TechTracker Scans Your Computer for Outdated Software

It is important to update your applications regularly, both from a security standpoint as well as to ensure you have the latest and greatest functionality upgrades. Sometimes updates can be difficult to keep track of, especially if you have a lot of software installed on your computer. Friendly Computers found an application that makes the process a lot simpler by consolidating all of you updates into one easy-to-use program. Read more below…

Windows: There's no reason to rely on individual applications to tell you when they need an update, when you've got a handy tool like TechTracker.

You'll need to create a free account or use Facebook connect to log in to CNet and download the TechTracker application. Once downloaded and installed finding the out of date applications on your system is as simple as running the application. TechTracker compares the software versions of your applications to the vast database of applications at Download.com and shows you a list of which applications need to be updated and a link to Download.com or the publisher's site where you can download the update.

You can also tell TechTracker to email you when a new version of an application you have comes out, so you'll get an email update before the next scan even takes place. TechTracker is freeware and works wherever Windows does.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5367392/techtracker-scans-your-computer-for-outdated-software

Which Updates Should I Install?

Friendly Computers understands that Microsoft Updates can sometimes be confusing. How do you know what you need and what you don’t? The article below should help you figure out which updates you should download. Read more…

It's confusing. Microsoft throws a lot of stuff at you, often with little information. And somehow you have to figure out what you really need, what you might like, and what Microsoft wants you to have for their own purposes.

It doesn't help that most of the updates have totally useless names. Without looking it up, can you tell me why you may or may not need Windows Vista (KB950124)? I can't, either.

You can actually display a useful description of any update. In Vista, double-click an update for the description in a pop-up windows. In XP, click the + next to the update name to expand the list and show the details.

It's also useful to consider the level that Microsoft assigns each update. Vista updates come in three levels:

* Important: Most of these updates are security fixes that you really need to safely use your computer. Unfortunately, Microsoft occasionally throws something into this group that they really want you to have for their reasons, not yours, such as Windows Genuine Advantage (sic).

* Recommended: Nothing horrible will happen if you skip these, but you might miss something that will make your PC work better. Read the descriptions and make your own decision.

* Optional: You might occasionally find a useful driver update here, but more likely you'll just find marketing hype.

XP only has two levels:

* High Priority: This is pretty much the same as Vista's Important category--most of what you get here really is important. It's worth noting that if you're still using Internet Explorer 6, the upgrade to IE8 is a high priority upgrade. There's a reason to that--IE8 is significantly more secure--but it's a big change and some people hate it (see Remove Internet Explorer 8).

* Optional: Divided into separate Software and Hardware sublevels, this combines useful but not vital updates, drivers (although not many), and useless hype. Use your judgement.

Most updates, for any version of Windows, are not cumulative. This is true even for the Important and High Priority ones. If they were cumulative, you'd only have to update one of them. Sometimes Microsoft releases a cumulative update and removes several others from the list.

And the big service packs are always cumulative. In fact, while I was researching this article, a long list of Vista updates was replaced with one: Service Pack 2.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/172166/which_updates_should_i_install.html

Use DropBox to Sync OneNote Notebooks Across Multiple Computers

Syncing OneNote notebooks between computers can be difficult to do manually, but Friendly Computers learned that you can use the Dropbox application to do this automatically. Read more below…

If you read over our guide to using Dropbox for more than just file syncing and thought about how great it would be to use Dropbox for keeping your Microsoft OneNote notebooks synchronized in real time, you're in luck.

You could simply store the OneNote notebook you want to use in multiple locations within your Dropbox folder, just like any other document. OneNote however has support for multiple users which makes things more interesting.

When you create a new notebook you can specify, as in the screenshot above, that "Multiple people will share the notebook". Even though you may not be actually going to share the notebook, you want to enable this option. By doing so you make it so that the notebook can be written simultaneously from multiple locations without a problem. Thus if you leave OneNote open on your home PC but you're using it at work, school, or out and about with your laptop, you'll be able to work on the notebook. As a bonus you can put the notebook in a folder you're sharing with a coworker or classmate and you can collaborate in real time on a notebook—changes between locations take one a few seconds to update.

