Just a quick word to send out a big thanks to the LifeHacker crew for putting DisplayFusion 2nd in their Top 10 Ways to Trick Out Your Desktop list. DisplayFusion has been covered by LifeHacker twice before, and both their reviews and the user's comments have always been positive. Here's an excerpt from today's article:

Dual monitors boost your productivity by simple virtue of the fact that they offer more screen real estate to get things done, but let's get real - who doesn't want to show off their side-by-side screen setups? Grab a copy of DisplayFusion, and easily split your epic/panoramic/super-cute wallpaper across two monitors.

If you are using DisplayFusion Pro and you are interested in helping me test the upcoming v2.1 release, I have now started final testing. Just drop me a line and I'll send you the download link. Please make sure to contact me using the same email address you used to register DisplayFusion, as this is a private beta currently only open to Pro users. This is just one of the many benefits to becoming a Pro user. I am planning to release the new version this weekend, unless any showstopping bugs are found, so any feedback you can provide this week would be fantastic. Thanks everyone!

I'm very pleased to mention that DisplayFusion has received a mention in the April 2008 issue of PC Magazine!

  

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Multiple monitors of different sizes on your computer may not always provide the best visual setup. DisplayFusion assists by placing different wallpapers on each screen, even a contiguous background across displays with different resolutions. It helps controls windows, too, dragging them from screen to screen.

Special DisplayFusion Pro Offer

I'd like to send a big thanks out to Gilles Reichert from Belgium for bringing this article to my attention! Having Gilles point out this article to me has led to the creation of an exciting offer for everyone. If you find any Binary Fortress Software applications (iTunes Sync, DisplayFusion... etc) mentioned in a print publication (newspaper, magazine or anything else) just let me know and you'll be the recipient of a shiny new DisplayFusion Pro license. If you're already a Pro user then I'll refund the cost of your Pro license to you. Additionally, if you can arrange to have the article shipped/mailed here I will cover the cost of shipping and send another DisplayFusion Pro license to anyone you would like. A co-worker, your spouse, a friend or just a random person. It's up to you. If you have any questions about this offer please feel free to contact me.

Thanks everyone!

I am very happy today to announce the release of a re-born ClipboardFusion. ClipboardFusion started life as Clipboard Text Scrubber but has turned into so much more than a text scrubber. While ClipboardFusion can still scrub text of any unwanted formatting and remove HTML tags, it can now also show a helpful clipboard popup. When this feature is enabled, if you copy an HTML colour name or hex value to the clipboard a popup will appear that displays that colour. Very helpful for all of you web designers out there. Another thing the popup can do is show you a preview of any image contained on the clipboard. For example, if you press the "Print Screen" key to take a screen shot, the popup will display the image. Next, if you want, you can right-click on the popup and save that image to your computer without needing an image editing program.

I would invite everyone to head on over to the ClipboardFusion page to find out more information.

I have received 2 reports so far of people suspecting issues with DisplayFusion and Windows Vista x64. So far, both reports have been regarding nVidia video cards using the 169.25 ForceWare drivers and only on the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. I don't have a 64 bit machine right now to test on so if you are using Windows Vista x64 and you are using DisplayFusion I would love to hear from you. I'm not sure what combination of drivers and/or Windows updates is causing this issue but if you have been affected by it, or you are using Windows x64 successfully please let me know. I'd like to get to the bottom of this. Thanks everyone!

DisplayFusion v2.0.2 has been released! I'd like to thank everyone who helped me over the last week to nail down the last couple of issues. This new version fixes a number of issues that have appeared and a number of long-standing issues. Here are a couple of the highlights:

• Added an option to enable/disable maximized window dragging
• Added a new image sizing option: "Best fit and maintain aspect ratio (clip edges)"
• Added the ability to paste images from the clipboard (ex: copy and paste from Firefox or Internet Explorer)
• Fixed wallpaper applying to only 1 monitor in very rare situations
• Fixed a problem that caused windows to sometimes un-maximize when used with the hotkeys

If you would like to see the complete list of changes please check out the Change Log. I would encourage everyone to upgrade to the latest version, and as usual, if you encounter any problems please visit the DisplayFusion Online Support page.

Thanks everyone!

I'm happy to announce that DisplayFusion v2.0 was a huge success! On it's first day after being released it chalked up over 8,000 downloads within the first 24 hours. With this flurry of downloads came a number of bug reports as well, most of them relating to minor issues or issues that were hardware specific. I have done my best to keep on top of the issues over the last 4 days and I've bundled all of the fixes into the latest release, v2.0.1. I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who has reported the issues so far, and to those who helped me with testing this new release. DisplayFusion wouldn't be as solid as it is today without everyone's help.

