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Lately, I've been hearing a lot of fanfare about an application called DoubleTwist that is at its core a free music jukebox that offers content syncing to a variety of portable devices, including the BlackBerry, the PSP, and the iPod, as well as pretty much anything that can mount in Universal Mass Storage mode. One of the main draws of the program is that it can take your iTunes library and sync it to a variety of non-iPod players, an important feature for anyone who has ditched the ubiquitous device in favor of a music phone or other MP3 player. And soon, the Windows version of the jukebox will offer built-in support for Amazon MP3 store purchases as well (note: the Mac version already supports Amazon MP3 purchases), a move in line with the company's goal to offer consumers choice when it comes to digital music management.
The DoubleTwist video view.
Certainly, DoubleTwist is a useful solution for a lot of people, especially since it incorporates automatic video transcoding for a lot of the supported devices, which is the feature that drew me to the software. However, the program is not without its pitfalls, and some of them are sure to cause no small amount of frustration. For example, the video transcoding--done during the syncing process--takes forever. Conversion speed was roughly two times normal speed, so a 90-minute movie took 50 minutes or so to encode and transfer. Still, considering DoubleTwist offers this feature for free and integrates it so simply, I'm willing to forgive the sluggishness.
Much more annoying is how slow the video library loads in thumbnail mode, and while it is loading, you can't actually browse the selections. ... Read more
With Windows 7 having been finalized, I realized that my main work set-up was utterly lacking in the unfinished software department.
Clearly, that couldn't stand. So, last week, I installed the technical preview of Office 2010 on the Windows 7 machine I have been using every day. For the foreseeable future, I'll be trying to see how the new applications stack up in handling my day-to-day work.
As for my early impression, I think my colleague Rafe Needleman said it best in a tweet he wrote earlier this week, while tying out the new Office.
"I wish Outlook/Office 2010 tech preview would do something weird and dumb so I could write about it. Sadly, it just works."
Microsoft has a tradition of internal testing of its products, which it dubs "dogfooding." Here at Beyond Binary, we like to do a bit of dogfooding ourselves, despite the fact we have two cats and no canines.
Although I have installed all of the main Office applications--Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneNote, I really only use Word and Outlook on a daily basis.
The most noticeable change for me is in Outlook, particularly its new conversation threading feature. Although the concept is familiar to anyone who has used Gmail, it is quite powerful to see the notion applied to the hundreds of e-mail messages that land in my in-box on any given day.
I have a few minor quibbles. Office 2010 is good at bunching together e-mails even if the subject line changes, but its grouping has some false positives in joining disparate conversations just because the subject lines are the same. For instance, it tends to put all of my messages with the subject "Hey there" together, even though that's a standard subject line for me. Similarly, it puts all of my "(no subject)" e-mails together.
That said, I really like the feature overall. It definitely saves me time and makes finding those earlier messages in a thread much simpler.
On the Word front, there are features I am interested in trying out, but few that I have noticed in my casual use. Of course, my use of Word is somewhat atypical. I basically am only looking for a text editor with really good save capabilities. The first thing I do is turn off the smart quotes, hyperlinking, autocorrect, and all of the other features that help distinguish Word from, say, WordPad.
I wrote earlier about one feature I am excited about--paste preview--which helps one see what the different paste options will look like before you commit. That's helpful because usually what I want is the "paste unformatted" option (see above section where what I really need is a text editor), but every now and then I am looking to preserve more of the formatting and it is nice to see what I will get ahead of time.
As a photo nerd, I am also keen on playing around with the artistic effects that Microsoft added to Word. In the past, I needed Photoshop, or at least a program like Photoshop Elements, to do things like turn a photo into a watercolor painting. But now one can do that straight from Word.
Let's see, what else? I'm not a huge fan of the Ribbon, but given that it is here to stay, it is nice to see it has made its way into all of Outlook, as well as to OneNote.
I'm more fond of the Backstage view, which is new to Office 2010. Essentially a replacement for the file menu, the backstage view offers a more contextual and visual way to do tasks like opening recent documents, creating new ones or printing the document you are working in.
But the thing that I am most interested in, the browser-based versions of Office, I will have to wait a little bit longer for. Although Microsoft released the technical preview of the desktop versions in July, we're still waiting on the Web apps. The official word is they should be out in test form "later this summer."
If I were Microsoft, I'd work to get a Web-based Office out there pronto.
There are several well-regarded, free ways to take advantage of the Print function to transform just about any file to a PDF. PrimoPDF and doPDF sit at the top of the list, but what about reverse engineering that conversion? Converting in the other direction, from a PDF to a Microsoft Word-compatible format like DOC or RTF is trickier.
