Maximum PC Photo Gallery RSS Feed

Comic-Con 08: Four Days, Four Hundred Cosplay Photos. Welcome to the Ultimate Geek Gallery.

Norman Chan — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:02:01 -0600

It was a herculean task. Team Maximum PC at this year’s Comic-Con International consisted of only two people, and there was no way we could attend every packed panel at the event. So instead of bringing you movie and television panel reports you’ve probably already read on SlashFilm or AintitCoolNews, we wanted to be your eyes on the show floor. And that meant showing you what stood out most in the 500,000sq ft space of the main exhibit hall: the cosplayers. Our quest to document as many unabashed costumed geeks as we could find yielding 400 photographs of comic-book, anime, fantasy, science fiction, and film characters. We saw dozens of jokers and batmen, numerous video game-inspired outfits, and even steampunk-era Ghostbusters. The impressive level of creativity and enthusiasm that we saw in these cosplayers was an awesome reminder of why we love geek culture. We hope you can appreciate it as well.

Bonus challenge: Can you name all of the characters?

Originally posted: 2008-07-28 09:00:00

Windows Live Takes Over for Bundled Photo, Video, and Email Apps in Windows 7

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:30:48 -0500

CNet's Ina Fried reports that Microsoft has decided to remove Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Mail from Windows 7. Given the fact that Microsoft continues to upgrade its Live replacements for Photo Gallery and Mail, and added Movie Maker to the Live family, as we reported last week, this move seems to make a lot of sense.

As someone who's been recommending that Windows Vista users replace Windows Photo Gallery with Windows Live Photo Gallery ever since Live Photo Gallery was launched, I think that stripping Windows of utilities that only some people will use makes plenty of sense. Here's why:

1. Faster development of operating system releases. As Windows Live general manager Brian Hall told Fried, "It [this decision]makes it [Windows 7] much cleaner."

2. Fewer worries about antitrust actions. Lawsuits by the EU forced Microsoft to distribute EU-specific versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista that are missing Windows Media Player. By dropping other multimedia features, Microsoft makes Windows 7 even less appealing as a lawsuit target.

3. New partnership opportunities. According to Hall,"We can do things with specific partners to enable really great experiences that might be hard in Windows." We might see Windows 7+Adobe, Windows 7+Corel, or Windows 7+open source bundles from various OEMs.

4. Fewer opportunities for compatibility problems. As anyone who has ever wrestled with Windows Vista multimedia tools being broken by installing third-party tools (I recommend the freeware Vista Codec Package, available at http://shark007.net, if you can't burn CDs or DVDs in Windows Vista anymore after installing a third-party DVD burner) can agree with, the possibility of reducing the chances of a "codec war" or other compatibility problems by reducing the amount of multimedia stuff in Windows 7 is a welcome one.

So, what do you think? Do you like the idea of choosing your favorite free or commercial photo, video, and email clients right from the start, or do you prefer the current method? Are you more likely to buy a system with a preinstalled version of Windows 7 if it had a well-integrated third-party media and email software bundle, or do you prefer to create your own "best of breed" combination? Do you have a horror story of third-party apps and Windows butting heads? Tell them now before Windows 7 does away with them. Click Comment and tell us now.

Windows 7 logo courtesy of ArsTechnica.

Bye, Bye Betas - Windows Live Suite Goes Live!

Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:13:03 -0600

Tuesday, Microsoft took the wraps off production versions of its Windows Live Suite collection of software and services for Windows Vista and XP users, available since September in a public beta. So, what's new, and who's still waiting for Windows Live to come to their desktops?

New Ways to Connect with Windows Live

Windows Live offers four ways to connect:

Hotmail now features 5GB of storage, more customizable design (or you can stick with 'classic' Hotmail for now), integrated virus scanning and cleaning, easier junk mail handling, and Outlook-style previewing and drag-and-drop message organization.
- Get inside the heads of Hotmail's development team at the Mailcall blog on Windows Live Spaces.
Windows Live Mail supports multiple email accounts including Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo premium, and others, integrated spam and virus filtering, access to Windows Live Spaces blogs and easy access to Windows Live Messenger IM from your inbox, for those times that email just isn't fast enough. Use it as the desktop interface for your favorite web-based and POP email services.
- Dig into the thinking behind Windows Live Mail at the More Than Mail blog on Windows Live Spaces.
Windows Live Messenger supports text, voice, and video, works with Windows Live Contacts, and includes drag and drop file sharing.
- Get the inside story on what's new in Windows Live Messenger from the Messenger Says blog on Windows Live Spaces.
Windows Live Toolbar adds Live Search to IE 6 or above, customizations with Windows Live Gallery, smart menus (highlight text to see them), instant maps, and easy addition of RSS feeds to your Live.com home page.
- Find out how the Live Search team is working to figure out what your searches mean at the Live Search blog at MSDN.com
To learn about new sharing and family protection features in Windows Live Suite, and who's still waiting to try Windows Live Suite, read on.

