Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey

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   one-page copy times were the fastest for a business inkjet MFP that we’ve seen, though we did notice a slowdown via wireless occasionally.Output is first-class most of the way. Text appears black, smooth, and precise, even with closely spaced fonts. Color graphics have the infamous (but slight) Epson pinkish cast to them, but are generally very nice. Monochrome graphics are exceptional, with only the darkest areas rendered a tad muddy. Color scans are good, if a bit fuzzy, while line-art scans exhibit a fair number of distortions–call them fair.Ink costs for the WorkForce Pro WP-4540 are quite low, far cheaper than with low-end inkjet MFPs, but in line with other business inkjet MFPs. The unit’s regular 676XL black ink cartridge lasts for approximately 2400 pages, yet costs only $38.49–a mere 1.6 cents per page. The 676XL cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges cost $24.49 apiece and last for 1200 pages, or just over 2 cents per page. A four-color page costs 7.6 cents. Note: The WP-4540 ships with 1000-page black and 900-page color starter cartridges.If you read the product overview section on the company’s website, you’ll see that the WorkForce Pro WP-4540 is rated for a 20,000-page monthly duty cycle. Dig into the notes on the Specifications tab, however, and you’ll discover that the printer is actually meant to handle 1600 pages per month–the recommended duty cycle. To be fair, this is a universal discrepancy among printers.The WorkForce Pro WP-4540 gets the job done quickly and cheaply, and it has the largest standard capacity in the field. That said, the equally fast and inexpensive-to-operate is $100 cheaper and supports legal-size documents, though it’s less capacious (250 sheets). The like-priced ($399) is another viable legal-size contender, but it too holds less paper (300 sheets).Editor’s note: This review was corrected to indicate that the unit’s two main input trays do, indeed, take both letter- and legal-size paper. PCWorld regrets the error.Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4590 Review: Low-Cost Corporate Laser Alternative The Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4590 works quickly and uses cheap ink, but it isn’t available through normal retail channels. It’s aimed at large businesses that value service and a low total cost of ownership over a low purchase price. Priced at $500 (as of August 13, 2012), the WP-4590 comes with a three-year warranty and is sold only through VARs and other corporate channels. Consumers who are tired of PIB (Printers in Black) might also appreciate this unit’s friendlier putty and light-gray coloring.Accompanying the WP-4590 are the usual competent Epson software and driver installation routine. Since the machine has USB and ethernet, but no Wi-Fi (a bow to security concerns, per Epson), you will be tethered. The control panel sports a 2.5-inch LCD and the usual array of buttons, arranged in a classic and logical manner. If you’ve ever used an MFP before, you will encounter no learning curve here. The software includes Epson Scan for scanning and PaperPort 9 for OCR chores.Paper-handling features on the WP-4590 are quite good. It has a 250-sheet tray on the bottom and an 80-sheet rear vertical feed. If that’s not enough, you can buy an auxiliary 250-sheet bottom tray for a mere $100. For a laser printer you’d pay at least twice as much for such an accessory. Having the rear feed is especially nice for photos, since it permits the MFP to process heavier glossy paper with minimal bending. The rear feed also allows you to keep two types of paper loaded.The WP-4590 has a 30-sheet automatic document feeder for scanning and copying longer documents, and it scans in duplex (via a refeed, not with dual-scanning elements). The lid for the letter/A4-size flatbed scanner telescopes about half an inch to accommodate thicker materials. The WP-4590 also supports automatic duplex printing.The WorkForce Pro WP-4590 is the fastest inkjet we’ve tested recently, narrowly edging out its consumer-oriented cousin. Monochrome pages print at 12.6 pages per minute on the PC and 12.1 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size (4-by-6-inch) photos print at 6.2 ppm to plain paper and 1.7 ppm to glossy photo paper. Full page photos print at 0.7 ppm, and copies proceed into the output bin at 6.4 ppm.The corporate-oriented WP-4590 may be pricier than , but its ink costs are outstandingly low. The unit ships with starter cartridges: a 1000-page black, and 900-page cyan, magenta, and yellow. The 676XL retail replacements are $38.49 for the 2400-page black and $24.49 for the 1200-page cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges. That works out to 1.6 cents per page for black, and 6.1 cents per page total for color. A four-color page would cost a bargain 7.7 cents. The extra-high-capacity 711XXL cartridges listed on Epson’s website are slated to be available only through commercial channels rather than retail. Based on the suggested pricing that Epson provided to us, black will cost 1.6 cents per page and each color will cost 1.7 cents per page, for an even lower four-color cost of 6.8 cents per page.In our tests, output from the WP-4590 was typical Epson??that is to say, quite good. Text appeared sharp and black, and very close (though not quite equal to) laser output when we used its highest-quality setting. Color graphics were good, looking a tad washed out on plain paper, but coolly accurate when we switched to glossy photo paper. Of course, as an inkjet, the WP-4590 is capable of handling thicker photo papers.Epson rates the WP-4590 for 1650 pages per month. That’s the recommended number, not the industry’s absurd duty-cycle rating, which people generally ignore these days. Still, 1650 pages is a fair amount of printing.The Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4590 is a nice, inexpensive alternative to a low-end color laser MFP for smaller corporate workgroups. It’s fast enough for most scenarios, supply costs are outstandingly low, and its long warranty is better than what you??ll get from a comparably priced laser.Founded in 1982 by VESA FDMI standard author and visionary Harry Sweere, Ergotron is a global manufacturer of digital display mounting and mobility products, headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with sales efforts in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Ergotron’s products have been improving the human interface with digital displays for over 25 years. Our history of innovation and passion for differentiation is evidenced in over 37 patents and our growing portfolio of award winning products for computer monitors, notebooks, and large flat panel displays and T.V.s Ergotron products enhance computing wellness, improve workplace productivity and create business process efficiencies, wherever and whenever they’re used. Incorporating Ergotron’s Constant Force lift and pivot motion technology, wall and desk mount arms, stands, mobile carts, pivots and vertical lifts require less effort to achieve more ergonomic motion, improving the user’s experience when viewing any digital display for work or entertainment. Corporate Website :Industries in every sector are feeling the pressure to reduce their impact on the environment. This pressure is coming for North American manufacturers. This pressure is not only coming from investors and customers but also from government regulations. These regulations place new demands on manufacturers to track the impact their operations and products have on the environment, specifically at the end of the products lifecycle.This whitepaper addresses the various drivers for the green supply chain trend, shares important considerations for satisfying a green supply chain initiative of a customer or initiating your own green supply chain initiative, and discusses the role of enterprise software like enterprise resources planning (ERP) in keeping pace with this industry trend.The end of support date for Windows XP?April 8, 