Google Tightens Its Privacy Practices

Acknowledging that its Street View cars inadvertently gathered not just fragmentary data from open Wi-Fi networks, but some URLs, passwords and entire emails as well, Google today again apologized and said it was implementing more rigorous internal privacy practices. The measures include the appointment of Alma Whitten to oversee privacy issues across both engineering and product management, enhanced privacy training for employees and mandatory documentation and auditing of privacy design for all initiatives.

Layoffs at Nokia After Strong Third Quarter

Welcome news for Nokia shareholders this morning. And ugly news for the company’s employees.

Nokia reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter–net income of 529 million euros from a loss of 559 million euros a year earlier. That’s well ahead of the 229 million euro consensus forecast and a sign that the company, whose stock has lost more than 70 percent of its value over the past three years, is finally turning the corner.

But that progress has a price: Layoffs. Nokia plans to sack around 1,800 employees, cutting them loose so that it can better “accelerate the company’s transformation towards a leading mobile solutions provider.”

That transformation is, of course, in desperate need of acceleration. That said, Nokia does seem to be making some progress. It sold 26.5 million smartphones during the third quarter, up 61 percent compared with the same period last year.

A nice metric for Nokia’s new CEO, Stephen Elop, to mull as he strives to drag the company up out of the mud. “In the five weeks since joining Nokia, I have found a company with many great strengths and a history of achievement that are second to none in the industry,” he said in a statement. “And yet our company faces a remarkably disruptive time in the industry, with recent results demonstrating that we must reassess our role in and our approach to this industry.”

Top 5 Best DVD to iPod Converter Review

You may haven’t figured out how to rip your DVD to your iPod, and played in the right resolution for your iPod. And often, you are confused about which software is the best one. Everybody has its own opinion about that. Here, I give you top 5 best DVD to iPod Converter Review. You can choose what you think the best DVD to iPod Converter among them. I will take 6 points into review.

1) Cost/Performance: Everybody wants to gain more with less money.
2)Video Quality: Someone often uses the video iPod to watch movie, so the output video quality should be considered seriously. Top DVD to iPod output without any loss in the video and image quality of the exports. To enjoying the high definition video is of great pleasure. Or else, not only your eyes may get hurt; the annoying jumpy and mosaics will also bother you.
3) Speed: Convert DVD often takes time, an hour DVD movie takes around thirty minutes to convert to MPEG-4 movie, if you have multiple DVDs to be converted, a high speed converter would be your best bet, or else, you will waste much time on the conversion, and your computer will be tied to the process.
4) Quality of DVD: Sometimes, rip DVD to iPod according to the original DVD quality, or the types of the DVD to determine the ripped file quality.
5) Easy to use: There are still many iPod users knew little about computer, so complicated parameter settings will strain their brain, as a result, a application with simple interface and steps is the acceptable.
6) Personal Demands: For example, someone just wants to convert part of the DVD video, or others want the special output video format like Apple TV compliant forms and etc.

Concerning the above factors, I've selected five DVD to iPod converters for reference.
DVD to iPod Converter for Windows Review:
First: Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Suite.
Second: Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter.
Third: Tipard DVD to iPod Converter.

Comment: After you install Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter, You will be greatly impressed by its friendly interface. In addition to its top conversion function, it provides the function to optimize your conversion file, set the parameters for you, crop video, trim video, select subtitle etc. If you have many DVDs must be converted and cropped. Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter meet your needs.

We tested Tipard DVD to iPod Converter, it is amazing that Regardless of the DVD media we used, the ripped files looked and sounded great. It is also combined with many useful features, trim your video clips; crop the play region of video; set the video effect. If you care about the Cost/Performance, and you care about the video/ audio quality, Tipard DVD to iPod Converter is suit for you.

As for Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Suite, It is the top favorable software, I believe. The reason is that it combines DVD to iPod Converter, iPod to Computer Transfer and iPod Movie Converter into one. With this powerful software, you not only can rip DVD to your iPod, but also convert any video formats to your iPod supporting one. As well as Transfer music and video from iPod to computer. If you want to Rip DVD and convert your favorite video including the FLV format to your iPod with one and inexpensive software, Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Suite is the best one.

