Global TechBlog

If you’re using both hands to play a musical instrument, the last thing you want to worry about is turning the pages of sheet-music as you play. The traditional solution was to make somebody do it for you, or to quickly reach up and do it yourself.

Tech has helped. These days a laptop with a USB foot-pedal is the way to go, but there have been all manner of spring-loaded and hydraulic contraptions invented to turn actual paper pages. These were, as you might expect, less than reliable.

Airturn, maker of sheet-music-reading software and hardware, has come up with a solution for the iPad. Apple’s tablet would seem to be the perfect device for reading music: it’s big enough to replace a piece of paper, whilst still slim and light enough to put on a music stand. Combined with Airturn’s new Bluetooth foot-switch, it makes a reliable, wire-free and practical solution.

The BT-105, as it is called, has a pair of switches, one to page forward, and one to page back. The switch doesn’t just work with the company’s own software, either. The video demo shows it controlling a third-party app with a zoom feature. In this case, the switch can tell the app to flip half a page at a time or, more accurately, to show the second half of the page before it flips to the next one.

The switch is in development right now, but should be available in the last quarter of this year.

iPad Bluetooth page turner footswitch prototype [Airturn. Thanks, Hugh!]

•By Charlie Sorrel

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ipad-sheet-music-foot-switch-is-a-real-page-turner/#ixzz0uvVK0V15

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ipad-sheet-music-foot-switch-is-a-real-page-turner/#ixzz0uvV6hfEn

Via: http://www.wired.com

Technology Advance Improves Disk Defragmentation Speed and Reduces Resource Overhead
Gaithersburg, MD (Vocus) July 13, 2010

Raxco Software, the leader in disk defragmentation and optimization software, announced today that is has been awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for new file query technology that improves the speed of the disk defragmentation process on Microsoft® Windows® platforms. Raxco has incorporated the new file query technology into its PerfectDisk® disk defragmentation solution.

In order to defragment a file, it needs to be opened to determine where all of its pieces are located. This process consumes time and resources in terms of disk IO, CPU and memory. The new Raxco file query technology allows PerfectDisk to bypass the step of opening each individual file, thereby saving the time and the resource penalties this activity incurs. “With the prevalence of multi-terabyte disks in the market, it is essential that we constantly strive to improve defragmentation performance” said Joe Abusamra, Raxco’s Vice President for Operations. “Larger disks typically mean more files and more fragmentation, so it is important to be able to handle these conditions efficiently, and that’s what our new file query technology does.”

The new patent is Raxco’s third disk defragmentation-related patent for Windows. The company is proud of its leadership and innovation in this area and continues to develop techniques for improving Windows performance and the end user experience.

About Raxco Software Raxco Software has been the industry leader in helping large enterprises, small businesses, and consumers with their computer performance and resource management needs for over 30 years. Its PerfectDisk is certified by Microsoft® for Windows 7, Vista, Windows Server® 2008 and Hyper-V. PerfectDisk products have a long history of winning the industry’s highest awards, including a perfect 5-star review from CNET Download, winner of the Windows IT Pro Readers’ Choice Awards for Defragmentation Utility and Storage Management Tools, Redmond Magazine’s Best of the Best Award, and PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award, among others. Raxco’s PerfectSpeed is the industry’s first all-in-one automated PC performance suite for Windows®. Raxco also produces optimization software for HP’s OpenVMS operating system. Raxco Software can be found on the Web at www.perfectdisk.com.

Contacts: Sherry Murray Raxco Software, Inc 301-519-7836

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Via: http://www.prweb.com

The VAR Guy FastChat Video interviews Ingram Micro CEO Gregory Spierkel about distribution, the economic recovery, SaaS, cloud and overall channel partner strategies. Recorded at Ingram Micro VTN conference on April 22, 2010.

