It was one of the most sought after applications on the Internet until it was leaked earlier today. And now that it’s out there—and it is all over the place, easily findable by anyone able to use a search engine—we can all move on with our lives. Yes, Microsoft COFEE, the law enforcement tool that mystified so many of us (including Gizmodo~! and Ars Technica~!), is now available to download. If only there were a “bay” of some sort where, I don’t know, pirates hang out…

I’m not mentioning any names, nor will there be any screenshots, but the resourceful among you will be able to find the application. Not that it’ll do you any good, since this is how Microsoft describes COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor:

With COFEE, law enforcement agencies without on-the-scene computer forensics capabilities can now more easily, reliably, and cost-effectively collect volatile live evidence. An officer with even minimal computer experience can be tutored—in less than 10 minutes—to use a pre-configured COFEE device. This enables the officer to take advantage of the same common digital forensics tools used by experts to gather important volatile evidence, while doing little more than simply inserting a USB device into the computer.

To reiterate: you have absolutely no use for the program. It’s not something like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, an expensive application that you download for the hell of it on the off-chance you need to put Dave Meltzer’s face on Brett Hart’s body as part of a message board thread. No, COFEE is 100 percent useless to you.

Given that, what makes COFEE so mysterious, so special? The sole reason is because it’s never been available before (unless, of course, you’re a law enforcement official). People get a thrill by having something they’re not meant to have, and that effect is magnified online where you have chat rooms and message boards filled with people who get all excited over the idea of having some super-secret piece of software that was never meant to reside on their hard drive.

So that’s that then; Microsoft COFEE is out there. It’s not too big, either, at around 15MB. I’ve kept this post as cryptic as possible primarily to work y’all, and to put over COFEE as the most amazing thing to have never been leaked onto the Internet… until now~!

Flickr

Years ago, when Microsoft started pushing Internet Explorer, it enjoyed favorable adoption rates because, well, it’s already on there, so why not use it? (Law-breaking aside, of course!) That may be what Microsoft is thinking this time around with Office 2010. Redmond will allow OEMs to install Office Starter 2010 on brand new Windows 7 PCs. It will be a pared down version of Office, and one that will be ad-supported. That, of course, has caused the Internet to freak out.

Microsoft is doing this to get people hooked, I guess, on the real version of Office, and to prevent people from using free, online alternatives like Google Docs. The theory is, if you give people a taste of Office, and let them use it without too many restrictions, then why would they go out of their way to find an alternative? Not everyone wants to replace their Windows shell with some fancy thingamajig.

So you’ll have this ad-supported version of Office, which doesn’t include Power Point or Outlook, but then PC vendors will be able to sell license cards at retail, sorta like how you can buy Microsoft Points at Best Buy or Wal-Mart. You buy the card, then use the printed serial number to “upgrade” the starter edition to the Real Deal.

That’s the thing: even though you’re limited in what you can do with the ad-supported version of Office, it’s 100 percent the full software suite residing on your hard drive. That mean cracks will be available within 15 seconds of the first ISO leaking from the manufacturing facilities.

What this means for Microsoft’s online version of Office, which was also supposed to be a sort of introductory version of Office, is totally unknown.

And yet I wonder how many people out there in Radio Land are still running Word 97—Word is the one application that pretty much everyone can use; not everyone needs Outlook or Power Point, you know—because it works just fine?

There are various “filing cabinets” for categories of stuff, such as auto, computer, electronics, tools, as well as any custom categories you want to make. You can make a record of each item, where you bought it, how much it cost, even warranty information. You also have the option of adding PDFs of the receipt, owner’s manual, or anything else you might need to know. Even pictures to make it easier to find devices. There are also multiple locations you can assign things too, meaning you can keep stuff from work, home, and your underground lair all separate.
MyStuff is currently on version 1.0, and is only available for Mac OS 10.5 and up. $29 to download immediately.

A few weeks ago, Jay-Z released the song “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” much to the delight of some corners of the Internet. It’s basically a song that rails against the proliferation of Auto-Tune, software that can alter/correct the pitch of someone’s voice. Its most notorious use is to make the singer sound like a robot, thus hiding their inability to sing at all. It’s huge in hip-hop, for whatever reason.

