Today for review I’ve got Total Defense Mobile Security which is an app for your smartphone that is anti-virus and much more than that. The software goes on your phone,  be it Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry or even Symbian. I’ve installed it on both my Android phone and my tablet for testing. It’s much more than an app though, you can access your own account on the Total Defense website and see calls, texts, locate the device and even remotely wipe it among other things. It’s certainly something to look into if you’re a security conscious person, or like to know what’s going on in your child’s life.

Specifications:

Total Defense Mobile Security

You’re always on the move and mobile security has become more important than ever! Protect your mobile phone with antivirus security that’s in sync with today’s on-the-go lifestyle. Protect yourself and apply parental control with filtering to safeguard your kids against mobile threats and predators. Whether you have Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, or Blackberry, CA Mobile Security is the only security solution you need for your smartphone.

Key Features:
-Powerful anti-virus & anti-spyware detection & removal
-Remote lock & wipe for lost & stolen devices
-Remote backup of personal data with easy restore to new devices
-Remote GPS locate to find lost & stolen phones
-Anti-spam & firewall filters to eliminate unwanted messages

Parental Controls & Monitoring:
-Monitor activity on your child’s mobile phone with full application, SMS, email and internet control
-View pictures by stored in the camera whether sent or received via text or email
-View content of text & email messages
-Block voice and message
-Filter communication from unwanted sources

Price: 1-Year $24.99

There’s no box shots or anything like that as this is a download direct from the Total Defense website.  Install it and you get the little CA Mobile Security icon ready to go.

When you first load it up you’ll se the status of the three programs that Mobile Security consists of, AntiVirus, Monitor and Control and Backup and Restore.

You can press the menu button up will pop a few basic options for Renew, Account Info, About and Settings. Renew is for renewing your subscription. Account info just tells you when your subscription expires, About tell you the version and Settings takes you to a popup with Update Settings, Auto Update Period and Data Roaming.

Clicking on AntiVirus will take you to the control panel with options for Scan Device, Scan for Spyware, Scan Files or Folder and Update Virus Signature. You can also press the menu button here for a popup menu with options for Periodic Scan, View Scan Log and View Detected Items.

One of the main purposes is AntiVirus or course and you’ll want to run it as soon as you install the program just to be safe.  The first time will take a long time of course as it has to be thorough, and it will depend on how much stuff you have on your device as well.  You can see by the time at the top of my phone, the scan took quite while for me, almost two hours. Thankfully my phone is clean.

Under Monitor and Control you’ll find the status of your settings.

The next choice from the main menu would be Backup and Restore, both of which I think are self-explanatory. Tap on one and things start to happen.

That’s mostly it for the actual app, but there’ much more to do and see on the website under your account.

When you first login you’re greeted with a status screen telling you things like how many messages, calls, events, applications and photos you have new. Across the top you’ll see tabs for Home, Settings, Reports, Alert Setup and Support/Help. Below the tabs you’ll have more choices for Lock and Unlock your device, Locate, Backup & restore, Wipe Device and Scream Locate. There’s a little map off the right that can tell you your devices location. I think most of those across the top are self-explanatory as well. Obviously I’ve blacked out names and numbers for privacy reasons in the following screenshots.

When you press Locate Device the website will send messages to your device to locate it, then a pop-up window appears and you’ll be shown where your device is.

You can see your text message and calls sent and received along with the contacts in the phone.

The website will actually let you uninstall programs remotely.

Under settings you’ll find account management and handset management with check boxes to monitor or not monitor things.

Reports are just that, activity reports basically.

The last thing is Alerts which I found interesting.  You can search for things by keyword or address. There’s a handy chart on the side for parents who aren’t very tech or text savvy so you can know what your kids are actually saying when they use text speak. You can check the boxes to be alerted when when they text or someone texts them with one of the phrases.

That’s about the extent of it and for the price I think it’s well worth it for what you get. It’s $24.99 and you actually get three licenses for that, so you can install on three devices to monitor them.

One thing I did notice is that every time I turned my tablet on the anti-virus started running. You can go into the settings and change when it will run. I also noticed in Task Manager that the program is always running in the background no matter how many times you turn it off. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good so kids can’t turn it off, bad as it’s always using system resources.

Conclusion:
Total Defense Mobile Security is just like the name implies, a Total Defense for your phone or other device. It’s mobile security to give you peace of mind on your own device or on your loved ones devices.

This app and website can help your locate your stolen phone, lock it and even wipe it remotely. This is a nice feature to have.

I’m a parent and my kids aren’t old enough yet to own phone, 6, 9 and 10 years of age, but when they do have phones I’ll be sure to have something like this on it. I want to know what my kid are doing and where they’re doing it. This software provides a means of monitoring and even tracking your children or other loved ones to keep them safe and out of trouble.

Overall though I see this as a great all-on-one security solution for today’s mobile lifestyle that we all seem to lead.

I can see this possibly being used for other than honest purposes though, like a spouse monitoring their significant others texts, messages and whereabouts and more.

Pros:
+Very simple to use
+Easy installation
+Great for keeping tabs on children
+Decent security measures for lost phone/device
+Inexpensive

Cons:
-Does use resources on your phone or tablet
-Can possibly be used for other than honest purposes
-Seems to run all of the time

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of Total Defense Mobile Security is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

The Dictate program was originally created by MacSpeech who licensed the speech recognition technology from Nuance the company known for the Dragon Naturally Speaking technology that was used in the PC world. Recently Nuance purchased MacSpeech and has now released the latest version of the software – Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5.

This new version of Dictate is designed to work with Lion – Apple’s newest OS X iteration. Instead of rewriting the software nuance incorporated most of the elements found in older versions of Dictate. As an incentive to upgrade, Dictate has a host of new features that both old users and new customers can appreciate.

Some of these new features include new audio input options such as using an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running IOS 4.2 as a wireless microphone via Wi-Fi, enhanced hardware, software support including Microsoft Office 2011, and the inclusion of time-saving Voice Commands such as “Post to Facebook”, “Post to Twitter” or “Post that to Facebook or Twitter.” In addition Nuance had improved formatting controls, user interface and usability enhancements within Dragon Dictate.

Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 arrives in a green cardboard package with the Dragon Dictate logo found on the front. On the back of the box is a description of the product and some of its features. Inside the package we find an Application and Data disc, a Plantronics headset with a USB dongle and a Quick Start Guide.

For prior users of MacSpeech Dictate the included Plantronics headset will be quite familiar as it is the same model in the new version. This is not a bad thing as I found the Plantronics headset to be comfortable even when worn for long durations. The headset has an adjustable microphone, which can be positioned, on either the right or left side of the users head.

A QuickStart Guide shows how to get started and provides a list of some of the basic commands needed to navigate OS X using Dragon Dictate 2.5. The back of this guide offers some Mac Quick Tips as well.

Specifications:

Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5

Dictate

Are you a Mac user that wants to be more productive? Then Dragon Dictate 2.5 is right for you. With valuable new features, such as improved document creation flexibility in Microsoft Word and all-new auto formatting capabilities, Dragon Dictate 2.5 lets you accomplish more on your Mac than you ever imagined possible. Ideal for writers and bloggers, creative professionals, high school and college students, journalists, business people, home users, educators, and many others – Dragon Dictate gives you complete command of your Mac using only your voice.

With Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 speech recognition software, you can enter text just by speaking. Control your favorite Mac applications – including Microsoft Word 2011 — using only your voice. With Dragon Dictate you can produce reports, email, articles, books, research notes, online content, and more — quickly, easily, and accurately. And great new features mean you’ll get even more done, faster. With the introduction of the free Dragon Remote Microphone application (available in the Apple app store), you can achieve the same great accurate transcription using a device you already may have: your iPhone! And new social media commands make posting to Facebook or Twitter a breeze.  Dragon Dictate provides amazing accuracy and requires just minutes of training to get started. Built upon the renowned Dragon 11 speech recognition engine, Dragon Dictate for Mac is Simply Smarter Speech Recognition.
Turn Talk into Text
Instead of a keyboard, use your voice to produce text. Speak your thoughts, then watch your words appear on screen in your favorite Mac applications with amazing recognition accuracy.
Unlock Your Creativity
Dragon Dictate for Mac keeps up with your brain. Transform ideas into text at the speed of thought. Start being creative and productive with only your voice — don’t let typing get in the way of your ideas or productivity.
Work Comfortably
Control your Mac in a relaxed, hands-free manner without being tied to your keyboard. Instead of using your mouse, just speak commands to launch and control applications. Move the cursor or click anywhere on screen simply by voice.
Multi-task Like Never Before
Tell your Mac what to do, like “Reply To This Message” or “Open Microsoft® Word” or “Jump To Google” to work faster and smarter. Create voice commands that automate complex workflows on your Mac.

Work Your Way
Create a digital world, powered by your own voice. Customize Dragon Dictate for Mac with personal vocabulary and voice commands that reflect the kind of work you do.
Comfortable and Convenient Wireless Solution
Turn your iPhone or iPod into a wireless microphone for use with Dragon on your Mac. The free Dragon Remote Microphone app can be used with Dragon Dictate to generate the same great transcription accuracy – without the traditional headset wires.
Robust Recognition
Dragon Dictate offers Recognition Training which enables it to learn how you speak while you use the software. A powerful Vocabulary Editor lets you add specialized words, such as the names of people, places and other proper nouns.
Customizable
Create new voice commands for controlling Mac applications, or set up voice-triggered workflows using AppleScript or Automator.
Built for Mac
Dragon Dictate for Mac was built to give you the experience you expect from your favorite Macintosh applications — an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that dramatically boosts productivity. What’s more, Dragon Dictate for Mac works with Microsoft Word 2011 and your favorite Apple applications, including Mail, iChat, iCal, TextEdit, Pages, Safari and many more.
Exceptional Online Help
For those times when you need a little assistance, Dragon Dictate offers complete, searchable online help. It’s always available, convenient to use, and easy to understand so you can get the answers you need without delay

Enhanced Hardware and Software Support

• Microsoft Word 2011 Support: Dictate 2.5 allows users to seamlessly combine dictation with manual input from the mouse and keyboard. This ability to “mix talking and typing” within Microsoft Word was the most requested product enhancement request. In addition, Dictate 2.5 offers built-in voice commands for controlling Microsoft Word 2011. These voice commands allow users to format text, insert tables and graphics, and control most menu items by voice.

New Audio Input Options

• iPhone as Wireless Microphone: Most customers use Dragon by speaking directly to their Mac using the microphone included with their Dragon software purchase. But some users can be frustrated by wearing a headset that tethers them to their Mac. With the introduction of the free Dragon Remote Microphone application (available in the Apple app store), users can achieve the same great accurate transcription using a device many already have: their iPhone! The Dragon Remote Microphone app converts a user’s iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, iPad and iPad 2 or iPod Touch 4th gen running iOS 4.2, or later into a wireless microphone via WiFi.

