SpringPublisher Pro is the premium upgrade to SpringPublisher Free desktop publisher software. The freeware counterpart which is light on system can be converted to the pro version without burning a big hole in your pocket (it costs only $23.95). Thanks to SpringPublisher Team, we’re giving away 5 copies of SpringPublisher Pro this week.

The pro version unlocks the locked functions of the Free version. Earlier, we have already seen how SpringPublisher free version works. If you have not read that article, you can read the article titled: “SpringPublisher: Design & Print Flyers, Business Cards, Letterheads” here.

The free version lets you design and take print out in low to medium quality (96 and 180 dpi, respectively) of your creatives. The professional version, which we’re giving away here, unlocks the locked functions and will allow you to print in high quality output at 350 dpi. You will also get 100 download credits to grab templates from SpringPublisher online store.

Since we have already tested the freeware, we will not go through extensive details about the program again. We are handing over the license keys to the first 5 persons who comments below.

NOTE: You just need to subscribe us through email. Please use your real email address (used for subscription) so that we can get in touch if you win.

This giveaway begins now and ends after one week (ample of time for you to test the program!).

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

Apple Mac OS X Lion is now available for download from the Mac App Store for $29.99.

Apple has released the eighth major release of the Mac operating system, Lion. Lion includes over 250 new features compared to the earlier version of Mac, Snow Leopard. The flagship operating system is now available as a $29.99 download in the Mac App Store. Those who wants to buy Mac OS X Lion Server should have the Client version of Lion, server version costs $49.99.

Some of the new features include are: new Multi-Touch gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore Mac software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

Lion is the best version of OS X yet, and we’re thrilled that users around the world can download it starting today,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion makes upgrading a Mac easier than ever before; just launch the Mac App Store, buy Lion with your iTunes account, and the download and install process will begin automatically.“

Additional new features in Lion include:

• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• Auto Save, which automatically and continuously saves your documents as you work;
• Versions, which automatically records the history of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, revert and even copy and paste from earlier versions; and
• AirDrop, which finds nearby Macs and automatically sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection to make transferring files quick and easy.

Mac OS X Lion Requirements:

• Your Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM to run Lion. You can easily find out which processor your Mac runs on by clicking the Apple icon at the top left of your screen, then choosing About This Mac.
• You must have Snow Leopard to install Lion. Click on the Apple icon and choose Software Update to install Snow Leopard v10.6.8, the latest version to update to Lion.
• A broadband connection is recommended to download the update since the download size is at 4GB. Apple states in its press release that Lion will be available for purchase for $69 on a USB thumb drive in August at Apple retail stores. Apple also confirmed that users who don’t have a broadband Internet connection will be able to download Lion at Apple retail stores.

Download Mac OS X 10.7 Lion | Download Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server

Those who purchased a new Mac on or after June 6, 2011 are eligible for a free upgrade. The offer is live 30 days from Lion’s release in the Mac App Store. Customers must manually apply for their eligibility within August 19, 2011. Additional information about the program can be found at apple.com/macosx/uptodate.

A word about branding, Apple’s website and in some marketing materials, Apple has referred the new Mac operating system as “OS X Lion.”

WordPress 3.2 “Gershwin”, fifteenth major release of WordPress is now available.

Yesterday, we updated that WordPress 3.2 will be available by this week and today it is available. WordPress 3.2, codename “Gershwin”, dedicated to the noted composer and pianist George Gershwin, is the fifteenth major release of WordPress. This major release of the most popular content management system (CMS) comes just four months after 3.1 (which coincidentally just passed the 15 million download mark this morning).

