Bitwise Magazine

Free DVD Ripper For Thanksgiving

Limited-time offer

Friday 18 November 2011

Digiarty Software is giving away 30,000 copies of its WinX DVD Ripper Platinum software. But you have to be quick. This offer lasts until November 29th and has a limit of 30,000 copies.

DVD ripper software capable of ripping both homemade and commercial DVDs to popular videos, such as rip DVD to AVI, MP4, H.264, MPEG, WMV, MOV, LV, 3GP, etc. It can also help users faultlessly rip and backup DVD to iPhone/4S, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Android, HTC, Samsung, XOOM, Galaxy Tab, Kindle, ThinkPad, DELL Streak, PSP, etc. To get your free copy, go to http://www.winxdvd.com/giveaway/ and click the Get Register Code button until all codes run out.

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OS X Lion - two book reviews

Which is the better book for a beginner?

Thursday 17 November 2011

Mac OS X Lion in easy steps
By Nick Vandome
$14.99 / £10.99
ISBN: 978-1-84078-439-8
http://www.ineasysteps.com/books/details/?9781840784398
http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/browse.asp?ref=225547

Mac OS X Lion: Visual QuickStart Guide
By Maria Langer
ISBN-10: 0-321-78673-4
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321786734
http://www.computermanuals.co.uk/scripts/browse.asp?ref=236190

If, like me, you are a grizzled, dyed-in-the-wool Windows users and you suddenly find yourself left loose on a Mac computer, you are probably going to feel that you've been cast adrift on stranger tides, up a creek without the proverbial paddle. In short, OS X Lion (the latest Mac operating system) looks beautiful but it I can never figure out how the heck to get things done. These two books both claim to be able to help someone just like me. This is what the blurb says…. “With Mac OS X Lion in easy steps, you'll be able to unleash this powerful operating system and have it up and running in no time. In clear, accessible language, the book introduces you to the OS X environment and teaches you about the user interface. With these basics mastered, this full-colour, fully (...)

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Flash&Flex Developer’s Mag Now Available

Free download

Monday 14 November 2011

The November edition of Flash&Flex Developer’s Magazine is now available for download. It’s free, so what are you waiting for...?

This issue has articles on 3D game development, the Singleton Design Pattern plus reviews and interviews. And, as always, there is my ActionScript programming column. If you are new to ActionScript, this is the place to start. Download the issue here: http://ffdmag.com.

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Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 / Production Suite

Video Editing Package

Friday 11 November 2011

$94.95, £59.95 (standard) / $124.95, £79.95 (production suite)
Sony Creative Software http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegassoftware

I've been using Vegas Movie Studio HSD Platinum for a few weeks now and to say that I'm impressed would be to do it an injustice. In this price bracket it is, quite simply, a stunning piece of software. Vegas - edit video and audio and add text and effects If you've ever used any timeline-based video or animation software, you'll feel right at home with Vegas. Fundamentally its user interface comprises a set of timelines for videos and audio and you just import clips into them, edit and produce. Clips can be moved around on a timeline or cut and pasted using the mouse. There are a good number of ready-to-use transitions that blend one clip into another using everything from simple fades to quite fancy animated effects such as ‘clock wipes', ‘barn doors' and gradient (...)

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RAD Studio XE2 - Embarcadero interview

Delphi, Mac, iOS and more....

Sunday 30 October 2011

Embarcadero recently launched the latest release of its RAD Studio application development suite, which includes tools for developing using C++, PHP and Delphi, the Pascal language tool originally created by Borland. One of the new features of RAD Studio XE2 is its support for both Mac OSX and iOS development in addition to Windows. When I spoke to Embarcadero’s Chief Evangelist, David Intersimone, I asked him about RAD Studio’s cross-platform features. But, as a long-time Delphi programmer myself, I began by asking about Delphi…

Huw C: I understand that Delphi sales have been increasing over the past few years. Given the predominance of all those C-like language (C++, C#, Java and so on) I think some people might be surprised that a Pascal language is growing in popularity. What's the explanation? David I: There are several explanations for the resurgence of Delphi (and the Pascal language). First, since we have become part of Embarcadero Technologies increased investment in the RAD tools business has allowed us to provide to our customers year by year consistent releases with new functionality and higher quality. Customers have responded to this commitment with renewed confidence in Delphi and C++Builder. Second, the rise of multiple platforms beyond just Windows including cloud architectures, RESTful web (...)

