Technology Bites » Software

Dropbox offers 5GB of free space to beta testers

vrreddy — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:21:32 +0000

Dropbox is giving away 5GB of free data storage to anyone who is willing to test their beta application. Dropbox is hugely popular as a cloud storage service, it gives users 2GB of free storage space online.

Dropbox is testing a new build of its software which does automatic uploading photos and videos. During this beta period users who will test the beta version will up to 5GB of free data storage. First you need to upload 500MB of photos then you will get 500GB of extra space and this goes on until it reaches the cap of 5GB.

If you are trying out this build remember this is a beta build and backup your Drobox before uploading to this build. Download links are available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. Click here for details.

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Skype 5.8 for Windows brings Full-HD video calling, Group Screen Sharing

vrreddy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:43:56 +0000

Microsoft released an update for Skype which brings some new features to the popular service. Skype 5.8 for Windows now supports full HD video calling, support for Facebook audio and video calling, other notable feature is Group screen sharing, screen sharing features is only for Skype premium users.

Now with the new update you can make crystal-clear video calls. You need at least 2mbps upload / download internet connection to enjoy this feature. And also you need a webcam that supports full HD video calling.

Group screen sharing allows users to share their entire desktop or selected applications with other users on a conference call while continuing to stream video. To start a group screen share hit +menu and select “share my screen”

Other features include video calling to Facebook users, you can make video call with all of your Facebook friends even if they are not Skype users. Push to talk feature in Skype allows users to set a hotkey for microphone muting on a Skype call. You can Hide offline Facebook friends in Skype now. This update also brings Bing toolbar integration.

Via Skype blog, Download Skype 5.8 for Windows

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Manage Passwords and Personal Info with Dashlane

vrreddy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:43:35 +0000

There are several password managers out there for helping you to manage passwords and other personal information like credit card details. Password managers are quite useful for us now a days as we use several social sites, shopping sites and the likes, it is s real pain to keep remembering all those passwords. Although Chrome and Firefox take care most of this, there is there is a new application called ‘Dashlane’ that can take care of this password management quite effectively.

Dashlane, touted as your ‘Personal Internet Assistant’ helps you manage passwords and other personal information. It is not just a password manager as it can do many things apart from password management. You can access Dashlane across multiple devices and sync all your data so that you can access it anywhere. Dashlane can be accessed through desktop application or through web application. if you want to Dashlane on Mobiles you can use the web application, Dashlane apps for mobiles will be added soon.

It can store addresses, phone numbers, credit card info. Dashlane can generate secure passwords during registration process. All these information is managed through a master password to Dashlane. The master password is very important because currently there is no way to recover master password if you forget that.

It allows you to login automatically to websites and express checkout at shopping sites, it also keeps track of your online purchases. It shows strength of your stored passwords, so you know what passwords need a change. Dashlane works with Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac.

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Create video slideshow with photos

vrreddy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:26:14 +0000

If you have a series of photos from your recent trip, you can turn these images in to a video slideshow with free slideshow creator to share those photos with friends, or for the pleasure of watching them on a big screen with different transition effects thrown in between.

Bolide Slideshow creator is a freeware for Windows and allows you to create pretty video slideshows using photos and music. The app itself is simple to use with drag and drop functionality. you can drag and drop photos you want to add to your video in to the app or load all the images from a folder into the work space and select which one to add to the video. You can select transitions to add in between photos, there are 38 photo transitions to choose from. One can set the duration for photo as well as for transition from the options. You could also add your favorite tunes to the video to spice it up.

The slideshow creator takes almost any picture format for the slideshow, audio formats including MP3/AAC/WMA/M4A/MP4/OGG are supported for adding music to the video. The output video file can be saved in AVI, MKV or WMV with up to full HD resolution.

The app is still in beta so you might encounter some issues such as, when i tried to rotate the pictures inside the app it is sluggish.

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nSpaces virtual desktop manager for Windows

vrreddy — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:32:11 +0000

Virtual desktops are nothing but the virtual copies of the Windows desktop, with these virtual desktops you can have several desktops and these can be customized according to your needs. We have covered Windows virtual desktop before from sysinternals. nSpaces is another Windows virtual desktop manager for Windows that can be customized and easy to use.

nSpaces is easy to use, it comes with four desktops but one can add more virtual desktops. Each desktop can be customized with different background images, desktops colors etc. nSpaces comes with hotkeys for desktop switching, you can even set password to your desktops for privacy.

It lets you set labels for different virtual desktops and allows you to open different apps in different desktops, this is helpful if you want to have all work related apps in one desktop and other in other desktop.

nSpaces is a freeware and compatible with Windows 200, Windows xp, Vista and Windows 7. nSpaces requires Microsoft .NET framework 3.5 or later.

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Adobe Released Flash Player 11 and AIR 3

vrreddy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:14:38 +0000

Adobe has released Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 today, users can download the latest updates now. The biggest feature of the release is new architecture for hardware accelerated graphics renedering (Stage 3D) which improves the rendering by 1000x times compared to the Flash Player 10 according to Adobe. This feature allows new calsses of console-quality games and apps in the flash platform. To showcase the capabilities of the Flash player 11 adobe published two sample videos, which are embedded below.

