Entries tagged with software - Channel 10

Introducing The Microsoft Store

sarahintampa — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:54:00 GMT

Did you hear the news? Finally! There’s now a way to buy genuine Microsoft software without a trip to the store – you can now download software over the internet instead. The new Microsoft Store, available at www.microsoftstore.com sells everything you need from Xbox games to Office to Windows and more. After making your secure purchase, the software is immediately available for download to your PC.

But the store isn’t just a software shop - you can also order Microsoft hardware like the new Arc Mouse, for example or one of the new Microsoft LifeCam Show webcams and have it delivered.

The Microsoft Store at the .com domain is for the U.S., but the UK, Germany and Korea have their own stores, too. Coming soon are Japan, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Other countries will have stores come online throughout the year.

Upgrade Task Manager

sarahintampa — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:17:00 GMT

Anyone who runs Windows is familiar with Task Manager, the program that shows you which applications and processes are running as well as displaying real-time statistics as to how much CPU and memory those programs are using, among other things. I knew that there were programs available (like our very own Sysinternals app Process Explorer) that let you see far more info than what Task Manager displayed, but I didn’t know that you could actually upgrade Task Manager itself.

However, it turns out that there is an add-on for Task Manager called Task Manager Extension which will add more features to this program. With Task Manager Extension installed, you’ll have new features like icons in the processes window, Windows processes will be greyed-out so you’ll know to leave them alone, and you’ll have tons more features from the right-click menu including options for displaying the system path and time the process has been running.

I think for casual users a simple tool like this would be much more friendly to use than Process Explorer, for example. Unfortunately, this program only works on XP and lower, and not on XP 64 or Vista. How disappointing! If anyone knows of any similar program for Vista users, please let me know.

(thanks DownloadSquad)

PC Decrapifier 2.0 Arrives

sarahintampa — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:35:00 GMT

You’ve got to love a piece of software with a name like “PC Decrapifier.” The software was originally created years ago to help you clean up a brand-new PC. It does this by removing all the trial versions, begware, and other junk apps that come pre-installed on new systems. Recently, a new version of the program launched: PC Decrapifier 2.0.0. This version offers a complete rewrite of the program using a new scripting language, which means the app is now more stable and reliable. Beyond that, though, there aren’t many new features besides a couple more icons and startup entries. However, Jason (the dev) promises that you’ll see more updates coming through more often now that the hard work of the rewrite is done. Decrapifier is free for personal use. You can download it here.

CraigsPal Brings Craigslist To Your Desktop

sarahintampa — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:49:00 GMT

Are you a heavy user of the online classified website Craigslist? If so, then you definitely have to look at CraigsPal, a desktop software program designed just for searching Craigslist. The application is available in two different versions, one free and one paid. The free version lets you search across cities, states, and countries, filter content, use negative searches (-keyword), preview listings/photos, sort by price or date, flag spam, and has several keyboard shortcuts.

The paid version, however, is for the true Craigslist fanatic. With CraigsPal Pro ($29.99), you can receive mobile SMS and email alerts, save favorite searches, backup your user data, automate searches, and you have access to free updates for the life of the program.

Of course, if you just want to search all the Craigslist sites, you don’t need an app to do so: Search All Craig's lets you do that from one simple web page. And if you really want to delve into all that is Craigslist, Lifehacker has the definitive Craigslist Power Users Guide.

A Simple Tool To Change Your Icons

sarahintampa — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:20:00 GMT

Although changing an icon is something that’s built into the Windows OS, avid desktop customizers are always on the lookout for better ways to make changes on the fly. A new tool that helps you quickly update your drive icons is Drive Icon Changer. All it does is update icons, nothing else, but sometimes a simple tool is just what you need.

To use the tool, you simply select the drive from the top drop-down box and then browse for the icon in the second box. Click “Save” and you’re done! This app was built by Taimur Asad in C# using Visual Studio 2008. He’s tested it on Vista only, but it may work on older versions of Windows, too. You can download the software for free from here (zip file).

Finding More Space On Your Hard Drive (Part 2)

sarahintampa — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:55:00 GMT

In the past, I looked at a couple of programs that can help you find more space on your hard drive: Xinorbis and WinDirStat (my current favorite). However, I recently discovered a couple more tools thanks to Steve Smith’s blog. Steve recommends a program called SpaceMonger. The current version of the program, version 2.1, claims to work on any version of Windows from 95 to XP to Server 2003. Although it doesn’t mention Windows Vista, Steve is using it on Vista with few issues. The program displays your disk space using proportionally sized rectangles so you can easily identify the places where you may be able to delete files.