Net Nanny 6.5- Star ReviewLast Updated: 3/25/2010
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As a parent with children who are very technically literate and using the computer and internet more than ever before, it is so important to stay on top of what they are doing. Does this mean you should look over their shoulders every two minutes while they are online? Of course not – what parent has time to do that? Fortunately, there are parental control software programs which can do it for you. Even for parents who are not internet savvy at all, Net Nanny makes it easy to get the parental controls up and running.

By right-clicking on the Net Nanny icon in the system tray next to the clock or by double-clicking the shortcut icon which is installed on the desktop, you can customize all of your settings. It is a very quick and easy set-up process. Net Nanny is one of the more well-known parental control software programs available, so we really wanted to put it to the test to see how well it works and which features and benefits it offers to families.

When you try to open the admin tools on Net Nanny, you automatically have to type in the password – every time – not just the first time. Once inside the admin tools, you have the options to Add or Remove users. This feature is great if you have children of different age levels and you want them each to be only able to access age-appropriate material on the internet. When you click to Add a new user, you can either completely customize the profile or choose a pre-defined profile for the following: Young Child, Child, Pre-Teen, Teen, Young Adult, Adult. For this review, we set up a “Pre-Teen” profile. As a Pre-Teen user on the computer, the settings are as follows:

•Filter Settings: Blocked for objectionable websites, chat rooms, peer-to-peer, and newsgroups.
•Time Controls: Blocked between 10pm – 6am
•Monitoring: Enabled for all activity
•Games: Allowed to play E10+ (Everyone Age 10 +)

You then add a User Name and Email Address and set up a password for that user and click “OK”. We also set up an adult’s profile to see how the two would work simultaneously. When trying to access inappropriate sites, a warning box opens which says that the website is being blocked based on the content. As an admin, you can filter the content manually as well as manage settings to allow or disallow social networking sites like Facebook. When testing different websites, the filtering worked very well and whether typed directly as a URL or from a search in a search engine, it only allowed age appropriate content for a pre-teen and gave the option for an override for adult content to be viewed.

Net Nanny 6.5 Parental Control Software Features:
•Keyword Blocking
•Remote Management
•Pornography Blocking
•PC Game Blocking
•IM Alert/Analysis
•Search Engine Integration
•Cell Phone Alerts
•Fully Customizable
What’s New with Net Nanny 6.5 Parental Control Software?

The main difference with Net Nanny 6.5 is that it offers profanity masking on websites, in emails, and in instant messages. Instead of seeing the naughty word, your child will see something like this: @#!*%. The software has new social network filtering which is a great tool for sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others. You can control the content your children see on such sites as well as view a report of their conversations and see detailed information about the pictures, videos, personal descriptions and other content they are looking at. There is also a new Proxy Guard feature which prevents your child from using a Proxy Server to get past the Net Nanny controls.

Net Nanny 6.5 Pricing:

$39.99 for the first subscription and $19.99 for each additional subscription. If you already have Net Nanny version 5.5, you can upgrade to 6.5 for free. There is a 14 day free trial.

Net Nanny Customer Support:

You can contact Net Nanny/Content Watch from 8am-5pm Monday through Friday at 1-800-485-4008 (MST). When contacting the customer service department with a question about one of the product features, it took well over ten minutes to get through to a customer support staff member. She explained a few of the features and answered all of my questions thoroughly. Alternatively, if you need additional support during off hours, you can either send them an email directly to info@contentwatch.com.

Summary:

Overall, Net Nanny 6.5 is well-designed parental control software and a great choice for families who share a computer. It has pre-loaded profiles for all ages and gives parents the tools needed to protect their children online and to monitor all of their activity to ensure it is appropriate.

Pros:

Inexpensive Controls for every aspect of the internet from searching to instant messaging and social media sites.

Different pre-loaded profiles allow easy set up for different members of your family in minutes.

Cons:

If you forget to log off and your child comes to the computer within 10 minutes of you, they are able to access the computer as an adult and have access to unrestricted content.

GoTo Net Nanny 6.5

via: http://www.starreviews.com/net-nanny.aspx