Reveal 11 Business review: automated videography for your professional needs

Though video production software isn’t generally thought of as a business tool, in today’s video-centric advertising, training, and general communications environment, it should be. Apparently, as evidenced by the release of their simple-to-use, but effective Reveal 11 Business automated video production software, Muvee Technologies feels that way as well.

With Reveal, basically all you do is provide the pictures, video, and text; arrange their sequence; pick a style template; and let the program process it into a complete production. Beyond that—butter. The number of style templates, which contain the background music, FX and transitions melded into a “look and feel” are what differentiate the regular $80 version of Reveal 11 and the $500 Business SKU. The regular version has only a few styles, while the business version has over 40, plus 2000 musical renditions that you may use royalty-free. Functionally, both versions are identical.

Additional control over the creation process is hidden in well-constructed dialogs with precise and effective terminology.

The only complaint here is that Muvee could do a better job looking more, well, business-like. When I say better job, I mean actually try. The plethora of styles added by the business pack are nice, but they’re named in artistic terms, not business ones. If you’re looking for something like “Target: 27-year to 32-year old food-centrics,” forget it, you’re getting Reflections, Soar, and Turn Back Time. Put another way, you’re going to walk in the shoes of an artist. Hey, it’s not all bad...

Reveal 11 business is supremely easy to use. There’s a content row on the top, with style-selection and preview panes beneath that. That’s it visually, but there’s more control over the video production than is apparent at first glance. Click on Personalize in the bottom left corner and you can insert your logo, adjust the scene timing, define the titling and credits, and record a voice-over. There’s also a small audio mix console. Click on any picture or video in the media bay, and you’re presented with slick and simple editing controls such as a zoom effect control for photos and a highly accurate scene detector/slicer for videos. There are also controls attached to each style for color profiles, more scene change speed, camera wonkiness, and more.

Reveal 11 provides complete, yet simple voice-over and audio mixing capabilities. Just bring your microphone.

Even better; labels and messages are concise, yet not overly terse as with that vast majority of programs. They actually tell you what to do. Additionally, there’s not one cluttered area, overcrowded toolbar, or cryptic icon in sight. Interfaces simply don’t get any better. I never once cracked the help file.

I’m not trying to step on the toes of professional videographers -- a good one is worth their weight in gold. But many of us don’t have the gold, and Reveal 11 Business largely meets the need. If not for a professional advertising campaign, just about everything else. If you’re really strapped for cash, you can always buy the regular version and shop for a $10/$15 style that suits you in the Muvee store. There’s also a music store with affordable licensing fees based on your intended usage.

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Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete review: Protection needs improvement

Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete ($52 for one year of protection on up to five PCs) offers an intuitive interface, very fast system scans, and a mobile security component. Unfortunately, it falls short where it counts: protection.

In our real-world (zero-day) tests, Webroot blocked just 82 percent of Web and email threats and unknown viruses—a comparatively weak showing, considering that half the suites in our roundup nailed all of them, and two others stopped 98 percent of the attacks.

Webroot did a better job of protecting against known malware (arising within 30 days of the testing), successfully blocking 99 percent of attacks. Microsoft Security Essentials blocked just 93 percent of known malware attacks). However, most of the other security suites in our roundup successfully blocked 100 percent of known malware attacks.

Webroot's polished, touchscreen-friendly interface is one of the highlights of its suite.

Webroot SecureAnywhere was overzealous in denouncing benign files as security risks, too. In our usability tests, the program flagged five legitimate programs (out of thousands tried) as dangerous.

Performance is a bright spot: Webroot SecureAnywhere earned a score of 0 on this measure, meaning that it won’t add any discernable time to your PC startups and shutdowns.

Once you’ve input your product keycode, installing Webroot SecureAnywhere becomes a one-click process. The main window is attractive and easy to understand at a glance. The entire window tints green if you’re protected, orange if you’re semi-protected, and red if you’re unprotected. In case that approach is too subtle for you, Webroot also posts a large banner that can be green, orange, or red, as well as a green checkmark, an orange exclamation point, or a red ‘x’ to reinforce your protection level.

The main window is divided into three sections. A white box under the protection-status banner shows scanning and subscription stats. Underneath that is a message and alert box with a quick link to Webroot’s online support site. To the right are several feature menus that you can tap to expand and gain access to some settings.

The clean, touchscreen-optimized interface is full of tappable buttons, tiles, and toggles. Clicking the Advanced Settings button will take you to a slightly less touchscreen-friendly menu. Webroot uses minimal jargon to explain most of the settings and features, and the menu is thoughtfully organized to make finding things easier.

