PowerDVD

CyberLink PowerDVD is a commercial media player forMicrosoft Windows and Linux. Several editions of the software are sold including: Ultra, Deluxe and Standard. All editions support the viewing of DVD but only the Ultra edition supports Blu-ray playback.

The product is distributed via physical install media (CD) or via download from the Cyberlink website. PowerDVD is often bundled with a variety of PC systems and peripherals (particularly optical drives)

HD DVD support was included in some versions of PowerDVD 7 but was removed from PowerDVD 8 because there will be limited new releases in this format as it is no longer supported by any major studio. It can be re-enabled in the original retail version of PowerDVD 8 through a workaround.

Cyberlink advises users who want to keepHD DVD playback to buy the Ultra editions of PowerDVD 7 and 8 which can be installed together on the same system

A Linux version of PowerDVD is available at the Canonical Ltd. store.

Winamp

Winamp is a proprietary media player written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is skinnable, multi-format freeware/shareware.
Winamp was first released by Justin Frankel in 1997. Current Winamp development is credited to Ben Allison (Benski) and Maksim Tyrtyshny. Winamp grew from 33 million users in February 2005 to over 57 million users in September 2006

Besides MP3, Winamp supports a wide variety of contemporary and specialized music file formats, including MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV and WMA. Winamp was one of the first common music players on Windows to support playback of Ogg Vorbis by default. It supports gapless playback for MP3 and AAC, and Replay Gain for volume leveling across tracks. In addition, Winamp can play and import music from audio CDs, optionally with CD-Text, and can also burn music to CDs. It should be noted that it is necessary to buy the "Pro" version to be able to rip or burn discs at maximum speeds.
Winamp supports playback of Windows Media Video and Nullsoft Streaming Video. For MPEG Video, AVI and other unsupported video types, Winamp uses Microsoft's DirectShow API for playback, allowing playback of most of the video formats supported by Windows Media Player. Surround sound is supported where formats and decoders allow.

RealPlayer

RealPlayer is a closed source cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.
The first version of RealPlayer was introduced in April 1995 as RealAudio Player, one of the first media players capable of streaming media over the Internet. Version 6 of RealPlayer was called RealPlayer G2; version 9 was called RealOne Player. Free "Basic" versions have been provided as well as paid "Plus" versions with additional features. On Windows, version 9 subsumed the features of the separate program RealJukebox.
RealPlayer 11 was released for Windows in November 2007, and for Mac OS X in May 2008. Versions of RealPlayer are also available for Linux, Unix, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS.The program is powered by an underlying open source media engine called Helix.
RealPlayer was a popular streaming media player during the early years of the Internet, but in recent years it has been surpassed in market share by Windows Media Player, and, since mid-2007, Apple's iTunes

Paint Net

Paint.NET is a freeware raster graphics editing program for Microsoft Windows, developed on the .NET Framework. Originally created as a Washington State University student project, Paint.NET has evolved from a simple replacement for the Microsoft Paint program, which is included with WinPaint.NET is primarily programmed in the C# programming language, with small amounts of C++ used for installation and shell-integration related functionality. Its native image format, .PDN, is a compressed representation of the application's internal object format, which preserves layering and other information. Excluding the installer, text, and graphics, Paint.NET is released under a modified version of the MIT-like License. It was initially released as completely open source, but due to breaches of license, all resource files (such as interface text and icons) were released under a Creative Commons license forbidding modification, and the installer was made closed-source.
Version 3.36 was initially released as partial open source as described above, but the sources were later removed by the developer. The developer no longer makes the source freely available for download. In version 3.5, the license was altered to reflect this.dows, into a powerful editor with support for layers, blending, transparency, and plugins.

flash player

The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing animations and movies using computer programs such as a web browser. Flash player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe after its acquisition. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools.
Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Adobe Flash Player, written and distributed by Adobe, that uses vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio. Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files.
Flash Player has support for an embedded scripting language called ActionScript (AS), which is based on ECMAScript. Since its inception, ActionScript has matured from a script syntax without variables to one that supports object-oriented code, and may now be compared in capability to JavaScript (another ECMAScript-based scripting language).
The Flash Player was originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animation, but has since become suitable for creating rich Internet applications and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into web pages.
The Flash Player is available as a plugin for recent versions of web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer) on selected platforms. Adobe states that each version of the plugin is backwards-compatible, with the exception of security changes introduced in Version 10.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. A Net Applications survey put Firefox at 25% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of November 2009, making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide after Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

To display web pages, Firefox uses the Geckolayout engine, which implements most currentweb standards in addition to several features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.

Latest Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (aka "geolocation") based exclusively on a Googleservice and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through add-ons, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.

