aSymmetrics

send2XBMC makes it easy to send either an URL or the address of a remotely shared (SMB) or local media file to your Xbox running XBOX Media Center (XBMC). This can be done by opening the file through the dialog of send2XBMC or by providing the path/URL by a commandline parameter. To use paths with spaces, add quotation marks to the parameter. Be sure to have the Web Interface enabled on your Xbox. Sending multiple files to XBMC at once is allowed.

The latest version can be found at: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2606980/send2xbmc.zip (v4.8.1027)
 

Features

• Video site extraction support (YouTube, Break.com etc. - customizable)
• Explorer context menu integration: send files directly from Explorer
• Opera Browser support
• Total Commander support

Dropbox/Public

This little program allows you to send files and/or folders directly from the Explorer context menu to your Dropbox/Public folder. Afterwards, the corresponding links to the files will be copied to your clipboard, so you can paste them right away in the instant message or email you prepared the files for.

Review by AddictiveTips, Review by Caschy (German)

The latest version can be found at: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2606980/dropbox-public.zip (v1.4.1110)

Spotify?

Ok, I'll give you a little bit of info about it: Spotify is a new service that allows you to listen directly to a tremendous amount of commercial music without charging you anything and in a fully legal way and in a format that's considered fully transparent (OGG Vorbis -q5). The only thing you'll sporadically encounter is a really short advertisement in between the songs (you'll get used to it and it's not like on the radio or anything).

Size matters

With a download of only 4.8MB I was actually expecting a web installer (one which would download the rest of the software once running, much like DirectX's web installer and Windows Live setup), but it seems that pretty much everything is in it. Extracted there's no more than 13MB (x64 version) on your computer, really impressive for a piece of Microsoft software.

Edit (October 24): Could've known that it should be more, if only the definition files. The folder Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware in the common profile directory (%allusersprofile%) contains of the definition update plus a backup of the previously downloaded definition files, totalling to a rough 93MB. The (textfile) logs have grown to about 9MB in less than a month.

Update (November 9): Quite remarkable: MS Security Essentials has already taken a steady lead in a poll held by Lifehacker on the five best antivirus applications.

I just got the new March issue of C't which finally contained another antivirus software review. For me personally, a virusscanner is unnecessary: there's no better protection than using a third-party browser (Opera) and your brain. However, you can't leave other people's computers completely unprotected, so an on-access scanner, at the least for viruses, in the best case also for spyware/adware, is a prerequisite when configuring one's computer. Since there's absolutely no software that's able to identify almost any virus, and protection rates are highly fluctuating between versions and definition files of the respective products, one of the most important criteria for me is the speed of the on-access scanner.

In 2005, I created a simple robot with 3 others for my former study (Artificial Intelligence at the Radboud University Nijmegen). This might have been the best time of my study there (although once, just at the moment that I had to go to Nijmegen for this project, our sink at home flooded due to excessive rain, making a mess in the kitchen, living room and scullery ). Nevertheless, our robot harvested the most points and received the most appreciation from the public. Read more about the project and have a look at photos and a video of DWIP in action.

In this review I will show you the pro's and con's I've experienced with Opera after a year and 8 months of intensive use. Currently, I'm using v9.50 beta, so features from this build will be discussed, not only of the current stable build.