Bitcasa is a new file hosting service that is similar to Dropbox in many regards. Bitcasa just like Dropbox is application driven, which means that users need to install the Bitcasa client on their system to use the service. The client is currently available for Apple Macintosh OSX systems and Microsoft Windows (as an alpha), with a Linux version currently in development.

The client synchronizes data across all devices that have the Bitcasa software installed. Data gets encrypted before it is uploaded to the cloud to make sure that it is protected from unauthorized access. The developers state that they cannot access user data for any reason.

A core difference to Dropbox is that Bitcasa offers its users unlimited storage. It is not really clear how this will pan out in the long run, or if paid accounts will be introduced at a later time to make the service profitable. For now, users can upload, download and share as many files as they want.

Sharing is completely free as well, and the service highlights that friends and family can start accessing files “instantly without waiting for the entire files to download”. It seems though that recipients need to install the Bitcasa client and create and account as well for this.

Bitcasa has no web interface for users at this point. It is not clear if the developers will integrate one at a later time.

Bitcasa Beta Invites

Users can sign up for the beta queue on the Bitcasa homepage. If you do not want to wait, you can use the following link to sign up for an account directly. The link has been posted by Motou Xiao on Google+.

Just enter your email address and open the confirmation link once you receive the Bitcasa confirmation message. You can then download the software and create an account from within.

Closing Words

We cannot post screenshots of the application or signup process at this time as you have to agree to a NDA during signup. All information have been taken from public sources. We will post an update in the future.

Sometimes though you just need to work in that window for a second or so before you continue your work in the other window. This can be you blogging and listening to music at the same time, if you want to skip a song or change the volume for instance. It could also be useful in Windows Explorer when you want to drag and drop files to a folder that is not visible in the file manager’s sidebar.

With Mouse Hunter installed and running in the background, you can control some window functions with your mouse even if that window is not active. This includes scrolling the window up or down or using other functionality that is assigned to the mouse wheel. For media players like SMplayer, this could mean going forward or backwards, or changing the volume of the media that is playing currently.

I often display two web browser windows side by side, for instance the admin interface of this blog when I’m writing an article, and the developer website of the program or service I’m writing about. Instead of having to click around to activate and re-activate windows, I can simply use Mouse Hunter to scroll on the developer site to read up on everything that they have to say about the app or service.

Another application is in Windows Explorer, where I may have selected some files that I want to move or copy to another folder in the sidebar. Once selected, I cannot scroll the sidebar without losing focus on the selected files.

Windows users who like to test the program’s functionality can download it from the developer’s website. The program is freeware and compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the windows operating system.

For example, when you are dual booting any Linux operating system such as Ubuntu, the very first thing that you need to be aware of is that the Linux Grub will overwrite your Master Boot Record (MBR). This will mean that you will be able to boot your new Linux operating system in a hard drive partition, but you will probably not be able to boot back into Windows thereafter.

Rather than spend a day pulling your hair out trying to look for a solution, find a good guide on dual booting Ubuntu with Windows before you get started. This is an Ubuntu guide on the topic that happens to be immensely helpful and there are plenty of other links on the site to assist, should you run into any problems.

To get to the point, the very first thing you must do before dual booting Linux alongside Windows is backup your operating system. Don’t just backup the files and folders; backup the entire system on an external hard drive. If you put it on a partition and you are unable to access the partition after the dual boot, you are out of luck. It seems obvious, but always backup your system to removable devices or an FTP server. The advantage of having the external hard drive is that you have something tangible in your hands that you can restore your system with.

Secondly, create a system repair disk or buy one. If you have your Windows installation disk, that would be best, but the repair disk will be sufficient to get you into the recovery environment so that you can have a DOS prompt to work from in order to restore your MBR. As long as you have the full system backup and the repair disk, you have a parachute if you mess up the operation. Understand that Linux has a completely different language than DOS and the GNU Grub is not something to be messing with unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Make sure that you partition your hard drive properly before dual booting. DO NOT boot Linux onto the same partition on which you have installed Windows. That just about covers it.

Once you have an effective dual boot of Windows and Linux, you will be rather pleased with yourself and you get to enjoy the benefits of both operating systems. Also, a dual boot is much faster and more efficient than a virtual machine. Enjoy a safe dual boot.

The great thing about MadApp Launcher is that it has 10 different tabs with 30 blocks for application and file icons. Try this one out and say goodbye to a cluttered desktop and confusing filing systems. It doesn’t look glamorous and there are no animated features and Mac-like effects, but this is a superb organizational launcher that features automatic hotkey settings for each of the application slots. This gives you the ability to categorize different tabs and slots for up to 310 applications and files or folders. This user didn’t think that it would be all too impressive, but after an hour of organizing, the verdict is a definite two thumbs up.

After installation, the launcher opens automatically, but you will not see it until you click its tray icon. The interface, as you can see, is arranged like a keyboard. The top row represents the first ten function keys. The tabs represent the number keys 1-10, though they are not apparently numbered. The rest of the interface represents every letter and four characters on the keyboard. The row for the function keys is not tabbed; those are set and will not change between tabs.