For one thing, there's a lot of crap out there. Many PDF-to-DOC converters have similar or even identical names, differentiated sometimes by nothing more than a cunning tap of the space bar. Many offer features that are hamstrung in various ways unless you pay for an upgrade, and just about all of them offer imperfect conversions. Even with these problems, though, you can get a reasonable conversion from the four programs and three Web-based services listed below.
Sometimes right: Some PDF to Word Converter 1.5
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Some PDF to Word Converter 1.5: A basic but uncluttered interface introduces all of the program's conversion options in a sidebar on the right. Some handles batch conversions, converts outer fonts into text and embedded fonts into images, and supports both All Pages and page-range specific conversions. It can remove graphics on demand from the output document, which is always in the RTF format, and supports encryption.
The program suffers from two big drawbacks: the conversions aren't always the cleanest, with occasional image and text overlaps, and there's noticeable image deterioration. In place of drag-and-drop to add PDFs, you can add an entire folder via the folder icon. Some of the interface's option descriptions could be better phrased, too: "delete all graphics" with an option of "false" or "true" really could be posed better as "remove all graphics" and "yes" or "no."
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 makes you jump through hoops for a great end result.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 also gets a few things wrong, but eventually lands you the DOC output you want. Impressively, it offers one of the cleanest and most accurate free PDF-to-DOC conversions of the programs tested. You can change the output path and name, convert an entire document or just specific pages, and ditch images in the source PDF if need be. The final output will give you a pitch-perfect conversion.
From there, it goes a bit downhill. The option to open the output DOC in WordPad didn't function when we tested it, nor did the All Pages button. You can work around this by choosing Page Number instead of All Pages (Page Number defaults to the full page count), but it's still irritating. The other big frustration is that while the program is free, after five conversions you're asked to answer a math question a bit harder than the average Captcha. Batch conversion and encryption support are missing, too. If Free PDF to Word Doc Converter's bumpy ride didn't result in such a smooth landing, it wouldn't be worth touching.
Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3: common name, common problems.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3 shares many things in common with its competitors besides a similar name: there's an imperfect balance of useful features and a perfect output. What's wrong: there's no drag-and-drop support, and you should be prepared for some minor yet annoying formatting errors, with occasional and minor word and image overlap.
What's right: The program can batch convert PDFs without being restricted to specific folders, can change your output destination, and put out either RTF or DOC. There's support for high levels of security, with space to provide passwords from the PDF owner and the PDF user. You can remove graphics on conversion and micro-manage the spaces between words and text boxes. It's fine for image-free PDFs, but somewhat less than exact with others.
Advanced PDF to Word Converter Free 5.0: nearly-perfect output.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Advanced PDF to Word Converter Free 5.0 nearly crashes and burns on takeoff, but surprisingly leaves you with a nearly-perfect document. It will ask you to reboot on installation, which makes sense for programs that have deep hooks in your operating system but is a clarion warning for such a simple converter. However, as with all these converters, it's the final output that counts the most, and this program's final DOC output looks pretty good.
There's no support for encrypted PDFs, and when you convert or close the program, there's a nag screen to get you upgrade. Batch conversion, RTF and TXT output, and image deletion are restricted to the paid upgrade. The program does offer drag-and-drop additions, adding an entire folder, and user-selected output folders and output renaming. OpenOffice.org users will appreciate that this converter puts out a DOC that OpenOffice Writer can cleanly read images from--unlike many of the others. The biggest problem, of course, is that there is still some image quality degradation and minor text alignment problems.
OpenOffice users should take note that during these tests, I found that the OpenOffice Writer doesn't always play nicely with Rich Text Formatting. There are several free online conversion options as well, and they tend to have better output than the desktop programs.
You can send your PDF as an attachment to Adobe, and within a few minutes they'll send you back either a plain text TXT or HTML file. The service is basic but extremely fast. As long as you don't mind the lack of frills, you can e-mail pdf2txt@adobe.com for the plain text conversion and pdf2html@adobe.com for HTML output, although the HTML service wasn't working when I tested it. More details are here.
PDF to Word, from Nitro PDF.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Nitro PDF, the makers of PrimoPDF, offer a glossy interface for their online PDF to Word format converter. Clearly delineated instructions guide you through uploading your PDF, choosing an output format--either DOC or RTF--and entering your e-mail address. The conversion took a bit longer than Adobe's, but it's worth the wait. The conversion output is a perfect document, precisely the kind of painless process that most of the downloadable options lack. There's no support for encryption, nor for batches, but Nitro's service gets high marks for its precise and fast conversion. Apparently, there are plans to incorporate the PDF-to-Word feature in future editions of Nitro PDF.
