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Showing posts from February, 2013

Torch Browser: Chrome Based Browser Makes Torrent And Media Downloading a Breeze

Torch Browser is a free Chromium based web browser specifically designed for people who use the web for sharing via social networks, downloading torrents, accelerating downloads and grabbing online media, which can all be performed directly from the browser. Being based on the Chromium source, Torch Browser shares all the goodness of Google Chrome including extensions, incognito mode, online sync, developer tools and all the rest that attracts users to the Webkit browser. In other words, Torch Browser does all Google Chrome can do and more.

Internet Explorer 10 Released For Windows 7

Microsoft has finally released Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7, just a few hours ago. The browser which was initially released as part of Windows 8, last year, will be pushed out to all Windows 7 users via auto-update in coming weeks. Users who are already running the IE10 Release Preview on Windows 7 should get the update sooner, starting today. For those who don’t want to wait, Internet Explorer 10 is also available for download from the company’s website .

Google Chrome to Display Audio Indicators to Identify Tabs Playing Audio

The Google Chrome team is currently working on a feature that identifies Chrome tabs that are currently playing audio via an animated indicator on the tab that is broadcasting. According to François Beaufort , who first spotted the feature, the purpose of the new tweak is to exclude these tabs from those Chrome discards when memory runs out. In other words, when Chrome detects a tab playing audio, it won’t discard it when memory becomes scarce because it is possible that the user is listening to the audio (Internet radio, for instance) even though the tab is not active.

How to Automatically Skip to Your Favorite Scenes in Videos With VLC Media Player

Do you have favorite movie scenes that you like to watch often? Maybe it’s the final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith in The Matrix or the steamy love scenes in Titanic , instead of fiddling with the seekbar you can configure VLC Media Player to automatically skip to the favorite parts. This extraordinary functionality is brought to the popular media player by the freeware program Video Commander.

Firefox Beta Gets Per Window Private Browsing and New Download Manager

Mozilla has just released the first beta of Firefox 20, that includes a new feature for private browsing, a new experience for downloads, and a handful of exciting developer features. The Per Window Private Browsing has been finally pushed to the Beta channel. The new feature, which made its first appearance in the Nightly in December last year, allows users to open private windows without having to close their entire browsing session first. Currently, Firefox users who want to launch a private browsing session have to close all their current windows. Not any more. Now it is possible for users to view a Web page in private browsing mode and regular browsing mode simultaneously, in two separate Firefox windows.

KickMyGraphics: Create and Edit Animated GIFs from Images and Videos

KickMyGraphics is a small, intuitive freeware program that can create animated GIF images from multiple images and even from videos. The program supports a wide range of formats: jpg, png, bmp, gif – for images, and mpg, avi, asf, mp4, wmv, mov and a couple of others, for videos. Aside from creating new animated GIF images, KickMyGraphics can break open videos into their individual frames, or modify existing GIF images into new ones.

Flipkart Giving Away 1,000 Music Albums for Free

Flipkart, the most successful Indian e-commerce website, is celebrating the first anniversary of Flyte – the online digital music store launched last year. Flyte allows buyers to download individual tracks and albums in the MP3 format for as low as Rs 40 an album (less than one dollar) and Rs 9 (16 cents) for one song. The files are free of DRM which means that you can listen to your purchased music on any device without restriction.

How to Remove Profanity, Swear Words or Foul Language From Webpages

Foul language, swearing, cursing, cussing and bad words in general are commonly seen on the web. Just go to any website and read the comments at the end of an article, or visit YouTube or any discussion board or social networking site and you will almost always come across vile postings full of hate and hostility and lack of respect in general. If you hate profanity and want to get rid of them from your browser, either for yourself or to create a friendly environment for your kids, this article will guide you how and from where to begin.

SynWrite: Powerful Text Editor and UltraEdit Alternative

SynWrite is powerful programmer's editor for Windows which comes packed with a wide range of features that lets you write code as well as handle your coding projects efficiently. SynWrite has many features common to the popular commercial text editor UltraEdit, and even shares its looks, making this open source software an excellent free alternative to the $60 program.