To add application icons or folder/file and utility icons, all you have to do is use the drag and drop feature. Click your icon of choice, drag it to the letter or function key that you want to set as a hotkey for that icon and it is set. The very first thing that will happen when you drag your first icon onto one of the tabbed slots is a prompt to save. You might be wondering at that point if you are going to have to perform this function repeatedly. You will not. This is just a way to create a folder in which all of the MadApp Launcher icons will be stored for backup purposes. They are stored as .mal files in the folder of your choice. It is advisable to create a folder and title it “MadAppLauncher” so that you can identify it. Whenever there is a new release for MadApp Launcher, you will need to backup this file in order to save your settings before updating the version. Also, if you ever have to re-install for any reason, you won’t have to start from scratch.

The hotkeys will be activated for the tab you have set. Switching between tabs switches the active hotkeys. You can also access applications by simply clicking the icon on the interface if you don’t care much for hotkeys. Any file or folder can be applied to the launcher. An interesting use for this is if you are working with multiple Word or Excel documents or even OneNote pages, you can place each one on a slot in one of the tabs and switch between them with the touch of a key. This takes the notion of the keyboard ninja to a whole new level.

This demonstration is performed on Windows 7, but the instructions are the same for Vista. There are a few ways to open the Disk Management console. The easiest way is to go to the start menu search box and type “disk management”. At the top of the resulting list, you should see the Control Panel option clearly listed and highlighted.

Partition a hard drive

From here, press enter or click on “Create and format hard disk partitions”. This will open the Disk Management console. You will notice all drives displayed clearly. If you have never partitioned before, notice that there are already three partitions. This is normal for Windows and you never want to change these. The first is a recovery partition that is needed to recover the operating system if it becomes inaccessible. The second is called “System Reserved” and the third will be displayed as drive (C:). Essentially, these comprise the operating system except for the third which contains essential system files and free space.

To create a new partition, right-click the (C:) drive and the context menu will list the option to “Shrink Volume”.

Click “Shrink Volume” and this will open a small pop-up that indicates that the utility is querying the volume for available shrink space. Essentially, you will be “shrinking” a portion of the drive and it will become a separate partition. You can begin doing this when the following window appears:

Specify the size for the new partition. In the highlighted blue field, you will see the full amount of space available to shrink next to “Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB”. Since you will be entering the size of the new partition (shrink) in MB, understand that 1GB is 1,024MB. If you want to create a new partition of 10GB, for example, you would enter 10,240. If you want to create a larger partition, you will need a calculator for odd sizes like 17GB or 183GB. In this case, we are going to create a 10GB partition.

After entering the desired size for the partition, click Shrink and shortly a new unallocated partition will be created. This is unallocated space and is not yet usable. It needs to be formatted to create a healthy partition. Right click on the new partition and select “New Simple Volume” from the top of the context menu. This opens the New Simple Volume Wizard, which allows you to set up the formatting and Drive path with an assigned letter. When the Wizard opens, click Next and the consecutive window will ask you to specify the size of the drive again. As long as you want it to be the size you originally specified, there is no reason to change the size, so click Next.

Here you have the option to assign a drive letter and path. The default path will be the drive letter. Since this is a basic tutorial, the options of mounting to an empty NTFS folder or formatting to formats other than NTFS will not be explained. If this is the first partition you are creating, the default drive letter will be (E:). You may click the dropdown menu and select another letter if desired, but it is not necessary. Click Next and this will take you to the formatting options.

In this window, you can choose different file system types, specify a name for the partition and enable file and folder compression. To keep it simple, let the defaults remain as they are and click Next unless you would like to name the volume first. If you wish to name it, enter the desired name in the Volume label field and then click Next. The final window will open and all you have to do is click Finish and your new partition is formatted and ready to accept files or be used as a virtual drive.

You may do this for as many partitions as you may need. For example, when setting up a dual-boot, you may need to create up to three additional partitions for the second operating system to be installed. That is all up to you and it is a different subject entirely.

Un-Partitioning

Once you have gotten the procedure down for creating new partitions and you have used them, you may find at some point that you want to remove the partitions and merge the disk space back into drive (C:). In order to do this, you will need to open the Disk Management console again and choose the partition that you want to remove. Right click the partition and select Delete Volume from the context menu. This will erase all data on the partition, but that is fine because you want to have free space again.

You will see that the partition is now free space. The next step is to right click the free space volume and select Delete Partition from the menu. This will change it to unallocated space, which is the only way to merge this space back into (C:).

Now you are ready to add the unallocated space back into (C:), so right click on volume (C:) and select Extend Volume from the context menu. The Extend Volume Wizard will open and you basically go through similar steps as you did to create the partition as outlined in the beginning of this tutorial.

If you are only Extending from one partition, then continue to click Next through all of the prompts, clicking Finish at the end. This will remove the partition and you will no longer see it, as the memory has been put back onto Drive (C:).

Now you have successfully un-partitioned the drive and there is more memory available in Drive (C:). If you created multiple partitions and wanted to clear all of them, keep selecting Delete Volume and then Delete Partition for each one until you get a single unallocated space and follow the steps above to Extend Volume for Drive (C:).

