Rescue Santa And Get Wondershare Vivideo FREE – Save $39.99

If you’re in the market for a video editor to personalize your videos, you might consider Wondershare’s freebie offer. Starting today, through to December 25 @ 24:00 PST, Wondershare’s premium video product, Vivideo, can be yours at no cost – provided you play and win, the Santa rescue game (more on this in a moment).

If you’re a regular reader here, and “Wondershare” strikes you as being a familiar developer – you score a point! We’ve previously reviewed several Wondershare applications here – including Wondershare Time Freeze – a superb system virtualization application. See – For Added Internet Protection – Virtualize Your System with Free Wondershare Time Freeze.

In order to engage with the game, the developer suggests that you visit the following page – click on the graphic to do so. My advice – DON”T. If you’re into simple and straightforward, then  you should go directly to the “game” page.

The game page – click on the graphic below.

How to play:

Beat the demon & rescue Santa Claus.

Get Passcode when you beat the demon.

Enter your Passcode to get Vivideo.

Fast facts:

Manage Various Video, Audio and Photo Formats

Support all SD and HD videos, including WMV, AVI, MP4, FLV, MOV, MKV, MTS, etc.

 

You can also capture videos directly with a video capture device or add videos from camcorders and other external hard drives directly.

 

Add background music to your videos to add more flavor. All regular audio formats like MP3, WMA, WAV, M4A, AAC, AC3, OGG, etc. are supported.

 

Import photos like BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, etc. and create home movies with photos and videos combined.

Edit and Enhance Your Media Files with Fantasy

Edit and personalize videos/photos/audios with video editing features like trim, crop, rotate, set fade in & fade out, adjust duration, etc.

 

Add stylish captions on your videos and photos with customizable font, color, etc. to for better video meaning conveying.

 

Bring your movie to the next level instantly with professional and creative filter effects. 30+ filters are ready for your videos and photos.

 

Add transition effects between two clips and apply motion effects to photos so as to achieve a natural and smooth transition.

Share Your Videos with Family and Friends in Multiple Ways

Get optimized videos for playback on your portable devices like iPhone, iPad, PSP, iPod, Wii, Zune, etc.

 

Save edited videos to local hard drive for further use in a variety of video formats.

 

Directly upload your video creation to YouTube for sharing with more people by filling in necessary information.

 

Burn videos to DVD discs or save as DVD folder or ISO image files to preserve videos in a better way.

System requirements: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7. Mac.

I’m a fan of Wondershare’s products – I’ve reviewed and recommended more than a few in the last several years. However, I think the developer has overreached here.

While I appreciate the generous offer, I’m less than enthusiastic that I had to engage in a confusing and pointless, multi stage process, in order to comply with the developer’s demands. Tedious and frustrating – definitely not cool.

BTW, Wondershare – according to popular culture, Santa Claus has 9 Reindeer – not 12.

Note: As part of the “game”, you will be asked to choose the number of Reindeer Santa has. Choose 12, as the correct answer. Go figure!

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Protect Your Bits With BitDefender Internet Security 2011

If it’s true that 50% of computer users run without adequate security protection, as some statistics indicate, then I can understand why. Given the complexity of a typical anti-malware product in both setup and operation, it’s little wonder that many users throw up their hands in frustration.

To be sure, computer security is a complex issue, but that shouldn’t mean that the average end user of a security application, needs to be exposed to a labyrinth of choices in either application setup, or in monitoring activity.

It’s hard to overstate the fact that typical computer users require a simple, intuitive, and easy to use interface in order to get the most out of a security suite, and BitDefender’s Internet Security 2011 breaks new ground here. More on this later.

By combining an efficient Firewall, an Antivirus engine, an Antispyware engine, Spam filtering, a parental control system, privacy control, home network and game/laptop modes – BitDefender has built a suite of applications that provides powerful protection.

Taken together, the components provide excellent protection from hackers, cybercriminals, unauthorized software, network attacks, and more.

The application is straightforward to setup, customize, and run – as the following screen captures illustrate. (Click on any graphic to enlarge).

Following installation the application automatically runs a quick scan to ensure the system is clean prior to setup completion.

Very cool! No malware found on the test system.

BitDefender’s Internet Security 2011 is all about simple initial choices – average users can sit back and allow the application to choose the most appropriate settings.  Sophisticated users, on the other hand, can get their hands dirty.

The user has an opportunity to choose a simple, intuitive, and easy to use interface, rather than the more complex intermediate, or expert mode. When I installed this application, I did so with 10 average users in attendance – each one agreed that the “Basic View”, would be the most appropriate for their needs.

The additional tools menu is push button simple, as the following screen shot indicates.

On the completion of the installation, a summary of installed application modules is provided.

Finally, a guided tour is a helpful tool which makes it easy for an average user to become familiar with the application.