2014 is rapidly approaching, after which the potential for security vulnerabilities will dramatically increase. Companies with lots of Windows XP machines still in use need help upgrading in this compressed timeframe. Lenovo has an answer, as its Image Technology Center (ITC) services along with the Lenovo In-Place Migration (IPM) product can help internal IT staff quickly and successfully migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8 with a minimum of disruption to users and the organization.Enterprise Marketing Management, or EMM, is a software technology solution for marketing organizations that provides a comprehensive marketing platform for managing customer and prospect interactions throughout the customer lifecycle. Before introducing the IBM? Enterprise Marketing Management suite, here are some recent observations about today?s marketing environment that set the context in which IBM is seeking to meet the needs of marketers. The practice of marketing is challenging these days because of the rise of the ?empowered customer.? Today?s customers are well-informed, use other people as their primary information source, interact with companies through multiple channels, touch points and media, and want (but rarely get) a superior customer experience?and have outlets for venting frustration when they don?t get what they want.Enterprise Marketing Management, or EMM, is a software technology solution for marketing organizations that provides a comprehensive marketing platform for managing customer and prospect interactions throughout the customer lifecycle. Before introducing the IBM? Enterprise Marketing Management suite, here are some recent observations about today?s marketing environment that set the context in which IBM is seeking to meet the needs of marketers. The practice of marketing is challenging these days because of the rise of the ?empowered customer.? Today?s customers are well-informed, use other people as their primary information source, interact with companies through multiple channels, touch points and media, and want (but rarely get) a superior customer experience?and have outlets for venting frustration when they don?t get what they want.Essential (and Free!) Security Downloads Spyware, viruses, Trojans, and assorted malware are clamoring to get onto your PC and cause damage. Snoopers want to get at your personal information for nefarious purposes, such as identity theft. Luckily, there’s plenty of free software to protect your privacy and security–and some are industrial-strength tools that can do everything that expensive security software does. These 10 favorite programs help protect your privacy and security. Download and install them, and you’ll be far safer against all the nastiness out there.Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can seem like giant beasts when you realize how integrated they can be with nearly every function in your business. From the Sales and Quoting process through Material Planning, Procurement, Scheduling, Shop Floor Control, Quality Management, Outside Services, Shipping & Logistics, Customer Service, Finance and Human Resource Management, an integrated system can be tied into nearly every function. This brief will help you understand how the functions link together, help reduce the overwhelm and highlight where you can realize the most value.Your hub for mobile, console, and computer games. Et tu, PopCap: Plants Vs Zombies vs in-app purchases Whenever Electronic Arts rears its head, much of the internet’s gaming population does a sort of collective shudder. The company has risen to infamy by tossing gobs of cash into and grinding their beloved franchises into the dust, all in a myopic bid to reach the wallets of that nebulous critter, the casual gamer. Our best defense is to shrug and give our cash to someone else, but sometimes it gets a little personal. Sometimes EA buys PopCap, creator of the beloved Plants versus Zombies, and we learn that the long-awaited sequel will be free-to-play with more in-app purchasing opportunities than you can shake a reasonably large stick at.Well, it’s here, and it’s Plants versus Zombies in all its glory. Just… better. The action, charm, and replayability that made the first one such a smashing success are captured and improved. But it’s also leaves me a little sad. Because while the game retains all the charm and grace of its predecessor—and then some—it also bears the hallmarks of the most odious forms of the free-to-play genre. You’ll have a great time and likely won’t even spend a cent. But that pervasive need to nickel-and-dime, however optional, leaves a slimy sort of film on the goodwill PopCap has earned through excellent game development.A primer: zombies are attacking, and your platoon of sunshine-powered plants are tasked with defending our brains. This time there’s a taco and space travel involved—it’s weird, (Free, iOS only). The animation oozes charm, and you can’t help but smirk as sunflowers smile and laugh, or puffy-cheeked pea shooters rain death on the undead. The music is catchy, and the environments, challenges, and mini-games are as inventive as ever.Most important, you can play through the entire game and earn most of the paywall-restricted goodies without ever dropping a dime, and be treated to a challenging—but fair—experience that honestly eclipses its predecessor.The first hit is always free.The trouble starts with Plant Food, a powerup that can supercharge your floral forces, and is dropped by random glowing zombies. You can only carry three at a time, but they flow fairly regularly—until they don’t. The is a fickle beast; in some levels, I had more plant food than I knew what to do with, and would flick it at my minions just to see what it would do. Other levels required a bit more careful management, or simply doing without.And then there are the keys that will unlock doors scattered across the map. They too drop randomly, and while the doors don’t necessarily impede your progress, they do block access to new plants you’ve yet to acquire. And finally there are stars—that basic metric of level completion for today’s mobile games. Complete challenges to unlock stars, and you’ll unlock a gate that’ll take you to the next map.Want more plant food? Just spend 1000 coins, which are occasionally acquired by defeating enemies (at random, of course)—you’ll also get up to 50 coins if you complete a level without any major mishaps. Want more keys? Just keep playing and replaying levels until more drop, and spend them wisely. Naturally, you can just open up your wallet and buy all the coins and keys you’ll need. But I refuse—it’s a shortcut all too akin paying to win, and I’ll be damned if I’ll have that on my conscience.And just like that, everything becomes . I play conservatively, stockpiling plant food and only spending it when I’ve reached the cap and a glowing zombie makes an appearance, securing my supply line. Any keys are simply hoarded—that plant looks pretty nice, but I’ve only got seven of these things and who knows what’ll be available on the next map.But my heart didn’t well and truly sink until I was introduced to the touch-centric powerups. Pinch zombies to pluck their heads off. Swipe them up into the air, and then flick them off the screen. Or press and hold to zap one, then drag your finger across the screen to fry his buddies. Incredibly fun, well-balanced abilities (only active for a few seconds) that serve as a sort of Hail Mary pass when the game is at its most hectic. But they’ll cost you a considerable number of coins—more coins than you’ll earn in fair number of levels. Unlike plant food there’s no way of accruing them “naturally,” so I play knowing that those powerup icons sitting on the bottom of my screen may as well not be there, as I’d feel foolish ever wasting that much currency on them. Grind for stars, or shell out the price of a premium app.I paid $20 for the original Plants versus Zombies. And then I purchased it again, for my iPad. And then it was released on the iPhone, which is a lot easier to hold when you’re standing on a bus, so there goes a