And while you’d think Jay-Z’s song would be bad for business, well, it’s just not. The company that produces the software, Antares Audio Technologies, wouldn’t get into hard numbers, but acknowledged that it has seen a “boost in business” in the weeks after the song’s release.

Here’s my problem: the song is produced by Kanye West, who, let’s face it, has ridden Auto-Tune for all it was worth. (Have you heard “Love Lockdown”? It’s Auto-Tuned to the nines.) It’d be like Barry Bonds railing against the evil of steroids.

Yet here’s Jay-Z self-righteously proclaiming the “death” of something that’s already lined to pockets of so many of his partners. How convenient.

And to quote someone from What.cd, “[Death of Auto-Tune,] And apparently the re-birth of cheesy guitar riffs?”

In conclusion: Jay-Z, rubbish hypocrite. (Nas was always better, by the way.)

Friends, you cannot go anywhere on the Internet without running into the OEM version of Windows 7. This is the same version of the operating system that’ll be loaded onto your Dells, your HPs, your Lenovos, etc.

I mention this why? Not to tell you where to get it, obviously, but merely to marvel at the speeds of The Scene. (Though some Scene releases are timelier than others!) We’re looking at the biggest software launch of the year—yes, bigger than Snow Leopard’s—leaked to the Internets, then distributed with such efficiency that you ask yourself why can’t members The Scene apply their obvious talents for good instead of evil.

Anyhow, I spy the release circulating at “Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Original MS ISO x64-GRP ” and “Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Original MS ISO x86-GRP.” The x64 version is a little bigger than the x86 version—3.00GB versus 2.33GB. (So don’t go downloading “Windows 7 REAL CONFIRMED WORKING” when it weight in at 100KB. That would be computer suicide.)

I won’t be downloading because, well, that would be illegal—wink—but also because I’m fine with Mac OS X on my laptop, and, increasingly, Linux Mint on my old iMac.

That is all. (Also, pray for Felipe Massa. He’s hurtin’ right now.)

So it looks like the hot, new trend is to buy the name of old peer-to-peer applications, then “resurrect” said application. Such is the case with Kazaa, which was the biggest P2P application in the post-Napster extravaganza of the early 2000s. Anyhow, someone out there plans to bring Kazaa back—legally, of course.

Altnet, whose parent company is Brilliant Digital Entertainment, is bringing Kazaa back with unlimited downloads for $20 a month. The “new” Kazaa will launch with more than one million songs.

Who cares, right? Kazaa was hot for a little while, then you had to jump through hoops (Kazaa Lite or Kazaa Plus or whatever) just to use it without infecting your PC with untold amounts of garbage. Kazaa basically ran its good name into the ground after a while there.

So let’s bring it back! If I had millions of dollars of funding, I sure as heck wouldn’t waste it on dead-for-a-reason P2P application in the hopes of tricking people who were in their teens when Kazaa was big, and who now have credit cards to be able to buy the latest Fabolous album. It just seems like a misguided money-grab to me.

Attention, sons of Adam! VLC 1.0 has been released!

The fact of the matter is, I’ve always found mplayer to be the superior movie player, whether I was compiling my own copy back in high school, or using this Mac port; I don’t understand why VLC is so popular. Maybe someone out there can explain it to me?

That said, I look forward to trying it out.

Well this ought to be of some use to our Chinese readers. And by that I mean people who are actually in China who visit, for whatever reason, crunch gear dot com. There’s some sort of software called Green Dam that will be required on all Chinese PCs soon that blocks all sorts of fun content from being downloaded and/or viewed. Salty political talk? Banned. Pornography? Banned. (Well that’s 90 percent of the Internet right there, silly political arguments (NOBAMA, REVERSE RACISM, etc.) and porn.) Tips on how to grow marijuana? Banned. Violent video games? Banned. Fun all around!

Now, what’s the issue today? Well, it seems that the software that will filter all that unwanted content, Green Dam, is a terribly coded piece of garbage. In fact, it’s so bad that someone could, if he were so inclined, code it so that any PC running Green Dam can be remotely taken over, thrown into a giant botnet. And even if only a fraction of China’s population uses a PC, that’s still an awful lot of potential zombie PCs gunking up the Internet.

