Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software is to some degree an industry standard, and its presence on both Windows and OS X allows for a decent level of cross-platform compatibility that new Mac users might gravitate toward; however, there are other options besides Office that might perform as well as if not better than PowerPoint, which you might wish to consider.

As I mentioned in a previous post on Apple's alternative to Excel called Numbers, there are a few Office programs out there that have good offerings and which can import and export PowerPoint file formats. These include the free OpenOffice and NeoOffice suites, but one that has gained a fair amount of popularity since its release is Apple's own Keynote software, which Steve Jobs used in part to give his memorable presentations at conventions and meetings.

Since its release in 2003, Keynote's intuitive approach for organizing contents on slides; its rich library of templates, unique animations, and transitions using core OS X technologies; and ability to interface with Apple's iOS devices have made it an attractive option to a number of people and helped it gain a footing in some communities.

While setting up a new slide and adjustin... [Read more]

VLC (download), everyone's favorite Swiss-Army-like media player for Mac, is about to make the jump to version 2.0, and oh what a big jump it appears to be.

Apparently being rewritten from the ground up, the new and improved application is set to offer features like native full-screen mode in Mac OS X Lion and experimental Blu-ray playback support. It's also worth noting that the change log mentioned porting to Android and iOS platforms to be in the works as well.

And of course, expect some dramatic (and long overdue) changes to VLC's interface. Playlist and video output are merged into one window, with various audio and video filters accessible through different adjustment panels. Also, users now get the choice of switching between the standard gray or new predominantly black skins.

Finally, 2.0 has also added support for VLC's lua-based extensions, which allow users further interactive options like fetching movie information or subtitles, or even posting to Twitter.

According to Felix Kühne, one of the developers on the project, the officia... [Read more]

Photoshop CS6 will get the ability to endow lines with vector styling such as dashes.

Photoshop CS6 will get a feature designers have long sought, "the ability to easily add a dashed and/or dotted line," according to Photoshop product manager Zorana Gee.

Gee revealed the feature in a short preview of coming Photoshop CS6 attractions posted to YouTube Friday. Two earlier previews revealed new graphics-chip boost for the liquify filter, a darker user interface, a background save option, and new raw-image processing controls.

The feature for dashed and dotted lines lets people change the line style with a single click, Adobe said. In addition, gradient fills and other color effects can be applied. Although Adobe didn't promise the features for CS6, the new version is due in the first half of 2012 and Adobe has with earlier versions teased about upcoming features to drum up interest.

The line changes are part of "vector improvements" for Photoshop. Vector graphics are mathematical constructs that can be resized or otherwise altered without loss of quality; in comparison, Pho... [Read more]

Setting a lock code on your smartphone is highly recommended to protect your personal information, but sometimes a lock code can be a bit inconvenient.

What if you could do away with the device lock code, instead locking only the apps you want to keep private? An Android app named App Lock let's you do just that. That's not to say you can't use App Lock in addition to the lock code on your device, adding an extra level of security to your information.

App Lock, free in the Android Market, allows you to set a lock code or pattern on an app-by-app basis, preventing unwanted access to any app you deem private.

Setting up and using App Lock is a breeze.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)
• After installing and opening the app for the first time, you'll be asked to set a lock code. After setting a lock code, you will have to set a security question.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)
• After setting up a required security clearance, you can set up the apps that will require a lock code. Toggling the switch next to the respective app will enable the code requirement for that app.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)
• Before exiting the app, there is one important option you will want to turn on. Tap on the System Lock tab... [Read more]

If you grumble to yourself whenever you see an "E-mail me" link because you'd rather use Gmail (or Hotmail or some other Webmail service) than whatever your browser thinks you should use, you're in luck.

There's an easy way to get Chrome to fire up Webmail whenever you click a "mail-to:" link.

1. Install the Mailto: extension.
2. Once it's installed, the Options window should pop right up. You can select a Webmail service, add your own URL, or have the extension ask you what you want to do each time.

Step 2: Mailto: options.

3. When you've made your choice, close the window.
4. You may need to restart your browser, but it worked for me right away.
5. Now when you click on an e-mail link, Chrome should open a new message composition tab (or a pop-up selection window if you instructed it to ask you which service to use).
6. If you want to change your mail-to: options, you'll need to open up the Options page and select it from the Extensions tab.

That's it! I tested it with Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail, and it worked great for me.

The Metro interface in an early build of Windows 8 that was shown to developers in September 2011.

Mozilla plans to release a concept version of Firefox for Windows 8's new Metro interface in the second quarter with alpha and beta versions to follow in the second half of 2012.

Mozilla announced the Firefox for Metro project in conjunction with its 2012 strategy documentation deluge.

Metro is a new user interface that replaces the Windows start button and menu with a grid of tiles. Those tiles launch software, but when they're on people's home screens they also can display anything from photos to message notifications. Deeper down, Metro comes with an entirely new set of programming interfaces called WinRT that mark a big departure from the last several years of software development on Windows.

"The feature goal here is a new Gecko-based browser built for and integrated with the Metro environment," Mozilla's planning document said, referring to the Firefox browser engine. "Firefox on Metro, like all other Metro apps will be full scree... [Read more]

A look at Google's new YouTube app for Google TV.

Google has delivered a small update for its Google TV YouTube app.

The company yesterday announced that the update, which is available in the Android Market, is designed to surface the videos people are most interested in. To accomplish that goal, the app includes new channel pages, featuring playlists and videos users can subscribe to. In addition, the application now includes a related videos list and the option to see all the clips uploaded by individual users.

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The most important addition to Google TV's YouTube app is a feature called Discover. After booting up Discover, users can sift through channels with different topics, including comedy, gaming, and news.

But Google's YouTube announcement might just be the tip of the iceberg. Over the weekend, the... [Read more]

The people's enemy, in Mozilla's eyes, is an ecosystem of devices, operating systems, app stores, services, and apps.

Mozilla is best known as the developer of Firefox, but it's reaching well beyond the browser with a 2012 strategy that strives to use the open Web to counteract ecosystem lock-in.

Firefox embodied Mozilla's effort to counter the damage that Microsoft's browser dominance caused on the Web. But now, as revealed in Mozilla 2012 plans published Sunday, the non-profit organization is putting the crosshairs on other big competitors, too: Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Those companies, along with Microsoft, each are building an ecosystem encompassing devices, operating systems, app stores, and apps. People should be worried about getting locked into any of those ecosystems, Mozilla believes.

Some recent non-Firefox projects at Mozilla have come across as dalliances, but the organization is beginning to sound now like it's found a new cause worth fighting for.

"Mozilla believes that the Web is the platform and the entire Web should be your marketplace," one of the 2012 planning documents said.

The 2012 Mozilla road map documents detail plans to improve the Web as a foundation for applications, to create open, decentralized Web-app technology, and to build Mozilla's own app store. That ec... [Read more]