bit more cash—I’m not averse to rendering unto PopCap what’s theirs. But I’m pretty sure I’ll never shell out any cash for Plants versus Zombies 2, and this irks me.What was once a fun, fluid tower defense-esque experience can at times feel more like a sort of a resource management sim—not because of scarce resources, but because those resources cost real money. Still fun, but forever plagued by that nagging sensation that you’re only worried about playing so efficiently because you know you could be wielding awesome power for just a few bucks. And have a full arsenal of plants to choose from—many of them old favorites—for just a few bucks. Look, I love the Snow Pea ($4). But is a single plant really worth as much ?To be fair, Snow Pea is pretty great.You can also pay to avoid a hefty amount of repetition: The new time periods are locked behind “star gates,” so you’ll need to hoard stars by playing new challenges on old stages before you can proceed. Or forking over five bucks. To be fair, the nature of Plants versus Zombies’ gameplay means that “stages” are mere backdrops, and no level ever feels the same. But the first game kept things moving at a refreshing pace: A few levels in the backyard begets a night zone with new plants begets a new play dynamic with aquatic-zombies, before heading to the roof for an entirely different experience. Quaint as the Plant versus Zombies 2 experience is, you’ll get sick of hanging around Egypt before too long.This could have been much worse: consider SimCity or Real Racing, series that could once do no wrong rendered or by decisions aimed at converting every moment of our entertainment into cold hard cash.In Plants versus Zombies 2 we’re never nagged to spend money, or forced to pay to make progress or post quips to Facebook in exchange for extra sunshine or whatever. It’s far more insidious than that, as the very essence of the game involves separating the wheat from the proverbial chaff.“Core” gamers will have their challenge, with a decidedly brisker pace than the original game and challenges to play over and over and occasionally, over again until they’ve perfected their build order. The casual gamer, otherwise known as the family member or friend we introduced the original game to, might instead feel a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps they’ll shell out some cash on powerups to beat a level or two. Or maybe they’ll chuckle at the comical narrative and set the game aside—it was free, after all—wondering what the heck all the fuss was about.Don’t think twice about (unless you don’t own an iOS device, natch). It’s incredibly fun, and free, and well worth your time. But its in-app purchases are worryingly over-priced, and while seasoned gardeners won’t have much trouble, I worry about the precedents it sets.Enterprises and equipment vendors are learning the value of a complete readiness assessment before deploying VoIP across an organization. The assessments are a critical step to a successful VoIP deployment, but many enterprises do not perform an assessment because of cost or because after performing a baseline on network utilization, they assume that their network has enough bandwidth to accommodate the voice traffic. This white paper explains why it is essential to perform a readiness assessment both for initial VoIP deployment and also for expansion projects to avoid unplanned additional costs and deployment delays.European League of Legends Game Players Have Their Account Data Compromised Hackers have stolen account data from the European servers of popular real-time strategy game League of Legends (LoL), the game’s developer, Riot Games, announced on Saturday.According to figures published by Riot in November 2011, there are over 32 million registered accounts on the three LoL servers: North America, EU West (EUW) and EU Nordic & East (EUNE).”Hackers gained access to certain personal player data contained in certain EU West and EU Nordic & East databases,” Riot Games founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck wrote in a on Saturday.The compromised account data included email addresses, encrypted passwords, player names and dates of birth. No payment or billing information was exposed as a result of this security breach, Merrill and Beck said.For a small number of players, their first and last names, as well as their encrypted security questions and answers, were also compromised. However, security questions and answers are no longer used in LoL’s account recovery process, the Riot co-founders said.Not all EUW and EUNE accounts were affected, but the company decided to notify all players using those servers via email as a precaution.Riot did not specify when or how the breach occurred, citing an ongoing investigation performed by outside security experts and law enforcement authorities. However, its notification was otherwise frank and helpful, said Paul Ducklin, the head of technology for the Asia Pacific region at antivirus vendor Sophos.Unlike other companies that suffered data breaches in the past, Riot published a short analysis of the compromised passwords. “Even though we store passwords in encrypted form only, our security investigation determined that more than half of the passwords were simple enough to be at risk of easy cracking,” Merrill and Beck said.Furthermore, a double-digit percentage of individuals used the same password as other users and 11 particular passwords were shared by over 10,000 players each, the Riot co-founders said.”What this almost certainly means is that the security investigators set about cracking the password database themselves — with suitable authorisation, of course — as a way of judging what sort of advice to give,” Ducklin said. “If they could quickly recover half the passwords, so could a hacker.”Affected users were advised to change their passwords on the LoL website, as well as on any other website where they might have used them. Passwords should be unique for every important account, they should consist of 8 or more characters and should be a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters, Merrill and Beck said.Users were also warned to be on the lookout for possible phishing emails claiming to originate from Riot and seeking more information. Such emails are a common occurrence following data breach incidents.The League of Legends data breach notification follows similar announcements from , and , which alerted their users last week that their account passwords might have been compromised.It is very important for users to limit the impact of such security breaches by using unique passwords for every online account. There are free password management applications that simplify the task of working with multiple passwords.The identity and access management challenges that exist in the physical world – identity management, application security, access control, managing sensitive data, user activity logging, and compliance reporting – are even more critical in the virtual environments that are growing in use as IT seeks to streamline its operations and reduce operating costs. However, security risks are increased due to the nature of the virtualization environment and IT should seek to extend their security solutions from the physical server environment to the virtualization environment as seamlessly as possible.Continue reading this white paper to learn how CA Content-Aware IAM solutions help protect customers in the physical world and similarly protect virtual environments by controlling identities, access, and information usage.The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab’s expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab IT Audit report was sponsored by EMC.Even more secretive Windows Blue features revealed The leaked development version of Windows Blue, an upcoming version of Windows 8 expected later this year, has shed light on even more improvements coming to the operating system. Windows Blue——won’t be a whole new OS, but rather an update or service pack to Windows 8, packed with incremental updates and features while maintaining the same