The procedure is similar if you have multiple partitions and only want to delete a portion of them. For example, if you have four partitions like (E:), (M:), (L:), and (F:), you may want to delete just two. Let’s say that you want to delete (M:) and (F:). Perform the same steps as you would for single partitions. They will merge together as a single unallocated space. Then open the Extend Volume Wizard as described above. When the Wizard opens, select the unallocated space from the list of available disks and Add it to the remove list if it is not already there.

Regardless of how many partitions you are going to make or how many you want to delete and un-partition, the procedures are the same as detailed above. Just be careful to avoid deleting partitions that contain data you want to save. Backup your system before deleting multiple partitions. This will ensure that no data is lost if you do make the mistake of deleting the wrong partition(s).

You can always regain space on Drive (C:) using this method, thanks to the Disk Management Utility in Windows 7 and Vista. Usually, unless you have a higher capacity hard drive from 500GB – 3TB, you won’t be able to practically create many partitions at all. Removing multiple partitions will only be an issue for users with larger hard drives or users with smaller drives who have allocated too much space to partitions and are running out of space on Drive (C:).

If you are working with multiple virtual machines and dual boot systems, this information can be very useful. By learning all of these basic steps, you can easily progress to creating partitions with different formats such as FAT32 or ext2 and other formats used for different aspects of virtual machines and dual booted operating systems. This should give you the basic tools to master drive partitioning so that you can create any configuration you want. Once again, the customization beauty of Windows 7 and Vista shines through.

You can get lost in this for hours, should you have the spare time. You have programming topics like supercolliding a PHP array, Java coding tips, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python and various code topics. The bottom line is that this is a very useful site for anyone tech oriented or interested in tech topics as a beginner, but it has appeal for many others as well. This pulls together a wide audience and shares the most important thing that can be shared: information.

As far as the kids are concerned, there are a variety of online education topics and tutorials to help with both basic and complex academic subjects. This is an excellent way for your kids (or if you are a kid) to be introduced to intellectually relevant topics. You can build a fundamental understanding of many technical topics and delve into more important current news topics in addition to news humor. After sweating away a few hours of coding or tinkering with your operating system, you can enjoy some Anime or other fun videos.

This is not your average site by any stretch of the imagination and just about any user can find something on JimmyR.com to occupy some brain space for awhile. Should you care to understand certain coding topics more, that is one of the best features. For example, if you are struggling to understand algebraic data types, you can get a nice breakdown of the topic. Fledgling programmers and more inquisitive children can gain much from this.

Here you have part of a chart explaining algebraic data types, compliments of the site. It is quite different from the site you are reading this at now. However, every good user likes to browse dozens of sites on a regular basis. For the technically oriented, JimmyR.com will give you plenty of time-consuming reading. This is not a bad thing at all.

Finally, the site is not stuffed with ads and it is open to user posts for blogs, pictures and just about anything else relevant to the theme of the site. It is uncertain whether anyone who is not interested in the tech side would find the content interesting. At the very least, the average user can start to become more of a power-user with much of the information here and grow their brains in many other ways. Have fun!

Install the dotEPUB Chrome Extension and it will instantly manifest as an icon that looks like a green traffic light in the upper right pane of your Google Chrome browser window.

Here it was highlighted in yellow, but it is difficult to miss an added Chrome extension. When you are on a web page that has an interesting article or you have found a lengthy Wikipedia article, all you have to do is click this green dot icon and the entire webpage is converted into an e-book format that can be saved, converted and read at will. You can read it on your desktop or laptop or your iPhone or Android. It doesn’t matter what device you use, especially if you use a good conversion tool, which will be discussed shortly.

As many of you are familiar with, Google Chrome downloads files and then creates a tab for the recent downloads in the bottom pane of the screen. When you use dotEPUB, you will see that the text of the page you selected has been downloaded in the form of an .epub file. It is best to open the file location and move these files to a specific folder. Otherwise, you will be sorting through downloads later to find the file.

The new EPUB file will not be instantly readable unless you have software capable of reading .epub files and it is set as a default for such files. You need to have software that can read .epub files. Notebook will not do it, nor will any other text editor, unless you are in the mood to decrypt it. Here is a suggestion:

Try using Stanza, an excellent utility for not only reading .epub files, but also for converting them into formats that most devices can use. Normally, dotEPUB is available to move directly to several different mobile devices, but not the Amazon Kindle. Stanza allows you to read your saved text from dotEPUB and also export it in various formats, such as Kindle compatible formats.

Download Stanza for Windows and you will have the perfect freeware that will enable you to actually read the content you copied and saved. Use the File tab to convert to readable formats for eReader, HTML 4x, Amazon Kindle, etc. You can use Stanza as a reading tool on your desktop for all of the website texts you have saved using dotEPUB.

Though you don’t get the pictures with the text, you can still have the text. In a matter of five minutes, you can save extensive information from websites and save them for reading offline. The possibilities are numerous with this Google Chrome extension. Enjoy the information.