Matt Mullenweg, in the announcement blog post said:

The focus for this release was making WordPress faster and lighter. The first thing you’ll notice when you log in to 3.2 is a refreshed dashboard design that tightens the typography, design, and code behind the admin. (Rhapsody in Grey?) If you’re starting a new blog, you’ll also appreciate the fully HTML5 new Twenty Eleven theme, fulfilling our plan to replace the default theme every year. Start writing your first post in our redesigned post editor and venture to the full-screen button in the editing toolbar to enter the new distraction-free writing or zen mode, my personal favorite feature of the release. All of the widgets, menus, buttons, and interface elements fade away to allow you to compose and edit your thoughts in a completely clean environment conducive to writing, but when your mouse strays to the top of the screen your most-used shortcuts are right there where you need them. (I like to press F11 to take my browser full-screen, getting rid of even the OS chrome.)

We already posted what’s new in this release in our earlier article about 3.2, you can go through it to find out yourself (screenshots included).

Interested users should check out Codex page on 3.2 or the Trac milestone which includes the 400+ tickets closed in this release for more insight about this major release of the popular CMS.

Since, this is a major upgrade, we will test our present site’s configuration on a test site with 3.2 to see if everything is good to go before upgrading. Users can either upgrade from within their admin dashboard or download a copy of 3.2 and manually upgrade or do a fresh install of it.

CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) is based on Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) from Google. It not only brings Gingerbread, but includes additional great features like sending canned SMS responses with a gesture, incognito browsing, a new simple theme engine and smaller tweaks like being able to play and pause music with the camera button. Other cool new features include built-in CPU clocking, a “phone goggles” feature, which, like Gmail’s Mail Goggles feature, prevents you from sending unwanted SMS messages by making you do simple math problems.

CM is currently providing support for 30 devices. There are a few CM6 features that aren’t part of CM7 yet, but they are in the queue for 7.1 already. Check out the full changelog for detailed information about what’s included in this release.

If you’re updating from CyanogenMod 6, perform a backup with something like Titanium Backup and make sure to wipe your data and cache when you upgrade, since you’re upgrading to a new version of Android.

If you haven’t rooted your phone, the best way to install CM7 is to use ROM Manager. Detailed instructions for rooting your device can be found at CM wiki.

CyanogenMod 7 is a free download for many Android devices.

Download CyanogenMod 7

Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the best free antivirus available for Windows. It is without doubt the most popular antivirus solution among Windows users. With detection rate that matches the commercial security products, it is without doubt one of the best software made by Microsoft.

Microsoft Security Essentials 2 upgrade brings in many improvements and new features, including the most requested heuristic scanning engine. MSE 1′s protection relied too heavily upon definitions, which is not enough for today’s ever-changing advanced threats. But with heuristic scanning engine and other new improved features, MSE 2 is now giving tough competition to other free and paid products.

MSE 2 also offers improved defense by better integrating with Windows. With better integration with Windows Firewall and Internet Explorer, MSE 2 offers increased protection against network and Web-based threats. A new network inspection feature is added which uses the Windows Filtering Platform present in Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP users will not get any benefit from this security feature.

MSE users should check their MSE update tab for an upgrade notification. Users can also download Microsoft Security Essentials 2 manually and install it over the old version.

Opera Developers has released Opera 10.62, which is a recommended upgrade offering security and stability enhancements. It is highly recommends for all Opera web browser users to upgrade to the latest version to take advantage of the security and stability improvements.

Opera 10.62 is based on the brand new version of Presto, Opera’s rendering engine. It now uses Presto 2.6.30 that includes support for several new HTML5 features, such as GeoLocation, Web Workers and Offline applications.

The change log for Opera 10.62 can be found at the following links:

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Windows Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Mac Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Unix/Linux Users[/box]

You can download Opera 10.62 from the download link below:
[box type="download" style="rounded" border="full"]Download Opera Latest Version[/box]

Read our other interesting articles!

Mozilla Messaging has released the new update of the most popular email client Mozilla Thunderbird and now the version is 3.1.2. This releases fixes some stability issues and several user experience concerns.

Thunderbird 3.1.2 fixes the following issues in Thunderbird 3.1.1:

• Several fixes to improve stability.
• Several fixes to the user interface.