Now, down to business. The change log shows over a dozen changes in this release, so I won't list them all here. Little things like grammatical mistakes, tab order and control focus issues have all been addressed. Along with bigger things like window spanning now working in all situations, and DisplayFusion properly detecting resolution changes so it can automatically adjust your wallpaper. Some new things were added as well, like the ability to rename custom hotkeys and 2 new system tray menu items for going to the next random image or "freezing" the current random image if you are using the random wallpaper option. If you are interested in reading about all the changes included I invite you to take a look at the full change log.

Thank you all for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy this new release of DisplayFusion!

After over a month of development I am proud to announce the release of DisplayFusion 2.0! This new version represents a major change for both DisplayFusion, and the way I am supporting future development of the project. DisplayFusion 2.0 includes some fantastic new functionality, like wallpaper changing on a timer and fully customizable hotkeys, but the single biggest change is the addition of a Pro version. The Pro version contains features that go above and beyond basic hotkeys and desktop wallpaper. For example, in the Pro version you can have your wallpaper change automatically ever few minutes or hours. It also includes the ability to fully customize your own hotkeys. For example, if you're a developer you could create a hotkey that centred a window and resized it to 800x600 for testing webpage layout. Or you could create a series of hotkeys for tiling windows to the 4 corners of the screen. Your imagination is the limit! If you would like more information on what features are included in the Free or Pro versions I invite you to check out the version comparison chart. If you would like a full rundown on the changes included in 2.0 please take a look at the change log.

Something new that I've decided to try for this release is a flash demo. If you head over to the DisplayFusion page you will see a flash video demonstrating most of the functionality of DisplayFusion, including both Free and Pro features.

Re-designed Desktop Wallpaper Manager

Completely re-written Flickr image browser

One last note: Anyone who has previously donated any amount towards any of my software development should find a DisplayFusion Pro license key in their email. If you have previously donated your time or money to help with any of my projects and you didn't receive your license key please contact me and I'll get it sorted out as soon as possible.

Thank you everyone, and happy downloading!

I'm very happy to report that DisplayFusion has passed a significant milestone this week: it has now been downloaded over 100,000 times! This far exceeds any expectations I had, as this averages more than 20,000 downloads per month since it's release. Party time!

Now for some future news. Significant progress has been made on v2.0, which will be the next release. It has some spiffy new features and a pile of bug fixes. There are also some other big changes that I'll announce once v2.0 gets released. I'd like to send out a big thanks to everyone that has donated over the last few months as I have been able to cover the hosting costs for DisplayFusion. This has allowed me to not worry about hosting costs or paying bills, and instead let me focus my attention elsewhere. v2.0 is nearing completion and should be ready for release in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted.

To anyone that stays current with the latest technology news, DRM is nothing new. It's hated by everyone except the record labels, and certain countries even have strict laws preventing people from circumventing it. It's a constant battle between fair use and preventing piracy, but the battle seems to be swaying far, far away from fair use. Sometimes being so close to the technology industry obscures how good a job the music industry has done at keeping DRM a secret. Ask anyone in I.T. what DRM is and they'll shake their fist at it. Ask anyone else and you might just get a blank stare. My parents, for example, are not computer savvy people and have no clue what DRM is. All they know about DRM is that if they buy their music online they can never buy another brand of MP3 player or use a different music program. After I released iTunes Sync I was given a glimpse into just how secret DRM really is. Here is an actual email that I received from someone quite recently.

I have a Samsung Sansa e260R that was given to me to replace an iPod Shuffle that broke. I used your software to sync my iTunes which included both songs copied from my CDs and songs purchased via iTunes. Your software worked great, except it would not copy purchased songs. It said it was copying all the files and that all files were copied, but when I look in my mp3 player, only those tunes that I did not purchase appear. Is there anything I can do to use these song I paid for? Thank you for your work! Sherry

Sherry has no idea what is going on with her music, and no idea why she can't listen to her music on her new MP3 player. She thinks that she is doing something wrong. Apple never warned her that her music was forever locked to iTunes and her iPod, so now she is out of luck. Here's another email.

Dear Sir, I'm trying to move my iTunes library to my new AT&T Samsung Sync phone. It has a microSD card, I need help moving this. I'm not a good computer person, but I know that I should be able to put my music I paid for on what I want. Thanks, Joe

Joe has just discovered the wonderful world of DRM for the first time, and only now he realizes how badly he has been scammed by Apple and the music industry as a whole. What can we do to prevent these emails in the future? Eliminating DRM would be nice, and some pioneering record labels are experimenting with this, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. What we really need is less-restrictive legislation when it comes to circumventing or removing the DRM. The DMCA in the United States gives far too much power to the record labels and no power to the people. Unfortunately the Canadian government has been under pressure lately to implement something similar. How can we stop laws like this from robbing people of their right to fair use? We need to spread the word. Tell your mom. Tell your aunt that is thinking about buying an MP3 player. Tell your cousin who just installed iTunes for the first time. Everyone needs to know this dirty secret, not just the tech crowd.