Just yesterday we have reviewed the Norton Identity Safe password manager which had been released as a beta version earlier this month. Today, I’m going to look at another password manager that is currently making the rounds. Dashlane is currently in private beta, which means that you need an invite to start using it (thanks [...]

VLC is one of the most popular third party media players. If you check the download stats on portals such as Softpedia or Betanews, you will notice that it is always listed in one of the top spots. That’s not because of the player’s pretty name but the functionality it provides. VLC plays nearly every [...]

Testing a PCs stability makes sense in a number of situations. Maybe you have made the decision to overclock your PC and want to make sure that everything runs well and stable, or you are thinking of giving away your old PC to a friend or family member who is not the most knowledgeable person [...]

There are four different types of books and magazines available on Google Books. First free ebooks that can be read only or downloaded to mobile devices and as pdf or epub documents, then ebooks that are only readable online but not downloadable, then books that are listed but not readable at all, and finally commercial [...]

Microsoft has improved Windows Explorer in recent versions of Windows. The ability to add custom folders and libraries to the left sidebar pane is used by many to quickly access folders that they use frequently in the operating system. Visibility is best if folders are limited to a dozen or less though, especially on systems [...]

Google Docs users have quite a few options to synchronize their online documents with local computer systems. Among them Gladinet Cloud Desktop, the Microsoft Office add-in OffiSync or DocSyncer. Insync is a new option for Mac and Windows users (and soon Linux as a Linux port is in the making) who want to synchronize their [...]

Virtual private networks (vpns) allow users to securely connect to another computer, server or home PC, that acts as a proxy for all of their communications. The websites and services that you connect to communicate only with the vpn server and not with your computer. They in fact do not even know that your computer [...]

Remember TweetDeck, the Adobe Air Twitter client that offered better faster access to all things Twitter? Adobe Air was not the only platform TweetDeck was offered on. A web based version and Google Chrome application were offered as well by the developers. TweetDeck made the list of Melanie’s Top 5 Twitter Add-ons and has been [...]

I have started writing a book. It is just that I have that idea in my head that I’d like to bring to paper. I first started to write it all down in Microsoft Word. I eventually started to encounter limitations in the software that made it more difficulty to keep an overview of characters, [...]

TeamViewer is without doubt one of the most popular remote access and support applications. Part of the software’s success stems from the fact that it is free for personal use and portable if needed. Nothing beats installing TeamViewer on family or friend computer systems to save time fixing computer problems. TeamViewer 7 is now available [...]

Oracle has released a critical patch update for its Java products including the Java Development Kit and the Java Runtime Environment. According to the security advisory the cumulative update fixes a total of 20 security related issues across all Java based products. Java users can verify their computer system’s Java version on this page. Affected [...]

Hobby and professional photographers often work with photo sets, and Flickr’s option to create sets aids them in the creation, management and organization of photo sets. Managing a large number of sets on Flickr is on the other hand not the most comfortable thing to do. That’s where the free cross-platform Java application SuprSetr steps [...]

Just read over at Mike’s (German) blog that Oracle released the final version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 7.0 earlier today to the public. That’s five years after Java SE 6 has been released. The JRE is needed to execute Java applications on the local system and in the web browser. I use it [...]

I’m using the Java based program RSSOwl for my daily feed reading. I tested several desktop and online applications and found RSSOwl to be one of the best suited for my feed reading needs. The feed reader has just been updated to RSSOwl 2.1 which adds several very interesting features to the program. Probably the [...]

Adobe has recently released the first beta version of the upcoming Adobe Flash 11 version. The beta is publicly available, specifically for testing purposes and developers who want to integrate the new features into their applications. Probably the biggest new feature in the beta is native 64-bit support for 64-bit Windows operating systems. While still [...]

PDF Masher has been designed for users who read ebooks on their mobile devices. PDF is not the best format for that purpose, considering that it is not possible to change a document’s font size for instance. While it is possible to use the device’s zoom function to read the document, it is usually not [...]

