studio

Visual Studio 2010 to launch in March

Microsoft is set to announce on Monday that it is ready with a second beta version of its Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 developer tools. Both products are set for a final release on March 22, Microsoft said.

"Microsoft has reached the home stretch for Visual Studio 2010," said Dave Mendlen, a senior director in Microsoft's developer division. "This is probably the biggest release we've had in many years."

Among the product's features is a Tivo-like recording feature that Microsoft has now dubbed "IntelliTrace."

"That's our … Read more

Mediocre card maker

Greeting Card Studio purports to allow users to create attractive, high quality greeting cards. In reality, this program's lack of features and buggy operation makes us think we'd be better off with construction paper and markers.

The program's interface is basic and looks a lot like many other image-editing programs. The trial version comes with 16 templates, which range from cutesy to tacky. None of them was anything we'd want to give to someone (at least not someone we liked). With a program designed specifically to create greeting cards, we figured there would be options to … Read more

RealNetworks set to file appeal in RealDVD case

RealNetworks, a maker of media software, has said it will file an appeal and ask that a district court decision to ban sales of its DVD-copying software, RealDVD, be overturned.

In August, a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt sales of the $30 software, which enables users to create digital copies of DVDs and then store them on a hard drive. Real said in court documents that sometime before November 9, the Seattle-based company will file an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The film studios claimed in a 2008 lawsuit … Read more

Dell's superthin new Adamo spotted

At a press conference to show off new licensed laptop lid designs from Major League Baseball and nail polish brand OPI, Dell teased the audience with a brief peek at the new design for its high-end Adamo laptop.

The system, purported to be only 9.99 millimeters thick, was previously hinted at with a single-shot teaser Web site launched by Dell in September. This time around, Dell VP Alex Gruzen pulled one of the new Adamo systems from a laptop sleeve and, keeping the lid closed, held it aloft for a few seconds before handing it off to be spirited … Read more

Complete photo editor

Photo Art Studio offers several tools for altering photographs while remaining friendly to all users. The program's impressive collection of tools was matched by its impressively easy navigation.

We loved the program's interface because it was professionally designed and offered intuitive onscreen insight that kept us from needing to visit the instructional Help file. The program featured a stunning amount of editing choices for our photo, all easily accessible via a single menu complete with thumbnail examples. Ranging from standard editing and cropping tools to applying masks and filters, which drastically altered the photo's makeup, to designing … Read more

The 404 434: Where we don our Paper Raincoat

Today's guest on The 404 Podcast is The Paper Raincoat, a local band of the "experimental rock ambition" genre, as Jeff calls it. Amber Rubarth and Alex Wong have both garnered musical recognition for their individual acts, but only recently came together to form The Paper Raincoat. The release of their first EP, Safe in the Sound, ushered in an international fan following and an impressive list of accomplishments, including the iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight. We're very excited to have them in the studio with us today, and they come bearing instruments for a live acoustic show!

As we talk to more bands, we're starting to understand the long process of dreaming, writing, playing, and touring with your music in the current music business scene. With outlets like Facebook, Myspace, Last.FM, and many more, artists can easily cast a wide net over an audience that would normally require a major label contract to reach. We talk with The Paper Raincoat about the naming of the band, their recording process, their fantastic DIY album art, and their upcoming tour.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, there are a million places to stream their music live, but the best thing you can do to show your support is to preorder a CD. One-hundred percent of the preorder money will go to printing the record, and you can pick between three packages, the highest of which lands you a limited edition CD, two signed posters, a T-shirt, and a custom USB wristband drive with a personalized video "thank you" and exclusive video content from the band. In the meantime, you can also follow the band on Twitter, attend their CD release party at Joe's Pub in NYC, and download their brand new song, "Right Angles."

EPISODE 434 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Dell welcomes Intel Core i7 with a trio of laptops

Even though consumers are flocking toward low-price Netbooks and other budget-friendly laptops, there's still room for the latest and greatest technology in Dell's lineup. The company is introducing three systems that use Intel's new high-end mobile Core i7 CPU (four, if you count the new Alienware m15x).

Here are spec details on the newly revamped 15-, 16- and 17-inch systems from Dell, featuring the 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM.

Dell Studio 17, starts at $1,099 Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)--eligible for Windows 7 upgrade 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon … Read more

Microsoft's Phil Spencer promoted, Shane Kim retiring

One year and three months ago, Phil Spencer was appointed general manager of Microsoft Game Studios. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the executive has once again been promoted, this time to corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. The first-party publishing label has been responsible for such Xbox 360 exclusives as Gears of War 2 and Fable II, and will distribute the forthcoming Halo 3: ODST and Alan Wake.

Historically, Microsoft Game Studios has also published PC titles such as the discontinued Age of Empires and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Its last corporate vice president, John Schappert, left Microsoft in June … Read more

HP gets an Ion-powered HD Netbook

We said we noticed a recent trend of better-resolution HD screens showing up in Netbooks, and we like the direction. HP apparently does too, as its newly announced HP Mini 311 includes an 11.6-inch 1,366x768 pixel screen, a resolution that's standard in most laptops but not in most Netbooks. The extra pixel real estate is backed by an Nvidia Ion GPU--the same elusive processor we've been eagerly waiting to try but has been delayed in products such as the Lenovo IdeaPad S12.

The combination of the Nvidia Ion and an Intel Atom N270 processor should help … Read more