One Tip A Day » Free Stuff

Improve Boot Times With Soluto

Tony Williams — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:12:08 +0000

If you still boot your PC up everyday, rather than putting it to sleep, or if your PC just takes forever to boot then Soluto is probably for you. What Soluto does is provide all users with a safe and simple way to reduce their boot time, by providing ultra user-friendly information about the applications that load when your PC starts.

Many users are totally unaware of how many applications load in the background when their PC stats, and each and every one of these applications not only take time to load into memory, but they will drawn system resources. Soluto is a must have utility, that helps all users remove these programs by tracking and identifying them when your PC boots, and then providing clear and concise information on each app, allowing users to quickly pause (load not in boot, but at your command), delay (load not in boot, but later when your PC is idle) or let it load at boot.

To make it easier for users to decide what changes to make, Soluto even groups the apps into categories – No Brainers, Potentially removable and Required. After running Soluto, I was able to reduce my boot from 50 seconds to around 35 seconds by removing or delaying 19 apps:

Installing Soluto is easy and requires no user intervention. To give this great free software a try, click here.

Source: Windows 7 News & Tips

How to Edit Photos for Free on Your iPhone

Umar — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:30:58 +0000

Photoshop.com is a wonderful photo editing website. A product by Adobe, the site lets users upload photos and videos up to a total size of 2GB. Our media is not shrunk and stays on Photoshop in its original resolution. The site also provides us with various editing tool such as different effects and photo frames which enhance our pictures. Once we are done editing, we can share our media on numerous social media sites including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and Photobucket.

Now this great free-to-use site has released a great free-to-use application for iPhone. The Photoshop.com Mobile App for iPhone is a user-friendly tool for iPhone and iPod touch equipped with iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

With this iPhone application we can get access to our media store on our Photoshop account – this means adding another 2GB to our iPhone’s media storage. Moreover we can upload photos to our Photoshop account using our iPhone.

Using the editing tools which the application has to offer, we can perform quite a number of editing tasks. For instance if our hand shook while shooting a photograph, we can quickly straighten it up using the editing tools of the Photoshop application. Other editing features include cropping, rotating, and flipping photographs. Borders and photo frames can also be added.
We also apply a number of special effects to the pictures we open with the application.

With the feature named Soft Focus, we can give our pictures an extra glow. We can use the Sketch effect to give our images a more artistic touch. We can also change the colors of our pictures.

All the edits we make via this application are performed easily using our fingers on our Apple device’s touchscreen. Having quite a small size and providing a user-friendly interface for photo editing free-of-cost, Photoshop.com Mobile App for iPhone is one application I recommend to all iPhone/iPod touch users.

3 Free Websites to Download YouTube Videos in HD Format

Umar — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:06:59 +0000

There are a number of installable applications available which let us enter the URL of a YouTube video and then download it. Some of the programs are really great and even provide us with the ability to convert the file format of the downloaded video.

Using these applications can become difficult if you are working on somebody else’s computer and do not have the privileges to install the video-downloading application. In that situation or if you simply do not want to install an extra program on your computer, you can take advantage of the various websites which provide video downloading features in the same way as the installable programs. Some of these sites even allow downloading the HIGH DEFINITION (HD) YouTube videos and videos from other video hosting websites.

I feel that the following 3 websites are great such sources; read each entry and use the one that suits your preferences best.

keepHD

keepHD is a very simple-to-use website with a URL field located in the top right. After feeding in the URL of a YouTube video, we can watch it or choose to download it in various formats.

keepHD supports only YouTube videos (simple and HD ones). My favorite part about keepHD is its neat interface and the absence of online ads.

KeepTube

KeepTube is another great YouTube video downloading resource. It even has a Firefox extension which performs the same function. Non-Firefox users can enter the URL of the YouTube video on KeepTube webpage and click on the DOWNLOAD button. We are then taken to the video downloading page where we can choose to download our video in different formats.

KeepTube does not allow users to stream their video before downloading and it has online ads. But it is better than keepHD in the sense that it supports many more video hosting sites and HD videos. A list of KeepTube’s supported sites and formats can be found here.

ClipNabber

ClipNabber, the final entry in my list, is a great tool to download online videos. A great number of video hosting websites is supported.

The downside of this site is that the only lets users download videos in the FLV format.

If FLV formats are not a problem for you, then ClipNabber is a great option to go with. Otherwise this site can help you download the video from sites not supported by KeepTube or keepHD.

Win $300 Of Crucial Memory For Your PC!

Tony Williams — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:47:49 +0000

For 24 days in December we are running a daily Christmas Giveaway, together with our big brother site Windows 7 News, where everyday we giving away at least $300 of software and/or hardware. To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free! To read more and how to play click here.

Today for our top prize we are giving away $300 of free computer memory of their choice from Crucial Technology to the lucky winner! If you’re looking to give your Windows 7 PC a performance boost then adding good quality fast memory will do the trick as upgrading memory is one of the best dollar for dollar upgrades you can do. If that wasn’t enough we are also giving away today:

Uniblue PowerSute Worth $100
WinX DVD Ripper Worth $29.99

Our friends at ghacks we are also giving away hundreds of dollars of software away everyday – click here to visit their Christmas Giveway.

Win $300 Of Free Crucial Memory

Win $300 of high quality PC memory courtesy of Crucial Memory. Winner gets to choose their own memory up to a value of $300. Get bidding now! The lowest bid wins!

Crucial is a key brand in the Lexar Media family of products. As Memory Experts Crucial are the only DRAM supplier that’s part of a major memory manufacturer.

Crucial are one of the leading suppliers of high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). On their website you can find innovative tools that will make it easy to choose compatible memory and recommended upgrades.

Visit Crucial Memory now for your next memory upgrade.

