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Please Welcome Android Thoughts to the Thoughts Media Network

Jason Dunn — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:30:00 GMT

http://www.androidthoughts.com

I'm thrilled to announce the newest member of the Thoughts Media family: Android Thoughts. As you can guess, this site will be covering Android in all it's forms - phones, slates, etc. The site is being led by none other than our very own Jon Westfall; he'll be handling all editorial duties on the site, similar to how Apple Thoughts works. Android has exploded in popularity over the past 12 months, surpassing even the mighty iPhone in terms of daily activations according to some. It made sense to cover Android as part of what we do here at Thoughts Media, but I wanted to find someone who was passionate and interested in all things Android...and that person is Jon Westfall. Please go read his welcome message on the site to find out how Android Thoughts was born - and subscribe to the RSS feed and Twitter stream. And, above all, if you're interested in Android as a platform, contribute, share, comment, and become a part of that new community.

Microsoft Officially Announce The Arc Touch Mouse

Andy Dixon — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 GMT

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/01/...icially-announ/

"After the overt teasing, leaking, and then more leaking, Microsoft's finally ready to spit out the details on its Arc Touch Mouse, which at the end of the day is really just... a mouse. As we've seen, the peripheral has an incredibly unique design -- the flat device arches its back to click into a mountain shape, which actually ends up powering the little rodent up. So, where does the whole "touch" factor come into play? Well, very similarly to the Mad Catz Eclipse mouse, the Arc Touch has a capacitive touch strip with sensor pads between the mouse buttons that can be used for scrolling and customizable shortcuts."

Engadget have the news that this funky mouse by Microsoft will be out in December, probably in time for the Christmas shopping season I suspect. They have also posted the above video showing how it works, and how it gets its name of the Arc Touch Mouse. It's definitely a novel design, I just hope that switching it on and off doesn't break it over time.

Here We Go Again: Panasonic Announces Stupid Expensive SDHC Cards on SDHC UHS-I Standard

Lee Yuan Sheng — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:00:00 GMT

http://www.photographyblog.com/news...from_panasonic/

"Panasonic has announced its newest 8GB and 16GB SDHC UHS-I memory cards. UHS-I is the new standard for higher-speed Bus interface defined by the SD Association as part of the SD Memory Card Specification Ver.3.01, which provides up to 104MB/s performance."

Alright, so there's no pricing information yet, but like with all Panasonic SD cards based on the latest standards, they will be expensive, with promised speeds of 60MB/s. The announcement of the new speed standard has slipped under my radar, but now we have SDHC and SDXC standards to track, and the speed standards of Class 2-10 and UHS-I 1 to keep tabs on as well. Can the SD Association get their act together and get everything together in one standard for the future? Thanks!

Nikon USA Launches Online Store

Jason Dunn — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:36:00 GMT

http://shop.nikonusa.com/

Nikon USA has launched their own online store - which is an interesting move. I wasn't even aware that Canon had their own online store until I searched - my instinct is to always shop via online stores that I'm familiar with. I wonder why Nikon wants to compete with their channel partners that are selling the products?

Datacolor Releases SpyderLensCal

Lee Yuan Sheng — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:00 GMT

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1009/1...yderlenscal.asp

"Datacolor, a global leader in color management solutions, today announced SpyderLensCal, a reliable method of measuring the focus performance on camera and lens combinations that delivers razor-sharp focusing using modern DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment."

Datacolor, a company who makes a range of solutions for colour workflow purposes, has announced a product to help with calibrating your autofocus DSLR lenses. This is somewhat like the products from LensAlign, but far cheaper: At US$59, it's cheaper than the LensAlign Lite by $20, and more than $100 and $200 less for the regular and long lens kits of the LensAlign. Still, it does look far more simplistic than the LensAlign version, but since I have not tried them, I have no idea if a simpler and cheaper product can do an equally good job here. The SpyderLensCal will ship sometime in the middle of September 2010.

Photobook Canada's Big and Bold Square Photo Book: Some Strategy Required for Success

Jason Dunn — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Product Category: Photo book

Where to Buy: Photobook Canada

Price: $127.78 CAD as configured (prices start at $110 CAD for a 40 page book)

Pros:

Incredible paper quality with the upgraded paper option;
Impressive print quality on the cover and inside pages;
Reasonably easy to use software.

Cons:

Severe accuracy problems with front and back cover images;
Tech support is somewhat lacking;
Expensive, even with a discount coupon.

