ReviewSaurus – Technology Rocks!

In the recent news, Apple has announced the release of Safari for windows. Safari version 3 is currently in beta and is available for download at Safari’s home page.

Safari makes use of WebKit rendering engine and this version supports GMail and Google Docs too. However, GMail chat is still not accessible through safari. Lot has been said over the web after the release of Safari, some are talking that it will create really good competition, which will in turn give benefit to you as a user and some are wondering that do we really need another browser?

Anyway, I’ll leave that on you to decide whether you actually want to test drive Safari for windows or not but believe me there is no harm in trying it either. I’ll suggest you to try it and share your experience in the comments section.

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XnView is an image viewer, converter, screen capturing, basic image editing software. It has been around for some time and has got great reputation when the discussion comes about graphics viewers. Let’s see how good this software is and lets find out the PROS and CONS of this software in this review.

PROS of XnView :

1. Support for image formats : XnView supports around 400 image formats! It supports almost all the image formats which you can think of and even those which you may not have heard of. Although for some formats, it needs extra plugins but still the number of image formats supported by it, is huge. To check the supported formats, check this page.

2. Acts as basic editor : XnView has got the ability to edit the images too and  lets you save the images in another huge list of formats. It allows you to rotate, crop, resize, color editing and other editing features. XnView has got the option of applying filters like blur, emboss and average and there are effects like lens, wave, drop shadow, 3d, blur, gausin blur, noise, edge detection etc. So, it can help you in basic image editing too. It lets you also, use the filters of Photoshop for any detailed editing and that is one more addition to the features.

3. Support for many platforms : XnView is available for almost all of the available OSes. Like supported formats, it has got a huge list of OSes too. It is available for all versions of Microsoft windows i.e. windows 3.x and above, Mac OS X, Linux, Free BSD, Open BSD, Net Bsd, Irix Mips, Solaris Sparc, Solaris x86, HP Unix, AIX. Now, this is impressive. Isn’t it?

4. Acts as screen capturing utility : XnView has got screen capturing facility and offers decent options when it comes to capturing screenshots. Although it is not the most advanced screen capturing software, but most of the time, you’ll be able to do your work with its available options.

5. Batch conversion, Batch renaming utility : XnView is not only an image viewer or screen capturing utility but it can help you convert multiple files or lets you rename them easily through batch processing.

6. Explorer like interface : XnView has got explorer like interface and that’s why browsing files and images through it becomes quite simple. It lets you tag images and that can be handy for quick reach of important images. Integration with shell allows you to, preview the images or even lets you convert them, even when you’ve not opened up XnView. XnView has got much clean interface.

CONS of XnView :

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Google Presentation is pretty close to the release and I’m hoping that we’ll have another useful application from Google’s headquarters soon.  Back in April, when Google took over Tonic Systems, everyone got sure that Google will be releasing presentations soon, however, Google has not created much spark after that, in the field of Office 2.0

But, now they’ve released a small feature in Gmail, where it is allowing you to view presentation files  as slideshow. This hint is more than enough that Google is all very close to release much seeked Google Presentations.

What do you think, will Google presentations create any impact or will it be a failure like Google Docs & Spreadsheet ?

For all those who maintain websites, ftp uploads to the server is a practice. There are many tools out there, which let you connect to a server sitting in an air conditioned room at the other end of the earth.

And ubiquitous of them all is FileZilla.

FileZilla is an Open Source FTP client that basically lets you connect to a server which has FTP access enabled. Once connected, it lets you upload and download files and directory structures. It can also perform basic actions like changing the file attributes.

Instead of listing out the pros of FileZilla, I would rather quote the feature list from their documentation.

• Ability to resume Uploads/Downloads (if the server supports it)
• Custom Commands
• Site Manager with folders
• Keep Alive system
• Timeout detection
• Firewall support
• SOCKS4/5 and HTTP1.1 Proxy support
• SSL secured connections
• SFTP support
• Upload/Download Queue
• Drag & Drop
• Multi-language support
• GSS authentication and encryption using Kerberos

So, does it have any disadvantages?

Not many that I can think of, but I did have problem using FileZilla for connecting to a secure server, through the SSH port to be exact. But I doubt it could be just me – I might not have set it up properly.

Another gripe with FileZilla is that you cannot have simultaneous connection to multiple servers. I sometimes find it necessary at my job, and the only option is to get the files require to the local machine and then move it to the other server. But it is quite cumbersome, and this feature is quite desirable.

Download FileZilla from SourceForge.net

Did you know that OpenOffice Writer had a feature to export to PDF?

It was about a week back, and I was searching for a solution to get a good PDF creator for my ebook, You Too Can Sketch. I could find a lot of PDF printers there, but they were not giving me the desired output quality. It was then, that I found the place where I composed the book, itself had a good quality PDF creator.

1. Open the document you need to create a PDF out of, using OpenOffice Writer
2. File -> Export As PDF…
3. Browse to the folder you want the PDF to be created in, type in the name, and hit the Save button

And you are done.