Limited time free software offer

We just received this short term offer:

PDF To JPG Converter is a windows utility that quickly converts PDF Files into JPG, BMP, TIF, GIF and PNG Images. With PDF To JPG Converter users can also convert PDF to JPG in page range, and set the output image DPI.

The Portable Document Format or the PDF and JPG format are two of the popular formats used to store images and graphic. One file in one format can be converted into the other. There are many tools available on the internet, which are helpful in the conversion from PDF to JPG format. The great aspect about converting PDF files to JPG format is that the data stays intact. The information or images and graphics are not tampered with and neither are they distorted in any way. Once the files are converted users can even use the advanced computer tools to aid them with font embed, image compression and resolution to make it appear exactly as it was in the original form. Users can very well preserve the original layout of data like line spacing, paragraphs, text, tables and formatting.

Sometimes users may want to use PDF content or snapshot for their website or share on the net. PDF To JPG Converter will allow users to convert each PDF page to a single image in batch mode. Users can set a lower DPI, and then they will get smaller image files which could be transferred and shared much easier.

This giveaway is 100% clean and free. The giveaway is available at:
http://www.pdftojpgconverter.com/giveaway.html

Daylight Saving Time

By act of congress most parts of the US change to Daylight Saving Time this Sunday morning at 2AM. It seems like every other year or so the change-over date is moved earlier in the year. It used to be, way back in the day, that we had about half a year of Standard Time and Saving Time, but no more.

Quite frankly I think we should just go to year-around Saving Time. The reasons for the time changes made sense a hundred years ago but no longer. Let’s just make everything simpler by going to one time all year.

Vacation camera survey

This summer I'll be taking a once in a life time trip and I'm looking for input. If you were taking a trip that you knew you would never repeat, what camera equipment would you carry?

Here's my background:
I've been on a dozen cruises
I've been to Europe many times
I've lived in Japan
I am a VERY experienced photographer (I got my first SLR in 1967)
I have a dozen dSLRs (I also have many 35mm cameras but I've ruled ALL of them out) and every possible lens: zoom, macro and telephoto

Here are my parameters:
It all has to fit in a compact bag with a computer of some kind (my second post request, still to come)
I need to cover everything from wide angle to ???
I'm old. It has to be light weight
I'll be on a ship so re-packing regularly isn't a concern

I'd like to know what others think so please let me know your thoughts. I'll tell you my thoughts later on.

Smartphone sales

The Google/iFruit duopoly continues to dominate the Smartphone market. The numbers are in from ComScore for the quarter ending January 31st and the trend of users switching from non-Smartphones and from RIMM phones continues.

Here are the percentages of the Smartphone market for each of the major players and the change from the previous quarter:

iFruit phones: 29.5%, up from 28.1%
Android phones: 48.6%, up from 46.3%
BlackBerry phones: 15.2%, down from 17.2%

Note that MSFT phones don’t even make the list, they are an insignificant player in the phone market.

News from the iFruit company

I don’t know about you but I’m already tired of the iFruit company hype-fest! Every tech web site and most of my emails in the last 24 hours have been iFruit centered. My question is: why?

Everyone in the tech industry, and a few million other people, eagerly awaited the latest “pronouncements from the mount” from the iFruit company this week. Was it worth the wait, all of the eager anticipation? Not to me it wasn’t. The latest version of the iPad, called the “new iPad” for now, had a few improvements but nothing was earth shaking. If you haven’t read anything about the list of improvements the iFruit company made, you can use Google (the anti-iFruit company) to find any of the thousands of sites that will have the complete specs online by the time you read this.

I’m sure all of the fan boys and girls out there are pre-buying because they just HAVE to buy the latest products from Cupertino. They need to show the world just how cool they are. Personally I remain very happy with Android Phablets and will stay in that camp. I’m sorry iFruit company, you haven’t lured me to the Dark Side yet.

Major changes at Diskeeper

Late last year we learned that there were some changes being made at Diskeeper. Their PR rep was let go after she had been with them many years. We didn’t know the extent of the changes that were coming until now. This press release came out this week and we’re reprinting parts of it so you’ll get the idea.

Diskeeper Corporation will enter spring 2012 as Condusiv Technologies.

Today, Monday March 5, the leader in high performance optimization and maintenance software for technology, people and business has changed its name to Condusiv Technologies. The company ceased operating under the name Diskeeper Corporation as of midnight on March 4, 2012.

"Shortly after being appointed CEO of Diskeeper, in September of 2011, I reviewed the core intellectual property and leadership of the company. I realized that I had inherited a very talented team with deep engineering expertise and a passionate desire to develop thought leading high performance software;innovative products that would have extremely positive measurable impact on our customers’ business, economic recovery and macroeconomic growth,” says Jerry Baldwin.

“We are a very different organization today than we were when the company was founded in 1981. Adopting a new name and brand identity is a logical next step in our growth strategy.This change reflects our team’s passion for developing industry leading solutions and partnerships with customers to bring about positive growth and change." said Jerry Baldwin, new CEO of Condusiv™. "Condusiv expresses what we have become as an organization as well as what we hope to be — a highly focused dynamic leader that transcends the boundaries of traditional solutions with innovative products that rapidly and dramatically improve productivity in technology, people and business”.

For more information see: www.condusiv.com

AccuWeather emergency push app

Our offices are in northern Tennessee and the latest severe storms that came through last week really got our attention. The local weather alert radio tower was destroyed in a storm last year so we are concerned. By coincidence, this press release came in:

AccuWeather's new Android application for smart phones boasts real-time, pushed severe weather alerts that make it easy to receive notice of impending, inclement weather in your home location.

Pushed severe weather alerts are for weather events that include, snow and ice, rain and thunderstorms, high wind, and tornadoes in the United States. When there is such an event forecasted for a user's selected home location, the user's phone will vibrate and a notice will appear in the app's status bar. Users may choose whether to enable the pushed severe weather alert feature in the app's welcome screen and settings screen.

"Proactively alerting our users that severe weather is in their forecast is very important to us," said Pascal Racheneur, AccuWeather Vice President of Interactive Media. "Pushed severe weather alerts are another way that we can give you immediate access to your local and up-to-date weather conditions. In addition to pushed severe weather alerts, we added lifestyle forecasts - special weather forecasts for specific hobbies or activities such as, travel and sports, and forecasts that impact specific health conditions, such as asthma and migraines."

Other features include:
- Accurate and local forecasts for locations worldwide. Updated every hour, forecasts have detailed hourly forecasts for the next 24 hours, plus day and night forecasts and information for the next 15 days - all in 27 languages.
- Current weather conditions with location name and time, temperature, humidity percentages, visibility, pressure, dew point, precipitation type and amounts, UV index, wind speed and wind gust speed, AM and PM times for sunrise and sunset, and RealFeel® - AccuWeather's proprietary weather forecasting system that takes into account multiple weather factors to determine how the local temperature actually feels, which may be warmer or colder than the temperature, depending on these conditions.
- Day and night forecasts with high and low temperatures, precipitation type and amount, wind speed and wind gust speed, and RealFeel®.
- For worldwide locations, when AccuWeather forecasts snow, ice, rain, wind, or the probability of thunderstorms, an orange exclamation point is displayed within the location's current and 15-day screens.
- Sharing function that allows users to share the current, hourly, 15-day forecast, or forecast detail view using the social media applications they installed on their phone.
- Weather display options with animated radar for the United States and Canada, satellite and interactive GoogleMaps™ for locations worldwide, and updated broadcast-quality weather videos.
- Customizable color themes.

AccuWeather for Android is available at no cost, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.accuweather.android.