I typically use MyDropBox to store files online, but SkyDrive is becoming more useful. They've not only bumped up the amount of free storage to an incredible 25Gb, but they've also included a new option for drag and drop file uploads.
Keep in mind that DropBox still has them beat with the DropBox sync tool. It acts like a folder on your computer and you can add, edit and delete files just like any other folder. However, DropBox only allows 2Gb for free right now.
Another drawback for the SkyDrive upload tool is that it requires Internet Explorer because it's an ActiveX download. I don't care for ActiveX at all.
I recommend that you try both and make up your own mind. I've used other file sharing services, but these two are the top players in my opinion.
To use the drag-and-drop feature of Windows Live SkyDrive to upload files, you must install the SkyDrive upload tool. To install the SkyDrive upload tool, your operating system must be Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, and your Internet browser must be Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or a later version.
I recently had a chance to try out this partition manager tool. It's actually got a lot more going for it than simply creating, deleting and resizing partitions. It also has to ability to back up partitions or the entire hard disk.
Here are some of the nice tutorials included at the Easeus site:
Splitting your large hard drive into more than one partition is more than just a neat trick. It's nice to have extra drive letters like X: to store files at. It can also be a life saver when the C: partition with Windows on it gets infected or otherwise messed up. If you keep all of your important files on other partitions, you can quickly reinstall Windows without having to worry about your documents and pictures.
Once you have other drive letters that are actually other partitions on your hard drive, you can also easily make sure that everything you save to your "My Documents" folder will be saved on the X: (or other letter) drive. Windows allows you to change the folder that My Documents is actually using.
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As Partition Magic alternative, EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition is a FREE disk partitioning utility that offers a powerful range of functions such as resizing partitions, formatting partitions, copying partitions, creating new partitions, deleting partitions, hiding partitions, changing drive letters, setting active partitions, and a handful other functions.
What's more, the freeware works perfectly with hardware RAID and Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32 bit) Operating Systems. Your data is completely protected during all operations. Why not free download EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition now to enjoy it like the commercial program Partition Magic?
I wrote some of this article last year. Since then I've had a chance to try out the NewsGator RSS website. I love it but it's not going to replace Google Reader for me.
NewsGator is the author of the FeedDemon RSS Client. It used to cost a little money to use.
I first read about FeedDemon being free at a blog that interests me. The blog is called ...
I've been so torn between keeping my RSS feeds online via Google Reader vs. a local installation, such as Omea. I love the way Omea looks, and how responsive it is after it loads, but I don't like the lengthy startup and shutdown time. Alternatively, I like Google Reader's ability to be accessed anywhere there is an Internet connection, but I'm not a fan of the interface.
What to do?
Well, now I can have the best of both worlds! NewsGator's RSS reader, FeedDemon has been available for quite awhile, but for a fee. Since this isn't "Confessions of a freeware junkie" *ahem*, I hadn't looked at it until now - because finally it is available for those of us budget-challenged geeks! ...
I first posted about KMP (Kantaris Media Player) about a year ago. I've had a chance to try it since then.
It's great. It's also portable. I keep a copy in my Portables folder and I use it more often than VlcMediaPlayer. I almost never use Windows Media Player ... eeeyuck!
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Kantaris can play almost anything you can throw at it -- AVI, MPEG, MGEG-AVC, WMV, MOV, MKV, quicktime, matroska, divx, xvid, H264, MP3, WMA, OGG files and more. Kantaris can also play DVDs and audio CDs. The player also displays some of the most beautiful music visualizations ever seen. All this is completely free.
About a year ago, I mentioned that Google Docs had released a plugin that can be used in the OpenOffice suite so that you can upload documents directly to Google.
Files can be uploaded to Google Docs either by enabling a right-click menu item or through drag-and-drop functionality. This makes it simple to browse through your local files and selectively upload the ones you want to edit, share, or publish using Google Docs.
Finally! The tool we have all been waiting for has arrived! On Thursday, Google released a file uploader utility for Google Docs. Although I had wanted to use Google Docs as another platform for online storage (since no one gives you enough space!), getting all my docs uploaded was a tedious process since each had to be uploaded individually.