Google recently changed Picasa’s free photo hosting storage limit to unlimited for photos with a maximum resolution of 2048×2048 (for Google+ users, standard Google users have a resolution limitation of 800×800). This might be reason enough for some users to migrate their photos from another hosting service, Flickr or Facebook for instance, to Google Picasa. [...]

When it comes to downloading video from the Internet, I have reviewed a great deal of tools in the past. From how to download YouTube videos to general browser extensions such as Download Helper for the Firefox web browser to desktop applications like Free YouTube Download which can download whole playlists, favorites and user videos [...]

It seems that techies want to yell louder and louder about cloud computing every day. It’s apparently the way of the future, exhilarating, terrifying, and the best and worst things you can enjoy when it comes to computing. Still, there are a lot of people out there who have no practical way to experience cloud [...]

I started taking photos with digital cameras when they first came out, switched cameras several times since then and recently bought my fifth or so digital camera, a Canon EOS 600D. I have stored digital images taken with the cameras on my hard drives as well as on DVDs. This makes it relatively difficulty to [...]

Computer users have different requirements when it comes to ripping DVD and Blu-Ray movies to their computer system. All obviously want the ability to rip any DVD or Blu-Ray disc, regardless of protection. It becomes less clear when you look at the contents, the usability or the output formats. MakeMKV is a Blu-Ray and DVD [...]

Ever since the release of Maniac Mansion on the Commodore C-64, and probably even earlier than that (Guild of Thieves for instance), I was fascinated by adventure games. You know, the click and point type of adventure games where you had to pick an action and combine that action with something or someone on the [...]

Flash cards can be an effective learning technique. It is especially effective to learn vocabulary and subject matters that can be learned via a question and answer format, which is for instance true for factual information. A question, word, phrase or sentence is usually added to one side of the card, and an answer, word [...]

This article is the second in a series of the basics of network troubleshooting. Last time, the ping command was demonstrated. Now the ipconfig command will be covered (the Linux/Mac ifconfig & route commands will be touched on too). While this is a basic tutorial, there are some advanced tips and topics included. The Ipconfig [...]

Many computer users use Wikipedia, or one of its sister Wiki sites as reference when they want to look something up on the Internet. They basically use Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, which is fine, as long as they remember that information on the site may be incorrect due to its “everyone may edit everything” guidelines. [...]

I’m keeping a close eye on Miro every since the product was released as the Democracy Player back in 2006. A lot has changed since then, not only the name. The developers have pushed out the first beta of the upcoming version of Miro. Let me explain quickly what Miro is all about. Miro, in [...]

If you are a music connoisseur, you may take pride in a complete music library without missing songs or meta tags. But how do you make sure that no songs are missing in your library? That every album is complete? Tools to scan a library of songs for missing tracks are rare. One application that [...]

New Firmware often adds new functionality and improvement to devices. Firmware is recorded on computer chips and therefor an integral part of the device. The best known firmware is probably the bios of a computer’s motherboard. Apple releases regular firmware updates for their devices, which often add new functionality and improvements like a better performance [...]

The sheer volume of excitement about Windows 8 has taken me quite by surprise with more leaks than we ever saw with Vista or Windows 7 in the same time-frame.  The excitement and hype easily matches that of Google’s Chrome OS in the same period of its development, even though when the operating system finally [...]

Marble has been designed to be a virtual interactive globe and world atlas that you can use to look-up information. The cross-platform application has recently been updated to version 1.1, reason enough to take a closer look at the software. The main interface that you see after installation displays a globe and several controls on [...]

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 [...]

AVG LiveKive was introduced last month as a beta version. Users from all over the world were able to signup for the service for free and use 5 Gigabytes of space during the beta period. Today, AVG launched the online backup service LiveKive in select countries. The basic concept of the service has not changed [...]

I have reviewed several video players in the past that use MPlayer as a core component. This includes my favorite video player SMPlayer but also KMPlayer (just received an update to version 3) or MPlayer WW. UMplayer is another MPlayer fork with some interesting new features that you won’t find in the other players. I [...]

