MacScan is a relatively new security software program from SecureMac.com, which is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. It’s somewhat similar to Smith Micro Software’s Internet Cleanup 4. What MacScan can do for you is to find what they call spyware. It will scan your hard disk and check if there are suspicious files. Continue reading
Last summer, my wife and I went to Los Angels to see my uncle. One afternoon, his wife Jennie and my wife went shopping. And Uncle Bog was taking a nap. So I was watching TV. Actually, I was watching weather news. Well, the weather man was saying it would be sunny all day. Wait, sunny? By the way, the weather man looked like Nicolas Cage.
The following tutorial shows steps to illustrate lightning bolts in the sky. It’s easy to design lightnings, using Adobe Photoshop CS2. In fact, we have done it before. (REF: Adobe Photoshop Creative Design #4: A Stormy Day). But such simple lightnings are unrealistic because lightning bolts are not branching out. This time, we use a Photoshop plug-in called Eye Candy 5: Textures from Alien Skin Software. By the way, this plug-in also runs with Adobe Fireworks.
The photo used in this tutorial comes from PD Photo. Continue reading
Yesterday, we introduced Sonic Solution’s Roxio Popcorn. When you use Roxio Crunch, Popcorn or Toast Titanium to compress a Video_TS folder, you will may get a warning sign that says that the DVD content is encrypted. Right… Before dropping a DVD or Video_TS folder, you need to rip the content at first.
There are several freeware and shareware titles available for Mac OS if you want to rip a DVD. MacTheRipper is one. HandBrake is another. If you search the Internet, you may hear other names including 0SEx, DVD2one, DVDRemaster, DivX, ffmpegX, Forty-Two DVD. So which one do I really need to rip a commercial DVD? Continue reading
This QuickTime video overviews basic features of Sonic Solutions’s Roxio Popcorn 3. There are two goals. No.1, we want to check which video format the new version of Popcorn supports. We tested the following video formats: AVI, Divx, DV, MKV, MOV, MKV, MPEG (MPEG-2) and WMV. No. 2, we want to see the video settings available for some of 12 presets. Continue reading
For Mac users, Roxio Toast Titanium is a must-have software title. There’s another software title from the same software developer. No, it’s not Roxio Crunch, which we introduced about 3 months ago. It’s Roxio Popcorn. Roxio Popcorn is designed to let the user compress video files for external devices or burn DVDs.
We came across Roxio Popcorn for the first time almost two years ago. Initially, it was just a ripped version of Toast Titanium 6.5. And we weren’t impressed with it at all. In fact, we were pretty sure that Roxio Popcorn would be a dead Mac software title. And we never updated our Popcorn to version 2.
Several days ago, Sonic Solutions introduced a new version, Roxio Popcorn 3. Is there anything new with this version of Popcorn? Roxio Popcorn is not exactly a ripped version of Toast Titanium any more. Sonic Solutions has found a way of reviving this Mac software title. That means Toast Titanium and Popcorn can coexist at the same time. And we are quite impressed with the new version of Roxio Popcorn. Continue reading