Stage 3D will be available on Windows, Mac OS and connected televisions. Support for mobile platforms including Android, Apple iOS and Blackberry Tablet OS will come in the future release.

Stage 3D leverages the processing power of the GPU to accelerate content for both 2D and 3D graphics. Apart from the stage 3D, new features include theatre quality HD video, native 64-bit optimizations, high quality HD video conferencing.

According to Adobe, contetn using the new Stage 3D APIs will automatically take advantage of the GPU hardware, from graphic chipsets. Stage 3D also provides accelerated software rendering for content on older computers, but the rendering speed on these computers is only 2-10x faster than the Flash player 10.

Adobe AIR 3 can be downloaded from here, Flash Player 11 can be downloaded from here. List of Flash player features can be seen here.

Adobe announcement

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Copytrans TuneSwift: Easily Restore, Backup and Transfer your iTunes Library

Srikanth AD — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:03:52 +0000

iTunes by Apple is a really awesome media player that lets you easily play as well as manage media on your computer. iTunes is also a necessary tool for managing the media on your iPod, iPhone as well as iPad. Even though iTunes has nifty looks and powerful features, one of its most bugging feature is that all your data including the iPod and iPhone data gets erased when you transfer it from one PC to another. All the time you had spent over the years in organizing your iTunes library all becomes a waste.

Whether you are formatting your PC or buying a new one, backing up and restoring your iTunes data is a pretty tedious task. CopyTrans TuneSwift provides a quick and easy way to do just that. It lets you easily and safely transfer your iTunes data between different computers. TuneSwift has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface with 3 basic options – Transfer, Backup and Restore.

Using the Transfer option, you can transfer all your iTunes data from one computer to another. It transfers all data including music, videos, podcasts, applications, books, ratings, artwork, playlists and much more. In addition to this, it also backups your iPhone, iPod as well as iPad data. It can be really handy if you are changing your OS or you are buying a new PC.

The Backup option lets you easily backup your entire iTunes library into an external hard drive or a USB flash drive. It saves your complete data in a single backup archive. This option too backups your iPod, iPhone and iPad data. It can be really handy to frequently backup iTunes data so that you do not lose any data in case your hard drive or OS crashes.

The Restore option is basically used to restore the data from previously made backups.

TuneSwift is compatible with all iTunes version above 7.0 and uses very little system resources. It requires a minimum of 128 MB of RAM and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and also Mac OS X.

TuneSwift is a simple yet powerful app that can be really useful to transfer as well as backup your iTunes library. For all the iTunes lovers, this app is a must-have! You can download this app for free until 15th March 2011 using the following activation code – TUNESWIFT-ACTI-VATE-ME.

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How to Test your Computer Memory with Memtest86+

Guest — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:16:04 +0000

Although the computer looks like a single entity, it is in fact a mixture of components. Some components are concerned with the processing of information. Some components are concerned with on-screen display. Other components are concerned with your PC’s ability to communicate with other machines.

One of the most important components within a computer is its RAM (random access memory). What exactly is random access memory, or RAM? It is basically a little electronic chip whose goal is to provide short-term, high-speed access to data. Without it, your machine would grind to a halt as it tried to continually access data from its slower cousin, the hard drive.

Unfortunately, RAM, like any computer component is prone to failure (although the ability for RAM to live a long, stable life has been improving throughout the years). And when a stick of your RAM dies all sorts of oddities can arise. Your computer may suddenly begin freezing, blue-screening, or even restarting.

So when you do begin noticing that your PC has become “flaky”, how can you test your RAM and make sure that it, rather than some other internal component, is the culprit? The answer is: Memtest86+. Memtest86+, based upon Memtest86, is a well known free application designed to test the memory within your system. Basically what it does is write a bunch of seemingly random information to different parts of your RAM. It then proceeds to read these values back. If the written and read values are the same then everything is good to go. If, however, the written and read values differ then a defect has been detected.

Here is how to use Memtest86+ to test your memory.

1) Head over to the Memtest86+ site.
2) Download the latest Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO.
3) Burn the ISO file onto a CD or DVD.
4) Boot your computer off of this CD or DVD (at which point Memtest86+ should automatically begin its testing procedure).
5) Wait for at least 1 Pass to complete (The pass row at the top should reach 100%). This means that Memtest86+ has tested all of your memory one time. For the average user, allowing a single pass should be good enough.
6) Look for any error messages.

If no error messages are displayed then it is likely that your RAM is ok. If, however, you find at least one error message then there might be an issue with your memory. The only way to be certain is to take the RAM out of your computer and test it in a working machine. If the working machine continues to work, after its RAM has been replaced, then your RAM is likely not the problem. If, however, the formerly working machine begins to exhibit problems when its RAM is replaced then your RAM is likely malfunctioning.

Author Bio

Keith works in the technical support field and hosts Computer Repair Calgary where he discusses a range of topics including how to repair malfunctioning RAM.