For a step by step guide check out the article at the link below. If you have a OneNote-related tip or trick, we'd love to hear about it in the comments below.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5361799/use-dropbox-to-sync-onenote-notebooks-across-multiple-computers

Coral IE Tab Displays IE-Only Sites in Firefox

Friendly Computers found a handy extension for Firefox that allows you to view pages made for Internet Explorer without having to switch browsers. Read more below…

Firefox: Despite the popularity of Internet Explorer-alternatives there are still websites that are optimized for or outright restricted to Internet Explorer. Don't switch browsers, render IE-only pages in Firefox with this handy extension.

Coral IE Tab is a souped up version of the regular IE Tab extension you may already be familiar with. Coral IE Tab covers the basics: web pages you load with it are rendered to function and appear as they would in Internet Explorer.

It also adds in several handy features. You can now save cookies within your virtual Internet Explorer session so cookie-based information can be preserved between browsing sessions. Coral IE Tab also sports integration with AdBlock Plus—just because you're forced into the world of Internet Explorer doesn't mean you have to brave a world with blinking ads. Coral IE Tab also supports site-based preferences so you can flag pages that require IE, alternately you can allow Coral IE Tab to load automatically for any site that requires Internet Explorer.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5357744/coral-ie-tab-displays-ie+only-sites-in-firefox

Turn Vista into Windows 7 for free

If you are interested in some of the new features of Windows 7 but aren’t ready to pay for the upgrade, there are a few downloads and tweaks to make your Vista PC a little more 7-like. Friendly Computers found a fantastic article that outlines some of these tweaks. Read more below…

Every time Microsoft delivers a new OS it's possible to get many of the features of a Windows upgrade in the previous version of Windows. Windows 7 is no exception. Here's a roundup of a few things you can do to make Windows Vista as Windows 7-like as possible, without shelling out for the new OS.

We'll start out with a couple tweaks, then tell you about four free apps you can download. And a tip of the hat to the amazing Gina Trapani at Lifehacker, from whom I picked up several of these tricks.

First the taskbar. Windows 7 lets you "pin" apps to the taskbar and we can approximate that in Vista. Here's how.

Right-click on your taskbar.

Select toolbars.

And choose Quick Launch.

Now drag the icons you wish to "pin" into the left side of the taskbar.

Right click on the taskbar again and uncheck "lock taskbar."

Now click on the three rows of dots, hold down the mouse, and drag the bar over until you see all your icons.

Now, they look a little small like that, so let's make them bigger. Make sure the taskbar is unlocked.

Now right click on the taskbar again.

Select the view menu and choose large icons.

That's OK. But if you want a real Mac-like dock, forget all that and install RocketDock. It gives you a whole new Macish dock that you can put down at the bottom of the window instead of the taskbar.

But your Windows still looks all Vista-y. One more interface tweak before we move on. Download VistaGlazz 1.3. It's a utility that changes some system files to allow you to implement third-party themes on Vista. Launch VistaGlazz and, if you're sure, agree to allow it to modify your system files. I did it, and had no issues. But I make no guarantee.

Now you need a Windows 7 theme. Go to DeviantArt.com and get "Windows 7 Style for Vista." It should be by giannisgx89.

Download it, uncompress it, and then inside the Windows 7 Style folder, go into the theme folder and find the file called Windows 7 and the folder called Windows 7. Copy both to C:Windows\Resources\Themes\. (You'll need admin access to copy these.)

Now right-click anywhere on your Desktop and select "Personalize." Click on "Theme" and supposedly you can select the Windows 7 theme from the drop-down list. That didn't work for me, so I had to browse to C:Windows/Resources/Themes and choose the Windows 7 theme manually. Once you've got it, press Apply and you have a Windows 7 look!

You can also go to DeviantArt for wallpaper, log-in screens, and other Windows 7ish customization options.

Four free apps and we're done.

In Windows 7, Aero Shake kicks in when you shake an active Window, minimizing all the other windows. You can download a Vista version from LifeHacker for free.

Next you'll want the nifty Win 7 feature that halves the size of a window and docks it to the side of the screen. There's an app for that. It's German and it's called AeroSnap. You can get it at aerosnap.de.vu.

The Windows 7 calculator is also a lovely souped-up thing. Some intrepid hacker has actually pulled it out of Windows 7 and made it available on Box.net. You'll have to do a search to find it. And there's no guaranteeing it will still be there when you do. Is it legal? That's fuzzy. Probably not. But it is cool. Just make sure you back up your Vista calculator if you decide to replace it with this one. Just in case things go sideways on you.

Finally, Windows 7 has a much easier way to select Wi-Fi networks. It's not a perfect match, but NetSetMan from netsetman.com is much better than the default Vista manger and gives you lots of other powerful tools as well.