After the setup is complete, you will be asked to sign up for the service from Zumocast.com. The next step is to select the appropriate folders containing the media that you want to have available on your mobile devices. The application will scan the selected folders rapidly and you will be able to access all scanned content from remote locations by simply logging into the account that you set up during the signup process.

One drawback noted by many users of Zumocast is that it uses a tremendous amount of machine resources. The upload speed of your connection is another factor that plays a role in how quickly you can access and stream your media. This has been tested on some heavy-duty computers with powerful processors and there have still been issues with upload speed. It is possible that a solid state drive could be helpful, but external hard drive storage is not going to help. Overall, you do get the media you want when you want it. You might just need to go and have a cup of coffee or play some computer chess while the upload is in process.

Browsing your content on the Zumocast site is similar to browsing content on any other site. When you are away from your home computer, you just need to log on to Zumocast.com and there is all of your media, compliments of Cloud storage. You then go through and find what you are looking for. With iOS devices, you may find some issues with playback and this is due to the formatting. It is recommended that you use MPEG4/H.264 content for smoother streaming, particularly for video content. With other devices, this does not seem to be an issue and most formats are supported by Zumocast.

This is fairly amazing for freeware and it eliminates the need for syncing devices and sharing files, as this is handled by Zumocast for you. It is a great way to organize your media and have it readily available. Additionally, should you wish to download any of the content from your host computer to any mobile device or other computer, you have this option with Zumocast.

Defragmentation works by moving fragmented files into one continuous block, thus freeing up available physical memory. Smart Defrag is a freeware application by IObit, and software from IObit is impressive in general. Smart defrag analyzes a hard disk much more rapidly than you would expect and defragmentation completes quickly. The interface is a sleek and friendly, offering Auto Defragmentation to top things off.

Since fragmentation is occurring constantly, it is important to defragment your computer’s hard drive(s) on a regular basis. The interface is easy to use and the application will defrag your files system while your computer is idle and maintain optimal disk performance at all times.

On a PC that has never been defragmented, a significant amount of memory is unnecessarily occupied by fragmented files and this can slow down performance while blocking hard drive sectors from being usable. In this case, you will see a significant amount of fragmented blocks colored in red on the interface during analysis and the process will take longer to complete, but it is well worth the wait. A large amount of physical memory can be restored. For those of us who run a good defragmentation application regularly, there is little fragmentation at all and is much easier to sort out.

The Auto Defragmentation is a set it and forget it feature so you don’t have to be concerned anymore about cumulative fragmentation. Smart defrag does not run constantly in the background, as this would damage the hard drive over time. Instead, it has a “Safe Intelligence that decides when and how to start defragmentation. This feature also has an interesting interface that shows you the results of continued performance over time. The percentage of fragmented space is indication as well and there is a CPU meter built in.

Upon completion of defragmentation, Smart Defrag clearly .displays the amount of fragmented space before and after the operation is completed while indicating the number of defragmented files and directories. It does a better job than most other similar applications and this is apparent from the first use.

You can set Boot time defragmentation in addition to the Automatic feature. For the average user, this is usually not as essential as it is for those geeks among us who just have to install software and test it out and often we end up uninstalling it anyway. This leaves quite a mess and Smart Defrag is ideal for you to try out if you are frequently making changes to programs. It is designed for modern, large hard drives and, as a result, eliminates long waiting times without occupying too excessive resources and none of your files are ever harmed.

Open Outlook and see what you always see: an interface. Brilliant, now where are the PST files? There are two ways to find them and it is very simple. In Outlook 2010, open the File menu and click Account Settings. In Outlook 2007, click the Tools tab and select Account Settings.

This will open a window with various tabs that help you organize your Outlook content. Click the Data Files tab and you will see your Outlook data files, including PST and OST files. They will be clearly indicated by name. Highlight the PST file listing and then click Open Folder just above the list.

Your PST files are saved in your User Data folder by default and this is the folder location that will open. Simply double click the listing for your PST files and there they are.

Alternatively, you can open your PST files directly from the User Data folder without opening Outlook. Open Windows Explorer and in the address bar, type:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\

Press Enter and the folder will open. Once again, simply double click your PST files and they should open. If this leads you to a read-only file that you cannot open, right-click the file and select Properties. Under the security tab, you can make sure that you have allowed all permissions for the user account. The default account is often the SYSTEM user and permissions are restricted.
Click the edit button to define permissions for certain users, select which account you are using and all permissions. Click Apply and restart your system.
At that point, you can try the above steps again and it should work out. If this all seems like too much to bother with, there a applications that will find the PST files for you, but it is just as easy to try this first.

Other troubleshooting issues may be inactive services with Outlook and Windows Live. This can also cause problems accessing PST files. Check to make sure that all services associated with these programs are enabled and active.
Normally, you should not have any trouble retrieving the PST files from Outlook. If you continue to have problems retrieving PST files from outlook, also check for firewall issues.

