2 5D Pretty Cure Dance Making of

[2.5D] Pretty Cure Dance Making of 光之美少女 ED 3D 跳舞動畫 幕後


Chinese Translation:
http://ccsx.thx4jp.com/2012/08/25/pre-cure-dance-four-generations/

Photos of the Seminar:
http://gigazine.net/news/20120827-precure-endingdance-cedec2012/

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ED Dance:

Fresh Precure ED1:


Fresh Precure ED2:


Heartcatch Precure ED1:


Heartcatch Precure ED2:


Suite Precure ED1:


Suite Precure ED2:


Smile Precure ED1:


Smile Precure ED2:

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Image of Production WIP:

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Vishka Studio The Undertals Making of

Vishka Studio The Undertals Making of

Vishka Studio: http://www.vishka.com/

Trailer




Turn Table


Test Animation




Rig

    

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LeaderTask Company Management System Review

LeaderTask Company Management Systems Check

Modern business is dynamic. Company management is a prerogative of people who are able to quickly make correct decisions and are able to bear responsibility for the team. The ideal Leader is the person who clearly distributes the powers and at the same time holds finger on the pulse keeping all the processes in the company both external and internal under control. It is interesting, fascinating and extremely difficult.

But if there is a demand there will be supply: leading business solution for managers Ц Company Management Systems Ц LeaderTask.

LeaderTask Company Management Systems

You are certainly familiar with modern, convenient and effective electronic organizer CRM LeaderTask.

Now the Company Management Systems is released on its basis, however it is equipped with additional advanced services. First of all a multi-user operating system (Task Management Systems) was realized. ThatТs why besides the main services such as:

• Task Planner;
  
• Personal Information Manager;
  
• Calendar;
  
• Project Manager;
  
• Contact Manager
  

LeaderTask Company Management Systems affords an opportunity for creating a single information base. At that you will be able to competently distribute tasks among the employees and monitor their progress. Using LeaderTask Company Management Systems you will also be able to:

• Organize paper and electronic documents;
  
• Correctly plan negotiations, deals, long-term and current projects;
  
• Organize effective joint cooperation;
  
• Limit the employeesТ access to any documents;
  
• Assign any task to a certain executor specifying task duration and priorities;
  
• Carry out detailed monitoring at any point;
  
• Assess every employeeТs quality of work in a moment;
  
• Receive regular and detailed report on current and performed works;
  
• Receive complete review of companyТs activity even in case you are absent.
  

Besides that the LeaderTask Company Management Systems is absolutely mobile like the business organizer. All settings are stored only in one folder without affecting OS and other catalogues. ThatТs why the program can be easily and conveniently transported using a usual flash memory card and transferred from one computer to another. And the synchronization function allows a single LeaderTask base to be used in several places at once.

Multi-User Task Management Systems

In order to start work it is required to install LeaderTask Company Management Program on computers of all employees and to specify the server address. In its turn the server will find all clients and will customize required settings by itself. New employees can be connected to the server when necessary. This will enable them to quickly get into the swing of things and start to work. If your server is unavailable for technical or any other reasons the subordinates will be able to successfully get on with their work offline.

Work Start

In order to start letТs familiarize ourselves with the program interface. Tabs of main group toolbars are located to the left in the sidebar. The titles are displayed in them and the main part of the desktop displays their detailed interpretation. For example, the period with the current calendar is displayed to the left and to the right the detailed list of tasks for that period is displayed.

The principle of operation is similar to that of the LeaderTask business organizer you can also create tasks by grouping them by projects. Being in the main informational panel you can switch between contacts, categories, projects and calendar, however unlike the organizer a new лEmployees¬ tab was added to the program. By clicking this tab you will see a list of all employees connected to the server. By selecting somebody from the list you will receive a status report of the selected employee with task priority, task duration and task deadlines on the right.

Formation of the list of employees is similar to filling in the contacts. But at that the subordinates are given the opportunity to fill in their own profile with analytical data, contact phone number, position and other data by themselves. Employees who are connected to the server mark their own profile with лFavorite¬ from their computer and form a list of personal contacts by themselves.

Filtering

Like in the organizer the main function of filters in this system is the provision of a simple and effective tool on company activity review. They help to effectively manage tasks, instantly receive the required information and detailed review of cases by any selected criterion.

If desired, the filter can be created by several conditions. The following conditions can be selected: employees, projects, categories, contacts with specification of exact time. The selected filter can be added to tabs, to navigator panel or can be made available in the toolbar quick menu.

Filtering in the calendar is set in several ways:

• floating: length of time as well as its allowable shift should be specified;
  
• stringent: tight timeframe should be specified;
  
• terminal: time interval as well as possible shifts and filter operating period inside it should be specified.
  

Unified Information Field

On request the possibility of transfer of your contacts, various notes, files and tasks to other connected employees was realized. At that all related documents can be attached to the transmitted information. For example, by transferring a task to another employee you can attach the accumulated material, necessary contacts, personal comments and notes to it at ones. Thus, a single information base that includes official documents, a list of all correspondents with comments and detailed information is created. However, only the system owner has full access to it. Besides that the possibility of communicating on the internal network messenger was realized that also promotes cooperation and effective work of all employees.