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Best Tools to Copy Music from an iPod or iPhone to a PC

Srikanth AD — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:57:13 +0000

It’s a well known fact that files from iPod/iPad/iPhone cannot be transferred to/from computer without using iTunes, but there are many tools for copying media files from iPhone/iPod/iPad to/from computer, which let your iPod/iPhone/iPad act as an external storage.

Here we have rounded-up some of the best tools to transfer files from your iPod/iPhone/iPad to computer.

1. ImTOO: ImTOO computer transfer for Mac, is a smart software for transferring music and videos from iPod to Mac and iPod to iTunes smoothly. It is also Mac iPhone computer transfer tool for transferring files from iPhone to Mac and iPhone to iTunes.

It also serves as interface for transferring files from Mac to iPod and Mac to iPhone. The best thing about ImTOO is that it also let you share files between several iPods simultaneously with a simple drag-and-drop interface. With all these features, ImTOO computer transfer for Mac will let you connect your iPod/iPhone 3G/iPhone 3GS/iPhone 4 to Mac so easily.

2. DiskAid: It is a well know fact that iPhone cannot be used as an external storage to transfer files from computer. Thanks to DiskAid, you can now transfer files using USB cable. With DiskAid you can connect your iPhone, iPod, iPad via USB cable to a computer and use it as external storage.

Call it iPhone USB drive! You can browse and read the transferred files using FileApp, a file manager for iPhone. DiskAid is compatible with both Windows and Mac.

3. Aimersoft iTransfer: Aimersoft iTransfer, is one of the best tools that provides users with solution to transfer music, videos, TV shows, audio books between iPod/iPhones/iPad and computer. It transfers files in similar way, just like iTunes does. It is also helpful to backup files from iPhone/iPod/iPad to computer.

With Aimersoft iTransfer you can connect more than one devices and transfer files between them. It is can also be used as multimedia to play music and videos of iPhone/iPod/iPad.

4.Daniusoft iTransfer: Daniusoft iTransfer is a tool built specially to backup iPod/iPhone/iPad media files on local computer, transfer music, video, audio books, photos to iPod/iPhone/iPad without needing iTunes.

Daniusoft iTransfer helps you to convert AVL, WMV, FLV to iPod/iPhone/iPad supported format with just a simple click. With good user interface Daniusoft iTransfer promises to easily manage iPod/iPhone/iPad files.

5. Xilisoft iPhone Transfer: Xilisoft iPhone transfer is a smart tool that treats your iPhone as a portable disk. It’s a tool specially built to manage iPhone files without iTunes. It’s an ideal tool to backup media files to your computer, match iPhone contents to iTunes and copy files from computer to iPhone.

With Xilisoft you can import and export computer files to iPhone for viewing and playing.

6. Cucusoft: Cucusoft is an easy to use software designed to backup all data from iPod/iPhone. It supports all iPod models including iPod Touch, iPod Classic, iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle. It lets you to play music or video directly with out third party player.

The best thing about Cucusoft is that it recover lost or missing music and restore all data including music, videos, images, movies and even playlists. Its a must have utility when the safety of your iPhone/iPod is concerned.

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How to Create a Custom Toolbar in Windows

Srikanth AD — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:57:08 +0000

Windows 7 provides you with lots of customization options to easily personalize your Windows taskbar. If you’ve ever tried the “Pin to taskbar” feature, you will notice that this great little feature enables you to permanently put your frequently used program shortcuts on your taskbar.

Another way to quickly access your favorite programs, folders as well as internet shortcuts is by creating a custom toolbar in your Windows taskbar. This feature is available on all versions of Windows and people using Windows Vista, XP and other older versions too can try out this awesome feature.

Windows makes it very easy for you to create a custom toolbar in your Windows taskbar. If you find it difficult to do so, just follow the step-by-step guide given below.

1. Create a New Folder in any location on your computer. Let’s name it “My Shortcuts”.

2. Now, copy your favorite program shortcuts, internet shortcuts, etc. into the “My Shortcuts” folder. For the sake of convenience, you can organize these shortcuts into sub-folders. Windows will create menus for every sub-folder.

3. After copying all the shortcuts into the folder, right-click on your taskbar and select Toolbars -> New toolbar (Make sure you right-click on the empty part of the taskbar). The New Toolbar dialog box will open.

4. Select the folder in which you have copied all the shortcut files (In this example, “My Shortcuts”). Then, click on Select Folder.

5. The new toolbar will instantly appear on the taskbar. Click on the double-right arrows (>>) next to the toolbar name to view the stored shortcuts. Click on any shortcut to quickly launch the program.

If you want to add more shortcuts, just copy them to the “My Shortcuts” folder or drag & drop the shortcuts on the double-right arrows of the toolbar. You can quickly navigate to the “My Shortcuts” folder by right clicking on the toolbar name (i.e My Shortcuts) and selecting Open Folder.

This is really an easy way to create a custom toolbar to have one-click access to all your favorite programs and files. If you know any other similar tricks, do let us know.

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