Saturday, January 29, 2005

Reader Mail and Rumor Report-January 28, 2005:

Today's reader mail reports looks at the upcoming Babya System 14.0 and rumors on Babya bSuite.



Babya System 14.0
The next major release includes many of the Babya System applications from v 13.0, plus Babya bSuite. It's expected to be out in 1-2 months.


Babya bSuite:
Babya bSuite has started shipping, alongside Babya bPlayer, Babya Presenter 2.0, and Babya Discoverer RSS 11.0.

Babya bSecure 2.0:
The long awaited update is expected to be announced as early as next Monday and released a couple of days after.

That's it for today's Reader Mail and Rumor Report-next week we look at bSuite and bMix, Babya bFind-the Babya desktop search and more!:

Friday, January 28, 2005

BABYA EXPO:Babya bSuite Released:

Babya bSuite-a ground breaking free office and digital media suite.

Requires .NET framework, Windows 98 or later (some components require Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003)-includes the below:-word processing-spreadsheets-databases-slideshows and albums
-web and RSS browsing-image editing
-word translations-accounting software
-web site creation-audio playback/conversion
Components:

Babya E-Type-the bSuite word processor with a incredible
sense of style.-

Babya E-Type features:
-Babya E-Type is a word processor/script or programmer's editor with a incredible sense
of style.
-Some of the features of Babya E-Type are:-*MDI/tabbed interface (similar in style to Babya Discoverer)

-*Easy access to files via a file explorer task pane
-*Can be used as a programmer’s text editor/script editor
-*Opens and saves text, Visual Basic .bas/module files (also can open other programming
code files, eg. .asp, *.php or .html) and RTF files (can open files of unlimited sizes, unlike
Notepad on Windows 95/98/ME systems) and the common .rtf format.

-*Can export documents to PDF, if you have PDF creation software installed (such as
Adobe® Acrobat® or Ghostscript)

-*Also can be installed and used from a USB Flash drive-very compact when installed
-*Multiple item clipboard
-*Encrypt and decrypt text files feature for extra file security
-*Document compare
-*Can use/intergrate files from other Babya or third-party software-create compound
documents
Babya bSheet::

Excel style spreadsheet
-Can use more than 1 worksheet in a file
-Easy to use
Babya bAccounting:

Just the basics
-Compareable to QuickBooks New User Edition-Many small businesses don't need a complex package
-Includes customer management, invoicing and simple inventory management-Secure, multi-user login
-Available standalone and in bSuite-Uses a editable .mdb database

Babya Discoverer RSS:

First update in nearly a year to the popular Babya web browser
-New look icon and splash screen and new look UI
-A new name for Babya Discoverer-Babya Discoverer RSS (11.0)
-Includes a download manager
-RSS viewer included-Babya bView (available separately)
-Access to Windows XP Service Pack 2's Security Center from Babya Discoverer RSS


-Babya bDesign lets you integrate elements created in other Babya bSuite applications-Replaces bWeb.
-Easy to use, creates professional looking sites quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
-Stylish interface-Included with bSuite or available separately
.-Comes with HTML page templates

-Outstanding Features:
-real time preview editing environment


-HTML code editor with syntax highlighting

-Dynamic action when editing your page
-Many many cool functions
.-Uses CodeMax for certain features


-bLogo includes an amazing and mind boggling 166 backgrounds and
textures-fancy that!

-Primarily for bLogo, but we thought many of you don't want to use bLogo.
Babya Presenter Pack-Volume 1:Textures and Backgrounds

.-Use them in any application, as desired
-There will be addiitional volumes released throught 2005
bPlayer 2:

-A lot like MusicMatch, WMP or iTunes

Introducing bPlayer v 2.0 with Babya Shuffle:

-Features-very powerful music player-effortsly manage, play and convert music-View ID3 tags, manage playlists and organise your music albums.

-Uses Windows Media and Bass audio library technologies-All in one-no longer you need a separate program to convert audio.
-Built in Wav2MP3-now called Babya Shuffle.-"The best new feature in version 2.0-converts music into more audio formats (such as
.mp3 and .wma) that can be copied,for example, to an Apple(R) iPod(R) and other MP3 players."
- Babya Unwritten:

-"Easily translate a word into-eg. French."
-Compact and unobtrusive, can be used off a USB flash drive-Included with bSuite or downloadable.

Babya bSuite was announced at the Babya Expo and is now available to download.

