PC Test Bench

Eastman Kodak Company today announced the EAMER(1) launch of KODAK Capture Desktop Software, a state-of-the-art, all-in-one application for distributed capture scanning needs. Extending Kodak’s presence in the document capture market, KODAK Capture Desktop Software provides basic document capture capabilities and offers incredibly easy-to-use features for small and medium-sized organisations to capture, index, edit and distribute their documents to reduce the amount of paper they need to manage.

KODAK document scanners bundled with Capture Desktop provide a high performance, cost efficient platform for any business needing to digitise documents into highly usable information that can be quickly and easily shared throughout an organisation to increase customer responsiveness and significantly lower operating costs.

Built on KODAK Capture Pro Software, Capture Desktop provides basic scanning and indexing functionality, including features such as real-time image viewing and indexing with “key from image” data entry capabilities.

Features such as the new drag and drop optical character recognition (OCR), provide users with the easiest way to index documents effectively. Output formats include JPEG, TIFF and PDF, as well as integration into Microsoft Sharepoint all managed via KODAK ‘s Smart Touch feature, which enables single-touch shortcuts and procedures to further enhance ease of operation.

The software supports Kodak’s renowned Perfect Page image processing technology, which dramatically improves quality of low contrast and otherwise difficult-to-scan documents.

Unlike KODAK Capture Pro, a leading batch capture application software which provides advanced and fully-automated high-volume production-level batch scanning capabilities, KODAK Capture Desktop is designed for single user, single scanner and basic batch scanning needs typically required by small and medium-sized businesses. Capture Desktop comes bundled with KODAK i100, i1200, i1300 and i1400 Series Scanners.

Hauke Fast, EAMER Product Manager, Document Imaging, Business Solutions and Services, Eastman Kodak Company, said, “KODAK Capture Desktop enables customers to get up and running with a complete batch oriented scanning solution right out of the box. Its ease of use shortens the learning curve for all users and with its seamless upgrade path to KODAK Capture Pro’s advanced productivity features, companies can significantly save the time and money typically associated with software training.”

KODAK Products are backed by KODAK Service and Support. KODAK Service and Support is made up of more than 3,000 professionals reaching more than 120 countries.

It is a leading multi-vendor integrated services provider, delivering consulting, installation, maintenance and support services for the commercial printing, graphic communications, document imaging and data storage industries. KODAK Service and Support professionals are uniquely qualified to provide services that control costs, maximize productivity, and minimise business risk.

Ventrilo, a product of Flagship Industries and the premier group voice communications program used in tournaments and multiplayer games, announced today that it is the primary sponsor of the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra at Kansas Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Gateway International Raceway for the 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. Veteran NASCAR racer, Todd Bodine, is the driver of the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra of Germain Racing.

“As a racing enthusiast, I am thrilled about our partnership with Germain Racing this upcoming NASCAR season,” said Brian Knapp, president, Flagship Industries. “This is the perfect opportunity to expand the Ventrilo brand beyond the traditional user in the online computer gaming industry.”

Crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. is anxious to get to Kansas and show Flagship Industries how much fun it is to be a part of a top-ranked, highly competitive race team.

“We are excited to partner with Flagship Industries and make the Ventrilo Tundra part of their ongoing marketing efforts.  We know that our No. 30 team will create expanded visibility and interest in Ventrilo,” said Hillman Jr.  “The Flagship Industries headquarters are just outside of St. Louis, so the Kansas and Gateway races are very important to them.  We’ve been to victory lane at both tracks and I know Todd and I would like nothing more than to get the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra into victory lane at Kansas – the track where we earned our first win together.”

Bodine opened the 2009 Truck Series season with a record-setting fourth-consecutive win on a superspeedway by capturing a repeat victory at Daytona International Speedway. He has earned a combined total of 31 victories in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series. Together with Hillman Jr. at Germain Racing, Bodine has pushed the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra to the forefront of the Toyota Tundra lineup by earning more wins than any other Tundra team.  Team sponsor Ventrilo is the industry standard by which all other group communication software is measured and the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra is the truck all the competition wants to beat each race weekend.

“Obviously to carry the logo of a Midwest company to race at Kansas Speedway, Gateway and again at Bristol is a big honor. I’m very excited about our new relationship with Ventrilo and Flagship Industries,” said Bodine who is currently second in the Truck Series championship standings heading into the Kansas race weekend. “The No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra was very fast last year at Kansas. We have a win there and with all we’ve learned this season, I’m looking forward to giving the folks at Flagship Industries a great performance and a lot of exposure for the Ventrilo brand.”

Germain Racing’s No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra team has collected 16 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories and four pole awards.  Look for the Ventrilo Tundra to debut at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, April 25th.
Racing action begins at 6:00 PM ET and can be heard on your local MRN affiliate or seen live on SPEED Channel.

Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced that three of its blockbuster hit console games of 2009 will be coming to the PC beginning this summer. Bionic Commando®, Street Fighter® IV and Resident Evil® 5 will all be coming to the PC, beginning in July with Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando, while Resident Evil 5 comes later in the year. All three games will be optimized for the PC platform and will have new PC-specific features added to the already great games. Street Fighter IV has been rated T for Teen by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), while Bionic Commando and Resident Evil 5 are both rated M for Mature. All three games will be available both at retail and via various digital distribution methods, including Capcom’s own e-store.

Street Fighter IV features a mix of returning favorites such as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Guile along with new characters created for this game, such as Crimson Viper, Abel, El Fuerte, and Rufus. Characters and environments are rendered in stylized 3D, while the game is played in the classic Street Fighter® 2D perspective with additional 3D camera flourishes. Instantly familiar six-button controls are the hallmark of the game, with a host of new special moves and features. Mixing classic genre-defining game mechanics the franchise is known and loved for with all-new, never-before-seen gameplay systems, Street Fighter IV brings a brand new fighting experience to fans the world over. The PC version of Street Fighter IV will feature online play, higher screen resolutions and three new shaders based on three of the “artistic” trailers released in 2008 that will change the visual appearance of the game: “watercolor,” “posterization” and “sumi-e ink” styles.

The first true sequel to the classic 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System® original, Bionic Commando sees the return of the bionically-enhanced Nathan “Rad” Spencer. Time has not been kind to Spencer: 10 years after his heroic defeat of the Imperials, he has been betrayed by the government he swore to serve, imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, and sentenced to death. Bionic Commando transposes the swing-and-shoot gameplay of the 8-bit original onto a stunning 3D environment of towering buildings, suspended roadways and monorails, deep canyons and sheer rock faces, where every environment is scalable using swinging, scaling, climbing and wall-walking techniques. The PC version of Bionic Commando will support higher resolutions than the console version, remappable controls including mouse and keyboard support, support for both DirectX®9 and DirectX® 10 and online connectivity for multiplayer sessions.

In Resident Evil 5, returning hero Chris Redfield is sent to Africa to investigate a biological weapon that is transforming the populace into aggressive and disturbing creatures. Joined by another local BSAA agent, Sheva Alomar, the two must work together to solve the truth behind the frightening turn of events. Featuring a revolutionary new co-op mode of gameplay, Resident Evil 5 will let players experience fear together as terror moves out of the shadows and into the light of day. The PC version of Resident Evil 5 will feature online play for co-operative play sessions over the internet and will also take advantage of NVIDIA®’s new GeForce® 3D Vision technology (wireless 3D Vision glasses sold separately).

DisplayFusion will make your dual monitor (or triple monitor or more) experience smooth and painless. With DisplayFusion you can add a taskbar to every monitor that works and looks just like the Windows Taskbar. Or take advantage of advanced multi-monitor wallpaper support, Flickr integration for image searching and fully customizable window management hotkeys. These are just a few of the many things that DisplayFusion can do.

DisplayFusion

Like most of us power users and over the top PC people we trend to have a few PC’s running at the same time. One of the problems is that you have to have a keyboard and mouse hooked up to the extra unit, but not with Synergy. This easy to install and easy to use program is a huge help in keeping your workspace clutter free…well for the most part.

As easy as moving you poitner from one screen to the next.

With synergy, all the computers on your desktop form a single virtual screen. You use the mouse and keyboard of only one of the computers while you use all of the monitors on all of the computers. You tell synergy how many screens you have and their positions relative to one another. Synergy then detects when the mouse moves off the edge of a screen and jumps it instantly to the neighboring screen. The keyboard works normally on each screen; input goes to whichever screen has the cursor.

You can arrange screens side-by-side, above and below one another, or any combination. You can even have a screen jump to the opposite edge of itself. Synergy also understands multiple screens attached to the same computer.

Running a game and don’t want synergy to jump screens? No problem. Just toggle Scroll Lock. Synergy keeps the cursor on the same screen when Scroll Lock is on. (This can be configured to another hot key.)

Do you wish you could cut and paste between computers? Now you can! Just copy text, HTML, or an image as you normally would on one screen then switch to another screen and paste it. It’s as if all your computers shared a single clipboard (and separate primary selection for you X11 users). It even converts newlines to each computer’s native form so cut and paste between different operating systems works seamlessly. And it does it all in Unicode so any text can be copied.

Do you use a screen saver? With synergy all your screen savers act in concert. When one starts they all start. When one stops they all stop. And, if you require a password to unlock the screen, you’ll only have to enter a password on one screen.

If you regularly use multiple computers on one desk, give synergy a try. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Download Synergy here!