Windows only
I’m always looking for awesome backup solutions that you won’t have to pull your wallet out for, and there’s no arguing that there are plenty of free apps out there. One that really caught my attention recently was PureSync. it does all of the common things you’d expect from a backup program such as two-way syncing or a one-way backup. The interface is extremely simple, which is something I did find refreshing… often times these programs get cluttered because of all the features they try to include. This has a good balance.

The real power of the program I would have to say lies in options it offers for automatic synchronization:

• When folders are found – this is what really made me take a serious look at this program. I can have PureSync look for a specific folder/drive, and when it gets connected a backup will automatically be kicked off. You know how valuable this can be if you’ve ever had a USB drive die on you, or maybe you’ve lost a memory card. Heck, maybe you just want the same files on your computer and portable drive so that changes you make in one location will automatically get carried over once the device is plugged in.
• When a file has been modified – When you’re working on a really important project there is always that fear in the back of your mind that something unexpected might happen to your machine. Maybe your computer is going to explode right before you hit the print button? With this option you can have it make a copy of a file as changes are made to it, and move it over to another location… hopefully to an external drive a few feet away from your computer, and sitting next to a fire extinguisher.
• On a schedule – this is obviously a no-brainer, and any usable backup program will have this option.

If it weren’t for those options I’m not sure if this app would have struck me as being something special. Overall I’d say it’s pretty good, but then again I haven’t put it through any huge file transfers.

PureSync Homepage (Windows only; free)
[via MakeUseOf]

Windows only
Looking back at how Twitter has evolved I can’t help but be amazed by not only it’s popularity, but also the various services it is used for. I’ve seen ways to track packages using Twitter, add events to your calendar, manage your todo list, check balances on your accounts, and all sorts of other things. It’s crazy.

Now we can take it one step further. With the free app called TweetMyPC you’ll be able to remotely control several different aspects of your computer without any complicated setup process. There’s nothing you have to configure on your router because this simply goes out to Twitter to check for new messages that you’ve posted. Piece of cake.

So what can you do with this? Here are some of my favorites:

• You can shutdown, lock, hibernate, or put the machine in standby.
• Get a screenshot of your computer screen, and have it posted to Twitpic so that it can easily be viewed.
• View and kill running processes.
• Download files so that they are there when you get home. Perfect for large files like, well, the Windows 7 Release Candidate download that weighs in at several gigabytes.
• Get a list of files inside of a directory on the computer.
• Have it email you a document on your computer by providing the path. This only works with Gmail at the moment.
• Custom commands will let you create any command you want, and associate it with any executable on your machine. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to work with batch files or command line arguments, which would be super sweet.

I think this could become an app that is widely used by a lot of the Twitter geeks out there. Once it is able to execute batch files and accept command line arguments this will become a must-have app for me. Because that means I can put my computer to work from the comfort of my phone.

TweetMyPC Homepage [via gHacks]

Huge news broke this morning when information got leaked to the press regarding an acquisition of The Pirate Bay. It’s said that they got $7.8 million for the site which will be turned over to the buyers, Global Gaming Factory X, in August. That might seem undervalued for a site that is nearly in the top 100 sites on the Internet according to Alexa (currently at 112), but given their legal troubles it isn’t surprising that they weren’t able to milk it for all it’s worth.

It didn’t take long for The Pirate Bay to respond to the news, and they confirmed that they are indeed being acquired by Global Gaming Factory X. They are trying to reassure users that things won’t change very much, and that this is all part of them “evolving.” According to TorrentFreak the new owners are looking for ways to ensure that copyright owners get paid, and that the site is legal. They are also reporting that the Pirate Bay’s BitTorrent tracker will be replaced with some new technology that is supposedly better, but is also backwards compatible with the BitTorrent network.

This is disappointing news for the BitTorrent community, but I guess it will help us appreciate those other BitTorrent sites (like MiniNova) that have managed to stay up. Plus this may spur even more interesting in private, invite-only, BitTorrent sites like Demonoid or What.CD. So where are you going to head for your torrent needs now that the Pirate Bay’s ship has set sail?