DVD to iPod Converter for Mac Review:
First: Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter for Mac
Second: Tipard DVD to iPod Converter for Mac

Comment: Similarity, the above two Mac software is same on the main function. As for the interface, it’s up to you preference. Frankly, Tipard DVD to iPod Converter for Mac take a little shorter to convert, but considering the video quality, Aiseesoft DVD to iPod Converter for Mac ripped DVD video is more remarkable. Of course, you can test it by yourself. You would found the video conversions are just as clear as the original, sometimes even better.

How to use Techspansion's open source to build iSquint and VisualHub

Squint and VisualHub, the popular video converter on Mac OS X have now gone open source. They also have got new names, Film Redux (VisualHub) and PunyVid (iSquint). As you may or may not know, the developer, Techspanion has closed shop
and after an outcry from fans, it has released the source code.
You can get them here: SourceForge.net Repository - [transcoderredux] Index of /
This a tutorial on how to use Techspansion's open source to build iSquint and VisualHub.

Here are two parts:
Part 1, How to use open source to build VisualHub (Film Redux)?
Part 2, How to use open source to build iSquint (PunyVid).

What you need:
Mac OS X 10.5, Xcode 3.0 and Techspansion's open source

Part 1, How to use open source to build VisualHub (Film Redux)?
Step 1, Open the open source, you will see two folders: FilmRedux and PunyVid. Open FilmRedux and find the file "FilmRedux.xcodeproj".



Step 2, Double click "FilmRedux.xcodeproj" to open it with Xcode.



Step 3, Click the button "Build and Go" to build VisualHub (Film Redux). That's all.



Part 2, How to use open source to build iSquint( PunyVid)?
Step 1, Open the open source, you will see two folders: FilmRedux and PunyVid. Open PunyVid and find the file "PunyVid.xcodeproj".



Step 2, Double click "PunyVid.xcodeproj" to open it with Xcode.



Step 3, Click the button "Build and Go" to build iSquint (PunyVid). That's all.



The operation is simple, but the stability would be a great concern, it kept reporting error messages during my try which is really frustrated. Perhaps it's not wise enough to spend hours coping with those errors messages, as there must be some commercial programs that perform much more reliably, like the Video Converter for Mac.
If you want to convert videos to DVD, here is DVD Creator for Mac.

How to rip DVD, convert video, transfer iPod music and make iPhone ringtone for Windows/Mac

This guide aims to show you how to rip a DVD, convert video and transfer music between iPod and computer/two iPod, make your own iPhone ringtone.

Part 1. How to rip DVD to iPod/iPhone/Sansa/PSP/Zune and other MP4 and MP3 Players
Part 2. How to convert all video to MP4, AVI, FLV, 3GP, WMV, MOV, MPG, RM, RMVB, MKV, VOB…
Part 3. How to transfer music from iPod to computer, computer to iPod, iPod to iPod.
Part 4. How to make your own iPhone ringtone for free

Believe or not, to do the things above what you need is download Aiseesoft DVD Software Toolkit and few clicks.

Part 1. How to rip DVD to iPod/iPhone/Sansa/PSP/Zune and other MP4 and MP3 Players.
Step 1. Click “DVD Ripper” on the main interface to run Aiseesoft DVD Ripper



Step 2. Open your DVD Drive and put your DVD in it, then click “Load DVD” and choose “Load DVD” to load your DVD into this best DVD ripper.
Step 3. Choose your output format from the “profile” drop-down list. This best DVD ripper provides you so many formats that out of your expectation, such as “iPod video MPEG 4 (*.mp4)”, “iPhone 3G MOV 640*480 (*.mov)” and so on.
After you choose your output format, you can adjust your output video’s settings, such as “Resolution”, “Frame Rate”, “Bitrate”, “Sample Rate” and so on.
Click “Start” now to begin your conversion and you will get your video soon.
To make your output movie more enjoyable you can do some editings to it through this best DVD ripper. You can choose a part of your movie to convert (trim), remove the black edges of your DVD movie (crop) and also adjust the effect (effect) and select subtitle and audio track.

Part 2. How to convert all video to MP4, AVI, FLV, 3GP, WMV, MOV, MPG, RM, RMVB, MKV, VOB…

Step 1. Click “Total Video Converter” on the main interface to run Aiseesoft Total Video Converter



Step 2. Click “Add File” to load the video you want to convert.
Step 3. Choose output format by clicking “profile” and customize your own output video by clicking “settings” to adjust the Resolution, Frame Rate, Bitrate and so on.