Keep Tabs On Your Prescriptions and Doctors Appointments with HeyDoc

Umar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:16:20 +0000

In life one cannot think of anything more important than good health. It is every individual’s duty to keep a check on their health. But one can find difficult the task of monitoring all those medicine dosages and intakes, keeping a schedule of the doctor’s appointments, and doing so for all the members of your family.

To simplify keeping a track of all those prescriptions and appointment, the internet has a wonderful tool available called HeyDoc. HeyDoc is a freeware program that, when installed, lets you create custom profiles and then for each profile manage the prescriptions and doctor’s appointments. Sized at only 4MB, the program is downloaded and installed instantly. Here is how the main window looks like for HeyDoc:

Using this program, you can create a profile and edit all types of medical information. You can start off with filling out all the details of the person whom the profile belongs to. Next, move on to fill the insurance information. No matter how many doctors a person has, you can add them in the Doctors field. Appointments can also be noted down in the calendar provided to each profile.

A medical history, diet diary, eye examination schedules, and prescriptions of each profile can also be saved within the program.

Apart from all those great features you can view the data you enter graphically in the form of charts:

Accessing the Print option lets you print out any portion of the profile you have currently opened:

The ‘Change Profile’ button will let you change profiles or create new one. As you can see from all its features, HeyDoc can not only benefit patients but it can also be immensely useful to doctors or clinics who want to keep an uncomplicated record of their patients.

Serving doctors and patients alike, such a freeware is a rarity and should be taken full advantage of.

Download Windows 7 Wallpapers And Themes

Tony Williams — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:24:53 +0000

Windows 7 has been out for just over a month now and many users like myself think it’s the best operating system Microsoft have launched to date. Next year will see many users upgrading to Windows 7 through buying a new PC.

If you have or are getting a new Windows 7 PC next year, then our sister site has some great Windows 7 Tips as well as some amazing windows 7 wallpapers and windows 7 themes that are free to download.

Below is a selection of some of my favourite Windows 7 Wallpapers:

Win Thousands Of Dollars In Prizes In December!!!

Tony Williams — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:56:45 +0000

Our friends over at Windows 7 News & Tips are giving away thousands of dollars in December!! Each day they are giving away a minimum of $300 in software and hardware to their readers. Prizes include:

$300 of memory from Crucial Memory
Wirelass 802.11n routers and USB adaptors from Belkin
Free Giganews accounts
Free software from Acronis, WinRar, a-squared

Entry each day is free. All you have to do is bid for the items each day in a reverse auction, where the lowest unique bid wins. Bidding is free and you can bid as many times as you want in each daily auction:

To play all you have to do is go to http://www.windows7news.com/auction and register -it’s that simple!

How To Change OEM Details In Windows 7

Tony Williams — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:18:45 +0000

Windows 7 is one of the fastest selling operating systems ever, and rather than buying a fresh copy many users have opted to upgrade their PC instead and get a free bundled copy of Windows 7. However, if you do buy a OEM PC from the likes of Dell or Toshiba they tend to add their branding all over the PC. If you want to remove their logos and replace it with your own then it’s easy to do with the OEM Info Tool.

The OEM Info Tool needs to be run as an administrator because it makes registry changes. Once running you can see what OEM information has already been added to your copy of Windows and you can modify it easily:

OEM Info Tool is available for free and works on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Watch Arsenal, Liverpool And Other Champions League Games Free Online

Tony Williams — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:31:38 +0000

Tonight see’s the next round of European Champions League games. If you want to watch tonight’s football games free online then follow my guide to watching Champions League Football Free online.

Using Sopcast you can watch this watch this week’s European Champions League games free online:

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Uefa Champions League

AZ v Arsenal, Gp H, 19:45
Barcelona v Rubin Kazan, Gp F, 19:45
Debrecen v Fiorentina, Gp E, 19:45
Inter Milan v Dynamo Kiev, Gp F, 19:45
Liverpool v Lyon, Gp E, 19:45
Olympiakos v Standard Liege, Gp H, 19:45
Rangers v Unirea Urziceni, Gp G, 19:45
VfB Stuttgart v Sevilla, Gp G, 19:45

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Uefa Champions League

Bordeaux v Bayern Munich, Gp A, 19:45
Chelsea v Atletico Madrid, Gp D, 19:45
CSKA Moscow v Man Utd, Gp B, 17:30
FC Porto v Apoel Nicosia, Gp D, 19:45
FC Zurich v Marseille, Gp C, 19:45
Juventus v Maccabi Haifa, Gp A, 19:45
Real Madrid v AC Milan, Gp C, 19:45
Wolfsburg v Besiktas, Gp B, 19:45

Save Money On 0870 Calls With iPhone App

Tony Williams — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:29:41 +0000

In the UK, there are numbers that begin with 0870 where you pay a set rate per min if you call from a landline, regardless with where you are. However, if you dial an 0870 number from a mobile it typically costs a lot more – not only do 0870 numbers not come out of call allowances, but they can cost x3 more than normal calls.

Thanks to the efforts of Simon Maddox and his free 0870 app, iPhone and Android users can now save money on their 0870 calls. How much? Well Simon estimates that his app has saved users over $400k in under a month.

Hows does 0870 do it? Well what this cool app does is try to find an alternative number for the company you are trying to call, that will cost less and will probably come out of your call allowance. If it finds an alternative number then the 0870 app dials that number instead! Not surprisingly the app took over 400 days to be approved by Apple, although Apple are alleged to have accused O2 and BT of blocking app.

More: iPhone App Store

Watch 29 Sep Champions League Football Free Online

Tony Williams — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:52:16 +0000

The European Champions League is up and running now, with the second set of group games being played this week. Did you know that you can watch your favourite teams playing football online for free? It’s really easy to do if you follow my guide to watching Champions League Football Free online.