Download Everest Home Edition and give it a try. The features are thorough and best described by the creators themselves:

• Advanced hardware monitor with OSD panel and cooling fans monitoring
• Real-time alternating for hot-plug devices
• Portable Computer page to display mobile PC related information
• Bluetooth PAN support
• File Scanner filtering
• User benchmark results manager
• Monitor Diagnostics

You should probably download it soon, because it is no longer available in a free edition, except from the link provided.

The product line was discontinued one year ago and this is a pity because it has all the bells and whistles you could want from a good system diagnostics application. It is designed for both 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems. It uses very little system resources: minimum 486 processor with 32 MB RAM. Some dinosaur PCs could handle that.

From the interface, you can get specifics on all hardware components and full reports with formatting options. You can open up an HTML report on any component and see exactly what is going on.

This comes from Everest’s Report Wizard and all offsets are displayed as well. This is a panorama from which you can find any issues with PC hardware with ease. If you are already familiar with hardware diagnosis, this will be quite a treat. The Report wizard is a standard Windows layout. You get complete reports and you can export them to a file for comparative analysis.

For customization purposes, you can tweak to your heart’s content, but be careful not to blow the whole game. As always, backup and create a restore point if you are going to go messing around with settings.

Select any component from the menu and click the Report tab then choose a report in Plain Text, HTML or MHTML. Every detail is there before your eyes.

The first page of the Preferences module has a list of all user interface languages and it is as easy as selecting Preferences and then selecting a language to change the interface. Restart and the language is reset.

Open the system devices panel and everything is listed perfectly. Just scroll through specified devices and properties and get complete diagnostic reports. Everest Home Edition doesn’t miss anything. It is unfortunate that the program will have no further updates. It will soon be outgrown, but for now, this is a piece of software worth taking for a test drive. That is about what it takes to learn how to use it. Explore the options and get what is perhaps one of the clearest hardware diagnostic tools available for free, at least for now.

The top of the interface allows you to do a basic checkup, cleanup and speedup. It has security tools and an app manager as well.

Beneath this toolbar, you will find a quick synopsis of your system’s performance with regard to CPU load, upload / download speeds, CPU temperature, memory usage and disk access speed.

Under this area you can pick from a predefined set of features such as Game Turbo Booster, Duplicate file finder, Password Manager, File Recovery, Startup Optimizer, and Process manager.

You will find an overlay running while you have this software up and running. It will show you at all times the current upload and download rates.

The left side window where most of the notifications of your system issues are located you will find a globe. This globe changes in color and level depending on the perceived issues within the system. During use, the program will indicate which file is currently being deleted, moved, copied or defragmented.

Many of the submenu items such as Startup Optimizer have elegant and simple 1 click options that allow you to quickly change many hidden power-user features within Windows.

There is a network monitor that will show you when a program is utilizing your network connection, what it is doing and if you should be concerned. It takes the benefits of a program such as Close the Door and places it within this elegant interface.

There is even an App Manager that resembles the Add or Remove Programs portion of the Windows Control Panel.

Basic tools include:

• File Shredder – DOD file delete
• Disk Wiper – High level formatter deletes the MBR and all files on that drive
• Disk Doctor – Checks the overall health of the drive (resembles the old Win 98 Disk Defrag screen).
• Duplicate file finder – Very handy if you have multiple instances of files hidden all over your drive
• File Recovery – Attempts to pull files from damaged media

Advanced tools include:

• Registry backup and restore
• Registry Defrag – This is very slick way to clean the registry
• Encryption and Decryption – You can encrypt and decrypt a file here and include a password and even a hint for the password.
• Password Generator
• Game Turbo Booster – This Defrags game specific folders and kills extraneous network usage. It turns off Windows Update, printer support, web proxy auto discover and other services.
• Running Drivers – Here you get a complete list of the current drivers, manufacturers and versions plus memory locations of the driver

Super Tools include:

• Internet explorer manager – Allows for under the hood editing of how IE works
• Context menu manager – Remove reorder and replace contextual menu items (a must have if you install many programs)
• Super Explorer – Analyze the file system outside of the window API
• Super Registry – Analyze the registry outside of the window API to find hijacked or hidden registry issues
• MBR Backup and restore – Keep a copy of your MBR on a thumb drive and restore it later if it becomes corrupt.

There are many other freeware programs out there that cover what this program does. None do it in an interface that is both simple and elegant at the same time. On the surface it appears simple, user friendly and kind of fun. If you dig deeper, you can unlock some very powerful features of this free software package. Have fun! You can download the latest version of Toolwiz Care from the developer website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Installation is just as easy as any other binary file installation. Follow the prompts, you know the routine. The EasyScreenshot interface is plain and simple and self-explanatory for the most part, as you can see:

There are a few things you need to know about this application, so this is a short tutorial to guide you through the screenshot tweeting process with EasyScreenshot. Click the Settings button to specify the folder that you want to save the screenshot in and specify other options.

Under the “Using the Image” heading, there are three options: Save To EasyScreenshot Folder, Prompt where to save and Copy Image to clipboard. Selecting the option to save to the EasyScreenshot Folder is going to give you a roundabout way to access the screenshot later on and it is really not a practical option, as you have to navigate to the folder and nobody has time for that and it is simply annoying. Rather, create a folder on your desktop and check the box next to “Prompt where to save” so you can easily find the screenshot at your leisure.