Windows only
Remember when we wrote about the nifty Stacks docklet? Well, I received an email from a reader pointing out that you can get the same functionality without one of the Windows dock apps. All you need is a free program called StandaloneStack that adds the same functionality to any Windows shortcut you decide to create.

For the most part all you have to do is create a shortcut to the executable, and run it (FreewareGenius has screenshots of the setup process). When you do that you’ll be prompted to choose what directory you want the stack pointed to, how you want the items sorted, and whether you want the stack displayed in a grid (pictured above) or fan view.

I have to say that this can make those shortcuts in your QuickLaunch bar a lot more useful. Plus it will even work for shortcuts that are placed on your desktop. Basically you can have your whole computer littered with these things if that’s what you want. Go nuts, you have my permission.

StandaloneStack Homepage (Windows only; free)
Thank MisT for the tip!

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Gmail Increases Attachment Size to 25MB
In a quest to show up other email providers Google has once again bumped up their attachment limit. This time they increased it from 20MB to 25MB. That may not seem like a significant jump, but if you look at both Yahoo and Hotmail they only offer 10MB attachments (or 20MB if you are paying for one of their plans). So now Gmail allows for larger attachments than the paid plans of their competitors.

Windows 7 Discounted for Pre-orders
Gizmodo has a rather comprehensive list of all the different places you can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 at a significantly reduced price: Home Premium is $50 instead of $120, and Professional is $100 instead of $200. I am extremely disappointed that Microsoft didn’t give existing Vista Ultimate users special upgrade pricing if we were willing to lay out our wallet for Windows 7 Ultimate.

iPhone 3GS Causes Surge of YouTube Uploads
The YouTube team posted to their blog that in the last 6-months mobile uploads to their site have increased by 1700%. Even more amazing is that the overall rate of uploads increased by 400% since the iPhone 3GS was released with its video recording/uploading capabilities.

Google Voice Invites Being Sent Out
Google has kept a closed door to new users for their GrandCentral service that they aquired, which then turned into Google Voice earlier this year. Users could get on a waiting list though, and according to Google all of the people who requested invites will now be welcomed with open arms. Everyone else, too bad, for now.

Microsoft Security Essentials Passes Initials Tests
Last week Microsoft posted the first Beta of their free antivirus application called Microsoft Security Essentials. I’m sure people are a bit weary of testing this since we don’t really know how good it is, but according to one independent test the application was able to catch and treat all 3,200 viruses they threw at it. What might be even better, however, is that it didn’t flag any clean files as viruses. Microsoft might be on the right track here.

Boxee for Windows Available
I have quite a few friends who have been anxiously awaiting to get a copy of Boxee on their Windows machine, and a few who were already testing out a very early release. Now everyone has the chance to dig into the best video sites through one clean and intuitive interface. In case you don’t look at the fine print… 64-bit platforms aren’t supported.

Download Windows 7 RC by August 15th
If you’ve been procrastinating and haven’t grabbed the Windows 7 RC download you might want to make a note that you only have until August 15th to do so. After that Microsoft will be pulling the plug on the download, but you’ll apparently still be able to get a key if you need one.

Firefox 3.5 Coming Tomorrow; Video of New Features
Note that I actually linked to two different stories in the title. Firefox 3.5 is apparently getting released tomorrow, and I thought the video was a good way to prep all of you for that. Mozilla’s Mike Beltzer walks you through the most notable changes, and describes how they all tie into the browser.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

43 of the Best Free Windows Enhancements
FreewareGenius has assembled a list of 43 apps that can breathe new life into Windows. I have to say that I’m very impressed with what they came up with because it doesn’t include the obvious programs like Firefox or Skype. Check it out because I’m sure a lot of the apps you haven’t heard of.

Another Dock for Windows
Man, you’d think that Windows users just can’t get enough of these docks. This is yet another dock that tries to clone a lot of the features offered by the Mac Dock. I have to say that it does a darn good job with the “live reflections” though.

Ubiquity for Firefox Updated
Mozilla has updated their Ubiquity Firefox extension to include smarter input parsing, better language support, and a hold-your-hand tutorial for those that don’t quite understand how such an extension could be beneficial.