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Mac v PC – Beauty and the Beast?

Over to the Dark Side…?

Monday 24 October 2011

Mac users look down on PC users: they think we have no taste. PC users look down on Mac users: we think they have no technical savvy. For almost thirty years I’ve been a PC user. Since the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992 I have been not just a PC user but also a Windows user. A few weeks ago, I did the unthinkable: I bought myself a Mac.

The initial impetus for this decision was provided by a number of requests for help from students of my Ruby programming course, many of whom are Mac users. But I have to admit that I was also curious to find out if the Mac really is as great as its admirers would have us believe. Here, then, are a few thoughts… First, it has to be said that there are a great many things about the Mac, and its user interface, that take some getting used to. For example, the windows scroll in the opposite direction from those on Microsoft Windows. On Windows, I roll my mouse wheel downwards and the contents of the window scroll upwards. On a Mac, when I want to scroll upwards, I stroke my mouse in upwards! Obvious when you think about it but not what I'm accustomed to. Then there is the (...)

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Vue 10 digital landscape software due in November

E-On Software’s latest

Thursday 13 October 2011

I first reviewed Vue (Vue d’Esprit as it was then called) many years ago. It started life as simple scenery designer aimed at amateur users. But my, how it’s grown!

Vue is now an extremely powerful product which is used by some of the top professionals and has been used in a number of major Hollywood films. The latest update to Vue will ship next month. This is what to expect: Vue 10 adds a number of new and extended features such as: • Spline and Road Tools: Vue 10 includes a comprehensive spline toolkit that can be used for EcoSystems, terrain effects, building roads or creating objects. An automatic Path-finding algorithm can also be used to build realistic roads at the surface of terrains. • Dynamic Rocks: Vue 10 features a library of dynamic rock templates that can be used to instantly create single rocks, groups of rocks, or use them in EcoSystems. Each time the user creates a rock from a template, a new and unique variation (...)

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SuperTintin

Record your Skype calls

Tuesday 11 October 2011

SuperTintin $29.95
http://www.supertintin.com
Requirements: Win7/Vista/XP/2000, Skype 3.0 or above

If you want a simple, inexpensive way to record Skype conversations, buy a copy of SuperTintin. That's probably the shortest review I've ever written but it pretty much sums up all you need to know. OK, just for the sake of completeness, here are a few more details. SuperTintin is a program that can record your audio and video conversations on Skype. It can record both sides of the conversation or just one side, it can optionally record the video from either the remote or the local webcam or from both. Video size and frame-rate are selectable so you can record anything from small ‘picture in picture' videos to large (up to 960x720 videos). It can start recording automatically whenever you use Skype or it will record when you click its big red ‘Record' button. Skype, (...)

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Corel MotionStudio 3D

Animate those title clips!

Saturday 8 October 2011

Corel MotionStudio 3D
$99.99 / £79.99
Corel: http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1311092035419

If you want to spice up your videos with the addition of snazzy title sequences or simple animated effects, you may want to consider using Corel's MotionStudio 3D. Essentially this is a relatively simple modelling and animation tool that lets you add drag-and-drop text and objects into an editing space and animate them along a timeline. As with most other animation products, changes over time such as linear or rotational movement, scaling and lighting can be controlled by moving to a specific moment – a ‘frame' – on the timeline and making whatever changes you wish. This causes a ‘key frame' marker to be added to the timeline. The software then auto-calculates the changes needed to create a smooth animation between each of the key frames. When you want to (...)

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Learn ActionScript for Flash Development

New tutorial

Tuesday 4 October 2011

If you want to program Adobe Flash applications you’ll need to understand ActionScript.

The good news is that you can learn ActionScript programming from the ground up in my new series for Flash & Flex Developer's Magazine. The magazine is a free PDF download so why not go and get a copy today...!

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BB Flashback 3 Professional

Screencast recording tool review

Monday 26 September 2011

£124 (£149 inc VAT – but check the site for international prices and taxes)
Blueberry Software: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk

If you need to create demos or video tutorials showing some software in use, you need some screen recording and editing software. The UK-based company, Blueberry Software, has just released a new version of its screen recording suite, BB Flashback. Here I put it through its paces. BB Flashback 3 lets you edit and annotate your recordings with keystrokes, text 'callouts' and interactive buttons Over the years, I've used many different screen recording tools including BB Flashback 2 AND TechSmith's Camtasia Studio 7. Of these, my favourite is Camtasia for the simple reason that it offers a very broad range of recording and editing features and is easy to use. BB Flashback is easy to use too but, in its early releases, it trailed far behind Camtasia in terms of its range of features. (...)