There are plenty of other tweaks, like turning off User Account Control and tricks to speed up startup, covered in Ms. Trapani's Lifehacker article as well as in a few of our Windows videos at cnettv.com.

Source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10350802-12.html?tag=mncol;txt

iTunes 9 Improves Syncing, Network Sharing, More

Friendly Computers just found out that a new version of popular media player iTunes has been released, and it comes with a slew of new features including media sharing, ringtones, and more. Read more below…

Windows/Mac OS X: The biggest software announcement at today's Apple event comes in the form of iTunes 9, the newest release of the popular desktop media player.

It's a solid update containing a few features that we'd be really excited about if only they were just a little bit better (see Home Sharing, for example).

Worthwhile/notable features in the new release include:

• Home Sharing: You can now copy songs across authorized computers on your home network with the new Home Sharing feature. (You can even select a view to show only items that aren't already in your library.) It's nice to see iTunes add this feature, but it's still a far cry from the full-on library sharing that we've been dying to see for years on home networks (and that we've done our best to accomplish on our own). You know, one library you can play, add to, and edit from any computer on your home network.
• Improved Syncing: When you're syncing to your devices, iTunes 9 offers more fine-grained control for syncing music by genre or artist, straight from the Music tab of the sync dialog. It also boasts better syncing of Photos (using iPhoto's Events and People identification) and Movies.
• Better App Management: If you're syncing apps to your device through iTunes, iTunes 9 adds the ability to organize your synced apps on your iPhone pages from your desktop. Photo via Gizmodo.
• iTunes LP: Apple has introduced their new music format called iTunes LP. The new format intends to take digital music to a new world of multimedia integration, including videos, liner notes, credits, and more. Think of it sort of like the music version of DVDs with special features.
• iTunes Extras: Well, if iTunes LP is sort of like a DVD with special features, iTunes Extras is exactly like it. Now when you buy a movie from the iTunes store, you also get some special features, including cast interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, photo galleries, etc.
• Genius Mixes: Using the Genius feature introduced in iTunes 8.1, Genius mixes plays songs from your library that it thinks go well together. This doesn't seem like much of a tweak on what's already there, though I will say that Genius recommendations have improved a lot since the feature was first launched.
• Ringtones: iTunes 9 now sells 30,000 ringtones for $1.29—though we'd suggest saving yourself the cash and just making your own (in Windows; in OS X).

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5355669/itunes-9-improves-syncing-network-sharing-more

Quickoffice for iPhone gets into Office 2007

An update to an iPhone app now brings support for Office 2007 documents (.docx and .xlsx) to the iPhone. Friendly Computers thinks this is exciting news! Read more below…

Good news comes to the iPhone workforce on Thursday, in the form of an update to Quickoffice Mobile Suite. The latest version will now create and edit the Word and Excel documents native to Microsoft Office 2007 on Windows, and Microsoft Office 2008 on Mac. Prior versions did not support these DOCX and XLSX formats.

The change brings Quickoffice Mobile Suite ahead of its most threatening productivity rival in terms of editing support. Neither of the two Documents To Go applications for iPhone can create Excel documents; their capability is view-only. However, for some people, creating spreadsheets is overkill. For that set, Documents To Go and Documents To Go with Exchange Attachments are the more dollar-conscious choice at about $5, and $10, respectively, compared to Quickoffice's $15 mobile suite. Documents To Go creates and edits DOCX Word files.

Source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10344633-12.html

Hands-on: IM+ for iPhone's speech-to-text feature

Friendly Computers learned of a cool new feature in the popular IM+ app for the iPhone that allows users to send messages via speech-to-text. Read more

Typing on the iPhone/iPod Touch's keyboard can be arduous. This is never more evident than when trying to bang out messages in several instant-messaging conversations at once. Shape Services, the makers of the popular IM+ instant-messaging app ($9.99 App Store link), have realized this, and are soon rolling out a new version of the app that includes speech-to-text, albeit at a price.

Taking advantage of Apple's recently released in-app payment system, 99 cents a month gets you the feature, meaning that the annual cost of continuing to use it is about $12 a year. Not bad if you're a heavy user. But how well does it work?

In short, it does a decent job, but it still experiences some of the typical pitfalls found in other speech-to-text tools. If you've used Google's search app on the iPhone you know all too well that it can handle some words better than others, and that it works slightly faster when you're on Wi-Fi. The same can be said of IM+.

