Review: CloudMagic lives inside Windows 8

CloudMagic has gone Metro. The excellent search service, which I've been a fan of since it made its debut in 2010, is now available as a native application for Windows 8's Metro interface. CloudMagic's Windows 8 edition still delivers super-speedy, accurate search results across a host of services, but it is a bit hamstrung by some of Windows 8's own problems.

You can download the CloudMagic app from Microsoft's Windows Store, and it installs quickly. If you already have a CloudMagic account, the app remembers all of your settings, and doesn't need much in the way of set up: You log in and you're good to go.

If you don't have a CloudMagic account already, the signup process is simple, and it's easy to link the services you'd like it to search. CloudMagic currently searches the following services: AOL, Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Gmail, Google Apps, Google Drive, Google Talk, GMX, Hotmail, iCloud, Mail.com, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Microsoft Office 365, MSN, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Twitter, Windows Live, and Yahoo Mail. You simply grant CloudMagic access to the accounts you'd like it to search, and it goes to work indexing them.

While the basics are the same, the actual experience of using CloudMagic as a Windows 8 Metro app is very different from using it in your browser, as an extension. Where the browser extension displays results right on the Web page you're viewing, the Metro app is its own standalone app. You search from within the app itself and see all of the results in there, too.

I do like how CloudMagic still organizes the results by type: You can see messages, people, files & docs, posts & updates, and events, and you can limit your search to just one of these categories if you have an idea of what you're looking for.

As always, CloudMagic's results appear quickly, in real-time as you type, and proved to be very accurate. And CloudMagic's subscription model is in place: you can view 50 free "previews" each month. (CloudMagic considers a preview the action you take after getting the search result, in which you click the result that seems relevant and you're shown a quick preview of the content it returned.) If you want to see more than 50 previews, you'll need to hand over $5 a month for a Pro account.

CloudMagic's Metro app features a Metro-fied interface, with a big search bar at the top and even bigger search results.

What's different about CloudMagic's Metro app is its Metro-fied interface, which displays results in large text in a column on the left side of the screen. I didn't test it on a touch-screen device, but I can see how this interface would work well with one. Clicking on one of the results brings up a preview on the right side of the screen. Depending on what type of content this preview contains, you'll also see certain options underneath the preview. If it's an email message, for example, you'll see options that include "Reply" and "Open."

Here's the unfortunate part of using CloudMagic in the Windows 8 modern UI: Much of the content that CloudMagic searches is available from services—like Facebook and Gmail—that are not yet available as Metro apps. So, when you open them, you're taken to your browser, back in Windows 8's Desktop interface. The experience isn't exactly seamless, especially because being back in your browser shows you the CloudMagic browser extensions—which reminded me, at least, of how much I like using it. It lets you switch between sites and services with ease.

This flaw isn't CloudMagic's fault—they can't make Google and Facebook release Metro apps, after all—as much as it is a reminder of the limits of Windows 8. The good news is this: When Windows 8 improves, so, too, will the experience of using CloudMagic's Metro app.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the Windows Store, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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Review: BestCrypt lives up to its name with excellent features

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi

When you name your program BestCrypt, it had better be the best, or something closely approximating it. Well, if BestCrypt isn't the most versatile or best encryption software out there, both the U.S. government and I are barking up the wrong tree. It's full-featured, super stable, fast…and expensive. Add the $60 container, $100 volume encryption, and $40 for the DiskWipe utility, and you're talking $200. That's $200 more than the free TrueCrypt or DiskCryptor—both effective encryption utilities.

There's no bling, just the necessary controls in the BestCrypt control panel window.

But if you want the best, with a guarantee, you pay for it. In my hands-on with all the BestCrypt modules, they worked intuitively and well. The container and volume encryption both run as services and are transparent to the user except for a control panel. You access containers mounting them as virtual drives, i.e. you double-click on the container file, supply the required password, and BestCrypt the creates a virtual drive and assigns it a drive letter. You then browse it and perform file operations as you would with any drive.

BestCrypt offers a ton of encryption methods, including AES Rijndael, Blowfish-448, CAST, GOST, IDEA, RC6, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish. And depending on the algorithm, you can choose the mode such as CBC, LRW, etc. If your company is set on a particular algorithm, or you just want to switch it up across containers or volumes, BestCrypt is unusually capable in that regard.

Encrypted containers are just one of BestCrypt's many tricks.

BestCrypt's interface is extremely well thought out, stays out of the way and doesn't bother with useless bling. The BCWipe data wiper is available with you right-click on a drive, but it otherwise neatly tucked away in the utilities menu of the BestCrypt control panel along with a public key manager, algorithm benchmark, archiver, swap file encryption, plug-in manager and others. There's nary an encryption security task that's not available within the program.

