Archive for October, 2008

Clicks are the single cell organism of the digital advertising world. See how a click moves through the advertising ecosystem covering all the basic components, including delivery engines, billing systems, reporting systems, data pipelines, and fraud detection systems.

• Robert Devine

  Robert works in adCenter managing a couple billion dollars in billing one click and impression at a time. He has worked in the software-as-a-service space for the better part of a decade, joining most recently from the Live Meeting team.

Microsoft Advertising Platform: A Day in the Life of a Click | pdc2008 | Channel 9

Turn almost any savable file into a PDF using Print2PDF. Like similar programs, this useful utility installs as a print driver, allowing the user to specify settings such as fonts and image-compression quality inside the print dialog of the other applications.

Users can encrypt, watermark, or sign a document, and can configure user permissions to print, copy, or change the file. During tests, the output quality and conversion speed both proved quite satisfactory. If you’re looking to convert documents into the PDF format, this tool will likely have all the options you need.

Newer features include support for prepress graphics-file exchange, file attachments, and a self-extracting client version. There’s a lot here, and it works exceedingly well–sure to appeal to home businesses, small business owners, or anybody who needs a sharp PDF creation tool.

Featured Freeware: Print2PDF | Software news, tips and opinions from Download.com editors – Download.com

In the new version of Internet Explorer, IE8 (still in beta), there’s a new feature called “accelerators.” With accelerators, you can get easy access to online services like email, search, maps, eBay, Encarta, facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and so much more all from the web page you’re on – no need to open another tab or window and navigate elsewhere. Now, in addition to the accelerators currently available from the IE8 accelerator gallery, other developers are creating their own accelerators and posting them to their blogs.

One new accelerator that I recently came across is the Zune accelerator created by Sean Alexander. This particular accelerator lets you look up music-related info like Artist or Song info in the Zune Marketplace, all from the right-click menu. He mentions there are other accelerators that do similar things, but they are broken out to look up Artist separately from Song; this one combines both into one. Nice! To install Sean’s Zune accelerator click here.

IE8 Web Accelerator for Zune | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10

If you’re looking for a convenient, uncomplicated, and stable synchronization tool, you could do much, much worse than Microsoft’s SyncToy. Part of the Windows XP PowerToys add-ons, this tool makes it easy to keep folder contents identical on one machine or across a network.

The first time you run it, SyncToy will guide you through creating a pair of linked folders. Labeled as Left and Right, it will then ask you to choose from one of five synchronization methods. Echo works like a standard one-way sync, copying all files from Left to Right. Synchronize is bidirectional; Contribute works like Echo but it won’t delete files removed from the Left folder; Subscribe only updates files in common that have been updated; and Combine merges Synchronize and Contribute so that files are updated in both directions, but none are deleted. SyncToy does support encrypted files.

SyncToy also offers up a preview, preventing accidental loss of data. However, the two feature omissions are hard to ignore: you can’t synchronize across the Internet, and there’s no scheduler. For the former, Microsoft does offer a different tool, FolderShare, but requiring users to manually sync all folders leaves SyncToy behind other free backup apps.

Featured Freeware: SyncToy | Software news, tips and opinions from Download.com editors – Download.com

Phone ahead.

If you’re driving to a meeting and realize you’re going to be late, what do you do? Pick up the phone and call ahead, right? But this means, possibly, trying to find the number for the person you’re meeting with, which can be dangerous if you’re in motion. And possibly illegal.

Mobile app Oops I’m Late does the calling for you. It runs on GPS-equipped Windows smartphones. If you start the app and give it access to your calendar so it knows where and when your next appointment is, it will automatically fire off text messages to the contacts in a meeting when it detects that you can’t possibly make it in time. Optionally, it can also tell people how far away you are and your ETA.

The new version works with Twitter and Facebook to send both public and private messages.

There are free and paid versions. No word of iPhone support, and I have not put my hands on this product to try it. Love the idea, though.

‘Oops I’m Late’ phones ahead for you | Software news, tips and opinions from Download.com editors – Download.com

Microsoft has indicated for some time that it sees a Zune future in the cell phone arena, but the company has been hard to pin down on just what its plans there are.

There would seem to be two main scenarios–the rumored ZunePhone, or just making Zune software for Windows Mobile or other phone operating systems. A magazine interview with CEO Steve Ballmer suggests that Microsoft at least plans the latter approach.

Asked why the Zune is important to Microsoft, Ballmer told the magazine that it was about more than just the device itself.

"Now, we built the Zune hardware with the Zune software–and what you’ll see more and more over time is that the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc.," Ballmer said.

Asked for clarification, a Microsoft representative provided the following statement.

"We’ve always said that software and services is a key focal point for Zune and it does make sense to extend the Zune experience to other devices," the representative said. "In terms of specific timing we have nothing to announce at the moment."

Ballmer: Zune coming to Windows Mobile | Latest Microsoft News – CNET News – CNET News