The guide can also be used to setup Sopcast watch matches from other tournaments, even those that are not being broadcast live in your country.

This week’s European Champions League football games that you can watch free online include:

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

AZ v Standard Liege, Gp H, 19:45
Arsenal v Olympiakos, Gp H, 19:45
Barcelona v Dynamo Kiev, Gp F, 19:45
Debrecen v Lyon, Gp E, 19:45
Fiorentina v Liverpool, Gp E, 19:45
Rangers v Sevilla, Gp G, 19:45
Rubin Kazan v Inter Milan, Gp F, 17:30
Unirea Urziceni v VfB Stuttgart, Gp G, 19:45

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

AC Milan v FC Zurich, Gp C, 19:45
Apoel Nicosia v Chelsea, Gp D, 19:45
Bayern Munich v Juventus, Gp A, 19:45
Bordeaux v Maccabi Haifa, Gp A, 19:45
CSKA Moscow v Besiktas, Gp B, 17:30
FC Porto v Atletico Madrid, Gp D, 19:45
Man Utd v Wolfsburg, Gp B, 19:45
Real Madrid v Marseille, Gp C, 19:45

How To Watch 15 Sep Champions League Football Free Online

Tony Williams — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:22:06 +0000

The real football starts tonight when the European Champions League starts, piting the best soccer teams in Europe against each other in the best football cup competition. Football teams in action for the first time tonight include Man Utd, Chelsea, real Madrid, AC Milan and bayern Munich.

If you want to watch 15 September Champions League Football matches free on your PC then read my guide below which will get you up and running in under 5 mins. The guide also works for Premiership And UEFA Cup Football Online also allows you to watch all major European leagues including the English Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga and Primera Division.

Step 1: Download Sopcast

Although there are several applications that let you watch football streams online, SopCast is by far the easiest to install and use. The main reason is because all the instructions are in English and not Chinese like many other services.

To download go to the SopCast website and get the latest version currently SopCast 3.0.3. The site slows down and is hard to access on game nights so I’ve uploaded the current Sopcast version here for readers.

Step 2: Install SopCast

Once you have the zip file on your PC, unzip it somewhere you can find the files easily, and then run the setup program. Once you’ve finished there should be a SopCast icon on your desktop or in your start menu. Double-click this file to start SopCast.

Step 3: Using SopCast

The first time you run SopCast it will ask you to login. Just select ‘Login as anoymous’ and ‘Auto login on this computer’ as pictured above and then click ‘‘Login’

Step 4: Finding Channels Showing Games

Once you’ve logged into SopCast ignore the ‘Home’ tab and click on the ‘Channels’ tab. The channels are grouped by category and sensibly ‘Sports Channels’ is listed at the top. As you will see if you get this far, there are dozens of Sports Channels listed. The numbers in brackets next to the name of each channel is the number of peers streaming the channel. Channels with more peers usually have a better stream.

To watch a channel is easy – just double-click it. However, it can sometimes take a minute or two for a stream to start, so if you pick the wrong channel 9 times you could miss 15 mins of a game.

What I do is use this the fantastic Football4less site. This sites lists up-to-date details of which channels are covering which football games. Nearly all channels are covered so using this site can save you a lot of time. All you have to do is either click on the football league or tournament you want to watch online, or the date of the football match that you want to watch:

Links for Tues 15 Sep Champions League Football Games:
- Atletico Madrid v Apoel Nicosia, Group D
- Besiktas v Man Utd, Group B
- Chelsea v FC Porto, Group D
- FC Zurich v Real Madrid, Group C
- Juventus v Bordeaux, Group A
- Maccabi Haifa v Bayern Munich, Group A
- Marseille v AC Milan, Group C
- Wolfsburg v CSKA Moscow, Group B
Links for Weds 16 Sep Apr Champions League Football Games:
- Atletico Madrid v Apoel Nicosia, Group D
- Besiktas v Man Utd, Group B
- Chelsea v FC Porto, Group D
- FC Zurich v Real Madrid, Group C
- Juventus v Bordeaux, Group A
- Maccabi Haifa v Bayern Munich, Group A
- Marseille v AC Milan, Group C
- Wolfsburg v CSKA Moscow, Group B

Once you’ve found the game you want to watch look for a SopCast icon next to a channel as this will tell you that the channel is available on SopCast. Find this channel in SopCast, double-click it and once it’s buffered the game (usually takes 30-45 seconds) the match will start. The video may be a bit jerky at first, but will improve within a minute as you connect to more peers.

Step 5: In-Game Options

The game can be watched in the small SopCast window. If you click on the small icon in the bottom-right hand corner this will let you watch the game in Windows Media Player, where you can resize the window. Or you can click the ‘FS’ which will open the video Full Screen.

You can also right click on the video window to access other options, including volume controls.

I hope you found this guide useful and in time to watch the game you were looking for! If you have any issues or want to add any other points, then please leave a comment below.

Increase P2P PC Speeds With Half Open Limit Fix Patch

Tony Williams — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:01:43 +0000

Does your machine slow down significantly when you run a P2P or torrent application? This could be because on Windows machines, Microsoft has limited the number of connections that can be opened to try and stop machines that might be infected distributing malicious software on the internet.

Luckily, there’s a patch that allows you to remove this limit which might speedup your machine when you are downloading files. Half Open Limit Fix will patch the tcpip.sys file to change the number of half open connections on all Windows machines, form windows XP upwards.

Once installed, Half Open Limit Fix Patch will display the current half open connection size and offer another field that can be used to change the limit. It is recommended that you choose 100.