Delegation of Tasks

Undoubtedly, the most important function of LeaderTask Company Management Systems is the possibility of assignment and distribution of tasks. For example, the Leader creates the лOpening of new office¬ project, accompanies it by personal comments, sets deadlines and selects his/her Associate Leader as executor. In its turn the Associate Leader divides the project into several tasks, for example: лSelection of suitable premises¬, лRecruitment¬, лBudget¬ and delegates every task to certain employees, лBudget¬ - to Chief Accountant, лRecruitment¬ - to Office Manager, лSelection of suitable premises¬ - to Manager. And they in their turn make a detailed plan and redelegate part of the work to other colleagues. For example, the Office Manager finds a suitable recruiting agency and creates the лLook through a standard form contract¬ subtask and delegates it together with the task deadlines to the Lawyer. Then having signed the prepared contract with the recruiting agency and having selected the correct candidates the Office Manager coordinates the interview time with the Leader, so the лInterview¬ subtask is transferred directly to him/her. The calendar and automatic reminder wonТt let the project participants forget to perform any tasks and at the same time every participant is given the opportunity of direct monitoring of the ongoing work. And the Leader by selecting the лOpening of new office¬ project will be able to visually see the current task status, task executors as well as to look through the archive of the work performed on the project.

Access Restriction

No less important an option that allows to distribute activities between employees. So the participant has the right to view only the projects that are assigned to him/her or those created by himself/herself. Only the direct owner of LeaderTask has complete control over the whole company activity. Thereby the possibility of intrigues of competitors and leakage of valuable information is ruled out.

Assessment of Every EmployeeТs Quality of Work

By selecting any employee from the menu you automatically receive extensive information on the selected employee. That is a list of cases, current projects and tasks, an archive of all works performed and your own comments concerning his/her activity. Using the calendar you can trace the punctuality of task performance or to whom it was delegated. All this gives a wonderful opportunity to instantly assess the quality and successfulness of the employeeТs work.

Ideal Archive

LeaderTask Company Management Systems is equipped with the function of automatic creation of backup copies of files during work. So you shouldnТt worry about the loss of important information. Besides that the system keeps absolutely all history of relationships between employees, clients and partners. It stores complete project management history, assigned tasks performance history as well as message handling history. Thus, the system is an ideal archive. By selecting any period of time in the past you will see a detailed situation with all projects, delegated tasks, messages and contacts for the selected period of time.

Summing Up

LeaderTask Company Management Systems is a useful and multifunctional assistant using which you can organize the effective and well coordinated work of all employees, correctly distribute tasks and have complete control over the whole company activity.

The program by itself amazes by the abundance of thought-out and rather useful trifles. Of course, they do not complicate the interface at all, however the surprising flexibility and the possibility to adapt the program to absolutely any even to a force majeure situation wins over.

Work with the program will become much easier for you if you have already used the LeaderTask organizer, but even if it is not so the time you have spent to master the Company Management system will be more than compensated later on.

More information on the program can be found at the developersТ website: LeaderTask company management system

Download free 45 day program version: http://www.leadertask.com/download/ltcompany.zip

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Email Security on Computer

Email is a prime means of communication for business purposes that is quicker and cheaper. It brings with it the necessity to make ones corporate messaging system as secure as possible.

Different E-mail threats:

A variety of different elements weaken user corporate email system and while some are widely known - such as email viruses - others tend to be ignored. Emails carrying offensive messages or confidential corporate information can create immense inconvenience and expense for a company that has not equipped its mail server with the appropriate tools. Some companies lull themselves into a false sense of security upon installing firewall. More targeted measures are needed to counteract this and other security loopholes in a corporate network.

1. Threat of information leaks: Organizations often fail to acknowledge that there is a greater risk of crucial data being stolen from within the company rather than from outside. FBI statistics, for example, reveal that among Fortune 500 companies, most data thefts in 1998 were by internal users. Again, research results carried in Computer Week in March 1999 report that, out of 800 workers surveyed, 21-31% admitted to sending confidential information - like financial or product data - to recipients outside the company by email.

2. Threat of emails containing malicious or offensive content: Emails carrying sensitive information, or unsolicited mail messages sent out by corporate users are not the only problem a company has to tackle with regard to employees email use. Under British law, employers are held responsible for emails written by employees in the course of their employment, whether or not the employer consented to the mail. The insurance company Norwich Union was asked to pay $450,000 in an out-of-court settlement as a result of emailed comments relating to competition.

3. Threat of spam: About 90 per cent of email users receive spam - or unsolicited commercial mail - at least once a week, a survey conducted by the Gartner Group shows. The research results, issued in June 1999, revealed that almost half those surveyed were spammed six or more times a week. The study surveyed 13,000 email users. Spammers can use a corporate mail server to send out their unsolicited messages, often bringing trouble upon the unwitting organization. Virgin Net recently underwent such an experience when one of its subscribers apparently used its network to send out 250,000 junk messages.

Email Security tips:

The security menaces are many, but effective solutions do exist. The first step to enhance security recommended by cyber-security consultants is the formulation of a corporate email policy document. This is used to inform all members of the organization which messaging practices are deemed unacceptable.

Corporations may choose from a selection of email security packages. Some solutions are created to tackle a particular menace alone while others contain a convenient bundle of tools to deal with the various hazards. It is up to each organization to select the software that best suits their needs.

An efficient anti-spam tool will pick up words and phrases that usually appear in unsolicited commercial emails and block the unwanted message from entering the system. While preventing inconvenience to recipients, this saves the corporation time that employees would otherwise have wasted reading and deleting junk mail - paid work time that could be better applied.

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HOW I CAN REMOVE Subscribe to Posts Atom TEXT IN BLOG

Now we learn how remove "Subscribe to: Posts(Atom)" text in blog by web tutorials.

1. At first log on your blog,Then go to dashboard and click Edit Html .

2. Now Copy this code who show in the bar.

<b:include name=feedLinks/>  

 3. press ctrl+f and copy this post here. Now delete this code and save template 
Like this image................

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Prevent OpenDNS From Redirecting Google Searches – Fix for Firefox IE Address Bar

How to disable OpenDNS from redirecting Google searches in Firefox or Internet Explorer Address Bar without removing OpenDNS from the computer.

Like everyone else, I search the web from the browser address bar and have set Google as the default search engine in both Firefox and IE. I also use OpenDNS for reasons explained here – Why You Need OpenDNS ?

