The top 10 most pirated movies of 2013

Movies are very important to me and to society overall. Seeing popular films gives the moviegoer a shared experience with other members of the community. This in turn allows you to understand references to the film in jokes and documentaries. For example, if you've never seen a film such as Star Wars, you would not understand the Family Guy and Robot Chicken parodies of it.

Sadly, for many people, a trip to the movie theater is not achievable due to extremely high prices. Where I live, New York, a couple going on a date to the movies can easily spend over $30.00 when drinks and snacks are factored in. Those same people may not be able to afford the premium movie channels. I am one of these people -- I typically wait years for a film to hit FX, USA or something similar, so I can see it in all its censored, commercial-riddled glory. The alternative is movie piracy -- something I do not condone nor take part of, for more reasons than one.

Internet aside, every barbershop I have been in over the last decade has someone selling bootleg DVD movies. Typically, the DVDs cost about $5.00 and the quality may be passable (they often carry a portable player to show you). However, to truly enjoy a film, I must have both pristine quality and a good conscience. I do not want to steal a movie now and lead to the downfall of the movie industry later. Quite frankly, I also don't want anything less than 1080p.

According to TorrentFreak, the below list is the top 10 most downloaded films of 2013 -- by way of BitTorrent. Of course, barbershop and street-corner sales are not included.

Rank	Film	Number of Downloads
1	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	8,400,000
2	Django Unchained	8,100,000
3	Fast And Furious 6	7,900,000
4	Iron Man 3	7,600,000
5	Silver Linings Playbook	7,500,000
6	Star Trek Into Darkness	7,400,000
7	Gangster Squad	7,200,000
8	Now You See Me	7,000,000
9	The Hangover Part 3	6,900,000
10	World War Z	6,700,000

Believe it or not, I have seen only one film on that list, The Hangover 3, which I hated. The other nine films I will catch on TBS or TNT in a few years. For now, I will have to forgo knowing the references to the films. I hope the movie industry appreciates it when I don't get one of SNL's jokes about The Hobbit.

Have you seen any of these films? Did you illegally download them? Tell me in the comments below.

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Happy New Year's Eve -- Bing sets off Fireworks, Google goes disco

It’s the eve of 2014 and, let’s face it, tech news is scant on this day. Silicon Valley has taken a hiatus, but will return next week, with the kickoff of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But a holiday is always good for one thing -- checking the search engines to see how each is celebrating the event.

Google today has gone all 1970’s on us, with dancing and a disco ball. The animated numbers 2 0 1 3, are having a blast as the speakers pound out an unheard rhythm and the mirrored ball spins above. One would think we were on the verge of welcoming in 1977, and you can almost hear the Chic music playing in the distance, but actually it's 4 is waiting impatiently for its chance to take over 3's spot on the colorful dance floor.

Bing, on the other hand, known for its stunning photography used as a daily backdrop for its search page, celebrates the day with a New Year’s Eve fireworks display, photographed over Korb, Rems-Murr district, Germany -- we sincerely hope no homes were harmed in the making of this image.

Even Samsung, though not a search engine, gets in on the act today, posting a message on its company blog wishing everyone a Happy New Year, though you’ll need to translate the message, as it is written in binary.

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MediaPortal improves stability, offers better TV performance

Team MediaPortal has released a major update of its open-source media center for Windows. MediaPortal 1.6.0 FINAL comes with the promise of increased stability thanks to a MySQL update, better TV performance on selected live streams and support for a range of new plugins.

A number of improvements in MediaPortal 1.6 can be found within its Music section. There’s a rework of the Last.FM component for compatibility reasons, while the AllMusic scraper has also been updated to restore album and artist scraping functionality.

Version 1.6 also restores gapless playback -- users should enable this via MediaPortal’s configuration -- while music visualizations now correctly listen to the music beat. Switch visualizations to full-screen by pressing the [X] key.

Also updated is the MyVideos scraper -- not only does the latest build fix fanart and poster scraping after an API change at themoviedb.org, but it’s also been engineered that future updates to the scraper can be applied outside of the regular MediaPortal release cycle.

Version 1.6 also promises enhanced TV performance thanks to fixes to stuttering and dropped frame issues with H.264 video streams of a certain type favored by free-to-air broadcasts in both the UK and New Zealand. The update also adds recognition of DolbyDigital+ streams and fixes a deadlock that could lead to TV server crashes or even BSODs on certain setups.