He also mentions another utility called Easy Duplicate File Finder, which he found on PCWorld’s site. However, this program was not too good for Windows Vista as it had issues with the Vista file junctions (like, for example, the program didn’t know that c:\Users\Sarah\Pictures is really the same as c:\Users\Sarah\Documents\My Pictures\). This slowed the program down quite a bit.

If you have any favorite programs to recommend, leave us a note in the comments!

Making Engaging Digital Presentations With Freepath

sarahintampa — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:42:00 GMT

Freepath 2.0 is a new application that lets you create presentations that are mashups of web content and content from your PC. So, instead of a traditional PowerPoint, for example, your Freepath presentation could combine a PowerPoint file with images, videos, music, PDFs, Word, and Excel documents and play them as a seamless digital presentation. You can integrate web content like YouTube videos, slideshow’s from slide.com, music from Pandora, images from flickr or photobucket, and more alongside files saved on your PC like those from Office documents, PDFs, Quicktime videos, or Flash files.

The Freepath 2.0 software offers three different viewing modes: a preview mode which shows you digital assets on the right but also makes the playlist and playlist library accessible, a full screen mode (like what PowerPoint offers), and a dual screen mode which shows the presentation both on your screen and that of an external monitor. This dual monitor mode is also compatible with WebEx, GoToMeeting, Live Meeting, and Intercall.

If you’re more comfortable creating presentations in PowerPoint and are hesitant to try a new tool like this, you can actually prepare your slides in PowerPoint itself and then drag them into FreePath’s downloadable software to take advantage of the other tools that it provides.

When complete, your presentations can be shared with the Freepath community on myFreepath.com, which is similar to how Slideshare operates. All beta users receive 100 MB of free storage space in this community.

nCleaner – A Free App for System Cleaning

sarahintampa — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:31:00 GMT

If you have ever used the system cleaning app cCleaner, you may be interested in checking out nCleaner as an alterative. cCleaner let you delete your browsing history, cache, cookies, while also cleaning up your Windows Explorer, emptying the recycle bin, cleaning your clipboard history, and clearing the memory in various applications (like Office).

nCleaner, on the other hand, goes even further and offers a slew of detailed options for system cleaning and offers to clean over 90 items, one of these items being a registry cleaner. Now, you will no longer need a separate program for that – it’s built right in. In addition, the software provides a system resource monitor, a system advisor, logging, scheduling, plug in option, custom cleaning, statistics, automatic updating, and a lot more.

Karl on MakeUseOf put it to the test recently and managed to recover 17 GB worth of disk space and declared the app a winner. That’s good enough for me – since it’s a free download, I’ll give it a shot. You can try it too – the download link is here.

Animoto: An Automated Video Creation Tool

sarahintampa — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:20:00 GMT

Have you seen this? A web app called Animoto is announcing “the end of slideshows” thanks to their automatic video creation tool. You don’t have to create anything yourself – just point it to your media on the web (or upload from your PC) and Animoto’s Cinematic A.I. technology will create a completely customized video for you including a background track!

After you sign up for Animoto and start creating your first video, you’re promoted to either upload your photos from your computer or direct the app to use images you have stored on an online photo service like flickr, smugmug, Picasa, photobucket, or even Facebook! If you have your photos organized into albums, you can configure Animoto to retrieve the images just from one particular album.

You have to wait for a moment while the application retrieves your images. Ideally, for their 30-second video, you should have around 15 images – more than that, and some could be left off. If you want to make a longer video it’s only $3 – regardless of how many images are used.

For the music selection, you can upload a track from your PC or select one from their online collection, which lets you browse by genre (top 40, indie rock, hip hop, etc.) to find something appropriate. Note: though “Top 40” is a category, I’m either officially old or these are unsigned artists.

Finally, you’ll have your end product – a customized video created with their unique technology. Their app analyzes and combines the images and takes into account every detail about a song – genre, structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation, and vocals. Every video created will have a distinct set of motion. The video can then be emailed to friends, posted to your social network profile, downloaded to your computer, uploaded to YouTube, embedded on your blog, and more.

Animoto isn’t a new service – they’ve been in the works since 2005 and started receiving a lot of blog coverage last year. However, I personally had not tried the site for myself until today, and now that I have, I have to say I’m highly impressed. The app was fast, slick, and dead-simple to use, and the end product looks great. Looks like I’ll be pimping my MySpace page this weekend!

