Are you addicted to to social networks like Twitter or Friendfeed ? If you are you might be interested in the Adobe Air application Alert Thingy which combines three popular networks into one desktop application. Once installed it is possible to receive Friendfeed updates, send and receive Twitter tweets and post photos to Flickr from the desktop application.

I mentioned earlier that Adobe Air is needed to run Alert Thingy which means that you need to install it before you can install Alert Thingy. Some might think that I’m still living in the medieval Internet because I do not have a Twitter or Friendfeed account. It merely meant that I had no way of testing the application further, at least not the parts that needed an account at the two services.

I read at Techcrunch however that all information were displayed in one window in contrast to Twirl which displayed the information in two windows.

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I lost count of how many applications in Windows provide the functionality to display the temperature of the CPU. I have been using Speedfan for this purpose for well over two years by now but have to admit that Speedfan does not make it that easy to find out which temperature belongs to which component in the computer. The temperatures are named Temp1, Temp2 and Temp3. The main benefit of Speedfan is that it also monitors hard drive temperatures if the hard drives of the computer support that.

Core Temp concentrates on the cpu, the central processing unit of the computer. It can read the temperature of several cores if the cpu is a multi-core cpu. While this is not a unique feature Core Temp does its best to display the temperatures in the best possible way. The software provides an easy interface that displays all information in one screen.

One great feature for overclockers and new PCs is the logging feature that logs the temperature of the CPU and its cores so that it becomes easy to analyse the temperature changes over time. I still prefer to use Speedfan because it provides additional information that are important to me. If you just want to analyse and check the cpu you are best of with Core Temp though.

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Did you ever run into a Vietnamese tool for Windows ? I did just a few minutes ago. I read the article about Reg Toy at the Download Squad website and made the decision to download the self extracting archive from the homepage. Unfortunately though the default language of that version is Vietnamese, at least I think it is. The second download of the zipped setup file was successful because I was able to set the language to English during setup.

Reg Toy is huge. From what I can say it’s a bit complicated to navigate through the menus simply because there are so many of them. Some tabs use numbers instead of names which adds to the confusion. This is probably the Window tweaker with the most comprehensive functionality yet.

The interface is divided into three sections in the left pane that are named System, User and Others. Several links are available in each category that open lots of settings in the right pane. Most of these are tabbed as well which means that it takes some time to get a first overview of the functionality of Reg Toy. That’s actually the first time that I feel overwhelmed by the options of a tweaker.

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If you want to use iTunes Apple wants to make you believe that you need an iPod or iPhone. That’s not the complete truth and there are numerous ways to use iTunes with other mp3 players and even mobile phones or handhelds like the PSP. Before I explain the how I would like to talk about the why; Why would someone want to use iTunes for his mp3 player. The argument that comes to my mind is the iTunes store. Another one would be that you switched from an iPod to another mp3 player and want to continue using iTunes.

The software that connects mp3 players, mobile phones and handhelds to iTunes is called iTunes Agent. Three devices are already configured in iTunes Agent. A Generic Player, Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone and the Sony PSP. New devices can be added with ease to the configuration and are recognized by defining a specific folder of that device in the configuration. For the Sony PSP that folder would be PSP for instance.

Might sound complicated but it is not. Just look at the folder structure of your device and use the information you discover. Other values that have to be added are the path of the music folder on the device, the synchronize pattern and the association with a playlist.

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Did you notice that the operating systems become similar over time ? It’s the same in the browser war, if one browser introduces a unique feature it will be copied and added to the other two browsers in no time. Expose is a feature of Mac OS X, a window management tool also called a task switcher. The tool provided Mac OS X users with three features: Expose all windows, Expose application windows and Desktop.

Expose all windows displays all windows on the desktop. Windows are minimized so that all fit on the screen. Expose applications does the same for one application and Desktop moves all windows off the screen so that they are barely visible.

Dexpose2 clones that Mac task switcher and brings that functionality to Windows. All windows are exposed when pressing the F9 key, all applications with the F10 key and the Desktop feature with the F11 key just like they are assigned on the Apple Macintosh.

continue reading "Dexpose2 Mac Expose Like Task Switching for Windows"