If you have lots of PCs to protect, you’ll appreciate Webroot’s pricing structure, which covers up to five PCs for a year for $52.

Webroot is a breeze to install and it’s fairly user-friendly, but its protection falls a bit short of the competition’s. And when most of the suites we tested turn in fantastic performance, good just doesn’t cut it.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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VIPRE Internet Security 2014: Adequate protection, interface needs a makeover

The name Vipre Internet Security 2014 sounds impressive. But this security suite ($50 for two years of protection on one PC) offers merely adequate protection, and its interface needs a makeover.

In our real-world (zero-day) tests, Vipre blocked 87 percent of unknown malware attacks, compared to 98 percent or better for most other products (only Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Complete fared worse than Vipre on this measure). Vipre performed extremely well against known malware attacks, however, successfully blocking 100 percent of them.

Though Vipre didn’t incorrectly tag any safe websites as threatening, it did flag five legitimate programs as dangerous in our usability tests. Only F-Secure Internet Security 2014, and Webroot SecureAnywhere (again) had as many false positives in our ten-suite roundup.

Vipre adds some bulk to your system resources, with a performance score of 7–that’s marginally better than Norton Internet Security 2014 and Eset Smart Security 7, but significantly slower than Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, F-Secure Internet Security 2014, and AVG Internet Security 2014, among others. With Vipre running, you may see some lag in startup and shutdown times.

Word links, checkboxes, and radio buttons don't fly in the touchscreen era.

Installing Vipre is a quick process, but it does require a system restart. The program identifies incompatible software, such as other antivirus programs, but it doesn’t require that you uninstall them before continuing (though it recommends that you do so).

The main console window has Vipre’s logo in the upper left corner, next to five tabs: Overview, Scan, Firewall, Manage, and Tools. The Overview screen shows you your protection level in four status indicators (scan status, protection, updates, and firewall). Each status indicator has a circle with a green checkmark (if you’re protected) or a red x (if you’re not), and a link to that status’s settings menu.

The other tabs offer more-advanced features, such as quarantine and scan schedules in the Manage tab, and ‘Social Watch’ and ‘History Cleaner’ in the Tools tab. Though the main buttons and tabs are touchscreen-friendly, most of Vipre’s interface is full of word links, checkboxes, and radio buttons.

Vipre’s settings menu needs a lot of work. You can access specific settings (such as settings specific to scanning, or to the firewall) from the main screen, but the menu is confusing, unintuitive, and not at all touch-optimized. The program doesn’t explain terms and features, though you can always click the Help button if you want to slog through VIPRE’s Help literature.

Vipre Internet Security 2014 pales next to the competition. The level of protection it offers is just adequate, and its interface lacks polish.

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
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After the Deadline review: Every writer needs an editor, and this one works for free

Writing can be hard enough, and editing's no cakewalk, but editing your own writing...whew. After the Deadline helps you get the job done, bringing the full complement of editing tools found in office suites to browser-based applications and blogging software.

After the Deadline integrates neatly into other programs (Chrome pictured here) to help you check for style problems.

Available as an add-on for Chrome, Firefox, OpenOffice, and Wordpress (as well as some lesser-known programs), After the Deadline goes well beyond the basics of spelling and grammar checks. It conducts stylistic analysis, outlining passive voice usage and other pitfalls common to fiction writing. Its implementation is very unobtrusive, with suspect words or phrases underlined in red for spelling errors, green for grammar suggestions and blue for style issues.

After the Deadline is free for personal use and requires an Internet connection.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the desired add-on.

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Review: SyndiFeed brings a personal touch to RSS reading, but needs more features

SyndiFeed If you like simplicity in your RSS and have the patience to wait for more features, give SyndiFeed a try.

Download Now

Almost everyone was sad to hear of Google Reader's demise. Free, easy to use, and relatively simple, Google Reader brought RSS to the public awareness almost single handedly. Alternatives such as Feedly, Pulse, and various browser add-ons have always existed, but received a significant boost since Google Reader's fate became known. SyndiFeed is a standalone RSS Web app (with mobile apps coming soon) that doesn't really offer anything its competitors don't, but does offer a personal touch for those burned by Google's indifference.

You can view your SyndiFeed feeds in grid or list form, the former providing an image and an excerpt of the article.

Unlike Google Reader, SyndiFeed is a one-man development project, and is also fairly new. Accordingly, it's still pretty basic when it comes to the features it offers. This is refreshing at times—basic is not always bad, after all—but makes the app almost inconvenient to use at others.