Download:
Babya bSuite-Winsite

BABYA EXPO: Babya bPlayer, Babya Discoverer RSS and Babya Presenter 2.0 Released:

Babya bPlayer, Babya Discoverer RSS and Babya Presenter 2.0, which were announced at the Babya Expo are all now available to download:

Babya bPlayer 2.0-FileForum

Babya Discoverer RSS-FileForum

Babya Presenter 2.0 -FileForum


Monday, January 24, 2005

iReader Mail and Rumor Report-January 24, 2005

Today's Reader Mail and Rumor Report reports on the Babya Expo, Babya bMix and an Babya bSecure update, Babya Photo Workshop Pro being axed, updates on the Babya movie editor and desktop search and note the release of Babya Photo Workshop Professional XL 8.0.




Babya Expo:
The Babya Expo is nearly over and we report on, some of the more impressive announcements and new products that were on show:

Babya bSecure/bZip:

Not demoed or announced, bSecure 2 is going well in development-A.A. says to expect a release early next week, with bSuite introduced.

Also version 2.0 archives files and there is also bZip, available standalone (saves in a custom file format).

Babya bFile 2:

Babya bFile 2 was announced and A.A. generously added that a CD cataloguer is include-out in 3 weeks, he mentioned.


Babya bSuite:

Babya bSuite is available starting from next month.

We were totally stunned when A.A. Fussy demoed a new 8-track Garageband style, sequencer-Babya , Babya bMix.

Available separately or with bSuite in February according to Fussy , features include


  • Create music like Michael Jackson (or other artists)
  • Powerful music composition
  • Compose on up to 8 multiple audio tracks
  • MIDI based with MIDI export
  • 174 software instruments
  • Adjust tempo and transpose tracks
  • Notate music with over 30 tracks available
  • Easy to use:

A.A. wowed the audience with a demo of some of the 174 software instruments available in bMix-for example:

  • bass
  • glockenspiel
  • marimba
  • Synthetic brass
  • Shakuhachi (a oriental style of music)
  • Guiro
  • Sound FX effects
  • Cabasa
  • Shanai (another oriental style of music)- accordingn to A.A. "One night in Bangkok and Shanai's your music oyster"

Screenshot:

http://geocities.com/babyap2002/babya_3.jpg

All tracks are displayed in contrasting colours, for easy indentification, A.A. noted.

Babya, our regular reader was really in harmony with the demo of the Guiro instrument:

"Wow, now that's what I call funky music!"

We'll be trying bMix out in the week or so, and we'll report on it closer to the release of bMix .

GooGNews:

One other application shown was GooGNews, a versatile Google toolbar.

Tay Wei Kiat ( who provided the base source code for the latest Babya Discover) introduced GooGNews at the Babya Expo:

Tay Wei Kiat, former director of WickedSoft current director of Unignal Software Team who provided the base source code for the latest Babya Discover has come out with a new useful application!

GooGNews- Good News for Google News Users

A customizable, user-friendly and FREE toolbar that allows you immediate access to the lastest Google headline news, GooGNews is a must-have for users who wants to be constantly updated with the lastest events or happenings, and armed with the lastest piece of information that is made availabe on the Internet.

Why not just go to Google News? Keeping a browser open all the time just to keep abreast of the news is not always practical. GooGNews comes to the rescue! Don't miss out on the news just because you don't want to open a web browser!

With GooGNews, users no longer need manually browse through scrolls of irrevelant news in the Google News to obtain the information they wanted. No longer do they need to check their mail more than frequently to be updated with the lastest headline news. GooGNews do so much work of you, that it makes news browsing seems so easy, fast and convenient.

And it won't take up much space in your desktop. The headline of all Google news are summarized and displayed in just one line, taking up approximately only 5% of your total desktop space!

Moreover, GooGNews comes with a powerful search bar. The bar allows you to search all major search engines and dictionaries. Before is a full list of search engine services that you can access directly through GooGNews Search Bar:
-Google Web
-Google Images
-Google Groups
-Google News
-Open Website (You may enter website address here to open the that website)
-Dictionary.com
-Spell Check (Powered by Dictionary.com)
-Wikipedia
-Wiktionary
-Wikibooks
-Wikiquote
-Wikisource
-Wikispecies
-Wikinews
-Yahoo! Web
-Yahoo! Images
-Yahoo! Directory
-Yahoo! News
-Msn Web
-Msn News
-Msn Dictionary
-Msn Encarta
-Msn Stock Quotes
-Msn Movies
-Msn Shopping
(Users may request the author to add more search services to GooGNews Search Bar by sending a feedback to the author via the built in "Submit Feedback" feature in GooGNews, which can be accessed by Menu -> Help -> Submit Feedback)

Below are detailed breakdown of other features/options found in GooGNews and additional information about their usage.