Other changes in version 1.6 include core modifications to support new plugins including the Auto3D plugin, which provides enhanced 3D functionality whenever a 3D movie is detected. Windows 8.1 users should also see a DPI scaling issue resolved, while refresh rate changing issues on multi-monitor setups should also be fixed.

MediaPortal 1.6.0 switches to MySQL 5.6 from version 5.1 for stability reasons. Team MediaPortal cites the default InnoDB engine used in version 5.6 as being more reliable and less prone to crashing than the MyISAM database that’s the default in version 5.1. Existing users will need to perform a clean installation rather than an upgrade in order to use MySQL 5.6.

Version 1.6.0 also switches its requirements to the .NET Framework 4 tool, which users will need to have installed before attempting to install the software. Note .NET Framework 4 is already included with standard Windows 8 and 8.1 installs.

MediaPortal 1.6.0 FINAL is available now as a free, open-source download for PCs running Windows Vista or later. Note that official support for XP was dropped with the previous major release (1.5.0).

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My (achievable) tech resolutions for 2014 [Wayne]

As you’ll have noticed by now, the BetaNews writers have been making tech-based resolutions for the New Year. This is something I did last year, and revisiting my post for the first time since I originally wrote it, I discovered what I suspected would be the case -- I failed miserably across the board.

I said I would embrace Google+, but I haven’t. I’ve followed some people, and used Google’s social network slightly more, but embraced it? Nope. I said I’d change my passwords. I changed maybe two. I claimed I’d sort out my inbox. It was 79 percent full (8GB) then. It’s 74 percent full (11.19GB) now, so that’s a big fat fail. I said I’d learn to love Windows 8. I never did. I do really like Windows 8.1 though, so I'll claim that as a win. I stated I’d move my data to the cloud, and learn to program. I think you can guess how well those panned out. While at lot of my files are stored in the cloud, I still have multiple local copies of everything, and I haven’t programmed so much as a single line of code. So for this year’s list, I’m going to choose resolutions I believe I can actually achieve.

Download More Apps

I download crazy amounts of apps for iOS and my original idea was to resolve to only download apps I know I’ll use, rather than everything that catches my eye, but that will never happen. So instead I’m going to pledge to keep downloading apps. And in fact I’m going to download even more iOS apps, and write a weekly column celebrating the best new releases every week. Watch out for the first one soon.

I’ll download more Windows 8.x apps in 2014 too. But seeing as I probably only have five apps on my Win 8.1 computer that won’t be a major stretch.

Consolidate All My Storage

I bought a new NAS drive recently, and although I’ve set it up there’s still some way to go until all my tech (such as my Wi-Fi enabled video camera) makes proper use of it. I also use numerous cloud storage services (iCloud, SkyDrive, Google Drive and Amazon Cloud Drive to name the four main ones) and want to limit duplication where possible. I’m halfway through the process of sorting everything, so I’d like to think I can manage this one.

Upload ALL My Photos to Flickr

Flickr gives users 1TB of space for free, and although I use some of my quota, I could easily just upload all of my old photos to the site and forget about them until needed. I know that slightly contradicts my previous resolution, but I view it as a bonus backup, rather than yet another storage service. I should achieve this one as the first batch is already uploading as I write.

Digitize All My Old Media

I bought a new scanner in 2012 with the aim being to digitize all my old photographs, and although I did get through a batch of them I’ve still got hundreds, or maybe thousands more to scan. Similarly I added a couple of terabytes of storage to my PC to hold all the video I was going to digitize (all those home movies etc.) but it seems to be full of music files, new photos, and book drafts at the moment. I can’t guarantee I’ll manage to complete this resolution, but I will give it a try at least.

Other Resolutions

It’s unlikely I’ll use Google+ any more than I already am, but I will try to get back to using Twitter more. I stopped using it fully some years ago when I found it consuming too much of my life, but I will try to spend more time on there. I will also try to change more passwords than last time (I’m aiming for four or five), and thin out my inbox -- deleting just those emails with the largest, least important attachments should help me regain a fair amount of free space for the minimum of effort.

What about you? Do you have any achievable tech resolutions?

Photo Credit: bahri altay/Shutterstock

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Why I’m not making tech resolutions for 2014 [Ian]

You'll have noticed by now that my colleagues here are all busy promising to clean up their tech acts for the coming year. But I'm not going to do that.

