TechiePortal - TechFeeds » July 2, 2008

Flash Drive Reminder is a handy utility for people (especially college students) who work across different computers and carry their data on a USB memory stick.

This will display a desktop reminder saying that the USB drive is still in the computer if you try to log off without unplugging the stick.

Brad Greco writes – “I have an annoying tendency to leave my flash drive plugged in to the computer when I leave. I began to get tired of returning to the library and asking the front desk if anyone had found a flash drive, so I decided to write a little program that would ensure that I’d never leave it plugged into a computer again.”

Flash Drive Reminder adds an option to the autorun box that appears when you insert a flash drive into the computer.  When you log off from Windows, this will pop up a dialog box reminding you to remove the flash drive.

Works on Windows XP and Vista systems provided AutoPlay option is enabled on the computer where you insert the drive.

Related: Carry your Computer on a USB Stick

Get a Reminder to Unplug Your USB Flash Drive from the Computer - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

If you have installed OneNote with Firefox 3 already, skip this. For others OneNot fans, the good news is that the unofficial ‘Clip to OneNote’ add-on is now available for Firefox 3 but with a new name – ‘Send to OneNote’.

Send to OneNote (skip registration) enables to you copy complete web pages from Firefox into your OneNote notebook with a single right click. You also use this to clip only specific portions of a web page.

And if any web page includes complex formatting (like Google Maps or your Gmail inbox), you can always use the built-in screen clipping function of OneNote that gets activated by pressing Win+S.

Save Web Pages in OneNote from Firefox 3 with ‘Send to OneNote’ - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Xerox Mobile Express Driver is a free software for Windows that helps you print documents to any network printer while you are away from the desk. It supports both Xerox and non-Xerox printers.

The first time you use the Mobile Express Driver at a location, it will automatically identify all the accessible printers that are on the same network as your computer. You can then pick a default printer that is best for your print job.

 

You may find Xerox Mobile Express very useful if you need to print documents from different locations (like your home or a meeting room on another floor of your office building) or if you work in an organization that has a large number of printers with difference capabilities.

This is because Xerox Mobile Express software can easily help you determine which printers in your office support colors or two sided printing. You may also know the amount of ink left in their toners so that your print jobs don’t look faded.

This will also make life easy for new hires and visitors in your office as they need not run after the IT support staff to setup up printers that are close to their cubicles.

Xerox Mobile Express is available at www.xerox.com/mobile. HP offers something similar called Mobile Print Driver though it supports only HP printers.

Related: Print Documents over the Internet

Print Documents to any Network Printer with Xerox Mobile Express - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Tim Lynch, an image retouching expert, says that 99.9% of photos published in magazines are doctored retouched in some way or the other. In fact, celebrities hire professionals who retouch every single photo before releasing it to the press.

Diet experts warn that retouching of photos is causing eating disorders in the society and therefore suggest that magazines should add a warning caption under photos saying that this picture has been retouched.

Here’s another video made with photographs that are retouched using Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop Celebrities Spur Demand for Photo Retouching Experts - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Adobe has released a new version of the popular free PDF reader. With Adobe Reader 9, users can play Flash movies, Shockwave animation, and other rich media content without needing to open a third-party player. Adobe Reader 9 is supposed to load faster than its previous version 8.

Adobe had released the latest version of Acrobat 9 last month which supports videos and animation as well as custom-developed applications alongside maps that preserve data, 3D models, images, word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in common formats.

With this release (Reader 9), users will be able to view flash content directly from Reader without installing any other softwares.

Download Adobe Reader 9 [Via]

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“This is a guest post by Ben Carigtan, a technology enthusiast and staff writer at Online-Tech-Tips.”

Is your outlook mailbox a mess? Do you miss reading important emails because of the tons of emails you receive on your inbox? Do you want to organize it in such a way that you move a group of emails automatically upon receiving? If you are someone like me who receives more than a couple of hundred emails per day then this tutorial is for you!

Keeping an organized Outlook mailbox is easy by applying rules. In Outlook you can do many things like “move to a specific folder”, “auto delete” and “auto reply”.