1)Show Latest News Only
Use: On average, Google News Homepage contains 100++ news articles. It may seem like a good idea to display all of these news on GooGNews. In actual fact, many of the news are actually repeats. Google News works by pushing each related News one "step" down whenever a newer version of the same News is discovered. Hence, by activating "Show Latest News Only" feature, GooGNews automatically filter out older News and display only the latest. This allows you to be constantly updated about what is happening around the world without reading through all the 100++ News.
How to access: Menu->Show Latest News Only

2)Fast Scrolling
Use: Everyone read at a different speed. The default scrolling speed of headlines in GooGNews may be too slow for some, thus there is a need to provide fast readers another options. Enabling Fast Scrolling increases the scrolling speed drastically.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Fast Scrolling

3)Auto Refresh News
Use: News are not static. Updates can appear anytime. Hence, it is necessary to be updated about happenings around the world constantly. Enabling this option will cause GooGNews to automatically "Refresh News" every 30 minutes, which is not long enough for you to miss out any News update, while not short enough for you to finish going through all 100++ News if you want to.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Auto Refresh News

4)Quick View
Use: Whenever you do a search using GooGNews Search bar or click on any scrolling News article, GooGNews will attempt to launch the website. GooGNews gives you the options of viewing the website in your default web browser, or using the built in web browser in GooGNews. Enabling Quick View allows you to launch web pages using the built in browser, while disabling it cause GooGNews to lanuch web pages using your default browser. Quick View is enabled by default, and highly recommended as Quick View saves you the trouble of waiting for your web browser to load.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Quick View

5)Vibration Alert
Use: Whenever GooGNews is ready to start scrolling the latest headlines from Google News, the main GooGNews bar will vibration for a short amount of time, at the same time displaying the number of valid News articles it detected. Vibration alert engage your attention whenever News update is available.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Vibration Alert

6)Google News Home
Use: You may sometime feel the need to visit the Google News Homepage. Clicking on this allows you to do so directly.
How to access: Menu->Google News Home

7)Auto Snap To Screen Edge
Use: If this option is enabled, moving GooGNews near to any of your screen edge will cause GooGNews to automatically dock at the edge.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Auto Snap To Screen Edge

8)Set Transparency
Use: Do you like/dislike the default see-through property of GooGNews bar? Change the transparency of GooGNews by using this option.
How to access: Menu->More Options->Set Transparency

9)Submit Feedback
Use: Feel that you have any suggestions/feedbacks/comments/complaints you want to make to the author? Submit your feedback via the built in Submit Feedback system!
How to access: Menu->Help->Submit Feedback

10)GooGNews Update Manager
Use: This feature is normally hidden. It attempts to check for any GooGNews update whenever GooGNews is used. If no update is found, the update manager will quietly close itself. However, if an update is found, a dialog will be displayed, providing you with relevant information about the update and how to get it.
How to access: Menu->Help->Submit Feedback

11)Notebox
Use: Select Notebox from the menu launches a seemingly useless window which consisted of nothing but an empty textbox and a "Save" button. Infect, Notebox is quite useful. When using Quick View, you can select text from the built in web browser and drag it into the textbox in Notebox window. Pressing the save button allows you to save the textbox's content in either plain text or rich text format.
How to access: Quick View Options->Notebox

12)Spell Check
Use: Need to spell a word and simply can't recall how to spell it? No fear! GooGNew's latest feature, Spell Check allows you to check your spelling directly from the GooGNews Search bar!
How to access: Enter roughly what you think is the correct spelling of the word in the GooGNews Search bar and select "Spell Check" from the drop down list. Press enter. A dialog will shortly appear, telling you if the word is spelled correctly and giving suggestions if it is not. This feature makes use of dictionary.com to do the checking.


13)Open Website
Use: For your convenient, we can now select "Open Website" from the drop down combo of the Search Bar and enter the address of the website you wish to launch and have GooGNews open it for you either via GooGNew's built in browser or your default browser, depending on your settings.
How to access: Select "Open website" from the drop down combo of the search bar and enter the url of the website you want to open into the textbox on the left. Then, press enter.

14)Region Selection
Use: Google News provides different internation versiob for each regions. This feature allows you to chose the region which is news is meant for.
How to access: Menu->More options->Select GooGNews Region

15)News vault
Use: An easy feature to archive News links url to a file named News Vault.txt
How to access: Activate quick view, press "Quick View Menu", select "Dump to News Vault"

Download/more details at:

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1104463252/1

Sounds intriguing-we'll report on it very soon.

Babya Photo Workshop XL:

Babya Photo Workshop XL 8 was released on January, 21 with a redesigned interface. We predicted it would be version 7.2 but we are completely suprised that it's version 8.

Babya Desktop Search:

In December, we noted that a Babya Desktop Search software was in development. It now looks set to be released in late February-though we aren't sure if that is offcial just at the moment. We'll update on this throughout the next month or so.

Babya Movie Editor:

Although not announced yet-bSuite will include Babya bMovie, a easy to use, 4 step movie maker-Babya bMovie.