Anti Tracks: Privacy Eraser and Disk Cleaner

Anti Tracks is a powerful privacy cleaning software for Windows that can securely erase all your internet tracks, computer activities and usage history of other applications with a click of a button. In addition, Anti Tracks includes a set of advanced security features that allow you to securely hide sensitive files and folders, as well as permanently delete the ones you want off your computer forever. Anti Tracks also has some useful maintenance tools that make eliminating unnecessary applications and files from your hard drive quick and easy. In addition to removing your PC tracks, the program also includes several other utilities that include a startup manager, data concealing, a disk space analyzer, a disposable email generator, and more.

SkyShellEx: Sync Any Folder to SkyDrive

SkyShellEx is a shell extension for Windows that allows you to sync any folder to SkyDrive without changing your existing folder structure. The program does this by using the old trick of creating symbolic links to these folders. SkyDrive, by itself, will only sync those folder that are inside the SkyDrive folder on you hard drive. To make any folder sync with SkyDrive you need to move that folder to SkyDrive’s root folder and then place a symbolic link to this folder in the original location. This can be done in different ways. SkyShellEx just makes it easier.

Firefox Modern App for Windows 8 Arrives in Nightly

The Modern UI version of Firefox has made it appearance in the Nightly channel of the browser last Tuesday. The Firefox Modern version, which is the first third-party browser to be released in the Modern/Metro interface exclusively for Windows 8, was first promised in October last year. The browser is still in the early development stage and there is plenty of work to do, as admitted by Asa Dotzler , Firefox desktop product manager, but the company confirmed that the browser is now stable enough for regular testing by interested Windows 8 users.

BitTorrent SoShare: A Hybrid File Sharing Service

BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the popular file-sharing clients BitTorrent and uTorrent – after the recent acquisition, launched a new file-sharing service today. Called SoShare , the new platform uses a technology that is a hybrid between BitTorrent and traditional server based storage allowing users to send files up to one terabyte in size while utilizing the bandwidth sharing abilities of the BitTorrent protocol.

Google Takout Now Allows Export of Blogger and Google+ Pages

Google Takeout , the service that allows Google users to export and download their data from various Google products on to their computer, has just added support for two new products. Starting today, you will be able to download your Blogger blogs and Google+ Pages in a variety of formats. Google Takeout was launched in mid-2011 and initially allowed users to export their data from 5 Google products. The service has since expanded to cover a number of Google products and services including YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, Google Contacts, Drive, Google+ Streams, Circles and +1’s and more.

Adobe Photoshop 1.0 Source Code Released

Last month, Adobe inadvertently made public the entire Creative Suite 2 of applications for free download, and then decided to keep it that way when the fault was discovered. Today, Adobe decided to do more good. The company has just released the source code of the first version of Photoshop for free. Adobe has given the Computer History Museum rights to distribute the source code to the 1990 version of Photoshop with the exception of the MacApp applications library that was licensed from Apple. The entire code can be freely downloaded , but the terms of agreement forbade anyone from reusing the code in any software or distributing derivative works of the code.

Giveaway: Bitdefender Windows 8 Security

Bitdefender Windows 8 Security is a new antivirus product from Bitdefender tailored specifically for Windows 8. While there are many antivirus software available for Windows 8 (practically, any antivirus program that runs on Windows 7 is likely to run under Windows 8), Windows 8 Security has been designed by utilizing features unique to Windows 8.

Opera Dumps Own Rendering Engine in Favor of WebKit

Opera Software today announced that the company will switch rendering engine of all their products to WebKit, confirming rumors that broke out when the Norwegian browser maker unveiled a WebKit based browser for Android a few weeks ago. Until now, Opera used their own in-house rendering and JavaScript engines called Presto and Kraken, that were in active development since 1995. These will be replaced by WebKit and V8 JavaScript engine, the same ones used by Chrome.

SETI Invites Public to Help Name Pluto’s New Moons

The SETI Institute has just opened a public poll to decide the names for two newly discovered moons of Pluto. The moons are currently orbiting the former planet with drab names of "P4" and "P5," indicating that they are the 4th and 5th discovered moons, but will eventually be named after characters in Greek or Roman mythology following traditional naming convention. Mark Showalter, senior research scientist at the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center, who found the moons using the Hubble telescope, opened a web site yesterday calling netizens to cast their votes against 12 chosen names. So far the response has been phenomenal.