overall user experience.Our revealed some useful changes. The leaked build includes the ability to snap two apps on the screen in 50/50 ratio (compared to the only 75/25 ratio currently available), additional Live Tile sizing options, easier screenshot sharing, new gesture controls, and better access to critical system settings from the modern-style interface.Paul Thurrott of the Windows Supersite dug a bit deeper and unearthed a feature that will make your life easier if you use multiple Windows 8 devices: a greatly enhanced .Although the interface for managing the feature is broken in the test version, he was able to sync his start screen by simply signing in to two different Windows Blue-equipped PCs with the same Microsoft account. While Windows 8 allows for the syncing of basic settings and your wallpaper, Thurrott reports that Windows Blue ups the ante by syncing your modern Start screen’s color scheme and pinned tiles, including said tiles’ colors and layout.Even more new features in Windows BlueMeanwhile, Rafael Rivera from Within Windows discovered that . While rummaging through the registry, he found that you would also be able to sync installed apps, file history, picture passwords, and—most interestingly—tethering and device associations. The latter suggests that once you associate a Bluetooth device with a PC or tablet while you’re logged in to your Microsoft account, you’ll then be able to use the keyboard automatically on any Windows Blue device you sign in to.The synced tab option in Windows Blue’s IE 11. Windows Blue will also come with Internet Explorer 11, which so far does not look significantly different from the current version. Yet the leaked version shows there will be a new option called Synced Tabs, currently inoperative, which would allow you to access open tabs across devices.There are already options to sync bookmarks and history with IE 10, and the new feature appears similar to Apple’s implementation across OSX and Safari for iOS, which lets you open a tab on your phone and pick it up on your computer, or vice versa. Rafael Rivera suggests we could see something similar implemented between Windows Blue and Windows Phone devices.Another improvement brings a handy feature in the modern-style version of IE 10 to the desktop version Internet Explorer 11: . So far it can only be , however, and you will then need to restart IE 11 in order to activate the function.Get your hands on BlueIf the idea of downloading an illicitly leaked build of Microsoft’s upcoming operating system doesn’t sit right with you—PCWorld doesn’t endorse the idea whatsoever—fear not: You may be able to try these myriad improvements out for yourself before long.Citing anonymous sources, that Microsoft is planning to release a public preview of Windows Blue (though it surely won’t be named that) coinciding with the Build 2013 conference, which will be held June 26 through the 28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.Smart fixes for your PC hassles Even new PCs can have problems Recently I splurged on a new laptop, a 13.3-inch Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook. Incredibly thin, light, and fast, it overjoyed me from the moment I unpacked it.It wasn’t long, though, before my joy turned to frustration. Although it booted with lightning speed, Internet access seemed slow. In fact, sometimes I couldn’t load Web pages at all.As usual when dealing with a mystery like this, I used . Sure enough, the Samsung was having intermittent connectivity slowdowns and outages. My router wasn’t to blame, and for once neither was Comcast.But what exactly was going on? Surely a brand new computer??especially one as advanced and expensive as this??could reliably connect to the Internet.Turns out, no. After some Web searching, I learned that many Samsung Series 9 models suffered from the same intermittent Wi-Fi problems. (I further determined that Wi-Fi was to blame after connecting the system directly to my router via Ethernet. Problem solved.)So I went to Samsung’s support site in search of updated Wi-Fi drivers, but found nothing new: All the drivers dated back to mid-2012. Luckily, someone on a user forum pointed me to new drivers from Intel (makers of the Series 9’s Wi-Fi chip), and a quick download, install, and reboot later, I was enjoying blazing broadband once again.Alas, the story doesn’t end there. Soon I began to notice that certain Web sites wouldn’t load completely. It was like the browser just gave up halfway. If I refreshed the page, presto, problem solved. But that certainly wasn’t a long-term solution.What the heck? Another connectivity issue? Back to the user forums. You’ll never guess the culprit this time: Samsung’s Support Center utility (which monitors the system for available updates and whatnot) apparently doesn’t get along with Google Chrome, my browser of choice. Other users had encountered this same page-loading oddity; uninstalling Support Center was a potential fix.Sure enough, that worked. But talk about two vexing hassles! And on a brand-new PC, no less.By now I’m sure you’ve sussed out the moral of the story: Even new PCs can have problems. Annoying, yes. Frustrating, definitely. But it’s the nature of the high-tech beast. The key is to keep calm and remember that there may be a (reasonably) simple solution.Contributing Editor??writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at?, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the?.?Sign up to have the??e-mailed to you each week.Evernote If you suffer from Internet information overload, Evernote v3.5 has the solution. This combination of software and Web-based service lets you capture information from multiple sources, including from the Web, e-mail, a digital camera, via a scanner, and via a microphone. It then lets you organize it all, annotate it, tag it, and search through it, and make it available not just on your PC, but on the Web, and via mobile devices as well.Capturing and keeping track of all your information via Evernote takes some getting used to. The interface isn’t always intuitive. But after a short learning curve, you’ll find this program quite useful, particularly for researchers, or those who gather a great deal of information. It’s probably best suited for clipping and gather information from the Web, although bringing in e-mail messages can help cut down on e-mail overload.Note: This link takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the version of the software appropriate to your computer or phone. PCWorld’s Android AppGuide and iPhone AppGuide entries for this software include both reviews and downloads.–Preston GrallaEvernote Launches New Business Tool, Smart Moleskine Notebook Popular productivity app Evernote is targeting small companies with the launch of Evernote Business, while bridging the gap between paper and digital notebooks.Evernote Business beefs up Evernote’s collaboration features while adding administrative capabilities to help companies manage users.”Sharing and collaboration is the fundamental thing you want to do at work,” said CEO Phil Libin at the Evernote Trunk conference in San Francisco. “We want Evernote not only to be your personal brain but your company’s brain.”In addition, Libin called a “ceasefire” to Evernote’s war against paper with the launch of a smart Moleskine notebook at $24.95 and $29.95, shipping in October. An updated iPhone and iPad app, available today, adds a Page Camera feature for digitizing content from the notebooks, whose pages are formatted for Evernote.In beta testing until December, the service will cost $10 per month.Evernote Business users will be able to separate personal and professional notebooks, with businesses setting up private spaces. The sharing tab will disappear from Evernote, which will display all notebooks in one place. These changes apply to all of the interfaces of Evernote–for the browser, the desktop, and the major mobile OSs.The Moleskine notebook designed for Evernote features stickers to help organize your paper and digital content.Evernote promises not to mine users’ data, giving companies and individuals full data ownership. “We came up with a kind of playground solution, which is what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours,” Libin said, adding that most of Evernote’s 38 million users are professionals.Evernote also will introduce phone support.Coolermaster HAF 912 Case….ASUS Z87Pro MOBO…..Intel Core i7 4770k Haswell ( OC’d to 4.6 Ghz ) …. Gelid Tranquillo cooler…. Samsung 830 256 GB SSD…. Primary HDD- WD 1TB Caviar Black SATA III /6.0 …. SECONDARY HDD – WD 1TB Caviar Black SATA II / 3.0….16Gb GSkill Ripjaws Series X 2133 Mhz Memory….Corsair AX850w PSU….EVGA GTX 680 Super Clocked Signature 2 Gb GDDR5 Video Card….Samsung CD/DVD RW, DL, DVD-Ram, w/ Lightscribe Optical Drive….Samsung SyncMaster 2243BWX 22″ Monitor….. Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit OS______________________________________________________________Gateway FX6800-01e—-Intel Core i7 960 ( 3.2 GHz)—- Seagate Barracuda 750 Gb SATA II / 3.0 Hdd—- 6 Gb Crucial 1066 Mhz memory, running in Tri Channel conf—–Corsair TX650w PSU—– EVGA Nvidia GTX 560Ti 1gb GDDR5 Vram —-DVD +/- RW / CD ,RAM/DL Optical drive w/ Label Flash—–Gateway TBGM-01 Motherboard…. Vista Home Premium 64 bit OS w/ SP2; Samsung Synch Master 2243BWX 22″ Monitor.EVGA GTX 660 Ti Review: Kepler Rendered Affordable Nvidia has been getting a lot of mileage out of the Kepler desktop GPU, using the chip in the and graphics cards, and bringing it back once again in the new GTX 660 Ti. Although the GTX 670 had one functional block disabled, the GTX 660 Ti cuts just a single key feature: one of the memory controller blocks. This design change reduces the data width to memory to 192 bits wide, in contrast to the 256-bit pathways available on the GTX 670 and GTX 680. Since the ROP (raster operations) unit is part of that block, the ROP units now number 24 instead of 32. The clock rate is a little lower as well.Speeds and FeedsLet’s take a quick look at how the GTX 660 Ti differs from its pricier cousins. Note that the listed clock frequencies are for eVGA’s GTX 660 Ti SC model, which is clocked slightly higher than Nvidia’s reference card. Other shipping retail boards may differ in clock frequencies, depending on the design of the board and what each company wants to support. The target price for the base GTX 660 Ti is $299; the superclocked eVGA model we tested is priced at $310 (prices are as of August 16, 2012).FeatureeVGA GTX 660 Ti SCGTX 670GTX 680Graphics cores134413441536Texture units112112128ROPs243232Base clock frequency980MHz915MHz1006MHzBoost clock frequency1059MHz980MHz1058MHzMemory (frequency)2GB (1502MHz)2GB GDDR5 (1502 MHz)2GB GDDR5 (1502 MHz)Memory interface192-bit256-bit256-bitTransistor count3.5 billion3.5 billion3.5 billionDisplay connectors2 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.22 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.22 x Dual Link DVI, 2 x HDMI 1.4a (Fast), 2 x DisplayPort 1.2Power connectors2 x 6-pin PCIe2 x 6-pin PCIe2 x 6-pin PCIeThermal design power (TDP)150W170W195WThose are the base specs in a nutshell. It’s time to check out how our test board performed.PerformanceWe collected performance data by using FutureMark’s 3DMark 2011 and four DirectX 11 games: Crysis 2, Dirt Showdown, Metro 2033, and Batman: Arkham City. We ran the game tests at 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution with 4x multisampling antialiasing enabled. In addition, we measured system power, under idle and load, using a Watts Up Pro power meter. The system we used for testing carried a Core i7-3960X CPU running at 3.3GHz, as well as 12GB of DDR3 memory running at 1600MHz. The power supply, motherboard, and other hardware remained constant during the entire run; so too did the operating system, Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.I compared the eVGA GTX 660 Ti SC’s performance with that of AMD’s similarly priced Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, in the form of the Asus HD 7870 DirectCU II. I didn’t have time to rerun all the benchmarks with the older GTX 560 Ti, but initial testing indicates that the 660 Ti is definitely a step up in performance.The eVGA card easily won the 3DMark 2011 synthetic test. Although 3DMark 2011 isn’t comparable to actual games, it does test most DirectX 11 features.In Batman: Arkham City, the GTX 660 Ti won out over the Radeon by about 10 percent, which is a pretty substantial difference.In Crysis 2, the difference in performance between the eVGA and Asus cards was smaller than in Arkham City, but still worth noting.In the Metro 2033 test, the roles reversed slightly, with the GTX 660 Ti running just a bit slower than the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition.What gives? In this game the Asus Radeon card pulled out a big win over the GTX 660 Ti. However, in this case the difference is not purely attributable to a graphics issue. Dirt Showdown uses Microsoft’s DirectCompute interface to perform some serious floating point calculations for two key features: global illumination and advanced lighting. The AMD GPU is substantially better at pure computation than the Nvidia chip is, which gives the AMD product an edge. Note that most games have yet to make heavy use of the GPU in general compute tasks, so it’s unlikely you’ll see big differences, and the GTX 660 Ti tends to perform better in games that don’t make heavy use of GPU compute.It’s impressive how idle power usage has improved on all the current-generation cards. We saw little practical difference in power usage between these two cards.Final ThoughtsPriced at $310, the eVGA GTX 660 Ti SC is aimed at gamers who want to get very good performance without spending $400 or more for a high-end card. Such users tend to hold on to their cards for two or three years, so they’re probably upgrading from an older GTX 260 card. In those cases, the GTX 660 Ti offers reasonably substantial performance gains, as well as the ability to run DirectX 11 titles.The card is surprisingly compact for its performance, and should fit in most midsize-tower cases—even those lacking the depth to handle more-robust cards. Power supply requirements should be modest, too: A good 500W PSU should do the trick.The eVGA GTX 660 Ti is efficient and compact, and it offers very good performance at its price. If you’re a serious PC gamer with a limited budget, and if you have been making do with a two-year-old card, it’s time to think seriously about upgrading.The identity and access management challenges that exist in the physical world – identity management, application security, access control, managing sensitive data, user activity logging, and compliance reporting – are even more critical in the virtual environments that are growing in use as IT seeks to streamline its operations and reduce operating costs. However, security risks are increased due to the nature of the virtualization environment and IT should seek to extend their security solutions from the physical server environment to the virtualization environment as seamlessly as possible.Continue reading this white paper to learn how CA Content-Aware IAM solutions help protect customers in the physical world and similarly protect virtual environments by controlling identities, access, and information usage.Online advertising is a highly competitive and innovative market being driven to new levels by the rise of ad exchanges, real-time bidding alongside traditional ad networks. With advertisers increasingly buying one impression at a time, advertising market growth is soaring.If your database is the bottleneck limiting the growth of your advertising business, this is the white paper for you. Find out how Clustrix will give you access to functionality, such as ad segmentation and targeting based on up-to-the minute campaign performance, as well as instant access to smart data, so your clients can make the right buy decisions.This free whitepaper considers the technical challenges this rise presents for the database, and discusses the unique technology that enables Clustrix to solve these challenges and give your advertising business a competitive advantage.This