Sounds like a perfect combination but a side effect of using OpenDNS is that user can no longer search Google from Firefox location bar or the address bar of Internet Explorer.

That’s because all search requests from the browser address bar, originally meant for Google, are always redirected to OpenDNS Guide.

This can be a bit frustrating for Google users because Yahoo! (that feeds OpenDNS search) is definitely not the best search engine around.

If user like to disable OpenDNS Guide search without removing the OpenDNS DNS entries from userr computer or router, just follow these simple steps:

Use Google Search with OpenDNS in Firefox Location Bar

Type about:config in the address bar and press enter. If user are on Firefox 3, click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”. Now type keyword.url in the Filter field and set the value as:

http://www.google.com/search?q=

If user want Firefox to do a “I am Feeling Lucky” style Google search, use this value for keyword.URL:

http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=

Also make sure that the value of keyword.enabled is set to TRUE. That’s it – now any query user type in the Firefox Address bar will go to Google, not OpenDNS guide.

OpenDNS and Internet Explorer Address Bar

Open the registry editor (Start -> Run -> regedit) and navigate to the following key in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearchScopes

If Windows Live Search is userr default search engine in Internet Explorer 7, open {0633EE93-D776-472f-A0FF-E1416B8B2E3A} and set the value of URL as

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q={searchTerms}

In case of Google, open the corresponding key and set the value of URL as

http://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}

Technicals: I think OpenDNS redirects Google Searches to OpenDNS Guide if the “source” parameter is present in the search URL. Remove that from the address and OpenDNS would stop redirecting Google searches.

An alternative could be OpenDNS Shortcuts but the above modification are required when user have a dynamic IP address and are not logged into the OpenDNS system.

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Easily Hide Photos on your iPhone without using any Apps

Learn how to hide all the embarrassing pictures inside the photo album on userr iPhone and iPad in few easy taps.

Do user have any photographs on userr iPhone (or iPad) that user wish to hide from family members while they are casually flipping through the photo albums on userr iOS device?

How to Hide Photos on userr iPhone /iPad

The Apps Store is flooded with apps that can password protect userr iOS photos or userr even use Dropbox. First transfer the sensitive pictures from the camera roll to userr Dropbox folder and then add a 4-digit Passcode to the Dropbox app. Thus, userr photos stay on the device but completely hidden.

Here’s another trick that will let user hide photos inside userr photo albums but without requiring any apps or passwords.

1. Open the photo library on userr iPhone (or iPad) and tap the photo that user wish to keep a secret.
2. Tap “Edit” and then tap the “Crop” tool at the bottom.
3. Drag the corners of the cropping box inside such that a very small portion of the image is visible inside that box.
4. Save the cropped version and it will replace the original image in userr camera roll.

When user edit a photo inside iOS, the original copy gets saved along with the edited version and hence we can easily get back to the original unedited version.

To see the original image, just open the edited image inside the photo album, choose “Edit” and then tap “Revert to Original.” In the case of iPhone, the “Revert to Original” option is missing but user can manually drag the cropping handles outside to see the original version.

To see the original image, just open the edited image inside the photo album, choose “Edit” and then tap “Revert to Original.” In the case of iPhone, the “Revert to Original” option is missing but user can manually drag the cropping handles outside to see the original version.

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How the Internet Works in Simple English

If user were to explain to someone how the web browser and the Internet works, this wonderful comic strip from Vlad Gerasimov should come handy.

The user, seen here as the king, orders the browser to fetch a website who goes around negotiating with firewalls, talking to DNS servers and hosts (the wise owls) to get that site. This cute illustration is courtesy vladstudio.com.

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Singapore Blogger Wendy Cheng of Xiaxue vs free techno

If Free - Techno  in India is a one-man publishing company, Xiaxue in Singapore is a one-woman entertainment company.

A person compares my blog with that of Wendy Cheng, unarguably the most popular face in the Singapore blogging circles. 

If Free - Techno is a one-man publishing company, Xiaxue is a one-woman entertainment company!

One local, other phoren

One guy, other girl

One technology, other pure fun
One colorless, other colorful
One search-driven, other community driver

One being Labnol & the other being Xiaxue…

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Find the Song Name Without Knowing the Lyrics

It happens all the time. You are sitting in a restaurant with friends or driving to work and there’s some beautiful music playing on the FM radio station. You would love to buy a copy of that music album for userrself but the problem is that user didn’t get the lyrics so how do user find out the name of that song.

“What’s the name of that song ? I don’t remember the lyrics”

Search engines like Google or Bing won’t be of much help unless user know a couple of words from the song lyrics or have some clue about the name of the artist or the band. How do user then identify the name of that lovely song?

Well, here are some of the best music recognition services that can help user discover song names without having to know the lyrics. You may use them to identify music playing from the radio, TV, Internet or that CD playing in the bar.

1. Find Music with userr Mobile Phone

1a. Shazam – Shazam is a mobile application that user may use to find song names from userr iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android or userr Nokia S60 phone. You may also use Shazam on an iPod Touch provided user have an external microphone.

Simply install the Shazam application, hold userr phone towards the audio source and hit the Tag button to let Shazam identify the playing music. Shazam works only with pre-recorded music and not with live performances.

The free version of Shazam will help user identify up to 5 different track per month while Shazam Encore, the paid version, offers unlimited tracking for $4.99. If the tune cannot be recognized, there’s no charge. If user are in the UK, user can use just about any mobile phone to recognize music with Shazam – just dial 2580 and hold userr phone to the music.

1b. MusicID – Hold userr iPhone up to some music and MusicID will tell user what song is playing. It’s a $3 iPhone App available worldwide but if user are on AT&T, user may also use userr Blackberry, Windows Mobile or any Java phone to identify music with MusicID.