Bugzilla has listed 7 bugs fixed in this new release. Out of the 7 bugs, 2 bugs are rated as major, 4 as normal and 1 as minor. 3 bugs out of the 7 bugs affects only the Windows operating system, 1 of the bug affects the Mac and 1 bug affects the Linux system, and the rest 2 bugs affects all the supported operating systems.

It is always recommended that users keep up to date with the latest stability and support versions of Thunderbird. If you already have Thunderbird, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu within Thunderbird application.

Interested users can take a look at the official release notes, or the Bugzilla listing that lists all fixed bugs in the release.

Thunderbird 3.1.2 is now available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. All Thunderbird 2 users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Thunderbird 3.1.2.

Microsoft has announced that Office for Mac 2011 will be available at the end of October, 2010. There will be mainly two different retail editions of Office 2011 for Mac available for purchase: Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 and Office for Mac Home and Business 2011. Additionally, there is a special edition for higher education students, staff and faculty: Office for Mac Academic Edition 2011.

Additionally, if you buy Office 2008 for Mac product from an authorized reseller between August 1, 2010, and November 30, 2010, you will be able to upgrade to Office 2011 for Mac, when it is available, free and at no additional cost through the Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program.

How much will Office for Mac 2011 cost?

The new lineup of Office for Mac has a lower price per installation for all editions. You can take a quick look below for the Office 2011 for Mac pricing structure:

1. Office for Mac Home & Student Edition 2011 (includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac and Messenger for Mac 8 )
   $119.00 US ERP (1 install)
   Family Pack: $149 US ERP (3 installs)

2. Office for Mac Home & Business Edition 2011 (includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac 8 )
   $199.00 US ERP (1 install)
   Multi-Pack: $279 US ERP (2 installs)

3. Office for Mac Academic Edition 2011 (Special edition for higher education students, staff and faculty and will only be available through authorized academic stores and Microsoft (http://www.officeformac.com). It includes Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac)
   $99 U.S. ERP

If you buy Home and Student edition and later need the additional functionality of a desktop e-mail client, then you can easily upgrade to Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 using the online upgrade functionality.

Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program

If you buy Office 2008 for Mac today, you’ll be able to upgrade to Office 2011 for free. Purchase a qualifying Office 2008 for Mac product between Aug. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2010, and you will be eligible to download Office for Mac 2011 at no additional cost when it becomes available.

The following Office for Mac products are NOT eligible for the Technology Guarantee

• Trial versions of Office 2008 for Mac
• Volume licensing
• Individual Application SKU
• Office for Mac Word
• Office for Mac Excel
• Office for Mac PowerPoint
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Office 2010
• Office for Mac 2004 or older version are also not eligible

More information about the Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program.

[via Mac Mojo: The Office for Mac Team Blog]

Opera web browser fans should rejoice as Opera has released Opera 10.60, “faster than the fastest browser” recently. Opera 10.60 is based on the new version of Presto 2.6.30 rendering engine. It now includes support for several new HTML5 features, such as GeoLocation, Web Workers and Offline applications. It has also notably improved Javascript and DOM performance. The latest version also have thousands of bugs fixed since 10.54. Opera 10.60 is the first web browser that supports for the high quality video format WebM.

Opera 10.60 is a recommended upgrade offering new and improved features, plus security and stability enhancements. Interested users can see the changelog here.

[ Download Link ]

VLC Media Player is one of the best media player for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platform and its new avatar is even better. VLC Media Player is updated to version 1.1.0, adding many new features like extensions, new user interface, support for GPU acceleration among others. If you are still living under the rock and is unaware of what VLC Media Player is, well:

VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project. It is one of the most platform-independent media players available, with versions for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BeOS, and BSD.

The new version of VLC Media Player fills all your needs and can handle DVD, (S)VCD, Audio CD, web streams, TV cards and much more. You don’t even need to install dozens of codec packs, VLC has all the codecs built-in and comes with support for nearly all codecs. It can even play back the damaged file or media, it plays all the video and audio information that’s still intact in the broken media file.