Now you can choose your TwitPic Uploading options. If you want to simply upload it to you Twitter account and tweet it later, don’t check “Tweet the screenshot” because it will instantly tweet it. To get any of it to work on you Twitter account, you need to enter your Username and Password in the field provided. After you have specified the desired settings, click the Save Settings button in the bottom pane. All you have to do is choose your screenshot and method of capture, take the screenshot and it is instantly uploaded or tweeted. That’s all there is to it!

You have shared the screenshot with your friends on Twitter now. This application is not for taking typical screenshots in the manner which you are accustomed to. It is specifically for sharing on Twitter. This comes in handy for business purposes when you need to quickly share a screenshot with an associate. They can then tweet you back and communicate whatever needs to be communicated and you can move on from there. The screenshot above was tweeted just for fun because the user thought it would be appreciated by his friends and is only an example of what you can do. Share selected areas or whole web pages with the option to include the URL and a message describing your intentions. Now go and tweet away!

Download EasyScreenshot here. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Pillarbox includes basic word counting features, a cursor and text on a simple background, no more than that. It is much like a journal in that respect. This simplified interface can help you do what you need to do with few distractions onscreen. To get the full benefit of this extension, you should hit F11 to go to a full screen view.

Pillarbox will auto save your file. The file is saved locally allowing you to be completely offline when writing. Files are saved locally so you do not need to stay connected to the internet to do your work. To get back to the work all you need to do is open the browser and start Pillarbox. The last thing you wrote will be shown inside of the browser window.

There is a built-in word counter in the event that you write professionally and need to hit a required word length. This is also very useful for students. There is a handy timer included to help you write for a predefined time. At the end of the countdown timer there is a small popup that comes up with a “Time is up” message to let you know you need to stop writing. Naturally, this can be annoying too, so you don’t have to use it.

You can make many different changes within the options. It is easy to edit the settings inside of Google Chrome options menu. Under extensions, select Pillarbox. Within these settings, you are able to adjust several presets. You can change just about everything relating to the text layout that you would like. This will help any computer-oriented writer find the most appropriate and comfortable way to view their work space. If you are familiar with CSS, it is easy to make custom settings that will bring an even better look and feel to Pillarbox.

Pillarbox is much more than a simple text input window. With the benefits of operating inside of the Chrome browser there is nothing to install.

It is a simple idea that has a sophisticated feel to it. It is, however, not an all-encompassing word processor. Writers will still have to take the text and place it into Word to get the added benefits of Microsoft Office. Spelling is checked while in the Pillarbox window without formatting. You can use your word processing software of choice to handle that task. Pillarbox is just a place to go to when you need to concentrate and get a job done. It is singular in its focus and its execution, much like a writer’s mind. It is a GUI version of going out into the field and sitting under a tree where nobody will bother you while you write. Of course, you might need to put bolts on your doors and soundproof your office to get complete privacy.

Installation is easy. Click through the dialogue boxes and launch the app. The user has the option of a number of different configurations for initial use, although the default setup will give you a single, integrated interface, not unlike many other media players.

Point the application toward your library of choice, or more than one library. Give it few minutes to scan through your files, and you’re ready to start listening. The basic module only used about 30MB of RAM for just playing music.

You have the choice of different module configurations. Below is an example of two separate equalizer displays; with a compact audio control interface and a file navigator. This is a great application that includes audio editing tools, lyric composer, different visualizations, video components, internet radio options, and yet it remains lightweight and friendly to use. All of this comes with a high degree of potential for customizing each module. And, this is just the basic application. This is the free version with no add-ons or plug-ins installed. If this application hung out at Muscle Beach, it would probably stop dead-lifting its 800-pound barbell just to carry your groceries home for you. It is that good.

For a relative unknown in the universe of media players, JetAudio stands out against the backdrop of form-over-function. This piece of software is all functionality. There’s nothing it can do that isn’t meant to directly enhance your listening experience.

At this site, you can share .pls files to broadcast playlists or access those created by others. While not as convenient as other streaming music services, the ability to integrate this functionality into such a feature-rich and robust music player is a real treat.

Even the lyrics component has its own integrated player controls which allow for scrubbing with a slider, incremental fast-forward and rewind controls all included with a text editor. Furthermore, the visualization system can integrate some of the great titles like G-Force or Aeon from Soundspectrum. The JetAudio free version also comes with a backup manager, called JetShell, for archiving your media files.

The paid version of the application includes a number of additional features that extend both the listening possibilities of the free version and its audio editing capabilities. All-in-all, we have only begun to discover the ways in which JetAudio can bring a more inclusive and flexible user listening experience. Yet, it seems as if we have found our new pet software addiction for at least a little while. JetAudio is a music player for music people. It has heart. It is rich in features and configuration options. It does something few applications of any kind manage to do by presenting the option for the user to re-think what is possible in using an application. Rest assured you have not heard the last from this little digital boom box.

The general user interface is very easy to control. Open a browser to www.filelab.com. Select audio editor, select your file and then begin editing.

