Ravi's Gadgets

The nominations for the 2007 Shareware Industry Awards have been announced! Take a look at the best of the best!

Best Overall Utility
FolderMatch by Salty Brine Software
TuneUp Utilities 2007 by TuneUp Software GmbH
WinRar by win.rar GmbH
WinZip by WinZip International LLC.

Best Application
ClipMate by Thornsoft Development
CSE HTML Validator by AI Internet Solutions
Open Office by Sun Microsystems

Best Graphics Program or Utility
Easy Imager by Fookes Software
IrfanView by Irfan Skiljan
PaintShop Pro by Corel Corporation

Best Desktop Enhancement
Microangelo Toolset by Eclipsit Corporation
MBSS Fireworks by Patrick D. Grengs II
Window Blinds by Stardock Corporation

Best Photo Program or Utility
ACDSee Pro Photo Manager by ACD Systems
ALSee by ESTsoft
Life Poster Maker by Lincoln Beach Software

Best Sound Program or Utility
ALSong by ESTsoft
D’Accord iChords by D’Accord Music Software
RecordForAll by NotePage, Inc.
Winamp Pro by NullSoft

Best Vertical Market Program or Utility
Guitar and Drum Trainer by Renegade Minds
Help & Manual by EC Software GmbH
Vmware Workstation by VMware Inc.

Best Business Application or Utility
Microsoft Office 2007 by Microsoft Corporation
PayWindow 2007 by ZPAY Payroll Systems
Time & Chaos by Chaos Software

Best Educational Program or Game
AceReader Pro by StepWare Inc.
WinFlash Educator by Open Window Software
WISCO Word Power by Wisco Computing

Best Hobby or Personal Interest
Auction Sentry Deluxe by Auction-Sentry.com
Google Earth by Google Inc.
MyLife Organized by My Life Organized

Best Internet Enhancement
Cute FTP Professional by GlobalSCAPE
FlashGot by InformAction
FTP Voyager by Rhino Software, Inc.
WS_FTP Professional by Ipswitch, Inc.

Best Internet Communication
Miranda by Miranda IM
Pidgin by Softare Freedom Law Center
Skype by Skype Limited
Trillian by Cerulean Studios

Best Web Enhancement
Mozilla Firefox by Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla Thunderbird by Mozilla Foundation
RoboForm by Siber Systems
SPAMFighter by SPAMFighter

Best Non-Action Game
Ant War 1 by Anarchy Enterprises
Pocket War by MetalShard, Inc.
Pretty Good MahJongg by Goodsol Development, Inc.

Best New Game
Addictive Football by Addictive 247 Games
Golf King by NHN USA
Titan Attacks by Demand Entertainment

Best Program for PDA’s
Journal Bar by Omega One
Resco Explorer by Resco, sro.
Spb Mobile Shell by Spb Software House

Academia has embraced RSS as a means to educate, but scrutinizing how educational institutions are using RSS feeds in their daily routines show RSS is utilized can vary across different industries.

1. Share Resources
Academics are using social bookmarking websites to share quality websites that relate to their area of expertise with colleagues and students.

2. Class Blogs
From elementary schools to university blogs, online journals have flourished. Instructors have used blogging as a teaching tool. Helping students learn writing and reporting skills while understanding how to use technology. Many educational bloggers use RSS as a means to syndicate blog posts.

3. School Schedule Sports Schedule
RSS feeds can be used to communicate events scheduled on or off campus to prospective and existing students. Subscribes of a schools calendar feed receive notification as new items are added to the calendar.

RSS and Education

Whats Up is a graduation project, but they might have some trademark issues with the popular network monitoring software by the same name – WhatsUp

Whats Up? is an application that tracks a large number of RSS news feeds. The sources of these feeds are displayed on this world map. Whenever any of the news feeds releases a new article, its title immediately pops up. Instead of listing previously released news, this application shows news as it is released, so you can see what is up right at this moment in the world.

Discussions about full and partial feeds emerge in an interview with Rick Klau from FeedBurner.