Source: Windows 7 News

Download Files Up To 5 Times Faster

Tony Williams — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:43:48 +0000

Years ago when we all had dialup connections internet download managers were all the rage, but when we got broadband they weren’t as necessary. However, now that filesizes are getting bigger and bigger it can still be handy using a internet download manager. Not only can these increase your download speeds, but they can also allow you to pause, resume and schedule downloads which can be very useful.

A good choice is Internet Download Manager, which can increase your speeds up to 5 times. It has a nice user interface that makes it easy to organise your downloads. It reuses all your available connection without additional connect and login stages which eventually helps you achieve best acceleration performance for your download.

Key features:

Multilingual support
Zip preview
Download categories
Scheduler pro
Sounds on different events
HTTPS support, queue processor
Html help and tutorial
Enhanced virus protection on download completion
Progressive downloading with quotas
Built-in download accelerator

Source: TechTites

Clean Your iTunes Library with TidySongs

Tony Williams — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:47:16 +0000

Having a clean iTunes library allows you to get so much more use out of your music library. Whether your music library is small or large, having accurate tags, album names, names, artwork, artist names etc can make it easier to find the music you like, when you want it.

However, googling each album and manually editing track information just isn’t a practical solution, and that’s where free apps like TidySongs come in. TidySongs will take your music library and fix songs, remove duplicates, correct misspellings, genres – everything you need to create a clean music library.

Tidysongs has two options for fixing your itunes music library, automatic or manual. For each option you can set the confidence level for making changes e.g. if it’s less than 80% confident you can tell Tidysongs to not make any changes. You can tell TidySongs to work on your complete library, or just one playlist that you know needs tidying up.

The screenshot below shows TidySongs options for fixing duplicates. As you can see, it gives you complete control over the process:

To give Tidysongs a try – click here.

Create Custom Windows 7 JumpLists

Tony Williams — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:50:50 +0000

Windows 7 launches in under 2 months. I’ve been using various beta versions for over 6 months, and the RTM build for one month now and it’s excellent. One great new feature in Windows 7 is Jump Lists. This allow you to get quick access to application features by right clicking its icon.

Some applications don’t have Windows 7 Jump Lists created, but with the 7APL freeware tool you can create your own Windows 7 custom jumplists. Just download and install and you can create custom Windows 7 Jump Lists in seconds.

More: 7APL

Use Glary Undelete To Recover Deleted Files

Tony Williams — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:53:53 +0000

Did you know that sometimes when you delete a file by mistake even from the recycle bin, you might still be able to recover it? Normally only expert users know how to do this, but there are a number of tools that can help mere mortals like you and me recover deleted files.

Glary Undelete is one such tool and has been reviewed by gHacks:

Glary Undelete is another free file recovery solution. It can recover deleted files from connected storage devices. Users who want to recover deleted files can search for all deleted file information or filter the results by search phrase, size, date or recovery state.

Once running, Glary Undelete will list all files found in a window. Note: some of the files won’t have their original names, so you might need to know when you deleted the file or its size to know which file to recover.

More: Glary Undelete

Messenger Plus! Adds Extra Features To Windows Live Messenger

Tony Williams — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:06:00 +0000

If you’re using Windows Live Messenger then you can enable lots of additional functionality by installing the free Messenger Plus! Live extension. Free of spyware, this free extension adds the following cool functionality to Windows Live Messenger:

Over 100 easy-to-install skins
Chat logging
Event Viewer
Tabbed chats
Emotion sounds
Automatically accept request feature
Messenger lock
Events Notification displays a popup or plays a sound for any kind of contact event
Create personalized status
Place your contacts on desktop
Lets you check external email accounts
Improve look and feel of texts with colors, gradient effects and various other text attributes
Set custom transparency level
Encrypt chat logs
Set-up messages for quick sending or automatic text replacement.

The application has been downloaded over 500m times. To get your free copy, click here.

Source: IntoWindows

Download Over 15000 Free Fonts

Tony Williams — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:47:40 +0000

Sometimes when you want to create that extra special document like a flyer, a poster or an invite the standard Windows fonts just don’t hack it. No matter how hard you try, Times New Roman will never look sexy.

If you want to jazz up your documents and you don’t want to pay for new fonts, then check out PimpYourFont which has a collection of over 15,000 free truetype fonts to choose from. the fonts are all arranged alphabetically, or by style e.g. Brush, Sci-fi, Stencil etc

For each font there is a preview, so you can see what your text will look like.

Source: Techie Buzz

Free Online Backup That Syncs Files With Your iPhone

Tony Williams — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:00:19 +0000

Have you ever found yourself away from home and wish you could access one of your files? Or, do you have more than one PC in your home and you wish you could access your files regardless of where they are stored? Then SugarSync is the answer. SugarSync is an online backup service that not only provides 2GB of free storage, but these files can be accessed from any PC and synchronised across PCs.

How does it work? Once you’ve signed up for an account, you then install SugarSync on PC1. The simple wizard then asks you what files you want to backup in real-time e.g. My Documents, Videos, Work Files etc. The application then starts uploading those files to the SugarSync online servers, which allows you to access any of these files from any internet browser.

Then on PC2, you install the same application and log into your account. It will ask you if you want to sync files with PC1 i.e. if a new file is added to the My Documents folder on PC1 then then next time you use PC2, SugarSync will automatically download a copy to the My Documents folder on PC2.

There’s even a fantastic iPhone client available. This allows you to access easily any files that are stored on the SugarSync online folders – brilliant for looking at photos or playing music on the move.

To try SugarSync and to get a free 2GB account, click here.