Relationship with Google:

The Mozilla Corporation's relationship with Google has been noted in the media, especially with regard to their paid referral agreement. The release of the anti-phishing protection in Firefox 2 in particular raised considerable controversy: anti-phishing protection enabled by default is based on a list updated by twice-hourly downloads to the user's computer from Google's server. The user cannot change the data provider within the GUI, and is not informed who the default data provider is. The browser also sends Google's cookie with each update request. Some^[ Internet privacy advocacy groups have expressed concerns surrounding Google's possible uses of this data, especially that Firefox's privacy policy states that Google may share information gathered with "safebrowsing" service with third parties, including business partners. Google also promoted Mozilla Firefox throughYouTube until the release of Google Chrome. Recently, Mozilla Security assisted the search giant by pointing out a security flaw in Google's Chrome browser.

In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$52.9 million, with approximately 95 percent derived from search engine royalties. In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$66.9 million, with approximately 90 percent derived from search engine royalties. In 2007, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$75 million, with 88 percent of this sum (US$66 million) from Google.In 2008, both Mozilla organizations had a combined revenue of US$78.6 million, with 91 percent coming from Google. Mozilla Foundation and Corporation are being audited by the IRS and some believe its non-profit status may be called into question.

Windows Live Messenger

History

MSN Messenger

Before the product was renamed Windows Live Messenger, it was known as "MSN Messenger Service" from 1999 to 2001 and "MSN Messenger" from 2001 to 2005. During that time, Microsoft released seven major versions as follows.

The first version of MSN Messenger Service, version 1.0 (1.0.0863), was released July 22, 1999. It included only basic features, such as plain text messaging and a simplistic contact list.When it was first released, it featured support for access to America Online's AIM network. America Online continually tried to block Microsoft from having access to their service until eventually the feature was removed, and it has not re-surfaced in any later versions of the software. Since then, the software has only allowed connections to its own service, requiring a Windows Live ID account to connect.

Microsoft released the first major update, version 2.0 (2.0.0083), on November 16, 1999. It included a rotating advertising banner and the ability to customize the appearance of the chat window. It came as an install option for Windows Me. This version was followed the next year by version 3.0 (3.0.0080), which was released May 29, 2000. It included file transfers and PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone audio capabilities with Net2Phone, one of the first VOIP providers.

Along with the release of Windows XP came version 4.6 of MSN Messenger, on October 23, 2001. It included major changes to the user interface, the ability to group contacts, and support for voice conversations.n this version, the client software was renamed from "MSN Messenger Service" to just "MSN Messenger," while the underlying service became known as ".NET Messenger Service," the name it has kept ever since. This version was only compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, and 2000, because Microsoft provided a scaled-down new program for Windows XP, called Windows Messenger, that it originally intended to replace MSN Messenger with on Windows XP.

That strategy changed when version 5.0 of MSN Messenger was released on October 24, 2002. It was the first version that was allowed to be installed along with Windows Messenger on Windows XP. It included UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) based file transfers, minor changes to the user interfaceartwork, and a Windows Media Player interface plug-in.

The next year, version 6.0 of MSN Messenger was released July 17, 2003. MSN Messenger 6.0 was a major overhaul of the whole platform, upgrading its simple text-based interface to include customizable elements such as emoticons, personalized avatars, and backgrounds. An update, version 6.1, focused on improvements to the conversation window, enabling users to hide the window frame and menu bar, and also the ability to change the theme color. The theme color could be set differently for each user. Another update, version 6.2, was released April 22, 2004, and it was the last version of the MSN Messenger 6 series. The most notable changes were a dedicated Mobile group for mobile contacts, a connection troubleshooter, and the Launch Site feature was renamed to Fun & Games.

MSN Messenger received a major upgrade to version 7.0 on April 7, 2005. This version brought winkfeatures that were previously only available in threedegrees. This version also advertised items to sell to you including animated display pictures, emoticons and backgrounds. The contact list window style was also updated to match instant message windows. This version also introduced the Xbox Live Integration feature. This is the last version of MSN Messenger that runs on Windows 98 and Windows Me. This version also introduced digital ink and handwriting recognition support.

The last version of MSN Messenger before the name change, version 7.5, was released August 23, 2005. New features included the Dynamic Backgrounds feature and the "msnim" protocol handler, which allowed Web sites to provide links which automatically add a contact or start conversations. Additionally, a new Voice Clips feature allowed users to hold down F2 and record a message for a maximum of 15 seconds and send it to the recipient. The window for conversations was changed slightly with an added video button. This version also introduced the Windows Installer for its auto-update feature. You still can run MSN Messenger 7.5 by changing the compatibility settings to Windows 2000.

Windows Live Messenger (formerly named MSN Messenger) is an instant messaging client created byMicrosoft that is currently designed to work withWindows XP (32-bit XP only), Windows Vista,Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Mobile. The client has been part of Microsoft's Windows Live set of online services since 2005. It connects to Microsoft's .NET Messenger Service. The client was first released as MSN Messenger on July 22, 1999, and as Windows Live Messenger on December 13, 2005. The service attracts over 330 million active users each month.

Windows Live Messenger 8.0

As part of Microsoft's Windows Live effort, which rebranded many existing MSN services and programs, MSN Messenger was renamed "Windows Live Messenger" beginning with version 8.0.