Say you want to move an email coming from a specific sender out of your inbox and put it on a separate folder, here are the simple steps:

Note: On this tutorial I will move all emails coming from “Investopedia Forex” to a new “Investopedia Forex” folder.

1. In your Inbox right click the email and choose Create Rule…

2. The “Create Rule” window should appear and you will choose from several options. Since in this case we want to move all emails coming from “Investopedia Forex” we will check the boxes From Investopedia Forex and Move e-mail to folder and then click Select Folder…

3. On the Select Folder window click New… to create a new folder (you will not have to do this step if the folder is already existing)

4. Enter the folder name, in this case “Investopedia Forex” (note: the name of the folder is based from your preference, just make sure that the folder name is something you easily remember.

Once you click “OK” on Create New Folder you will see that folder inside your mailbox.

5. Select that folder and click “OK”:

6. Once you choose the folder, click OK to save the rule.

That’s it! Once I receive an email from “Investopedia Forex” it will move to its Investopedia Forex folder.

7. Optional: If you want to run the rule on messages on the current Inbox folder, check this option and click OK.

You can do the steps above to organize your own inbox. Some of the tips I share often is to move important emails from important people to their own folder. This way you can easily keep track of their emails. You can also do a rule that plays music (i.e. like a ringtone) when you receive an email from anyone you want.

With effective Outlook rules you can organize your mailbox more efficiently. This time you won’t miss that important email again.

Tags: Email, microsoft outlook, outlook, outlook express, outlook rules
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Many years ago when I was still a novice in computer, I accidentally disabled userinit.exe from startup thinking that it was a spyware using Autoruns. When I restart my computer, I was unable to login to Windows. Whenever I select the user from the list, it logs in and automatic logs off. I had a really tough time trying to restore userinit.exe back to Windows startup list as it wasn’t easy accessing and editing the registry when Windows is unbootable. Autoruns is much smarter now because when you uncheck userinit.exe from Logon, it will warn you that “disabling or deleting Userinit will prevent users from logging on”.

In the end I managed to fix the problem but I couldn’t exactly remember how I did it because I tried many many ways and I got lucky. Today I found a real solution on how to edit Windows registry key values without booting in Windows. If you have a similar situation as my previous case which requires you to edit the registry without Windows, then here is how to do it.

I currently know of 2 ways to do it. One is the easier way and the other way is a longer and more troublesome way. Both requires booting up the computer using CD.

I will first explain the tougher method on how to access registry without booting in to Windows using UBCD4Win. I’ve previously written a guide on how to create a UBCD4Win CD. Once you have the CD created, just follow the few simple steps below.

1. Boot up computer with UBCD4Win.

2. Once Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows is fully loaded, click Start > Programs > Registry Tools > RegEdit

3. Select HKEY_USERS

4. Click File from menu bar and select Load Hive

5. Browse to C:\Windows\System32\Config\ and select SOFTWARE. Make sure that it is C:\ and not X:\ drive, otherwise you’ll be loading the CD’s registry.

6. Enter the Key Name as NEWHIVE.

7. Expand HKEY_USERS and you’ll see a newly created NEWHIVE in the list. Expand the NEWHIVE and locate the following location.
HKEY_USERS > NEWHIVE > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > Winlogon

8. Double-click Userinit and set it’s value correctly such as C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe,

Important Note: Make sure you include the comma at the end after Userinit.exe. It is there by default.

9. Go back to HKEY_USERS and select NEWHIVE.

10. Click File from menu bar and select Unload Hive. Click Yes when asked if you are sure you want to unload the current key and all of its subkeys.

If you already have UBCD4Win created, the whole process is much faster. However, I understand that not everyone has Windows XP disc on hand. So here’s another great free tool called PC Regedit which lets you create, delete and edit Windows registry key-values without Windows.

1. Download PC Regedit

2. Burn the downloaded PCRegedit.iso to a disc. Refer to this guide on how to burn ISO images on a CD.

3. Boot up the computer with the PC Regedit disc and it will load up ISOLINUX 3.11.

4. When everything is loaded, you will see a MyFileChoose Title window. By default you are at config folder. Scroll down a little, select SOFTWARE and click OK.

