Web Review » Apps

Windows 7 “Show Desktop” button on XP

riccardo — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:12:11 +0000

It could sounds ironic, but the main feature I miss from Windows Seven – when I’m using a PC with Windows XP – it’s that little button on the bottom-right corner of the screen. It has the same functionality of the old “Show desktop” button on XP, but its position allows me to “launch” the mouse in that direction, without any precision, and click it to get all windows hidden.

Of course, someone released a tiny (and free) utility to backport this feature to 9 years ago, on Windows XP
It doesn’t need to be installed, just download and start it (and maybe put it into the “startup” section of your Start Menu)!

http://ceiiular.deviantart.com/art/Show-Desktop-133022210

SugarSync synchronizes your documents for free, brings them to your smartphone

riccardo — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:34:45 +0000

I was looking for a complete solution to keep the office PC with my laptop in sync: SugarSync does more: it offers a free 2.5Gb storage space to synchronize an unlimited number of folders between two computers; in addiction, they gives you a mobile application – available for Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Blackberry – to access your file also in mobility.

You’ve only to select the directories you want to keep in sync (tipically the “documents” folder, and maybe your music or pictures archive), the SugarSync client will run in background, automatically monitoring every change. If the other computer is switched off, it will be synchronized the next time you will power it up.

It is a direct competitor of the famous (and good) Dropbox (2Gb for free), but it offers several addictional features: Dropbox syncronizes a single folder and it gives a mobile app only for iPhone, even if the free accounts are elegible to be linked to an unlimited number of computers, while SugarSync free supports only two (plus a phone). SugarSync is available for Windows and Mac OS X (Dropbox has also a Linux client).

You can expand the space limitations of your free account referring your friends: SugarSync offers you 250Mb of addictional space for every new user you refer (and your friend will get the same, starting with 2.75 Gb of free storage space!); if someone you referred will upgrade to a paid plan – starting from $4.99 per month for 30Gb – you’ll get an addictional 5Gb for free.

Go to SugarSync website

Waze, the free social GPS

riccardo — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:38:54 +0000

Waze is born from a simple and smart idea: connecting cars together, to automatically create a new “social network” that detects and gives alerts about traffic conditions, police traps and accidents.

You’ve only to install the Waze client, free and available for Android, iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile, starting it everytime you’re driving your car. It will anonymously record your track to inform other drivers about traffic (Waze collects speed informations from all the phones and it creates statistical alerts). You can also send “human” messages to the community, reporting speed cams or dangerous events on the road.

In addiction of this, Waze is a “normal” car navigation system, with a “not-so-normal” feature: also the maps are drawed and updated by the community! When you drive with Waze running on your phone, it records every your move and it sends it to Waze servers, where the centralized system merges this data with the existing maps. When several phones record a difference (because, for example, of a change of a road) this part of the map is updated.

People from United States are luckier than Europeans, because USA government gives maps of the territory for free, so there’s a complete base to start with. Anyway it’s also possible to start from scratch: we just started to draw maps here in Italy, and major cities like Rome or Milan are already half-mapped. Let’s call Waze the Wikipedia of streets

www.waze.com

WinX DVD Author is free until October, 31th

riccardo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:46:15 +0000

Digiarty Software informed me that they began an interesting giveaway for their new DVD Authoring software: you can download WinX DVD Author and get a free unlimited license, until the end of the month. Next, the cost will be USD 29.95.

WinX DVD Author is able to create DVD-Video directly from a variety of formats (AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, MP4, MOV, RM, RMVB, XIVD, DVIX, H264, OGG, Quicktime, FLV, etc).
You can also add a custom menu and choose between several type of supports (DVD, DVD-DL, DVD+RW, etc.). The software is multilanguage (English, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish are only a part of supported languages).

The special giveaway offer is here:
http://www.winxdvd.com/specialoffer/oct09.htm

Tweak your monitor settings from Windows

riccardo — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:35:24 +0000

While we are waiting for BLUntrl, a very promising application that is partecipating to the Windows 7 “Code 7 Contest”, I want to put highlight an interesting little utility: ScreenBright (aka “ScreenWhite”) is able to control your monitor brightness, contrast and color balance, directly from Windows.
ScreenWhite is really basic, but it represent one of the few Windows applications that can communicate directly with the hardware of your monitor throught DDC/CI. A lot of monitors have uncomfortable commands, so it can be useful if you want to quickly change the brightness of your screen, several times a day.