A year ago, I was asked how to spell check pages at PBwiki.com, my webhost and employer. PBwiki doesn't offer a spell check while you are using it's WYSIWYG editor, so I went looking for something that would work. I tried a free spell-checker called tinySpell.
I'm sure many of you might remind me that Firefox already supports spell checking in text windows and forms. Sure it does, but it doesn't always work in AJAX driven windows such as WYSIWYG editors. The spell check in Firefox doesn't help the crowds of people who still use IE6 and IE7. For those of you who wish to add spell checking in Internet Explorer, you may want to try ieSpell.
TinySpell works very nicely in the PBwiki WYSIWYG editor. I had to get used to stopping and hitting a hot key whenever it beeped at me to indicate a misspelled word. When I selected a larger area of text, it also beeped to indicate any misspellings and helped me find where they were located.
I would prefer to get a visible indication when I misspelled words, but I can't complain. After all, it's a free application and it works exactly as it was designed. If I wanted more features, I could pay for a license of the tinySpell+ version.
Things have changed at PBwiki.com and they now have a spell checker in alpha testing. That doesn't mean I don't need tinySpell. I still keep it around.
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Occasionally you need to check the spelling of words in an application that does not include a spelling checker and you don't want to launch your word processor just for that. This is when tinySpell becomes handy. It is a small utility that allows you to easily and quickly check the spelling of words in any Windows application.
tinySpell can watch your typing on the fly and alert you whenever it detects a misspelled word. It can also check the spelling of text that you copy to the clipboard.
tinySpell installs itself in the system tray for easy access. It comes with an American-English dictionary containing more than 110,000 words.
The Digital Clip Factory creates slide shows using the "Ken Burns" motion effects with music and transitions. Burn your movies to DVD or publish them to the web.
“Pictures say more…”
True, if you use our Digital Clip Factory application to create those "Ken-Burns" effects you like and export it to a compatilbe Windows Media File. Our Digital Clip Factory application is freeware / donationware. Just drag some pictures to the timeline and some audio and off you go. The pan and zoom effect are completely adjustable and can be stretched and cropped to your taste.
Digital Clip Factory is freeware based on free donation from our customers.
You are now free to be entertained on a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.
WinPT is "A graphical taskbar front-end for GnuPG with integrated key management and the ability for file and clipboard encryption." WinPT Portable uses GnuPGPortable.nsh as described in this thread to portablize GnuPG dependencies. WinPT requires an installation of GnuPG. My GnuPG Portable 1.4.9 Dev Test 9 is highly recommended.
Freebyte Task Scheduler is a small and zero-install program which enables you to start other programs automatically, periodically and at pre-defined times. This program functions very well in combination with backup software like Freebyte Backup, disk fragmenters, virus scanners and other regularly scheduled system maintanance utilities.
Freebyte Task Scheduler is freeware for commercial and non-commercial use and runs on Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Gary at Internet Fixes continues to amaze me with hundreds and thousands of tips for your PC. Whatever your operating system, or how you use it, a visit to Gary's site will soon have you saying "So that's how you do it!".
If the hard drive is the filing cabinet in which you store your documents, then memory, or RAM (random access memory), is the table you work on. The easiest way to get more space is to add extra leaves.
There comes a time when there's just not enough RAM. Everything is working fine, then you add photo-editing software, surf to a graphically intense Web site, install a game, and suddenly your computer can't keep up.
If the drive light is flickering like crazy, then it's probably time to install more memory. But before you unplug the cables, lug the machine to the car, drive to the computer store, wait to have RAM installed, and pay a minimum of $50 for the service, consider
Creating file shares in Windows 2000 was easy: Right-click on the folder, click Properties, click the Sharing tab, and away you go. It worked right out of the box.
Not so with Windows XP, in which file sharing is more problematic because it’s disabled by default. This is a more secure default configuration; users have to knowingly and actively enable file sharing for it to work.
