If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!
Gparted is a great solution for people (mainly geeks) to resize and manage their hard disk partitions. I recently downloaded the Live CD version of this program then I used the IsoBurner program to burn the boot CD. After a test run, it booted up quickly with only a setting or two that needed set.
GParted is the Gnome Partition Editor application. Before attempting to use it, here is some basic background information.
A hard disk is usually subdivided into one or more partitions. These partitions are normally not re-sizable (making one smaller and the adjacent one larger). The purpose of GParted is to allow the individual to take a hard disk and change the partition organization therein, while preserving the partition contents.
GParted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging).
I recently saw a review of this blog post editor at Download Squad. I downloaded it and installed as a portable application. The installer actually allows this as an option, but I'd still like to do that myself.
I like some of the features, others, not so much. It's easy to add images you have on your PC, but I really had problems adding images that are already hosted online. I also didn't like the font attributes dialog. You have to click a button just to bring those up.
The best feature is the fact that it's portable. If that's all that draws you to it, I'll have to recommend PortableFirefox with the addon called ScribeFire. If you don't need a portable blog editing tool, WindowsLiveWriter is also very easy to set up and use.
I used the Zoundry Raven editor to create the post here below.
Zoundry Raven™ is our next generation WYSIWYG blog editor that makes posting to your blogs easier and faster. It's as
easy to use as a word processor, plus we include simple tools to add links, tags, photos, music and video files, and more.
Features
Tabbed WYSIWYG Editing
We hide powerful XHTML editing behind our intuitive UI so you can be sure that what you create is what others will see online.
Multiple Blogs Made Easy
Do you have multiple blogs for different audiences? We make it easy to write and publish to separate blogs all with one editor.
Improved Content Management
With our powerful indexer, you can browse all of your previous posts across all of your blogs by tags, links, or images.
Portable Application
Install Raven as a Portable Application on your flash/thumb drive. We'll stay out of your Windows registry and let you take your
Blogging on the road.
A friend here in Celina called me in for a PC rescue. He has two teenage boys and they have a computer that they use for school and games. Naturally, it gets infected occasionally despite taking normal precautions.
The infection was the wildly popular trojan "fake alert", which pops up at websites and fools you into installing it because it claims your computer is "infected". It's ironic that most computers only become infected after they install this rogue anti-malware application. A good sign that you've been caught by this one is that you will have an application called AntiSpyware 2008 installed on your PC.
The first thing I did was to run a HiJackThis scan and post it in Temerc's security forum. Tom, the admin there, recommended the Malware Bytes scanner and remover as the first scan and removal program. When dealing with infections, I always consult an expert. Tom may not claim to be an expert but he has years of experience fighting malware. I recommend that you follow the same steps and consult an expert when you get into trouble.
He followed up with a couple of other scans, but Malware Bytes cleared up the majority of the infection and I'm even using it on my PC now. I was also pleased to discover that another friend of mine, StevenBurn, is hosting the Malware Bytes updates on his free website. Now, that is a huge vote of confidence.
The Malware Bytes Anti-Malware app is free, but in case you need live protection, they also have a paid version. I think it works great in the free version but I won't try to stop you from buying the full version. Especially if you have teenagers.
click to expand picture
Quote from the website
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is considered to be the next step in the detection and removal of malware. We compiled a number of new technologies that are designed to quickly detect, destroy, and prevent malware. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware can detect and remove malware that even the most well-known Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware applications on the market today cannot. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware monitors every process and stops malicious processes before they even start. The Realtime Protection Module uses our advanced heuristic scanning technology which monitors your system to keep it safe and secure. In addition, we have implemented a threats center which will allow you to keep up to date with the latest malware threats.
Bluepwrdup wrote me about this neat little audio converter and I asked him to tell me about it. He did an excellent job, as you can see below.
From bluepwrdup
Hey Clif,
Here's the info on Switch. Anyone who is into preparing audio projects on a professional level will find this program indispensable. I have several other free sound editing programs that I'll share at a later date.
Switch v 1.05 Audio File Converter
Free limited edition or purchase Switch Plus
Switch is a program for Windows that lets you convert audio files from one format to another. All major audio file formats can be loaded and converted using this program. NCH Swift Sound is providing this free in hopes that you will like it so much you will upgrade to Switch Plus, which supports additional encode-to formats. No need to upgrade, the free edition does the job.
Features
Loads a variety of different audio file formats such as Wave, MP3, Ogg, WMA, au, aif/aiff, gsm, vox, raw, flac, aac, m4a, mp2 (MPEG Layer 2) and RealAudio.
With the free edition you can convert to a variety of output formats such as wav, mp3, aiff, vox, gsm, raw, ogg, aac and m4a formats.
Ability to play tracks prior to conversion.
Allows drag and drop of both files and folders.
Simple and intuitive interface.
Create destination output folder or overwrite source file.
Click the convert button without any files selected and all files in the list will be converted by default.
Convert or update your files with different constant Bitrate ( CBR ) or variable Bitrate ( VBR ) quality encode settings (e.g. changing your 128kbps MP3 files to 160kbps MP3 files) backup your files first in case you need them again.
Under ( help ) you will find homepage, tech support and Internet resources for additional software.
This is an extremely easy to use program, but it does come with some drawbacks. First, it does not convert to .wma audio format. If you have .wma files and you want to keep this format DO NOT overwrite, convert changes to another directory folder. Secondly, the program is unable to differentiate artist album info. To avoid album ( sub-folders ) info from being wiped out, convert each sub-folder individually. Other than these two flaws the program works rather well for preparing different audio projects.
No bundling of adware/crapware/spyware detected.
System Requirements
Windows 95/NT4/98/2000/Me/XP/2003.
Pentium 300 or above with at least 16MB RAM (32MB for 2000/XP).
Personally, I prefer ogg ( vorbis ) high quality compressed audio format. What is ogg you ask ? For a detailed explanation go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis
Many directshow players such as Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, Core Media Player, Zoom Player, RadLight, foobar2000 and Zinf do not support ogg ( vorbis ) audio files. RealPlayer plugins allow playback and Winamp now plays Ogg Vorbis files. To get around this minor problem install this ( free ) codec Illiminable filter and you will beable to listen to ( ogg ) on your favorite player that currently does not support ( ogg ).
Here are some good free options to help you scan your PC and find which software needs to be updated.
Quote from the Techie Buzz website
Though it is not easy to keep your applications updated all the time, there are several tools / utilities which will show you how which softwares are outdated and provide you with a option to download and install the latest version of the software.
Here is a list of 7 utilities/tools that will help you keep your softwares and applications updated with ease.
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 this!".
I saw my first good example of Google's Street View this week. I was pretty blown away by the way you can pan left, right, up, down, and move around on the streets. I saw it because of this unique marriage proposal that was made by a Google employee. See below
Try it by zooming in and out, drag the screen to pan around 360 degrees.
Google decided to take some new Street View images at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. This time they must have let the employees know, as there are many Googlers lining the street. They must have given advance warning, because some people came prepared.
One Googler named Michael Weiss-Malik, a member of the Google Geo team that does Google Maps/Earth, actually decided to make a wedding proposal in Street View. He put up a sign which you can see here.
• Copy File Name is a small program that will enable you to right click any file and select 'Copy File Name' from the context menu: http://www.bullzip.com/products/cfn/info.php
Quote from the website
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.