Any Video Converter is an all-in-one video converting freeware with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed, and excellent video quality. It can convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, RM, RMVB, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, and AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player, or Smartphones. 
Taking a slightly different approach to solving the multimedia lover's dilemma of how best to download torrents is BitComet, which uses an interface heavily cribbed from Windows Explorer--with a dose or two from the basic BitTorrent template--to create something instantly recognizable to the user.
There's a familiar tree of features on the left, including links to torrent-aggregating Web sites and several promotional offers. The top of the app has big buttons with familiar icons, the center window shows the files being downloaded, and the bottom pane has tracker and peer info. The pane on the right rounds out the layout, with a torrent search feature and advertising. Among the usual features, BitComet offers chat capabilities, the ability to bookmark your favorite sites, a toolbar for Internet Explorer 7, and a context menu for Firefox 2.
While the app held its own against better-known competitors in terms of speed and handling multiple torrents, we found the ubiquitous advertisements to be annoying compared to the competition's ad-free environs. Overall, we think BitComet is worth trying and could become a major torrent app in the future. 
The player runs smoother than ever, which to some might not be saying much, but if you haven't used it in years, the differences are dramatic. Now the free version of the player has the ability to download videos from the Internet, including Flash-based videos like those on YouTube. Once installed, mousing over an embedded video will provide a pop-up that not only lets you download the vid, but also change its name, the save-to directory, and other options.
The update sees a major face-lift, as well, removing much of the clutter from the downloadable music store. Though not groundbreaking, the RealPlayer music store gets a thumbs up for being easy to use and offering a flexible DRM policy. The new jukebox features let you make playlists, rip CDs, burn custom mixes, and listen to hundreds of online radio stations. The program still suffers from an intrusive installation, but file-type hijacking and upgrade harassment are mostly gone.
The positive steps begun with Version 10 continue, and users of earlier versions should upgrade.
However, the release of the software will be limited. Attendees of this week's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, as well as the recent TechEd show, will gain access to the desktop versions of Office 2010. Microsoft has also been taking sign-ups via its Office 2010: The Movie teaser Web site.
Also, it won't show off the program's bigges
t change--the addition of browser-based v
ersions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote.
Those so-called Office Web Applications are being demonstrated on Monday, but the technical preview of the Web apps won't come until later this year. For consumers, Microsoft plans to make the browser-based versions a free part of Windows Live next year, but hasn't decided whether they will include advertising.
The applications, which run in Safari,
Firefox, and Internet Explorer, are aimed at both expanding the number of Office users within businesses as well as holding the ground threatened by Google Docs and other Web-based productivity programs.
On the desktop side, Microsoft plans a broader beta of the software later this year, with a final release in the first half of 2010.
Much of what is in the technical preview of Office 2010 is not a shocker, given that a test version of the software leaked onto the Web earlier this year, although Microsoft is offering further details on what's in the product as well as how it plans to sell the new software.
In its last update to Office--Office 2007--Microsoft introduced entirely new XML file formats and a major shift in its interface to use a "ribbon" that shifts commands based on what the user is doing. Office 2010 is a set of less jarring changes, with Microsoft saying the goal was to make the basics better.
Office 2010 sticks with the ribbon motif, expanding it to include many of the Office components that didn't get the interface the las
t time around. Office 2010 will also come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions--a first for Office.
Word gets a collection of cool image effe
cts that stem from the DaVinci Imaging Engine that was part of Microsoft's now-discontinued Digital Image Suite product. Word, as well as the other programs, gets a new "paste preview" tool that lets users hover over different paste options and see what their paste will look like before accepting that selection.
Excel gets a ne
w feature called Sparklines, which are tiny graphs that can fit in a single cell of a spreadsheet. PowerPoint picks up video
editing features as well as the ability to create a video of one's presentation, including voice annotations.
The Outlook e-mail and calendar program adds a conversation view feature, a la Gmail. Microsoft's feature goes further though, offering an "ignore thread" option which keeps a user from having to see a message string they are no longer interested in being a part of. It also has a "MailTips" feature that offers etiquette and security alerts before doing things as replying to a large group or sending a document outside the firewall.