5. Navigate to root > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > Winlogon.

6. Look for Userinit key and make sure that the value is set as C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe, If the Userinit key is not there, you can add a new key by right clicking at the right pane and select Add Key.

You can use this method to load up other registry files and edit them. Here are the explanation of the 5 registry files for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

Registry Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
File: SOFTWARE
Backup: SOFTWARE.LOG

Registry Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY
File: SECURITY
Backup: SECURITY.LOG

Registry Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
File: SYSTEM
Backup: SYSTEM.LOG

Registry Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM
File: SAM
Backup: SAM.LOG

Registry Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
File: NTUSER.DAT
Backup: ntuser.dat.LOG

Registry Location: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT
File: DEFAULT
Backup: DEFAULT.LOG

On Windows-NT based systems such as Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, each user’s settings are stored in their own files called NTUSER.DAT and USRCLASS.DAT inside their own Documents and Settings subfolder (or their own Users subfolder in Windows Vista). For example, C:\Documents and Settings\Raymond\NTUSER.DAT.

Technorati Tags: registry, edit, windows, ubcd4win, pcregistry

I usually check my emails right after I wake up and received a PayPal email receipt this morning that told me that the amount of $480 was transferred from my account. I first thought that this was a phishing email and checked the links and headers but it turned out to be legit. I was slightly nervous at that time and decided to log into PayPal to see if the transaction would be found there as well.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a payment for all the money in the PayPal account has been made at 23:35:35 PDT to Santrex Internet Services. I was not awake at that time which could only mean that someone else managed to make the transaction. The question is how.

I contacted PayPal and filed for unauthorized payment and did contact the “seller” as well who replied telling me that someone did buy Virtual Servers from the money. I’m pretty sure that I will get the money back the question however is how someone was able to make that transaction in first place.

The possibility is there that someone was able to get my password for PayPal somehow and made the transaction that way. I’m not sure if there is a possibility to make a transaction from PayPal without logging into the account. It does not look this way.

I checked my system with latest anti-virus software and found nothing. I also checked the PayPal account settings and changed the passwords there. I will change all passwords for all sites just to make sure that someone did not get them all.

The strange thing is that the payment was only made for the amount that I had lying around in my account. Anyone ever heard of something like that ? The real question is how he was able to get into my account.

Tags: paypal, paypal payment, unauthorized payment
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Here at Techie Buzz we have been writing for over two years and have recently completed 700 articles, but, that does not mean we are going to stop anytime soon.

With a real long weekend coming with the American Independence Day on 4th of July we want to conduct a marathon of writing posts based on your recommendations. Tell us what you want to read about and we will write the posts in the long weekend and post it in the coming week.

You can recommend us to write about a particular software, ask us a query that you could never find a solution for or simply suggest us to find something interesting based on a topic. The choice is absolutely yours.

And if you are looking to recommend us something you wrote, you are welcome to that too, simply write up something and send it to us. We will post it out here with link backs to your blog / website and your RSS feeds.

So go ahead and contact us, after all it is we who have to work that much more harder just to ensure you get what you want.

Oh and by the way you can also leave a comment out here to tell us what you want us to write about.

Technorati Tags: User Recommendation Marathon,User Recommendations,Recommend to Us,send us tips,guest post

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

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There have several tutorials on how you could create your own personalized homepage in Twitter but this one is different since it takes into consideration a new trend that was started by @waynesutton and then also popularized by @problogger. The latest I saw today was at @vrreddy, you can also the same changes now at my profile @keithdsouza.

The design gives a very personalized touch to your twitter profile and I will describe to you simple steps, how you can achieve this without having to create several images to perfect it. Before I go ahead lets look at the outcome of the design with the screenshot below.

As you can see from the screenshot above I was able to give a personalized touch to the twitter home page using the colors used at Techie Buzz, as well as introducing a extended profile where users can contact me using other social networking alternatives.

How to Personalize your Homepage with a Similar Design?

While I tried out several combinations to get the right page background, it was not turning out to be perfect for the twitter home page. After several tries I was able to come up with some exact measurements you will need to use to create a personalized home page like I have (I used screen rulers to come up with the exact combination).

Here are the steps for the design, I used Paint.net but you may use any of your favorite image creators.

