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(Credit: CBS Interactive)

I hope everyone had a great holiday! Coming back after the break has been a whirlwind for all of us here at CNET. With the one-two punch of Macworld here in San Francisco and the simultaneous Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we’ve been working around the clock to bring you the latest news and announcements from both trade shows.

I was lucky enough to the walk the show floor at Macworld and although it wasn’t as exciting as previous years, there was still plenty of excitement. Some highlights include software launches, third-party hardware, and–of course–Mac, iPod, and iPhone accessories. Overall, Macworld was as crowded as ever with many vendors excited for the future of Apple, but some were wondering what the future will hold for the show now that the company will no longer be participating. I guess we’ll have to wait until next year (the dates are already reserved for 2010), but it’s a shame that the main reason for the show will no longer be in attendance.

I’ve added many apps to my iPhone over the past few weeks to pass the time during holiday travel and–judging from many companies at Macworld–the new apps and games are going to keep on coming.

This week’s apps include a budgeting app and a game so we can start the new year off right by continuing to be responsible while we have fun in 2009!

Enter your transactions as you go to stay on budget

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Squirrel helps you stick to your New Year’s resolution of managing your money by helping you keep track of all your transactions on your iPhone. Simply enter your current balance and stay on top of transactions by entering new data as it happens. Squirrel gives you complete flexibility for naming your transactions and categories. What’s more, you can download Squirrel for your Mac so you can keep your finances in sync on your iPhone and at home.

Navigate your Rolandos through large colorful levels with lots of moving parts

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Rolando ($9.99) was released during the holidays and may be one of the best games yet for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Featuring smooth cartoon graphics, jazzy music, and cute sound effects, this platformer challenges you to get your Rolandos safely to the exit of each level. Tilt your iPhone to get them rolling and utilize several different touch-screen motions to guide your Rolandos past obstacles while you avoid baddies called Shadow Blocks. As you progress, you’ll need to manage more Rolondos and use creative methods to get past sticky situations. Overall, Rolando is one of the most polished games I’ve seen on the iPhone and I recommend it highly for those looking for a great platform-type game.

What are your favorite apps? Does Squirrel have enough features for your budgeting needs? Got any good games for me to check out? Let me know in the comments!

Source: www.download.com

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Microsoft Research on Thursday is releasing software that gives musicians, both casual and professional, a new way to speed up song development. Called Songsmith, the $29.99 application creates musical accompaniment based on whatever is sung into the computer’s microphone.

In order to do this, the software processes the pitch and tone of what’s recorded and lets users hear how it might sound if they had a little backup in the form of a virtual piano, drums, and keyboard. Microsoft is expecting them to use the new track either as inspiration for further song development or as a simple way to create karaoke-quality recordings for friends and family members.

The software lets users change the feel of a song completely using various sliders that adjust mood, volume levels, tempo and what instruments are being used. Users are also able to purchase additional instruments from Garritan for a small fee that can drastically change the way a track sounds. Each purchased instrument comes wrapped in a special installer that automatically adds it to Songsmith. Dan Morris of Microsoft Research tells me there may eventually be a marketplace for other sample providers, although for now the software is using it exclusively because of its the only compatible format.

Songsmith lets you simply sing into your computer's microphone to hear what it would sound like if you had a back-up band.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Songsmith is starting out as a digital download only, and will be available from Microsoft’s recently launched digital downloads store front. Morris says there are no current plans to make the software part of a larger suite of music oriented products from Microsoft. Competitor Apple has offered a slightly similar feature in its Garageband software that gives you virtual band mates that can accompany you as you record music with an in-line microphone, however each of the instruments must be programmed by the user.

One interesting thing to note is that the technology is fully capable of providing automated accompaniment in near real-time. Morris says the only hurdle there is that the programming does all its magic by seeing where users are going with a melody and compensating accordingly. Morris also says a Web based version of the software could be possible later on down the line, although development in that area has been slowed down due to latency and recording quality bottlenecks.