Google Chrome: How to fix the “fast scroll” issue

riccardo — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:28:46 +0000

A lot of Google Chrome users are experiencing problems with page scrolling in Windows, that is too fast with several devices (mouses and touchpads). It seems that there isn’t any “official” fix for this behaviour, but you can resolve this with a little freeware utility, KatMouse.

Just download it from the author’s site and install it. First of all, you’ve to open the Wheel Button tab and choose “None of the buttons” from the list (this feature isn’t useful and it can give you usability problems in Windows). Then, switch to “Classes” tab and start Google Chrome: drag and drop the KatMouse “target” icon to the main section of Chrome windows (the one where web sites are rendered); you’ll see a new item named “Chrome_RenderWidgetHostHWND” in the KatMouse list: double click it and choose “Custom scroll”, then set it to “1″ and confirm with OK.

That’s it!

Benchmark speed of your drives for free

riccardo — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:57:04 +0000

CrystalDiskMark is a simple, easy and free utility to test drive performances. Just choose the unit you want to benchmark (it works also with SSD and flash devices like USB sticks or SD card!) and click the “All” button to execute a complete test. The application will check sequencial e random read/write speed, showing you the results in a minimal interface. You can also choose the dimensions of the dummy file to be used during the test, to fine tune it.

MediaMonkey, the best WinAmp alternative

riccardo — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:14:04 +0000

MediaMonkey is a free audio player for Windows. I tried it while I was looking for a Winamp replacement, because of its bad management of media library (I lost all MP3 ratings exactly when I finished to order my collection). I was impressed by the wide choice of functions of this software: it has everything you could ask this kind of application.

Even if there’s a commercial version of the same app (the “gold” edition… MediaMonkey “free” will beg you a little with this offer), differences between the two versions are not so big, and free features are really generous.

MediaMonkey allows you to:

move files directly from the application window;
burn audio CDs;
create smart playlists starting from several parameters;
auto-level MP3 levels;
import your iTunes library;
download album covers from Amazon;
… and much, much more.

The best feature I found is the ability to use (and edit) ratings (the “stars” in Windows and Windows Media Player), saving the correct tag directly into the single file (ATTENTION: See note below!). This was very important for me, because I love rating my music, to quickly create playlists with my favourite songs, but I was looking for a platform-free solution: many audio players like Winamp or Songbird prefer a proprietary solution, with an internal database that can be lost in case of you uninstall the application, or if you move/share your files on multiple computers).

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

Note: At the time this article is posted, current release of MediaMonkey (3.0.7.1191) doesn’t correctly handle ratings: they are stored in MP3, but without being 100% compatible with Windows’ star system (this is – I think – because of Windows, that doesn’t support “half star” rates). If you’re are interested (like me) to compatibility, please look to MediaMonkey beta testing forum, where you can download the last available build. I got v. 3.1.0.1223 … and it works perfectly.

gCalTasks, log your tasks on Google Calendar

riccardo — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:16:21 +0000

I just released the very first version of gCalTasks, a free gadget (Windows 7, Windows Vista) that is able to record and directly log your activities/tasks to your Google Calendar. It works also with private calendars. Extended info and download link on the gCalTasks dedicated page on this blog.

New alternative for partition resize and management

riccardo — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:06:01 +0000

Let’s speak about EASEUS Partition Manager, a new product for Windows. The first element I noticed is… the price: the home edition is free for personal use, this is a good beginning Anyway the version I tested is the Server edition, that supports also Windows Server family operating sytems; in addiction of this, it is able to operate also on 64-bit editions and it offers the possibility to create bootable CDs/DVDs to boot and operate on dead systems (these last two functions are included also in the Professional edition, as stated in this comparison table).

The app presents a simple GUI. Unfortunately it failed the identification of Linux partitions on one of my two hard disks, labelling them as “Other”. Anyway the raw codetype of partitions (82, 83, etc.) is showed in their properties, making experienced Linux users able to recognize them – even if resize features are disabled for these partitions.

Editing is as simple as clicking on a partition, choose “resize/move” and drag a bar (that represents the entire partition) to modify its width and position:

EASEUS Partition Manager runs on many Windows systems (also on my test installation of Windows 7 beta!) and it seems to be a good product, with a wide choice of editions (Free / Pro / Server / Unlimited).