The Main Background

Create a blank image that is of 1900px  x 1600px, width and height respectively. I choose this dimension since it will fit most of the display resolutions available, using a smaller sized image would only fill up a part of the screen on larger display.

If you choose to create a image that is only 800px x 600px it would only cover that area in a 1280px x 780px resolution but user a larger one will always fit to width. Of course you can use overlapping (Tile) but our goal is to create a perfect background that would fit all screen resolutions.

The Header

The header you create should be exactly 100px in height since that is the only dimension that will interline it with the rest of the page, anything shorter or longer would give your page a bad look.

The Sidebar

The sidebar can be anything between 200px to 250px wide depending on how much breathing space you want to keep between the tweets and your sidebar profile. The height should measure between 350px and 450px so that it would look good on all resolutions.

Unlike the header you have a bit of flexibility with the sidebar and can play around with it.

Additional Tip: I didn’t have much time to use Paint.net to properly create the sidebar so I used a small trick to do it. Since I wanted to have different fonts and colors for the text, I thought it would be best if I would do it with HTML.

I fired up Windows Live Writer and wrote a post with everything formatted then created a screenshot of it using FSCapture. Once I had resized the image, I then copied it and used it in Paint.net, though the result is not exactly awesome, I will improve on it in coming days.

You can do the same by creating a plain html file through your favorite editor too.

Posting your changes to Twitter

Once you have created and saved the entire image you will have to setup it up as a background image for your twitter profile, just ensure that the image weight is less than 800Kbs since that is the maximum size twitter will allow you to upload.

To change the background image login to your twitter account and go to Settings –> Design.

Select the option to use your custom style and upload the image you just created. That’s it your custom style will be applied in a few seconds.

Summarizing

Though it took me four times to perfect the image sizing (I used the ruler the 4th time), I would love to see you do it the first time itself. Do let me know when you update your twitter home page through your comments or by contacting me I would love to see your versions of it.

Technorati Tags: Twitter,Twitter personalized page,personal twitter page,personalize twitter,twitter tips

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us

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If you are a Window XP user but loves the Vista looks, then you can transform XP into Vista with Vista Inspirat. BricoPack Vista Inspirat is a free pack which modifies Windows XP system files in order to change its appearance and make it look like Windows Vista. BricoPack is the best and easy way to change quickly and easily your Windows icons, logon and visual style.

The advantage of using Vista Inspirat is that this does not take up too much system memory. Unlike complete transformation packs, Vista Inspirat does not give you transparency effects or Flip 3D, but it can give you Vista looks, icons, visual style, cursors and all these with minimum load on your RAM. The install/uninstall process of Vista Inspirat is also very much simple.

Download Vista Inspirat (Not to be installed on Windows x64)

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Adobe Reader 9, the free PDF viewer from Adobe, is up for grabs.

As far as looks are concerned, the new release is almost identical to Adobe Reader 8 though it does load slightly faster and is quite nicely integrated with Acrobat.com and Buzzword (read Acrobat.com Review).

That means you can now upload documents & photos to the web from Adobe Reader or even create new PDF files using the PDF writing engine of Acrobat.com.

So should you upgrade to Adobe Reader 9 when there are no new capabilities as far as reading PDF files is concerned?

Well, if you use any of the acrobat.com services or exchange PDFs created in Adobe Acrobat 9, this is a must have upgrade.

Others may want to download the ~34 MB installer of Adobe Reader 9 if they are looking for some speed improvements.

Related: Read PDF files online

Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 for Acrobat.com Users - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Microsoft finally (officially) dumped Windows XP, from July 1 PC manufacturers are disallowed from selling laptops or desktops with Windows XP pre-installed.

Image Credit

This is sadly the end of one of the greatest operating system ever created. It’s sad but all good things have to come to an end, and who are people like us to tell Microsoft not to do that.

So get ready to start paying for the extra processing power and RAM, with high performance video cards just because Microsoft will only sell you Windows Vista from now on.

Windows XP official support will end in June 2014, so there is still some time before you can worry about getting completely alienated by Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Windows XP,Deadpool,No Windows XP Sale

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us

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As the date gets nearer for the next generation of iPhone AT&T has revealed the launch date and new pricing plans for the 3G iPhone models.

iPhones will go on sale at all Apple Stores and AT&T stores at 8AM local time on July 11th.