I don't generally make resolutions anyhow -- it saves having to come up with excuses later -- so instead here's what I won’t be changing in 2014.

My Backup Regime

Among my colleague Mark Wilson's resolutions is a commitment to improve his backup routine. But I've spent too long working in tech support and have rebuilt too many systems to think it won't happen to me, so I'm already a mild obsessive where backups are concerned. Anything I'm currently working on is saved to the cloud and synced between two machines for good measure, and everything else is saved to an external hard drive every couple of weeks. I've even been known to backup my phone contacts.

Not Owning a Tablet

I get sent tablets to review from time to time and they're fun for a while but I haven’t -- yet -- felt the need to actually own one. I can see that they're handy if you want to tweet along to your favorite TV show or you need to look things up really quickly, but that's the problem. I don't really need non-essential information that fast and if I had access to a tablet all the time I'd just spend more hours online and have less of a life.

This is rather like Mihaita's resolution to disconnect more, I'm just trying to avoid another excuse to connect in the first place. There's little doubt that I’ll crack and end up owning a tablet at some point but so far I'm resisting the tide.

Not Buying Software

Easy for you, you may be thinking, given that I'm in a position to request review copies, but most of the programs I use on a day-to-day basis are freeware. I'm writing this post using LibreOffice, I edit images in Paint.NET, I use a free backup program and a free password manager. I have a tendency to avoid big names even when they are free, I long since dumped the bloated Adobe Reader in favor of a lighter, faster alternative. In fact there are only two paid-for programs on this PC, one for web design -- which is several years old -- and one for creating invoices.

Sadly this commitment doesn't extend to desktop operating systems, I gave up on Linux a long time ago. It's great when it works but far too frustrating when it doesn't, so I'll stick to Windows thanks.

Those then are my non-resolutions for 2014, if you see me buying a tablet sometime in the next year feel free to point and sneer. What about you though? Are you planning on making tech resolutions for next year or are you too going against the flow? Let me know via the comments.

Photo Credit: Thinglass/Shutterstock

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The collapse of the internet and other things to look forward to in 2014

It's inevitable that at this time of year tech companies and analysts like to try to grab headlines with their predictions for the coming 12 months. Security specialist Kaspersky Lab is no exception, and guaranteed to make waves is its forecast of the collapse of the internet as we know it.

This, it says, will be driven by pressure to break the web up into national segments. So far this has only applied to counties like China with its Great Firewall, but other nations including Russia have planned legislation to prohibit the use of foreign services. In November, Germany announced that all communications between the German authorities would be fully locked within the country. Brazil too has announced its plans to build an alternative internet channel so as not to use the one that goes through Florida.

Alex Gostev, Chief Security Expert at Kaspersky Lab says, "The Internet has begun to break up into national segments. Snowden's revelations have intensified the demand for rules prohibiting the use of foreign services. Individual countries are no longer willing to let a single byte of information out of their networks. These aspirations will grow ever stronger and legislative restrictions will inevitably transform into technical prohibitions. The next step will most likely be attempts to limit foreign access to data inside a country. As this trend develops further it may lead at some point to the collapse of the current Internet, which will break into dozens of national networks. The shadowy Darknet then will be the only truly world-wide web".

Other things to emerge from Kaspersky's crystal ball gazing are that Bitcoin users can expect to see more attacks targeting their wallets. Bitcoin theft promises cyber-criminals big profits and complete anonymity so attacks aimed at the currency's exchanges are likely to become more common.

We can expect ransomware to spread to the smartphone arena too. Encryption of data on smartphones is easy if the trojan program has administrator rights and Kaspersky predicts this type of attack will appear on Android devices first. It also expects mobile phishing attacks to increase in sophistication and to see an increasing underground market in mobile botnets.

Tough times for the cloud are on the horizon too according to the report. Partly because confidence has been hit by the Snowden revelations and partly because the type of data now being committed to the cloud is more attractive to criminals. Hackers are targeting cloud service employees as the weak link in a chain that could give them access to huge volumes of potentially valuable data.

If you weren't depressed about 2014 already you probably are now, but there are some more positive notes. Kaspersky foresees greater popularity of VPN services and TOR-anonymizers in addition to a greater demand for local encryption tools as people become more aware of protecting their privacy.