It's expensive, and not for the average user, but for businesses that want the best and the consequent peace of mind, BestCrypt is as good as it gets.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

God Game From Dust Lives Again as Chrome Web Store Centerpiece

PC fans of God games had plenty to be excited about when publisher Ubisoft announced From Dust for PC last year. The game's designer, Eric Chani, is well known for his abstract early 90's masterpiece Another World, so the project seemed in capable hands. Moreover, he cited Peter Molyneux's classics Populous and Black & White as his primary influences, so the provenance couldn't be better. After a successful console release, it seemed little could go wrong. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. The PC port was badly botched with low framerates, no anti-aliasing support, video card compatibility issues and an overzealous DRM system riddled with bugs that plague users to this day. There's an alternative to the console version if you want to play frustration-free, however. Just fire up Chrome and play right in your browser, courtesy of From Dust in Chrome's Web Store ($10).

With these totems taken care of, things are looking green and leafy around this From Dust village.From Dust is the second high-profile game title ported to Chrome using Google's Native Client technology; the first was Bastion. Native Client allows legacy software to run inside the highly secure browser framework at near-native speeds with virtually no porting required. With support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, mouse capture, fullscreen modes and more, it's a natural fit for resource-intensive games which see little performance degradation compared to their native, traditionally installed counterparts. What's more, the nature of this cloud-based gaming model eliminates issues arising from Ubisoft's disastrous UPlay DRM scheme. There is no need to install special software or make players jump through verification hoops. You just fire it up and play. It even works on both Linux and Mac OSX.

The game itself is a slickly executed take on the genre's classics. You play a god-like presence guiding a race of people to success and happiness via environmental manipulation, using a ball-shaped manifestation of force called "the breath." Using that ball as a cursor, you raise and lower land, redirect the flow of rivers and lakes, create paths for your people to follow to safety and more. The action is smooth, satisfying and easy to pick up. As your power grows, so do the effects you can create, which include the ability to manipulate lava, smother fires and redirect deadly floods to help your villagers thrive. Be careful, however, as performing miracles is tricky work. An imprecise wiggle of the mouse can wind up incinerating or drowning your villagers instead of saving them. When you're a god, there's a fine line between saving and smiting.

Ubisoft's From Dust for Chrome has pretty spiffy visuals for a browser-based game.Since From Dust's code has been transported largely intact, some of the original's problems remain. Foremost of these is the absence of an actual sandbox mode, a baffling omission given the near-requirement of such an option for this type of game. Related to this is a creeping feeling of pointlessness as each stage's goal becomes the reason for play, rather than the simple, open-ended enjoyment of developing your people to their full potential. The various level challenges play out like RTS puzzles, and while this is fun at first, it's easy to become detached enough from the proceedings that they start feeling like busywork. Populous had the novelty of a new idea and Black & White had its giant avatars to provide personality and a sense of occasion. From Dust is devoid of such flourishes, and while this doesn't ruin gameplay, it does prevent an otherwise good game from becoming a great one. On a more mundane note, anti-aliasing is also absent in this version and remains implementable only via FXAA injection tricks with Nvidia graphics cards .

RTS and God-game fans will nevertheless find plenty to like here, as titles of this flavor and quality don't come along very often. The best part is the price. At $10, Chrome's version of From Dust is the cheapest you'll find short of a holiday fire sale, and the browser-based delivery method is akin to getting a bugfix update for free. There are updated keyboard controls, new tutorials and much needed screen controls all absent in the PC version. There's even a fully playable three-level demo. Check it out, even just to see what Google's Native Client and Chrome are capable of pulling off.

Note: The Download button takes you to the Chrome Web store, where you can install the latest version directly into your Chrome browser.

—Jim Norris

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

God Game From Dust Lives Again as Chrome Web Store Centerpiece

PC fans of God games had plenty to be excited about when publisher Ubisoft announced From Dust for PC last year. The game's designer, Eric Chani, is well known for his abstract early 90's masterpiece Another World, so the project seemed in capable hands. Moreover, he cited Peter Molyneux's classics Populous and Black & White as his primary influences, so the provenance couldn't be better. After a successful console release, it seemed little could go wrong. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. The PC port was badly botched with low framerates, no anti-aliasing support, video card compatibility issues and an overzealous DRM system riddled with bugs that plague users to this day. There's an alternative to the console version if you want to play frustration-free, however. Just fire up Chrome and play right in your browser, courtesy of From Dust in Chrome's Web Store ($10).

With these totems taken care of, things are looking green and leafy around this From Dust village.From Dust is the second high-profile game title ported to Chrome using Google's Native Client technology; the first was Bastion. Native Client allows legacy software to run inside the highly secure browser framework at near-native speeds with virtually no porting required. With support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, mouse capture, fullscreen modes and more, it's a natural fit for resource-intensive games which see little performance degradation compared to their native, traditionally installed counterparts. What's more, the nature of this cloud-based gaming model eliminates issues arising from Ubisoft's disastrous UPlay DRM scheme. There is no need to install special software or make players jump through verification hoops. You just fire it up and play. It even works on both Linux and Mac OSX.