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XML and ActionScript Tutorial

How to create an FAQ Browser

Friday 23 September 2011

The latest free edition of Flash and Flex Developer’s Magazine is now available.

If you are a regular reader of FFD Magazine, you will know that I write the ActionScript programming column. Over the past few months I've shown how to create an online XML data-browser which could be used to implement things such as quizzes or FAQ applications. In this month's article I explain how to let users filter the data items using categories so that, for instance, you could choose to display all items about Flash and Flex but not about AIR. If you need a simple XML-based data browser, you may want to give it a try.

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Visual Studio 11 - First Light

Sunday 18 September 2011

First the good news – the internals of Visual Studio haven’t been futzed with. Not much as far as I can see anyway – there’s no new WPF Editor implementation or anything like that, thank goodness. The other good news is a new image editor that allows (gasp) transparency or alpha channel editing. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to use the old Visual Studio image editor, you’ll raise a cheer (as did the audience at BUILD when this was announced, apparently).

The other two major areas that I can see from a quick inspection are, first, extra tools to help parallel processing development and debugging. Secondly, improved C++ support particularly for IntelliSense and C++ 11. Now, the C++ thing is odd, because for years Microsoft has neglected C++, concentrating on managed .NET languages like C#, VB and lately F#. So why C++? It must be for performance reasons. The only two places where performance matters that I can think of are mobile and games. For mobiles, the reason is battery life. Faster doesn't mean zippier swipes (though it does help of course) – but it does mean less cycles and so better battery life. For games, C++ now supports passively parallel systems for GPUs. And another consideration might be that processor speeds on (...)

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Fundamentals of ActionScript 3.0 Development and Design

Book review

Monday 5 September 2011

Fundamentals of ActionScript 3.0 Development and Design $54.99 / £36.99
by Doug Winnie
ISBN-10: 0-321-77702-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-77702-7
http://www.peachpit.com/actionscript3dd
http://www.compman.co.uk

If you plan to program Adobe Flash, you will need to master the ActionScript language. Fundamentals of ActionScript 3.0 is aimed at “people who are new to coding or are struggling with the migration from ActionScript 2.0 to 3.0”. The book assumes that the reader already has some Flash development skills – that is, the ability to create graphics and animations using Adobe's Flash Professional (CS4 or CS5.x) IDE and now wants to learn how to program. There are, of course, many books of Flash development with ActionScript. We've reviewed quite a few of them on Bitwise. But the books we've reviewed are just the tip of the iceberg. So before selecting a book on ActionScript, you need to be sure that it addresses your personal requirements. Winnie's book is specifically (...)

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Window Home Server 2011

More powerful than it sounds!

Tuesday 23 August 2011

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

Where do old workstations go to when they are ‘retired’? For me, they become servers! For example, I have a perfectly serviceable Dell Core 2 (3GHz with 3 GB RAM) PC which has been recently superseded by a HP 8100 Elite with 12GB RAM and running Windows 7 x64. The HP is a lot faster than the old Dell, but the Dell is ok and too good to be junked.

Incidentally, I've being buying Dells for the last 20 years and this is the first HP I've bought – and the reason I bought it was because it was about £150 cheaper than the equivalent Dell. I suspect I'm not alone in this, either, which may account for Dell having ‘difficulties' over the last few years. The HP 8100 Elite is quieter than the Dell now supports my four monitors via two ATI Radeon HD 4350 cards, enabling me to have two or three VMs running simultaneously. Anyway, what to do with the Dell? It was running Vista and I really wanted to get rid of that pile of junk (Windows 7 is really much, much better). But a Small Business Server is about £450 and that includes a lot of stuff I don't want such as Exchange Server and SQL Server. There are only 5 licences as (...)

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Ruby In Visual Studio with Ruby In Steel 2

Just launched

Friday 5 August 2011

My company, SapphireSteel Software, has just launched Ruby In Steel 2 for Visual Studio 2010.

