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I guess it was inevitable. To survive you need money. And all these
months, Ultrafunk seemed to be subsisting on revenues from their
audio-processing software plugins for Sonic Foundry's SoundForge. But
these were sold in August 2003 to Cakewalk, another sound-processing
software developer who just happens to be a competitor to Sonic Foundry.
So with lots of idle minds and time, the Ultrafunk crew decided that
Popcorn needed improving. And in a space of 2 months, I have seen over 5
builds.
The last free build was Popcorn 1.50. Unfortunately, the company's
website follows a slash 'n burn policy, with newer builds over-writing
older ones. You can only download the latest version -- 1.51 -- which
just happens to have become $20 shareware. Vastly over-priced for the
feature set. And like JV16 Power Tools, another great application is
soon going to bite the dust. But if you are adventurous, use the free
service to search for "popcorn" and you might get lucky enough to find
an older free build.
The difference between the free and registered versions, is the former
only allows you to access a single mail account. And if you upgrade from
a previous version, you will only be able to access the first account.
There aren't any hacks or cracks available (as yet). So my advice is for
a few rather minor tweaks that I'm sure most of us can live without,
retain your older Popcorn version.
Or upgrade to the still-free competition. nPOP (84 kB, free) is a
similar
target="_blank">freeware that's available in separate downloads for
Windows 9x/ME/NT4/2000/XP, Windows Pocket PC, and Windows CE in English,
French and Japanese! This application has a clunkier interface caused in
part by its Japanese origins that seem to have been literally translated
into English.
Although in nPOP you can't drag column headers around to customize your
look. The check mail feature offer more user control. You can download
just the mail header, or the mail body as well (Popcorn only downloads
the header). And like Popcorn, nPOP too is unable to render HTML so you
should be safe from mail-borne malicious scripts. And although you can't
view attachments, you can view the complete message (MIME) source. Or
delete a file attachment; which is pretty neat. I've decided to switch
today. What about you?
Opera 7.20 is finally done with No more betas. It's
Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. In both non-Java and with-Java versions.
Al;though based on my previous experience, its best to download the Sun
JVM (Java Virtual Machine) separately. The latest
JVM build is 1.4.1_02. And in an effort to "push" Java, Sun is
target="_blank">offering games, utilities and more.
OK, no more delays. The free CD writing software whose praises I've been
singing for several weeks now, is called CD
Burner XP Pro 2.0.9.3 Beta 9.3 (8.8 MB, Windows 98SE/ME/Win2k/XP, free)
and is available
target="_blank">with, and
target="_blank">without Window Media Audio (WMA) support. To
activate the latter there is a separate
target="_blank">add-in to download.
This software does almost everything Nero does including audio CD
ripping, normalizing WAV files, converting WAV to MP3, erasing
re-writable disks, mixed mode (audio & video) CDs and the earlier
version (1.1.x) can save ISO image files. The software also supports
Burn-Proof, a technology to limit buffer underrun, track write errors
and other incomplete writes. As well as multi-session disks and import
(and conversion) of ISO images to disk. Almost all CD?DVD writing
hardware is supported with a complete list
target="_blank">here. Stay tuned for the full hands-on review.
Disclaimer: These views are of Govind Menon's. CIOL does not necessarily subscribe to the same