Time-Saving Voice Commands

• New Facebook and Twitter Commands: Users can easily update Facebook by saying “Post to Facebook”, “Post to Facebook [text],” or  “Post that to Facebook.” Tweets are quickly captured by voice: a user selects dictated or typed text (via mouse or voice command), and says “Post that to Twitter.” Additional Twitter commands include “Tweet [text]" (English only) and "Post to Twitter [text].”

Improved Formatting Control

• Formatting Enhancements: With the new Auto Formatting dialog, users have greater control over the way certain data is formatted. Individual preferences can be set for dates and time (e.g., June 18, 2011 vs. 6/18/11), numbers and units of measure (e.g., five vs. 5), addresses, abbreviations, and more. Users can also set a preference to insert two spaces after a period, if they choose.
• Numbers Mode: Version 2.5 introduces Numbers Mode, which can be particularly helpful for users that frequently dictate many numbers in a row, such as inputting figures or product codes into a database. When in Numbers Mode, Dragon recognizes everything it hears as a number or as a command.
• Vocabulary Editor Improvements: Users can now delete words from the built-in Dragon vocabulary. This is helpful if a vocabulary entry you don’t need “competes” with something you regularly dictate (such as competing spellings like Schaeffer and Schafer).

Getting Started with Dragon is Faster and Easier

• Faster and Easier to Create a User Profile: Version 2.5 updates the Voice Training component of user profile creation, introducing new additional training text.

User Interface and Usability Enhancements

• Auto Sleep Microphone: If the microphone is on but does not receive input after one minute, the microphone will automatically go into Sleep mode. This Auto Sleep functionality is helpful as it forces users to follow effective microphone control even when you forget to turn the microphone off. With version 2.5, users can set personal preference for the time allotted for the Auto Sleep microphone functionality (any range from 30 seconds to five minutes). Users also have the option to turn off the Auto Sleep functionality entirely.

Minimum System Requirements

• Intel-based Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• Internet connection required for registration.
• Nuance-approved USB microphone for Mac (included with new purchase).

To start using Dragon Dictate you’ll need to install the application and then the vocabulary data to your Mac. For those using a MacBook Air like myself you’ll need to use a network disc drive or download a digital version from the Dragon website for the installation process. You will need to enter the registration code within 4 days to keep Dragon Dictate activated.

The initial setup process for Dragon Dictate requires microphone and voice training which entails the user reading a dozen or so paragraphs to allow the software to recognize the user’s voice. Once this is accomplished you can start using the software or provide more vocabulary training by reading additional paragraphs.

Dragon Dictate runs in the background allowing it to interface with most every OS X application. Most users will primarily use Dictate with Apple Mail, Microsoft Office, Skype, iChat and most Web browsers.

Those who have used MacSpeech Dictate in the past will find the user interface practically the same with Dragon Dictate 2.5. The difference between the older versions and this latest one are the new features and improved speech recognition.

Dragon Dictate opens in Dictation mode with a Notepad window where the user can start dictating right away.

A free-floating widget allows the user to toggle the microphone, view incoming text and toggle modes in Dragon Dictate.

Simply activate the microphone by toggling this widget to verbally interface with Dragon Dictate. Any program that accepts text input should work with this software.

Besides Dictation other input methods include Command, Spelling and Number modes. Command comes in six varieties – Global, Mode Based, Window Based, Key, Generated and Application Based. Don’t worry about memorizing all the commands; simply say “Show Available Commands” to get a list of commands for the active application.

Spelling mode allows the user to spell words unknown to the Dragon Dictate dictionary, while Numbers mode is designed for numeric and database type input.

The key to using Dragon Dictate is to speak clearly and naturally; speed is not an issue if you don’t mumble. Speaking in full sentences using your “natural” voice will yield the best results. For those initially starting with Dragon Dictate you will become quite familiar with the phrases Scratch Word or Scratch That as these commands help delete errors.

Compared to earlier versions the accuracy of Dragon Dictate 2.5 is significantly better.

Besides errors made by the user the software requires plenty of training to optimize its efficacy. Nuance includes tools such as vocabulary editor, voice training an vocabulary training to help improve the software’s accuracy.

One of the drawbacks in prior versions of Dictate was the need for having a microphone nearby. Although Dragon includes the well-designed Plantronics headset, it is not always readily available thus making Dictate not really functional as the built in Mac microphone is not recommended for transcription.

To remedy this issue Dragon has released a free iOS app called Dragon Remote Microphone. This app allows the one to use their mobile Apple device as a wireless microphone. It is compatible with both the latest Mac and PC versions of Dragon’s transcription software.

The main requirements for using the Dragon Remote Microphone are that both the computer and iOS device be on the same wireless network. Before using this app you’ll need to modify a previous Dragon profile or create a new one.

To test this app I use my iPhone 4 as the remote microphone. Transcription was slightly delayed between verbalization and transcription, which was mildly perceptible as compared to the wired microphone.

Dragon Remote Microphone is rather Spartan in appearance as the main screen lists the active profile and has a button for toggling the microphone on and off. On the bottom left corner is an information icon that calls up a help screen. The lower right-hand side has the settings button which allows a user to automatically find your Mac running Dragon Dictate or to manually enter an IP address for that machine allowing the app to connect wirelessly.

Another exciting new feature with Dragon Dictate 2.5 is the addition the social network integration including Facebook and twitter. For instance if I wanted to post “check out the latest Dragon Dictate review on test freaks” I would say that phrase and then say “tweet that”. The same thing can be done for Facebook.

In the past when using Dictate you needed to either click on the microphone icon or issue the command “go to sleep” to auto sleep the microphone. With this latest version the microphone goes to sleep after 1 min. of inactivity or a user set time increment between 30 seconds to 5 minutes or never if you prefer via the software preference panel.

In terms of functionality the best improvement made by Dragon in this version of Dictate is its seamless integration into Microsoft Word 2011. In the past trying to make edits using the keyboard and mouse would severely mess up Dictates ability to enter verbal text properly.

Conclusion:

Dragon Dictate 2.5 is a vast improvement over its MacSpeech predecessors. The voice-recognition is leaps and bounds more accurate in this latest version. Although it still struggles with certain words I found the experience to be much smoother with Dragon Dictate 2.5.

The key to accurate voice transcription is to speak clearly and to enunciate. My prior Dictate version would occasionally pickup ambient noise and enter “the”, “and” or other phantom words into my documents; while this version does not seem to have this issue. The main caveat to using Dragon Dictate is operating in a semi-quiet environment. Background noise can and will affect the efficacy of the program.

If you spend long days on the keyboard or are loath to type then Dragon Dictate 2.5 is a godsend. Since most people speak faster than they type this program will improve one’s productivity. If you are already a Dictate user you may want to consider upgrading based on the new features found in Dragon Dictate 2.5. If you were pondering whether to start using speech recognition software then Dragon Dictate 2.5 is definitely the way to go for the Mac user.

Pros:
+Improves on earlier versions
+Accurate speech recognition
+Twitter and Facebook functionality
+Allows iOS devices to work as wireless microphone
+Compatible with OS X Lion and Word 2011

Cons:
-Still expensive

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

The software comes in a box that opens up  into panels to explain more. Inside you’ll find a lot of documentation and the software discs themselves of course.

Specifications:

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9 & ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS 9

The #1 selling photo- and video-editing software

Great value! Adobe® Photoshop Elements 9 & Adobe Premiere Elements 9 software delivers powerful options that make it easy to use photos and videos together and share in entertaining ways. Now enjoy a complete solution for photos and videos whether you use Windows or Mac OS.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 & Adobe Premiere Elements 9 Plus includes the award-winning software, 20GB of online storage, and much more.

Features:
Instantly unclutter or repair photos
Is your photo cluttered with telephone wires, tourists, or passing cars? Make unwanted elements vanish with one stroke of the enhanced Spot Healing Brush, which beautifully blends even the most complex background. Also, instantly fix old or torn photos so you can make new prints.

Easily match a favorite photo style
Want to imitate a favorite photography style, like a dramatic high contrast or a beautiful color tone? Photomerge Style Match analyzes the stylistic qualities of any photo you choose and then automatically applies those qualities to another photo.

Create stunning photo effects
Easily create stunning effects that enhance your photos with professional style. New Guided Edits help you create pop art masterpieces, reflection effects, LOMO camera style photography looks, and more.

Create the way you want
Use flexible themed layouts to create photo books, disc covers, and more. Choose your level of control with Basic to Advanced design modes, and get the right look by accessing every photo-editing option from within your layouts. Print your creations with your home printer.

Share movies in an exciting new way on the web
Debut your movie with a convenient, interactive web DVD viewing experience. Easily share your movie — complete with a scene index and chapter menus — on Photoshop.com or your own website.

Jazz up the action
Give your movie an eye-catching cartoon look. Choose from a variety of animation styles, and customize as you wish.

Easily fix audio problems
Easily reduce background noise and fix problems with audio volume and clarity so your movie has high-quality sound from start to finish.

Easily import video from compact camcorders and more
Easily bring in video from compact camcorders like Flip cameras and DSLR still cameras.

Enjoy optimized HD editing
Experience fluid responsiveness and high performance when editing video, even HD.

So I installed the software, you have to install the separately of course.  It took a little over six minutes to install Photoshop and almost five to install Premiere Elements. Once everything was installed I ran opened them but I had to install the updated which took a few more minutes. So let’s take a look at everything.

It does come with some extra stuff including 2gb of free storage. There is the option to upgrade to Plus as well.

The first thing we’ll take a quick look at is Premiere Elements 9

When you’re creating a project you can change a plethora of setting for the videos, which is nice so you can configure everything to your needs exactly.

The interface is fairly basic honestly, but that’s good as you can make a basic video quickly and easily. If you want though you can take advantage of al of the advanced features as well to make your video how you want it with special effects, and other editing.

Here’s all of the menus expanded to give you an idea of just what you can do:

Next up is Photoshop Elements 9, which I think needs no introduction, it’s Photoshop after all and you can edit and do all sort of things to your photos. On the right side you’ll find the tools, and then on the left side there’s more for editing and special effects.

Here’s the menus expanded for you to get a better look at all of the options again:

So as you can see, with both of these you can do plenty of thing to your videos and photos. There’s just so much to cover here with this type of program.

Conclusion:
A review of this type of software can be a difficult thing really, there’s just way to much to cover really from a beginning standpoint.  That’s a good thing of course as with this software you can do pretty much anything you ever could possibly want to your photos and videos. You won’t need different programs and since they’re both from Adobe you know you’re getting a truly quality product.