Summary: If you read my photo book review round up, you'll know that Photobook Canada fared quite well; with their upgraded paper option, the paper was superb, and the print and cover quality were excellent. At the time, they didn't support spine printing, and I further docked marks because the image on the back was printed right at the edge of the cover - but I was nevertheless impressed with the final product. Within a few weeks of my review going live, Photobook Canada launched version 5.0 of their photo book software, and guess what missing feature it added? Spine printing!

Another Personal Project

When it came time for me to work on a vacation photo book of my trip to Japan in 2008, I had to take my own advice and think about which company would be the best to use for the project. Based on the superior paper quality, the excellent printing and cover quality, and now featuring spine printing, I selected Photobook Canada. Having the 45% off coupon (you can find it here) helped because I was paying for it out of my own pocket.

I won't be redundant and repeat the review I've already written - go read my thoughts about version 4.x of their software in the big photo book review. Just like the baby book project, I used FotoFusion to build my pages (including the front and back covers), and this time it was much easier and faster because I had experience under my belt. I wanted to build a square book this time, and Photobook Canada had an 11 inch by 11 inch book option that looked great - I'd have preferred a 12 inch by 12 inch book, but the one inch difference didn't matter much to me.

Figure 1: Version 5 of the My Photo Books software.

In terms of the differences between version 5 and version 4 of the software, they aren't vast; curiously, it takes more steps to make a full-page image. In version 4, you could drag an image and select "Single Page Layout" - they removed this in version 5. Now you have to right-click on the image after you've dropped it on the page and select Fit > Fit to Page. It's odd to have something as core as this become more difficult - I have to wonder what the developers are thinking. There's some improvement in terms of the front and back covers; there are some page styles that include a full-page image on the front, but none that include full-page images on both front and back covers.

Not wanting to have a repeat of the baby book with the back cover, I very carefully aligned the front and back images to meet up exactly with the fold lines in the software. We're talking pixel-perfect here. With shipping ($15), tax, and the upgraded paper option ($15), my book cost me $127.78 CAD - and that's after the 45% off discount coupon. The quality that Photobook Canada offers isn't cheap, that's for sure. My book was finished and I excitedly waited for it to arrive - I was really looking forward to seeing how great it would look!

Win 1 of 2 Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB Hard Drives

Jason Dunn — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:30:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO6bYZQo82Y

Want to win one of two 1 TB hard drives? Then jump over to this YouTube video and read the contest rules. Enjoy!

Intel's Sandy Bridge To Somewhere

Hooch Tan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:00:00 GMT

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/...wins-in-a-row/1

"That's all going to change starting next year. This time it's the masses that get the upgrade first. While Nehalem launched with expensive motherboards and expensive processors, the next tock in Intel's architecture cadence is aimed right at the middle of the market. This time, the ultra high end users will have to wait - if you want affordable quad-core, if you want the successor to Lynnfield, Sandy Bridge is it."

The huge force that is Intel continues moving along at a steady pace. While AMD is fighting back with its Bobcat and Bulldozer chips, Intel's Sandy Bridge seems to be a continuation of moves first seen with the Core i3 and i5 processors. Processing power is increasing, as expected, but the integrated graphics are what have caught my eye. While integrated graphics offered low power consumption and great 3D performance at a great price, its 3D capabilities were laughable at best. While Sandy Bridge will not be toppling the discrete GPU market, it is edging into the lower end and that means that the lowest bar for computing will offer something worthwhile. Programs like Google Earth will run even more smoothly, and 3D accelerated browsers are right around the corner. We might be watching the next push in computing fads!

Olympus Announced "Black" E-P2 Kit and Two Micro Four Thirds Telephoto Lenses

Lee Yuan Sheng — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:30:00 GMT

http://www.dcresource.com/news/news...tem.php?id=4178

"Olympus has announced a special "all black" kit for their E-P2 Micro Four Thirds camera, and also released two new lenses while they were at it."

So Olympus has announced what essentially is a vanity kit for their E-P2 camera, and more interestingly, two new lenses. The new all-black kit doesn't come with the detacheable EVF, which I find more important than having all black accessories, but hey, I guess vanity has a price, and in this case it is a grand.