The app managed to get a few sentences without flaws, but I regularly found myself going into make a quick edit to one or two words each time. That wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take so long to do all the processing. Over 3G, small quips like a four- or five-word reply took around 15 seconds to process and get sent back, whereas full messages took up to 24 seconds. These times were cut a few seconds shorter when on a solid Wi-Fi connection, but still on the long side.

The updated version of the app is in Apple's review queue, meaning it could be out later this week, month, or be rejected outright (although not likely since it's using standard APIs). Besides speech-to-text, the update also adds animated emoticons for whatever service you're using. It's a small touch, but sure to make IM enthusiasts happy.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10322240-248.html

Five Best Disk Defragmenters

Defragmenting your hard drive is important and can speed up your computer considerably. Friendly Computers found a useful article about defragmentation as well as a few different programs to help you get the job done. Read more below…

For those of you unfamiliar with the problem of file fragmentation, a quick—and quite simplified—primer is in order. Files are stored on a hard drive in blocks of data. The larger the file, the larger the number of blocks it is composed of. As your operating system accesses files, moves files around, and so on, data blocks are not always arranged in the most effective manner. Imagine it like a messy office where as you opened file folders from your file cabinet you frequently placed documents from inside all over the room. You have a great memory, and you can find all the pages from each folder again if you need to, but you waste a lot of time just moving around looking for them.

In a perfect system the blocks of data that compose a file would be in the immediate vicinity of the file header, and your operating system would waste no time at all looking for the other pieces of the file. As it stands, however, on a badly fragmented disk the data can be scattered in pieces across the entire platter of the hard disk. The following defragmentation applications are specialized tools which will help you optimize your hard drive. Continuing with the analogy of the file cabinet, a defragmenter is the helpful assistant that comes in and alphabetizes all your documents in the appropriate folders and file drawers for you.

If you're in the mood to dig into the more arcane aspects of the topic, definitely check out the Wikipedia entries on file system fragmentation and defragmentation. Now onto the top five nominees:

Auslogics Disk Defrag (Windows, Free)

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a simple disk defragmentation program. You can defragment multiple disks or select individual files or folders for defragmentation. Auslogics allows you to set the priority of the application and can tell your computer to shut itself down when the defragmentation process is complete—a handy feature when you want it to scan and defragment while you're sleeping but don't want to leave your computer idling all night. Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free and portable application.

MyDefrag (Formerly JKDefrag) (Windows, Free)

MyDefrag is an effective tool for defragmenting your disks. You can run it in default mode and get not only a defragmented disk but also optimized file placement; or you can tinker with it via scripting and further increase your disk optimization for your specific needs. Even without its script support, MyDefrag does an excellent job defragmenting files and moving them to the optimum place on your hard disk. Files that are frequently accessed together are grouped together in zones for increased performance. MyDefrag will even scan the space allocated to the master file table and will move files from that space back to more appropriate places (sometimes when pressed for space Windows will dump files there, effectively orphaning them from the rest of the system).

PerfectDisk (Windows, $29.99)

PerfectDisk is one of only two commercial entries in this week's Hive Five. One of PerfectDisk's biggest claims to fame is what they call "Space Restoration Technology". On top of optimizing your disks during actual defragmentation, PerfectDisk monitors disk writing to ensure that future files are written in the most efficient way possible in order to cut down on potential defragmentation. PerfectDisk will also analyze your data usage and create optimization patterns suited for your style of file use and work. It can be scheduled or set to run when the computer is idle for continuous defragmentation.

Defraggler (Windows, Free)

Defraggler, from the same company that produces popular applications CCleaner and Recuva, is a portable defragmentation tool. It can scan multiple disks, individual disks, folders, or individual files for some quick, specific defragging. When Defraggler scans a disk, it shows you all the fragmented files and lets you either select sets to be defragmented or batch defragment all of them.

Diskeeper (Windows, $29.99)

Like PerfectDisk, Diskeeper is packed with features not usually found in free defragmentation solutions. In addition to the basic defragmentation tools, Diskeeper can, for example, perform a quick defragmentation of system files on boot to keep your operating system running as efficiently as possible. Diskeeper, like PerfectDisk, has a system for continuously defragmenting files and optimizing new files for disk storage while you work. When you defragment multiple hard drives, Diskeeper selects different algorithms based on the disk—for example, it optimizes your operating system disk differently from a media storage disk.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5348638/five-best-disk-defragmenters