Like Shazam, MusicID works only with pre-recorded music and they also have an SMS based service for people in the US that doesn’t require any gets – just dial a short code, hold userr phone up to some music and user’ll get a text message with the result.

2. Find song names using userr own voice

2a. Midomi – If user have a tune that’s stuck in userr head, just grab a microphone, hum that tune userrself and Midomi will be able tell user what that song is. Alternatively, user may play a short recording of that “unknown” track for Midomi to identify its name.

Unlike Shazam which is a mobile app, Midomi offers a web interface where user can can hum or sing for about 10 seconds and the service will then show user a list of matching songs. For best results, keep the volume bar in the green and avoid background noise.

Midomi is free to use online, but it also offers mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Nokia Ovi and Windows Mobile phones. You can identify songs by holding userr phone up to a speaker or by singing / humming the melody into the phone itself.

3. Record a short clip to identify the music

3a. AudioTag – If user have a short recording of a song on userr computer or userr mobile phone, user may use the online music recognition service at AudioTag to figure out the exact name of that song.

You can upload a short audio snippet (or even a whole song) and Audio will try to identify the track title by comparing the audio to its own music database. For best results, user should either take a slice from the middle of the song or upload the whole song and the recognition engine will choose slices randomly by itself.

This can be especially useful if user can record a portion of the song on userr mobile device, and then check out the song’s information whenever user go online.

4. Identify Music with help of humans

4a. WatZatSong – When computers fail to identify the song that user are looking for, user can take the help of human being who may have an idea about that song.

WatZatSong (“What’s that song?”) is a social site where user can upload a short MP3 audio recording of the song (or record userrself by humming) and other members of the site can then help user guess the exact song name. The suggestions won’t come instantly but user can make their task a bit easier by proving more details about the song like the language in which it is sung or the music style.

You can cross-post the same WatZatSong  request to other social sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. so userr entire network can help user in the search.

4b. Name My Tune – Sing or hum a short clip of the song user are trying to find the name of. Once user are done recording and enter the Genre and Era that user think the song most likely fits in. They’ll send user an email when other people on that site are able to recognize userr tune.

5. Use a virtual keyboard to find the song name

5a. Musipedia – With Musipedia, user can search for a song by either playing it on a virtual piano keyboard or by whistling it to the computer using any microphone.

Musipedia is styled after Wikipedia and works best at finding classical music. Unlike Shazam which can will only find songs that exactly match the recording, Musipedia can identify all music that contain a particular melody that user just recorded by humming or through the computer keyboard.

5b. MelodyCatcher – If user can play the tune on a virtual keyboard, MelodyCatcher can help user find the name of the song tune user’re looking for.

With a simple Java-based onscreen keyboard, simply use userr mouse to enter the melody, click search, and MelodyCatcher will show user a list of matching songs from across the web. You do not need to enter the full melody: the first 5-7 notes will usually be sufficient to identify a melody.

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Ten Reasons to Love the New Outlook com

Is Outlook.com a better alternative to Gmail? Here are 10 features where Outlook definitely has an upper hand over Google’s email program.

I have been using Gmail since 2004 but the new Outlook.com service looks extremely tempting both in terms of features and also the user-interface which I think is far superior to that of Gmail. I am not switching yet but as an experiment, I have connected my primary Gmail account with Outlook  today and plan to use Microsoft’s web mail service exclusively for a week or so.

Meanwhile, after spending time with Outlook for about a day now, I found several unique and useful features in Outlook.com that user will surely miss inside Gmail.

#10. Sign-in with a Temporary Password

 

You can sign-in without entering userr account password.

If user have connected userr mobile phone to userr Hotmail / Outlook account, user can sign-in from any computer without using userr actual password. Click the “Sign in with a single-use code” link on the login screen and Microsoft will send user a temporary password in a text message that expires after first use.

This is useful when user are logging from a public computer. Gmail has two-step verification which adds one more layer of security.

#9 Unlimited Storage Space for userr Mails and Attachments

Gmail offers 10 GB of storage space for free accounts. Outlook offers virtually unlimited storage that expands.

Microsoft Outlook includes email storage that expands to provide user with as much storage space as user need. Your inbox capacity will automatically increase as user need more space. [Storage Limits]

The maximum size of an email message (including attachments) that user can receive in Outlook is 25 MB which is similar to Gmail.

#8 Easily Recover userr Deleted Mails

You can recover email that might have been accidently deleted from userr Outlook inbox.

Outlook makes it easy for user to recover userr deleted messages even if user have permanently emptied userr Trash bin. Open the “Deleted” folder in Outlook and click the link that says “recover deleted messages.”

I am not sure how long Outlook keeps userr deleted messages but this might be an extremely handy feature in case user accidentally empty the Delete folder.  Your Gmail account doesn’t offer any sort of message recovery.

#7 Get Disposable Email Addresses inside Outlook

If user are to share userr email address will a less trustworthy website, user often use a disposable email address without revealing userr primary address.

Hotmail and now Outlook, lets user create temporary email aliases that are just regular email addresses but user can delete them or create new ones whenever required. You can alsorename an existing alias without deleting.

To create an email alias, open Outlook Mail Settings and choose Create an Alias under Managing userr Account.

Gmail supports periods and plus signs in usernames but these addresses are permanent in nature. You can however find support for email eliases in Gmail for Google Apps.

#6. Use HTML and CSS in userr Rich Emails

Both Gmail and Outlook services offer a WYSIWYG editor to help user compose rich-text emails with images, headings, aligned text and other formatting.

However, Outlook also offers an HTML editor where user can write, or rather code, email messages directly in HTML and CSS Styles. While user are writing a new email, or replying to an existing one, go to Options and choose “Edit in HTML.”