white paper is focused on the design and architecture of an OCS 2007 environment in an HP BladeSystem infrastructure. The document outlines a building block approach to deploying OCS on the HP BladeSystem and focuses on how the design decisions around levels of availability, scalability, and the OCS 2007 feature set impact the hardware that is deployed and the version of OCS that is used. The white paper also covers a brief overview of the Microsoft Unified Communications framework including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 and an overview of the HP BladeSystem architecture and how the HP BladeSystem can help lower the total cost of ownership (TCO).This white paper is focused on the design and architecture of an OCS 2007 environment in an HP BladeSystem infrastructure. The document outlines a building block approach to deploying OCS on the HP BladeSystem and focuses on how the design decisions around levels of availability, scalability, and the OCS 2007 feature set impact the hardware that is deployed and the version of OCS that is used. The white paper also covers a brief overview of the Microsoft Unified Communications framework including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 and an overview of the HP BladeSystem architecture and how the HP BladeSystem can help lower the total cost of ownership (TCO).Linux and open-source news and advice Expect Longer Battery Life with Ubuntu Linux 12.04 ‘Precise Pangolin’ The upcoming year is shaping up to be an especially good one for .Not only is there a Linux kernel patch on the way that promises to fix the power regression problems that have been plaguing the open source software over the past year or so, but now it looks like the next version of Ubuntu Linux–version 12.04 LTS, or “”–will be delivering some big improvements of its own in that area as well.“There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence of specific machines or power saving features behaving poorly over the past few cycles,” wrote Ubuntu kernel engineer Colin King in a earlier this week.Accordingly, “part of my focus this cycle is to see [where] we can make power saving improvements for Ubuntu Precise 12.04 LTS,” he said.*Tapping Low Power Mode *One fix–the very same I wrote about last month, focusing on PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM)–has already been incorporated into Precise Pangolin, King noted.Among those now up for testing, however, is Aggressive Link Power Management (ALPM), a mechanism whereby “a controller can put the SATA link that connects to the disk into a very low power mode during periods of zero I/O activity and into an active power state when work needs to be done,” King explained.That fix has been shown to save between 0.5 and 1.5 watts of power on a typical system, but it hasn’t worked on all devices, so King is asking the community to help test it further.Another possible tweak is to put the USB and PCI controllers of devices such as webcams, wireless, Ethernet and Bluetooth into a lower power state, King wrote, for potential savings of another watt or two of power. That one also needs further testing by the community, however.A Community EffortPower efficiency may be particularly important for users on laptops, but it also makes a difference for those on desktops in terms of both energy costs and the environmental implications.Now that Canonical is venturing , of course, power issues become positively critical.If you’re interested in helping to test out these new improvements, check out the on the Ubuntu wiki site for details.Quest Workspacetm Privilege Manager lets IT administrators grant selected privileges to users so they can update their own PCs, reducing help desk calls while maintaining a secure network. Elevate and manage user rights quickly and precisely with our Validation Logic targeting technology. Use privilege elevation rules from the Privilege Authority Community Edition, or create your own rules and allow administrator-level access to only the applications, Windows processes and ActiveX controls you deem safe.Practical IT insight from Tony Bradley Expensify expands capabilities to create ‘expense reports that don’t suck’ Keeping track of hours, mileage, and receipts is tedious. Compiling it all into an expense report that will pass the scrutiny of the accounting department can be a nightmare. wants to relieve that burden by delivering?“expense reports that don’t suck,” and it continues to add new features to achieve that goal.Expensify streamlines the process of tracking and filing business expenses.The service has simplified expense reporting for ?by letting themrecord expenses on the fly (for receipts under $75, Expensify guarantees that its eReceipts are IRS compliant),?and use its GPS to determine travel miles. Expensify can also import transactions from online bank or credit card data and automatically categorize most expenses to save employees the effort.Expensify is continuously updating its capabilities, and expanding its relationships with other services. The ability to scan, track, and manage receipts to produce expense reports is great, but the real value of Expensify lies in how it integrates with other business and accounting tools to simplify the whole process from start to finish.Now Expensify is rolling out beta integration with ?a popular online accounting service. Xero lets you view and share cash flow in real time, reconcile bank accounts, and invoice customers. Businesses will be able to conveniently incorporate expense data from Expensify as well, and manage everything from tracking hours, to invoicing, to payroll from one place.Another new feature is a “Submit Only” approval mode that automatically accepts and submits new expenses, ideal for businesses that don’t need?or want?complex approval workflows.One piece of advice, though. The value of a tool or service like Expensify relies on using it consistently. If employees “dabble” in it, and track half of their expenses in Expensify and the other half with paper receipts and sticky notes, Expensify becomes an additonal burden rather than a tool to streamline processes. If you want Expensify (or just about any other tool or service) to work for your business, you have to fully embrace it and incorporate it into the culture and operational business practices.If your business uses Expensify and/or Xero, and you’d like to participate in the beta program, you can send an email to to apply. If you’re not using Expensify, you can sign up and try it out for free. You can manage expenses for up to two employees for free?each additional user is $6 per person per month.Explosions and exclusives: Microsoft’s E3 press conference wrap-up Microsoft kicked off the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo bright and early Monday morning with a torrent of exclusive games, explosions, and bass drops for their upcoming Xbox One console, which we now know will arrive in U.S. (?499 in Europe and ?429 in the U.K.).Now on the third iteration of the Xbox console, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up after the tepid response to the . However, the company just earned some serious public acclaim with an E3 press conference .CoupsMicrosoft led with a trailer for Konami’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, delivering on their promise of “nothing but games at E3” after the TV-focused reveal event in early May.Though a handful of Metal Gear games have been playable on Microsoft platforms in the past, the series is traditionally a Sony mainstay. Metal Gear Solid 4, released in 2008, was one of the first must-buy games exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation 3, so leading with MGS5 was a bold move for Microsoft.Metal Gear Solid 5 kicked off the show.Microsoft scored a similar coup later when it trotted out Ted Price of Insomniac, another developer traditionally in Sony’s corner. Insomniac’s Resistance series launched with the PS3, so it was a shock when Price debuted Sunset Overdrive, a cartoony open-world shooter with zombie-esque enemies, as an Xbox One exclusive. “It’s a living world