New Super Mario Bros. Wii trailer shows off more gameplay
I was one of those lured by the Wii’s innovative gameplay proposition when the console was launched. If you recall how that went, demand was incessant and Nintendo was barely able to stock enough units during its first year. In fact, I had to buy my console at a premium from eBay.
Looking back, I can’t believe I went to those extremes for a console that is now basically collecting dust after the Wii Sports novelty wore off and after I got my fair share of Super Mario Bros. and Punch Out nostalgia sessions. Long story short, the Wii is now my wife’s console but this could be getting me back for more…
The trailer above was just released and shows new gameplay elements for the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii slated for release this November.
TechSpot’s user survey, show us your support, get a netbook
Update #3: The prize went unclaimed, so we are picking up a new winner: Congratulations Ben Katz! Same rules as below apply, hopefully someone will claim the Asus netbook this time.
Update #2: Congratulations Matthew Iselin, you are the winner of our survey giveaway. We have contacted you at the email you provided, so we can send you the Asus Eee PC 904HA netbook. If we don’t receive a response in the next 72 hours we will have to select a new winner, so get back to us soon :)
Update: Thanks to everyone who filled the survey! We have collected enough information now to be able to tell we have a very educated audience composed in good part of technology enthusiasts and IT professionals. A majority of you plan to spend money on computer hardware and CE equipment in the coming months and plan to make those purchases online. Wait, we knew that already :).
The Asus Eee netbook giveaway winner will be contacted and announced within the next 7 days. Watch out for that email. Thanks again!
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About once a year we ask our readers to help us filling a short survey which will help us targeting our audience better. The best part, we will randomly giveaway an Asus Eee PC 904HA netbook among those who fill the questionnaire.
We use the gathered information to create a profile of TechSpot’s audience, so we can keep offering relevant technology-related advertising on the site. Our business model relies on advertising, so we’ve seen our ups and downs over the last couple of years as you can imagine. But then again, we’ve kept growing strong and just last January we broke our traffic record serving content to a staggering 3.9 million readers.
It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and make sure you include your email at the end to enter the giveaway drawing. Thanks in advance for your support.
A Quick & Easy Guide to Bulk File Renaming
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you had to rename dozens or even hundreds of files, performing each and every file name edit manually, you can certainly understand the need for an utility like the Bulk Rename Utility.
While it might be a bit overwhelming at first sight, the 5-15 minute learning curve is well worth the time and energy you’ll undoubtedly save.
The Bulk Rename Utility allows you to perform a plethora of bulk file name modifications, all of which leave the files’ extension untouched unless you deploy an edit using the “Extension” section. You can easily add, remove and substitute letters, numbers, date and timestamps and it can all be done in more than a single way in some situations, ultimately leaving the process very open to the user.
You are provided with a preview of all potential and pending changes so you can tinker with and tweak your settings accordingly, though if you make an error it’s easily reversible by tapping CTRL+Z.
As you can see in the image below I’ve managed to alter the text to be appropriately capitalized (4), I requested all underscores to be removed (5), shifted the band’s name from the rear to the front (6) and inserted dashes ” – ” at the designated position (7) to separate the band and song name. The configuration of this took literally 45 seconds or less, if you’re curious.
Once you experiment by using a few features or skim some relevant sections in the help file, the rest should be easy with a bit of common sense.
I’ve personally used this utility to reorganize roughly 2,500 music files in 200+ folders, something I’d been putting off for over a year due to the tedious nature of the whole process, but with BRU it only took me less than a couple of hours (including the learning curve).
Download the Bulk Rename Utility here.
List of antivirus suites that presently work with Windows 7 Beta
If you’ve decided to give Windows 7 a whirl and have recently installed the open now closed beta, you’ll have noticed that upon installation you are notified of the fact that you’re lacking proper antivirus software.
This is nothing new and actually has been a “feature” of Windows ever since XP’s SP2 got released and the Security Center came to exist. It’s nothing new either to have a majority of antivirus suites to become incompatible with brand new operating systems – and Windows 7 is no exception, especially more so in its current beta form.
Upon a bit of investigation you probably made your way to the Windows 7 security provider page at Microsoft’s site and perhaps were let down by the fact that the three “officially” supported AVs are all paid software or that your preferred suite isn’t listed (AVG is listed but not the free version). So, we’ve decided to install and test a variety of the more popular options out there so you don’t have to.
We will start things off by confirming that the supported AVs on Microsoft’s page indeed work:
AVG & AVG Free: Compatible **
(Download)
Kaspersky Antivirus 2009: Compatible
(Download)
Norton AntiVirus 2009: Compatible
(Download)
Eset NOD32: Compatible
(Download)
McAfee Total Protection Beta: Compatible
(Download)
Avast! Home Edition: Compatible
(Download)
Avira AntiVir Personal: Compatible
(Download)
BitDefender Internet Security 2009: Compatible
(Download)
Trend Micro Internet Security Pro: Incompatible
eScan Internet Security Suite: Incompatible
Ahnlab V3 Internet Security 2007: Incompatible
Needless to say, the similarities between Vista and 7 become apparent from looking at the list above. No doubt AV makers have adapted their applications to interact with the OS internal workings better, so they are easily prepared to work with 7.
Besides installing the suites we toyed with them a little and ran quick/full scans. Those apps listed as compatible should be working fine for you unless some bug in the beta OS (or why not, the AV suite compatibility) becomes self-evident.
If you’re curious about any other antivirus, let us know in the comments and we’ll update the article with our findings (if we can obtain the software) and be sure to let us know if your favorite antivirus is now compatible!
** Update 2/12/09:
Added BitDefender Internet Security 2009 to the list. I experienced no compatibility issues whatsoever throughout the installation, updating and scanning process.
Paul Hayes (Ascully.com) was kind enough of letting us know that AVG’s Mail Scanner portion doesn’t go along well with Outlook, causing it to stop receiving email. We will confirm this ourselves later. I tested this using Outlook 2007 and had no problems at all sending or receiving new/old mail via IMAP/SMTP from my Gmail account. Perhaps the issue is more isolated to a specific configuration and it may even be absolutely unrelated.
** Update 2/13/09:
Added Trend Micro Internet Security Pro to the list. Resulted in BSOD (stop 0×18) and screwed up UAC, couldn’t make any alterations from within Windows. I was forced to manually remove the software in Safe Mode (by deleting program data/registry entries).
Added eScan Internet Security Suite to the list. During installer/uninstaller caused the cursor to randomly move on it’s own and caused general instabilities.
** Update 2/16/09:
Added Ahnlab V3 Internet Security 2007 to the list. It required me to run the compatibility wizard for installation and even then the program was very unstable (stopped responding on multiple occasions, especially when applying settings). Also, the Action Center failed to detect any protection while it was installed. Though it installed/uninstalled and allowed me to update/scan successfully, I would not presently use this antivirus on Windows 7.
** Update 2/25/09:
Added McAfee Total Protection Beta (thank you for updating us in the comments). Experienced absolutely no issues, installation/uninstallation were clean and updating/scanning went smooth. If you were bummed about the previously incompatible offer from McAfee, wipe the tears away and get their beta software.
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