The first beta of the newly renamed Windows Live Messenger, Beta 1, was released on December 13, 2005. It remained online and usable for around a month until an auto-update feature forced one to install Beta 2, rendering this version obsolete. Known bugs within this version include the offline conversation feature: although still advertised in the yellow bar at the top of the conversation box, it was useless to anyone who had not received an invitation (i.e., downloaded it from another site). Major changes and additions included offline messaging, an option to change the color theme of the windows, separated send and search boxes, a word wheel search box in the main window, and additional details for contacts when hovering over their names in the contact list window.

The second beta of version 8.0, Beta 2, was released on February 26, 2006. The overall theme of this version was improved, fixing and improving several smaller places in the program. This version has become obsolete, forcing users to update the program. Major changes and additions included the introduction of Windows Live Contacts, the reintroduction of single file transfer, improvements to the "Add a Contact" dialog box, improved color themes, minor changes in the conversation window, and revert of the "Busy" status icon back to the normal dash icon.

The final beta version, Beta 3, was released on May 2, 2006, was nearly identical to the final.Major changes and additions included new icons for the program, PC-to-phone calling, an updated look for theWindows Live Call window, a new default display picture, the Windows Live Today window, improvements to the grouping of sequential messages from each contact, Rhapsody integration in the U.S., and an option for sounds to be edited and/or turned off.^[20]

The final and official release of Windows Live Messenger version 8.0 was on June 19, 2006.Although no notable changes were made between Beta 3 and the final version, the change from MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger brought some additional changes, such as, the status "On the phone" from the previous version was renamed to "In a call" due to the addition of Windows Live Call, customization for the nicknames of individual contacts, timestamps on messages, the ability to see a contact's name only once if the same person writes multiple messages in a row, and color schemes for the entire application. Also when Windows Live Messenger was officially released, the main authentication system, Microsoft Passport Network, was replaced with Windows Live ID.

An update, labeled the Refresh to version 8.0, was released on August 10, 2006. It included audio and video improvements and fixed up minor bugs.^[22]

Features

In addition to its basic functionality and general capability as an instant messaging client, Windows Live Messenger offers the following features:

Sharing folders

The Sharing Folder feature is an alternative to the "direct transfer" method of file distribution. When a user wants to deliver a file to another person on his or hercontact list, the "sharing folder" window appears, which is an individualized representation of all previously shared items.

When files are added to the "sharing folder" for that particular person, the file will automatically be transferred to the corresponding computer when they are online. This means that the folder is literally "shared" between two computers. If a user deletes a file, for example, the file will also be deleted from the corresponding computer's shared folder.

To minimize risk of virus-infected transfers, the "sharing folder" feature is bundled with an anti-virusprogram. The "sharing folder" feature can only be used on computers with NTFS-formatted hard disks.

The Sharing Folder feature has been discontinued in the latest version of Windows Live Messenger (2009), and replaced with access to Windows Live SkyDrive instead.

PC-to-phone calls

Main article: Windows Live Call

In addition to PC-to-PC calls that have been supported in previous versions, Windows Live Messenger now supports PC-to-phone calls with Windows Live Call. In the US, this feature is supported by Verizon, branded as "Verizon Web Calling". Orange France also has a similar service. This feature is only available in selected countries, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. Verizon ended service in August 2008 and was replaced in the US with Telefonica, while Orange will offer the service for the rest of the world.

Interoperability

On October 13, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced plans to introduce interoperability between their two messengers,^[4] creating the second largest instant messaging user base worldwide: 40 percent of all users. The announcement came after years of third-party interoperability success (most notably, Trillian,Pidgin) and criticisms from Google that the major real time communications services were locking their networks.^{[citation needed]}

Interoperability between Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger was launched July 12, 2006.^[5][6] This allows Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger users to chat to each other without the need to create an account on the other service, provided both contacts use the latest versions of the clients. However, if a user uses an older or third-party client, they will appear offline to the users on the other network.

Offline messaging

One can send messages to contacts who are offline; they will receive the messages once they come online. Additionally, a user can start conversations even when his or her status is set to Appear Offline, similar to behavior in Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ. If talking to someone who has an older MSN Messenger client, they will lose the ability to talk to you after a short period of no activity, due to their client thinking you are offline.

Games and applications

Main article: Games and applications for Windows Live Messenger

There are various games and applications available in Windows Live Messenger that can be accessed via the conversation window by clicking on the games icon, and challenging your friend or contact to a competition in a game, or inviting them to launch a shared external application.

"i’m" initiative

The i’m initiative is a program Microsoft launched in March 2007, that connects the user with ten organizations dedicated to social causes through Windows Live Messenger, only for conversations sent or received in the USA and Australia. Every time someone has a conversation using i’m, Microsoft Corp. shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with the organization of the user's choice. There is no set cap on the amount donated to each organization. The more i’m conversations the user has, the more money goes to one of the ten causes. Each participating organization was guaranteed a minimum donation of $100,000 during the first year of the program. There is currently no end date for the program.