Like any RSS reader, SyndiFeed revolves around feeds, which you can either add manually by entering the feed's URL, or by importing them from Google Reader. Feed groups also exist, but there is no way to add existing feeds to them, meaning, when importing your Google Reader feeds, they're going to be jumbled around groupless, and short of adding them all again manually to groups, there's nothing you can do about this. There's also no way to edit feeds once added.

Individual articles are very readable, with large inline images but no navigation options to other articles.

When it comes to reading, SyndiFeed doesn't get much better, unfortunately. While the interface is far better-looking than Google Reader's, usability is SyndiFeed's current downfall. Each of your feeds is arranged in a magazine-like grid or a list, but there's no easy way to move between articles or feeds.

After reading an article, which opens in a separate lightbox, you need to click "Close" and click on the next article in order to move on. The reading experience is nonetheless good, making articles from any source readable with images and links that stand out, and no unnecessary page elements. While reading an article, it's also easy to share it through Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

SyndiFeed is not only about reading right now, however, making it super-easy to save articles for later reading. To do this, you can either connect SyndiFeed with your Instapaper account, or use the built-in Read Later feature to add articles to your Saved tab. There's also a SyndiFeed bookmarklet for saving items from any website to your SyndiFeed Saved tab. The Saved tab is not completely thought-out yet, but you can add several folders to it, arranging your saved items as you please.

While the option to edit feeds and groups does exist, it only lets you add and delete feeds.

I love that SyndiFeed is made by one person, and I adore its interface and simplicity. As it stands, however, it will not become my go-to RSS reader; there are just too many important features missing. The developer assures me that all these features are in the works, so if you like the look of it, it's well worth it to keep an eye on SyndiFeed and see how it develops. Every app has to start somewhere, and although it's not done yet, SyndiFeed is off to a promising start.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this Web-based software.

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Photon Android App Review: This Puzzler Needs Polishing

Live in the future, NOW!

We sincerely apologise, we had some serious issues with the last build.

If anyone purchased Arcade mode and is being asked to buy it again please use the Restore Purchases button we've just added. In testing it sometimes took a few tries to successfully restore, but I believe this has to do with waiting till Google Play has responded that it is ready to purchase. Playing a round of Classic mode will probably give it enough time to set itself up and should then work the first time.

Have fun with the free credits and jump over to our Facebook page and tell us which Perk you like the most, or even make some suggestions for new ones.

Here it is! Version 2.5

In celebration of Photon reaching 250 000 downloads this update includes 10,000 free Atoms to use on Perks in Arcade mode. Thanks to everyone for helping to make Photon a success, and a huge thank you for the constructive feedback we've received.

Also in this version:

- Improved tilt control (including the ability to calibrate your device).

- Added Colour Blind Assist (The "eye" icon in the menu).

- Fixed a few gameplay bugs.

- Automatically saves Audio, Tilt and ColourBlind Assist preferences between plays.

- Improved stability, should be a lot less crashing happening.

- Temporarily disable OpenFeint. It was responsible for many of the freezes and crashes.

A huge thank you to all those players who love Photon and have given us a good rating, we greatly appreciate your support.

Feel free to join in any discussions, or create new ones, on our Facebook page www.Facebook.com/BifrostStudios or follow us on twitter @BifrostStudios

New in Version 2.0

- Lots of bug fixes

- Screen flicker glitch fixed

- Fixed all known game crashing bugs

- Enabled OpenFeint for Android users

- Added a skip tutorial button

- Added The NEW Arcade mode

- So many gameplay enhancements (the game is 100 times more fun now)

- Graphics update (so many high visuals)

NEW GAME MODE ADDED

- Arcade Mode, is a fast paced countdown mode allowing the player to achieve scores of 100000+. Using unlockable perks and entering Fusion mode players will see combos out of this world.

- Earn Atoms be RICH!

- Enter Fusion mode for a psychedelic experience

- Connect multi colour combos with the New Bridge Disk

Photon! Exciting disc game! Connect discs - now they are destroyed!

Longer chains will impress your friend! Special discs make life hard for you - include them in combos to get terrific bonus points!

All graphics are next level! You must have quick brain and fast eyes! Do not panic! The future is here! Play it now for free!

We are aware of a few issues, an update is on its way!

by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, PCWorld

Photon is a futuristic match-three puzzle game designed in the drop-down style of Tetris. Your goal is to clear screens by connecting brightly colored discs with your finger. The app, developed by Bifrost Studios, is free on Google Play but requires an in-app purchase of $0.99 for full functionality. Unfortunately, while Photon is fun and addictive, it suffers from multiple performance issues that its designer needs to address.