Had I already owned the previous version I could have compared the differences and just told you what changed, but I don’t so I can’t. In the time I’ve had this software installed I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by all fo the features an options of it honestly. There’s a lot you can do with this software truly, and it can be a powerful set of tools in the right hands.

The best part of all of this though is that it’s inexpensive for all that you get.

Pros:
+Powerful suite of photo and video editing software
+Very popular everywhere
+Includes 2 gig of storage

Cons:
-There’s a lot to learn
-Can have a high learning curve

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9 & ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS 9 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

OmniFocus for Mac is a powerful productivity program based around the GTD framework that works with Macs and mobile Apple devices (as an additionally purchased app). It functions as a task management solution using a workflow system designed to “catch” any thoughts and ideas into an Inbox and then sort them into tasks and projects.

This algorithm provides a visual representation of the OmniFocus program workflow.

Specifications:

OmniFocus for Mac

OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. Perfect for the Getting Things Done system, but flexible enough for any task management style, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on top of all the things you need to do.
Features

1. Capture
Quickly and easily record all your miscellaneous to-dos and store items in your inbox until you’re ready to process and organize them. Capture it all on the fly with the quick entry panel, accessible via keyboard shortcut from virtually any application.

2. Organize
Use the powerful contexts feature in OmniFocus to categorize actions by work mode. When you’re ready to sit down and make some calls, just click on the Phone context in your OmniFocus document in order to see all the phone-related tasks you have.

3. Define
Transform all your tasks into actionable next steps by assigning them to projects and contexts. Create start and due dates, time estimates, and task recurrence schedules, and let OmniFocus do the work of remembering everything that’s on your plate.

4. Sync
You can’t accomplish your goals if you don’t have them with you. OmniFocus synchronizes your task database with a server or disk, so that all of your Macs, your iPhone, and your iPod Touch are up-to-date. Sync over your local network using Bonjour, through the cloud using MobileMe or any standard WebDAV server, or even with something as simple as a USB drive.

5. Review
Filter and sort actions with the click of a button. Unlike other task management solutions, OmniFocus has an arsenal of powerful options for choosing how to view your data. Hide or show actions as you see fit, tell OmniFocus to only show the very next thing you need to do to finish a project, view only the items that are due this week—it’s up to you.

6. Focus
Use OmniFocus to keep your goals and tasks, both personal and professional, in one ordered, easy to access system that you can depend on. Unburden your mind of everything you need to remember, and focus your attention on the things that matter to you most.

OmniFocus for Mac is available for download from the OmniGroup website as well as the Apple App Store. The pricing is the same through either channel, which is a little unusual, as the Apple has been offering, discounted prices on apps sold through their App store. I personally prefer directly purchasing from the software creator’s site as you have a license key and can easily install the app on other machines including older OS X versions.

OmniFocus for Mac offers a thirty-day trial, after that time you will need to purchase the application and enter a license code. One thing I highly recommend before starting to use OmniFocus for Mac is to check out their video tutorial.

OmniFocus for Mac uses the familiar Mac OS X layout with a sidebar, central work area and top toolbar. This setup is very similar to the Apple Mail interface with the sidebar holding the tasks, contexts and project information. The main work area provides the pertinent information about a specific sidebar item. The toolbar provides access to the Inbox, Projects and Context lists, has the Due and Flagged actions for task items along with Add Action, Show All, View, Inspect and Sync.

The OmniFocus for Mac version of the Getting Things Done system is based on six concepts – Capture, Organize, Define, Sync, Review and Focus. This process is supposed to help streamline the numerous tasks we have in our daily lives and allow us to focus on getting them accomplished.

Capture involves grabbed all plans, tasks, to dos and lumping them into the uncategorized Inbox. The OmniGroup believes in capturing these fleeting thoughts into one place, which can be processed and organized at another time if necessary. Simply throw things in like – go to grocery store, pay credit card bill, paint bedroom into the Inbox.

Entering items is as simple as hitting the Add Action button on the top toolbar. Many folks may stop at this juncture and use the Inbox with various due dates, but then you are not getting the full capability of OmniFocus for Mac.

The Organize step is exactly what it sounds like – these uncategorized items in the Inbox can assigned to Contexts or Projects. Contexts may include Errands, Home, Office, etc while Projects are what they sound – bigger tasks that are combinations are individual tasks. For instance my wife’s birthday project was comprised of several individual to dos such as renting a hall, ordering food, and getting babysitting.

To do items can be categorized as both contexts and as part of projects. Thus an item such as Write OmniFocus for Mac review is a Work context and can be filed under my TestFreaks Reviews Project.

Now you can Define your tasks by creating schedules, due dates, and time estimates.

Sync involves keeping access to the your OmniFocus system across Macs and iOS devices. The program can sync to your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or other Mac via local network using Bonjour, through the cloud using MobileMe or any standard WebDAV server. Unfortunately the mobile app versions are not included and will cost an additional fee; plus they are not universal apps meaning you will need to buy an iPad and iPhone version if you own both those devices.

Review involves using the power of OmniFocus for Mac to filter and sort tasks out. Filtering allows the user to see tasks across projects or limited to just the next task in a project. The choice is up to the user. Projects can be labeled as Active, On Hold, Completed or Dropped.

If using OmniFocus for Mac as intended by the OmniGroup, then the last step – Focus should be easily met.

So what differentiates OmniFocus for Mac from competitors such as Things or The HitList? It’s like comparing Photoshop against Photoshop Elements; the difference being the power “under the hood”. It is designed for the hardcore Getting Things Done user.

There are also a host of options in the Preferences section to tweak OmniFocus for Mac.

The lack of Dropbox syncing is a bit of a let down, as most programs seem to have integrated Dropbox as a syncing option, especially when the program works between OS X and iOS systems.

Conclusion:

Getting Things Done programs range from the simplistic to the intricate. OmniFocus for Mac falls into the latter category. It is one of those programs that need to be studied before using it to its fullest capacity. The program is intuitively designed and after watching the instructional videos you should have a grasp of its versatility and depth.

My main gripe with OmniFocus for Mac is the price. The Mac app alone costs $79.99 while the iPad version is $39.99 and the iPhone app is $19.99. That’s $150 for something most people use a piece of paper to accomplish. Don’t forget to add “get a part time job to pay for the Omni apps” to the tasks list.

For the hard-core Getting Things Done user, OmniFocus for Mac is a dream come true.

Pros:
+Intuitive Task Manager
+Seamless workflow
+Ability to sync across OS X and iOS devices
+Trial version available to “try before buying”

Cons:
-Expensive
-Does not have Dropbox sync capability

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of OmniFocus for Mac is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Smile Software was kind enough to provide Testfreaks with a review copy of TextExpander 3, which I have had a chance to test for the past month. This simple app is pretty powerful in its function and can save the user lots of time and energy by avoiding tedious computing tasks.

Explaining what TextExpander 3 is about can be hard especially to the neophyte. If you have dealt with macros in the past then this utility can seem familiar. The bulk of the TextExpander works through snippets, which are abbreviations that auto, populates user created content whether it is a paragraph, letter or email signature.

For instance the snippet “ddate” when typed on my machine will yield the current date such as 1/24/2011. These snippets can be activated by just typing them in and leaving a space or via a defined trigger key.

Snippets can be used within any program on the Mac or restricted to certain applications by the user.

Snippets can be placed into groups, where their behavior can be defined. Certain groups may be used within pre-defined applications, while other groups can work with all programs. If you have a tendency to misspell certain words, simply create an abbreviation using that misspelling and the program will autocorrect it with the proper spelling that you entered as the snippet. Smile Software also offers predefined snippet libraries that can be installed from the main program screen. One of these libraries includes an extensive auto-correct listing.

My personal favorite feature of TextExpander is the ability to create boilerplate text with fill in sections. Thus a letter starting with “Dear _______” allows the user to insert the addressee’s name before inserting the boilerplate into your document.

The previous version of TextExpander operated within the System Preferences pane, while this current version functions as a stand-alone program with its own Dock and menu bar icons. Smile Software does allow the Dock icon to be hidden with TextExpander 3 operating off the menu bar. Since it is not a Preference Pane item the app does have to be actively running to function. Personally I wish the option to runs through the Preference Pane remained.

Off the menu bar icon one finds a snippet search field along with the ability to create new snippets, and ability to scan the user’s list of snippets and folders.

Smile offers a thirty-day free trial period to try out the software before having to purchase it at the $35 price. Previous TextExpander owners can upgrade at the discounted price of $15. There is a version for the iPod Touch/iPhone that allows network syncing of snippets.

On the Smile website are several videos that will explain how to get started using TextExpander 3. I highly recommend you check these out as it makes the user experience must more seamless. The TextExpander blog offers additional handy user tips as well.

Specifications:

TextExpander 3

New! TextExpander 3 with easier snippet creation, editing and search tools!
Save time and effort with TextExpander! Whether it’s a simple email signature or several paragraphs of a standard response, you’ll love how easy it is to use TextExpander to avoid typing the same thing over and over.

Use different email signatures?
Easily insert a customized signature with a few keystrokes. You can even include a photo or logo!

Need easy access to boilerplate paragraphs?
Add them to your snippet library and insert them into your emails and contracts by typing a short abbreviation.

Filling out forms?
Make it easy on yourself by adding your address, email, phone and fax numbers to your snippet library.

Keep making the same typos?
Add common typos as triggers – TextExpander automatically replaces them with the correct spelling! TextExpander also includes the TidBITs AutoCorrect Dictionary.

Want to insert HTML and CSS code quickly?
Create abbreviations for commonly used tags! Or use our built-in HTML and CSS snippet groups.

Need to insert the current date or time?
TextExpander comes with date and time snippets that you can format the way you want.

Use special characters or accented words?
Try our built-in snippet groups to insert special characters and accent marks easily.

Check out TextExpander’s powerful features that save you time and effort!
See how TextExpander measures up to other typing utility software programs for the Mac!

features

Save time and effort with TextExpander! Whether it’s a simple email signature or several paragraphs of a standard response, you’ll love how easy it is to use TextExpander to avoid typing the same thing over and over.
Save thousands of keystrokes by using short abbreviations to insert “snippets” containing frequently-used phrases and images
Insert standard greetings and signatures — including formatted text and pictures
Assign hotkeys to save even more time when creating, editing and searching your snippets.
Reposition the cursor in the expanded snippet, or use our new fill-in-the-blank snippets to enter variable data in multiple fields.
Organize snippets into groups

Add snippet groups from external files and online sources
Sync snippets via MobileMe or Dropbox
Insert the current date and time in any format you prefer
Add common typos to your snippet library—TextExpander will automatically correct them for you!
Type special characters without having to launch a special characters palette
Trigger snippet expansions automatically by typing the abbreviations you specify, or use any one of over 30 delimiter characters as a trigger
Position the cursor wherever you want in your expanded snippet
Programmers: make editor-independent code templates; invoke AppleScripts and shell scripts

The main work area for TextExpander 3 is the snippet creation window. Here Groups and Snippets can be created and organized. The top of the windows has buttons for New Snippet and New Group Creation along with a Delete button on the left. The right side has a Statistics and Preference Button along with a Filter window. The left pane reveals the groups and snippets with the right pane acting as the workspace for editing Snippets or the Group Settings menu for a particular group.

