Make no mistake about it, Microsoft Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 is now officially released. The standalone release of the service pack is now available from the website for download.Well, here are the release note information. There are far too many things, including bux fixes, security enhancement and added tools, to spell out. Nonetheless, users are recommended to install this service pack, particularly for security purposes.Download LinkMS Vista SP 1 (for TechNet subscribers only)

It has been a long time since I provide the latest news of any latest software release. This time, I hope to introduce Skype for Linux 1.4 Gold, codename Panacea.

The choice of this codename is in contention with a Greek mythology; Paacea, daughter of Asclepius, God of Medicine, and the granddaughter of Apollo, God of Healing, is a goddess of cures. And thus, the name is chosen for this version of Skype for Linux - in compairson of the improved voice call quality.

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MythTV is a GPL licensed suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems.

Some of the functionalities are:

• * pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.
• * install multiple video capture cards to record more than one program at a time.
• * have multiple servers, each with multiple capture cards in them. All servers are centrally managed and all programs are scheduled by the Master backend.
• * have multiple clients (called “frontends” in MythTV parlance), each with a common view of all available programs. Any client can watch any program that was recorded by any of the servers, assuming that they have the hardware capabilities to view the content; a low-powered frontend will not be able to watch HDTV, for example.
• * use any combination of standard analog capture card, MPEG-2, MJPEG, DVB, HDTV, USB and firewire capture devices.
• * Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from schedulesdirect.org, a non-profit organization which has licensed data from Tribune Media Services. This service provides almost two weeks of scheduling information. Program Guide Data in other countries is obtained using XMLTV.
• * MythTV implements a UPNP server, so a UPNP client should automatically see content from your MythTV system.

This program is known to work on both Linux and Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel), unfortunately it does not run on Windows. (more…)

Most users would have already known about YouTube, one of the richest online video archive, powered by Google. Though it is rather easy to browse and search for videos in YouTube directly from its website, it is undoubtedly easier with YouTubeDesktop, an impressive dynamic web application, coupled with modern design for search, watching and even downloading videos from the web!

As according to the developer, YouTubeDesktop is designed based on the key idea; that is, to bring normal desktop experience to the browser. Within the web application itself, windows can be dragged, resized and minimized into a tray. It is even possible to drag-and-drop videos between players and result, all within a single web application, hence making it one of the richest, if not the best web application for viewing and managing video content. The incredible flexibility of the design is encompassed by the user-friend interface and functionality.

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According to the report by Villu Arak, Skype 2.7 for Mac Beta is now out for the public. There are several new features in this beta release - so do check them out!

1. * Group contacts – organize your contacts into as many groups as you need.
2. * See your Apple Address Book contacts in Skype - easily call or SMS anyone who has a phone number in their address-book profile.
3. * Create and manage public chats by clicking on Chats in the menu bar and choosing Start Public Chat.
4. * Auto Redial for busy or unconnected calls. When your call hits the busy signal, Skype will give you the option of automatic redial every two minutes until the call goes through.
5. * Easy sound-level controls – when you need to tweak the sound level during a call, use a simple slider in the call window
6. * Overhauled file transfer – wearing a more fashionable jacket, file-transfer now looks elegant and acts even nicer, especially when receiving many files at once.

Indeed, this version is worthwhile trying out. However, it is vital to note that this release is still labelled as “beta“, hence it is advised not to install this on production machines.

Download today from here.

Without a doubt, Skype has released its latest version of Skype 3.5.0.202 for Windows just a few days ago. I was completely taken aback by this new release as it contains several enhancement and improvements, integrated with new newly designed security features.

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There have been several updates with Skype during the last couple of weeks, when I was not around. So, it might perhaps be a good idea to cluster all the distributed platforms into this one single post. As of now, the latest releases of Skype are:

1. version 3.2.0.175 for Windows
2. version 1.4.0.94 for Linux (still beta)
3. version 2.6.0.151 for Mac OS X

Download (or upgrade) to the latest version now. It contains security fixes and bug fixes.

Download links
Skype for Windows
Skype for Linux
Skype for Mac OS X

Joost has released the latest version - 0.11.0 - also called Joost - Now For Friends. The edition is still currently under beta development but has shown to work pretty well with vast improvement over the last couple of releases.

Users may realise that previous versions can no longer work, and that is because of the programmed code to ensure users constantly upgrade to the latest Joost version, to ensure it maintained bug-free. Some of these updates can be found on the release note.

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With AddMovie, several movie files can be concatenated into a single piece of movie. This application supprots various input formats, including Quicktime movies.

Since the output format is also configurable, it also supports format conversion from MPEG-4 to 3GP, which can be displayed and playback on Bluetooth phone.

The software is supported on Mac OS X 10.4 and above. To use the application, simply drag-and-drop the files into the main window, re-order them and click on Generate to create the single movie file.

Download Application
AddMovie 1.2.1

Just released only, Linux users can only be happy to receive the news that they are not forgotten by the Skype developers. Skype 1.4.0.74 Beta for Linux has just been released.

In order to run this version on your computer system, the following hardware requirement is necessary:

• * 400 Mhz processor or faster.
• * 256 MB RAM.
• * 20 MB free disk space on your hard drive.
• * Microphone and speakers or headset.
• * Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection).

In addition, the software requirement for this application is:

• * Qt 4.2.1+
• * D-Bus 1.0.0
• * libsigc++ 2.0.2
• * libasound2 1.0.12

Binaries for various distributions, e.g. SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.., are available for download from this site.