As in previous versions of Windows, Windows XP lets you
Configuring a Dual Desktop Display in Windows Vista.
This gallery gives you an overview on how to configure a dual desktop display in Windows Vista. Learn more about this process by reading the related post in the Window on Windows blog.
You can easily connect a dual monitor configuration by using the Windows Mobility Center. Simply click
Create a clean environment with Microsoft Virtual PC.
Microsoft Virtual PC is available as a free download which can be used to create a clean system, which entails having a new system environment ready for either testing of applications or for general Web surfing or day to day activities. This is done to keep your main system clean of either junk from multiple installs or spyware and viruses.
When you’re troubleshooting performance problems with network-based applications running on Windows XP Professional, you’ll want to begin with the settings found in the Performance Options dialog box. These settings, which are hidden deep within Windows XP’s System Properties, provide a host of options that allow you to fine-tune the operating system’s overall performance and, thus, its interaction with various applications. These options allow you to adjust Windows XP’s processor scheduling, memory usage, and virtual memory, as well as
With Remote Desktop, you can connect to your Windows XP machine from anywhere on your Local Area Network (LAN). You can even set it up so that you can connect to the machine over the Internet from anywhere in the world.
Prior to Windows XP, if you wanted this kind functionality, you had to do some special configuring
Keep Everything In Sync With Windows Vista's Sync Center!
If you have files stored on two computers or on a computer and mobile devices that you need to keep synchronized, then you know how frustrating it can be to have to use several different software packages with different user interfaces for each of your synchronization operations. Fortunately, Microsoft realizes that there is a much stronger emphasis on synchronization. They've endowed Windows Vista with a new tool called Sync Center which is designed to work as a centralized location for all of your synchronization operations.
Every operating system could stand some tweaking. No matter how many developers you throw at an OS as complicated as Windows Vista, power users will always find something they can modify or hack to make it run faster, or better, or just differently. Here are just a few of the Windows Vista tweaks, tricks, and hacks we have discovered so far.
1: Add the Run command to the Start Menu
Beginning way back with the release of Windows 1.0, Microsoft has been all about the GUI interface (more or less effectively). But sometimes you
I read this article from Download.com about their picks for the worst downloads of 2008. They deal with bad software 24/7. I only deal with it a few times a week.
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Every three months, Tom Merritt (of CNET TV renown) and I collaborate on a lighthearted tribute to the software failures that stick out among the many excellent programs on Download_com worse than John McCain supporters at the Inauguration Day gala.
To qualify, these downloads have to meet the minimum requirements specified by Download_com in our software policies. That excludes all spyware, adware, and rogue software -- which disqualifies public enemy No. 1, the notoriously annoying Antivirus XP 2008 and its many variants, which continue to plague Google ads.
• New. Future Pinball is a real time Pinball Development System. It allows you to design and play your very own pinball simulation in True real time 3D: http://www.futurepinball.com/
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COOLSITES is a list of safe, fun, useful, informative and just plain cool websites and programs that are FREE, FREE and FREE. All of the programs and websites I list are free. If I list anything that is so good but isn't free I will list the price with it.
Wow! Over 900 people and still growing! I invite all of you to record your locations on this map. You can include as little or as much information as you wish. I think you'll enjoy seeing yourself there.
Here's a small look at my frapper map.
Get Gmail! and Get Firefox!
You need a free 6 GB Gmail account to access many of the cool features at Google. After more than two years in beta testing Gmail is open to the public. Just go to http://gmail.com and sign up for an account.
I think Gmail works best in the awesome Firefox browser. It's free, easy to use, and it's way more secure than Internet Explorer. My favorite thing to do is to customize Firefox so that it does much more than IE ever could. You can select new button controls for your toolbars, install extensions to add new features, or change the look of your browser with themes - the way Firefox looks and works is under your control.
I get many of the reviews in the newsletter from the readers. You don't have to be a genius or computer guru. Just answer a few questions and send me a review. I'll probably put you in the newsletter.
What do you have to say?
Just tell me what article you are talking about and leave me your comment.
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