The two new lenses are telephoto zooms; there's the US$300 40-150/4-5.6 (to mimick the now very standard consumer 70-300mm zoom) and the US$900 (!) 75-300/4.8-6.7. While Olympus touts the latter as the smallest "600mm" lens, I can't help but think that for the price and the slow aperture, Olympus has made one too many compromise in making it smaller, but not small; compare Nikon's new 55-300/4-5.6 at 3.1" by 4.84" against the Olympus at 2.76" by 4.57". The Nikkor needs to make space for the VR motors as well as cover a larger imaging circle, and costs less than half the price. This is probably why all manufacturers are scrambling towards mirrorless I guess; potentially cheaper construction yet higher sale prices! Photos of the lenses after the break.

Amazon Brings Latest Kindle Features to Their 6-Inch Models

Reid Kistler — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:00:00 GMT

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/27/...-kindle-review/

"Amazon's third major iteration of its flagship reading device, the Kindle, comes out of the gate looking strong: the new graphite finish (just like its big brother, the Kindle DX) with a slimmer, lighter form factor, plus a bumped refresh rate for its E Ink screen. Best of all, the WiFi only and 3G readers have newly lowered prices (though they're still not exactly bargain basement level). We've spent the past few days putting the tinier Kindle through the paces to see just how much Amazon's improved it."

If you liked the graphite coloring and improved screen of the Kindle DX, but balked at the rather hefty physical size and price tag, take a look at the "latest generation" versions of Amazon's 6-inch display models: the "Kindle" (WiFi only), at $139.00, and the "Kindle 3G" (Free 3G + Wifi), at $189. Both units are physically smaller than their predecessors (and are extremely thin, as shown by the above comparison to a pencil!), feature the new screen technology, and may be ordered for mid-September (2010) delivery. Both also feature four "Experimental Features" - such as "Read-to-Me" and a "New WebKit-Based Browser" - but only the Kindle 3G offers the option of a white case at this time. Read the Engadget review for some interesting hands-on usage comments, along with their usual nice selection of photos.

Behind the Scenes at SmugMug

Jason Dunn — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:00:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9fKuKglTH8

I'm a long-time Smugmug user and it's really cool to see a behind the scenes video about the company. I have a great deal of genuine respect for Smugmug as a company - they're very different than the big faceless corporations out there doing photo sharing/hosting. If you're passionate about photography and are curious about some of the inner workings of Smugmug, this video is worth watching. Too bad it's not in HD though!

Adobe Releases Lightroom 3.2

Jason Dunn — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:00:00 GMT

http://www.adobe.com/support/downlo....jsp?ftpID=4789

What happened to Lightroom 3.1? I have no idea. But Lightroom has jumped from 3.0 to 3.2, and this new update adds support for new cameras, corrections for "issues", Facebook publishing, and over 120 new lens profiles. I wonder if one of the "issues" is performance? Lightroom 3.0 often feels sluggish to me, even on strong hardware. I'm downloading it now...

Canon on Proof of Concept Roll: Now Showing Off Huge Sensor

Lee Yuan Sheng — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:00:00 GMT

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/31/...-60fps-video-i/

"Canon Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed the world's largest CMOS image sensor, with a chip size measuring 202 x 205 mm. Because its expanded size enables greater light-gathering capability, the sensor is capable of capturing images in one one-hundredth the amount of light required by a professional-model digital SLR camera."

Well, looks like Canon is off on some showy announcements; in preparation for Photokina showcases, I guess. 20cm by 20cm is in the range of the large format territory: The 8 x 10 format in this case. 4 x 5 sheet film cameras are already big enough as it is (even a "small" Graflex Speed Graphic fully setup is still bigger than most DSLRs), so if a camera actually gets made from this, it is going to really big. I can hear the large format enthusiasts dreaming about what they can do with this though. Strangely Canon makes no mention of megapixels this time.

Sony's SLT A55 Given a Review by Digital Photography Review

Lee Yuan Sheng — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:00:00 GMT

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyslta55/

"Sony's latest interchangeable lens cameras, the SLT Alpha A33 and A55 represent a significant technological milestone - not just for Sony but for the enthusiast camera market as a whole. The company has rejected the traditional DSLR design and instead created a hybrid that, like a compact camera, is from the ground up built around live view, but one that is also capable of offering full-time DSLR-style phase-detection autofocus. The combination means they can offer features such as phase-detection AF during movie recording and extremely fast continuous shooting rates (10 frames per second on the A55), previously unthinkable at this price."

Sony's finally done something interesting and different with the SLT cameras with their pellicle mirrors; instead of having the mirror reflect a minor portion of the light to a optical viewfinder, it instead uses the light for a phase detection autofocus system. This allows Sony to implement a viewfinder that is larger and brightter than that of their previous live view attempts, allows for AF with all lenses in the Alpha lineup, while using the more time-tested phase detect AF system. DPReview liked the camera plenty much, and the new 16.2 megapixel sensor looks good.