What to do about this? Well, ideally you wouldn’t install Green Damn, thus eliminating the potential for future problems. Other than that? Just be really careful when you use the Internet.

Or, better yet, don’t even bother going online. It’s mostly rubbish. I know: I produce a lot of it on a daily basis.

“Oh, FFS!” That’s what the likes of Norton and Symantec can be heard saying today with the news that Microsoft plans to release free anti-virus software, code-named Morro. (That’s the name of a beach in São Paulo, and is pronounced “MO hoo. Tell your friends.) A beta is expected “soon,” but Microsoft hasn’t said when the final version will be available.

Morro is being described as a stripped-down version of Live OneCare, the company’s rubbish commercial anti-virus application it released a few years ago.

Will Morro be as feature rich as something from Norton and Symantec? Maybe not, no, but for the Average Joe out there, for someone who might not even bother with an anti-virus as it is, it might be perfect.

Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off.

So, you’d be paying $14.50 for Transmit, $49.50 for Coda, $14.50 for Candy Bar, and $12 for Unison.

I used Transmist a lot in the days of Xbox1, when I would transfer files between my iMac and Xbox1—it was good.

And Unison, as I’ve said in the past, is a fine Usenet newsreader. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth—it doesn’t show the total download speed in the dock icon, for example—but it’s still pretty great. Hopefully Panic will invest some of this new money into updating its slew of applications, because, really, the ones I’ve used are pretty terrific.

Here’s a random software recommendation for your Friday afternoon enjoyment. It’s Vox, it’s for Mac OS X, and it’s a lightweight audio player. No, it’s not going to replace iTunes on your system—there’s no library feature, for one thing—but it’ll play some of the more obscure formats out there.

Right now (and for a few months now, going back to when it was called Tool Player), I use Vox to play those high-resolution FLAC files that I, uh, find on the Internet, as well as Ogg Vorbis files that have been popping up on a certain Sirius XM-related Usenet group of late.

Yes, you could use VLC to play these same files, but I have never been a fan of VLC (Or maybe it’s just that VLC for Mac is sorta icky?); I’m more an mplayer man when it comes to indie-cool multimedia players. Then, of course, I use Plex when I’m watching movies on the big screen.

I don’t know, I like it, and maybe you will too. Or not! Totally your call. But if you’ve ever searched for “how to play flac on mac os x” then Vox will do the job just fine.

It’s a Windows application that senses the proximity of your cell phone to your computer via Bluetooth, assuming your cell phone’s in your pocket most of the time. When you walk away from your computer, it automatically logs you out. When you come back, you’re logged back in. Simps, dude.

Free to download at PhoenixFreeze.com if you’re interested. Here’s a demo video:

[via Notebooks.com]

The Definition of Drums

BATTERY 3 is the professional standard for drums and percussion. The latest version of the acclaimed drum sampler fuses an extensive library with functionality and simplicity. A powerful new engine and a host of sound shaping options deliver tight, punchy drums while the user-friendly interface guarantees instant access and complete control. Whether electronic or acoustic, BATTERY 3 will have your drums rolling in no time.

Drummer’s Delight

BATTERY 3 is armed with an extensive sample library. Over 100 professional kits cover an incredibly broad spectrum of musical styles. From authentic acoustic kits to contemporary electronic collections and ethnic percussion from all over the globe, every genre is represented. Compatibility with most standard sample formats allows seamless integration of virtually any third party libraries. BATTERY 3 is the definition of drums.

Adaptive Interface

At the heart of BATTERY 3 lies the cell matrix, bigger and more versatile than ever before. With up to 128 sample cells, it is now fully customizable – define the number of cells, rows and columns to fit your exact needs. Color-code or select multiple cells for quick and easy management. Step through all your drums of a particular type

Precision Performance

BATTERY 3 offers a wide range of sound shaping features, both for individual cells and on a global level. Adjustable articulations, such as flam, humanize and roll, add a natural feel to your rhythms. The time stretching feature allows samples to be sculpted and loops to be adjusted to the correct tempo. BATTERY 3 infuses all your percussive elements with an unmistakeable flavour.