Definitive Guide To Finding Free Wi-Fi

Tony Williams — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:55:15 +0000

I became the proud owner of a iPhone 3GS a few weeks ago and it never leaves my side. I’m heavily dependant on it being connected to the net, so I came a bit unstuck earlier this month when I took a trip overseas. Roaming charges on my tariff are crazy expensive, so I had to keep looking for free wi-fi networks which wasn’t easy in Rome.

Finding free wi-fi is much easier in the US, particularly if you follow the tips in this guide from Lifehacker.

More: Definitive Guide To Finding Free Wi-Fi

Folx Free File Downloader for Mac for Maximum Download Speed

Umar — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:59:32 +0000

Mac users rejoice! Now you too can enjoy multi mega/gigabyte fun thanks to a free file downloader. Folx is a feature rich file downloader that supports auto-resuming (in case you get disconnected from the net) and guarantees the maximum download speed possible thanks to the apps ability to create multi-thread download tasks.

Its many options also allows you to throttle your download speed so that you use the internet for other tasks while still downloading simultaneously.

The simple interface will have you downloading files with a few clicks. Downloading files is just the most basic function though, Folx not only gets separate files, but whole folders with all the contents via FTP. In addition to that you can also Schedule, resume and prioritize your downloads.

To top all of this Folx allows you to add tags to your downloads, and your downloaded content are sorted and categorized by these tags automatically. Downloads are stored in a single searchable list, and can immediately be found using Spotlight.

The download manager integrates in all Mac OS browsers and captures all of the download links automatically.

Full features list:

Powerful download engine for maximum performance
High download speed
Auto-resuming file transfer
Set the priorities for downloads
Control time and speed of your downloads
Scheduling of downloads
Detailed log info to check the download process
Automatic capture of download links
Dial-up and broadband support
Smart tag and folder technology to manage all your downloads
Growl integration
Spotlight integration
All mac os browsers integration
A wise Floating Window â quick access to your downloads
User-friendly interface
Autoupdate

Use NetDrive To Map FTP Servers To Windows Drives

Tony Williams — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:04:09 +0000

Although there are some great FTP clients out there, they can still be a bit fiddly to use. If you are uncomfortable using FTP then maybe NetDrive is for you. This free client (for home use) allows you to map FTP servers to Windows drives, so you don’t have to login everytime to your FTP accounts.

NetDrive Features

Mounts remote storage as a local hard disk on your PC
Data transfer by drag and drop files in windows explorer
Able to run files(video, audio and any other .exe files)
Mounts drive automatically when Windows starts.
SDK for enterprise OEM license available.
It enables you to customize the user interface and optimize functions related to your service.

More: NetDrive

Be Creative With Your Webcam – The Glow Doodle Way

MoiN — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:05:35 +0000

Yet another Jaw dropping-ly amazing app for you today! Ever thought of making art using just your webcam and a light source (like the LED lights you find built into those cheap Chinese lighters?) Of course you haven’t! But someone went ahead and made a software that does it anyway!

GlowDoodle is a freeware application for both Macs and PCs that aims to turn you into a Picasso on the cheap!

Utilizing WinVDIG (ie. a QuickTime Video capture tool) as its platform, GlowDoodle converts your webcam into an long exposure camera (of sorts). It captures light in such a way that it look like you’re making lines or streaks – whats amazing is that as you move the light around the `lines’ get saved onto your screen in real time!

You can make complex pieces of art using this simple technique and software! One you’re done with your masterpiece just hit the spacebar and your picture will be uploaded to the main sites gallery! While not serving any functional purpose – GlowDoodle is definitely one app that aims to bring fun back into your PC’s life!

Download here.

Scheduling Made Easy with TimeBridge

MoiN — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:52:25 +0000

Whether you’re a sales agent or a business owner, your sole focus is on one aspect at all times – get more business! For the proactive professional this means running around setting up appointments, meeting clients and deadlines, utilizing whatever time you have in the most efficient way possible.

The reality is, a large chunk of the professionals time is spent not on how to present his ideas, services or product – but in playing secretary to him/herself! Calling clients, setting meetings and getting things done. Sure, it looks easy when reading about it – but no one ever tells you about the countless numbers of rescheduling that usually occurs, or constantly hearing about `oh I never received an email about that meeting’. Soon your calendar starts looking more like a football playbook than an organized sales persons planner!

Today appointment scheduling has shifted to Outlook, Google calendar or Apple iCal, but that doesn’t mean the mess has gone away. If one important client decides to change an appointment you will end up calling all your clients for that day just to accommodate them. The question is – is there a way to handle this without hiring a separate secretary!

Well now there is! TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup focused on making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. With the ability to sync with Apple iCal as well as with established calendar apps such as Google and Outlook. TimeBridge’s main pull is in the simplicity with which it gives its participants optional times and dates for each appointment.

Let say you want to schedule something with a certain person doing a specific work you asked, TimeBridge will send an email to him/her which will have 5 different time frames – he/she will be requested to choose which time suits them by selecting between “Yes,” “no,” and “Best” for each time option. Once the choices have been made, an email will be sent back to the original sender with their preferred time. Timebridge will then automatically check the original senders schedule and if that person’s `Best’ time matches up with the theirs — then TimeBridge will automatically set the appointment and send out confirmation emails! If there’s a clash in timings (e.g. the original sender will not be available during the specified time) then he/she will be notified by TimeBridge of the conflict.

TimeBridge can do this not for one client but ALL the clients you have on your calendar, at the same time! Regardless of how many appointment mails are sent back TimeBridge will juggle them around and set the appointments automatically until it hits a situation where there is absolutely no time combination within your schedule that will work with your client.

The amazing thing is that this part of TimeBridge’s service is absolutely free! Once you have set up a successful appointment, you may also use TimeBridges online screen-sharing and phone meeting services for a really low fee ($8.95 p/m) compare that to approximately $40 p/m using WebEx or GoToMeeting.com. This is especially useful for a conference call with multiple clients (eg, when showcasing your service/product).