game, and something we could only do on the Xbox One,” said Price.Xbox 360 still existsEarly in the conference Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi took the stage to assuage fears of Xbox 360 development dying after the release of the XBO. Microsoft is releasing a new 360 model: quieter, smaller, and designed to mimic the shape of the Xbox One.Xbox Live Gold is changing to compete with Sony’s PlayStation Plus service. For the past few years Sony has given PS+ subscribers free games on a rolling basis. Microsoft will do the same from here on out, offering two games monthly to Xbox Live Gold subscribers. First up are Assassin’s Creed II and Halo 3.Mehdi also claims hundreds of titles are in development for the 360 over the course of the next few years?a very different tack than the one Microsoft took in 2005 when the 360 released and the stream of games for the original Xbox quickly dried up.We saw trailers for three Xbox 360 titles: World of Tanks, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, and Dark Souls II.The Xbox 360 wasn’t left out altogether. Press Play showed off Max: The Curse of Brotherhood,?a 2D sidescroller in the same vein as Max & the Magic Marker.Microsoft also announced that anyone using an Xbox One with an Xbox Live Gold membership attached can take advantage of member benefits, suggesting that friends and family can play your Xbox Live Gold-granted games even if they themselves aren’t card-carrying Gold members.Keeping first-party development aliveMicrosoft’s first-party offerings for the 360 have dwindled in the last few years, so it was great to see a renewed presence during the press conference.Rare’s beloved 1994 fighting franchise Killer Instinct has been revived for the Xbox One, and it looks as silly as ever. However, Rare isn’t developing the game; Double Helix Games has shouldered that burden. It’s a depressing indicator of how far Rare has fallen in the past few years.Microsoft also announced a custom fightstick for Killer Instinct, created by MadCatz, for the dedicated fighting scene crowd.A car rose out of the stage to signal the start of Turn 10 Studios’s presentation, which focused on their upcoming Forza 5. Turn 10 gave us an extensive look at this latest Forza, touting “the end of AI” as we know it.No Xbox E3 press conference would be complete without a flashy racing game like Forza Motorsport 5.Games should be “more human, more intelligent,” said Dan Greenawalt, head of Turn 10. “The new generation is about more than polycount and texture resolution.”As such, you’ll now have a “Drivatar” in Forza that will learn how you play. Thus, when you’re offline your friends can still compete against a facsimile who supposedly drives the same way you do.Not to be outdone, 343 Industries showed a CG trailer for the new Halo game, coming in 2014. Bonnie Ross, head of 343i, says Halo 5 runs at a constant 60 frames per second?a first for the franchise. The trailer feature a hooded figure wandering through a formless desert, before an enormous robot erupted from the ground. As the sand settled, the hooded figure was revealed as Master Chief. I’m sure Halo fans are already dissecting what the trailer means, and we’ll see how the game shapes up in the coming months.Project Spark lets you and your friends create your own games, and then play them.Dave McCarthy of Microsoft Studios demoed . Less a game than a multiplayer map editor, Project Spark appears to resemble the Sony-exclusive LittleBigPlanet games. Players can create their own original game maps and scripting. “When you’re ready, you can share your game with anyone, anywhere,” said McCarthy. Designers can use SmartGlass, the platform Microsoft developed to allow tablets to interact with the Xbox, for more granular map editing.Microsoft Studios’ Phil Spencer revealed Microsoft has opened five new studios for first-party development. Only one game was shown, from the fledgling Black Tusk Studios. The game appeared to be an espionage-type title in the vein of Rainbow Six, though the trailer was scant on details?we don’t even have a title yet.Third-party is actually where it countsDespite a lack of first-party titles in recent years, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 thrived because of wide third-party support. So it was no surprise how many developers lined up to discuss their upcoming Xbox One games.Crytek showed off Ryse: Son of Rome, an exclusive Xbox One launch title. “With Ryse: Son of Rome you will step into the boots of Roman general Marius Titus,” said Crytek’s Cevat Yerli. The game looks like a next-generation version of the old Dynasty Warriors games, with you leading an entire army of Roman troops into battle.Remedy Entertainment gave us more information about its new title Quantum Break, teased at the Xbox One reveal event. Quantum Break appears to be a TV/game hybrid, potentially in a similar vein to the recently released Defiance. According to Sam Lake, creative director of Remedy, Quantum Break is “blurring the lines between gaming and television,” with the events you play in the game potentially affecting the TV show and vice versa.Remedy showed more Quantum Break at Microsoft’s E3 press conference, but we still don’t know much about what the game is about.Capcom took the stage to announce a new entry in its open-world, zombie-fighting Dead Rising series. Dead Rising 3 looks much less cartoonish than previous games in the franchise, with stark, washed-out graphics and a desolate Los Perdidos setting. However, the game’s affinity for ridiculous weapons returns. In the trailer, protagonist Nick Ramos attached a saw to a sledgehammer and used it to wade through a zombie crowd. The game also employs SmartGlass to allow players to call in heavier ordnance, such as airstrikes.And for RPG fans, John Mamais of CD Projekt Red announced that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt runs on Xbox One?no surprise, considering the second entry was also playable across both the PC and the Xbox. The Witcher 3 certainly looks gorgeous, and is apparently a multi-region open-world game. Mamais promises to harness the Xbox One’s strengths: the team is including voice commands and porting the UI to SmartGlass for menu-driven interactions like inventory management.Microsoft gave a token nod to independent developers, with quick trailers for Minecraft on Xbox One and a new title from Capybara Games, called Below. It appears Microsoft is trying to address concerns in recent years that they’re unfriendly to indies, though we’ll see if the gesture brings people back onto the platform.Guns, guns, gunsThen there were the huge entries in the first-person shooter genre: Battlefield 4, developed by EA Dice, and Titanfall, the debut game from Respawn Entertainment.DICE showed off more gameplay footage from Battlefield 4, though the presentation was marred a bit by an embarrassingly long string of technical difficulties. The Battlefield 4 footage looks gorgeous compared to Battlefield 3 on the Xbox 360, so hopefully the gap between the console and PC versions has narrowed in terms of multiplayer features also.DICE also revealed the first map pack for Battlefield 4 is a timed exclusive for Xbox One.Titanfall has jetpacks, mechs, and plenty of explosions.The show closed with a trailer for Titanfall, from Respawn Entertainment, the studio founded by Vince Zampella and Jason West after they left Infinity Ward (creators of Call of Duty). Titanfall looks quite a bit like Call of Duty on the surface, but your tiny soldier is able to leap small buildings and run up walls with the aid of a jetpack, as well as clambering into gigantic mechs for a bit of extra firepower.The game looks like it runs at a frantic clip, so we’ll see if the shooting is just as arcadey and responsive as the Call of Duty games. Zampella claimed that with Titanfall, Respawn is “pushing the boundaries of multiplayer gaming,” with many calculations offloaded into the Xbox One’s cloud computing platform.Extending innovation in virtual product development with the IBM Cluster Solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE. To