Interesting Software and System News

[Dch48]

Ashampoo is giving away free full versions of some of their programs. The one I chose is Burning Studio 2012 which is an upgrade from the 2010 version and includes Blu-Ray support. It also has a pretty nice labeling module which includes the ability to burn Lightscribe labels if you install the Lightscribe software and of course have a drive that is Lightscribe enabled. The link I'm posting should work but if it doesn't let me know. There is another link that requires you to have a Facebook account and log in there first. I'm hoping the link I'm posting will bypass that. Either way though, you do have to create an account with Ashampoo to get the full license key unless the same key works for everyone like it did the last time.

http://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/lpa/gift?c=gimmeagift

just a warning.....when register at Ashampoo.....do not use your normal mail account....as they send out spam every 5 minutes   

I've been registered there for a while and I get very little mail from them at all.

[Asyn]

I've been registered there for a while and I get very little mail from them at all.

Very little is already overmuch, at least for me.

[bob3160]

I've never had any problems with Spamming from Ashampoo.
Don't want any more mail, unsubscribe. 
Use the Custom install to avoid the toolbar!

Let's not give a good company a bad rap. 

[DavidR]

I've never had any problems with Spamming from Ashampoo.
Don't want any more mail, unsubscribe. 

No problems either, I got the free screen capture application 'Snap' some time ago on one of their give-aways, I got a couple of emails (not a flood) very early on and as Bob said you can easily unsubscribe.

[Dch48]

I've never had any problems with Spamming from Ashampoo.
Don't want any more mail, unsubscribe. 
Use the Custom install to avoid the toolbar!

Let's not give a good company a bad rap. 

+1   The Burning Studio is a very nice, full featured app and Snap is pretty good as well.

[Lisandro]

Rumor: Microsoft wants alliance with RIM. Is this the end of BlackBerry?
http://www.neowin.net/news/rumor-microsoft-wants-alliance-with-rim

[Lisandro]

Windows 8 Upgrade Paths for Windows XP, Vista and 7
http://www.askvg.com/windows-8-upgrade-paths-for-windows-xp-vista-and-7

[DavidR]

Smacks of desperation here, when there was no upgrade path to win7 for XP, yet they (MS) now are able to do it for win8.

Now let's talk about Windows XP. Good news for XP users. Windows XP users will also be able to upgrade to Windows 8 but they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8 similar to Windows Vista without SP1 users.

Also you'll need to have SP3 installed in Windows XP to be able to upgrade to Windows 8.

Personally I wouldn't call that good news if as they say "they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8." I wouldn't call that an upgrade path at all, no programs, they might as well just back up their files and do a clean install and avoid the potential hassle.

[bob3160]

Smacks of desperation here, when there was no upgrade path to win7 for XP, yet they (MS) now are able to do it for win8.

Now let's talk about Windows XP. Good news for XP users. Windows XP users will also be able to upgrade to Windows 8 but they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8 similar to Windows Vista without SP1 users.

Also you'll need to have SP3 installed in Windows XP to be able to upgrade to Windows 8.

Personally I wouldn't call that good news if as they say "they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8." I wouldn't call that an upgrade path at all, no programs, they might as well just back up their files and do a clean install and avoid the potential hassle.

No hassle. Besides the documents, you'll also keep your settings, drivers, etc which makes conversion a bit easier especially if you no longer have the driver disks.

[Dch48]

Smacks of desperation here, when there was no upgrade path to win7 for XP, yet they (MS) now are able to do it for win8.

Now let's talk about Windows XP. Good news for XP users. Windows XP users will also be able to upgrade to Windows 8 but they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8 similar to Windows Vista without SP1 users.

Also you'll need to have SP3 installed in Windows XP to be able to upgrade to Windows 8.

Personally I wouldn't call that good news if as they say "they'll only be able to keep their document files after upgrading to Windows 8." I wouldn't call that an upgrade path at all, no programs, they might as well just back up their files and do a clean install and avoid the potential hassle.

No hassle. Besides the documents, you'll also keep your settings, drivers, etc which makes conversion a bit easier especially if you no longer have the driver disks.

Not with XP , Bob.  It's also highly doubtful that a machine still running XP will be able to run Win 8 satisfactorily. It is also almost a certainty that there will be many issues with the older hardware and drivers for it.

There is also this to consider. Everybody knows from past experience with Windows that upgrading from one version to another never works as well as a full fresh clean install of the newer version.

I can see upgrading from Vista (but not in all cases), and Win 7 but I still wouldn't do it.  I have seen too many machines become bricks after trying to upgrade Windows from an upgrade disk. You're always better off keeping the OS that your machine came with and was designed for.

[Lisandro]

drivers

I don't think so. I would really recommend an installation from scratch if possible. Most of the times, the machine won't be W8 prepared...

[bob3160]

drivers

I don't think so. I would really recommend an installation from scratch if possible. Most of the times, the machine won't be W8 prepared...

Part of the upgrade process is to check your computer for compatibility.
If you've ever done a clean install and not had the driver disks handy and windows drivers didn't work, you would know the importance
of not having to worry about drivers.....
I've also been using Windows8 from the first developers release. 

[DavidR]

I wouldn't ever dream of an OS update from XP to win8, I like Dch48 would only do a clean install (if I were contemplating win8) and that would include doing my usual preparation with drivers, etc.

My comment wasn't so much the technicalities of the update, but that MS are now saying it is an option, when it wasn't for an option to upgrade to win7 from XP.

To me that shows that the only reason for this change of policy is to finally try to kill XP. This begs the question why is it now possible when it was supposedly technically not possible to do this with win7.

[bob3160]

This begs the question why is it now possible when it was supposedly technically not possible to do this with win7.

Maybe because I've been able to run some programs on Windows 8 that never ran in windows 7
(Even compatibility Mode didn't work in Win7)

[DavidR]

That would then beg the question, why can the update only take forward the documents. Honestly the deeper you dig on this the greater the smell of hypocrisy/desperation on the part of MS to make win8 a success rather than another Vista.