In these hard times it pays to be smart and effective, TimeBridge is just the tool to tip the scales in your favor!

Amazing Abstract Wallpaper Collection

Tony Williams — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:05:36 +0000

The How To Geek have pulled together a brilliant collection of abstract wallpapers. I’ve grabbed a couple below and added them to a gallery. If you want to download any of the wallpapers then head on over to the geek site.

More: How To Geek

Download A Facebook Photo Album In One Go

Tony Williams — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:44:28 +0000

Ever wanted to download all pictures from a Facebook album? Over on our sister site Umar let readers know about FacePad, a tool that lets you download a Facebook photo album in one go i.e. you don’t have to click on each image one at a time.

To read more about FacePad and how to use it click here.

4 Useful Websites to help you Generate Calendars Online

Umar — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:46:36 +0000

Featuring some of the most useful free web application that allows you to create and customize your own calendars. You can easily generate a calendar and download it on your PC. From there simply use it as a wallpaper on your PC desktop or get a print out.

Compact Calendar Creator

Compact Calendar Creator is free web application that allows you to create compact calendars and save them in PDF format. You simply have to enter the exact start and end dates on the website and choose the version of the calender and click create. It also lets you automatically makr the holiday dates for any country by simply pulling them from Google Calendar.

There is no registration required on this website and since it is a free web service you can create as many calendars as you like.

ePrintable Calenders

Another useful website that lets you create and print calendars online in a matter of seconds. You can create these calendars on weekly, monthly and yearly basis. In addition to that you can customize your calender by choosing its layout, color and by making the holiday dates.

Free Photo Calendar

Free Photo Calender is my favorite favorite because it not only lets you create calenders for free but you can always add pictures of your friends and family on each page of the calender.

To get started all you have to do is

Upload your photo
Choose the month
Size of the calender and
Click “Generate”

Once done a calendar with your own photo will appear on your screen in printable PDF format.

ePrintable

Here is another fast calendar generator that lets you create and print regular calendars totally free of charge. It doesn’t matter if you need a weekly planner for your refrigerator door or a yearly calendar you can use on your desk, ePrintable is there to help you with it.

The website doesn’t require any registration. All you have to do is

Select the calendar type
Add custom image
Add Quote and
Click “Print” to generate the calendar.

Free Tools to Create Banners Instantly

Umar — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:42:21 +0000

Creating small banners for websites use to take a lot of time a few years back. Thanks to the internet and all the developers who are spending time and money to produce some of the finest web tools so that you can enjoy the same features many software offer. Interesting enough for me, with these web 2.0 services a 20 minute job can be done in less a minute or so.

Following websites offer the easiest way to create free banner in less than 3 minutes.

BannerFans

BannerFans is first ever web application I discovered last year that allows you to create banners for your site and then download in popular image formats including JPEG, PNG or GIF. It comes with a very user friendly interface and provides tons of options to customize your banner.

You can customize your banner layout by changing its size, colors, text, fonts and border. No registration or sign ups are required.

Animation Online

AnimationOnline is an excellent web application that lets you make custom animated banners online instantly. Just like BannerFans it doesn’t require any registration or sign ups. The website features a number of free template you can use and edit according to your needs. You can easily customize is with various color schemes and text.

Since there is no limit on the number of banners you can create, you can create as many banners as you want.

Banner Generator

Last but not the least Banner Generator provides a cool tool that allows you to create your own banner totally free of charge. To create your own banner click “Start Banner Creation” and choose the size of your banner that are already available in JPG, PNG and Flash format.

From there simply follow the on screen instruction and get the job done in hardly a minute or 2.

You can always use the comment box below and mention websites that you think are banner than these.

How To Watch Man Utd Vs Arsenal Champions League Football Online

Tony Williams — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:05:31 +0000

Despite not having any goals, last night’s game between Barcelona and Chelsea was still a very good game to watch. I still think that Barcelona will be meeting Man Utd, who face Arsenal tonight, in the final.

If you want to watch tonight’s European Champions League match between Man Utd and Arsenal live online on your PC for free, then check out my guide below.

More: How To Watch Champions League Football Online

Protect your PC With BitDefender 10 Free Edition

Umar — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:55:14 +0000

The only AntiVirus I have ever tried is Nortan and the AVG. There are lots of people I know who are currently using Bitdefender and never complained about it. Good news is that BitDefender is now offering BitDefender 10 Free Edition with license key that offers a powerful scan engines ensure detection and removal of all viruses in the wild every time you need it.

Bitdefender is known as the powerful cure that keeps your machine safe from various viruses, worms, malicious programs and spyware. While BitDefender 10 Free Edition uses the same ICSA Labs certified scanning engines found in other BitDefender products which allows you to enjoy basic virus protection for no cost at all.

It offers great features such as:

Powerful scan engines to make sure that it detects and remove all the viruses from your PC
Scheduled scanning for when you won’t be using your computer
Use the Immediate Scanning to start with just a click of a button.
You can express yourself, designing new interfaces, or you can use those drawn by others.
With Quarantine the risk of getting infected diminishes. If you’re not completely satisfied? with it you can also send these files directly to BitDefender Labs for further Analysis.
See statistics about the Scan process.

Download BitDefender 10 Free Edition

Use Update Notifier To Keep Your Programs Up To Date

Tony Williams — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:58:39 +0000

Keeping applications up to date is important. Not only can this make available new functionality, but updates can also include vital security and bug fixes.

Howver, keeping all of your programs up to date an be difficult, but programs like Update Notifier can make life a lot easer. Once installed, Update Notifier will scan your PC for installed programs, and then check to see if there is an updated version available. If there is, then the download link is supplied.