The latest release of VLC Media Player also brings in better support for HD videos. Made possible using GPU decoding on Windows Vista and Windows 7, using DxVA2 for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2, and, GPU decoding on GNU/Linux, using VAAPI for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2, and, DSP decoding using OpenMax IL, for compatible embedded devices. Improved support for MKV HD that includes seeking fixes, and 7.1 channels codecs and support for new codecs, like Blu-Ray subtitles, MPEG-4 lossless and VP8 is also notable.

With the addition to improved web plugins, the latest version of VLC also delivers improved streaming capabilities. The support new add-ons and script frameworks, makes it easier for developers to extend the application. VideoLAN also worked hard to streamline VLC 1.1.0 as much as possible, boosting the decoding speed by up to 40% especially in HD resolutions. On top of this, the application’s code has been rewritten, with overall functionality of the media player optimized.

Audio experience in VLC 1.1.0 is also improved a lot. It now offers integrated playlist in the Qt4 interface with multiple views (like album art) in the playlist. VLC 1.1.0 now supports AMR-NB, MPEG-4 ALS, Vorbis 6.1/7.1, FLAC 6.1/7.1 and WMAS. CDDB and CD-Text works now on the Windows port when you are listening to CD-Audio. It also supports DVD-Audio files (.aob). VLC Media Player now comes with improved meta-data and album-art support.

Extensions for VLC makes it possible to add new add-ons and script framework and further personalize VLC Media Player. Two types of extensions are available in VLC: content add-ons, integrated in the playlist and functionality extensions, more like metadata searching on the web, or enhanced subtitles look-up.

Full feature list can be found here.

With all these new improvements, VLC Media Player 1.1.0 is a must have multimedia player and a definite upgrade from the old version.

[ Download VLC Media Player ]

My Technology Guide is steadily emerging as a popular website and we are getting a good amount of traffic from both search engines and other referring sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, etc. When we started, we were new and had less traffic, good enough for a shared server that we are using. Even though the shared hosting plan that we are now on, can handle our current traffic but we are thinking about the future. Ultimately, one day we have to move to a more advanced plan. So, we went to the quest to find out what type of hosting will be suitable for us. We found that we are having two options, either move our website to a dedicated server or get a virtual private server (VPS in short) and host our website there. During our quest to find the ultimate suitable hosting plan for us, we found a lot of interesting facts and figures.

We found the main differences between Shared/VPS/Dedicated hosting:

What does VPS offers that shared hosting doesn’t and is it good enough for us?

Server level customization: A VPS is just like a dedicated server in terms of functions that it offers to its users. VPS hosting offers features like root SSH access, administrative control, flexibility to install custom software and applications, etc. You get all this but at an affordable price compared to a dedicated server. As a user you can get your own virtual environment with dedicated amount of server resources which includes RAM, HDD space, etc for your own usage. The control it provides is perfect for users who need total control and needs the ability to configure the server the way they like, and install custom software when needed.

Burstable memory: Burstable memory acts like a reserved resources and comes into play only when your website needs it. It comes to rescue a website and save it from getting offline when the website gets a sudden rise in traffic due to several reasons. Downtime for any website is very costly as you lose valuable traffic and the revenue that you might have earned from it.

Scalability: You can scale the VPS configuration according to your needs and the traffic patter and pay for only what you use. Thus VPS hosting provides more flexibility.

Will VPS is what we are looking for or What kind of Site would benefit from a VPS hosting?

This is the most important question that we asked ourselves. Obviously, after reading the article you must have already understood that VPS hosting is really a boon for websites that are becoming popular and cannot fit in shared hosting any more and neither can afford dedicated hosting. It is also a boon for e-commerce sites with multiple, large databases (which have to host large product catalogs, customer database, etc), sites getting high amount of traffic, running multiple websites, sites with dynamic content (say blogs running on WordPress platform), growing sites that are becoming popular, etc. So, if your website needs more resources not available in shared hosting plans, while the requirement is not large enough to get dedicated hosting, you are definitely the one who needs VPS hosting.