Image Credit

The initial prices are as expected with a $10 increase in data plans which means that the minimum you will have to shell out will be $69.99. The monthly plans will not include free SMS, you will have to shell out $5 for 200 messages and $20 if you want to make use of unlimited messages.

Detailed Plans for Voice, Data and Text Messaging

• AT&T Nation Unlimited: Includes unlimited Anytime Minutes for $129.99 a month.
• AT&T Nation 1350: Includes 1350 Anytime Minutes and unlimited Night & Weekend Minutes for $109.99 a month.
• AT&T Nation 900: Includes 900 Anytime Minutes and unlimited Night & Weekend Minutes for $89.99 a month.
• AT&T Nation 450: Includes 450 Anytime Minutes and 5,000 Night & Weekend Minutes for $69.99 a month.

AT&T will offer FamilyTalk plans, with bundled voice and unlimited data, starting as low as $129.99 a month for two iPhone 3G lines. Up to three additional iPhone lines can be added for $39.99 each.

Unlimited text messaging can be added for an additional $20 ($30 for FamilyTalk plans of up to five lines); $15 (1,500 messages), or $5 (200 messages).

In addition to this AT&T will also be offering no-contract-required iPhones at $599 for 8GB and $699 for the 16GB models.

Well that more than gives you a pretty good idea of how much  you will be spending with your 2 year contract with ATT and a option to go for a non-contract model.

How many of you are going to actually buy the new iPhone or go for a upgrade with a contract? Would you rather buy a no-contract-required iPhone? Let us know through your comments.

ATT Press Release via CyberNet News

Technorati Tags: iPhone,iPhone price plans,AT&T iPhone,no-contract iPhone

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

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Many users had a problem with memory usage in Firefox 2 and although Firefox 3 was further optimized it still seems to be a problem for some users. Something that I do not understand for instance is the problem that RAM usage of Firefox is always increasing over time but never decreasing much. I was always under the impression that closing tabs should reduce the memory usage of Firefox (and any other browser of course).

This does not seem to be the case however and RAMBack introduced a routine that reduces the memory usage of Firefox 3. Firefox 3 does keep some files in the cache for performance purposes and RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory.

A commenter on the add-on page said that this add-on “only clears the internet memory cache of sites not currently loaded in the browser” which makes a lot of sense to me. I had troubles finding a way to find out if the add-on is as useful as it sounds.

What I can say is that the memory usage seems to be pretty stable for the same amount of tabs and websites and that it does get reduced by a bit when closing websites. The author of the add-on seems to be heavily involved with the creation of Firefox 3 and it seems that this add-on is really doing what the description says.

Before I forget it. The website of the add-on does not state it explicitly but it seems that the add-on becomes active when the user presses the Clear Caches button in the Tools menu. Would have probably been better if it would automatically do that every x minutes or something instead.

Update:

Before someone says I’m not giving credit. I discovered this add-on in the Delicious Hotlist. Just realized that Lifehacker’s Adam Pash wrote about it as well.

Tags: firefox, firefox 3, firefox performance, firefox tips, firefox-memory, ramback. firefox add-ons
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Google has been playing around with the referral system for quite long. The first steps were limiting the referral program only to US publishers and the latest being the complete retirements of the referral system to replace it with Google Affiliate Network a tool they have integrated with DoubleClick Perfomics Affiliate Network.

Here is the final nail in the Google Referrals Coffin that was sent out to AdSense publishers

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program. We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.

Now this would irk several publishers who strategically used several Google products as referrals. For example many publishers including us, would show a yellow band on the top of the page if anyone visited the site using Internet Explorer, this will definitely change with the Google Affiliate Network.

What do you think about this move from Google? Would you be comfortable to run a affiliate system over a referral system? Though technically both are same, would you look to go with Google itself for find other affiliate alternatives? Do let us know your views and opinions about this move.