Embedded below are before and after clips of what Songsmith is capable of. As mentioned before, to change the sound of this song users simply need to adjust a slider or two.

Listen now: Download today’s podcast

Listen now: Download today’s podcast
Source: www.download.com

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(Credit: Opera Software)

Article updated at 3:41 p.m. PST with more details on how to acquire the SDK. Correction, 10:55 a.m. PST: This story misstated the day the Opera announcement was made. It was Wednesday.

Opera has thrown a little more love at device developers by announcing an updated version of its software development kit on Wednesday at CES.

While in a broad sense, the SDK will be available to all developers of consumer electronics that use Opera’s browser to access the Internet, most of us will see the fruits of Opera Device SDK 9.7 on the Opera-powered Wii Internet Channel.

The latest build integrates two of Opera’s newer additions: the Opera Dragonfly live debugging toolset, and Opera Link, the always-on syncing tool that keeps your bookmarks and Speed Dial entries current among every Opera browser you’re logged into. This will benefit Wii Web surfers by quickly getting them to a favorite site using the more limited input method of the console’s Wiimote controller.

The SDK also includes a faster version of Opera Zoom, which helps smooth out panning and zooming for consumer devices that are lean on hardware, and ACID3 compliance, which follows Opera’s stated goal of developing along proven Web standards.

The SDK is currently available to device manufacturers.

Source: www.download.com

iLife ‘09 adds feature tweaks and fun

At the Macworld 2009 keynote presentation this morning given by Phill Schiller (Steve Jobs was absent this year due to widely reported health issues), one of the more exciting new software developments was to the iLife suite of software for Mac.

(Credit: Apple)

Long touted as the comprehensive suite from Apple to manage your digital lifestyle, iLife includes the popular Mac apps iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, and iWeb. Over the course of the speech, several enhancements to each software were given screen time, and many of the new features were those long requested by fans as well as innovative new features from Apple’s developers.

New enhancements to iPhoto included two new ways to organize photos. Faces, which includes face recognition technology, lets users search across folders of photos by matching with the face of a friend or family member to get all the images that include a specific person. Places uses the location technology now available in iPhone 3G and in some digital cameras to organize where your pictures were taken. Along with the new search and organization capabilities, iPhoto now lets you quickly post to Flickr and Facebook, offers more advanced image-editing tools, and lets you illustrate your vacation photos using a slick-looking feature called Travel Maps. The Travel maps can also be used to make photo books using Apple’s previously announced paid photo album making features.

iMovie also received several new features and enhancement tweaks including more themes to give your movies a different, elegant feel and a precision editor for more professional-looking digital movies. One of the more amazing parts of the keynote speech was the demonstration of iMovie’s new video stabilization features which takes a user’s shaky handheld video recording and makes it a almost as smooth as if the camera were riding on a rail. New title fonts and transition effects will delight iMovie hobbyists and a new browser makes it easy to find the recordings you want for your movie.

One of the more interesting feature enhancements involved GarageBand’s new learn-to-play instrument features. Interactive piano and guitar lessons let you learn at your own pace, showing finger positions and HD videos of instructions so you can practice playing along. But the more interesting addition was the ability to learn songs from the actual artists who played them. Artist lessons (sold separately) lets you learn songs by watching videos of the artists themselves as they take you through the process of playing some of their songs. Famous artists like Nora Jones, Sting, Ben Folds, Sarah McLachlan, and others take you through each step. New sounds and amps were also included in the update to give you more variety in your music.

The iWeb application added better drag-and-drop Web design capabilities and several dynamic widgets you could include on your Web site. Improved features included easier page management and publishing options as well as fun additions like the ability to notify your Facebook friends when your site has been updated.

Overall, we think the expanded feature list for each program and usability tweaks make this updated suite worth looking into if you have interest in this project- and hobbyist-based suite. Single users who already own iLife ‘08 will be able to update for $79, and if you want to be able to install it on up to five computers, you can get the family pack for $99. iLife ‘09 will only work if you have Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard installed, so those with older systems might like the Mac Box Set, which includes iLife ‘09, Leopard, and iWork ‘09 all in one box for $169. iLife ‘09 will become available at the end of January.

