If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a thousand pictures worth, being there? Maybe!

Photosynth is software that’s still in development at the moment but it’s gotta be one of the most interesting things to come out of Microsoft in a long while.

It takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-D space. Basically it builds a virtual 3D world out of 2 dimensional photographs by analysing them for similarities. In theory this would make it possible to link the whole worlds photos together and go exploring.

In this case images are much better than words, so check out some videos to get a much better idea of what it actually does. Better yet, you can download the tech preview which enables you to see the interactive demo in your browser (supports all major browsers).

Check it out, it might be something we’ll be hearing a lot more about!

Firekeeper is a recently released add-on for the Firefox browser and it aims to protect your from malicious websites which may exploit browser and code security flaws. It keeps your Internet-browsing session safe by performing as an Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) system at the browser level.

It does so by using rules found in the open-source IDP tool Snort. Snort is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system which, according to the snort website, “has become the de facto standard for the industry.”

Features of Firekeeper include the ability to scan, detect and deny malicious webpages that you may unwittingly try to connect to. It also supports a blacklist and whitelist.

If you’re hoping to make your web surfing that little bit safer, this seems to be a good add-on to add on!

Check out the Firekeeper page for more info and the download.

Spacetime is a program that presents Web pages and search results as floating slabs that can be flipped through, organized, and navigated in 3-D.

SpaceTime users can “fly” through search results such as Web pages, pictures, and eBay auction items. By turning your view to the left, right, up, or down, you can see all the Web pages you’ve previously called up and zoom in on the one you want.

When you launch SpaceTime, you’ll see a Web page address bar at the top of the screen as well as a bar for entering search terms. As with Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, a user can select different search engines; SpaceTime’s search bar includes Yahoo and Google (and their respective image-search functions), Flickr, and eBay. Web pages and search results are shown in the center of the screen and float against a light-blue background with clouds. At the bottom of the SpaceTime screen, there is also a two-dimensional timeline that shows a thumbnail view of each search you’ve made or page you’ve called up.

The lasting value of programs like this is usually questionable,as the novelty value soon wears off,. But I guess maybe in the future as computers continue to become more powerful, we might be seeing more things like this.

Check it out here to download it or see the demo presentation.

Post2blog is a WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) blog editing and publishing program that includes some advanced features such as a full featured word-processor-style editor, advanced image and table handling options, with live spelling checker and thesaurus. It supports WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Movable Type, and LiveJournal and more.

Here are just a few of the features that Post2Blog offers:

• Advanced WSIWYG editing: the full featured editor includes comprehensive editing options as well as support for tables and emoticons. All its functions are hotkeyed for easy access. Edit offline and post whenever you are ready;
• Advanced image support: upload and format images (including creating thumbnails to custom resolution, adding captions, resizing the image itself, and adding shadows). Also supports uploads into Flickr and other online image resources (imageshack.us, picturelli.com, as well as FTP).

All this and its freeware too! So check it out if blogging is your thing.

Here is a freeware worth checking out! µTorrent is an efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint.

This software is pretty cool as it is designed to use as little memory and space as possible while offering all the functionality expected from advanced clients. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet).

This small but feature rich tool also supports Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange. In the latest version which was released on the 19^th of June, µTorrent the major change in features is:

• Fixed: Escape-style handling on the exit confirmation and a create torrent dialog.

If you want to try it out, you can go here, it is free!

Two ‘extremely critical’ vulnerabilities have been discovered in Yahoo Messenger that could be exploited by malicious users to compromise a system.

The boundary errors have been confirmed in version 8.1.0.249 of the messaging software, but other versions may also be affected.

Both flaws are based around the Yahoo Webcam facilities within the software. The problems occur in the ‘ywcupl.dll’ file that deals with the Webcam Upload, and the ‘ywcvwr.dll’ file which handles the Webcam Viewer.

Both ActiveX controls can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by assigning an overly long string to the Server property and then using the ‘Send()’ or ‘Receive()’ actions.

A successful execution of the exploits could allow arbitrary code to be run on the affected machine.

Security firm Secunia rated the flaws at its highest ‘extremely critical’ level, and said that the problems can be blocked by changing the kill-bit settings for the affected ActiveX controls. (more…)

Think digital presentation – think Chimpfolio. Chimpfolio is basically an artist’s portfolio generator for the discerning artist who needs to make the transition to digital slides without knowing anything about computers. It is a program that generates cross-browser compatible web pages with valid xHTML and CSS. Web pages generated by Chimpfolio have a standard set of Introduction, Bio, Statement and Contact pages along with an indexed portfolio page that has individual pages for each image. Each individual page can have additional optional information like title, size, medium and date of creation of image. It can have a separate section for any other additional information.

This is one of those rare tools which make you feel that computing can be natural rather than robotic. A must –have program for image-portfolio generation.

(more Info and Download)

ITWorkTimer 1.1 keeps track of employee’s work time. Software takes screenshots of currently running programs to confirm that the employee’s time is actually spent on the work allotted. It captures screenshots after every 10 minutes on a random basis. You need not look behind their shoulder every time to confirm their work.
 
Software actually calculates each employee’s work time and hence salary based on working hours. It allows you to have full control on efficiency of the employees in your organization. You can easily differentiate between actual workers and lazy employees. This promotes you to encourage hard workers and scold those who work little and spend their time on some personal work other than office work. You can stop paying employees for the hours not spent on allotted work.

ITWorkTimer is an effective tool to those companies who are facing problem of their employee’s efficiency and overpaying to some employees. This software helps to improve labor efficiency and hence company’s profit.

(more Info and Download) 

Need a tool for synchronizing and displaying lyrics? Minilyrics is up to the task.

Minilyrics is a fascinating lyrics viewer for synchronizing and displaying lyrics of the currently playing song. The good thing about this software is that it does this in many types of media players including Winamp, Windows Media Player, itunes, MusicMatch Jukebox, Quintessenial Player, foobar2000, and even RealOne.

Make your music come alive with streaming lyrics, check out Minilyrics. The latest version in the software market is Minilyrics 5.2.2760 and it has these latest changes and upgrades in its features:

New:

• Display lyrics in Windows Media Player Visualization area;
• Display lyrics in iTunes Visualization area;
• Support Windows Media Center;
• Support AlbumPlayer;
• Support XMPlay 3.4;
• Add downloads and rating info in the lyrics search result;
• Rate lyrics.

Fixed:

• Auto hide MiniLyrics on playing movie;
• Use Winamp 5’s default theme color;
• Other minor bugs;
• Auto search lyrics with incorrect song title.

Improved:

• Auto choose the file encoding when saving lyrics.

Go to http://www.crintsoft.com/  for more info and download.

If you’ve been losing precious data to corrupted Microsoft word documents, this word recovery tool could be a life saver.

Stellar Word Recovery is Word recovery software designed to recover and repair corrupted Microsoft Word documents. Stellar Word Recovery is an advanced document-repair program which easily restores damaged Word files after certain instances like virus attacks, unexpected system shutdown, media read error, etc.

Want to give it a shot? Go to http://www.stellarinfo.com/word-recovery.htm for more info and trial download.