You may have heard about the shift from 32 to 64 bit processors and software being ’64 bit’ compatible, but what does this mean?

In computing, bits, short for binary digit, are used to measure many things. In the case of the current new technology however, it is used to refer to the size of the address bus of the processor. The address bus is what a computer processor uses to request information from it’s RAM. The larger the address bus, the more memory the computer can access at any one time. With an older 32 bit address bus processor the computer can ‘see’ around 4 Gigabytes of RAM, with a 64 bit bus however, this number goes up to a potential 16 exabytes! These days, 4 gigabytes is starting to seem like too little for many applications, so 64 bit processors are becoming more and more attractive. This comes at a price however, as although it may seem like quite a minor tweak to the way a processor works, it in many cases requires software to be extensively rewritten and can break compatibility with older programs.

EverSync offers a browser plug in available for Firefox and Internet Explorer that allows you to keep your bookmarks synchronized between all your computers (home, work, etc.).

Whatever bookmark or bookmark folder added on one computer will show up on your other computers when you launch the browser. The plugin displays a sidebar that shows links to pages similar to the ones you visit, and that other users found worth book marking. It will also show you users who made some of their bookmarks public, which are related to the pages you visit. You may find experts on subjects you need information about. When you find interesting stuff (videos, photos, text, etc.) on a web page, the BuzzIt! functionality allows you to grab it and build a document that you can keep private, or share with friends, or the whole world. It automatically builds a Buzzlog showing all your discoveries (privately or publicly as you chose) and even allows you to post to your existing blog on the popular blog platforms. You can send it by email, using your address book from Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. The service is free, and (so far), ad-free. It does not require creating an account unless you want to create some Buzz, but then minimal information is required: login and password (not even an email). EverSync has more than 800000 users, and was selected by Mozilla for the best Firefox add-ons list.

It can be downloaded from:
Firefox Download
IE Download

Are scheduled defragmentation sessions, downloads, or file transfers keeping you up because you’d like to turn off your computer when they’re done?

Are you frustrated when you click Shut Down on your Windows machine but nothing happens? To have better control of your shutdown procedures, I recommend using the command line. This will allow you to have the computer turn itself off at a specified time, to force shutdowns of Windows no matter which program is “hanging”, restart your computer, log off, and even potentially shut down or restart a network computer for which you have administrative rights.

You can enter this command by clicking Start > Run. Type the command “shutdown” without the quotes and modify it with any of the following parameters or arguments:

• shutdown -i will display a simple graphical interface for shutting down, logging off, or restarting network computers.
• shutdown -l will log your computer off
• shutdown -s the most common variant of this command, this simply shuts down your computer the usual way
• shutdown -r shut down and restart the computer shutdown -a will abort a shut down procedure (if there is a still a countdown running to the shutdown; this command *cannot* be used to halt a shutdown in progress)
• shutdown -f begins a forced shutdown, kills hanging tasks as soon as the command is issued
• shutdown -t ?? replace the question marks with any number of seconds, up to an 8-digit integer (this means you can have your computer shutdown from 0 seconds up to roughly 1157 days, or 3 years and 2 months in the future.)
• shutdown -c if you have scheduled a shutdown, logoff, or restart, you may use 127 characters or less to inform the user about the reason for the shutdown

These parameters can be applied as a string. For example, if I wished to shut down my computer 4 hours and 30 minutes from now, and to ensure that it did not hang and thus stay on until morning, I would click Start, then Run, then I’d enter “shutdown -s -f -t 16200” without the quotes. Likewise, if I got up during the night and decided that I should keep the computer on after all, I’d enter the command “shutdown -a” while the timer was still on. The -t ?? parameter is very useful, and can be applied in conjunction with almost any other parameter.

Please note that arguments for the shutdown command need to be issued in this order: -i -l -s -r -a -f -t ?? -c This means that if you wanted to combine a comment code with a forced restart command and a timer, you’d have to write the string in this fashion: “shutdown -r -f -t ?? -c ???” with the question marks replaced by values.

OpenCV, is an open source library for computer vision. Computer vision rapidly growing and its products are proven as up to date technology.

There are plenty of tools to manage and handle computer vision but OpenCV is an unique and simple library floating on C++ platform has many built in functions to perform variety of operations. OpenCV is library of programming functions mainly focused on real time image processing.

Image processing has an incredibly wide range of applications which have to perform smoothly. A faster rate of processing is in huge demand, and to meet those demands the codes need to be shorter and effective. Hence, the OpenCV library is the best to keep it running with relatively shorter length of codes performing great tasks. It is so simple that user need not have high amount of knowledge in that domain. A basic coding knowledge can do wonders using this library. OpenCV runs on most of the OS at present, and fits almost all IDE’s.

After Effects is a very powerful solution for doing titles and visual effects on digital video, including Chroma Keying (e.g. green screen) and masking.

It also manages to make many great looking effects very easy to implement into your videos. After Effects is extremely powerful, and I found it very easy to use, especially because the help file is so robust. If you want to do anything, it’s so easy just to go into the help file, and look for what it is you want to do. It is also very straight forward, so even without using the help, it is obvious that things like titles, will be in the “Titles” menu. The effects, like chroma key, are also very easy to implement, with straight forward things like drag and drop throughout every element. Of course, because it is so powerful it has rather high system requirements, and can only be run on high end systems. Besides that, it is an essential program for anybody who is serious about doing great effects, or editing digital video. It is definitely worth the high price tag.

The New Parallels software is out! Parallels is the first virtualization software that allows Intel-based Mac users to run multiple Windows applications without rebooting your Mac Dock!

With the new Parallels 3.0 for Mac, you can enjoy both Windows applications as well as Mac OS X applications concurrently! And, unlike Boot Camp, you won’t have to restart! Parallels also works with OpenGL and DirectX specifications to let you and play your favorite Windows games during any time, even when still working in Mac OS X. Now you can play Half Life, Hitman, Homeworld 2, Live for Speed, Quake1 GL, Quake 2, Quake 3 and more on your Mac! Cliff Joseph from MacWorld UK says, “Parallels Desktop 3.0 is a surprisingly effective method of running Windows software on your Mac.” Try it today; it may just be the coolest software you’ve ever purchased. And, for $80, you can’t beat the price!