It also predicts the rise of a new breed of "cyber-mercenaries". Experienced hackers who will offer their services to companies in order to combat cyber-espionage and other threats.

You can read more about what Kaspersky thinks is in store for 2014 on the company's blog.

Photo Credit: Fotonium/Shutterstock

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My tech resolutions for 2014 [Mihaita]

I frequently make resolutions throughout the year, ranging from being more patient to losing some weight. However, I give technology little to no attention in this respect, which may seem a bit unusual coming from someone who writes about it for a living. But, lately, I have been thinking about making some changes, and what I could do more in regards to tech.

I do have realistic expectations, as I am in no way trying to convince myself that I will actually work on every item from this list, starting January 1. It's a fool's errand as far as I'm concerned. Instead, these are the things I would like to build towards this following year, with the end goal of steadily improving myself throughout 2014.

Disconnect More Often

Technology is highly addictive. I spend the better part of each day in front of my laptop and tablet, working and relaxing (sometimes, the two overlap, but don't tell anyone). I enjoy it. But, in the long run, it's also not healthy for my mental sanity, as it detracts me from everything else that matters and happens around me.

I cannot help to lose myself in what I do. There is a problem though -- I do not become a better writer doing so, nor a better person. Too much technology is a bad thing, so every time I get the chance to disconnect I jump in with both feet. But I keep my phone and tablet around, for those rare occasions when I need them (jotting down ideas, looking at maps, etc.).

After I return home, I often find that I am much more relaxed, more focused on what I need to do, and more insightful. This applies to both work and personal life. I rarely took breaks in 2013, but in 2014 I plan to disconnect as often as I can (certainly, more often that I did this year), perhaps close to every weekend.

Make Smarter Purchases

Sometimes, there is a huge gap between what I need and what I buy. Case in point, I need a tablet with a cellular connection, yet I bought the new Wi-Fi-only Google Nexus 7. Not smart, not smart at all.

Here's why: When I go away from home, I usually have to use my Nokia Lumia 920 to tether. Wi-Fi hotspots are common in the city, but scarce otherwise. Its battery life is never amazing, let alone while sharing the Internet connection.

It is also not convenient, because if the connection idles the Windows Phone will automatically interrupt the sharing, with no option to always keep it on (not a sound design, Microsoft). I have to keep it plugged in while tethering, otherwise the Lumia 920 would wave the while flag after three to four hours.

This year I also bought two Windows Phones, an HTC Windows Phone 8X and the Lumia 920, when what I really wanted was the latter of the two. Needless to say, I wasted a ton of money at resale. There are other good examples of this, but you get the idea -- buy what I need, not what may work.

Show Restraint

I am not very good at exercising self restraint. I buy gadgets on impulse sometimes, as I get bored with the ones I have, only to discover history will repeat itself in a few weeks or months. It's a very expensive weakness of mine.

I have managed to keep it contained for the past couple of months though. Surprisingly, I did not buy anything that was tech-related, on Black Friday and Christmas. I plan on keeping this up in 2014, for as long as it makes sense (I do, however, have a job where using the latest tech gives me a good perspective on things).

Embrace Safer Online Habits

Like my colleague Mark Wilson, I also plan to make some changes related to the security of my online accounts. I have ones which I have not used in years, that I must get rid of as soon as possible (I will start looking for them this week), and must also use new and better passwords.

I am also an adopter of two-step authentication, which I use whenever possible. I plan to enable this feature across all remaining accounts that support it. I also plan to review all security-related settings on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and so on, in order to minimize my exposure in certain cases (I do not want some of my social media accounts to appear as public). Finally, I may also start paying attention to app permissions.

What About You?

What are you tech resolutions for the year to come? Do you have anything special that you want to accomplish by the year of next year? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Photo Credit: seezcape/Shutterstock

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Eric Schmidt unveils his predictions for 2014

The year is almost at a close, the ball ready to drop above Times Square, fireworks being shipped to all the major cities... It’s a reflective time, as evidenced by the BetaNews staff recently stopping to ponder 2013 in tech products. But, it’s also a time to look forward at what to expect over the coming 12 months.

Google’s Eric Schmidt is no exception, as he has recently taken a couple of minutes to reveal his thoughts about what is in store for 2014.

Schmidt promises that the coming year will provide a smartphone for everyone, though that isn’t going too far out on a limb, as feature phones become increasingly more scarce. He goes so far as to proclaim that mobile is not "winning", but has already "won".