We now have three systems on the market for live view AF; Sony's implementation, Panasonic's improvements on the traditional contrast detection system, and Fujifilm's hybrid AF system. It should be interesting to see which method is the more successful one, both technically and commercially.

The Sandisk 16 GB SDHC Extreme SDHC Memory Card: Worth It?

Jason Dunn — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:00:00 GMT

The evolution of storage usually goes something like this: the medium gets a lot of attention when it's young, then as it grows older, it typically becomes a commodity that we care less about. Think of the early years of hard drives: moving from 40 MB to 80 MB was a massive improvement, and it was a big day when the first 1 GB drives hit the market. But now? We hardly bother to yawn when a 3 TB drive is announced. Sure, there are some stand-out drives (Western Digital's Raptor line for instance), but for the most part, hard drives are the forgotten technology inside your computer. SSDs, however, are still a young technology: performance improvements, capacity enhancements, and cost drops are still exciting enough to get a geek's heart going.

Flash memory falls somewhere in between those two; from a digital photography perspective, Flash memory storage has become so cavernous that the average person never needs to think twice about running out of space, unless they're shooting 1080p video alongside their still photos. There's still a bit of excitement left in the performance realm though, and SanDisk is at the forefront of pushing faster Flash memory. Their line of Extreme SDHC cards for instance are Class 10 performance, and claim up to 30 MB/s (200x) read and write speeds. They also cost a fair bit more than other brands. I set out to answer a fairly straight-forward question: was it worth it, from a practical standpoint, so shell out the extra money for a SanDisk Extreme SDHC card?

Benchmarks on a computer don't mean much when you're using the Flash memory in a camera, so I decided to do some real world testing between the Sandisk 16 GB Class 10 Extreme SDHC card ($89.18 from Amazon.com) and a Patriot LX 16 GB Class 10 SDHC card ($39.99 from NewEgg). Why the Patriot card? I'd purchased a couple of them, they worked great, and couldn't help but notice that the SanDisk cards were consistently twice as expensive. I hadn't had any trouble with the Patriot cards, but I wanted to know if paying the price premium for the SanDisk card was worth it. After all, Class 10 is simply a measure of the minimum speed that the card will always be able to achieve - it's not the maximum speed of the card, and SanDisk is one of the few companies that puts the MB/s rating of the card on the front of it. Are SanDisk cards faster in the real world?

TEST #1: I took my Nikon D300 DSLR, and using a Delkin SD to CF adaptor, fired a burst of raw photos until the camera stopped shooting (indicating the buffer was full), and used a stopwatch to time how long it took the D300 to finish writing to each card. Over a series of three tests, both the SanDisk and Patriot cards allowed me to snap 14 pictures before the buffer was full, and both cards took 44 seconds to finish clearing the buffer. VERDICT: TIE

TEST #2: I repeated the same test as above, this time with my Panasonic GF-1 camera, and the results over three tests were the same; both the SanDisk and Patriot cards allowed me to snap seven raw photos before stopping, and it took 15 seconds to clear the buffer. VERDICT: TIE

TEST #3: I repeated the same test as above, this time with my Nikon D5000 DSLR. Yes, the pattern continued: the SanDisk and Patriot cards each allowed me to shoot five raw images, and cleared the buffer in 10 seconds. I tried throwing in a Class 6 Patriot card for good measure, and the result didn't change: five photos and 10 seconds. VERDICT: TIE

TEST #4: Since I wasn't seeing any difference at all with the in-camera tests, I switched to desktop tests. I transferred seven raw photos from each card to my desktop PC using a Transcend brand USB card reader, using a stopwatch to time how long it took. Averaged over three tests each, the SanDisk card finished in four seconds, while the Patriot card took five seconds. VERDICT: WINNER SANDISK (BARELY)

TEST #5: To test the write speed, I loaded up each card with 671 files of mixed sizes (1.02 GB total). This would test the write speed of each card. The SanDisk and Patriot cards were only one second apart; the SanDisk card complete the write test in 1 minute 59 seconds, and the Patriot card completed the test in 1 minute 58 seconds. I also tested a Transcend Class 6 16 GB card, and it took 2 minutes 12 seconds. The 4 GB Crucial Class 6 card I tested took over five minutes, at which point I stopped the test because it looked I like it was going to take a very long time. VERDICT: WINNER PATRIOT (BARELY)

As you can tell, the SanDisk Extreme and Patriot LX cards were virtually identical in performance; the one second difference in the read and write tests are within a reasonable margin of error. I'm confident in saying that the SanDisk Extreme SDHC card provides the same level of performance as the Patriot LX card, but you're paying more than twice as much for it.