There are two other PDF-to-Word services worth mentioning: Koolwire and Zamzar. Koolwire will convert PDFs up to 10MB, but it can also handle DOC, XLS, PPT, VSD, MPP, RTF, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and MS Office 2007 formats like DOCX. Unlike the other services, clicking on their Web site opens an e-mail to which you only need to attach your PDF and then hit Send. The PDF comes out as RTF, with very minor image degradation and no formatting problems.
Zamzar's uploading interface.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Zamzar will convert PDFs up to 100MB at a time, and in addition to converting your PDF into DOC or RTF, it can output ODT, TXT, PS, and PNG. It can handle batch conversion, as long as you don't mind uploading the files one at a time. When it finishes converting, you receive a link that stays active for 24 hours from which you can download your converted files one at a time or all at once in a ZIP. There was minor image degradation, similar to what Koolwire spit out, and one instance of a formatting error.
Overall, there is no option that can be declared 100 percent perfect. Where one service--whether it's online or desktop--fails, it also tends to offer a better interface, or more conversion options than others. The reverse also seems to hold true, where the best conversions are not always buttressed by the greatest of user experiences. Nitro PDF's PDF-to-Word Web site wins for its output and usability, but if you must go with a desktop client I'd choose Free PDF to Word Doc Converter 1.1 for the resulting document only. If you don't mind minor hiccups, but need a better user experience or more conversion options, Zamzar and Free PDF to Word Converter 1.3 are probably what you need.
Disagree with my picks? Have a better suggestion? Tell me about it in the comments.
[h/t Freeware Genius]
Vuze 4.2 offers users a drag-and-drop video conversion option.
(Credit: Vuze)Continuing to stake out a different approach to torrents, the latest version of Vuze integrates an auto-conversion feature for both portable screens and your television. Available for Windows and Mac, Vuze 4.2 offers a device drag-and-drop feature that automatically converts a video torrent from its native format to an appropriate one for iTunes, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and then pushes it to your device.
Still in beta, the new Devices tab on the left nav will ask you to install a transcoder and a plug-in. Devices then detects iTunes or any of the devices when they're connected to your computer. When you choose iTunes, Vuze will push the video without user input. From there, you can sync the video to your iPod or iPhone. Xbox and PlayStation users will see the video streamed directly from their PC or Mac to their game console.
Two weeks ago, when Vuze asked in a poll on its Web site which devices users most wanted this feature for, the iPhone and iPod won by a long shot. With more than 25,000 respondents, the only major system that wasn't included in this update was the Wii--so you shouldn't be surprised if Wii support is in the works. There's no word on automatic support for other popular portable video players.
The conversion process is not particularly speedy, so if you're more concerned with speed than convenience you might not find the update useful. However, Vuze is certainly giving users who are looking for something between the basic uTorrent and the robust Miro an interesting and feature-rich third option.
Kindle users know they can e-mail documents as attachments to their Kindle account and Amazon will convert and upload them to the e-book reader for a 10-cent fee. Windows users aren't tied to the e-mail option, though, thanks to the Auto Kindle eBook Converter.
This PDF-to-Kindle converter doesn't have much of a GUI, but works fine.
(Credit: Art by Alex Samlihan/CNET)Compatible with PDF, HTML, LIT, PDB, and CHM files, the program opens to a Windows file browser. Choose the file you want to convert, hit Open, and then choose your destination folder. The converter goes to work, generally converting files quickly--although this depends on the length of your document.
When it's done, connect your Kindle to your computer and move the MOBI file into the Documents folder. Safely disconnect the Kindle, and the converted file will appear in your main list of documents, automatically converted on the Kindle to its default MPB format.
However, it lacks a decent interface. The file-browsing option that you get doesn't slow down the conversion process--it's just jarring. There are other areas where the program will hopefully be improved, too. A setting for a default directory isn't dependent on getting that GUI and would cut out the unnecessary step of navigating to your preferred output folder.
Ideally, the program will eventually auto-detect your Kindle and save the converted document directly to the proper folder on the e-book reader.
Auto Kindle eBook Converter bridges the gap between DOC and TXT files and the Kindle. Using a print-to-PDF program like doPDF or PrimoPDF, you can convert a DOC or TXT to PDF, and then use the Auto Kindle eBook Converter to make your document Kindle-friendly. While not the slickest of methods, it should work for most users. Even saddled with a list of improvements, the Auto Kindle eBook Converter holds a lot of promise.
Want to watch AVIs, MPEGs, and other movie files on your iPod? iSquint is a free utility that can help you do just that, without the need for QuickTime Pro. From the makers of the more feature-packed VisualHub, iSquint has a simple, streamlined interface that's designed around the app's basic, hassle-free functionality.