Your Gmail or Outlook’s WYSIWYG editor doesn’t support tables or custom CSS sytems but now user can easily add them to userr email messages without resorting to any workarounds.

#5. Block Emails from Particular Addresses or Domains

Some people love sending email forwards and other useless messages that do not deserve a place in userr mailbox. Your web mail’s spam filter won’t block these emails as they are most coming from “real” people.

You can create filters in Gmail to block such people (or domains) permanently but Outlook has a simple solution.

You can block emails from specific senders or all messages originating from a par domain

Select a message and choose “Sweep” -> Delete -> Block all future messages.

For bulk additions, go to userr Outlook setting and choose Safe and Blocked Senders under “Preventing Junk Mail.” Here user can specify domain names (like @mail.ru or @com.cn) or individual email addresses and messages from these blacklisted address will be automatically deleted.

#4. Send Large Files and Email Attachments

With Outlook (and Gmail), user can send any number of file attachment provided the overall size of the message is less than 25 MB. The alternative is that user upload the file to Google Drive or Dropbox and include the get link in userr message.

Outlook is more tightly integrated with SkyDrive and if user try attaching a file that exceed the 25 MB limit, it will automatically send it via SkyDrive.

#3. Quickly Find the Space-Hogging Emails

Locate the big emails easily and recover space in Outlook with a click.

This is one feature that Gmail users would love to have – the ability to sort emails by size. You can delete the messages that have big attachments – maybe video files and large presentations – and thus recover space with a click.

#2. Social Done Right

Google has integrated a social network into my mailbox that could be growing but none of my friends and family members use it. On the other hand, Outlook is tightly integrated with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that most of us actually use.

#1. Outlook is fast

The most impressive thing about the new Outlook.com, other than the beautiful UI, is its speed. It feels fast and though Microsoft is calling Outlook.com a preview version, it has been pretty stable for me.

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Samsung Rogue u960 Review

            

Whats hot: Brilliant screen. Good music and V CAST video experience. Whats not: EV-DO reception isn’t very strong. CheckedOctober 16, 2009 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor For a feature phone, the Samsung Rogue has a lot to offer: a 3.1-inch AMOLED display, a roomy full QWERTY keyboard, a very capable full HTML browser, a 3-megapixel camera with video capture capability and Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. The phone has plenty of space too with 768MB of Flash ROM. The Samsung Rogue works with most Verizon services including V CAST music with Rhapsody, V CAST Video, VZ Navigator and Verizon’s Visual Voice Mail. What makes this phone interesting for Verizon customers is that Verizon has selected the Samsung Rogue as its flagship phone for the new data pricing option which allows customers to select either a 25MB $9.99 per month plan or a 75MB $19.99 per month plan along with their Nationwide plan. The Samsung Rogue (u960) is a digital dual band CDMA phone with EV-DO Rev. A for fast data. The phone is exclusively available from Verizon and comes in black and bronze colors. Design The Samsung Rogue is an attractive phone though it’s not slim since it has to accommodate the full QWERTY keyboard. Measuring 4.29 x 2.17 x 0.65 inches, the Rogue has a gorgeous resistive 3.1-inch AMOLED display that’s 480 x 800 pixels in resolution. Think of it as the cousin to the Samsung Impression on AT&T in terms of size, physical design and screen technology. The phone feels hefty as well weighing 4.94 ounces with the standard battery. The slide out keyboard has good sized keys and bright backlighting. Keys have good tactile feedback and you can turn on audio feedback for key presses. The 4-row keyboard includes a number row on top and 4-way directional keys on the right along with an OK key in the right bottom corner. While we appreciate the space bar being in the center, we find that it takes some getting use to with the “B” key sitting on the right side of the space bar. The back of the Samsung Rogue has an attractive texture that prevents showing fingerprints like the rest of the phone. The mono speaker and the camera along with self-portrait mirror and flash live on the back. The Samsung Rogue isn’t shy about giving you lots of side buttons and ports which include screen lock, voice command launcher, speakerphone button, camera/camcorder launcher, 3mm stereo headset jack, microSD card slot, charging port, volume rocker and a phone charm holder. Phone, Messaging and the Web The Samsung Rogue has decent reception, getting full bars on 1X and 3 out of 4 bars on EV-DO when in very strong coverage areas, and 2 bars of 1X and EV-DO in most areas with good coverage. Bad weather and spotty coverage prove challenging for the phone and we noted it dropping the EV-DO connection under those circumstances. The Samsung did fine holding onto 1X and did not drop a call. The Rogue has very good voice quality via both the earpiece and the built-in speakerphone. The Samsung has a phone book that can store up to 1000 contact entries, and has the excellent Nuance voice command and voice dialing software. The Samsung Rogue is a good messaging phone thanks to the full QWERTY keyboard and support for POP email, corporate email via Verizon’s services and mobile IM. The Rogue runs Samsung’s TouchWiz UI with widget bar on the side (or the bottom when the phone is in landscape mode). The widget bar is heavily populated with social networking widgets including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and Photobucket. The Rogue also has widgets for most commonly used applications like calendar, favorite contacts and tools such as Bluetooth and settings. Like other TouchWiz phones, you can drag a widget to the phone’s today screen and you can choose which widgets populate the widget bar. This isn’t however TouchWiz 2.0 which means you can’t download additional widgets. The Samsung Rogue has a full HTML browser (Polaris v6.1) that can display full HTML pages in desktop style. Full HTML pages don’t load very fast if you don’t have a strong EV-DO signal, but page rendering is very good. You can use fingers to drag the page and move around; page scrolling is very smooth and responsive via finger touch. There is a zoom tool that allows you to zoom in and out of a page, and the web browser offers most common settings for history, cache, cookies and other security settings.