Source: www.download.com

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On Tuesday, TechSmith released Jing Pro, a paid premium version of its free screen capture and casting software. The new service, which runs $14.95 a year, upgrades videos to H.264 encoding, takes off the Jing watermark in the bottom corner of recorded clips, and gives users the option to upload directly to several popular video hosting sites including Facebook, YouTube, Viddler, and Vimeo.

Of the news, one of the biggest changes is the move to the MPEG-4 AVC video format. It’s the go-to format for iPods and iPhones, as well as set-top boxes like the Apple TV and TiVo. Likewise, it’s been adopted by YouTube, which makes a separate encode for each file for Flash players and hardware that run H.264 clips. This means that going forward your screencast may end up being able to be watched on a wider range of devices.

On the export front I’m a little surprised TechSmith is offering such a simple way to offload captured videos to third-party hosting sites. It’s really nice, but will no doubt cut into potential revenue from people who might have paid the extra cash for the company’s video hosting sister product, Screencast.com. This service has a higher cap on its file size (2GB up from most service’s 1GB max), but limits how many people can watch your content to 2GB of streaming video.

In addition to the launch of Jing Pro, TechSmith put up a new support site called the Jing Help Center, which has a handful of how-to videos and support documents. This is available to both free and pro users.

Download Jing (via CNET’s Download)

Source: www.download.com

A quick talk with Scott Cook, booth babe and Intuit co-founder

Intuit founder Scott Cook demos new TurboTax for Mac at MacWorld.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CBS Interactive)

I spied Scott Cook, a founder and former CEO of Intuit, which makes Quicken and Quickbooks, at his company’s Macworld booth, giving demos just like any booth worker. That was curious–you don’t see big company billionaires mingling with consumers in a frenzied trade show environment too often (although you should). So I snared him for a quick interview about his booth duty and the plans for Intuit overall.

Regarding hanging out with The People, Cook simply said that it’s a great way to get customers to talk to him for free (versus paid surveys, I assume) and that it’s good to hear what you are doing wrong (as a Quicken for Windows user, I could give have given him an earful, but time was short). He also likes to see how his team presents to customers.

On Intuit’s overall strategy, Cook says Intuit is pursuing a strategy based around online and mobile access to financial data. U.S. consumers spend $7 billion a year in overdraft feeds, he says, and there’s no excuse for that when your phone could alert you when you’re about to over-extend yourself. Thus Quicken Beam and Quicken Online (which recently got a refresh) as well as an online version of the small business app Quickbooks. There’s also an online version of TurboTax that will compute and file your federal taxes for free. State returns are extra, though.

Quicken Mobile gives you quick visibility in your basic financial position.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CBS Interactive)

At the same time, Intuit seems to be renewing its commitment to standalone apps, or at least to the Mac. Quicken for Mac is being retired in favor of a newly-built financial management app called Financial Life, now in a very early public beta. It looks, at first glance, like a nicely designed version of Quicken, simpler to get in to than the company’s traditional software. (On Windows, Quicken 2009 looks like a typical upgrade for Intuit from Quicken 2008: a few new features, but according to user reviews, lacking needed reliability improvements.)

Yet despite Cook’s mission to offer holistic financial suites for its users, Intuit is not yet delivering on integration between its products. For example, if you use Quicken Mobile to update your Quicken Online account, that data won’t make it into your Quicken software installation on your personal computer. And data files cannot be shared between Mac and Windows installations.

Source: www.download.com

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Spreadsheet editing is made finger friendly with Quickoffice's Excel editing tool.

(Credit: Quickoffice)

Despite the addition of Microsoft Exchange and the App Store with version 2.0 of the iPhone’s firmware, the device is still a long way from competing with Windows Mobile handsets when it comes to the native editing of several popular file formats. Mobile-productivity software company Quickoffice is trying to change that with a new iPhone application that lets users edit their Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets.