Get Virtual Desktops With VirtuaWin

sarahintampa — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:08:00 GMT

Who’s been on a desktop customization kick lately? Me, of course! Another great find I recently stumbled upon is VirtuaWin, a virtual desktop manager for Windows. It works with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2K, XP, 2003, and Vista. The program sets up several virtual desktops – you can have up to 9! – but what’s really cool is that the program supports the addition of “modules,” which are independently developed add-ons to the VirtuaWin application which offer more functionality. For example, there are add-ons that offer different ways to cycle through your desktop, add-ons that let you name the different desktops, add-ons that let you change your wallpaper from desktop to desktop, and much more.

The VirtuaWin program is freely distributed and licensed under the GNU General Public License. You can download VirtuaWin from here. The list of available modules is here.

iPower: Power Off Your PC Instantly

sarahintampa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:54:00 GMT

iPower is a little app that runs in your system tray allowing you to instantly logoff, reboot, or shutdown your computer. From the right-click menu, you choose what you want the default action to be (after installation, it’s set to “shutdown”). After it’s configured, you only need to double-click on the icon to have it perform your preferred action. This is a pretty quick way to do a shutdown, but be careful not to click it when you meant to click on another system tray app like your anti-virus or your Wi-Fi connection! You may prefer going with a Vista sidebar widget instead (like this one) – it’s just as fast and not as easy to accidentally click.

Browsing Photos With Pictomio

sarahintampa — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:34:00 GMT

Pictomio is a new, downloadable app for Windows that makes browsing through your photos a really cool experience. The app has a slick, modern interface and lets you flip through your photos in 3D. Because of the 3D rendering, your graphics card will need to have some juice to take advantage of this software, but the end result is worth it. Pictomio very much reminds me of what the PicLens browser add-on offers, and makes me wonder if 3D browsing is the next big thing we're going to be seeing both on the web and in our software programs.

You can also use the program to view, organize, browse, and edit your photos’ metadata, but it stops short of being a full-on image editing program. Still, this program is a lot of fun and it’s definitely being added to my list of alternatives to Windows Explorer.

Thanks FreewareGenius

Create Custom Themes With Vista Style Builder

sarahintampa — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:32:00 GMT

Have you always wanted to build your own theme for Vista? You can with a new application called Vista Style Builder and the How-To-Geek has a great walkthrough to get you started with doing so. The Vista Style Builder application lets you modify the visual style of your Vista theme or even import styles from XP to be used on Vista. Also, if you’ve found a style you liked on the web, like on devianART, for example, you can also open that file up in the program and use it as a starting point. From there, you can completely customize every aspect of the UI and theme, using the software’s easy-to-use built-in tools. The program is not available just yet, so bookmark this download page and check back soon. The program will not be free and pricing info is not available yet, but the How-To-Geek promises it will be reasonable.

UltraExplorer, An Awesome Alternative to Windows Explorer

sarahintampa — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:51:00 GMT

This weekend, I decided to look for an alternative to Windows Explorer. Although Windows Explorer gets the job done, there’s just a lot that it doesn’t do that I wish it would, and frankly, I miss XP’s version. Well, now, I have it back and then some! That’s one of the great things about Windows actually – you don’t have to be stuck with the way things come out of the box. If you don’t like something, you have the power to change it. Tweak, customize, download new software, whatever – you can really make Windows your own.

I decided to go on the hunt for a new version of Explorer. I heard a rumor someone out there is creating an XP version of Windows Explorer for Vista users, but I couldn’t find it. (If you know, please leave a comment! The closest I found was Explorer XP, which is similar, but not the same.)

Instead, I found something nearly as good, if not better: UltraExplorer. This alternative Windows Explorer program has it all: a completely customizable interface, tons of configurable toolbars, lots of different views, favorites, a temporary holding area for moving files around called “Drop Stack,” and, of course, the long-lost “up” button. (Don’t tell me about Alt+Up, I know - I want a button!).

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the program except that I would like to customize the defaults for the views depending on the folder I’m accessing, and it seems that you can only set defaults for the whole program. However, the app does remember your most recent settings, so this hasn’t been a huge problem.

If you want to try this alternate version of Window Explorer, you can visit the app’s homepage here or download it from Download.com here.

Impulse Brings Software and Games Straight to the Desktop

sarahintampa — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Stardock, the company behind Windows skinning software like WindowBlinds and Object Desktop, have just released a new product called Impulse. This new tool is a platform for digital distribution that lets you quickly and easily download games and other software to your PC’s desktop. Via Impulse, you can get access to all sorts of games from casual games to first-person shooters to RPGs to puzzles and a lot more. In addition to the games, Impulse can also distribute the company’s other popular products like like WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, CursorFX, TweakVista, DeskScapes, SkinStudio, MyColors, as well as 3rd party software like AVG anti-virus or Corel Office. Impulse is a free download, but the programs themselves are not.