The former CEO additionally talks about trends such as Big Data and machine intelligence. He touches on the field of genetics, which is perhaps one of the fastest growing areas. Schmidt also names his biggest regret from the time he spent running the search giant -- the failure to recognize the importance of social networking.

You can watch the entire video below and, by all means, chime in with your thoughts on Schmidt's comments and your own predictions for the coming year.

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Breathe new life into older scanners with VueScan

In an ideal world manufacturers would support their hardware devices forever, providing new drivers every time a new version of Windows or OS X appears on the scene. The sad truth, however, is that support tends to only last a few years, leaving your hardware relying on backwards compatibility to keep it working longer term.

For many hardware devices, once they stop working with a newer version of your operating system, that’s it. But if you’re about to throw out a trusty old scanner, stop and check out VueScan 9.4 before doing so.

VueScan -- also available in 64-bit form -- provides Mac, Windows and Linux users with a lifeline for old scanning equipment. If truth be told, scanners haven’t changed that much over the past decade or so, which makes the idea of having to upgrade your scanner purely for compatibility purposes hard to swallow.

VueScan allows you to keep using your scanner even with Windows 8.1 or Mac OS X Mavericks, whatever the hardware manufacturer might tell you otherwise. It works with over 2,000 models (click here for the definitive list), so you can check it’s going to save your skin even before you begin.

VueScan is a capable scanning tool in its own right too, providing lots of useful features and advanced tweaks that make it potentially more powerful than the default scanner software supplied with your model. That means it’s a useful tool even if your scanner is (currently) supported by your operating system.

The user interface does get better with each release, but can be confusing -- however, users can choose a guided mode where most of the difficult decisions are made for them. For best results, though, click More to set scanning options manually, and Advanced to unlock even more powerful tools.

The program is regularly updated, adding new functionality and fixing bugs and compatibility issues while extending scanner model support. Version 9.4 debuted in November, promising a faster and more responsive user interface, improved support for multi-page PDF files and the ability to use certain buttons (including rotate and zoom) during the scanning process.

Since 9.4 was released, 18 revisions have followed -- most of these have squashed bugs, but other new and improved functionality has been introduced too: version 9.4.12 improved support for document feeders, for example, while multi-core support for some long-running operations came with revision 15. The last revision -- 19 -- improved infrared cleaning with two-pass infrared film cameras.

VueScan 9.4.19 and VueScan 9.4.19 (64-bit) are both available as 30-day trial downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux. Two paid versions are available: both offer perpetual single-user licenses that can be installed on up to four computers at once (and covering any number of scanners).

The Standard license costs $39.95, and offers one year’s worth of free upgrades. The Professional Edition costs $79.95 offers upgrades for life, plus allows you to create raw scan files, work with ICC profiles and color spaces, plus offers IT8 color calibration, which will be of interest to more serious users. Standard users can later upgrade to the Pro version, paying the difference between the two.

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Tablet activations surge over Christmas, but it's not all good news

Unsurprisingly tablets proved to be a very popular gift this Christmas. According to mobile measurement firm Flurry, device activations were up by 63 percent on Christmas day, compared to any other average day in December.

Flurry’s activation figures cover Amazon, Apple, Acer, and Samsung and reveal an interesting trend. While all four tech firms enjoyed a major bump on the day, activations were much lower this year than in the previous two years.

Amazon once again had by far the most popular tablet range this Christmas, something Flurry believes is down to "price, business model, target market, and form factor". Kindle Fire activations jumped by 24x on the day.

Apple usually experiences a larger Christmas lift than arch rival Samsung, and this year was no different, although the gap between the two manufacturers has narrowed significantly. Apple saw a 2.3x increase, while Samsung’s bump was 1.9x.

Acer enjoyed a 5x jump in activations, due, Flurry believes, to "form factor and relatively low price".

That year on year drop is interesting though and Flurry says: "Overall, while still significant, we can see that the size of the Christmas activation bump has declined over time for most manufacturers who ever had one. Even Amazon has dropped from forty-one times its baseline activations on Christmas 2011 to twenty-four on Christmas 2013. This is likely to be due to the increased overall penetration of smartphones and tablets, and is expected in a maturing industry. With more people having smartphones and tablets there are fewer new users to give them to, and giving to existing users is more challenging since existing users are already tied into carrier contract renewal cycles, app ecosystems, etc.”