Before you click “Start” to begin your conversion, you can do some editing works, such as pick up a part of your video to convert(trim), choose your own play region(crop) and put two or more files into one.(merge into one file).
OK, now you can begin your conversion

Part 3. How to transfer your songs and videos bewteen iPod and computer/iPod

First, Click “iPod Transfer” to run Aiseesoft iPod Transfer




Click “Computer to iPod” button, it will allow you to transfer songs and videos from your computer to iPod easily.
Click “iPod to Computer” button, it will allow you to backup your songs and videos from iPod to your computer.
Click “iPod to iPod” button, it will allow you to transfer songs and videos from one iPod to another iPod dirrectly.

Part 4. How to make your own iPhone ringtone for free

Download Aiseesoft iPhone Ringtone Maker



Step 1: Click “Browse” on the right side of "Input File" to import the file that you want to make ringtone from it.
Step 2: Play it and listen the music to find the segment that you want to use it as ringtone. Then drag and click the start & end slider to set your wanted segment, or type the start & end time in the corresponding text box directly to get the exact segment. You also can pre-listen the converted audio before generate.
Step 3: Click “Browse” on the right side of "Local Output Folder" to choose the output destination.
Step 4: Check "Export to iPhone" option, the converted ringtone will be load to your iPhone directly.
Step 5: After all the settings are finished, click “Generate” to begin making your own iPhone ringtone.
If you are a Mac user, I recommend you Aiseesoft DVD Software Toolkit for Mac

it has the same functions as the windows one. You can use it easy rip your DVD, convert your videos, transfer your iPod songs and videos bewteen iPod and your Mac and also make your own ringtone.

Is Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 the Bing of Smartphones?

When Microsoft introduced its refurbished search service called Bing two years ago–at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, in fact–there were a lot of raised eyebrows about whether it could make any headway into a market in which it was a mere pip-squeak.

And, while it has been a costly effort, few can dispute the fact that the innovative, interesting and cleverly marketed Bing is a perceptual and perhaps even actual hit for the software giant.

Now, can Microsoft (MSFT) do the same with Windows Phone 7, which was launched yesterday?

It will be an interesting effort to watch, given how indisputably late Microsoft has been to the smartphone party now dominated by offerings from Google’s (GOOG) Android and Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone.

BoomTown is no reviewer, nor have I spent a lot of time using the Windows Phone 7.

That said, it seems to have been born in the same green-field spirit of Bing and looks like a welcome entrant into the arena.

And I love the whole cool font thing.

That’s the same way I felt about Bing when it was released, especially since the idea of Google dominating search so completely and dictating change is a prospect I relish about as much I do the idea of living in a small South American banana republic.

Which is to say, not at all.

So, bring on the much-needed competition, even it comes from a company that invented, patented and was sued silly due to the concept of monopolistic domination in tech.

And, for all the daily slog of it, Microsoft’s Bing has been a bright spot in tech and for the company.

The service, which was built from scratch, has improved market share, added a plethora of worthy features and has even made Google sweat a little bit and work a little harder.

And now, due to a search technology and online advertising partnership with Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft is poised to make some significant headway in its efforts to get into a strong No. 2 spot that could eventually give it the scale and size needed to make some bank.

Of course, the battle in the market for smartphones is even more uphill and difficult to pull off.

Microsoft needs developers to make apps, has to keep innovating on features and cannot acquiesce to wireless carriers, even as it must also get their cooperation for distribution.

And, of course, it has to convince consumers to switch, which is no easy task, and to feel the need for new phones to replace their recently new phones.

It’s a good thing then that Windows Phone 7 looks like Microsoft has at least anted up table stakes to play, delivering a phone that looks pretty good at first glance, much the same way I felt when I saw Bing for the first time.

“Microsoft did that? It’s so pretty,” I said to a long-suffering company exec when I got a demo. “It’s actually good good and not just Microsoft good.”

That was actually a compliment–one I hope to be able to pay again soon.

What Amazon Fears Most: Diapers

It is good to be the chief executive of a company that’s about to ship 500 million diapers in a single year. For one thing, you get to drive a golf cart as fast as you want in your new 1,250,000-square-foot warehouse.

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