if not most, computer software applications have been designed for regular if not in daily use, there are a few applications that hopefully will only be called upon in an emergency.
Team Viewer is a software application bringing together remote control and online collaboration features. This software, which is considered a market leader in remote support and online meeting solutions, has been downloaded over 10 million times a month by users residing around the globe. At any given time this software will be responsible for connecting over 20 million devices at any given time.
The de facto standard for electronic documents is PDF. Software for the creation and working with such files can cost from £400 downwards. This review is based on a product costing under £60.
There was a time when, in order to read a document, it would be necessary to have the particular software that created it on your system plus any special attributes used in the original created. For example you would need to have the fonts, as part of your system, which were used in the document. Now matters are totally different. One reason for this has been the rise in popularity of the Adobe created PDF (Portable Document Format) software.
Computer databases have come a long way since those of early days of the D-Base products developed by Aston Tate with libraries of instructional books written on the subject. While the ability to store and correlate different types of data might not be the sexiest task, it still serves an important role for both the home and office user.
One company that has established an impressive pedigree in the particular field of databases is FileMaker. Starting life as an Apple company, FileMaker was, for a period of time, totally independent before being drawn back into the Apple fold. Sharing its name with that of its product, FileMaker is software that I have been using for a number of years for managing specific data.
When was the last time you made a backup of your valuable computer data? Hopefully it was within a period that could be called recent. I know it can be a bind to fit such activities into busy modern day living but back-up software, such as Acronis True Image, can be set to schedule this type of operation and automate the process for you so you do not have to bother.
Available in a variety of editions, Acronis True Image 2015 comes with the claim of being “the most complete, easy, and safe full system backup solution for personal use” while offering both dual protection (local and Cloud based) plus multi-platform (Windows and Mac) environments. When installing Acronis True Image, the software conducts a search of your computer system for a previous version of the product.
Apart from the Simplicity Linux I looked at nearly two years ago I have only used Linux run from a CD-ROM. So with a Windows XP notebook now redundant it has too little memory etc to upgrade - time to install Linux and try to master it.
I have heard good things about the Mint variant so I found a download of a recent version and the all important USB installer. According to what I have read you should be able to install from a USB stick providing your PC or Notebook supports USB as a boot option. Mine did and after making the required changes in the BIOS I attached a USB stick with the USB installer and Mint variant of Linux.
Although applications are increasingly able to save files directly as PDFs, there is much more to PDFs and Nuance's Power PDF in particular. While the Standard version will meet the needs of the home and small business user, Advanced is targeted at corporate users with features such as redaction the ability to black out specific names or other pieces of information.
Power PDF is straightforward to install and there is a helpful reminder that, if you change your computer and will want to use it on the new configuration, make sure that you have an active internet connection as this will de-activate your licence automatically so that one can re-install the software again with the same serial number. Once installed it can be treated as either a standalone program or one that is closely integrated with Microsoft applications.
While Nuances OmniPage is the dominant force in the field of OCR, it is not the only option as this next offering clearly indicates.
FineReader is an optical character recognition (OCR) software package. It has been developed by ABBYY to convert scanned paper documents into an editable format. The latest version of this software is FineReader 12 Professional. Despite the Professional tag, this appears to be the standard version of the software and it is available from DownloadBuyer.com priced at £89.10.
As technology advances, so older formats tend to go unsupported. However sometimes help is available to convert the older formats into one that can be used on modern equipment.
Over the years, of which there have been many, I have built up a collection of LPs featuring some of my favourite recording artists. Some of the LPs were purchased as new while the more recent additions were found as a result of visits to local boot sales. Despite my best efforts, even with the new products, these LPs are showing signs of their age in both appearance and the audio performance that is delivered from these treasured possessions.
This is the current latest version of Microsoft Office, it has a very new and somewhat sinister edge to it in that it is now a item that comes with a licence to allow its use for 12 months after that you need to pay to keep using it.
For nearly all this programs twenty year life I have used it, right from its first incarnation as a flat file offering, this soon changed to relational and now many businesses are run almost totally from end to end on FileMaker Pro.
If my calculations are correct this is the forth file format. The reason for the first change was at around v2 or so. Then again after v6 then v11 and now v12. I had kept my files in v5 format as I have always used File Maker Mobile which was used by Palm and this was not available after that.
Whether the subject is an Album, Draw, Movie, Page, Photo or Web with a Plus attachment then you can be pretty certain that it is a Serif product that is under discussion. In this case the product is Serifs latest WebPlus title which is now up to version X6. This title comes with the tag line of Professional Quality Websites made Easy.
Following its normal practice, Serif delivers WebPlus X6 without any printed documentation to cut down on costs. A User Guide is supplied in PDF format on the product CD. The product’s installation will hardly win any races for speed but it is straightforward and requires little user input apart from entering the product’s 25-character serial number which is located on the cardboard packaging.
While databases are not everybodys cup of tea or coffee for that matter, they can fulfil a useful task in keeping your data organised.
FileMaker Pro has a long and slightly unusual pedigree. It is not often that you get a product developed by an Apple company (Claris) for the Windows platform (QuickTime being one exception). I can still remember my initial introduction to the first version of this database software. However it was not until version 3 of the product that I started using FileMaker Pro as my database software. In those days the product was supplied on three HD 3.5-inch floppy disks.
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