I'm a big fan of file renaming utilities because they can save a ton of time when you have hundreds of files or photos who's filename needs to be cleaned up. There are a few different tools that I used in the past to do this, but lately I've found myself gravitating to a freeware application called Ken Rename.
There has been a lot of focus on photos the last few years as digital cameras become cheaper and more widespread, and many of us are carrying cameras around in our pockets thanks to our cellphones. The great news is that this digital media revolution has made it so that almost anyone can look like a true artist with very little work.
I've been asked several times how you can get music off of your iPhone or iPod. More often than not it's because something happened to the user's music library on their computer, and they are looking for a way to snag all of their precious music from their iPod before it's completely gone.
Media players are becoming an increasingly important part of our daily lives. Many of us listen to music while we work, study, or just browse the Internet. The chances are pretty good that you're using a media player such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp, but there's one more that's worth checking out.
Most of the time I use my computer's desktop as a temporary holding place for things that I need to organize later on. It's normally filled with attachments that have been downloaded from emails, apps I've downloaded to try out, and more. My goal is to always have a clear desktop because that means I've filed everything away, but that rarely happens.
In Windows 7 Microsoft has finally decided to revamp the built-in calculator so that it's a bit more useful for people. There is, however, already a free super powerful calculator available to all Windows, Mac, and Linux users. It's called SpeedCrunch.
Taking screenshots is something I find myself doing all the time whether it be for an article I'm writing, or just trying to troubleshoot a problem at work. Lightscreen is the perfect tool because it's not only open source and free, but it's also unbelievably simple.
Keeping your Windows Registry clean is something that can be quite a chore. Comodo, who happens to make an incredible free firewall tool, also has a free registry cleaner that not many people know about. One thing that I love the most is that you can download the typical installer, or you can grab the portable format that requires no installation.
There are all kinds of free applications that will let you do things like adjust a window's transparency, minimize it to the System Tray, and pin a window so that it remains on top of all others.
Google is experimenting with yet another new search feature called Google Preferred Sites. If you're one of the lucky few to have this option show up in your search preferences you can start taking advantage of this feature right now, but most of you will probably have to wait for Google to roll it out.
Microsoft is trying hard to show people that they are serious about online storage, and I'd say they are doing a darn good job of it. They just updated their SkyDrive online file storage service with numerous new features, but more importantly they bumped up the free storage quota from a mere 5GB to 25GB.
My favorite blogging software has always been Windows Live Writer because of the tremendous job Microsoft has done maintaining and adding more and more useful features to it. The interface is nice, inline spell checking catches mistakes as I make them, and the overall experience is very positive.
Last week Cody sent me in a tip for an experimental Firefox extension that I just had to try out. It's called TooManyTabs, and it essentially adds another tab bar to your Firefox window where you can temporarily store some of your existing tabs. To do this all you have to do is hover over a tab, and you'll see the tab's icon turn into an up arrow (as seen in the screenshot above).
We've written about PhraseExpress before because of the fact that it's a free application for personal use ($50 for commercial users).
ESET NOD32 and Smart Security have always been my favorite security products because of their performance and high detection levels. There's some good news for current owners! ESET is getting ready to move to the next level with version 4 of their security suite and antivirus software.
Adobe has struggled with the performance of Acrobat Reader for quite some time, and that's the main reason I've always found myself using the free Foxit Reader. Plus the fact that they've always offered the PDF reader as a standalone executable has meant that I can carry around the application on my USB drive.
Yesterday Google announced that Gmail users can start both audio and video conversations from within the web-based mail interface. Naturally that got a lot of people excited because you don't need to download any third-party program to get it running. You do, however, have to install a plugin on your computer though.
As you may recall sLife is a application that you can use to monitor which applications you use on a regular basis, and then graph the usage on a pretty chart. Previously sLife 2.0 application was only available for Mac users, but after four months the Windows version has also been released.
Most of you probably know that our blog is powered by WordPress, and last week version 2.7 Beta 1 was released for anyone who felt compelled to try it out. In the past I've never used a Beta version of WordPress on this blog, but I normally give them all whirl in a test environment to make sure they don't leave me begging for mercy in the end.
If you like to stay on the bleeding edge of technology (and you're running Vista) you may want to consider modifying two registry keys on your system so that you can participate in the Vista SP2 Beta program. To join the program all you have to do is download this batch file, and run it on your Vista machine as an administrator.