Music and Video

The Samsung Rogue is a very capable music player thanks to the high quality built-in speakerphone, a 3.5mm stereo audio jack, Bluetooth A2DP and V CAST Music services. The phone also has plenty of space internally to store music and its microSD card slot supports high capacity storage cards. The built-in media player can play music in MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ as well as WMA formats. If you have tunes ripped in iTunes or Windows Media Player, you can play them on the Samsung Rogue. The loudspeaker, though mono, is loud and sounds very good. Audio via wired headset and Bluetooth stereo headset sounds even better. You can also buy tunes from V CAST music over the air or via PC if you have a subscription to Rhapsody.

The Samsung Rogue’s video playback experience varies depending on the service you are using. V CAST Video playback is very smooth even in full screen mode, and audio is mostly in sync with video. If you have good EV-DO coverage (2 bars or higher), V CAST video has good buffering speed and rarely has any noticeable slowdowns or interruptions. V Cast Video is included with the data plan and it offers the usual news, sports, entertainment news clips, and full-length TV episodes from major US networks. Compared to the V CAST video playback, YouTube videos look choppy with lesser quality in both video and audio, and some HD videos have skewed aspect ratios. The phone plays mobile YouTube videos via the web browser.

GPS and VZ Navigator

The Samsung Rogue has a built-in GPS and works with Verizon’s VZ Navigator very well for real time navigation, directions and POI searches. The phone gets GPS fixes fast and maps load with a good speed. Real time routing and re-routing are speedy and turn-by-turn directions are mostly accurate. 3D maps look good on the AMOLED display and the phone’s speaker is loud and clear, and can overcome highway noise when giving voice guidance. Like most Verizon services, VZ Navigator isn’t free. It offers real time traffic check, a large POI database and sharing locations with friends and family. The Samsung Rogue also supports Verizon’s Family Locator service.

Camera

The Samsung Rogue has a 3 megapixel camera with self-portrait mirror and an LED flash. The camera can also record video with audio. Still pictures taken with the Rogue look good by 3 megapixel camera phone standards: theyre reasonably sharp with mostly balanced colors. There is noticeable oversharpening but that makes photos look pleasing. The camera phone can take photos in 8 resolutions and supports multi-shot, panorama, mosaic and frame shot shooting modes. Videos taken with the phone look sharp enough, and audio is mostly in sync with video.

Battery

The Samsung Rogue has average battery life compared to 3” and above Verizon touch screen phones. The rechargeable 960 mAh battery has a claimed usage time of 4.7 hours and claimed standby of 12.5 days. In our tests, the phone lasted for about 4 hours in a mix of talking, accessing V CAST Music and V CAST Video, sending messages and surfing the web. The standby in our tests was about 9-10 days. If you use the phone as a GPS navigation device, watch on-demand videos on V CAST Video and check your email constantly, expect to charge the phone every other day or every 1.5 days.

Conclusion

Some folks consider the Samsung Rogue as the replacement for the poorly received Samsung Glyde, and Verizon has found a winner in the Samsung Rogue. The Rogue is a solid feature phone that includes some attractive treats such as the AMOLED touch screen, TouchWiz UI, good audio quality as well as plenty of internal memory. The QWERTY keyboard is good for texters and social networking-centric web surfers, and the phone looks attractive. The signal strength could be stronger especially for EV-DO.

Pro: Good music and V CAST video experience. Brilliant display.

Con: Signal strength on EV-DO isn’t strong.

Price: $99.99 with 2-year contract after discount.

Web sites: www.verizonwireless.com, www.samsungmobileusa.com

Specs:

Display: 3.1” AMOLED resistive touch screen, 262K colors. Resolution: 480 x 800 pixels.

Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable battery, 960 mAh, user replaceable. Claimed talk time: up to 4.5 hours. Claimed standby time: up to 12.5 days.

Performance: 256MB RAM and 768MB Flash. Phone book can store 1000 entries.

Size: 4.29 x 2.17 x 0.65 inches. Weight: 4.94 oz.

Phone: CDMA 1X, EV-DO Rev. A.

Camera: 3.0 Megapixel Camera with flash and self-portrait mirror. Image resolutions: 2048 x 1536, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 768, 640 x 480, 800 x 480, 320 x 240 pixels. Supports Multi–shot, Panorama shot, Mosaic shot and Frame shot modes. Self Timer, Color Effects and digital zoom.

Audio: 96-chord Polyphonic ringtone support. 3.5mm headset jack. Music player onboard to play MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA files.

Networking: Bluetooth v2.0. Bluetooth Profiles Supported: Headset, Hands–free, Stereo, Phonebook Access, Basic Printing, Basic Imaging, Object Push for vCard and vCal, File Transfer & Serial Port Profiles

Software: TouchWiz UI. Polaris web browser, Web-based email and IM on board. PIM tools include Contacts, Calculator, Tip Calculator, Calendar, Alarm Clock, World Clock, Calculator with Converter, Stop Watch, Notepad, Sketch Pad and Timer.

Expansion: 1 microSD card slot. Supports up to 16GB cards.

In the Box: The Samsung Rogue phone with standard battery, AC charger and printed guides.

