Formatting

Recently an associate whose PC lacked Adobe Acrobat sent me a Word file via e-mail, asking if I could convert it to PDF and e-mail it back to her. Since the process took all of about 30 seconds, I was delighted to help. Then the next day she sent two more files in need of conversion to PDF, and a couple of days after than another. After her fourth request of the week I felt compelled to tell her about two ways she could have converted the files herself for free: Adobe's own Create Adobe PDF Online free trial, … Read more

Patience, HD video fans. Those of you hoping that the defeat of HD DVD would usher in a new era of lower-priced Blu-ray players will have to wait at least until the next calendar year.

In comments made to reporters at a New York press gathering Wednesday morning, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said, "I don't think $200 is going to happen this year. Next year $200 could happen. We'll be at a $300 rate this year; $299 will happen this year," according to Gizmodo.

There's been quite a bit of media discussion over whether or not Sony and other Blu-ray supporters … Read more

Imagine (pun intended) there's a race. In one lane is the late, great John Lennon. In the other, James Blunt. The starting gun fires, and somehow Lennon, who has been dead for 27 years now, beats Blunt to the finish line. Well, that's exactly what's happened with HD DVD. The dead format has managed to rise from the grave and muster enough energy to raise a pair of rotting fingers to Blu-ray.

No one is going to claim that HD DVD is anything other than finished. But it still warmed the cockles of our hearts when we … Read more

The SACD is a "super" CD, it sounds better, offers multichannel, high-resolution sound, and hybrid SACDs are backwards compatible with CD players. Sony initially pushed SACD as a CD replacement and the market yawned. OK, but you would have thought that audiophiles would have, en mass, supported SACD, especially after so many of them bashed CD for its harsh digital sound. SACDs, at least ones sourced from high quality recordings, really do sound better than CD (but a crappy original recording, remastered to SACD, still sounds crappy). No, just a small segment of the audiophile market embraced SACD, … Read more

Microsoft offered Mac fans both good news and bad news on Thursday, and it all depends on which version of Office for Mac one is using.

The software maker said that it plans on March 11 to deliver the first update to Office 2008 for Mac, delivering several key fixes. At the same time though, it has again pushed out the release of converters needed by users of Office 2004 to read documents saved in the new XML file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows.

"The team is mobilized to get Office 2008 updates out as soon as … Read more

They're all born with the best of intentions, but only the strong survive.

Formats come and go. Some are barely noticed, and some die a slow, painful death. So now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD was comparatively brief--unless you're on the losing side, stuck with a slowpoke player and a collection of HD DVD discs. I've already heard from some angry HD DVD supporters. War is tough.

If you're over 35, you probably remember the Betamax vs. VHS wars, which raged from 1975 to … Read more

Microsoft has given the open-source community a belated Valentine's Day present by adding its Office file formats (.xls, .doc, and .ppt) to the Open Specification Promise. It also added information on patent/copyright coverage and information on how OSP interacts with GPL-based software development. (You can see what the site looked like before the changes using the Wayback Machine.)

Good for you, Microsoft.

No, Microsoft wasn't motivated by peace, love, and Linux. Rather, the contribution of the binaries is focused on getting OOXML approved:… Read more

Well, that's it. Toshiba appears to be pulling the plug on HD DVD. Toshiba has not commented publicly, but a report on Japan's NHK says Toshiba has made the decision to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production.

This news certainly doesn't come as surprise to anyone remotely following HD DVD's format war with rival Blu-ray. HD DVD had suffered a string of defections, with Warner, Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart all recently pledging their alliance to Blu-ray.

The NHK report says existing HD DVD products will remain on the market for a while, but Toshiba … Read more

Already starting the week off on a bad note, HD DVD's day just keeps getting worse.

Starting next month Best Buy says it will prominently display Blu-ray players and discs in its stores and recommend the format over rival HD DVD, according to a Reuters report.

"Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products," Brian Dunn, Best Buy's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement Monday.

It's not an exclusive arrangement since Best Buy says it will still continue to offer … Read more