The game itself is a slickly executed take on the genre's classics. You play a god-like presence guiding a race of people to success and happiness via environmental manipulation, using a ball-shaped manifestation of force called "the breath." Using that ball as a cursor, you raise and lower land, redirect the flow of rivers and lakes, create paths for your people to follow to safety and more. The action is smooth, satisfying and easy to pick up. As your power grows, so do the effects you can create, which include the ability to manipulate lava, smother fires and redirect deadly floods to help your villagers thrive. Be careful, however, as performing miracles is tricky work. An imprecise wiggle of the mouse can wind up incinerating or drowning your villagers instead of saving them. When you're a god, there's a fine line between saving and smiting.

Ubisoft's From Dust for Chrome has pretty spiffy visuals for a browser-based game.Since From Dust's code has been transported largely intact, some of the original's problems remain. Foremost of these is the absence of an actual sandbox mode, a baffling omission given the near-requirement of such an option for this type of game. Related to this is a creeping feeling of pointlessness as each stage's goal becomes the reason for play, rather than the simple, open-ended enjoyment of developing your people to their full potential. The various level challenges play out like RTS puzzles, and while this is fun at first, it's easy to become detached enough from the proceedings that they start feeling like busywork. Populous had the novelty of a new idea and Black & White had its giant avatars to provide personality and a sense of occasion. From Dust is devoid of such flourishes, and while this doesn't ruin gameplay, it does prevent an otherwise good game from becoming a great one. On a more mundane note, anti-aliasing is also absent in this version and remains implementable only via FXAA injection tricks with Nvidia graphics cards .

RTS and God-game fans will nevertheless find plenty to like here, as titles of this flavor and quality don't come along very often. The best part is the price. At $10, Chrome's version of From Dust is the cheapest you'll find short of a holiday fire sale, and the browser-based delivery method is akin to getting a bugfix update for free. There are updated keyboard controls, new tutorials and much needed screen controls all absent in the PC version. There's even a fully playable three-level demo. Check it out, even just to see what Google's Native Client and Chrome are capable of pulling off.

Note: The Download button takes you to the Chrome Web store, where you can install the latest version directly into your Chrome browser.

—Jim Norris

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Facebook's Timeline Movie Maker Turns Users' Lives into Film

Facebook users can use Timeline, the site’s new profile layout, to turn their lives into a movie. Marketing Agency Definition 6 and Facebook have released Timeline Movie Maker, an app that automatically parses your Timeline profile to create about a 55-second movie from your memories stored in the social network.

Facebook is hoping that more companies will be encouraged to take advantage of Timeline and create more novel apps for people to view and experience their new profile. "We think there will be lots of companies that come up with fun, innovative ways for people to extend the Timeline experience," a Facebook official told PCWorld.

Of course, that may raise the hackles of privacy advocates concerned about how a Timeline app could misuse information it is allowed to access. But it's important to keep in mind that Movie Maker and any subsequent apps are completely optional and no one is forcing users to share their data with third-party companies.

If you want to give Movie Maker a try, here's how it works.

To get started, log in to Facebook and then point your browser to the Timeline Movie Maker site and press the green button that says "Make Your Movie." You'll then have to sort through two approval screens asking you for permission to access your basic information, e-mail address, other profile data such as hobbies, your posts, and your News Feed. The app does not ask for permission to post anything to your profile automatically.

After that you can just sit back and wait for the app to sort through your profile information to create your movie. Shortly thereafter, the video will start playing, showing you photographs and videos from your Timeline. If your personalized movie looks familiar, that's because the video is built on the same template as Facebook's Timeline introductory video released in September. Your video even uses the same soundtrack and even includes some generic photos from that original video when the camera is speeding past "your" Timeline.

After the movie is done, you'll have the option to replay it or you can swap out the music for one of four additional soundtrack themes including nostalgic, cinematic, romantic and playful. Once you choose a new soundtrack, you have to press the "Remake Your Movie" button at the bottom of the screen. The app will then go through the motions to rebuild your movie. But in my tests, the music was the only thing that changed.

There is also a filmstrip at the bottom of the page that lets you change any of the photos you don't like with new ones. But you can't drag and drop or easily swap out your photos from Facebook. Instead, you have to keep clicking on the photo as the app rotates through your Facebook collection until you find an image you like.

Movie Maker also has a share option after the movie is finished playing, but it's entirely disappointing. The only thing you can share is a link to Movie Maker, there is no option to post the finished product to Facebook, Twitter or your own website. There is also no way to download the finished movie.

But if you want to have a fun look at some of your profile information that is only viewable by you and the people crowding around your PC's monitor, then Movie Maker is a neat way to experience your Timeline.

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