Avast 7

Avast has improved its installation process so it's faster than before. It's not the fastest on the market, not by a longshot, but a standard installation took us about three minutes.

Some items of note during the installation that will come up later in the review: to avoid the new Windows 7 and Vista desktop gadget, or the new WebRep browser add-on, you must choose the Custom install option and uncheck those here.

Automatic installation of these features is frowned upon, although Avast does provide a clear method for uninstalling them. It's just not as simple as a check box that gets its own installation window, since you have to go through the Customize menu, which makes the auto-install sort of surreptitious.

The current versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer both block forced add-on installation. When you run one of those browsers for the first time after installing Avast, they'll ask you if you want to allow the new add-on.

On the plus side, installing Avast doesn't require a reboot, and using its uninstall tool we detected no remnants in the Registry or on the desktop. Avast has said that the installer has shrunk for all three versions by about 20 percent, although it's still a large download at around 70MB for the free version.

A new Avast installation option, available only from the custom install menu, lets you sideload Avast as a secondary security program to supplement your main one. We're not big fans of this option from a security point-of-view, because it can bog down your system resources without actually making you safer. However, for seeing if you like Avast, it's not a bad thing as long as you remember to choose one security suite to go with.

SolidWorks 2012

SolidWorks - computer-aided design, engineering analysis and manufacture of products of any complexity and purpose.

SolidWorks is the core of an integrated set of enterprise automation, through which the support of the product life cycle, in accordance with the concept of CALS-technologies, including bi-directional data exchange with other Windows-based applications and the creation of online documentation.
Depending on the class of tasks customers are three basic system configurations: SolidWorks, SolidWorks Professional and SolidWorks Premium.
CAD developer SolidWorks is a SolidWorks Corp. (USA), an independent division of Dassault Systemes (France) - the world leader in high-tech software.

Development of SolidWorks Corp. characterized by high levels of quality, reliability and productivity, which in combination with qualified support for SolidWorks makes the best decision for the industry.

Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2013

Autodesk has recently showed off the new line of Media and Entrainment packages with 2013 updates to Autodesk Maya 2013, Autodesk 3ds MAX 2013, Autodesk Softimage 2013, Autodesk MotionBuilder 2013, Autodesk MudBox 2013, and Autodesk Flame 2013 in a media event that set the focus on Autodesk’s larger picture roadmap to cloud technologies as well as smaller and more portable tools to enhance desktop tools which would be aimed to liberate some workflows from desktop computers.

Autodesk Maya 2013 features include:

Enhancements to workflow with:

• Viewport 2.0 Enhancements: Evaluate your work in a higher fidelity interactive environment in order to make better creative decisions.
• New Node Editor: Create, edit, and debug node networks more easily with the new Node Editor.
• File Referencing Workflow Enhancements: Segment your scenes more easily, to work in parallel and better manage complexity, thanks to targeted improvements to both the user interface and the underlying architecture for file referencing.
• Heat Map Skinning: Enjoy a more accurate initial binding of geometry to skeletons, thanks to a new Heat Map Skinning method that is better able to assign skin to the intended bone as opposed to an adjacent but unrelated one and requires less manual refinement.

New Features in Dynamics:

• Bullet Physics: Simulate both soft and rigid bodies in a single system, with the high-performance open source AMD Bullet Physics engine.
• Maya nHair: Create stunning, highly realistic hair and other curve-based dynamics with the new Maya^® nHair module for the Maya^® Nucleus unified simulation framework.
• Alembic Caching: Read and write the Alembic open source computer graphics interchange framework format, co-developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd.

… and Animation Improvements:

• HumanIK Enhancements: Gain the ability to map and retarget Autodesk® HumanIK® animation to and from a custom rigged character; a unified character context for increased usability; character views that can be customized to fit specific requirements; continuous rig alignment during manipulation and playback; and greater control over Roll Bone influences. Graph Editor Enhancements: Enjoy the increased efficiency resulting from a new interactive Retime tool, and a stepped preview mode for pose-to-pose animation in the Graph Editor.
• Trax Clip Matching: Visualize how Trax clips overlap in order to build complete character performances from individual animations.
• ATOM Animation Transfer: Transfer animation between characters via the new ATOM (Animation Transfer Object Model) offline file format, in order to repurpose existing animation data as new characters are created.

Adobe Master Collection CS6

Today Adobe officially launched its Creative Cloud and CS6 Suite. We have published about Creative Cloud when it was announced in October 2011, on the day Adobe launched its Touch Apps suite, a collection of creative application for Android tablets.

After paying a monthly fee of $49.99, Creative Cloud subscribers will be able to download and use (offline, on desktop) any CS6 tool or Touch App*, and access automatic cloud sync and storage (up to 20 GB) for viewing, editing or commenting on files from anywhere on multiple devices. A “Team” subscription will be available later for $69.99 per month and per user that will give access to more storage and allow IT management. Later this year, Creative Cloud will have its own community where members will have the opportunity to share projects, seek help and exchange tips and tricks.

Additionally Creative Cloud will include access to two new  HTML5 products, Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge preview that are not included in CS6.

The new Creative Suite 6  features new versions of 13 products including Photoshop and Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash Pro and more. Acrobat and Flash Builder do not get updates, and Adobe combined its Web Suite and Design Suite in one “Design and Web Premium” ($1899) that includes Acrobat X Pro, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash Pro, InDesign, Illustrator and Photshop Extended. The Design Standard Suite containing only InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop will be available for $1299.