Microsoft Office 2010 will hit the retail shelves on June 15. At Technet, Microsoft announced that the free upgrade period starts today. This means that users who buy and activate Office 2007 from today will be able to download Office 2010 at no more cost when it becomes available in June 2010.

All you need to be eligible for this program — Office 2010 Technology Guarantee — is the following:

• Purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010.
• Have, or create a Windows Live ID.
• Redeem your Tech Guarantee before October 31, 2010 by visiting www.office.com/techg.

The Microsoft Office 2010 upgrade will be delivered to the user as a download or by DVD for a fee.

Note: Not all retailers are part of the free Office 2010 upgrade program and that there is a limit of 25 upgrades per customer.

Upgrade Paths Available:

OFFICE 2007 QUALIFYING PRODUCT	OFFICE 2010 UPGRADE PRODUCT
Office Ultimate 2007	Office Professional 2010
Office Professional 2007	Office Professional 2010
Office Small Business 2007	Office Professional 2010
Office Standard 2007	Office Home and Business 2010
Office Home and Student 2007	Office Home and Student 2010
Office Basic 2007	Office Home and Business 2010
Word 2007	Word 2010
Excel 2007	Excel 2010
PowerPoint 2007	PowerPoint 2010
OneNote 2007	OneNote 2010
Access 2007	Access 2010
Outlook 2007	Outlook 2010
Outlook with Business Contact Manager 2007	Outlook 2010
Project Standard 2007	Project Standard 2010
Project Professional 2007	Project Professional 2010
Publisher 2007	Publisher 2010
Visio Standard 2007	Visio Standard 2010
Visio Professional 2007	Visio Professional 2010

*Office Standard 2007 Military Appreciation Edition will receive Office Home and Business 2010.

Eligible Languages:

Brazilian, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English/International English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Turkish

Note: The language of the qualifying Office 2007 purchase will decide the language of the Office 2010 product upgrade.

Check out the faq to read up on all the frequently asked questions. It is recommended to check with the retailer to get a confirmation whether the Microsoft Office 2007 copy is eligible for the free upgrade to Office 2010.

Microsoft has recently noted that Vista to Windows 7 upgrade process will fail and rolls back to Vista, if you are using a Intel Storage Driver iastor.sys. The following error message is generated:

\$windows.~bt\windows\system32\drivers\iastor.sys

Status: 0xc0000359
Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing or corrupt.

The main cause of this error message and failed upgrades is the incorrect versions of the iastor that are being referenced during the upgrade from Vista to Windows 7.

Till now, there are no update or hotfix available from Microsoft to resolve this particular issue. Users those are affected by this specific problem will have to manually resolve it to be able to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft has released the necessary steps required in KB 2008373. You will be able to find them included bellow:

1. Access Driver Repository Folder under C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and move any folders that contain the file: iastor.inf to a temporary place.

Note: To move the files from the FileRepostiry you may need additional permissions which can be accomplished by taking ownership of the folder:

• Right-click on the folder and choose Properties
• Click Security tab.
• Click Advanced button.
• Click Owner tab.
• Click Edit button.
• Select your account.

2. Search for references to iastor within the oem inf files in the c:\windows\inf folder.

For Example: findstr /i /c:"iastor" %windir%/inf/oem*.inf

3. Make a note of the oem##.inf files reported where ## is a numeral.  Move the oem##.inf and corresponding oem##.pnf from c:\windows\inf folder to a temporary folder.

4. Delete $~bt, $~LS and $~Upgrade folders from c:\ drive if they exist

5. Download and install the latest version of the iastor.sys driver from Intel website on the Vista machine: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17882&lang=eng

6. Start the Windows 7 upgrade process. It should complete successfully now.

Note: Once the Upgrade process has completed successfully, there is no need to restore the iastore files, or the oem*.inf and oem*.pnf files back to their original place as the devices will no longer be needed.