Adobe Photoshop CS3 Upgrade

I updated Adobe Photoshop CS 2 to CS 3 finally I have been waiting for this for a long time and it was a brilliant upgrade.

Finally they make it easy to see your design, this is my favorite feature in Photoshop, and basically as you have your panels open you can fix them down so your picture will not be able to go under the panels. This is brilliant in CS2 I was always moving the tools and layer panels.

For the money it costs to upgrade I can’t say it was worth it, in GBP its around £100 USD you can find it at $200 considering I brought the original for whopping $600 that is a lot and it doesn’t really earn me much back, brilliant for a hobby though.

Overall if you have CS 2 I say buy Adobe Photoshop CS3, I’ve always preached adobe software due to the fact they are brilliant!

I believe you can also use Adobe Photoshop on a USB flash drive using something like thinstall, I’ve also seen it on many torrent sites. Which I believe is illegal.

BitLet - A bittorrent applet

The other day I came across BitLet, now I’m a big fan of bittorrent I believe it is one of the best ways to share your podcasts as once you’ve downloaded it you can then share it to the other people downloading it.

A lot of people think that P2P is a bad thing because it allows you to download music or movies but it really isn’t its a lot more something like Utorrent is a amazing client it has all these tools on it such as the encryption some ISP’s do not like clients like utorrent so it includes encryption so that the ISP’s don’t slow your downloads down.

But now if your at work or school and they don’t have a BitTorrent client visit BitLet and start the Java Applet and your ready to download.

Bittorrent Server.

Well the other day I came across a couple of bittorrent routers so it got me thinking about making one on the cheap which is just as efficient if not more, so I set out to do so.

So i figured a computer to run around the clock shouldn’t be very powerful strip it down to the minimal 128mb RAM and at the most 500mhz processor, so I asked around and luckely someone was throwing a old computer out which was around 500mhz.

So I considered a lot of operating systems but came to the conculsion of using Windows, it is very user friendly compared to Linux allowing to easily configure and run so i am running Windows 2000 Server Edition, I would prefer to run something like Damn Small Linux because it uses up very little resources which will also cut the electricity bill down but for now I will play with Windows.

Next I needed to find a bittorrent client, one of my favorite clients is Utorrent it has encryption and most of all a web user interface, so we can connect remotly to utorrent.

My on the move tool kit

All I need is a USB flash drive 1gb+ now I go through a lot of USB flash drives as you have to keep up with the new technologies inside them now my current favourite is the U3 this is a brilliant invention its like having your own little start menu running from your flash drive.

From this I can fun Opera, Firefox, Putty and trillian so I can keep up with my emails on Opera or surf the net using Opera or Firefox, or if I need to talk to someone fast I can boot up trillian and log into AIM.

Inside the menu you have a Download option allowing you to download new programs from software.u3.com for example you can download a new version of Skype, the best thing of all if your using the download option in the menu it will download it then install it in one go.

Now if you haven’t got a U3 flash drive their are many other options out their one of my personal favourites are portable apps these have a much smaller ammount of programs as it isn’t on a bigger scale of U3 but it is well worth it you can have open office, firefox, putty, Gaim and a couple more just check out portableapps.com

DVD Burning Software.

As with many IT-related industries DVD burning software has increased dramatically in its use, affordability and usability within the last few years. Whether for backing up your essential information such as pictures to free up hard drive space, creating home movies or copies of your favourite films to watch on your stand alone player.

With so many functions it’s not surprising how popular it has become but it’s easy to get confused about where to start so I thought I would try and pass on some basic knowledge to get you started.

Software

My personal favourites are:

Nero: They aren’t the biggest name in the business for nothing, they offer an amazing all round program that gives all the DVD and CD capabilities you need, however, with all these features comes a bigger price tag and a lot of settings and lessons to be learnt; it can sometimes be hard to use. You can find more information at www.nero.com, but I suggest trying a site such as www.amazon.co.uk or your local high street for a more competitive price.