Technorati Tags: Google Referral,Deadpool,Google Affiliate Network,Affiliate

© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

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Many good softwares are either too costly or simply unaffordable, but that does not mean every good software out there requires you to shell out absurd amounts of money. There are 100s and 1000s of softwares that are completely free and perform as good as if not better than their paid counterparts.

This is the 700th post for us and we thought to make it worthwhile for you. In this post we will look at more than 35 amazing softwares that can be used for different purposes and are absolutely free to use.  These softwares provide you solutions that make your computing life much better without costing you a penny.

Productivity Suites OpenOffice.org

One of the best alternatives available for Microsoft Office Suite, OpenOffice.org has not only received several awards and accolades, it is one of the best alternatives to managing your document, spreadsheets, presentations and more.

With Open Office you can do everything you can with Microsoft Office and with the software being open source you can expect 100s and 1000s of cool software engineers contributing to make it better.

Download OpenOffice.org | Learn more about OpenOffice.org

Other worthwhile mentions

• Zoho
• Google Docs 

Thunderbird

Maintaining several email accounts in a single place has always been a forte associated with Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird on the other hand is a alternative which is as good as Outlook if not better, providing you with the many of the same features to manage multiple email accounts at no cost at all.

Thunderbird lets you manage your POP and IMAP accounts with ease. Thunderbird also allows you to extend the basic functionality by allowing you to add useful add-ons and extensions making it just too good to resist.

Download Thunderbird | Learn more about Thunderbird

Dia

A good software is always conceptualized by defining the exact way in which it should work with process diagrams and flowcharts. If you have been paying out of your pocket for Microsoft Visio it is high time you switched to Dia a open source software that allows you to create structured diagrams and flowcharts for free.

Download Dia for Windows | Learn more about Dia

Sunbird

Though not one of the most talked about product, Sunbird definitely is a great alternative to managing your appointments and events without having to use Microsoft Outlook.

And if you would frown about having to use two different applications to manage emails and calendars you should definitely try out Lightning that combines Thunderbird with Sunbird to create a great productivity application.

Download and learn more about Sunbird

Browsers, Instant Messengers, Remote File Management, Shell and Linux Emulation Firefox

Firefox is not only the best open source browser available today, it also provides you with a much safer and faster browsing experience. It is really much better than Internet Explorer and not many would say otherwise.

Well if you have been reading us for sometime you may already know how much we love Firefox. You can definitely check out the ultimate list of tips and tricks for firefox 3 and while your at it don’t forget to see the Firefox extensions we have put up for you.

Download Firefox 3 | Learn more about Firefox

Other worthwhile mentions

• Flock
• Maxthon
• Opera
• Avant Browser

Digsby

Digsby is much more than just a just a multi-protocol IM client. With Digsby you can communicate with your friends over AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk and more without having to install separate clients, as well as check your emails from multiple providers.

If that was not enough you can also use Digsby to update your social networking statues in Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Download Digsby | Learn more about Digsby

Other worthwhile mentions

• 8hands
• Meebo
• Pigdin
• Miranda IM

WinSCP

Remote file management is always a challenge and though there are several softwares out there our preferred one is WinSCP, a incredible and versatile software that makes file management quite a breeze.

WinSCP is not only allows you to transfer files but they do it by providing you a way to securely do them, using the SFTP protocol instead of the regular FTP protocol.

Download WinSCP | Learn more about WinSCP

Other worthwhile mentions

• Filezilla

uTorrent

If you are looking to download files using torrents, look no farther than uTorrent, one of the best softwares to manage torrents. Not only is it lightweight it also can be managed using the browser by accessing the uTorrent site and the best part is it runs out of the box without requiring any installations.

Download uTorrent | Learn more about uTorrent

Other worthwhile mentions

• Vuze

Free Download Manager

Managing your downloads with browsers have never been that easy and download managers definitely allow you to download files in a much better way. Free Download Manager allows you to download files from multiple sources, accelerating your download process, along with allowing you to pause and resume them.

Free Download Manager makes your download management much better and also comes with inbuilt support to download torrent files.

Download Free Download Manager | Learn more about Free Download Manager

Other worthwhile mentions

• Internet Download Manager
• FlashGet

Related: Top 3 free Internet Download Accelerators

Putty

Ever wanted to manage Linux servers from your Windows machine using shell. Putty is one of the best way to access shell environment. As far as we know there is not competition to Putty.