About a month ago I made the decision to invest some of my money in the stock market. I started reading several books that taught me the basics and used a watchlist for some time to get a feeling for the stock market and portfolio management. My decision was to start with a small amount [...]

Google Docs is a portable cloud based document hosting, creating and editing application. Google recently added an option to add storage to Google Docs, and other Google services, which could make the service attractive to users who did not use it until now because of the storage limitations. A standard Google Docs account is good [...]

Amazon offers a great shopping experience when you are on one of the six localized Amazon shopping websites. One thing that I really like is that the pricing can change from one day to the other, that Amazon seems to always have at least some bargains in all categories, and that it is possible to [...]

I have reviewed my fair share of picture resizers in past years. The application category seems to be popular among software developers, with new programs being published on a regular basis. XnConvert has been around for some time, but the developer has recently published version 1.0 of the picture resizer. Reason enough to take a [...]

You may sometimes want to resize an image before you send it to someone via email or upload it to the Internet. This is especially helpful if the original image size is in the Megabytes rather than Kilobytes range. Bordermaker is an interesting program that offers image resizing and manipulation options. Best of all, it [...]

If you are an electrical engineer, or someone who likes to dabble in designing electrical circuit boards (or anything with regards to electricity) and you’re looking for a FOSS (Free, Open Source Software) CAD program to aid you in the process, then Electric might be the solution. Although it doesn’t have the most modern looking [...]

I own a few boardgames that I can rarely play at home or a friend’s house. Why? There are several reasons for this. I’m often unable to find enough players that like a specific game to play it. Britannia and Civilization come to mind. These games last upwards of four hours and it is hard [...]

It feels like I’m patching computer systems all day long in the last two days. First the monthly Windows Update, then Adobe with its patches and now Oracle and Java. This is madness and unfortunately a necessary evil. Oracle has just released a security advisory that details a critical security vulnerability in the JDK and [...]

One of the biggest problems for webmasters on today’s Internet is scraped content. What does it mean exactly? It basically means that other webmasters are copying contents from a website, usually without authorization to do so. That’s content theft and copyright infringement. The technology in this area has advanced a lot in the past years. [...]

Ah the ebook readers. They are the future for avid (and even not-so-avid) readers. With them you can carry around your entire library (without a hand cart) and even add your own content. But adding your own content can be a hassle if you’re not using a tool to aid you in this task. That [...]

Free tools to manage pdf documents are rare while many pdf viewing applications exist. That can be a problem for users who want to work with pdf documents, for instance to delete pages from the document or add pages from another pdf file. PDF Jumbler is a free software program that offers several tools to [...]

Oracle, with the purchase of the software company Sun, is the current main sponsor of the Open Source project. Members of the Open Office project formed The Document Foundation back in September 2010 and made available a fork of Open Office that they called Libre Office. Open Office is governed by the Community Council which [...]

Get Organized is a digital course planner for students of all ages that offers a lot more than just the standard course planning that physical planners offer. It is naturally possible to add terms and courses to the planner. That’s easily done at anytime. Difference becomes visible straight away. A course is defined by its [...]

DNS speed and reliability made the news last year when Google introduced their own open DNS system that every Internet user could make use of. The topic has lost much of its forward momentum since then and has taken the backseat once again. DNS in layman terms is used to “look-up” IP addresses of domain [...]

I have the habit of writing down a lot of things that pass my mind throughout the day. This ranges from new projects over daily tasks like reviewing software on Ghacks to non-computer related things like creating a cool boardgame or doctor appointments. I usually do that on a small notebook that I carry around [...]

If you have ever started to learn a foreign language you have likely realized quickly that you need to learn vocabulary and grammar regularly. Failure to do so can mean that you cannot follow the class anymore which would be disastrous obviously. But even if you are learning alone you want to learn that language [...]

Wow Slider is a free for non-commercial use application for Windows and Macintosh computer systems that can be used to create photo slideshows. The program is fairly easy to use and creates slideshows that can be played in any modern web browser. That, coupled with a few extra features makes Wow Slider an interesting program [...]