This is the user interface within the browser:

Across the top of the interface are 2 main pages the first page is labeled Audio Effects. The 2nd page is labeled as Generate. We will cover the former in that it will be the most used.

Amplify: Decibels are a exponential scale: 0 dB is the lowest a human ear can hear. 10 dB is 10 times as powerful. 10 times more powerful than that is 20 dB. 1000 times as powerful as near silence is 30 dB. As you see minor variations within a decibel range can be significant. FileLabs Audio Editor allows for steps as low as 1dB up to as high as 6 dB.

Fade In/Fade Out: Audio Editor also allows for linear fade in and fade out. This can be very useful for audio tracks that

Normalize: This will take and find the peak of a waveform and bring all of the other audio to a level somewhere in-between the highest peak and the lowest. This is a good tool to use when you wish to bring the sound floor level up. It will amplify the weaker sounds while attenuating the sounds that are too high.

Mute: Mute is pretty self-explanatory it mutes the selected area of the audio file.
Invert: Invert flip the left and right channels within the audio file. You can select an area to invert or it will invert the whole file at once. It will change the polarity of the file on the horizontal axis.

Limiter: This is an audio compression algorithm that takes the peak and locks it into a set decibel range. It is generally used to remove a distortion to the audio signal. It is not evident in use and also on the site which form of limiting is in use, be it either hard clipping or with a fast release.

Auto Correction: Automatically enhances the sound aural characteristics reducing the dynamic range, normalizing and equalizing the audio.

Echo: Repeats the selected sound with the selected effect.

Reverb: Adds echo and multiple reflections of it. Use it in modeling acoustics in a hall, empty apartment,or some other type of room.

Tempo Change: Increases or decreases the tempo. Music will play faster or slower but the pitch is unaffected.

Equalizer: Boosts or cuts specific frequency bands and provides a visual representation of the resulting EQ curve. Use this to boost bass, midrange or treble of an audio file.

The 2nd page of the software application enables you to either generate silence or a signal. The signal can be a bell, chord or 440 Hz, A signal. This can be useful for testing audio devices.

This software is feature rich, fast and surprisingly elegant for a completely free browser based package.

Download SliderDock from this link: http://sliderdock.wikidot.com/start

SliderDock features animation quality and high resolution icons. You can customize the backgrounds for the icons, alter their size, and change the size and location of the ring easily. Install from the following link and read the instructions carefully before installing. One thing that is very important if you are running a 64-bit system is that you do not install SliderDock in the default location of Program Files(x86). Instead, you will need to change the destination folder to Program Files during installation as seen in the
image below. For a 32-bit system, you can use the default location.

After you initially install SliderDock, there will be only a few icons in the ring. To add application icons, drag and drop the icons to the SliderDock icon which looks like this:

This icon is rather important, as it is the point from which you access the right-click context menu and the settings. Select “Dock settings” from the context menu that pops up when you right-click the icon.

The Dock settings allow you to customize General settings, Appearance, Controls, Shortcut Keys, and Shading effects. Click the tabs one by one from top to bottom and read the options on each page. It is all self-explanatory for the average user. If you play with the different appearance settings for awhile, you will find the right look that you are going for with your particular personalized desktop.

With the Appearance tab, you can choose different background images for your icons. The ones that will look the best depend on your desktop background. If you use rotating backgrounds from a slideshow, perhaps the “white square” icon backgrounds will be the most appropriate. If you use a solid color background, just about any of the choices look good. Here are four examples of the icon backgrounds available.

There is also a SliderDock tutorial icon in the ring by default that links to a site describing everything you need to know about using SliderDock. There is far more to the subject than can be described in this article. This just gives you a quick look at some of the features and appearances. If you do choose to try it out and you want to use the tutorial, click the icon that looks like this:

It looks like an Internet Explorer icon, but the “e” is a darker blue and the ring around it is a rainbow ring rather than a solid color. Additional customizations described in the tutorial provide instructions on how you can change icon images to make icons like this easier to find. Have fun customizing!

This application is completely free with no catch and you don’t end up with a dozen different toolbars in your browsers or applications that you don’t want. The download is free of advertizing and so is the installation. You get a quick download in a .zip file and then simply double-click the .exe file to start the installation. This application does not open automatically after installation, but does offer a desktop icon for easy access. You can download RMPrepUSB from this link: http://www.rmprepusb.tk/

The interface is straightforward and fairly self explanatory. If you want an instructional manual, there is one available at the link provided, though you might have to search around a bit. The site gets changed often and updated versions are consistently released. It is best to use the latest version.

In order to create a bootable USB, first do the obvious and insert a blank USB drive into your computer. Using this application is so basic and easy that anyone can do it (yes, really). The interface displays a list of bootloader options to choose from. By default, the Image Tools setting is set for File to USB.

The File to USB option reads the image file content then writes to the selected drive. Only binary images will work and they cannot be compressed. The USB to File option reads file content and then writes it to an image file. With either option, supported image formats are IMG, ROM, BIN, RAW, BMDK, VDI, RAM, QCOW, QCOW2, CLOOP, DMG, VPC, VHD, VVFAT, and NBD. File Info option is included so that you can obtain file information.