If you have been using Putty, don’t forget to check out how you can manage your putty sessions in a database and work in a tabbed interface or minimize it to a tray so that you are not overwhelmed with the number of open windows.

Download Putty | Learn more about Putty

Cygwin

Ever wanted to emulate a Linux system on your Windows PC or just wanted to practice few skills before you actually installed Linux as you main system? Cygwin is one of the best Linux emulator you will ever find using which you can get your hands dirty without worrying about screwing up a actual operating system.

Download Cygwin | Installation Instructions | Learn more about Cygwin

System Management, File Management, System Maintenance, Anti-virus, Anti-spyware and Firewalls

Having paid for a software like Windows does not mean that you get the best of everything, there are several pieces of softwares that help you maintain your system so that it runs properly for a long time and is optimized to the T.

AVG Free Anti-virus

Symantec no doubt has a huge market in the anti-virus industry with Norton, with support from computer manufacturers who bundle the trial version of Norton in factory shipped desktops and laptops, that obliviously does not mean it is the best.

Norton has had huge complaints of considerably slowing down PCs and using considerable system resources. AVG on the other hand is a real good alternative which is free and does not tax you system as much as Norton does. The latest version of AVG also comes with several new features such as Anti-spyware, Anti-rootkit and more.

Download AVG 8 | Learn more about AVG

Other worthwhile mentions

• Avast
• Comodo
• ThreatFire

Related: Tips to stay safe on the  Internet

CCleaner

Your PC accumulates several temporary files and traces that are not useful to you. These temporary files and traces slows down the PC along with taking up unwanted disk space.

CCleaner is a cleaning robot for your computer, which is smart enough to know which places to look for unwanted files and traces. CCleaner can also cleanup several applications along cleaning temporary and unwanted files created by Windows.

Download CCleaner | Learn more about CCleaner

Defraggler

Your PC is not the smartest thing in the world and it has a tendency to spread fragments of files all over the place. Defraggler allows you to sort out the mess and make your PC run faster and much better. The good thing about defraggler is that it allows you to choose the files you want to defrag making the process much more easier and faster.

Download Defraggler | Learn more about Defraggler

Comodo Firewall Pro

Windows inbuilt Firewall is good but not really one of the best things around, there are several alternatives which you can definitely try out but our personal favorite is Comodo which packs in all the features of a professional version as a free software.

Download Comodo Firewall Pro | Learn more about Comodo Firewall Pro

Other worthwhile mentions

• ZoneAlarm
• PC Tools Firewall Plus

Recuva

“Oops I deleted that important file” is a statement many users have right after using Shift + Delete option for a file.If you thought that you could never recover the deleted file you are in for a surprise. There are several softwares that will allow you to recover deleted files.

Recuva is one of the best alternative that is available today, not only is it very reliable, you will not have to spend a penny for it as it is completely free.

Download Recuva | Learn more about Recuva

Imaging Tools, Graphics, 3D Software, Image Managers Gimp

Gimp is undoubtedly the best alternative available for Photoshop. Edit your images with ease without having to worry about paying a fortune for Photoshop. Gimp also can be used in conjunction with plugins bringing a host of new features to the core software.

Download Gimp | Learn more about Gimp

Other worthwhile mentions

• Paint.net

Related: Online Image Tools

Blender

Creating 3D applications is not that easy but even more harder is spending thousands of dollars to get a software that allows you to create 3D animations.

Blender is a great application to work with 3D modeling with a great interface at a unmatchable price, Free.

Download Blender | Learn more about Blender

Picasa

Picasa is definitely one of the best tools available for managing your photos. With Picasa you can import your pictures from your camera and edit them to change contrast, remove red eyes and more. You can also upload your pictures to your online album and share them with family and friends without having to upload each and every file individually.

Download Picasa | Learn more about Picasa

Other worthwhile mentions

• IrfanView
• Windows Live Photo Gallery

Video Softwares, Audio Softwares, 3D Softwares VLC Player

VLC Player is one of the best video softwares available to view different files and formats. VLC player supports multiple codecs out of the the box allowing you to play almost all kinds of file formats without having to install any additional softwares or codecs.