Gameplay

Photon features simple, easy-to-learn gameplay that involves using both your finger and your device's accelerometer.

In the game, colored discs fall from the top of the screen, and roll and bounce around when they reach the bottom of the screen. Your goal is to connect discs of the same color by drawing lines between them with your finger. You can only connect discs if you have a straight shot (with no other discs in the way), and you must connect at least three discs to clear them from the board.

In addition to colored discs, silver discs containing symbols fall from the top of the screen. You can loop these special discs into any line of single-colored discs to clear them from the board. Some special discs have power-ups (for example, one will blast all discs of one color off the board), while others hinder you (for example, one swells up to take up more space).

Two buttons appear on the screen, near the top of the board: a drop button and a pause button. The drop button lets you flood the screen with discs quickly. Pressing the drop button gives you extra points, but you shouldn't use it if you're already running out of space. On the right side of the screen is a pause button.

Photon lets you choose between Classic mode and Arcade mode. Classic mode supports endless gameplay, and your goal is always the same: to keep your screen from filling up with colored discs. As you progress through Classic mode levels, gameplay becomes increasingly difficult because discs fall faster and additional colors appear.

In Arcade mode, your goal is to see how many points you can rack up within a specified period of time. Arcade mode also gives you access to different power-ups, such as a multicolored disc that lets you connect strings of two different colors. Arcade mode costs an additional $0.99, though you do get 10 free Arcade mode plays with your free version of Photon.

Features

Photon has a couple of options that you can switch on in the main screen. The accelerometer allows you to tilt your phone from side to side to rearrange the discs. I found this option frustrating, for the most part, because the discs move very slowly when you tilt your device. The colorblind assistance option changes the discs into different shapes (but maintains the colors). This is a nice option for people who are colorblind, or who just want to change the look of the game.

Photon doesn't have a native leaderboard, but it does let you share your scores with friends via OpenFeint.

Graphics, Audio, and Performance

The game looked and sounded great on my Galaxy Nexus. Though it's a simple game, the graphics are high-resolution and Bifrost Studios clearly paid attention to the details--from the honeycombed background to the Tron-like glow emanating from the borders. The soundtrack is upbeat and adrenaline-inducing, and the sound effects are useful.

Though Photon looks great, its performance is less impressive. The app crashed often when I played it, though the crashes were usually limited to startup and didn't occur in the middle of play. Game mechanics and controls were sometimes sketchy. too: Among the issues I encountered were touchscreen lag, accelerometer lag, and glitches (such as invisible discs in the middle of the screen being selected). These drawbacks didn't prevent me from playing, but they were certainly frustrating.

The glitches and performance issues might affect users who want to play Photon on devices that run on single-core processors. On the positive side, the app isn't a battery hog and there are no annoying ads to worry about.

Though Photon is a great game, the app needs a little work before I can fully recommend it. In any case, however, the Classic mode, which is free, is well worth checking out.

This app was tested using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2.

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Analyst: T-Mobile Needs iPhone More Than Ever, Dish Could Come Calling

T-Mobile USA, the nation’s fourth largest wireless carrier, disclosed plans earlier today that it would finally roll out an LTE service to subscribers by 2013. However, according to Avi Greengart, an analyst from Current Analysis, the effort might be too late–and T-Mobile will have to do three things to ensure that its remain competitive with the other major carriers. No. 1 on the list? Finally get the iPhone.

The announcement comes on the heels of a tough holiday quarter for T-Mobile. The company just reported that it lost 802,000 contract customers and saw its revenues dip 3.3 percent to $20.6 billion, placing most of the blame on not having been able to offer the coveted iPhone 4S in Q4 2011. In order to turn those fortunes around, T-Mobile plans to use the $4 billion break-up fee from the failed merger with AT&T to fund the rollout of a 4G LTE network. Of the four biggest wireless carriers in the US, T-Mobile will be the last to deploy the technology, trailing Verizon by three years and AT&T by two.

“Given that T-Mobile is coming from behind, they need to do three things to reinvigorate their brand and get subscriber growth going,” Greengart said. “One, they’ll need to get the iPhone. I don’t think there’s an option there. Two, they have to offer more competitive device subsidies. Third, they need to offer consumers better value plans.”

Greengart acknowledged that in order for T-Mobile to get the iPhone onto their network, they may have to bend backwards to Apple’s demands–but, as it did with Sprint, he wagers that this move will pay off.

“They will have to meet Apple’s demands in terms of volumes and subsidies–which will be steep, as we’ve seen in Sprint,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s something that T-Mobile will almost certainly have to do. They may take a huge financial hit in the short term, but they’ll make that back over time. It’s essential, to remain a competitor. It just depends on when T-Mobile will be willing to sign on the dotted line.”

