Morning Paper

FileZilla Portable 3.0.8.1 Released

If you found my article last week entitled "Create the perfect USB Thumbdrive" useful, and you use an FTP server to store files or to exchange files with your company's server, you'll be happy to hear that there's a new update available for FileZilla Portable.

If you've never heard of FileZilla, it is (IMO) the best FTP client available.  I use the desktop version many times each day, and for simplicity, options and speed, it's unbeatable.  Plus, as we love to say....IT'S FREE!

Having the portable version on my USB thumbdrive is awesome in those instances I'm at another PC and need to access my FTP.

Portable Apps

Internet Explorer 8 Beta available

Looks like the big "M" silently released IE 8 beta.  Lots of sites are talking about it, so I won't go into great any detail here.

The main new features are:

Activities

Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Activities typically involve one of two types of actions:

    * "Look up" information related to data in the current webpage
    * "Send" content from the current webpage to another application

   
WebSlices

Web sites can expose portions of their page as a WebSlice that users can subscribe to and bring that content with them on their links bar wherever they are on the web. Users receive update notifications when the content changes.

I haven't tried it yet, but later on I'll be firing up a Virtual Machine and taking it for a whirl. I sincerely doubt I'll be reverting back from Firefox.  You can read more about it and download here.

Lifehacker

Batch rename files with only a spreadsheet

Most of us know how to individually rename  files in Windows using the F2 key.  There are also a lot of tools out there to batch rename files. Some are free, some not. But if you have Excel, Works spreadsheet or even Google spreadsheet, and a little cmd prompt knowledge you can do this yourself with a few steps.

Digital Inspiration gives us a step-by-step guide to do this using your favorite spreadsheet software.  It involves some command promt use, but other than that, it's very simple.

Digital Inspiration

PC Magazine posts their 157 Best Freeware Apps

PC Magazine has posted its 157 Best Freeware Applications. I was happy to see that I'm already using several of them, like Firefox, Audacity, Skype, Thunderbird & WinAmp, to name a few.

This is a pretty good list, and for the most part they're right on with the list.  If you want a head's up on some great Freeware, head over to PCMag.com and see their list. 

Happy Downloading!

Dell & Apple planning to soon include Blu-Ray in their new Notebooks

Rumor has it that both Dell and Apple are planning to soon start including Blu-Ray drives in their upcoming notebooks.  No date speculation at this point, but given the history of both companies, I would not expect it to be a terribly long wait.

According to the source article, Dell will include a sub-$1000 laptop in this mix.  That seems quiet amazing in itself, based on the current prices of Blu-Ray drives.

Source.

Microsoft drops the price of some retail versions of Vista significantly

This is sort of old news at this point (originally saw it last Thursday), but just in case some of you missed it...  Microsoft will be slashing the price of some of its retail versions of Vista.   Apparently this will become effective when the SP1 version rolls out later this year. Vista Ultimate's full version will go to $319 from $399 (an upgrade is now $219, down from $259); Home Premium's upgrade is now $129, down from $159.

This isn't entirely surprising to me. Personally I wouldn't want either of these versions...Ultimate is too bloated with things I'll never use and Home Premium is missing too many things I need for my office environment. 

Although if you have been putting of upgrading and you want to get it all, and go for Ultimate, or don't need some of the missing "workplace" tools missing in Home Premium, this price drop is your opportunity to score.

Comparison chart of the various Vista versions can be found here.

Headed to CES!

I may have been absent for the last handful of days but don't think your friendly neighborhood Microsoft / Windows Mobile fanatic has dropped off the face of the earth.

With the holidays, work and family responsibilities that are normal to all, I'll still been able to keep somewhat abreast of the things happening in the tech world.

Now, with apologies and explanations out of the way - I'm headed to CES in Vegas first thing Monday morning!

I'll be sure to hit up Microsoft hard and strong to see if there is anything to be gleaned about the supposed leaked images and feature set of Windows Mobile 7.

For the record, and at this point contrary to everyone else, I'm not crazy about some of the "features" that are said to be onboard. "Shaking" the phone to go to the next  track in your playlist? I'll probably be alone in this one and may even be proven wrong but I'm not "feeling" shaking my phone around to get stuff done. I usually steer clear of gimmicks.