Update Notifier is free and can be downloaded here. Thanks to gHacks for the lead.

How To Watch Porto V Man Utd and Arsenal V Villareal Champions League Football Online

Tony Williams — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:09:34 +0000

Wow! What an amazing game last night between Chelsea and Liverpool last night! To ensure you don’t miss a moment of tonights European Champions League games thenread my guide. If you have TV access to one of the games then you can use my guide to watch the other game on your PC so you know when to change channels!

Using my guide you can watch tonight’s European Champions League games live online on your PC for free:

Porto V Man Utd
Arsenal V Villareal

More: How To Watch Champions League Football Online

How To Watch Chelsea V Liverpool And Bayern V Barcelona Online For Free

Tony Williams — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:31:00 +0000

If you don’t have access to a TV to watch the Champions League games tonight then read my guide and you can watch tonight’s European Champions League games live online on your PC for free:

Chelsea V Liverpool
Bayern Munich V Barcelona

More: How To Watch Champions League Football Online

Make Your Own Free Personal Organizer With PDFPlannerPro

Tony Williams — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:15:32 +0000

I’m a digital guy and my whole life is organised by my smartphone and email. However, there are still lots of people who prefer to use paper and still keep a paper diary or organizer. My girlfriend is one of those, and she still carries a paper diary and organizer everywhere she goes. She even has a separate organizer for work.

Buying diaries and organizers can be expensive and it can also be difficult to find one that is laid out just the way you want it. If you’re looking for the perfect diary or organizer, then PDFPlannerPro. With this great free tool you can create your own planners, organizers and diaries which can be printed out.

The service is brought yo you by WorldLabel, who have a good blog if you are looking for tips on using images and documents.

Key features:

Customize with your own logo or image
Input your data and save or print
Print the complete planner or specific pages
Schedule has easy date pull down for easy calendar reference
PDF format allows for easy sharing and opening

The software will work on Macs, Linux and Windows. There can be problems with older versions of Adobe, so you should ensure you are using the latest version.

More: PDFPlannerPro

How To Download Tagged Facebook Pics

Tony Williams — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:02:29 +0000

If you’re one of the many Facebook junkies out there then this Facebook app is for you. Get My Tagged Pics allows you download tagged pictures in batches of 10, rather than having to download each one separately. Great news if you want to grab all those embarrassing pictures of yourself in college!

Download Images Quickly From Flickr With Flickr Downloader

Tony Williams — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:08:42 +0000

My girlfriend recently went on holiday to Thailand for 6 weeks. She wanted to keep a blog so all of her friends (and me!) could keep tabs on her, but I didn’t have time to set her up with a blog so I gave her the details to my Flickr account as it had a quicker learning curve. The photos that she loaded up were so fantastic that I wanted to download most of them to my PC, but Flickr doesn’t have an easy way to download lots of pictures quickly.

Flickr Downloader

Luckily I found the amazing free Flickr Downloader service that allows you to download series of photos from Flickr easily. You can download photos by Flickr username, group name or tags. It even lets you create your own slideshows from the images that can be used on a website or as a screensaver.

More: Flickr Downloader

Great HD Wallpapers

Tony Williams — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:29:52 +0000

I’ve just taken ownership of a super sexy 50″ Plasma that didn’t break the bank that I’ve connected to my PC to watch HD movies. I’ve been searching for some great HD wallpapers to display on my 1080p display and below are a selection of my favourites.

I’ve organised my collection of Great HD Wallpapers into categories to make it easier to find HD wallpapers for your PC.

Abstract HD Wallpapers

Nature HD Wallpapers

Here are HD wallpaper sites that I recommend include:

myHD Wallpaper.com: This website not only provides normal resolution wallpapers, but it also includes wallpapers in HD formats and resolutions up to 2560×1600. I’m using Free Wallpaper Changer to rate my favourites, including the stunning image below:

Cool HD wallpapers
Deskcity

LogMeIn Pro: Free Remote PC Access

Tony Williams — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:22:40 +0000

There are many Remote Access applications that allow you to remotely connect to your PC from any other computer with an internet connection, but there aren’t many good free ones. The free edition of LogMeIn is one of the few decent free RAS services out there, that lets you connect remotely to your PC and Mac.

Full list of featues for LogMeIn Free:

Access from any browser
Access from a wireless PDA
Remote control and desktop viewing
Sync
Chat
Reboot/reconnect
Multiple user access
Encryption
No firewall config needed

More: LogMeIn Free

Free Reverse Cell Phone Lookup

Tony Williams — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:52:55 +0000

I’ve just been asked to do a sponsored review which has really intrigued me, as I didn’t know that this type of service was possible, or could even be done for free. Free Cell Phone Lookups does what it says on the box and allows anyone to enter a mobile phone number (US only) and to get details on the number such as the owner, carrier and address for free by doing a Free Reverse Cell Phone Lookup!

I’m stunned as I didn’t know that this type of information was available for free. I think it’s an extremely useful service for any wannabe stalkers, but also if you are just an ordinary person who wants to get in touch with a friend maybe to send them a surprise present, or if you are the victim of prank calls and you want to know who the culprit is. The search engine is easy to use and all you to do to start is enter in a cell number, including the area code.

Not all details can be found for free as the free service only references free resources. However, there are links to premium services that searches across more data sources. On the premium site used there is also advice on how to deal with threatening callers.

More: Free Cell Phone Lookups

TweakNow: Tweak Your XP Or Vista Machine Safely

Tony Williams — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:51:35 +0000

Many PC tweaking utilities can be risky to use as they present you with dozens of options at a time, and when you change a dozen things at once something is bound to go wrong. The problem in this situation normally is, how do you roll back so many changes?