The first version of Ruby In Steel was released in 2007. At that time, Ruby 1.8 was the standard interpreter. In later updates (leading up to version 1.5) we also added support for JRuby. Even to this day, Ruby 1.8 is still widely used though 1.9 is also used. While Ruby In Steel 2 has been updated to support the latest 1.8 and 1.9 versions of Ruby (and the Rails framework) that hasn't been the biggest challenge in this update. The major development work has gone into supporting Visual Studio 2010, which, from a development point of view, is significantly different from VS2008. Ruby In Steel 2 can be used either with a commercial edition of Visual Studio 2010 or with a free 'Shell' (but not Express) edition of Visual Studio. The major features of Ruby In Steel 2 include: Fast (...)

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Trusteered! Visual Studio, SEHException and Me

Or how I was saved from a reinstallation

Thursday 4 August 2011

I (along with a good few others, I think) had a most peculiar problem yesterday. Visual Studio refused to debug. To be precise, it crashed with a SEHException whenever it tried to open a file while debugging. Initially, I assumed it was my fat fingers that had caused the problem, so I deleted everything in the project’s object folders and tried again: no go. Next, I reset the experimental hive in the registry: no go. Then reboot: no go.

I this point I was contemplating a complete reinstall of Visual Studio and beginning to get a bit panicky. I had bugs to fix and a business to run and re-installing Visual Studio is usually a couple of hours work and not something I wanted to do. Fortunately, I did a Google search for SEHException and Visual Studio - and found that not a few had been there before me. It turns out that the problem was caused by Trusteer Rapport – a normally docile security program for protecting banking passwords. I uninstalled Rapport and all was well. Now I'm extremely careful about installing any software on my production systems – I've been bitten too often by beta software which has unexpected results. He who installs beta software on a production system gets what he deserves, in my (...)

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Back To The 80s

How things have changed!

Wednesday 27 July 2011

I started writing for the computer press back in the mid ’80s. For a number of years I wrote a column called ‘Rants and Raves’ for Computer Shopper magazine. My first column appeared in the first issue (March, 1988) and I’ve reproduced that in its entirety elsewhere.

In a fit of rampant nostalgia, I dug out my tatty old copy of that first Computer Shopper recently just to remind myself of how much has changed in the more than two decades since it was printed. Here are a few juicy titbits that I discovered: Here are some of the bargains on offer from advertisers: Hawk Scanner – flat-bed scanner which thinks it's also a Photocopier and Fax for only £1,250 inc VAT Atari Hi-Res Mono Monitor for only £2,999 inc VAT 40Mb Seagate hard disk and controller - £431.25 inc VAT WordStar 2000 word processor - £228 Microsoft mouse - £129 Yikes! Stuff was expensive back then! Articles in this issue include: Getting to grips with the Sinclair Z88 Bolting a 3 ½ inch drive onto a PC C Pitfalls and Potholes (overflows and underflows, (...)

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Snap Art 3

Natural art effects for Photoshop

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Snap Art 3 $199 / £121.44
upgrade from Snap Art or Snap Art 2 $99 / £60.41
Alien Skin Software http://www.alienskin.com
Requires: Adobe Photoshop CS4 or later, Elements 7 or later, or Lightroom 2

I make no secret of the fact that I like Alien Skin's collections of Photoshop filters and one of my very favourites is Snap Art. This is a plugin that lets you apply a broad variety of ‘ready to run' artistic effects to images and tailor each filter by making fine adjustments to its parameters. This makes it possible very quickly to transform a photograph into a picture that looks as though it was painted in oils, sketched in pencil or drawn with pen and ink. You can add a comic-style dot-printing effect to your photos, create Seurat-like pointillism or turn them into convincing watercolours. This shows several different effects in Snap Art. The original image is top-left. Top-right, an oil painting effect is applied. Bottom left, a crayon effect is applied. Bottom right, a (...)

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BB FlashBack 3 - screen recording software

Just released

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Blueberry Software Ltd has just launched BB FlashBack 3, a screen recording tool for creating demos and tutorials by recording direct from your computer screen.

New Features include New Recorder User Interface – a sleek, new user interface that places more features directly to hand, making it easier to work with in-movie objects like textboxes, images, highlights and so on. Insert Arrow Tool – Call attention to events in the movie. The new Insert Arrow tool can create a limitless number of arrow styles by selecting from a combination of key properties. Watermarks - Add your branding to the movie. Simply load your watermark image; choose its colour, opacity, size and position. Start and End Titles – Add start and end titles to your creative masterpiece for that finishing touch. Insert Video Files - Add a video file to your project to add interest or clarify a point, and choose how it will look in your presentation. (...)

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