So is it worth it? From a performance standpoint, no. What I'm not able to test, however, is long-term reliability. There are users who have had certain brands of memory fail, and they'll never buy that brand again. I've owned a variety of memory cards over the years, and I've had both Transcend and Kingston SD cards fail on me; thus far, no SanDisk or Patriot memory has failed - but we know that no brand is perfect and both SanDisk and Patriot will have a small percentage of imperfect Flash memory cards.

It is worth spending your hard-earned money on SanDisk's Extreme line of Class 10 SDHC cards in hopes of better performance? My tests tell me no, it's not. But if using a SanDisk brand card makes you feel like your digital images are better protected from loss, it might be worth it for you. Myself, I'll happily keep using the Patriot LX cards I've purchased.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, his wonderful son Logan, and his sometimes obedient dog. He's surprised how much he likes the Dell Studio XPS 7100.

Do you enjoy using new hardware, software and accessories, then sharing your experience with others? Then join us on the Thoughts Media Review Team! We're looking for individuals who find it fun to test new gear and give their honest opinions about the experience. It's a volunteer role with some great perks. Interested? Then click here for more information.

Canon's 120 Megapixel APS-H Sensor

Lee Yuan Sheng — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:00:00 GMT

http://www.photographyblog.com/news...non_cmos_sensor

Canon Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed an APS-H-size CMOS image sensor that delivers an image resolution of approximately 120 megapixels (13,280 x 9,184 pixels), the world’s highest level of resolution for its size.

Canon had a 50 megapixel sensor 3 years back that did not go anywhere, so this is more proof of concept, like what car manufacturers like to do. It's probably not going to be seen in any commercial product, and I doubt it will have any great high ISO or dynamic range capabilities, but it's a reminder that this is what sensors can go up to, if anyone really wanted it to go that far.

Spell the Word "Obsolete" - D I C T I O N A R Y

Hooch Tan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:00:00 GMT

http://www.tgdaily.com/unbalanced/5...ed-dictionaries

"With Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and, well, the rest of the entire Internet, who needs a physical dictionary anymore? Apparently not enough people to actually make the next version of the Oxford English Dictionary go to the printers. The Oxford English Dictionary, as legendary as it is heavy, is facing a bleak future as there's not much of a market these days for a reference book that weighs 130 pounds."

The heroic dictionary is not alone in this electronic world that threatens its existence. The legendary Encyclopedia and mythical Thesaurus also face extinction. It should be no surprise that while we are still far from the paperless society, more and more of our communication and information is handled digitally. With digital information comes digital processing and the need for a hefty series of books defining each word becomes unnecessary. There still is a place for reference books in the traditional dead tree format, but as the world moves on, having something static works against it. Dictionaries (and the interfaces to them) need to be fluid and easy to access. All that is left is to find a way to encourage people to actually use spell check and to look up the definition of words.

Sanyo's Introduces New "Dual Camera" Model

Reid Kistler — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:00:00 GMT

http://www.photographyblog.com/news...sanyo_vpc-pd2bk

"SANYO... introduces a new Full HD (1920 x 1080 30p) Pocket-Size Dual Camera, model VPC-PD2BK, with embedded software for easy use and sharing on social networks. The camera is the only one of its kind that offers Full HD video recording, 10 MP photo shooting, and 3x optical zoom in a stylish form factor that is about the size of a deck of cards."

Although it veers somewhat toward the larger and heavier side of the pocket camcorder market, Sanyo hopes to capture your interest - and part of your spending money - with their new VPC-PD2BK "Dual Camera," by promising an enticing mix of photographic features in addition to the long list of video features that most competitors offer. This model has not been released yet (it is due in September 2010, with a list price of $169.99 US), so it may be a while before full reviews show up, but the specifications look promising, as Sanyo has included a 10.7MP CMOS sensor that is larger (at 1/2.33 inch) than that found in many competing models, to go along with its 3x optical zoom lens and a built-in flash (for still photography only). Alas, it does follow the pocket camcorder norm of having only digital image stabilization - but there is only so much technology that can be packed into what is still a small form factor, at least at this price point.