NitroDesk Launches New Media Edition

sarahintampa — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

NitroDesk is a program that helps photographers easily manage, upload, transfer, and sync their photos and/or videos from their PC to several online media sharing websites including PlanetEye, SmugMug, Zenfolio, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Facebook, ShutterPoint, and Windows Live Spaces for photos and Vimeo and YouTube for video. Nitrodesk also support workflow tools like Adobe LightRoom, Google Picasa2, and Microsoft Expression Media 2. With this latest release of Media Edition, users can now drag and drop photos, albums, or video from one site to another or upload to multiple sites simultaneously. For anyone who works with publishing their media to several different sites, NitroDesk Media Edition may just be worth the one-time fee of $29.99 to save you the hassle. To use this software, you’ll need Windows XP or Windows Vista, and Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0. You can watch a video about Nitrodesk here.

Use Any Object as a Controller With Cam-Trax

sarahintampa — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:39:00 GMT

Cam-Trax lets you play any PC game you want using almost any object you can find as a game controller - you just need to have a PC and a webcam to do so. The software uses the webcam to scan the object you’re holding and then the object can be used to control your game! (See it in action here). Crazy! What’s even crazier is that I just discovered that the Xbox 360 can do this, too, but not many people know about it. The Xbox can be paired with a camera and through XNA, casual game designers can experiment with their ideas. In fact, here are a couple of videos of people doing the machine vision thing with their Xbox: video 1, video 2. Want to give that a try yourself, this guy documented some of the techie details on how to access the elusive camera frame buffer. The documentation is available as a download here. Now, who’s got a machine vision system that works with XNA?

Get Multiple Desktops With Dexpot

sarahintampa — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:55:00 GMT

Dexpot is desktop manager software that lets you easily manage multiple desktops. One of its best features is that it offers different ways to switch between screens - which is arguably the most important feature in a multiple desktop program. In Dexpot, you can use keyboard shortcuts (my fav) or you can click on the Desktop Manager interface, which hovers above the Windows Taskbar. With the program, each desktop can be customized with its own settings, files can be quickly moved from window to window, you can preview other desktops, and a lot more. Best of all, the program is available for free for personal use - you can download it from here. (via MakeUseOf)

Office 2007 "Legacy" Mode

sarahintampa — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:40:00 GMT

No, it's not really a secret setting. It's an add-in for Office 2007 that will finally give IT admins relief from that one user who resists change in all possible forms. The one that reminds you every day that how they had everything the way they liked it in Office 2003 and why did you have to go and change it on them? Who cares that Office 2007 offers awesome new features, they want it to be exactly the same. Had enough? Just download the Ribbon Customizer, an Office add-in that is available in a free starter edition or a paid Professional Edition. Using the tool's built in "Classic UI Tabs" you can turn back time and make Office 2007's ribbon turn into Office 2003's classic look.

However, it would be wrong if I didn't mention that Ribbon Customizer can do a lot more than just enabling a legacy mode of sorts - the tool can also be used for redesigning the Office 2007 ribbon UI in any way you see fit. You can add, remove, and edit tabs, reorder them, create groups, move commands around, make customized tabs you can turn on and off, and much more. The Ribbon Customizer is available here if you want to download and try it for yourself.

(via Aaron Tiensivu)

New for Photogs: Pro Photo Tools V1

sarahintampa — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:58:00 GMT

Just recently, a new tool for photographers was released which helps you better manage your digital photos. The tool is called Microsoft Pro Photo Tools V1 and this free application lets you geotag your photos as well as edit the photo's metadata - even in RAW format. The geotagging feature lets you organize your photos by location taken - info that can come from a GPS device or Live Search Maps. You can see some some screenshots of how this geotagging process works on the Windows Experience blog.

In addition to the Pro Photo Tools download, Microsoft also released Expression Media 2, a new version of its digital asset management software, which is designed to work with the Pro Tools software. Expression Media 2 helps save time when it comes to managing and organizing large collections of photos and other digital media, and it includes geotagging functionality built-in. Expression Media 2 also lets you quickly export of photos into multiple formats to produce slide shows, video, and interactive Microsoft Silverlight-powered web galleries.

