What a week. This week has seen so many updates, it took almost twice as long to compile the list than last week. Several popular applications have been updated this week including such heavyweight ones like Autoruns, Opera, uTorrent and Flock.

It definitely was an exciting week and I had to update lots of the installed applications on my Windows XP system.

The update of this week award goes to my favorite desktop search application Locate32. I just like it that much and think that it is definitely one of the most efficient ways to search for files and contents in Windows.

continue reading "Software Updates Week 28"

If you are like us you have a healthy dose of paranoia in your blood and if that means going the extra mile we know that you will walk by our sides to get there. Deleting files in Windows does not remove the file from the hard drive, it simply removes the pointer to the file but keeps the data on it.

That’s how file recovery programs like Recuva operate. They scan the hard drive for those deleted files and have a good chance of recovering them. The chance is better for newly deleted files because the chance is lower that their sectors on the hard drive have been overwritten by other files.

You will hopefully agree with us that it is highly impracticable to wait until the file has been overwritten by other files to make sure that it cannot be recovered by normal means.

continue reading "DP Secure Wiper removes files securely from your system"

I totally forgot to post the software updates article yesterday and apologize for that. This week was rather eventful with updates to several popular applications including three Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Open Suse and Damn Small Linux).

A short explanation for those that never followed one of my software updates articles before. I collect information about software updates and compile a list of all applications that have been updated in the last seven days every Wednesday. Only software that has been mentioned before here at Ghacks will be included in the list to make sure that it consists exclusively of high quality free applications.

The application of the week is Opera 9.5 beta 2 simply because I think it’s time to push Opera to become the third browser with a bigger market share. The browser deserves that spot and should have a marketing share of at least 25% and not the 5% or so that it has now.

continue reading "Software Updates Week 17"

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008 retails for $39.99 for a one year license normally but you can get it for free for a limited time. It runs on computers with Windows 2000 or newer Microsoft operating systems including Windows Vista and protects your system from various threats such as spyware, viruses, trojans and phishing.

I personally do not install software like this especially if it has Norton / Symantec or McAfee written on it. Still this might be useful for some and it is free after all. Here are the steps that you need to do: (Thanks to Raymond for finding another great offer)

Visit the Natwest website and click on the huge banner at the bottom saying Free PC Security, Protect your PC for 12 months with McAfee VirusScan Plus. This will lead you to a McAfee website that has a Register Now button. Click on that button and fill out the registration form.

continue reading "Free McAfee VirusScan Plus 2008"

Avedesk was mentioned on one of my favorite websites Donation Coder and it sounded so incredible that I had to give it a try immediately. One could say that Avedesk adds widgets to your desktop, not the kind of useless widgets like the clock in Windows Vista. I’m talking about widgets that look great and provide enough functionality to justify their presence on the desktop.

The widgets are called desklets in Avedesk and you can create them in the Desklets > Add menu. It might look confusing at first glance but it is not once you grasp the concept. The first step is to add a desklet using the menu above. You can choose from seven available ones including Drives, Folders, FTP and Shortcuts.

Adding a desklet does nothing more than to make it available in the main interface of Avedesk where you can configure it. Lets take a closer look at the folder desklet for instance. You can change the name of it, the appearance, the label, the format of the label, the image and of course the folder that should be accessible.

continue reading "Pimp up your desktop with Avedesk"