The Windows operating system does not support different sensitivities for input devices. Users who work with touchpads and mice on the computer may experience issues because of this. Some users may for instance feel that the mouse cursor is moving to fast when they connect a mouse to the system. The reason is simple: Manufacturers [...]

Remember Pandora, the Internet Radio service that went viral shortly after its release thanks to its interesting music suggestion service and the fact that it was available to users from all over the world? Pandora shortly thereafter went US-only blocking access for users who tried to connect from other countries. It is still possible to [...]

When it comes to file transfer software, I have been using WinSCP for the past years. But there have been other applications that I looked at and evaluated. Cyberduck is one of them. Back in March I published a guide on how to upload multiple documents to Google Docs from the desktop and Cyberduck was [...]

The Windows operating system saves thumbnails in a file called thumbs.db whenever you change the folder view mode to thumbnail view. This basically caches the image thumbnails so that they are displayed faster the next time you open that folder with that view mode. I personally have disabled the thumbnail creation on my system as [...]

Text- to-speech applications are plentiful. They are showing up on web browsers like Google’s Chrome Speak and Firefox’s text-to-speech plugin. Then there is speech-to-text software such as Dragon and many others including the built-in feature in Windows 7. If you are searching for text-to-speech software that is free and does more than just give you [...]

You may remember that I started learning Japanese some time ago. Especially the multitude of different characters make it difficulty to learn the language. Compare learning English with its 26 language characters to learning Japanese which has thousands. Even if you do not have to know all of them, you are still stuck with learning [...]

Sometimes you may want to highlight a specific area of a photo that you have taken with your digital camera. Maybe it is a photo of your family in a garden, a sight at your most recent holiday destination or your dog doing a crazy stunt in the park. Tintii Photo Filter is an Open [...]

While it may not happen too often, you sometimes may want to copy text from an image into a document. It is certainly possible to type the text manually into the document which may be ok if it consists of a few words or sentences. But what if it is an image full of text? [...]

When you look at the most popular Bittorrent clients for Windows, you will probably notice that uTorrent is mentioned quite often. If you look over to Macintosh or Linux computer systems, you will likely hear the program name Transmission fairly often. Transmission-QT is an unofficial Open Source port of that Bittorrent client for the Microsoft [...]

Modern operating systems make it a lot easier for users to connect to the Internet. You may not need to configure network settings at all before connecting to the Internet via a network cable. Even wireless connections have become easier to configure, as it is usually only needed to enter the secure code to establish [...]

I personally do not really care if mp3 files on my computer have the proper album covers associated with them. I do however know a few people who want their mp3 collection to be in perfect condition, which includes having album cover art for all of their mp3 files. Cover Retriever is a free open [...]

It is usually not necessary to use a software to plan a small home network that consists of a couple of PCs, a router and maybe other peripherals like a NAS or printer. But when it comes to medium sized or even larger networks, especially in a business environment, it pays off to plan before [...]

Remember those pupils at school that would not let you peak at their work during class? They usually used their elbow and body to block your view. TunnelVision is more or less the modern adpotion of this century old practice, only that you are now in control of what others see on your computer monitor. [...]

Three days ago I reviewed AutoWinRarZip, a software for Windows PCs that monitors and extract archives on systems automatically. The program’s monitoring and auto-extraction was limited to rar and zip files though. Unpack Monitor on first glance offers a similar feature set. The program can monitor one or multiple folders on a computer system. Archives [...]

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management technique where you jot down tasks on the list and work on those tasks in 25 minute intervals. You take a short break after each interval, and a longer break after four sessions. You can read more about the technique on the official website. CherryTomato is an Open [...]

Have you ever tried to burn a large number of files and folders to a set of discs? Then you might have run into difficulties arranging the files and folders into a fashion to burn them on the least number of discs. The problem here is that this usually meant lots of file and folder [...]

When you compare the Windows XP operating system to Vista or Windows 7, you will notice that Microsoft has changed, altered or removed features in the newer operating system. From a new start menu to a new Windows Explorer layout, new copy user interface or the new Internet Explorer 9 that looks and feels slightly [...]