Snippets can be created in this window or by choosing to automatically create a snippet from your clipboard or highlighted text via the TextExpander 3 icon from the menu bar. The key to efficient TextExpander 3 use is creating easy to remember snippet abbreviations. These snippets are case sensitive thus using combinations of lower and upper case letters will help make a snippet unique. For instance in this review I used “Tex” as the snippet for the term “TextExpander 3”.

The TextExpander Preferences features six options. The Expansion tab allows the setting of triggers for snippet expansion. I set several of my snippets to be triggered using the “\” button.

Options control the capitalization choices and capitalization correction. Appearance controls whether TextExpander is seen in the menu bar, dock or both, and style of icon; it also sets whether the utility launches on log in.

Sync sets up the ability to share your snippet library across Macs via MobileMe or Dropbox and the iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone TextExpander 3 app via local network. Currently you cannot sync to the Apple mobile platform using MobileMe or Dropbox which is a bummer.

One thing I did discover using Dropbox to sync TextExpander 3’s snippet library was that the application could not run on two machines concurrently and sync the changes automatically. One instance of TextExpander 3 needed to be closed and reopened to integrate changes from the other Mac.

From the Hotkeys tab you can preset hotkey combinations for launching, enabling, disabling the program as well as ones to create snippets from selections or clipboard contents.

Update allows checking for program improvements at daily, weekly or monthly intervals. The Backup button allows scheduling of TextExpander preferences and snippet libraries.

Besides the ability to add you own created snippets, TextExpander 3 can add snippet groups from online sources. For the programmer TextExpander 3 allows the ability to insert HTML and CSS code quickly, the ability to invoke AppleScripts or shell scripts. If you need to add images then TextExpander 3 can do that easily; digitally signing electronic documents has never been easier.

Thumbnail gallery here

Conclusion:
The best way to classify TextExpander 3 is as a time saving utility. Most everyone has some repetitive aspect of his or her job or life that can be made less arduous thru the use of TextExpander 3. Now boilerplate letters can be created and personalized in seconds, emails responded to with a few keyboard entries and more. With TextExpander 3 you’ll never have to type the same thing over and over again.

After reviewing TextExpander 3, my list of must have Mac apps has grown by one. Besides 1Password, Dropbox and Quicksilver, this app will be one of the first installs on any Mac machine I will use in the future. Since they offer a free 30 day trial there is no reason why you should not text out TextExpander 3. After this trial run you’ll probably wonder how you managed your Mac workflow with out it.

Pros:
+Syncs between Macs with Dropbox and Mobile Me
+Saves time by streamlining repetitive tasks
+Integrates with every Mac program
+Works as spelling auto corrector

Cons:
-TextExpander 3 application has to be actively running
-Preference Pane option has been removed
-Syncing via Dropbox needs some tweaking

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of TextExpander 3 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Specifications:

3DMark 11

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

3DMark score
Benchmark presets offer a convenient way of scaling the benchmark load to provide relevant results for all levels of hardware. These pre-selected combinations of settings represent successively more advanced levels of visual quality. When running 3DMark 11 with one of the presets selected, the benchmark produces a score for that preset. The 3DMark score is calculated differently for each preset which means that scores are not comparable across different presets.

Entry preset
This preset is designed for benchmarking with a low level of load on the graphics card. The benchmark runs in 1024 x 600 resolution making it suitable for most DirectX 11 capable systems including notebooks and netbooks.

Performance preset
This preset is designed for benchmarking with a moderate load on the graphics card. The benchmark runs in 1280 x 720 (720p) making it suitable for most DirectX 11 capable gaming

Extreme preset
This preset is designed for benchmarking with a very heavy load on the graphics card. The benchmark runs in 1920 x 1080 (1080p). Although this setting may well bring many PCs to their knees today it represents the likely loads used by high end games in years to come. This preset is particularly well suited to high-end gaming PCs.

Custom preset
The benchmark can be run with customized settings. When it is run in a resolution with an aspect ratio other than 16:9, the rendering is done within a 16:9 letterbox.

Minimum requirements:
3DMark 11 requires DirectX 11, a DirectX 11 compatible video card, and Windows Vista or Windows 7.

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7
Processor: 1.8GHz dual-core Intel or AMD CPU
Memory: 1 GB of system memory
Graphics: DirectX 11 compatible graphics card
Hard drive space: 1.5 GB
Audio: Windows Vista / Windows 7 compatible sound card

Price: $19.95

3DMark 11 is a download so there’s no box shots etc. Installation just takes a few minutes and it’s done.

I’ve got it installed on my gaming system with no dedicated physics card installed at the time. The CPU is an Intel C2Q9650, with a Sparkle GTX 465 video card, 8gigs or ddr3 ram on a DFI Lanparty UT X48-T3RS motherboard running Windows 7 64Bit.

A few things have changed since 3DMark06 surely, the interface is totally redesigned.

When you first load it up it’s straight to business, there are four tabs across the top for Basic, Advanced, Results and Help.

You’ll start out with Basic which gives you options for three Benchmarks at the default settings. The benchmarks are Entry, Performance and Extreme. Beneath that you’ll see three choices next to the launcher button. You can run the Full 3DMark 11 Experience which includes the Demos and the Benchmarks. This is actually probably the best to use as the demos help to warm up your card in preparation for the testing. The next two choices are for the Demo only and then for Benchmark tests only.

The next tab is Advanced, here you can change all of the settings if you wanted to for custom runs.

The next tab is Results, after you’ve completed your testing the results will be shown here.

The last tab is Help which just has some information and a link to support.

The Demo mode is an audio visual demo in two parts, one undersea and one on land.

Audio visual demo
The audio visual demo is designed to showcase the DirectX 11 graphics from the Deep Sea and High Temple tests accompanied by an evocative soundtrack. Image quality and other effect settings are scaled according to your hardware to ensure decent frame rates. In 3DMark 11 Basic Edition the demo resolution is fixed at 720p while in 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition users can choose from a wide range of custom resolutions.

Graphics Test 1 is underwater, specifically with submersibles.

Graphics Test 1

* Based on the Deep Sea scene
* No tessellation
* Heavy lighting with several shadow casting lights

Graphics Test 2 is underwater again.

Graphics Test 2

* Based on the Deep Sea scene
* Medium tessellation
* Medium lighting with few shadow casting lights

Graphics Test 3 is outside in what looks to be ancient ruins called the High Temple.

Graphics Test 3
* Based on the High Temple scene
* Medium tessellation
* One shadow casting light

Graphics Test 4 is another temple scene but this time much more complex.

Graphics Test 4

* Based on the High Temple scene
* Heavy tessellation
* Many shadow casting lights

Then there’s the Physics Test, which is pretty self-explanatory. The graphics here are fairly basic, it’s just blocks falling after all.

Physics Test
* Rigid body physics simulation with a large number of objects
* This test runs at a fixed resolution regardless of the chosen preset

Then the final test is a combination graphics and physics test.

Combined Test

* Runs rigid body physics simulation on a moderate number of objects
* Soft body physics using DirectCompute and the Bullet physics library running on the GPU
* Medium tessellation
* Medium lighting

In the majority of the tests the graphics are beautiful, and they can be enjoyable to watch as long as your system can handle it.

When you’ve completed each test you’ll get a score of course, and there are different scores for each testing level that can’t be compared to each other. Here’s how my system did on all three settings:

If you have it set to automatically view results you’ll be taken to a very big webpage with details about your system and the testing. I had to break the page into three sections or screen captures as it was so long.

As you can see even on the Performance level my system didn’t do too good, I expected it to do much better really, at least in terms of the frame rates for the tests. My GTX465 and system combines usually do very well in most all games. Normally I run it paired with a GTX260 for Physics, so that adding that back in might improve scores, or it might not….

At the present time I’ve only got two DirectX 11 capable cards, the GTX465 and a GT430 which is a low profile card not exactly meant for gaming so there would not have been much of a real comparison.  Yes, you can only run 3Dmark11 with DirectX 11 capable cards and only Vista or Windows 7 operating systems.

Conclusion:
For $20 you get the newest and greatest benchmarking software from the great Futuremark. You could also opt for the free version, but where’s the fun in that?!

Seriously though, 3DMark 11 will tax and test your system to make sure you’ve got the hardware to play the latest, greatest and upcoming games.

On the Extreme mode it will most likely crush any system out there today except for the most high end out there, and even then I don’t think they’ll do to well.

If you want to be sure your system can handle the games out there, then this is a quick and easy way to test it.

The program is very configurable so you can set it for your system. I also noticed that overall the benchmarks seem to take less time than the other versions of their tests, this should make some people happy.

Futuremark knows what they’re doing when it comes to benchmarking. The addition of the three levels Entry, Performance and Extreme defaults, can help you know what works best for your system.

The only small complaint I could have is the scenery isn’t quite like others in the 3Dmark series, those were more fantasy and sci-fi, with 3DMark 11 you get more of realistic locales. It’s not a big deal, but I actually like watching them, and so do my kids. Another small complaint, and it’s not the fault of Futuremark, is that no games look as good as these benchmarks and demos do sadly.

Pros:
+Configurable
+Very nice looking
+Online option to save and compare scores
+Simple and easy to use

Cons:
-Extreme settings will crush pretty much any system

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of 3DMark 11 Advanced Edition is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

There is no unboxing for this software as it is downloadable, at least the version I received for review is.  Actually this is kind of part two of the Seagate FreeAgent Go review I did not long ago (Find it HERE). When you purchase the FreeAgent you’ll get a special edition of this software for review, but they were kind enough to send me over the full version to check out.

Specifications:

muvee Reveal 8

Many video software programs are complicated and take a long time to learn, muvee Reveal is different. In most video software  you have to go through a steep learning curve to learn the software and then spend a great deal of time working on timelines, tweaking effects and using sync markers just to make a short home video. muvee Reveal eliminates all the complexity and lets you concentrate on telling your story.

Constructed after years of working with and consulting professional video editors using manual video software tools.
Video software should let you do what you want to do – make a home video, make it look good and share it with friends and family. muvee Reveal is so simple it does not even come with an instruction manual.

Download, install, add media, add music, play, and upload, embed, burn or what ever takes your fancy. It’s video software for anyone looking to create professional looking home movies without the fuss.