Select the desired bootloader and then choose a file formatting system in the field just below the BOOT TYPE list.

If the USB that you are using has any files or portable applications on it, they will be erased once you create the bootable USB. That is why using a blank USB drive is emphasized. RMPrepUSB automatically formats the drive and, as we all know, formatting erases all data.

Once you have selected the format and the bootloader, all you need to do is click Prepare Drive at the bottom pane. This will initiate the process to create the bootable USB for the selected operating system. You will see a warning stating that all data will be erased and it will ask if it is OK to do so and create a new partition.

Click OK and the application process will start. When finished, it will show that the bootable USB was created. If you want to test it, there is a Test button in the right pane. The only catch is that testing also erases the USB and you have to start over, but it is good to do this to ensure that it is working properly.

Once tested successfully, start over and then you have your bootable USB.

From the interface, volume and rate of speech can be changed. It can read an entire document or a selected section of text. According to the information on Speak Up, you are able to paste text in the field for speech reading. You may find, as this user did, that this doesn’t work. It may depend on your operating system and settings or it may be a flaw in the version of Speak Up. To have Speak Up read a document, convert it to .txt format first and then click the “Save file” button in the bottom pane. There are three buttons in this pane. The first is an arrow and you use this to start the text reading. The one in the middle is to open documents to enter into the field and the third is for saving files.

After you have converted the document to a text file and clicked the Save file button, a new window will open. Copy and paste the text file into that field then select and open the document. Click the arrow button to start text-to-speech.

It will not allow you to paste a document in the Save file field if you do not have Administrator privileges, which is just silly. When you open Speak Up; always right-click the icon first. Then select “Run as Administrator” to avoid running into this problem.

Click Save and then you can use the Open document button to select the text file. Double-click the desired file and the text will appear in the Speak Up field.

Click the arrow button and the reading will proceed. The rate of speech is set to “Slow” by default. Depending on which voice you use, the speed will vary, but there seems to be no need to ever speed it up or it starts to become incomprehensible. The get more voices, click the “Get” tab at the top of the window and select More voices.

You can explore the other features and functions and determine how useful this application will be for your needs as you learn how to use it. Give it a chance. Once you get the customizations and settings just right, it serves a practical purpose despite some minor drawbacks.

Recovery mode is indicated by appearance of iTunes and USB icons on the screen of the iOS device. By whatever cause, and there can be a few, the device is unable to access its operating system. So, it displays these icons to prompt the user to recover the operating system. Usually this is no big deal.

Whichever machine you use for syncing the device to iTunes, make sure its version of iTunes is the most current. Ensure that all iTunes updates are installed. If you are in doubt, launch the Apple Software Update manager. Once it checks with Apple’s servers and is certain that iTunes does not need an update, you should be ready to get started.

This image indicates the user has an update pending and it should be installed before restoring the iOS device.)

Completely power-down the iOS device. This is done by holding the home button (front, center-bottom, in default portrait mode) AND the sleep button (corner, top edge opposite the home button) at the same time until the power-off slider appears. Use the slider to completely shutdown the device.

Before connecting the iOS device to the computer, hold the home button in place. This lets the firmware know you are about to do more than the usual sync. Once iTunes recognizes the device, which can take one-to-several seconds, depending on the speed of your computer, it will prompt you to restore the device. If you have a backup from your last sync of the device, you will be given an option to use this during the syncing process. This is most likely the option you will want. iTunes should prompt you to select which backup you want to use as your source. Make your choice and the restore may take between five and ten minutes to complete from that point.

If you happen to have the sudden urge for a clean configuration, set up as a new iOS device. iTunes will return your device to factory-default setup. Even iOS can get relatively cluttered – apps, notes, photos, music, etc. While generally organized very well according to the native management scheme of the system itself, sometimes a device can seem less pleasant to operate after heavy use. Starting fresh from factory defaults not only allows you to clear up some of the unnecessary stuff your system accumulates, but lets you to start out with the level of understanding you now possess, with your current usage patterns, and to re-encounter the system with a different set of eyes than you had when you first started using it. Experience is a great thing. Experience combined with a lean setup is even better than that.

Note: In iOS 5 or later, restoring the device wirelessly is an option with or without a cable connection to a computer, provided the device is functioning properly prior to starting the restore process. There are a lot of improvements in iOS 5 that allow for updates, restores and other functions to be managed without requiring use of another computer with iTunes. This guide is intended for circumstances when the iOS device has locked into recovery mode and cannot access a wireless connection or the device itself is running an earlier version of iOS.

iOS was designed to be one of the least fussy, most responsive operating systems around. It was also designed to be stable and secure. A lot of people dislike the absence of a visible file system on the largest of that family of devices, the iPad. This is a simplification over other navigation models and it is beneficial in that it prevents the user from accidentally doing something to the file system which might result in device instability. While it shouldn’t be necessary to be an expert to use most devices, it is a good idea to learn some of the little tricks available to you. Although many people still find technology to be intimidating, the more you learn, the more fun tech can be for you.