Flurry also found that Wi-Fi-only devices were easily the most popular type of tablet. That's to be expected considering they are cheaper and therefore better suited as gifts than ones additionally offering a cellular connection.

Did you receive a new tablet for Christmas this year? If so, which make and model?

Photo Credit: manaemedia/Shutterstock

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My tech resolutions for 2014 [Mark]

Well, that's another year out of the way! It's customary at this time of year to make resolutions... for some people at least. It's something I've always shied away from, but this year is going to be different.

I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t need to lose weight, and I'm unlikely to take over the world in the next twelve months. But when it comes to tech, there is room for improvement, so here are my New Year's resolution that I will, truly, try to stick to.

Backing up stuff

Working as a tech journalist for the last 13 years, I've lost count of the number of times I tell people to ensure that make regular backups of their data. Do I practice what I preach? Er... no. But this year, this will change. My network drive will be put to better use. I'll need to invest in a couple (a few?) terabyte drives to hook up as extra storage, but I will -- I promise -- back up all of my computers on a schedule. And my phones and tablets.

Stop slagging off Windows Phone

I've bitched and moaned about Windows Phone. Quite a lot actually. My opinion hasn’t changed, but now I'll shut up until Windows Phone 8.1 is released. It is what it is for now, and hopefully it will get better.

Stop pretending I'm going to use Linux

My desktop PC is set up to dual boot between Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu. The number of times I've felt the need or urge to boot into Linux can be counted on one hand. Now is the time to wipe out that OS, eliminate the boot menu that I almost always forget is there and stick to using Windows. That particular PC didn’t play too nicely with Ubuntu anyway.

Embrace Chromebook

I don’t know quite why, but I don't use my Chromebook anywhere near as much as I should. I've managed to accumulate three different machines through 2013 and none of them are used enough. The Chromebook 11 is lovely and deserves to be pulled out more frequently. I shall endeavor to do so.

Sort out my passwords

This is kind of like my backing up. There is a distinct lack of practicing what I preach here too. I used to have a solid password policy in place and, while I was not perfect at changing passwords on a regular basis it did at least happen every now and then. I've got out of this habit and this needs to change. Facebook and Google are two that needs particular attention -- I make use of Facebook and Google login whenever it's an option, so I really should try to bolster my security here.

There are probably more, but I think five resolutions will do for now -- I don’t want to set myself up for failure! How about you? What are your resolutions for 2014, both tech and non-tech?

Photo Credit: Kozini/Shutterstock

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RawCopy lets you copy any NTFS file -- even if it’s locked

Copying files is normally a very straightforward process, but there are one or two potential problems waiting to trip you up. If Windows or another application has the file open, for example, you’ll probably just get a "File in Use" error. And if you don’t have the necessary permissions to access the file then you could also be blocked.

You might be able to get around some of these issues, with a little work (using Unlocker to manually close a file, say), but RawCopy offers a simpler and safer approach. It’s an open-source console-based tool which copies NTFS files using low-level disk access, bypassing all the usual restrictions. Whether the file is locked by an application, Windows, or you just don’t have the necessary permissions, there’s no problem: RawCopy will copy it regardless.

To try this out, first open a command prompt as an administrator (right-click cmd.exe, "Run as administrator"). Change to the folder where you’ve unzipped RawCopy, and enter your copy command in this form:

RawCopy "C:\Source Folder\File.exe” “C:\Destination Folder\Subfolder"

(Use RawCopy64 on 64-bit Windows).

That’s essentially it; your source file is copied to the destination folder, and the program lets you know of its success or failure (if there was some unexpected error).

While this is simple enough, keep in mind that you have to use this exact syntax at all times. The Source parameter must include a full (not relative) path; the destination can’t include a file name, it must be a path only; and as usual with console programs, if either the source or destination parameters contain spaces then you should surround them with quotes.

It’s important to get this right, too, because RawCopy isn’t great at handling input errors. Use something like RawCopy file.ext D:\, say, and the program will assume that "fi" (the first two characters of the source) represents the source drive, before complaining that "Target volume fi is not NTFS". Not the most helpful diagnosis.

As long as you remember to use the full syntax, though, RawCopy works well, and the program makes it easy to copy even the most awkward of files to your chosen destination.

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