Sharing with Windows Live

Windows Live offers four ways to share your life with friends, family, and even total strangers:

Windows Live Photo Gallery builds on the Windows Photo Gallery feature in Windows Vista with new editing features, support for downloading high-res photo albums from Windows Live Spaces, and easy publishing to Flickr and other online services.
- Learn tips and tricks from the project team at the Microsoft Photography & Video Blog.
Windows Live Spaces joins the "Web 2.0" social-networking craze, and includes support for updating your page via email with mobile devices, picture sharing, print ordering from Snapfish, and privacy controls so you decide which photo albums everyone can see, and which albums are for your friends or family only.
- Get the inside story on what makes Live Spaces tick from the development team at The Space Craft blog.
Windows Live Writer (which we tried, and liked, in beta) makes it easy to blog with support for major third-party blog services as well as Windows Live Spaces, support for photo, video, and map content, and offline composing.
- Learn more about the people behind Live Writer and how it works at the Writer Zone blog.
Windows Live Events provides web-based event planning, from invitation design and contact list management to sharing photos after the event. It works seamlessly with Hotmail, Spaces, and Messenger. The Space Craft blog also covers Live Events tips and tricks.

Protection for Your Family from Windows Live OneCare

The last piece of the current Windows Live Collection is the Family Safety package. It provides contact fitering, contact management, filtered searching, activity reports, and remote control of account access.

Pick up family protection tips at the Family Safety blog.

Install One, All, or Some - It's Up to You

Go straight to the Windows Live Services installation page and select the products you want to try. The final versions, like the betas, are free for the downloading.

x64 User? Vista In, XP Out

The good news is that virtually all Windows Live desktop components (except for Windows Live OneCare Family Safety) run on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. Unfortunately, if you're running the x64 version of Windows XP Professional, you're still out of luck.

Windows Live Adds Photo Editing, Blogging Tools and More

Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:40:23 -0500

If you've had a hard time figuring out what Microsoft means by "Windows Live," you're in good company. Microsoft has used the Live moniker for both web-based services such as Windows Live Search, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live Hotmail and for desktop applications that also include a web component, like Windows Live One Care. On Wednesday, Microsoft launched a beta version of its new Windows Live Suite, which includes features to help you connect with other users, find information online, customize your online experience, join a social network, back up data online, edit and share photos and videos, create a content-rich blog, and protect your family from the seamy side of the Internet. The Windows Live Suite works with both Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista.

I tried beta versions of Windows Live Photo Gallery and Live Writer for this article, but other components include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Family Safety, and Windows Live SkyDrive.

Live Photo Gallery - Better Editing, Easier Sharing

I decided to give the "new" Photo Gallery feature a try. It's an enhanced feature of the Photo Gallery feature in Windows Vista, so what's new? The Fix command now features a real-time histogram with Shadow and Highlights sliders. Although it lacks a specific adjustment for midtones (included in the three-slider Levels commands in Adobe Photoshop/Photoshop Elements), the Shadow and Highlight sliders and the ability to adjust the black and white points on the histogram itself make it easier than ever to intelligently fix problem photos.

Before

After

The Fix command also includes an Adjust Detail (sharpening) tool. Photo Gallery is now web-enabled, too, with an option to publish photos to Windows Live Spaces or MSN Soapbox. Photo Gallery also feature better integration with Windows Movie Maker.

Live Writer - Blog On Your Own Terms

Windows Live Writer supports Microsoft's own Windows Live Spaces and SharePoint blogs, but you can also configure it to work with other blogging services like WordPress, Blogger, and so on. Enter the blog's URL, your username and password, and Live Writer analyzes your blog and configures itself. Live Writer lives up to its promise of a rich blogging experience, providing automatic uploading of pictures from your system, insertion of maps from Microsoft Live Earth service, tags from Technorati, 43 Things, and other tag services, and video insertion. Publishing your entries is one-click simple, and you can also manage your blog with Live Writer.

Windows Live Suite is beta software, so you might not want to run it on a mission-critical system, but the features I tried suggest that when Windows Live Suite's components reach production status, Microsoft may have a winner on its hands.