Download VLC Player | Learn more about VLC Player

Miro

Miro allows you to convert your PC into a Internet TV. You can use it to watch Internet video channels and play any video file. You can play files from YouTube and more and you can play almost any types of file with it including HD videos.

Download Miro | Learn more about Miro

PicLens

PicLens is a Firefox add-on that transforms your browser into full screen 3D browser allowing you to browse images and videos in full screen.

Learn more and download PicLens

Audacity

Audacity is one of the best free tools available for audio editing and recording for several operating systems.

You can record live audio, convert tapes into digital recordings, cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together and more.

Download Audacity | Learn more about Audacity

Development Tools, Editors Eclipse

Eclipse is one of the best development IDE available for building robust enterprise applications, embedded software development and more with support for several languages.

The Eclipse project has been supported by several well know companies and also has a very large open source community to help develop and test the product.

Learn more and download Eclipse

Other worthwhile mentions

• Apatna Studio Community Edition

Notepad++

Notepad++ is not just a mere notepad replacement, it will allow you to modify several file types and has been getting better by the day with new features like auto complete and more.

If you are stuck with notepad this is definitely one software you should give a try.

Learn more and download Notepad++

Other worthwhile mentions

• Notepad2
• Programmer’s Notepad

CD / DVD Writing Softwares, DVD Ripping, Virtual CD / DVD Handbrake

Handbrake is a DVD Ripper that will allow you to rip DVD files and convert them to MPEG-4 format for Mac OS, Linux and Windows.

Download and learn more about Handbrake

CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface.

Download CDBurnerXP | Learn more about CDBurnerXP

MagicDisc

Several softwares and games can be downloaded as image files like ISO, BIN etc. If you do not have a CD / DVD writer those files may be practically useless to you. With MagicDisc you can easily mount those image files as Virtual CD / DVDs and install the software, copy them and do more.

Download MagicDisc | Learn more about MagicDisc

Related: How to mount Image files as a virtual CD / DVD Rom

Utilities Foxit PDF Reader

Foxit PDF Reader is no doubt one of the best alternative to the Adobe PDF reader. It is much more faster and robust than the reader provided by Adobe.

There are several features that you make you completely ditch Adobe PDF reader, if you have not already done that.

Download Foxit PDF Reader | Learn more about Foxit PDF Reader

7Zip

7Zip is one of the best open source software which allows you to manage several types of archives with simplicity and ease. 7Zip supports all the popular archive formats such as zip, rar, gzip, tar and more.

It is by far a much better alternative to the dominating WinZip and WinRar softwares that require you to purchase licenses.

xPlorer2 Lite

Windows explorer is definitely not the best to manage files, with you have to open several windows just to perform a simple task of copying and pasting files.

xPlorer2 Lite is a very handy utility when it comes to managing files in Windows. The tabbed interface saves you lot of times and hassles simplifying the task of managing files.

Download xPlorer2 Lite | Learn more about xPlorer2 Lite

Related: Windows Explorer Replacements

Launchy

Loading applications has never been more easier than it is with Launchy. This is probably one of the best software that makes your life much more easier when it comes to opening applications without having to go through the pain of creating a desktop shortcut or searching for them.

Download and learn more about Launchy

Google Desktop

If you thought Google only worked online then you are in for a surprise. Google Desktop is one of the best indexing and desktop search tools for your PC with results as accurate as their web based search.

With Google Desktop Search you can search your files, emails, chat conversations and more. The handy sidebar also allows you to add gadgets so that you can access information quickly and easily.

Download and learn more about Google Desktop

Windows Live Writer

One of the best tools to manage your blogs offline, Windows Live Writer has grown to become one of the most loved applications from Microsoft.

You can manage multiple weblogs and post to them with ease, save drafts online and offline, edit images, add watermarks to them and more.

Download and learn more about Windows Live Writer

Summarizing

This list is not exhaustive and there may be several softwares we may have missed. Your contribution can make it more better for others to find the best softwares, please feel free to add in your choices in the comments.

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© Keith Dsouza for Techie Buzz, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to