Features:

Full HD Support
Make crystal-clear movies using your photos or HD video. Choose between 1280×720 (720p) and 1920×1080 (1080p) resolutions. Input HD directly from devices including the Flip and AVCHD/HDV camcorders.

NVIDIA CUDA Acceleration
Movies save up to 8x faster with NVIDIA CUDA!
For systems with NVIDIA CUDA-enabled graphics card, you can enhance the processing power of saving and rendering your movies up to 8x faster than before.

Share easily
With muvee Reveal, you can instantly share your movies with your favorite social networks too! Upload to Facebook and YouTube. Burn DVDs, or export your movies to your iPod, iPhone, mobile phone and PSP directly. Share your movies anytime, any place.

Supported input formats:
Video: WMV, Quicktime, MPEG4, H.264, MPEG2, MPEG1, DV-AVI, DVD Camcorder MPEG2, AVCHD, AVCHD Lite, HDV
Pictures: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF
Music: MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV

Supported output formats
Video: WMV, WMV-HD, MOV, MOV-HD, H.264, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, DV-AVI, MP4, AVCHD

Full Version: $79.95

Fire it up and after the title screen you saw above you’re greeted with the interface that it broken into four parts.  The top part is to add your videos or photos, the on the left side are two smaller sections for choosing a style and adding music. The large section on the right side that looks like a media player is where your move or slide show comes together. At the very bottom you’ll see two more sections labeled Personalize and Save muvee.

At the top you’ll see two drop down menus for File and Help. Under File you’ll just see New Project, Open Project, Save Project, Save Project As, Save and share your muvee and then Exit. Under Help you’ll just see Using muvee Reveal, Live Chat and Online Support, Check for Update, Customer Experience Program, muvee Community and About muvee Reveal.

In the Help section there is a nice, comprehensive set of instructions for you if you need them. I didn’t use them as this software is really easy to use and it’s meant to be.

A lot of what you’re going to do to customize your movie have to do with styles yes, but Personalize is where you’ll find many more options. Six pages of options are here for Duration, Title, Credits, Logo, Settings, and Voice Over. Title and Credits are self-explanatory and logo is for adding a watermark and you can also add a line of text at the bottom.

The Duration option is for settings the duration of your video, music, and photos.

Under the option of Settings you’ll see options for Motion Effects, Full Portrait Pictures, Video Slow Motion and for Cross-fade Music along with Audio Mix.

The last is Voice Over, which is self-explanatory as well. You’ll have to create a voice over though to add it in, just add a microphone and start talking. Over on the right side you can adjust the audio settings, or volume as well.

When you pick your style you can adjust Style Settings, I was using the style called Strips and with it you can change the Pace, Number, Background Color, and other Color settings.

The video I was making here in these sample was for another site I write for, but at the end here you’ll see the ones I made for TestFreaks as well, along with a sample picture slide show.

Once you set everything the way you want it you can preview it, it will have to process first though which can take a while depending on the length of your video.

Once you’re happy with it you can go and and click Save muvee at which time you’ll be asked how you want to save it. You can upload directly to sites, burn to DVD, save it to your computer or in HD format and even save to a mobile device format.

I picked HD of course, when you do you can rename it to the final name.

You can change some settings too by hitting Change Settings.

I did the movie in 1080p and it turned out to be 436mb in size as a WMV format, the original was 273mb done in 720p and in the Quicktime format. It took 12 minutes and 58 seconds to complete the creation of the movie.

I checked the CPU usage and found it used most of my quad core Corei5 CPU resources.

I’ve got ATI cards in my computer and unfortunately muvee doesn’t support using them for video encoding, but if you have Nvidia cards you can use them to sped things up and take some of the load off of the CPU for video encoding.

So here’s three videos for you I created, two are unboxings with different styles and the third is a video of a slideshow of just some random pictures.

BlackBerry which I did with the Strips theme

Cirago Media center which was done with just a plain theme.

Sample slideshow done with Scrapbook theme:

So really that’s about it, there you have it.

The quality of the finished videos is very good, there’s no real change from the original videos when the software re-encodes them. Normally I used Cyberlink PowerDirector for my movie creation and it’s a bit faster because it can make use of my ATI cards for video encoding. I’m not quite sure which I really like though at this point. I like the speed of PowerDirector but it’s not as easy as muvee Reveal 8 is to use really.

Conclusion:

Using the muvee Reveal 8 software couldn’t be any simpler really, load up your video files and just change some settings and you’re ready to go.  Overall I do like this software and I will continue to use it to get more accustomed to it as it does a good job and it’s very easy to use.

The included styles might seem limited but you can customize them somewhat to mix things up. You could always go and purchase more styles, but they’ll set you back $15 each and there’s not many to choose from.

Another small issue I have is that the software let’s you add music, but in our society today you can’t just add any music to your videos, you’re just not allowed due to copyright restrictions. You have to go and find public domain works yourself. You could purchase the muvee Business Pack though and it includes more themes and a ton of music you’re allowed to use, but the cost is $400. For my uses, that’s what I would need, and even for most people they might want something like that as well.

Pros:
+Very simple to use
+Fairly fast encoding
+Decent output file quality

Cons:
-Limited amount of styles come with it
-Can’t use ATI video cards for video endocing
-Limited additional style available

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of muvee Reveal 8 is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Imagine having your own personal stenographer to transcribe our recorded words into printed text. With today’s review item you need hire your own personal secretary as the Mac OS X based MacSpeech Scribe does the job for you. For those such as myself who detests typing, this program sounds like a godsend.

Scribe works by transcribing recorded audio into a text document. Simply record you audio into one of the accepted file formats – wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, or .m4a; upload the file into Scribe and let it work its transcribing magic.

Scribe sounds great in theory and MacSpeech touts an accuracy rate of 99%. However real world results may vary as factors such as quality of recording, clarity of speech and proper annunciation all affect the accuracy of the transcription results.

MacSpeech Scribe arrives in a black cardboard box packaged with two discs (Installation and Data) and a Quickstart Guide. Inside this guide is the License code, so don’t lose it.

Setting up MacSpeech Scribe was a little more complicated than usual, as my copy of the installation disc did not contain a working DMG file. Thankfully the install program can be downloaded from the MacSpeech site – here. This does not seem to be an isolated occurrence as the website even mentions

“If you own MacSpeech Scribe but are unable to download updates or perform the initial install from the Application Disc, you can Click Here to download the MacSpeech Scribe application directly”

You will need to enter your license found on the Quick Start Guide to finish the application installation. Next set up a “Profile” which will be based on your speech and accent and help Scribe in transcribing your recorded words. Known accents include – American (four types including – inland Northern, Southern, Teens), Australian, British, Indian, Latino, and Southeast Asian.

Training your profile allows Scribe to recognize your voice and speaking style. To start you will need a voice recording of 120 seconds or more. For optimal results MacSpeech recommends using a wired microphone instead of a Bluetooth version for recording.

Recording formats include .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, and .m4a. Surprisingly the .mp3 file format is not accepted.

Once your “training” recording is uploaded; open it with MacSpeech Scribe for the application to transcribe it. At this point you should see your spoken word as text on the screen. Scribe will need you to go through sections of the transcribed text and correct any errors. During this process you can play back your recording to make sure the written text is accurate and correct any errors.

When you are happy with the transcribed results click on the train button to save this session into your Profile. At this point you can perform more transcription training or start regular transcription. Regular transcription works the same way with the user being able to correct and train the program with suggested alternatives on the right side of the transcription window.

The Play button in the bottom right hand corner allows you to list to the highlighted segment as to refresh one’s memory of what was spoken.

From the main Scribe menu you can select those two options or these two – Vocabulary Training and Vocabulary Editor.

Vocabulary Training analyzes your written documents to help determine your writing style and help improve Scribe’s accuracy. The Vocabulary Editor helps add words that are not found in the preinstalled dictionary.

Specifications:

MacSpeech Scribe

MacSpeech Scribe is the world’s most advanced personal transcription solution for the Macintosh. MacSpeech Scribe lets you forget about the painstaking task of typing, and instead create text documents directly from spoken-word audio files. Just imagine it … no more irritating and frustrating stopping, rewinding, re-starting, and typing at a snail’s pace. MacSpeech Scribe transcribes everything for you … easily, quickly, and accurately. And it couldn’t be simpler: Just open your spoken-word audio file with MacSpeech Scribe, click the ‘Transcribe’ button, and MacSpeech Scribe does the transcription work for you. Right before your eyes, you’ll see your file transcribed into text on your screen.

· Amazing Accuracy
MacSpeech Scribe provides an astounding accuracy rate of up to 99% … near perfection. Of course, you can continue to increase accuracy as you use MacSpeech Scribe. Moreover, MacSpeech Scribe NEVER misspells a word. With MacSpeech Scribe, typos are a thing of the past.

· Your Own Personal Transcriptionist
MacSpeech Scribe integrates seamlessly into your personal workflow and is extremely easy to use. Simply record a spoken-word audio file and save it. From there just open your audio file with MacSpeech Scribe, click the ‘Transcribe’ button, and MacSpeech Scribe does the transcription work for you. Right before your eyes you’ll see your file transcribed into text right on your screen. What’s more, MacSpeech Scribe supports up to six speech profiles, ensuring maximum transcription accuracy for up to six different voices.

· Exceptional Recognition
MacSpeech Scribe boasts robust Phrase Training capabilities allowing it to learn as it goes based on your voice input. That means even greater accuracy that more fully integrates into your Macintosh experience. MacSpeech Scribe also recognizes 13 distinct English dialect variations, providing exceptionally strong recognition, and its Vocabulary Editor lets you train individual words and even add new ones such as proper nouns, giving even more control over how it recognizes your speech.

· Punctuation Is A Breeze
MacSpeech Scribe even takes care of punctuation … just speak your punctuation as part of your spoken-word recording, and MacSpeech Scribe converts it to the appropriate punctuation marks. For example, Jay said comma open quote here are my suggested edits period closed quote … will be transcribed as … Jay said, “Here are my suggested edits.”

>Super Versatile
MacSpeech Scribe is versatile; it easily allows transcription from spoken-word audio recordings made on Mac, iPhone and digital recorders, and supports a variety of audio file formats, including .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, and .m4a. What’s more, MacSpeech Scribe lets you create six individual speech profiles to ensure maximum transcription accuracy for up to six different voices.

Minimal Training Required
MacSpeech Scribe provides astounding accuracy and productivity. With just minutes of training, it’ll be effortlessly transcribing your documents, no matter the document size.

Word Work = Easy Work
MacSpeech Scribe lets you easily add new words and acronyms, edit and navigate transcribed documents, and so much more. MacSpeech Scribe makes it easy to work with your transcribed document so you can create the perfect document for your needs.

