February 25th Posting

There are five other cheaper options to Acrobat for PDF editing. Acrobat's basic edit PDF runs around $299 & the Pro version is around $449. Nitro Pro, Qoppa PDF Studio 8 Pro, PDF-XChange Editor 3.0, CutePDF Professional 3.7 and PDFescape are the other options available.

NitroPro's cost is around $140 and is probably the next best thing to Acrobat. It has the options of watermarking, splitting large documents into smaller pieces and page numbering. It also has the ability to export PDFs to a variety of Microsoft Office formats (including Powerpoint). This is a wonderful PDF option especially if you are looking for the advanced editing features.

Quoppa PDF Studio 8 Pro offers two versions which is the standard that will cost around $89 and the advanced version for around $129. This product's OCR (optical character recognition) runs slower than Acrobat and NitroPro but it is a good choice for OCR-based conversions and page manipulation and mark-ups. It also includes features that help with cloud-based storage systems. The downside of this product is that it is not great for editing documents or other file types.

PDF-Xchange Editor 3.0's costs around $44 and is does okay with the basic features. You can only import documents with this product and cannot export to other formats. It has many options for someone to comment on existing documents.

CutePDF Professional 3.7 runs around $50 and is just a basic option and is only good if you just need markup tools. There is no way to import or export documents.

PDFescape is free and is cloud-based. The editing options are limited but you can load up to 10 files at a time, but files are deleted after 7 days of no use. With this program, you can share files but only for viewing and not editing.

Null, Christopher. (February 13, 2014). 5 Cheaper Alternatives to Acrobat for PDF Editing. PCWorld.com. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2096946/5-cheaper-alternatives-to-acrobat-for-pdf-editing.html#tk.nl_pcwbest

February 18th Post

SanDisk has developed a dual USB drive that can be used with tablets, PCs and Android smartphones to transfer files. It has a USB plug on one end and a Micro-B USB plug on the other. The thumb drive comes in 16GB, 32GB and a 64GB and depending on the storage space of the device depends on the price. The 32GB costs around $30 which is more than people are used to paying for thumb drives. You can plug it into the device you want to transfer from, transfer the files, unplug it and then plug it into the device you would like to transfer to and transfer your files. The convenience of transferring your files makes up for the price. This device is a great file manager, small and has both Type A and Micro-B USB plugs. You may have to remove your phone's case for it to work and the it is speed limited by the USB 2.0 interface.

Brown, Michael. (February 2014). SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive Review: Android File Transfers Made Easy. PCWorld.com. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2097401/sandisk-ultra-dual-usb-drive-review-android-file-transfers-made-easy.html#tk.nl_pcwbest

February 11th Post

Instant messaging is a quick program that allow people to chat instantly with someone else instead of a call or by using e-mail. By using instant messaging, you can connect with someone instantly, view videos, play sounds, share files, and many other items. Instant messaging first became popular in 1996 with ICQ. Approximately a year later, AOL had their own version of instant messaging and chat rooms and eventually acquired ICQ. Instant messaging is like most other things we use now. You download the application to where you want to use it, create your contact list of the people that use the program that you would like to contact and go from there. It is a great tool when you need a quick response and both parties are online and can take care of something quickly rather than wait for an e-mail.

Tyson, Jeff. How Instant Messaging Works. Retrieved from

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/e-mail-messaging/instant-messaging.htm