                                                                ( Author : Tong Zhang, Source : mobiletechnews ) 

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LG VX9400 Review

       

Review posted April 19, 2007 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief We frequently speak of convergence devices on this site: those that combine a PDA and phone, or a GPS and PDA for example. But in the US, this is the first time were covering a new kind of convergence: broadcast TV and mobile telephony. Europe had been doing trials of broadcast TV service in mobile phones for years, but we in the US have jumped into the game late (as we always seem to when it comes to phones). But with a remarkably fast rollout, Verizon and Qualcomms MediaFLO have gotten the service running in several major metro regions, with an aggressive plan to blanket many more areas this year (and in the coming years). What exactly is this? No, its not the usual V Cast video clips, in fact the service doesnt use the phones data connection. Rather its digital broadcast TV over-the-air, much in the same way traditional TV broadcast works. This means that phones like the LG VX9400 and the Samsung u620 (the other Verizon phone that supports TV) have tiny TV tuners and not so tiny antennas that youll telescope up when you want to watch TV. Verizon calls this service V Cast Mobile TV, and it currently has an 8 channel lineup (were sure more will come in the coming years) that runs 24/7. Like regular TV, youll see a TV programming grid when you press the dedicated TV button, and channel programming is always running in real time: theres no on-demand or DVR. This means youll need to catch your favorite show when its broadcast, and it means content is always changing, unlike stale video clips. The schedule doesnt match regular local TV broadcasts, which means you can catch a CSI show at 10am, but your favorite CBS 10 a.m. show might air at a very different time. This Verizon service costs $25/month for all 8 channels plus V Cast (video and music) and Mobile Web. The $13/month Limited package gets you 4 channels and the $15 TV Basic package gets you all 8 channels but no V Cast video/music or Mobile Web. The 8 channels are NBC, NBC News, Fox Mobile, MTV Mobile, Comedy Central, CBS Mobile, Nickelodeon and ESPN. Were in one of the metro areas with Mobile TV service and reception is generally good. The picture is stunningly clear and sharp when in a good reception area but can drop audio and/or video frames in marginal coverage areas (say in a large building or in the center of a large house). When in a good coverage area youll have no problems recognizing your favorite actors mug, but digital blockiness and dithering in weak coverage spots will make it harder to ID his or her tiny visage. Remember, this is a broadcast digital TV service from MediaFlo and it does not use Verizons voice and data networks, so your phones 1x and EVDO signal bars bear no relation to the TV signal. Yes, there are commercials; the CBS news show broke for commercials just as it would on home TV and NBC had several commercial breaks during a 1 hour show. What happens if a call comes in when youre watching TV? The phone rings and you can answer (or ignore) the call as per normal. TV video and audio playback pause when the phone rings, and resume once the call has ended. The LG VX9400, like the Samsung U620, can play in both portrait and landscape modes and theres a full screen option that fills the display. How do the VX9400 and Samsung u620 compare? The Samsung is smaller (surprisingly small) with a shorter antenna, and both are reasonably attractive and well made. The VX9400s larger display is preferable for watching TV, as are its better flesh tones (the Samsungs flesh tones are too white). The LG VX9400 and Samsung u620 To watch TV in landscape mode and reveal the number pad, twist the front display clockwise. When closed, the two softkeys, clear and TV buttons, send and end keys as well as the directional pad are accessible (only the numbers are hidden under the display section). The design is interesting, and its one of those youll either love it or hate it things. The telescoping TV antenna is a whopper: thin but long with a large plastic end cap. Fortunately you need only raise this when watching TV. In a decent signal area you can get away with having the antenna at half mast with minor degradation, but you wont see or hear much of anything if the antenna is completely down. The display is superb: very sharp and clear with vivid colors and a glossy look. In general, LG phones have very good displays and the large 2.2" VX9400 display is at the top of the heap among feature phones. Sound through the rear firing speaker is plenty loud and clear enough for TV watching, though youll want to use a wired headset for better stereo sound when using the music player.

The keypad is roomy, and I had no trouble dialing or texting one-handed (I do have long fingers). The keys are backlit, but the letter farthest to the right on each key is more faintly lit than the rest. The number key area is quite flat, though still more tactile than the RAZR. The VX9400s thicker bottom portion feels good in hand, providing a good grip and naturally orienting the thumb tip toward the number keys. Though different looking when in landscape mode, the phone is attractive and feels well-balanced. Should a call come in while the display is in landscape orientation, the earpiece will be offset to the right side (since it lives above the display relative to portrait mode). This means youll need to angle the top back toward the rear of your head to center the speaker at your ear. This is easy enough to do and doesnt make the phone uncomfortable. You can also swing the display back to portrait orientation when in a call, it wont hang up the call.

The camera and loudspeaker buttons as well as the microSD card slot are on the phones right side and the volume rocker, voice command button and 2.5mm headset jack are on the left. As youd expect, the camera lens, LED flash and battery door are on the phones back. The LGs loudspeaker is on the back as well, next to the camera lens.

Performance and Software

The LG VX9400 is a fast and responsive phone with a generous 60 megs of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot. Menus and windows open quickly, the web browser offers good speeds and music/video/game downloads are fast. The LG has a slight edge over the Samsung u620 for download speeds, but the Samsung is faster for gaming (note that most games run in landscape QVGA mode on the LG and portrait QVGA on the Samsung). The phone runs Verizons Flash user interface which is intuitive and it supports animated desktop images and offers two themes (VZW and LG). The upside is that the learning curve is very low but those who like variety will be bored with the same old UI on most all Verizon phones.

Like all Verizon feature phones, the VX9400 has basic PIM applications: contacts (500 contacts max), calendar and notes. It uses the same USB data cable as other recent LG phones like the Chocolate and VX8600, but so far there is no BitPim support for syncing (BitPim is a free syncing application for Windows and LG phones). Also included are a music player, V Cast video player, camera application, a Mobile Web 2.0 compatible browser that handles WAP sites, web-based email and basic HTML sites in single-column view and messaging for SMS and MMS.

Phone Features and Reception

The LG is a digital dual band CDMA phone with EVDO for data. Reception is good and is a bit better than the Samsung u620. We had no problems downloading apps and music nor did we drop calls in a very signal-challenged area that gets 0-1 bar of 1x and 2 bars of EV on average with most Verizon phones. The LG managed 3 bars of EV and held onto that single bar of 1x for voice. Voice quality is very good both incoming and outgoing, though the speakerphone is tinny sounding (albeit loud) and our call recipients commented on the speakerphones lesser voice quality.