Built Especially For The Mac
Mac users expect only the best from the applications they use on their Macs. MacSpeech Scribe was built from the ground up to ensure the ultimate experience on Mac OS X.

Exceptional Online Help
For those times when you need a little assistance, MacSpeech Scribe boasts a complete online, searchable Help book. It’s convenient to use, easy to understand, and all just a mouse click away.

System Requirements: System Requirements: Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Internet connection required for product registration. Transcribed audio must be of a single speaker’s dictation in one of these file formats: .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, or .m4a.

Price: $149.99

For testing I ran MacSpeech Scribe on a MacBook Pro 2/4 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM. I used my iPhone 4 and MacBook Pro to record transcription samples in both m4a and wav formats. I used both the built in microphones on the iPhone 4 and the MacBook Pro as well as the Sound ID 510 Bluetooth headset with the iPhone 4 and the Plantronics USB headset that came with MacSpeech Dictate to record on the MacBook Pro.

MacSpeech Scribe’s performance varies on the factors I mentioned at the beginning of the review – quality of recording, clarity of speech and proper annunciation. Scribe was sometimes very accurate getting around 80-90% accuracy and others it was way off the mark.

The most accurate transcriptions occurred using the Plantronic headset recording into the Audacity application and saving it as a wav file. Otherwise the transcriptions were less than accurate using the built in mics on the MacBook Pro and iPhone 4 as well as the Bluetooth.

To be fair MacSpeech does not recommend using anything other than a wired microphone, so the best representation of this guideline is with the Plantronics microphone which provided the best transcription results.

MacSpeech Scribe seems to be similar in its accuracy to its sister program – MacSpeech Dictate, which is a good thing. Overall I was impressed with the ability of Scribe. As you train it more, its accuracy should get better.

Conclusion:

MacSpeech Scribe is a great application for those who need to get their recorded thoughts converted into written form. As a reviewer I find Scribe will be handy as I can now compose thoughts for my reviews on the go and save them onto my iPhone 4. If you need to transcribe your words and do not need the mobility of Scribe then MacSpeech Dictate may be the better alternative.

The accuracy of the program is dependent on the quality of the recording so you may want to invest in a quality microphone. Sadly MacSpeech does not include a microphone headset with Scribe as it does with MacSpeech Dicate.

Other than the high cost, I found MacSpeech Scribe to be a very good program for transcribing recorded audio and especially if you are a writer of any kind you may want to pick up this program.

Pros:
+Transcribes recorded audio
+Works well
+Fairly accurate transcriptions with good quality recordings
+Accepts most common recording formats

Cons:
-Expensive
-.mp3 format not supported

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of MacSpeech Scribe is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

It’s important to  keep the drivers in your system updated to make sure everything runs as it should. You’ve got many drivers in your computer that help keep things working correctly, but as technology progresses these drivers will need updated to keep up. Most people think it’s fairly easy to update your drivers, just download the new ones and apply them, but that’s not the best way to do things as the old drivers always leave something behind. Many times you’ll uninstall your drivers and think they’re gone but they’re really not, traces are left on your computer and in the registry that could cause potential problems for your system. Another issue with installing drivers is having things go bad, a bad driver installation can cause many issues including poor system performance and stability. Fixing bad driver installation can be a daunting task, especially for those not very computer savvy.  Today for review I’ve got an inexpensive and easy solution that can not only fix problems with drivers but can help you do a truly clean install when new updates are available. The program is called Driver Cleaner and with just a few clicks you can fix most any issues related to your video card drivers and a few others as well. The program works by wiping all traces of the drivers from your computer, this can help with upgrades insuring no compatibility issues come up with the previous driver version, but it can also be used to fix a bad driver installation as well. So read on to learn more…

Driver Cleaner is a downloadable program so there’s no box or anything like that. For the price of $9.99 you actually get two programs, the main one, Driver Cleaner and Driver Version Check which does what it sounds like, it checks which versions of drivers you have and lets you know if a new one is available.

Right now I’m using Windows Vista Ultimate X64 on this computer I’m writing this review on and that’s the one I used Driver Cleaner with.

The first thing I did was run Driver Version Check and I ran into a small issue with it it reports that I’m running 32bit drivers which I know I’m not, and it says the newest versions is actually an older version.

There is a drop down box that lists the 64bit version of the drivers but it won’t let me select it..

So this little program doesn’t quite work for me, but it’s not  a big deal to me personally. I’ve actually never used the program except for this review, I know what drivers I’ve got running and I pay attention to when they need updated.

Specifications:

DriverCleaner

Drivercleaner.net  has been built from the ground up to be a simple program to use. You don’t need any registry knowledge. All you do is purchase the application, instruct it to remove the drivers you need – it really is that simple.

A bad driver installation can not only make your games run poorly it can also cause start up, stability and performance issues. Driver Cleaner will help stop this from ever happening. By wiping all traces of previous drivers that may have been installed on your system, Driver Cleaner will ensure that no conflicts or driver issues will occur, keeping the system clean.

By wiping all traces of previous drivers that may have been installed on your system, Driver Cleaner will ensure that no conflicts or driver issues will occur, keeping the system clean. Use Driver Cleaner every time you upgrade/change hardware or simply wish to install the latest or different driver.  This will ensure your hardware runs at it’s optimal performance.

Supported Driver include:
ATI, Nvidia, Intel, Logitech, Razer, Maxtor, Hauppauge!, Microsoft, Realtek, S3 Graphics, Creative Graphics, Killer, VIA , PhysX by Ageia and many more.

Price: $9.99

So it’s time to upgrade my ATI drivers for my 4870 video card. The first thing you need to do is uninstall your old drivers which is fairly simple just use the ATI uninstall program.

Before we get into the actual Driver Cleaner program I took some screen shots of the interface for you.

When you first start up the program you’re greeted with the Driver Cleaner log and then a warning to make sure you follow the instructions or something bad might happen.

After you click ‘OK’ you’ll be taken to the main interface that’s empty until you start selecting things. There are two drop down menus at the top with limited options.

Under Help you’ll find the instruction guide to help you get things started.

To use Driver Cleaner you’ll need to select what you want to clean from the drop down box, you can select multiple drivers as well so you can get it all done at once. Then you’ll hit scan and when it’s done scanning you’ll hit the Clean button.

Well let’s jump back to the beginning where I uninstalled my drivers, after the uninstall is complete, reboot your system and go into Safe Mode to actually run Driver Cleaner.

At this point I’ve already showed you how to select your drivers, I did that while in Safe Mode and then hit scan. The process took about two minutes to complete, then you’ll be able to select what you want cleaned.

The next step would be to hit the Clean button and let Driver Cleaner do its job.

And that’s it you’re done.

The only thing left to do is reboot your computer and install your new drivers. I don’t think you need screen shots for that though, everyone can handle installing the drivers I would hope.

Conclusion:

I’ve been using Driver Cleaner for quite a while now and  I think it really does help with keeping your system nice an tidy. In a few steps that take about 10 minutes total, uninstalling, cleaning and reinstalling, you’ll have a nice fresh install of your drivers and not have to worry about any possible issues that could come up. Driver Cleaner isn’t just for updates it can be used to fix a bad driver installation as well which makes it a useful tool to easily fix driver problems so you won’t have to do it manually which could involve delving into the registry of your computer..

Yes I ran into a problem with the Driver Version Check program but I had no issues with the main program which is the important one we’re concerned with.

Pros:
+Simple to use
+Inexpensive
+Works well

Cons:
-For me it shows wrong driver versions in the check program

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Review of Driver Cleaner is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

For review today I’ve got two products. You can buy Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010 by itself or few a few dollars more you can get a GPS receiver with it. Today I have the bundle for review. Streets and Trips by itself is a great program for helping you find places and get directions, but if you pair it with a GPS receiver you will turn your computer into a full fledged navigation system that will help you do more than just get from point A to point B. I’ve installed the software and hooked up the GPS to my netbook and took it for spin, so read on to learn more..

Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator 2010 comes in a box as you might expect. The front opens up to show you more information about it.

Inside you’ll find the GPS receiver along with the software.

The GPS receiver itself looks just like a flash drive, the cap comes off, and included is a USB cable as well.

Specifications:

Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator 2010

Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator pairs the trip-planning features of Streets & Trips software with a compact, cable-free Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. This device plugs directly into your laptop and when used with Streets & Trips gives you spoken driving guidance plus automatic rerouting if you miss a turn, making it easier to navigate with confidence.

Price: $69.95 ERP

More Ways to Customize Your Travel
Streets & Trips can calculate your mileage, time, and fuel expenses in advance so you know when you will arrive and how much it will cost you to get there. Set your driving preferences— such as how frequently you want to make a rest stop, what hours you want to drive, or even if you want to avoid driving on busy interstates—to create your ultimate trip.

Make Your Trip Your Own
Plan your perfect trip including multiple destinations, rest stops, scenic detours, fuel stops, and more. Personalize your maps with comments, phone numbers, and notes about planned stops for easy reference. With one click, you can optimize your route to save time and money.

For my testing of the GPS and the software I installed it on my OCZ Neutrino netbook. It’s small and portable so I thought that would make the perfect choice.

Installation is easy, just follow the prompts and you’re done.

One I got everything up and running I ran into my first problem with the GPS device itself. The netbook had to sit on the passenger seat of my car and the supplied USB cable in only about two feet long, nowhere near long enough to reach the dashboard from the seat in my 2009 Subaru Forester. The design though of my car has the window actually going farther back over the seat so the seat is under the part of the window so the GPS can be exposed, but the connectivity is spotty this way as it only leaves a small  view of the sky. To solve this I just grabbed another USB extension cable and connected them together, problem solved, or so I thought. Now the GPS receiver does reach the dashboard but it slides around and eventually just falls off the dash onto the floor losing the GPS signal. Getting a third USB cable solves the problem by allowing me to wedge the receiver between the window and the dashboard, not a very elegant solution but it works, at least for me. Microsoft would wise to include some sort of holder or maybe just a suction cup attachment for the GPS receiver.

Since my netbook sits on the passenger seat it’s rather difficult to see the screen while driving, you’ll have to take our eyes off of the road to check the make or to look for your next turn. Taking your eyes off of the road is not recommended. Luckily though in Streets and Trips 2010 you do get voice navigation with spoken directions. if you can deal with only listening to the directions then you’ll be fine. Using this type of navigation is much different if you’ve ever something like a TomTom or Garmin that get affixed to your dashboard or window.

You can configure the GPS window in several ways by adding or removing panes. Here’s a basic view, without the text directions which you can make viewable. The map can also be zoomed in and out as well if you wish to get a closer view. Under the map is your directions or turns you’ll need to make, it’s in text and there’s an arrow pointing in the direction you’ll need to turn, beneath that arrow is how far until the turn. At the bottom of the interface is a progress bar that lets you know how long visually until the next turn, beside that is Driving Time, Next Stop, and Distance to End. To the left side is GPS information like speed and altitude, longitude and latitude, along with a compass.