Called MobileFiles Pro, this $9.99 application can pull in Excel workbooks from any of your computers (over Wi-Fi) or on the Web through MobileMe’s iDisk sharing. It supports editing over multiple pages in a workbook, row and column resizing and insertion, and manages to do it all with a good deal of simplicity.

To edit a cell, you simply tap it with your thumb and type in a new value. There are also options to format what’s inside it, run formulas, and add new pages.

The option to edit files joins the functionality to view other file types, including movies, music, images, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and iWork documents (akin to Quickoffice’s QuickAccess sister product). QuickOffice says it will continue to push out editing for other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, in future releases.

MobileFiles Pro joins a handful of other iPhone applications that let you view and edit Excel spreadsheets, including Spreadsheet, Spreadsheet LX, iSpreadsheet, and the upcoming Mariner Calc app which is due in a few weeks.

Source: www.download.com

Google to release Picasa beta for Mac

Picasa for the Mac includes the ability to make collages and other core features.

(Credit: Google)

Google plans to release on Monday a beta version of Picasa for Mac OS X, helping Apple fans catch up to Windows and Linux users already employing the free tool for editing, cataloging, and uploading photos.

The Mac version largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, said Jason Cook, Picasa’s marketing manager. Though the company has been scrambling to include some secondary features such as geotagging and the ability to get photos printed, the core abilities of Picasa are present, he said.

Picasa lets people edit and print photos, create collages and movies, and add labels, star ratings, and tags. More significantly, given Google’s cloud-computing focus, it also lets people upload their images to the company’s online Picasa Web Albums site where images can be shared. Google acquired Picasa in 2004.

“We have many Mac users,” Cook said, though declining to offer any estimates, “and we think they’ll be excited about this. It makes the Picasa Web Albums experience better.”

Online photo sites are great for several reasons, but problems can arise when people manage separate and different set of images. They often upload only a selection of photos on a PC, for example. Sometimes people upload images to an online site that never make it to the PC. And sometimes people add tags, captions, and titles online but not to the versions on their computers.

Picasa takes one important step in dealing with this potential rat’s nest: when a person edits a photo on the PC, Picasa updates the version stored online. The reverse isn’t true, though, but bidirectional synchronization is “something we’re thinking about,” Cook said. “We want to make sync as useful as possible.”

Synchronization with the Mac’s bundled iPhoto software is another area where people should tread carefully, though Picasa offers cautionary alerts to try to avert any trouble, Cook said. Picasa for the Mac doesn’t interfere with iPhoto, he said, but for example when a person uses Picasa to edit a photo, iPhoto still shows the original, which Picasa preserves. And Picasa will read ratings and tags from iPhoto, but not vice-versa.

“We play nice. We take a hands-off, read-only approach with the iPhoto library,” Cook said. “You can experiment with Picasa, and it won’t screw up the images in the iPhoto library.”

Before the Picasa for Mac was released, Google offered Mac users two other options for getting photos to Picasa Web Albums: an iPhoto plug-in and standalone upload tool.

Source: www.download.com

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Recent developments in the global economy have sent shockwaves through industries and companies around the world. Whether or not the economic downturn has hurt your employer or your job, it’s a good time to take a look at your professional resume and update it or polish it as necessary. These six applications offer resume templates, styling advice, and helpful guidelines to help you develop a resume that impresses your next interviewer.

ResumeMaker Professional Ultimate

This jam-packed resume software is loaded with thousands of samples and templates from a wide range of industries. It also allows users to browse or search millions of available career opportunities. View sample cover letters and create and manage your own quickly and easily. A Virtual Interview feature puts you through the paces before the actual big event.

JobTabs Job Search and Resume

A nice, compact interface lets you create, edit, and manage your resume, while also searching job listings and creating job-search agents. More of job-search assistant than a resume builder, JobTabs uses a tree-style navigation with Search Agents for various industries and online career resources. Advanced search features let you narrow down your searches, while other tabs provide resume guidance and industry information about necessary training.