“Geotagging is a hot new area in digital photography, and like other popular digital photo features, I expect photographers will be asking themselves how they ever lived without it,” said Ron Glaz, analyst at IDC. “Until now geotagging has been hard to do, requiring special expertise and tools. The time has come for an application that even the weekend photographer can use."

Well now with Pro Photo Tools V1, even the weekend photographer can do geotagging!

No More Boring Wallpaper!

sarahintampa — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:18:00 GMT

If you're like me, you're constantly changing your background, perusing through a folder filled with potential wallpapers and then selecting a new one only to find, an hour later, that you want to change it again. (Or maybe I'm just a bit too into customization!)

For customizers like myself, there's some great free software called John's Background Switcher, which will automatically change your wallpaper on whatever schedule you desire (yes, even every hour!).

You can choose to have the pictures come from a folder on your computer like "My Pictures," a set of individual photos, or even from the web via photo-sharing sites like flickr, Phanfare, smugmug, picasa, or even Yahoo image search!

Of course, you can also fine-tune the settings as much as you want - specifying whether images should be full-screened, tiles, montages, always in sephia tones, etc. If there's a setting you don't see, the software's creator even invites you to tell me what you want via his contact form.

The software is available for free (donations accepted) and works on all versions of Windows - 93-Vista (but did not state if it works on 64-bit or not). The download link is here.

(image via John's site)

Phun with Physics

sarahintampa — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:16:00 GMT

Computer Science Emil Ernerfeldt came up with Phun for his Master of Science Thesis. The game/tool can be used as a educational program for learning about physics concepts like restitution and friction, or it can be used just for fun. After downloading Phun (works on 32-bit and 64-bit systems), you can navigate around the scene and begin drawing shapes like straight lines, circles, boxes, planes, springs, chains, hinges, and other polygons. You can even add features like water, fix joints, rotational joints, hinge motors, and more. Of course the "phun" is in the way all the elements can interact with each other. If you're still confused, check out this video of Phun in action. Doesn't that look like...Phun? (Not enough phun? Also see the Physics Illustrator for Tablet PC.)

Make Your Own Icons

sarahintampa — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:06:00 GMT

I just came across this program, AllMedia Grabber, which is a shareware utility that extracts all the pictures, videos, music, and sounds files on your PC for easy access, including those hidden in executables, libraries, custom controls, databases, Microsoft Office, and more. However, what really caught my eye about this program is that it has an option to convert any graphics file into .BMP or .ICO format. "ICO" - like "icon" - format, which means you could potentially use this to turn your own photos into icons. Cool! Since it's shareware, there is a free trial so you can see if it's worth the price as compared to competitor's programs, like Axialis IconWorks, for example. Do you have a favorite icon-making utility?

Startup Faster with Startup Delayer

sarahintampa — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:03:00 GMT

By now, most of you have heard about editing your startup options via msconfig, but that process involves checking or unchecking programs from running at startup altogether.

However, you might have quite a few programs that you do need to run, like your online backup or your anti-virus auto-updating program. Unfortunately, some of these programs can take a lot of time to start up when you first turn on your computer. This is where Startup Delayer can help.

Startup Delayer takes a different approach than msconfig. Like msconfig, you can use the program to enable and disable programs from running, but you can also use it to have programs run after startup at a designated time, by customizing the intervals at which they begin to run.

To do so, you just go into Startup Delayer's options and specify how many seconds after Windows has started up before running each program.

Startup Delayer is free and can be downloaded from here. (via Download Blog)

HP's Upline

sarahintampa — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:57:00 GMT

HP has just announced that they are launching a new online storage service called Upline. The service provides unlimited storage for all your documents, photos, music, videos, and anything else you have on your Windows PC. The interface makes Upline easy to use, which is important, and once installed, the service checks for new files every 15 minutes (by default) and then uploads them in the background to HP's servers.

A free version lets you store 1 GB of data for one year, but if you're really going to back up your computer, you'll need to go with one of the paid plans. For $59/year, a "Home" plan is available, which gives you unlimited storage and allows up to three PCs to connect. That's quite a bargain when you think about it. (But is it really unlimited?)

For businesses, the unlimited storage option can range up to $299 per year, depending on how many users and PCs you have.

While you're traveling, you can access your stored files from a web-based interface from which you can also email the files or publish them for public access.

If desired, you can specify the program to back up to a second hard drive, server, or PC on your local network, too.

There are, however, a couple of problems you should be aware of: Upline doesn't back up email archives or system restore files, but that may change in the future.

In the meantime, you can check out what Upline has to offer from the HP homepage for the service here.