TweakNow may finally make tweaking Vista and XP machines even safer for novices. Not only does it provide quick access to some useful PC tweaks, but it also keeps a record of your previous settings so that rollbacks can be performed quickly and safely. Within TweakNow you can edit:

Applications
Control Panel
Desktop
Miscellaneous
Network & Internet
OEM Info
Special Folders
Start Menu
User Accounts
Windows Core
Windows Explorer

More: TweakNow

Give Your Hard Drive A Spring Clean With CCleaner

Tony Williams — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:27:51 +0000

If you’re a lazy user and don’t fancy spending a lot of time giving your PC a spring clean, then one utility that will be right down your alleyway is CCleaner. This amazing piece of freeware will in a flash spruce up your hard drive by removing files you no longer use, that are taking up valuable space.

You’ll be surprised how much junk a typical windows installation can take up. I recently ran CCleaner on a friend’s PC and it removed a whopping 8GB of crap!

CCleaner also can be used to optimise your registry. I’m a bit wary of promoting registry cleaners, but CCleaner does seem to be one of te smarter ones, but always create a restore point first.

More: CClenaer

Watch Classic TV Shows Online For Free

Tony Williams — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:23:32 +0000

When I was growing up I was a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, but I never saw all the episodes and I always wondered if they ever found Earth.

Now luckily thanks to CBS who are showing online full episodes of classic TV shows, I can watch episodes at my leisure. Other shows available include Hawaii Five-O, Star Trek, Melrose Place, Miami Vice, The A-Team and many more.

More: CBS Classics

Online Image Optimizer To Makes Images Load Faster

Tony Williams — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Although many visitors to your site will probably have a broadband connection, it is still worthwhile trying to make your website load faster as broadband users tend to want everything yesterday.

If you use a lot of images on your sites, they can slow down page loading times if you don’t optimize the images for website use. Adobe Photoshop is very expensive to buy just to optimize images, but luckily their are some good free online alternatives out there.

My favorite if from Dynamic Drive, that allows you to optimize GIF, JPG and PNG files. It even lets you convert file formats – all in a handful of clicks. The service is limited to original images under 300KB, but other than that it’s very quick and easy to use.

More: Online Image Optimizer

How To Watch Football Online

Tony Williams — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:53:35 +0000

If like me you are an European living overseas, then don’t forget that you can watch tonight’s Champions League football online by reading my guide.� It’s really easy to setup and the quality is surprisingly very good.

If you’re not a soccer fan, then I’d recommend checking out these games are they are going to be very high quality and much better than MLS:

Chelsea v Olympiakos, (agg 0-0), R1, L2
FC Porto v Schalke 04, (agg 0-1), R1, L2
Real Madrid v Roma, (agg 1-2), R1, L2

My team (Man Utd) went through yesterday so I’m very happy!

Free Alternatives To Nero

Tony Williams — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:54:01 +0000

I haven’t used Nero for a long time, as I very rarely burn CDs or DVDs. However, if you are a regular disk burner then Nero is an amazing program.

The only problem with Nero though is it’s price, which is very hefty. If you looking for some good free alternatives to Nero then check out this post that lists five good alternatives. There are some other good apps listed in the many comments.

More: Free Nero Alternatives

Update Your Software With Sumo

Tony Williams — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:14:49 +0000

Running the latest versions of programs on your PC can deliver many wide benefits from getting new functionality, making your machine more stable, or sometimes just fixing security holes. However, if you run a large number of programs then checking constantly for new versions can be, well frankly, a pain in the ass.

Step forward Software Update Monitor, or SUMo to its friends. SUMo can automatically check for new versions of the programs that you have on your machine. If a newer version is available it will tell you automatically. Unlike built-in auto update features, SUMo tells you if updates are available before you need to use your software.

More: SUMo

WordPress SEO Tips

Tony Williams — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:22:22 +0000

Some people think Search Engine Optimization is something only the experts need to do. But, all webmasters and bloggers should be concerned about SEO, particularly as many steps that can be taken to improve traffic from search engines are easy and painless.

To show just how easy it can be for WordPress bloggers, Carrie Hill and Mary Bowling have taken the time to pull together in one place many of the steps that can be taken to improve SEO into a single document, which is free. If you are an aspiring blogger then I recommend taking the time to read their document.

More: WordPress SEO Whitepaper

PC Decrapifier: Remove Trial And Promotional Software Easily

Tony Williams — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:41:17 +0000

I hate the amount of crap that comes supplied with a new PC that you don’t want or need, or that can build up on your PC if you test a lot of software like I do.

If you don’t want to uninstall all that bloatware one by one there’s a much easier way. PC Decrapifier is a free app for Windows XP and Vista that can remove all of the more common trial and promotional software automatically. All you have to do is select what you want uninstalled.

Source: Brown Baron

Remove Duplicate Files With DoubleKiller

Tony Williams — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:39:30 +0000

One of the problems of downloading lots of music or poor file management, is that you can end up with lots of duplicate files. Not only does this waste space on your hard drive, it can also make your iTunes library look messy, and even slow your machine down.

Removing duplicates manually can be a pain, but with DoubleKiller you can remove duplicate files automatically.

Key Features:

Scans directories, complete drives or computers in your Network Neighborhood for duplicate files
Freely combinable comparison criteria (file name, size, date and content)
You can exclude files based on their name, file type, attributes or size
Presents a list of all identical files so you can decide which ones to remove
Deletes the files you chose or moves them to another directory
Allows to export the result list to a text file

Duplicate files are found by comparing the name, size, date, and CRC32-checksum of your files. If you are worried about DoubleKiller deleting files by mistake, there’s an inbuilt safety mechanism which allows you to recover files if this occurs.

Thanks to Connected Internet