DropRecord Offers Multi-Site File Uploading
Your mom always said “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” What she really meant by that was don’t go and upload a file to just one site when you can upload it to a dozen different ones at the same time with a service like DropRecord. The list of supported sites includes RapidShare, MegaUpload, HotFile, MediaFire, HotFile, 2Shared, and several others.

Backup Your Google Docs
This is a rather clever backup utility for anyone that is using Google Docs. It will let you backup all of your files in your account, and each subsequent time you run the app it will only grab new/changed files. You can even select the filetype you want the documents exported as (eg. PDF). Now if only there was a way to schedule this darn thing.

Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support
I always thought that Weave was a pretty cool add-on, but it just got a lot more useful. Now when you have it remember a password you can set it to automatically log you into the site. That way the next time Firefox sees the login form you want have to touch a thing… it will do all the dirty work for you.

–Downloads–

• Boxee 0.9.12.6570 ^Alpha [Mirror]
• CCleaner 2.21.940 [Mirror]
• Defraggler 1.11.148 [Mirror]
• Digsby Build 60 ^Beta [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.2.6 ^RC1 [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 3.0.190.1 ^Beta [Mirror]
• Maxthon 2.5.2.6929 ^{Beta 5} [Mirror]
• Miranda 0.8.1 [Mirror]
• Miro 2.0.5 [Mirror]
• Opera 10.0.1606 ^Beta [Mirror]
• Pidgin 2.5.7 [Mirror]
• TeraCopy 2.0 [Mirror]
• Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 [Mirror]
• VirtualBox 3.0.0.49051 ^{Beta 2} [Mirror]

Windows only
There are all kinds of Notepad replacements out there, and it makes perfect sense why. Notepad is one of those apps that people use because it starts fast, is lightweight, and for most purposes it does what you need it to. And then there are other solutions out there like Notepad++, Notepad2, and many others. For some people even those can be overkill though.

That’s where Metapad comes in. This app just celebrated it’s 10-year anniversary, which means it’s been around the block and back again. It’s withstood the test of time, and yet there are still all kinds of people who swear by this app… and rightfully so. Metapad isn’t meant to be some all-powerful Notepad replacement. Instead its focus remained on staying small in size, but adding features that could be incredibly useful in daily use. This includes things like:

• Persistent window placement
• Dirty file notification
• Intelligent Find and Replace
• External viewer support (e.g. web browser)
• Usable accelerator keys (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+N, etc.)
• Dual customizable font support
• Optional Quick Exit (Esc key)
• Configurable tab stop setting
• Auto-indent mode
• Go to Line/Column
• Seamless UNIX text file support
• Block indent and unindent (Tab, Shift+Tab)
• Recent files list
• No file size limit! (under Win9x)
• Hyperlink support

So how small is this app? The executable weighs in under 100KB, which is pretty incredible. You have to keep in mind though that this app was developed before broadband had started to take off, and so it had to be quick to download over a modem. With that being said if you’re looking for a VERY light Notepad replacement you should definitely give this a shot.

Metapad Homepage (free; Windows only)

I’m sure you guys will get a kick out of this one. Microsoft has posted a “Get the Facts” page that has a chart comparing some general areas of IE8 versus Firefox and Chrome. Naturally IE8 comes out on top… way on top!

If you quickly just glance through the chart your initial impressions would be that Firefox and Chrome are insecure, can’t manage your privacy, difficult to use, unreliable, not compatible with websites, and not easy to manage. In fact there are only three areas that the three browsers “tie” in: web standards, customizability, and performance. Although they just couldn’t pass up commenting about Firefox’s extensibility:

Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you’d want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box.

Now I’m not trying to say that Internet Explorer 8 is an awful browser. In fact I use it several hours everyday at work because there are a lot of older internal sites I deal with that don’t play nice with other browsers. I just hate that they are trying to send a message like this. Take the “Security” section for example. This is their reasoning behind why Firefox and Chrome didn’t get a checkmark:

Internet Explorer 8 takes the cake with better phishing and malware protection, as well as protection from emerging threats.

Huh, both Firefox and Chrome have phishing/malware protection in them. So they are going off the fact that theirs is “better?” Oh well. Hopefully their aren’t too many people that will see this chart.

Still want some more of this good stuff? Jump over to their “mythbusting” page.

Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” Page [via Google Blogoscoped]