Greengart also noted that T-Mobile currently offers a number of handsets at higher price points–about $50 to $10 more–than its rivals.

“It’s not really an affordability issue,” Greengart asserted. “It’s a matter of willingness. How much are you willing to spend to get a subscriber? AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are willing to pay more than T-Mobile is. To some extent, T-Mobile has been focused on the metric of profitability more than market share.”

Finally, Greengart says that T-Mobile must advertise their cheap plans to the public. “They need to let consumers know that they offer a better value,” he said. “There’s no question that they offer plans that are cheaper than the other carriers, but their problem now is regional–they face competition from smaller carriers like Metro PCS.”

And what about one of the bigger gaps, T-Mobile’s lack of spectrum? The carrier will already benefiting from some spectrum it won from AT&T, but Greengart thinks it may join forces with another–Dish Network.

“There are other players looking for partners,” Greengart said. “The biggest one is Dish. They have spectrum, but they haven’t deployed it.”

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Help Me, LAPTOP: Simple Needs Are Not So Simple

But first, a caveat: Perhaps the reason why it’s been so difficult is that a couple of these requirements are contradictory. For instance, you likely won’t find a solid state drive that boasts storage capacities in the same league as traditional hard drives. Today, SSDs will offer about 256GB of space on the high-capacity end — or up to 512GB, but that’s in very rare cases. That’s because SSDs are essentially flash drives permanently installed into your machine, costing much more per gigabyte than their magnetic counterparts.

Though SSDs are much faster than hard drives, users who want 500GB or more of space will have to stick with traditional hard drives for now. The good news is what Megan’s been hearing has mostly been right — you don’t need an SSD to protect your laptop. While it’s true that flash drives they’re less susceptible to physical shock, most mechanical hard drives now have drop protection that pulls the head off of the platter when they suspect the notebook’s in danger. Get an SSD only if you want raw speed and are willing to live with only 128 or 256GB of internal storage.

For someone in Megan’s position, our first recommendation is the Lenovo ThinkPad T420, which might seem strange initially since the machine is primarily known to be a business system. But take a closer look, and you’ll see that Lenovo’s notebook has features any consumer would love. At 14 inches, the device is portable enough to take to carry from room to room or take to class for an entire day — and you don’t even have to worry about battery life.

Outfitted with a nine-cell extended battery, the ThinkPad T420 can last all day and then some. In our standard battery test, the machine endured an incredible 10 hours and 36 minutes, more than double the 5:15 category average. The ThinkPad T420 can be configured with either an SSD or a spacious 500GB hard drive to store plenty of files (that’s the roomiest hard drive configuration), a 720p webcam that provides sharp and detailed pictures, a high-res, 14.1-inch, 1600 x 900  matte display that handles 1080p videos with aplomb and speakers loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. Performance-wise, this fiend of a machine won’t let you down, either. You can get it with a 2.5-GHz Core i5 CPU, 4GB to 8GB  of RAM, and discrete Nvidia graphics so it can handle anything from spreadsheet crunching to light gaming. Plus, it’s got a durable design to boot.

Another alternative to consider is the Dell XPS 15z. A dead ringer for the MacBook Pro in terms of its looks, the highlights of this portable 15-inch machine include a bright 1080p display, a strong battery life of 6 hours and 8 minutes (which is well above the mainstream average of 4:23) and two large speakers on either side of the laptop’s keyboard that thump out loud, quality sound. An optional 2.7-GHz Intel Core i7-2620M processor runs the show along with up to 8GB of RAM, which will let Megan open as many tabs as there are stars in the sky (okay, we’re exaggerating — maybe just a little less than that). Up to 750GB of internal space – even more than the ThinkPad T420 – will satisfy her file-storing needs. And if it turns out Megan is intractable about the presence of an SSD, she can get the laptop configured to have a 256GB variant, too. Finally, the XPS 15z includes a 1.3-megapixel webcam which, while not Skype-certified, is still able to render fine details in the caller’s face.

Ultimately, it still comes down to a matter of trade-offs. If roomier storage is a higher priority, the stylish-looking Dell XPS 15z ($1400 for the unit with the 750GB hard drive configuration; $1700 with a 256GB SSD)  is a better choice. But if durability is the biggest consideration, the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 ($1149 with a 500GB hard disk drive, $1099 with a 128GB SSD and $1319 with a 160GB SSD) will be your best bet. Bonus: There’s an eCoupon available for these configurations right now on Lenovo’s official website. Good luck, Megan!

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