The Map view has four different modes, Road Map, Terrain Map, Political Map and a Night Map. Personally I don’t get why there’s a political map there?!? No, it’s not really a Political map in the way we think of politics, it just shows you boundaries of cities, counties, state and national boundaries as well as borders.

The map also can you lots of information like Points of Interest and can be zoomed in to street level if need be.  On the top bar is an icon that looks like a map with a green pin stuck in it, that icon will allow you to automatically connect to the internet and show your place on Bing maps, which is a nice touch really.

Here’s a couple example of a route I planned for going from New York to Pittsburgh:

You might notice also that you can have your route adjusted for construction delays as well, which is a nice feature but you’ll have to be able to access the internet to get the information.

While planning your trip you’ve also got a few other options, or things you can factor in to your trip expenses. Under Route Options you’ll find choices for Profile, Driving Speeds, Fuel, Costs and Segments.

Here’s the drop down menu options, there’s choices for File, Edit, View, Data, Route, Tools and Help.

You can access help from the menu options of hit the big blue question mark. There’s quite a bit of information listed in the help file to get you started and navigating.

One of the strong points of this product is also one that makes it a bit overcomplicated. There’s an abundance of options that makes using it just for GPS a bit overcomplicated. Yes it’s nice to have access to all of that information but for someone who just wants a GPS device for directions, you might be better off with getting a stand alone unit. That’s not saying this is a bad product though, it just can be a bit overwhelming for someone who just wants directions from point A to point B.

As far as the actual GPS receiver it works fine for what you need to do. Acquisition is fairly fast, and it’s able to keep a signal as long as you can keep the receiver in view of the sky.My stand alone TomTom is faster at acquisition but not much really. The GPS tracking works well, it seems just as accurate as my TomTom One Xl-S is, but it seems a bit slower overall in terms of tracking your position.

Getting to and from using Street and trips 2010 is like other GPS devices, it works but it won’t replace your own knowledge of your local streets. What I mean is that it doesn’t know really which time of the day traffic is backed up where, and it doesn’t know when you’re sure to be stuck behind a school bus. This isn’t the fault of this product though, it’s the same with any GPS device.

I checked over at Amazon and found this bundle selling for only $59.99.  Buying Streets and Trips 2010 alone will cost you $37.99, so for less than $20 more you get a GPS receiver as well, not a bad deal really.

Conclusion:

Streets and Trips 2010 is a feature rich choice for your navigation needs, there’s plenty of options to make your trip easier, more economical and even fun.  Turn by turn navigation is comparable to other GPS devices and the GPS receiver is more than adequate for your navigation needs.

There are two main issues I’ve got with this products, or the GPS receiver actually. The first is the USB cable to way to short to even be usable really. The second problem is that there is nothing included to secure the unit in your car to make sure you’ve got a GPS fix at all times.

Pros:
+GPS Receiver works well
+Streets and Trips 2010 is much more than just GPS software
+Can use GPS receiver with other devices
+Affordable

Cons:
-USB cord is short
-Lots of things to do can make it overly complicated for just GPS navigation
-Can’t secure GPS receiver anywhere really

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

Microsoft Streets & Trips 2010 with GPS Locator is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Testing, Benchmarking and generally getting information about your computer is important to not only product testers and companies but it can also be a valuable source of information for the general user as well. If you look around the internet at product reviews and comparisons you’ll notice a few benchmarks that have pretty much become the standard, one such suite of software is SiSoft Sandra. I use it myself quite a bit for testing all sorts of products and getting more information about my computers and their components. Sandra is a well known and respected set of tools that will do much more than just benchmarks though, it’s a complete suite of tools that can help you learn everything and anything about your computers from temperatures to voltages to even giving you information about your portable devices like MP3 players and phones. SiSoftware has recently released portable versions of their Sandra testing and diagnostic utility, it comes on a USB drive to make it fully portable so you can easily take it with you if need be, and it can be run right from the USB drive with no installation necessary.

SiSoftware sent me the new 2010 Engineering Edition on the USB drive, along with it came a testing DVD that is used in conjunction with the CD/DVD benchmark program.

The USB Drive itself is blue and silver with the Sandra logo and name on it, it also comes with a key ring as well. The USB drive is the type that swivels so there’s no cap to lose. I you’re curious the USB drive is 4gig in capacity, with the actual program only taking up about 120MB so that leaver a lot of space left over for database and testing results.

Specifications:

SiSoft Sandra 2010 Portable USB Edition

Who/What is Sandra?

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Just insert the disk into a PC to test/benchmark it without installing/uninstalling Sandra. The benchmark results will be archived in the database on the disk and always available with you.

Price: $399.99

The USB Drive is autorun enabled so if you have it enabled on your computer the software will run when you plug in the USB drive, if not you’ll have to open it up and start it yourself.

Sandra is broken down into three main sections, Computer Maintenance, Module Types and Program Maintenance.

The first section, Computer Maintenance just has one choice which is Tools, which is then broken down into two more sections.

Computer Maintenance is basic tools for you computer, you can even Analyze your computer and get Advice as to how you can improve performance. For the overclockers out there there’s even a Burn-In module to test the stability of your computer. The first module is the Create Report which is very useful you can learn everything there is to know about your computer and its components.

Here’s an example of the Environment Sensors module, there’s tabs across the top so you can individually monitor things like fan speeds, temperature and voltages:

The part of Sandra that most people are familiar with is the Benchmarking suite, here you’ll find tests to benchmark pretty much everything in and out of your systems. The Benchmark section is broken down into seven sections itself. You’ll be able to test everything from the CPU and Video Cards down to even wireless networking.

The benchmarking modules allow you to not only test things but compare your hardware with other hardware as well. You can even enable things like pricing so you can get an idea of the cost of your components and the others. The example below is the Processor Arithmetic benchmark, across the top are tabs so you can see different comparisons like Performance vs Power, Capacity vs. Power and Performance vs. Speed. On the left side you can use the drop down boxes to select other CPUs to compare to, and when the benchmark is complete you’ll get the results in the graphs and in detail in the box below.

Here’s the CD/DVD benchmark using the included disc, it’s only the read test though:

The next tab would be pertaining to hardware and here you can learn all there is to know about everything in and out of your computer really. It’s divided into six sections, Storage, Network, Portable Devices, Computer Maintenance, On-Board Devices and Peripherals.

The last main tab is titled Software and here you can learn all about things related to software in your computer, it sounds basic but it’s not.  In this section you can learn everything from what fonts and applications you have installed to DirectX and OpenGl information along with Start menu Applications and much much more.

The next main tab is titled Support, there’s not much here really, just things like Event Logs, Registry Settings, Hardware Registers, Server Status and Comments.

The last tab is Favorites, here the things you use the most will be automatically added for so they’re ready when you need them.

Now we have the tab, but we also have drop down menus across the very top as well. The first one is Tools and it’s the same as the Tools tab.

The next menu is Views, here you can change things around to how you like it.

Next up we have options, basic stuff, and from here you can enable or disable the Price and Ranking engines.

The last menu is a  question mark. Here you can access the help files and learn what version you’ve got along with some other information.

The version I got from Sisoftware is the Engineering one and it’s rather expensive coning in at about $400, but being a product tester/reviewer I need something like this to make life easier when moving from machine to machine. There are Personal editions available like the Professional Home five license pack with is only $50, or a single license for $30. All of the versions are comparable to each other in terms of testing so you can compare testing results across the versions. The main differences are the uses of the versions and the actual licenses. There is of course the lite version which is free, but just quite limited.

Conclusion:
SiSoft Sandra is one of the most comprehensive suites of tools on the market today, it’s something that even the most novice user can utilize to their advantage to learn more about their system or systems. With Sandra you’ll be able to learn more about, test and even help diagnose any problems that your system might have, it truly is an excellent diagnostic and testing suite.

For a company, technician or product tester it’s an invaluable tool that should be part of your tech tool box.

The portable USB version is an excellent choice for anyone with multiple computers, there’s no installation, just plug it in and go. This USB version is the perfect companion for a techie to have in their tool box.

Pros:
+Valuable tool for learning about and testing your computer
+Lots of modules
+Home versions are inexpensive
+Simple to use

Cons:
-Can get expensive depending which version you get

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to TestFreaks for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.

SiSoftware Sandra 2010 Portable USB Edition is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

A few years ago I was amazed out how my forty year old boss had such a poor memory. Now that I am, cough, cough, a little older with two kids running around at home and working around the clock I see how errands and to dos can be easily overlooked or forgotten.

Riding to my rescue, as well as many others is CultureCode with their program for the Mac and iPhone - Things. While the name sounds like a George Carlin routine (oh wait that monologue was “stuff”, see I told you my memory was shot) Things is a task management tool that is simple yet incredibly powerful.

After using it for the past month I amazed how I ever got along without it. CultureCode sells two versions, one for OS X and another for the iPhone, but to gain maximum productivity the pair should be used in conjunction. Before Things I relied on the folded piece of paper checklist method of managing tasks. Of course there were times I forgot the paper or didn’t have it accessible to add a momentary fleeting thought to my growing list. Of course, God forbid I lost that list!

With Things available on both my Mac and iPhone I am never without my task manager within arms reach.

Things for Mac is available as a single user license or as a Family Pack which is valid for up to 5 users living in the same household. The software can be purchased from the Culture Code website. To buy Things for iPhone/iPod Touch, go to either the App section of the iTunes store or buy it directly from the iPhone/iPod Touch from the App Store. Buying them both is highly recommended, as it will make your productivity skyrocket.

Things for Mac will look familiar to most OS X users as it has a side bar similar to Leopard-centric designed programs such as Apple Mail, iPhoto and others. The main section of Things is where the user’s various tasks and To Dos are seen.

Tasks can placed in numerous sections. The first of these sections is the amorphous Inbox found under the Collect heading. This Inbox is a staging area or scratch pad for your random ideas. Have to pick up milk on way home or thought of an idea for your next great invention, just place it in here and then label it or file it later.

Specifications:

Things Mac

Task management has never been this easy. Simplicity, however, is not achieved at the expense of powerful features. Download your free trial today and start getting more things done with less effort.