Have you ever tried to rename a number of files, say a few dozen, in Windows Explorer? The renaming operation takes a long time. In addition, renaming those files is a repetitive boring process, especially if the multi-file renaming option of Windows Explorer is of no use to you. Enter RegName, a free Open Source [...]

The first version of Security Software Downloader was released in 2010. The program allows Windows users to download security software comfortably from the program interface. That’s handy especially on new systems, on systems that need a change in security software and PCs that are infected by malware that the installed antivirus software cannot remove. Security [...]

Software exists today that allows you to chart your patterns of though and brainstorms in easy to navigate illustrations. Such programs allow you to make flowcharts that send you from one thought to the next in an effort to sort out exactly what meaning you are attempting to convey. Most such programs charge users a [...]

The popular lightweight pdf reader Sumatra has been updated by its developers recently. Version 1.5 of the application now supports XPS documents (XML Paper Specification) and can therefor act as an alternative to the built-in XPS Viewer of Windows Vista and Windows 7. XPS is in many regards comparable to Adobe’s PDF format; The format [...]

You encounter so many different video and audio formats both on your computer and on the Internet that you often need a software to convert media to make it compatible with your preferred software or hardware media players. The sheer amount of formats available sometimes makes this a difficulty process, considering that you need to [...]

Being Linux fans, you all know that Linux offers a lot of ways to manage the desktop. One of the best ways that Linux offers for keeping your desktop organized is multiple desktops. This feature has been around since nearly the beginning of the Linux desktop. Multiple desktops (or workspaces) allow you to create a [...]

When you install a new application on a Linux distribution, that enjoys the Enlightenment E17 desktop, sometimes those applications will automatically add a menu entry and sometimes they won’t. When an application is installed, you might find yourself looking through the entire menu hierarchy to find it’s launcher. If there isn’t one there, what do [...]

Microsoft has improved dual monitor support under Windows 7. It is for instance relatively easy to setup a multi-monitor system and make use of some of the operating system’s built in feature to manage the display and application windows on those two monitors. While support has been improved, it is not nearly as sophisticated or [...]

Auto DJ is an uncomplicated free DJ mixing software that’s ideal for private parties and other events where you need better sound mixing options or prefer not to just play songs from a playlist. When you start the program for the first time you notice that the interface can be separated into three parts. You [...]

I have been using Claws Mail for quite some time (I’ve covered Claws Mail here on Ghacks quite a bit.) What I like about Claws Mail, over nearly every other email client, is that it’s incredibly configurable. If you can think of a configuration option, it’s probably there. In fact, some might say Claws Mail is [...]

If you are just now getting into the Linux foray and you plan on listening to music or other forms of mult-media, you are one lucky person. For those of us who have spent years struggling with various media players, the time has finally come for something really special. That something special is Banshee 2.0. [...]

Good archiving software combines support for popular formats such as zip or rar with solid performance and light resource usage. I’m currently using two different programs: 7-Zip for all my archiving needs and the excellent Extract Now for extracting multiple archives at once. Why two and not just one program for all unpacking and archiving [...]

I do a lot of remote work throughout the day and to make those connections I use different tools. Between LogMeIn and TeamViewer I have remote support covered. But when I need to connect to a machine such as a Terminal Server, where do I turn? Generally speaking I turn to the Linux tool Terminal [...]

I like simple colors when it comes to my user interface in Windows. I do not need transparency, fancy color schemes, shadows and other effects. That’s why I use the Aero Basic theme and not the standard Aero theme. But there are users who like the full blown Aero interface with everything enabled. The latest [...]

That’s right, Ubuntu Natty Narwhal is about to hit the interwebs in its glossy, shiny, well-packaged, full-release form. But for now, we all have to sit back and enjoy the beta release. After downloading and installing this beta release, I thought users would like to know my first impressions on what is being offered up [...]

Steganography, what’s that again, and how does it compare to encryption? Steganography refers to techniques that hide messages or data, encryption on the other hand to techniques that protect a file from unauthorized access by encrypting it. The classic example to explain the concept of steganography is a message hidden inside an image file. No [...]

If you are a user of a Linux distribution that takes advantage of Launchpad’s Personal Package Archive, then you know how easy that tool can be for adding those hard to find applications pre-packaged for your system. Once you get used to PPAs, it’s fairly easy to depend upon those repositories. But there is sometimes [...]