Bankruptcy, Coming Soon to a Blockbuster Near You

Chris Gohlke — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 07:00:00 GMT

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...zz/blockbuster/

"After dominating the home video rental business for more than a decade and struggling to survive in recent years against upstarts Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster Inc. is preparing to file for bankruptcy next month, according to people who have been briefed on the matter."

The writing has been on the wall for this one for a while now. I'm sure Blockbuster will be a case study in business textbooks in the future as a lesson to never be too comfortable as market king. They unfortunately used their leadership position to abuse their customers and were far to reactionary to major changes in the market. Redbox and Netflix have just torn them apart.

Windows Live Sync to be Re-Named Windows Live Mesh? Seriously?

Jason Dunn — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:00:00 GMT

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_..._medium=twitter

From the very first day I discovered FolderShare, created by Byte Taxi and later purchased by Microsoft and re-named Live Sync, it's been a transformational technology for me - literally changing the way I'm able to work on multiple devices. Over the years, Live Sync has been ignored, improved, then ignored again - a clear sign that the leadership at Microsoft didn't know what to do with it. And the obvious overlap with Live Mesh didn't help its cause. Things seemed to be getting better about a year ago when Live Sync really started to get some effort put into it, but took a drastic turn for the worse when the Live Sync beta came out in June.

FolderShare was truly dead; the lightweight, super-fast client was replaced by the heavy and slow Live Mesh client. Worse, the performance issues - specifically, the hard drive access load - virtually lock up several of my computers when a sync is happening (and were talking about a Core i7 system with 6 GB of RAM in one instance). It wasn't all bad news though - the 20,000 file library limit was raised to 100,000, so I was finally able to re-unite my photo collection. All in all though, I've been very disappointed in the performance of the new Live Sync client.

Some more good news/bad news: the Live Sync team is aware of some of the performance issues. In this blog post, team member Allison O'Mahony states that an forthcoming update:

"We've made several performance updates to Windows Live Mesh in response to your requests that will provide noticeable improvements to your experience. We worked on cutting the application load time in half and made syncing large numbers of folders and adding multiple devices to a sync folder faster. We've optimized both memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as decreased CPU consumption by as much as 30% when Windows Live Mesh is idle."

The improvements can't come fast enough, though I see nothing in there about throttling the disk activity - and I'm convinced that's the biggest problem with Live Sync right now. It's not uncommon for me to open up the Resource Monitor and see Live Sync using upwards of 50 MB/s of hard drive data transfer; and when your hard drive is working that hard, your system is going to be quite unresponsive.

I'm also seeing Windows Defender fail to start about 30% of the time after a reboot on my systems that have Live Sync installed - it always starts if I manually click "Start Now" after I'm alerted to the "danger" my system is in - though sometimes it will magically fix itself after a couple of minutes. It happens on everything from my HP dv2 to my media editing Core i7 system. I'm convinced it's related to disk load; the disc load is so heavy after a reboot when Live Sync is slugging away at the hard drive I think it's interfering with Windows Defender starting as a service. This started across all my systems the same day I installed the Live Sync beta on them.

Some more bad news: they're dropping the name Live Sync and going with Live Mesh. This is a mistake. The term "sync", while not part of the daily lexicon in the lives of most people, at least has some traction - people got the basic idea that "sync = synchronize = make the same". Mesh? Mesh means nothing to the average person. The product name now has nothing to do with what it does, which will further confuse end users. Live Sync was a great product name that shouldn't have been changed.

I also have to shake my head slightly at the analysis of the stats on cloud storage; because Live Sync users were only given 2 GB, what did they expect we'd use it for? That's not much space. None of the folders I'm synching is under 2 GB, so the cloud storage functionality is useless to me. They'll be increasing it to 5 GB, which will allow me to sync one of my folders to it - so now it will be useful to me.

There are some further improvements: hidden files will now sync (rejoice Picasa users!), and there will be a list of files that are in need of being synced (missing). This is a much-needed improvement, though I won't be happy until I can see a real-time list of what's being synched, and at what speed - Live Sync, err, Live Mesh hides too much information from me as a user.

So there you have it. I'm glad that Microsoft is continuing to invest in Live Mesh, because at this point, the performance is so poor I'm actively telling people to avoid using it (I'm suggesting Dropbox instead). I really hope this is one of those instances where things have gotten worse before they get better, because I really like the idea of this product and want to see it succeed.