The LG comes with Voice Signals excellent voice command software that does true speech recognition (no need to record voice tags). The software can read out the contents of screens to you and it works not just for dialing by name and number but for common actions such as starting a text message, getting account info and launching applications. The voice command software doesnt take dictation (give them a couple more years!).

Camera We were pleasantly surprised by the VX9400s 1.3 megapixel camera. LG generally does a good job with cameras and though 1.3MP is now bottom of the barrel, the phone took pleasing shots. Colors were reasonably accurate, noise is acceptable for a camera of this resolution and the shots were fairly clear by fixed focus lens standards. Not bad! The LG did better than the Samsung u620 with more vibrant colors, less white out and better focus. The 2.2" display acts as the cameras viewfinder and you can launch the camera by pressing the dedicated side button. When in portrait mode the viewfinder takes up only a portion of the display. Switch to landscape mode by swiveling the display and it uses the entire screen. The camera can take still photos in JPEG format in 1280x960, 640x480, 320 x 240, 176 x144 and 160x120 resolutions. Theres a self timer (3, 5 or 10 seconds), an LED flash (you can turn it off), white balance settings, 3 shutter sounds plus silent, color effects (sepia, black and white, negative), brightness control and selectable spot or average metering (a feature you dont usually see on low end camera modules). You can save photos to a microSD card or internal memory and view them in the photo viewer application. The camera can record video with audio at 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 which is suitable for MMS. You can set it to record as long as you wish (as long as theres enough room on your storage card) or limit it to 15 seconds for MMS. Video quality is typical camera phone stuff: good color, but theres blockiness, especially if youre moving to follow your subject or theres a lot of movement in the scene. Sound quality is good as is volume.

Music Player and V Cast Video

The music player is Verizons basic player with support for MP3 and WMA format songs. You can save songs to a microSD card (if you use a card reader to manually copy songs to a card, be sure to put them in the "my_music" folder on the card). The player supports playlists, groups songs by artist, album, song title, genre and has a shuffle feature but no equalizer. You can also use the player to purchase songs from Verizons download service for $1.99 per track. The player works in both portrait and landscape modes and you can see three song titles listed per scroll in landscape mode and five in portrait mode. Sound quality is good through a 2.5mm stereo earbud headset (not included with the phone) and loud though tinny through the phones built-in speaker. V Cast videos play smoothly and download speeds are average to a bit better than average. Again, the excellent display makes the most of Verizons V Cast video service.

Bluetooth

The VX9400 has Bluetooth 1.2 with support for headset and handsfree profiles including car kits. The phone supports voice dialing over Bluetooth and it worked well with a variety of headsets including the Plantronics Discovery 655, scala 700 and Gennum nX6000. Incoming and outgoing audio were loud and clear and average range was good at 20 feet (tiny headsets like the Gennum had shorter range with the LG and all phones with which we tested it). The phone has a wide selection of Bluetooth profiles including DUN (dial up networking), serial port, Object Push and A2DP with AVRC for stereo bluetooth headphones. We were impressed with the LGs audio quality using A2DP with the Plantronics Pulsar 590a: it sounds better than most A2DP phones with strong bass and rich-sounding music.

Battery Life

As with most Verizon V Cast phones, EVDO is hard on the battery. If youre a V Cast video addict, you know what Im talking about: an hour of V Cast video can eat half the battery. Fortunately, Mobile TV is much more battery friendly since it doesnt use the EVDO radio and the battery indicator didnt change after watching an hour long TV episode. With average use, the LG should last two days on a charge, including healthy use of the phone, texting, some web browsing and music playback. If youre a heavy V Cast video user, expect less and if you watch 4 hours of mobile TV each day, youll charge nightly.

Conclusion

A very nice offering from LG and Verizon, and an exciting one since the LG VX9400 is one of the first two US TV phones. Even if youre not in a metro area covered by Verizons new TV service, the VX9400 is worth a look thanks to its good call quality, strong reception, great display and overall good call quality. If youre looking for TV but want the smallest possible phone, the Samsung u620 wins, though we still prefer the VX9400s larger and better display.

List Price: $249 with 2 year contract

Web Site: us.lge.com, www.verizonwireless.com

Shopping: Where to Buy

Specs:

Display: 2.2" QVGA (240 x 320) 262K color TFT LCD.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 950 mA. Claimed talk time: 228 minutes. Claimed standby: 458 hours. Has flight mode and music only mode (Bluetooth on but phone radio off).
Performance: Approximately 60 megs of internal memory. Address book can hold 500 contacts.
Size: 4.04 x 1.93 x 0.73 inches. Weight: 4.06 ounces.
Phone: CDMA dual band digital (800/1900MHz) with EVDO for data.
Camera: 1.3MP with LED flash and self-portrait mirror. Still image resolutions: 1280x960, 640x480, 320x240, 176x144, 160x120 pixels. Video resolutions: 320 x 240, 176 x 144 at 15fps. Up to 4x zoom (no zoom for highest resolution photos).
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 2.5mm stereo headset jack. Music player included. Can record voice notes (up to 1 minute when not in a call, up to 5 minutes during a call). Has speakerphone and vibrate feature.
Networking: Bluetooth 1.2. Supported profiles: headset, handsfree, DUN, serial port, A2DP, AVRC, BPP (basic printing profile) and object push.
Software: Verizon flash user interface. Calendar, contacts, notes, music player (MP3 and WMA), V Cast video player, Mobile TV player, the usual Verizon Get it Now applications, video player (supports MPEG4, 3GP and 3G2 file formats), Mobile Web 2.0 with browser, text, MMS and web-based email.
Expansion: 1 microSD card slot.
                                                         ( Author :  Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechnews )           

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