Your own agenda A smart Today list automatically gathers all you need to look at, well… today!
Repeating To-Dos Every week on Tuesday and Saturday? On the last day each month? We’ve got you covered.
Get started Have a task that cannot be started until a certain date? Use the Scheduled list to get it out of your head and be reminded when the time is right.
Due Dates Every list can easily be filtered and sorted by due date.
Notes & References Include notes and links to files, web sites or email messages. (email links require Mac OS X 10.5)
Search Quickly search across your entire library.
At your fingertips Convenient keyboard shortcuts make you even more efficient.
Multilingual Available in English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
Tags With tags, you have them all: contexts, priorities, energy, time, and more. It’s up to you.
Projects You can never have too many. Avoid project overload by setting less pressing ones to inactive.
Areas of Responsibility Things helps you organize life and work according to your responsibilities.
People Delegate to-dos to your coworkers and teammates.
iCal Sync Your to-dos, systemwide. (requires Mac OS X 10.5)
iPhone Sync Take your to-dos with you using the most popular paid task manager in the entire App Store.
Dock Badge See what tasks still lie ahead of you. (requires Mac OS X 10.5)
Spotlight and Quick Look Find your to-dos with Spotlight. Instantly preview them with Quick Look.
Fully scriptable Unleash the power of Things with custom AppleScripts.

Things iPhone/iPod Touch
Task management for everyone

Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other to-do applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Either way you are not getting stuff done. Instead Things has the right balance between ease of use and powerful features.

With Things’ elegance and beautiful design, procrastinating never looked less attractive. You can even sync wirelessly with the desktop version of Things using Wi-Fi.

Requirements:
Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch.
Requires iPhone OS 2.2 or later.

Languages:
English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

The largest section on the sidebar is dubbed Focus and is divided into five subcategories: Today, Next, Scheduled, Someday and Projects. The Today area is for items that need to be address on that specific day. On the sidebar there will be a number highlighted in blue indicating the number of items due for that day and if one is past due, then that number will be highlighted in red. For items due that day, Things also provides a Dock Badge with the number of items due on that day that sits in the OS X dock.

The Next section lists items from the Today subcategory as well as items from the Projects section. In sections other than Today we find a Tag bar at the top, which allows the user to drill down to specific tasks. These tags allow tasks to be labeled making it easier to organize, find and manage. For instance tasks with the label “work” can easily be sort no matter which list they reside in on Things. This makes intricate lists and to do simple to manage and navigate.

Someday is a section for tasks with no end date. I like to keep lists in this section such as a grocery list or my daughter’s gift wish lists. The Projects section is really wonderful for work or other larger project management. Projects allow the delegation of to-dos to coworkers and teammates.

To check off an item in Things for Mac, just click on the white box next to the task or To Do item. Items due that day will have a yellow check box along with a yellow star found on the far right of the item block. Tasks can easily be dragged and re-ordered within a category list or dragged into new Foci, Projects or other locations.

Other features found on the desktop version includes: repeating To-Dos, Notes and References, iCal Sync, Spotlight and Quick Look. If you are an AppleScript kiddie, then you will love the sciptability of Things.

Taking a quick look at Things for iPhone/iPod Touch we see that the items found in the sidebar on the Mac version are now the main window for the iPhone App. The only additional tab found on the app is the Log Book section. Upon opening Things for the first time on each day, all to-dos completed on the previous day are automatically moved to the Logbook list.

Otherwise the lists found on the desktop version are there in the iPhone/iPod Touch iteration. Here are some captures of the various Things’ screens.

Tapping the icon arrow in the toolbar can move items. The plus sign allows new tasks or projects to be added. Due dates may be added to any task when entering it into Things for iPhone or via the edit command on the task’s info screen.

Now the feature that makes Things used in conjunction with OS X and the iPhone/iPod Touch so useful is the ability to sync the iPhone to the desktop via a WiFi connection. As long as both devices are on the same network and both running Things, then they will sync with each other.

Now you can jot down tasks and to dos on the road and it will be sitting on your desktop next time the devices sync. Things keeps your tasks in reach with the iPhone app.

Conclusion:

I cannot describe how much more productive Things has made me since I have implemented this software. The onus of remembering the multitude of tasks and errands in my life has been offloaded to my Apple devices; allowing me to check easily manage tasks and garner a sense of accomplishment as I cross off items one by one.

If you own a Mac or an iPhone/iPod Touch then I highly recommend you pick up this program. To get optimal function from Things for owners of both OS X and iPhone/iPod Touch should pick up both versions. Things is a powerful task manager that is wrapped in a simple intuitive interface.

Pros:
+Manage tasks and To Dos easily
+Easily add notes to tasks
+Oversee projects and delegate jobs
+Syncing between iPhone and OS X ridiculously simple

Cons:
-Expensive

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

Things Mac / Things iPhone / iPod Touch is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog

Before I start this review I have a confession to make; I hate typing! I am not the fastest typist and I tend to make more mistakes than I care to admit to. So when MacSpeech offered me the opportunity to review their MacSpeech Dictate software I jumped at the opportunity.

MacSpeech Dictate is a voice-recognition application for the OS X and works with Intel-based Macs running either Leopard or Snow Leopard. The program was not just designed for the anti-typing crowd but also for those where typing is a great hardship or next to impossible. Persons with disabilities preventing them from typing or typing effectively will see immense gains in their productivity using this software.

For the sake of full disclosure this review was written or more accurately generated using MacSpeech Dictate. For those who have never used speech recognition software you’ll be quite amazed with the accuracy of this program. Besides dictation MacSpeech Dictate performs menu commands such as opening programs, positioning the cursor and activating shortcuts. Words not known to the program can be easily added using the vocabulary editor.

The current retail version is MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 and is based on the dictation technology found in the Dragon Naturally Speaking software used with PCs. According to the company the 1.5 version improves the accuracy rate 20% from the previous version. With the recent release of Snow Leopard, MacSpeech has a free update allowing better integration with the new Mac OS.

MacSpeech Dictate comes packaged with an application installation disk, a speech disk, Quick Start Guide, Plantronics Headset and a USB Dongle. Even if you have a headset with a microphone you will not be able to buy the MacSpeech Dictate software by itself. The full retail version costs $199 and comes with all of the contents listed above. If you prefer to use another headset/microphone combo; the website lists compatible certified microphones here.

The included noise canceling Plantronics headset is lightweight and designed for comfort and function. It is comprised of a single ear headset with an adjustable headband. The microphone can be worn on either the left or right side. There is a generous length of wire with a separate 3.5 mm jack for the microphone and earpiece. These two jacks plug into the USB dongle, which converts the analog headset signal to a digital format. The dongle inserts into a free USB port on the Mac being used with MacSpeech Dictate.

Specifications:

MacSpeech Dictate

Amazing Accuracy
MacSpeech Dictate will astonish you with its accuracy. You simply talk and leave the recognition to MacSpeech Dictate. MacSpeech Dictate recognizes and understands 13 English language variations, nine with U.S. spelling and four with U.K. spelling.

Essential Command Capabilities
Instead of using your mouse to select menu commands or your keyboard to type shortcuts, just speak a command. MacSpeech Dictate executes it for you. What’s more, MacSpeech Dictate understands key commands. With the ‘Press The Key’ and ‘Press The Key Combo’ commands, you can enter specific keys and even keyboard modifiers like Command, Option, Shift, and Control. That makes you more productive and MacSpeech Dictate more intuitive. What could be better?

Works With The Apps You Already Have
Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXPress, and more. And MacSpeech Dictate workgreat with Apple’s applications as well, including iChat, Mail, iPhoto, and Keynote, among others.

Installation requires entering the included serial number when prompted. There is a short registration process that requires an Internet connection before the software may be started. Once set up MacSpeech Dictate can be used off-line. For this review I used MacSpeech Dictate with my MacBook Pro that has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core2Duo processor and 2 GB of RAM running Snow Leopard.

The program offers the option to install any available updates. Since the release of Snow Leopard, MacSpeech has an interval update 1.5.5, which addresses several “minor functional and cosmetic issues when used with Mac OS X 10.6”.

Once MacSpeech Dictate is installed and registered, you’ll need to set up a profile which stores the mic and voice information together and is loaded every time MacSpeech Dictate starts. Next setup requires the user read several paragraphs into the application allowing the program to calibrate itself to the user’s voice. Once MacSpeech Dictate recognizes your voice and speech pattern you can start using the program with most any application that uses a text entry field.

Some of the new features found in the 1.5 version includes Spelling Mode which lets the user spell words, names, and even acronyms; phrase training helps increase the accuracy of the program; the ability to verbally move the cursor around in the document, and personal profiles which lets the individual train words as well as adding new ones.

MacSpeech Dictate has four modes: Dictation Mode, Command Mode, Spelling Mode, and Sleep Mode. All of these can be enabled via voice command. Dictation mode is fairly self-explanatory and is the most common mode for the program. In Command Mode OS X will recognize and execute commands and activate shortcuts. Spelling Mode will allow the addition of new vocabulary to the dictionary. Toggling the microphone on and off can be performed via Sleep Mode.

When starting the MacSpeech Dictate program a specialized notepad application opens which is designed to provide the most optimal results using the speech recognition software. If you prefer to use other programs such as Microsoft Word or TextEdit you should have satisfactory results as well. Other programs that work natively with the software include Apple’s Mail program, keynote, Microsoft office and iTunes.

Most of the time spent in MacSpeech Dictate the user will be in Dictation mode. However when coming across words or phrases not commonly found in the dictionary simply speak the words “spelling mode” then spell your word and speak “dictation mode” to return back to the main Dictation mode.

MacSpeech Dictate can be used right out of the box with little training before hand. However to get the most out of the dictation software it is recommended to read the quick start guide and user manual. MacSpeech also has video tutorials and other resources on their website.

I have used this software for several of my most recent reviews and have been quite pleased with the results. Writing tech based reviews does present vocabulary not commonly found in the MacSpeech Dictate library so I was able to put the program through its paces and am happy to say that it worked great.

One way to confuse the program is by typing or maneuvering the mouse around the document in conjunction with dictation. This invariably will lead to grammatical and punctual errors. However if you can figure out the way the dictation software “thinks” you can move around the document with a modicum of success.

Conclusion:

I was given the opportunity to test out MacSpeech Dictate since the end of the summer. I have been able to use it to construct several of my recent reviews with great success. I wanted to wait until the release of Snow Leopard before writing this review and am happy to say that software works perfectly with Apple’s shiny new OS. In fact I did not have any problems running version 1.5 with Snow Leopard but version 1.5.5 is the recommended on for the use with OS X 10.6.

MacSpeech Dictate is one of those software programs that you wonder how you ever got along without. Now that I’ve used it for the past several months I cannot imagine life on my MacBook Pro without it. The accuracy and ease of use is quite astonishing. If you hate to type or are unable to use a keyboard due to whatever circumstance then I highly recommend MacSpeech Dictate.

Pros:
+Incredibly accurate
+Simple to use
+Comes with comfortable noise canceling headset

Cons:
-Expensive

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

MacSpeech Dictate is a post from: Testfreaks | The Blog