Fast facts:

Firewall

Antivirus & Antispyware

Antispam

Anti-phishing

Chat Encryption

Identity protection and privacy controls

Parental Control

Family Network Protection – Home network monitor

Smart Scan

Quick Scan

Smart Schedule

Smart Help

Smart Sense

System requirements: Windows XP SP3, Vista (SP1), Wind 7 (both 32 bit and 64 bit).

Note: Recommended hardware –

• CPU: Intel CORE Duo (1.66 GHz) or equivalent processor
• Memory (RAM):
• 1 GB (Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows 7)
• 1.5 GB (Microsoft Windows Vista)

Having tested this application on a number of machines, I suggest you don’t install this application unless your computer meets, or exceeds, these requirements.

Download 30 day trial version at: BitDefender

Purchase product at: BitDefender (3 PCs for 1 year $49.95).

A personal note: BitDefender is one of my favorite security providers, since it offers a bevy of free virus removal tools, as well as a number of free specialty security tools.

A final word: Choosing a security application correctly depends on a number of variables including – how you use a computer on the Internet. In the final analysis though, the application should simply work –  unobtrusively and silently, with a minimum of fuss and bother – without presenting complex questions that average users simply can’t grasp.

Overall, BitDefender Internet Security 2011 handles this issue very well, and its overall detection and malware removal rates, place it in the top tier of security applications.

A word of caution here regarding tests carried out by antimalware labs. By and large, these tests are one time “snap shots”, and are not always indicative of an applications strengths, or weaknesses. Applications tend to change relative positions based on these tests, very often.

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Quake 4 – Game Review

Quake 4 is the next game in the long series of Quake games dating back about 10 years. Quake 4, developed by Activision, is a fast paced, FPS (First Person Shooter) game.

Quake 4 Game Play

The game play is very similar to Quake 2. This is good – Quake 2 was a great game; a lot of fun and exciting. However, it is so similar that it takes away some of the excitement of playing a new game.

The game play is comparable to Quake 2, and the weapons and enemies are very like those in the older Quake games as well. The story line picks up right were Quake 2 left off, and is good enough to keep you interested.

The missions are varied and keep the game exciting. The pace of this game is very fast, which is what the Quake series is known for. There is a lot of action, and the enemies come at you fast. You have to be very quick to get past certain parts of this game!

Even though the action of this game is a lot of fun, Quake 4 doesn’t leave much room for level exploration, or problem solving. It pretty much seems that if you can kill the enemies, you can get past the levels.

Quake 4 Graphics

The graphics and effects of Quake 4 are good, but nothing that is really impressive. Quake 4 uses the Doom 3 engine to run its graphics. There are some minor improvements which were made when Activision applied this engine to Quake 4.

Quake 4 definitely shows improvement over past games when it comes to graphics, however, it cannot match some of the games that came out at the same time like Half-Life 2.

Activision did nothing innovative with this game. It seems as if they made quite a few minor, to medium improvements, but nothing that makes you say – Wow!! Overall, I give this game a 7/10. This is a good and fun game, but it is definitely not the top game in its genre.

Download the demo at GameDaily.com.

Guest Writer: This is a guest post by Dominic Acito, who brings a background as a high level super user and gamer, to the Blogging world.

Why not pay a visit to Dominic’s site at Computer Too Slow.

Red Alert 3 Review

Red Alert 3 is a new game from EA in the Command and Conquer, Red Alert series. It is a real-time strategy game similar to the Warcraft series. This is a review of the PC version of the game. I bought and downloaded this game on Steam which was a really quick and easy way to buy this game.

The Game Play

I was impressed by the game play for this new game. EA found a way to take the same concept and add on to it to make it better. The visual effects were improved from the last game in the series, and the missions were fun to play.

The thing I liked the most about the game was the new co-op mission capability. This new feature allows you to play the campaigns with another player online.

I found it to be a lot of fun being able to jump on Ventrilo (voice over IP app), with a friend, and play a few campaign missions. I feel like this is a good enough feature to make the game a success by itself.

The only downside was the campaigns were a little on the short side. I think each campaign only had 6 or so missions in it. However, a few of the missions seemed a little more involved than the past C&C games, so this may have not been as short as it sounds.

Cast

Another impressive thing about this game was the cast. They cast includes Tim Curry, Jenny McCarthy, Gina Carano, J.K. Simmons, George Takei, and more. The cast did a great job with the cut scenes and really made me get into the story more than past command and conquer games.

EA also did a good job integrating the cast into the missions themselves. It was pretty neat to have Jenny McCarthy’s character following my commands on certain missions.

The Verdict

Overall, I give this game a 9/10.

This game is probably the best real time strategy game to come along in the past year or two. I would suggest that any RTS gamer give this game a try.

Download the demo at BigDownload.com, an amazingly fast game download site. I downloaded this terrific demo of 1.8 GB, in just over thirty minutes. Fast enough?

Guest Writer: This is a guest post by Dominic Acito, who brings a background as a high level super user, to the Blogging world.

Why not pay a visit to Dominic’s site at Computer Too Slow.