I'll stop by the REDFLY booth since, once again, I seem to be going against the grain of popular thinking on this Windows Mobile version of the Foleo idea (why can't they just let it stay dead?).

I'll also hit up the Tablet PC booths to see the new offerings from HP and Amtek, and finally get to see this Eee PC everyone (including me) is talking about.

Let me know if there is anything else you'd like me to give a look-see while I am there in the comments section.

Microsoft switches gears: No free software for you

Okay, I know yesterday I told you about Microsoft offering free software once you completed their little "Feedback Program" right? Well, today Microsoft says - "Nope. Sorry, you snooze you lose."

Here's the write up from Computer World:

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday withdrew an offer of free copies of Windows Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 in exchange for consumers agreeing to install monitoring software, saying it had exhausted the supply of software.

Until mid-afternoon Tuesday, the company's Windows Feedback Program was handing out copies of Vista Ultimate, Office Ultimate 2007 and other software to users who agreed to complete regular surveys and to install a program that tracked Windows and Office use for three months.

According to ComputerWorld, Microsoft "exhausted" their supply by Tuesday afternoon, early enough for astute Morning Paper readers to jump in line, but too late for everyone else.

References to the Windows Feedback Program and the free offer go back to at least early November, but Microsoft did not publicize the deal. Apparently, only Tuesday, after several Web sites and blogs, including NotebookReview.com and Engadget, posted accounts of the program and link to its Web site, did the news, and, those asking for free software, reach critical mass.

Yours truly jumped in the news when I found out but I didn't get my "activation code" sent to my @live.com account until 5:33 AM PST. So does that make me in or out?

I don't know if I want to click through now only to be told I'm too late. I like Microsoft but I don't need them snooping around my systems without some kind of payoff. I won't even go into what they might find. But something should be said for getting in under the wire, right?

At least tell me upfront if I'm still eligible for my free copy of Vista (Ultimate, no less) that I'm refusing to purchase.

The upside? At least there are a lot of people interested in getting Vista or Office. Or is it just because we all want something for nothing?

via Gizmodo

XP SP3 RC1 ready for download

For all of us hold outs with Microsoft Windows XP, the wait is over for the new Service Pack (3). Being released today in a publicly downloaded Release Candidate (RC1) means you can try it out before the official release that will be coming, er, soon.

According to published reports from Microsoft, XP SP3 brings more than 1,000 bug fixes, upgrades and new features according to Neosmart:

Windows XP SP3 now contains 1,073 patches/hotfixes, not including those in previous service packs. Of the 1,073 included updates, 114 are for security-related issues. The remainder are updates to performance & reliability, bugfixes, improvements to kernel-mode driver modules, and many BSOD fixes.

I know, it is pretty popular to beat on the slow adoption of Vista with current XP users, especially with Apple running the "Don't Give Up on Vista" ad campaign (pretty funny, I might add). But there are still some of us who did not get a new computer with Vista pre-installed and still don't see any compelling reason to upgrade to Vista out of pocket.

I'll probably upgrade to Vista at my next computer purchase, I really won't have any other choice by that time anyway, but I've played around with Vista on newer systems and am looking forward to it. In the meantime, I'm happy to have SP3 to use until upgrade time comes.

You can  play around with it here at FileForum but beware, this isn't an official Microsoft site. If you are the hardly soul who doesn't mind wading into Beta territory early reports have no problems (but also no noticeable difference).

If Beta anything scares the bejesus out of you, I'd suggest you wait until everyone else has had, and reported, their issues back to Microsoft and they put out the official release.

via DailyTech

Dell says new tablet on target

Dell was on hand today at the Oracle OpenWorld event to take the time to chat up their new XPS all-in-one desktop and drop a few tidbits about their upcoming tablet.

Via Crave:

...it wasn't a formal introduction as much as an all-too-brief glimpse of the XPS One A2010, which resembles a wide-screen TV with separate keyboard. ... While on stage, Dell took the opportunity to demonstrate its forthcoming convertible tablet PC, the Latitude XT, which Kettler said is on track to ship in the next few months.

Dell seems to be trying to keep the attention focused on them with a their toungue in cheek teasings about their upcoming offerings.\

But, when it come to their tablet, at least some news is good news since we are already mid November and initial rumors had the Dell Tablet supposedly on sale by December.

Looks like they are going to miss that deadline.