Features

* Comprehensive and powerful drum sampler based on a next generation sample engine
* New 12 GB sample library: over 100 drum kits with over 23,000 individual samples and over 2,600 categorized drum cells covering all musical styles
* Improved workflow and usability, fast and intuitive access to all parameters. 8 step-by-step video tutorials included
* Fully customizable cell matrix: freely definable rows and columns with up to a total of 128 sample cells
* Improved cell effects and a new master effects section
* Performance articulations: roll, flam, buzz, right hand, etc.
* Beat synchronisation with loop import for Apple Loops™, REX™, Acid Wave™ and Beat Creator™
* Time stretching feature per cell for creative sample manipulation
* Graphical waveform now allows samples to be edited on-the-fly
* Sample Purge keeps RAM load to a minimum

The Register pooh-poohs the notion of open source advocates contacting President Obama, calling it “toothless”.

If open source is going to make any real headway in the government, there needs to be an incentive to choose it, not a rule. Time and again, this is where the open source community falls short: Quality code isn’t enough of an incentive. You can put the best engineering in the world into your product, but if you don’t know how to market, your project will rot in the source repository.

So wait a tick — these open source advocates are doing exactly that: marketing their products, and yet they’re still doing it wrong? The U.S. Federal Government is an insanely complicated beast, so it’s unlikely that open source software alone can fix all that’s wrong with the government. But then, I didn’t get the impression from the letter that that was what was being advocated. I got the impression that open source should be considered in general, as part of a comprehensive decision making process. In those instances where open source software makes sense, its use should be strongly considered.

A couple choice quotes from the original letter, for your consideration:

Open-source software brings transparency to software development. There are no “black boxes” in open-source software and therefore no need to guess what is going on “behind the scenes.” Ultimately, this means a better product for everyone, because there is visibility at every level of the application, from the user interface to the data implementation. Furthermore, open-source software provides for platform independence, which makes quick deployments that benefit our citizens much easier and realistic.

A lot of people have expressed dissatisfaction with the closed-source, black-box electronic voting machines being rolled out across the country by Diebold, Sequoia, and others. Here’s one area where a critical evaluation of open source solutions against the status quo might make a demonstrable improvement. I’m not saying that we should blindly deploy open source electronic voting solutions — we shouldn’t blindly deploy anything — but government would do well to serve its citizens by evaluating the alternatives.

We want to encourage you to find ways for states and agencies to collaborate together on solutions that ultimately are better than the sum of all the individual efforts combined and at much lower cost to each participant. Open-source software encourages this type of collaboration by making the results of previous successful efforts available to others with similar goals and needs.

That’s a pretty good idea, no? How many systems throughout the government can’t speak to one another because they were designed behind closed doors by different companies? Again, a full-scale switch to open source software isn’t going to be a cure-all for complexity, incompatibilities, and conflicting requirements; but surely there must be at least some systems used by the government that would benefit from a transition to open source software. As the need arises to replace those systems, why not consider open source software?

I frankly don’t expect President Obama to give a damn about open source software in particular, but hopefully he passes the letter off to the appropriate people within his administration who will care, and be in a position to consider the merits of the suggestion.

When we heard about iLife ‘09 last month, Apple touted the Faces and Places features of the iPhone and image stabilization and precise editing in iMovie. How much does all of this pleasure cost? $79 or nothing if you get it with a new Mac. But is it worth the upgrade?

First, an important point for those unfamiliar with iLife: iLife is basically Apple’s answer to the bundled software you get with your computer. Whereas windows offers Paint, photo managers, and Movie Maker, iLife has always been, in my mind, the superior offering. On the whole I’m a big fan. It offers music, video, and photo editing and organizing software and comes free with Macs. Instead of reviewing the package as a new product, I am only highlighting the changes. If you don’t use a Mac and have never tried it, have a friend show you. It’s great.

The most prominent additions are Faces and Places. Places uses embedded GPS data to place your photos on a map and you can use this information to make map-based video travelogues. Although this is great for iPhone shots – the iPhone embeds GPS coordinates in every photo it takes – it’s not so great for owners of non-GPS enabled cameras. While there are plenty of folks out there who use and need GPS information in their photos, those folks probably aren’t using iPhoto. It’s a nice to have but not a real draw.