A.A. Fussy demoed it at the Babya Expo-here's what he said "We are offering the quickest video editor currently-just takes 4 steps to make a movie."

Babya Photo Workshop:

Babya Photo Workshop Pro 7 is likely to be discontinued in the next few weeks for the introduction of version 8.0-now set for a March release, apparently.


Sunday, January 23, 2005


Babya bSuite Up To Date
Do you own and use a previous version of the below Babya bSuite applications? If you do, you might be eligible for an upgrade to bSuite. Fill out the form below, to see if you can upgrade to bSuite.

What is Babya bSuite:
Take photos? Need to create a document? Convert or listen to music? Even if you’ve never considered yourself a creative person, Babya bSuite — a suite of tightly integrated applications that places no limit on your talent or creativity — makes it easy and fun to learn new skills.
Babya bSuite offers major and new versions of Babya Discoverer , Babya Photo Workshop , Babya Presenter , and the new Babya bDesign , Babya Unwritten, Babya bAccounting, Babya bSheet , Babya bLogo and Babya bCal.

With Babya bSuite ‘05, the must-have upgrade for everyone who uses a PC or even a Mac with previous releases of Babya bSuite's included software (all of bSuite can, of course save in common formats), you can easily create stunning documents, websites and presentations import, organize, and edit photos with EXIF data; and stun them with fully customizable slideshows using Babya Presenter. Babya bPlayer 2 converts and syncs with every member of the iPod family , a MP3 player or a Portable Media Center. You won’t find a better or easier to use set of creative tools than Babya bSuite.
We would like to give you the opportunity to upgrade to Babya bSuite for no cost .*



Babya applications:
Babya Word Processors Product: Versions: Eligible? Can the software be upgraded to bSuite? BabyaText 3.12 No1 No MemoWriter 1.0, 1.1 Yes Yes Constellation2.0 2.0 Yes2 Yes2 Babya System Babya System 7.1, 8.0, 9.0 Yes Yes 9.1, 9.15, 9.3 9.0/9.3-Yes29.15-Yes2 9.0/9.3-Yes29.15-No2
10.0, 10.0.1, 10.1 Yes Yes 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3 Yes- 11.0/11.1/11.3 No -11.22 Yes-11.0/11.1/11.3No -11.22 12.0, 12.0.1, 12.0.2, 12.0.3, 12.0.4, 12.0.6, 12.0.7, 12.0.8, 12.0.9, 12.1, 12.2

Yes Yes-direct bSuite upgrade 13.0, 14.0 Yes Yes-direct bSuite upgrade Babya Discoverer Babya Discoverer 3.0-5.5 No4 No4 6.0-8.0 Yes Yes Babya Discoverer RSS
11.0 Yes Included in bSuite Babya Photo Workshop Babya Photo Workshop Professional 1.0-5.0 Yes Yes 5.0-7.0 Yes Yes-direct to v 8.0 or 7.5 (bundled in Babya bSuite) Babya Photo Workshop Standard/Express 1.0-8.0 Yes Yes4 Babya Photo Workshop XL 7.0,7.1 Yes Direct to version 8



Babya bSuite System RequirementsWindows or Macintosh computer with a Pentium III 800MHz PowerPC G3/G4 1GHz or faster 256MB of RAM; 512MB recommended 32MB graphics card with pixel shader 1.1 support (Mac: 32MB VRAM, Core Image compliant) Windows 98-XP or Mac OS X v10.2 or later (does not run on Windows 95 or Mac OS 9) Some bSuite Babya applications require Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1/2.0 and Windows 2000 or XP Virtual PC 6.1/7.0 or similar for use on Macs 30-50MB HD Space QuickTime 6.5.2 Babya bSuite Up-To-DateCustomers who purchase a qualifying new Macintosh or Windows computer on or after January 11, 2005 that does not have Babya bSuite included can upgrade to Babya bSuite.If you purchased your system directly from the Babya online store, follow one of these links to participate in the program. Subject to terms and conditions.
For our international customers register and submit a support ticket at:
http://exocrew.com/helpdesk/index.php
If you purchased your system from an Babya website or an Babya authorized reseller, fill out one of these below , to participate in the program.

Enrol in Babya bSuite Up To Date :
Babya bSuite Up To DateName:
Babya product to upgrade?
E-mail address:



1.Eligible for standalone upgrade to a similar Babya software only (eg. E-Type, Discoverer) 2. Babya System bundled versions /Babya System are both eligible for a bSuite upgrade. 3.*Product availability: February , 2005 4.Babya Discoverer and Photo Workshop can be upgraded with bSuite or for versions before 11.0/ 5.0, separately

© Babya Software Group, 2005