There are so many reasons why a VPN Server makes perfect sense. For one, anyone with the credentials and the address can then gain access to the internal network from an external source. This enables users to work remotely and still have access to resources they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. There are obviously plenty [...]

If you are using the latest, greatest KDE, then you are enjoying the default Dolphin file manager. Although you can still make use of Konqueror as the file manager, it only makes sense to go with the default behavior, as described by the KDE developers. So for those of you who do want to play [...]

If you are a fan of modern Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, that offer incredibly simple ways to share folders with workgroup computers, you will be happy to know the same feature can be added to Bodhi Linux (my new favorite Linux distribution.) Although adding this feature isn’t exactly automatic (or, some would argue, user-friendly), [...]

I have been giving Bodhi Linux a lot of love lately. You can see my articles here (“Adding Visual Effects on Bodhi Linux” and “Bodhi Linux: Enlightened Ubuntu“). One of the main reasons I like Bodhi so much is the Enlightenment desktop. Not only is it a lightweight desktop, it’s also one of the most [...]

Since doing my first reviews of openSUSE 11.4 I have become a big fan. Not only is it one of the most stable and reliable distributions to date, it also offers KDE 4.6, LibreOffice, and a whole slew of other features that should appeal to most Linux users. And openSUSE can be used by nearly [...]

I’ve been really impressed with the work being done on Bodhi Linux, so I’ve been giving both it and E17 a bit more love lately. To that end, I thought I would highlight a few cool tips and tricks. Some of these will make you slap your forehead they are so simple (and handy). Some [...]

Podcasts have been around for a long time, and with good reason. Podcasts are a great way for users to retrieve and save various forms of educational and entertainment audio broadcasts. From indie writers, to major journalists, to just about anything you can imagine, you can find a podcast. But where do you find podcasts [...]

Today I finally dropped standard Ubuntu as my operating system of choice on my laptop and opted for Bodhi Linux. I say “standard” Ubuntu, because Bodhi Linux is built on top of Ubuntu 10.04, so it is effectively Ubuntu, but without the weight of either GNOME or KDE on top. Instead of GNOME or KDE, [...]

I have to admit, over the years I haven’t given openSUSE enough love or credit for being the outstanding Linux distribution is it. With that said, I wanted to give some attention to the latest release coming out of the openSUSE project. And, since the default desktop for openSUSE 11.4 is KDE, I will be [...]

It’s almost time. Soon a new paradigm of GNOME is going to drop onto the desktops of suspecting (and unsuspecting) users. When this does there is going to be reaction. As with any major change to the computer industry, users are going to have both negative and positive reactions. Some will go so far as [...]

Whenever I try to explain using cron to schedule jobs, new Linux users cringe at the thought of learning yet another command line tool. That’s a shame, because cron is an incredibly handy tool to have in your toolbox. But just because you fear the command line, doesn’t mean you don’t get to take advantage [...]

One of the applications I use most often is the wget tool. You don’t realize how useful this tool is until you’ve used and then needed it but not had it available. Wget is, for all intent and purpose, a non-interactive web downloader that allows the user to, from the command line, download files without [...]

Never let it be said that Linux users and developers do not have a sense of humor. Even the most hardcore of users, developers, designers, and administrators need something to serve as a distraction. Oh sure there’s always an endless array of web sites to take our attention, but that requires a GUI! What if [...]

The open source software iSafePDF can be used to manipulate existing pdf documents. More precisely, it offers options to add information and security features to pdf documents. The portable application displays a list of tabbed options after it has been launched. The first three offer the manipulation options, the fourth – console – displays a [...]

If you edit configuration files by hand, or if you prefer a more “manual” approach to the process of writing, you most likely use a text editor. Of the available editors there exists everything from bare-bones, no frills editors all the way to highly complex feature-abundant editors (and everything in between). One of those editors [...]

It’s almost here. Ubuntu 11.04 will be arriving in less than two months and when it does, there will be reactions. Big reactions. Some of those reactions will not be so great. I took the time to install the latest Ubuntu Unity and thought I should give my reaction to how this new desktop is [...]