Faces, on the other hand, is quite interesting. If there’s one thing iLife generally does, it gives you new ways of managing your media. iPhoto is primarily an organizational tool and Faces is a unique method for organizing lots of photos very quickly.

It took about an hour to scan my MacBook’s photo library of 2,195 and once it did it took another half hour to train the software to recognize the faces it couldn’t quite make out. Once it got going, however, it was able to find almost everyone automatically. When it can’t figure out who someone is it places it under the list of “identified” photos and asks you to accept or reject it by hand. The process is a bit time consuming but if you do it once you don’t have to do it again.

Even on my limited laptop library – I haven’t let this thing loose on my bigger desktop library – the service offers an interesting new method for image discovery. For example, we’re always trying to find pictures of the kids we might have missed to print out or email to the grandparents. By being able to search for Kasper or Milla, they’re basically right there. Faces isn’t a gimmick. It’s an organizational tool.

Facebook and Flickr uploading are essentially Apple’s way of saying “We know you don’t care about MobileMe. Sorry.” Enough about that.

On to iMovie. Image stabilization is the most important new improvement and if you asked Devin he’d tell you it’s horrible. However, if you have the DTs like me or you hand the camera over to your hyperactive cousin for a minute while you sneeze you’ll be glad you can slow down the shakes and quakes.

Sadly, the new version is still missing slow motion and audio editing is still sub par. They sadly dumbed the product down in 2008 and never really brought back any of the most important features.

Mea culpa. I found slow motion, PIP, and greenscreen features but you have to turn on “Advanced Features” in preferences. Pretty sneaky.

Garage Band, interestingly enough, has been improved by the dumbing down it received this release. For example, there is a Songwriting mode that gives you four tracks off the bat along with a basic drum track. Rather than offering a blank screen, Garage Band now understands that most music creation software is actually quite intimidating.

The new Lessons feature is cool as well. The product shows a video and then displays the chords played on a virtual guitar or piano. It even has a guitar tuner built in. I can only imagine how many budding musicians will be born thanks to this feature.

iDVD has a new travelogue feature. Big whoop.

In short, iLife 09 is a semi-solid upgrade but probably not worth $79 if you’re not overly excited about Faces or Lessons. Folks who buy new Macs from now on will be very pleased with the new features but for folks who are not impressed by some cosmetic changes and a few feature additions, you might be able to sit this one out.

The Business Software Alliance which represents many of the big names in commercial software — Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, and many more — has for years been coercing companies into submitting to voluntary software audits, in the hopes that software piracy might be discovered and prosecuted. They’ve also been pushing their “Know It, Report It, Reward It” program to get people to inform them of software piracy. Reward payouts in 2008 totaled $136,100. The payouts from 2008 amount to almost 6 times those from 2007, where a meager $23,000 was handed out to snitches.

Some speculate that as economic hard times continue, businesses will skimp on their IT spending, and instead use inappropriately acquired software. Or maybe folks could just hold off buying Adobe Creative Suite 4 if their current copies of Creative Suite 3 are still getting the job done?

I don’t condone software piracy, but I also don’t condone being a snitch. Maybe instead of ratting out your employer for a quick buck, you could help your employer investigate whether any Free Software would be good enough to get the job done, at least until such time as legitimate copies of the necessary applications could be licensed. Then your boss will see you’re a team player, and then you’re on your way to corporate success! And it’s that kind of Can Do! attitude — not that of the lazy snitch — on which this country was built!

Via L.A. Times

So how’s that Windows 7 beta treating you? Even if you’ve had issues—and we know that some of you have—you should know that Microsoft is trying to make this whole experience work as smoothly as possible.

Gone is the 2.5 million-download limit. Since the beta has proven to be so popular, Microsoft has decided that, for the next two weeks, if you download the beta you’ll get a key. (No having to resort to BitTorrent, then.) This “offer,” if you can call it that, goes through January 24.

Good to see Microsoft trying to make good here.

Looks like Microsoft didn’t anticipate the demand for its Windows 7 beta, as many of you are no doubt aware. As such, Microsoft is busy adding hardware to its fledgling online operation and will re-open beta downloads when it’s got everything all set up.

So until then, don’t keep trying to download the ISO; Microsoft will have brand new, shiny links for y’all once it figures out what it’s doing. You know, the Internet is hard and all.