EasyJob Resume Builder

More than 25,000 resume and cover-letter templates provide a wide range of styles and formats for nearly any sort of job application. A clean navigation lets you manage your career history and goals and your resumes quickly and easily. A “Get Started” wizard may help reluctant job searchers to get the process rolling, and the career resources section includes an resume knowledgebase for reference.

CVitae

The software name has strong educational connotations, but the program works for many industries and lets users capture job offers directly through the application. A form-based approach lets users enter all of their work history, personal information, experience, and skills, transforming all of your data into a polished one-page paper. Keyword shortcuts make composing cover letters a breeze.

Kinetic Resume

For users who learn visually, this shareware app uses a multimedia approach to creating and editing your resume. Start out by simply copying and pasting your career information and personal data, decide what sort of jobs you are interested in pursuing, and before you know it, you’ve got a formatted Word document that should work for many professional job applications.

Resumizer

This online tool lacks some of the fancy features of its downloadable counterparts, but for speed and ease of use, it’s hard to beat. Pick from several templates, enter your contact info, experience, qualifications, and skills, and you can quickly print or save a digital copy of a simple, stylish resume. The site is supported by the now ubiquitous Ads by Google and an occasional pop-behind, but there’s no upsell, and the site also lets you create six different styles of cover letters.

Source: www.download.com

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A Chinese Court has convicted 11 people involved in what Microsoft referred to as the world’s largest software counterfeiting syndicate. According to estimates from the Redmond company, the syndicate, based in the southern China province of Guangdong, counterfeited and…

A Chinese Court has convicted 11 people involved in what Microsoft referred to as the world’s largest software counterfeiting syndicate. According to estimates from the Redmond company, the syndicate, based in the southern China province of Guangdong, counterfeited and… (read more)
Source: news.softpedia.com

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Recent developments in the global economy have sent shockwaves through industries and companies around the world. Whether or not the economic downturn has hurt your employer or your job, it’s a good time to take a look at your professional resume and update it or polish it as necessary. These six applications offer resume templates, styling advice, and helpful guidelines to help you develop a resume that impresses your next interviewer.

ResumeMaker Professional Ultimate

This jam-packed resume software is loaded with thousands of samples and templates from a wide range of industries. It also allows users to browse or search millions of available career opportunities. View sample cover letters and create and manage your own quickly and easily. A Virtual Interview feature puts you through the paces before the actual big event.

JobTabs Job Search and Resume

A nice, compact interface lets you create, edit, and manage your resume, while also searching job listings and creating job-search agents. More of job-search assistant than a resume builder, JobTabs uses a tree-style navigation with Search Agents for various industries and online career resources. Advanced search features let you narrow down your searches, while other tabs provide resume guidance and industry information about necessary training.

EasyJob Resume Builder

More than 25,000 resume and cover-letter templates provide a wide range of styles and formats for nearly any sort of job application. A clean navigation lets you manage your career history and goals and your resumes quickly and easily. A “Get Started” wizard may help reluctant job searchers to get the process rolling, and the career resources section includes an resume knowledgebase for reference.

CVitae

The software name has strong educational connotations, but the program works for many industries and lets users capture job offers directly through the application. A form-based approach lets users enter all of their work history, personal information, experience, and skills, transforming all of your data into a polished one-page paper. Keyword shortcuts make composing cover letters a breeze.

Kinetic Resume

For users who learn visually, this shareware app uses a multimedia approach to creating and editing your resume. Start out by simply copying and pasting your career information and personal data, decide what sort of jobs you are interested in pursuing, and before you know it, you’ve got a formatted Word document that should work for many professional job applications.

Resumizer

This online tool lacks some of the fancy features of its downloadable counterparts, but for speed and ease of use, it’s hard to beat. Pick from several templates, enter your contact info, experience, qualifications, and skills, and you can quickly print or save a digital copy of a simple, stylish resume. The site is supported by the now ubiquitous Ads by Google and an occasional pop-behind, but there’s no upsell, and the site also lets you create six different styles of cover letters.

Source: www.download.com

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