be more competitive, small and medium suppliers are increasingly using Computer Aid Engineering (CAE) solutions. Download this white paper to see how IBM Cluster Solutions, powered by Intel Xeon 5500 Series maximizes the total cost of ownership for CAE environments and extend innovation in virtual products for manufactures and suppliers alike.Extensis releases Suitcase Fusion 3; launches WebINK has announced the release of Suitcase Fusion 3, an upgrade of the company’s professional font management program.The new version features an updated interface, font auto-activation plug-ins for Adobe InDesign CS5, Photoshop CS4 and CS5, and Illustrator CS5, and application sets that activate selected fonts when a particular program is launched.Also new to Suitcase Fusion 3 are Font Snapshots, a feature which lets users create font previews in PNG format to view and share with clients; and Web Preview, which lets designers see how a font will look within a Web design without having to write the code. QuickMatch, Suitcase Fusion 3’s font comparison technology, assists in finding similar fonts in your library. Version 3 also offers a font cache cleaner that can clear out the font caches of Adobe applications, QuarkXPress, Microsoft Office, and Mac OS X System fonts. The app is now localized in French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian, and Portuguese.All versions of Suitcase Fusion 3 include a free copy of FontDoctor 8, the latest version of the utility, which provides additional tools for font corruption detection, repair, and file organization.WebINKA significant new addition to Suitcase Fusion 3 is integration with its new cloud-based font rental service,?.WebINK?lets designers select, manage, and use custom fonts for their Websites without concern for supported font formats or font licensing issues. WebINK fonts can be managed either online or via the desktop through Suitcase Fusion 3.It works like this: Designers choose their typeface from the Extensis service, which then generates the necessary CSS coding to use with that font on their site. Site visitors can then see the chosen fonts, in the correct format for their browser, from a secure Extensis server.Up until now, Web designers have had extremely limited typographic choices on the Web. Typeface choices were confined to the few standard fonts installed on a reader’s machine, and if you wanted custom fonts, you had to render them as static images or employ JavaScript coding—none of which is optimal for text display. WebINK makes professional-quality typography accessible for most browsers without JavaScript or other programming hacks, the company says.“Enabling WebINK in Suitcase Fusion 3 is a logical step toward complete font control across print and Web,” said Thomas Phinney, senior product manager for font solutions at Extensis. “The extension of desktop font management to the Web closes the loop on many of the cross-media challenges—and creative sacrifices—that modern designers face.”To launch WebINK, Extensis has formed partnerships with well-known type foundries whose high-quality fonts will be available to rent. New partner foundries and fonts are being added every week, according to the company. “This includes both industry-standard fonts previously unavailable for use on the Web, as well as fresh faces from today’s top designers,” Phinney said. WebINK is available in English, French, and German at launch.Suitcase Fusion 3 is $100, and upgrades from the previous version are $50. Users who register Suitcase Fusion 3 by December 31, 2010 will receive one year of the WebINK service for free. Details about the are available on the company’s Website. The desktop application runs on both PowerPC and Intel systems and requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher. WebINK runs on Safari 3.1 or higher, Firefox 3.5 or higher, Chrome 4 or higher, and Internet Explorer 4 or higher.Extensis times upgrade of Suitcase Fusion to Adobe Creative Cloud launch First came Creative Cloud, targeted to creative pros. Then hot on its heels is a new version of Suitcase Fusion, Extensis’ professional font manager. For Adobe’s target audience of designers, publishers, photographers, and videographers, keeping fonts up to date matters—a lot.For Adobe Creative Cloud?users, delivers brand new auto-activation plug-ins for applications such as InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InCopy. Integrated font panels let designers preview and activate fonts directly from Creative Cloud and Creative Suite apps without having to switch between applications.And, with its connections to the??Web font services and Google Web Fonts, Suitcase Fusion 5 facilitates the use of Web fonts in Adobe applications.?Designers can preview and prototype with an expanding collection of more than 6500 Web fonts available from these services. The collection includes more than 1000 new fonts from WebInk, such as Adelle (TypeTogether), Myriad Pro (Adobe), and Museo Sans (exljbris).Suitcase Fusion 5 main interface.Of course, you can use Suitcase Fusion for any graphic design purpose, with or without Adobe apps, and for non-Adobe users Version 5 offers additional improvements.The new lets designers experiment and pair typefaces directly within the app. Designers can preview fonts side-by-side in print or Web templates, or by using simple comparison sheets. Users can save samples to PDF font proofs for sharing. The current library of QuickComp templates will expand soon as part of a free update, Extensis says, as user feedback identifies additional desired templates.QuickComps feature.Suitcase Fusion 5 is available immediately from various retailers and from the ?for $100. Upgrades are $50. The program?is offered in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.Designed to work on both Macs and PCs, Suitcase Fusion 5 can be installed on up to two machines per license.Posted Desktop: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3; Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (undervolted); 8GB DDR3 RAM 1600MHz (4x2GB); 640GB WD Caviar Black and older 750GB WD; Backup: WD Elements 2TB USB; EVGA Geforce GTX 550ti; Windows 7 Home Premium x64; HP 2511x, Samsung SyncMaster 914V.Laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad x120e – AMD Fusion E350 1.6GHz (Zacate, undervolted); 4GB DDR3 RAM 1333MHz (2x2GB); HD: Hitachi 320GB; Windows 7 Home Premium x64Samsung Galaxy Nexus with OTA Android 4.3 (unlocked GSM! 🙂 No carriers screwing with the updates FTW!)Turbo machine from the future: 16384 Intel Core i7 CPUs (26th gen; 32768 scores each and hyperthreaded; 1600 YHz stock; 3600YHz overclock), 4294967296YB RAM (32YBx12) DDR10 1000YHz cas 1, 20x100000YB SSDs, 16 nvidia geforce 9980GTX 268435456YB cards overclocked, gold case, 8 25600000000000×16000000000000 LED backlit 60″ monitors, Windows 21 Ultimate 1024-bit, 3.5” 1.44MB floppy drive. I can’t run CPU-Z validation on it because that’s a 64-bit app.GPU, and the other incorporates AMD’s latest . The GTX 680 focuses on delivering tremendous gaming performance, while the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is strong at games but also provides excellent GPU performance for nongaming applications that can benefit from using a GPU for computational tasks.Typically, Nvidia and AMD build reference boards with fairly conservative GPU and memory clock speeds. Card makers then take these reference designs, relabel them without changing much of anything, and offer them for sale. Lately, however, graphics card manufacturers have tried to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market by creating their own board designs. These designs offer custom cooling, improved voltage regulation, and significantly higher core clock speeds than the reference designs do. Out of the box, they’re faster than reference designs, but they also tend to be a little pricier.The contendersLet’s take a look at a spec chart for these high-end graphics cards. Then we’ll discuss each card individually in greater depth.FEATUREEVGA GTX 680 ClassifiedAsus GTX 680 DCII TOPSapphire Radeon HD 7970 Dual X OCGPUNvidia