You just drag all the files that you want converted into the iSquint window, choose whether you want to optimize for iPod or TV viewing, and you're off. iSquint can give you even faster and better compression than QuickTime, especially when you choose H.264 encoding, and it can also automatically add converted movies directly to your iTunes. Most conversion utilities don't do that.
Advanced iSquint settings for the more courageous let users batch process and adjust practically every aspect of the conversion process, including the aspect ratio, of course. Unfortunately, there's no way to save your settings between sessions. Add to that occasional funky problems with more esoteric conversions (like when converting YouTube .flv files), a lack of integrated help, and fairly consistent nagging to buy VisualHub, and power users may want to look elsewhere.
Whether you're looking to change a video format to save space or because you lack a necessary codec, the freeware FormatFactory could be the last converter you'll need. It's not perfect, but it handles 12 types of video formats, six audio types, eight image formats, and DVD/ISO conversions with speed and accuracy.
The interface is simple and utilitarian, although spiked with format-icons and a big banner announcing the program's name for no reason other than to put lipstick on the pig. The left navigation menu has collapsible links to the various formats you can convert to, based on type: video, audio, image, mobile device, and ROM device. Below the massive title banner, the central pane sports decorative icons until you start the conversion process.
Once you've selected your files, you can change the output quality to presets or custom settings. Hit Start on the Toolbar of the main window to begin the process, which is surprisingly fast for smaller video files. FormatFactory excels at batch conversion without error. It does, however, eat up much of your processor while it's running even one conversion.
Because there are so many file formats out there and even more codecs, it's likely that FormatFactory will fail to convert at some point. Nevertheless, FormatFactory is a solid, free, catch-all converter, with excellent tools--lacking only a more sensible interface.
Whether you're looking to change a video format to save space or because you lack a necessary codec, the freeware FormatFactory is likely to be the last converter you'll need. It's not perfect, but it handles 12 types of video formats, six audio types, eight image formats, and DVD/ISO conversions with speed and accuracy.
FormatFactory supports batch conversions and most major codecs.
(Credit: FormatOZ)The interface is simple and utilitarian, although spiked with format-icons and a big banner announcing the program's name for no reason other than to put lipstick on the pig. The left nav holds collapsible links to the various formats you can convert to, based on type: video, audio, image, mobile device, and ROM device. Below the massive title banner, the central pane sports the aforementioned decorative icons until you start the conversion process.
To do so, click on the icon on the left of the format you'd like to convert to, such as All to WMV. From the right side of the new window that opens, you can add files one at a time, or choose to convert an entire folder or three. The batch conversion feature is one of the app's strong suits, and it handled multiple files for me without error. Unfortunately, drag-and-drop file adding isn't supported.
The lengthy list of formats supported by FormatFactory.
(Credit: FormatOZ)Once you've selected your files, you can change the output quality using the Output Setting button at the top of the "All to" window. The Output main window informs you of the current output format details--if it's a video, for example, it'll tell you the output codecs being used and resolution. These can be changed via the Profile drop-down menu, but they change depending on the output format. Still, all output formats offer custom settings, another excellent feature for users who get feisty about how files are encoded.
When you're ready to convert, hit Start on the Toolbar of the main window. I'd normally suggest going to get a coffee at this point, but unless you're re-encoding an entire movie FormatFactory flies through a task like a dedicated assembly-line worker. For larger files, the Factory naturally takes longer. Either way, it will most likely demand the lion's share of your system's resources while it's running--it just does it so fast for smaller files that the wait can be stunningly short.
Because there are so many file formats out there and even more codecs, it's likely that FormatFactory will fail to convert at some point. It succeeded with one Quicktime file I had, but couldn't properly convert a different MOV. Nevertheless, FormatFactory is a solid, free catch-all converter, with excellent tools like batch conversions, lacking only a more sensible workflow.
YouTube is a household name, but most handheld gear doesn't support it. The Flash video grabber and converter YouTube Downloader makes taking your YouTube with you a cinch. Seth Rosenblatt shows you how in this First Look video.
XnView is a robust program, an image browser and viewer as well as a converter that can handle more than 400 formats from Camera RAW, JPG, GIF, TIFF, and other still images all the way through AVI, MOV, MPEG, and a multitude of movie formats. Metadata EXIF and IPTC formats are also supported, ensuring that you don't lose any location or shooting data. There are also tools for taking screenshots.
In addition, you'll find tools for capturing screenshots and creating basic slide shows, as well as a simple audio player. The utility for generating Web galleries has been known to be wonky, but XnView is recommended, especially for those digital photographers who need quick image conversion.