Make Internet Explorer’s Address Bar Autocomplete Display More Recently-Entered URLs

In Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser, when we click the blue autocomplete arrow at the end of the address bar, a list of web addresses previously entered is displayed. The drop-down menu also displays URLs from the browser’s history and favorites. Since there is not enough room to display them all, IE9 displays only 5 recently-entered web addresses. In previous versions (IE8), Internet Explorer could display more addresses. If you are more used to opening a web address ever entered in this way you will find that 5 recently entered URLs is too less. Fortunately, you can make Internet Explorer display more web addresses.

Does Mobile Technology Make Us More Connected or Farther Apart

Smartphones and social media make it possible to connect with long-distance family members and long-lost loves, but is it really bringing people closer together? Smartphones make communication across distances so much easier, but a lot of day-to-day interactions with people have changed dramatically.

Shoutcast Explorer: Listen to Shoutcast in Your Default Music Player

Ever since VLC Media Player removed Shoutcast stre ams from the player I’ve stopped listening to Shoutcast stations. Shoutcast was one of my favorite destination for Internet radio, and it was the only time I used VLC Media Player to play music. At first, I tried to manually download station playlist from Shoutcast but the website was such a mess. Besides, it was troublesome to switch station. Finally, I moved to Icecast and Jamendo that are natively supported by Clementine , my current music player of choice. If you are like me and want to get back to Shoutcast in an easy way, take a look at Shoutcast Explorer.

How to Customize Firefox’s Orange Menu

Open Firefox’s menu by clicking on the orange button at the top-left corner and look at it. Don’t you think there is plenty of room for additional options? For a menu that is such strategically placed within the browser interface, it is woefully underutilized. Just look at the empty space in the bottom right. Good news is, you can customize this menu to your own liking and even add new buttons and other menus to it.

Think Your Friend’s Gmail Account Was Hacked? Report to Google

Almost two years ago, Microsoft introduced a feature that allowed friends to report hacked Hotmail accounts directly to the company. When someone’s email account gets hacked, it’s usually the friends who start noticing unusual activity. It starts with spam messages with extraordinary stories of their friend stranded abroad with no cash. Will they wire some money to a strange address, please? It’s an old trick and is surprisingly effective. A Hotmail user could report such emails by selecting an option called “My friend’s been hacked!” from the “Mark as” button. This sends an alert to Microsoft. The attacker is blocked from accessing the account, and then the real user can start the account recovery process.

Unofficial Mega Client Appears on Android

Two weeks after the high profile launch of MegaUpload’s successor, the first Mega client for the Android platform has hit the Play Store. This is not an official release, rather the work of one Alexander Hansen. It’s given that Mega will eventually release their own client program, hopefully, on multiple platforms but the timeline is uncertain since there has been no official announcement of it. I guess the Mega developers are too busy squashing bugs right now, removing bottlenecks and optimizing their service after millions of users signed up within the first few days.

Windows Applications Coming to Android via Wine

Wine emulator, the popular open-source application that is used to run Windows applications on Unix-like systems such as Linux and OS-X is being ported to Google's Android platform. Soon you will be able to run Windows apps on your Android smartphones or tablets.

40 Public Universities to Offer Free Online Courses With Full Credit

As many as 40 US public universities has entered into an unusual agreement with a commercial company that plans to offer introductory online course for free and with full credit, in the hope that those who pass will pay tuition to complete a degree program. The new initiative, know as MOOC2Degree where MOOC stands for massive open online course, is being run in a partnership between the universities and Academic Partnerships, a commercial company that helps public universities move their courses online.

How to Prevent User Auto Login in Windows 8

In a computer with multiple user accounts, Windows 8 has an annoying habit – it automatically signs in the last user who shutdown the computer. If your mom used the computer the last time, you will be logged into your mom’s account when you turn on the computer next. The only way to prevent this is to use passwords for each account. But that’s an inconvenience on family PCs, my mom would never remember her password. Well, our resourceful friend at Winaero.com has found a solution.

One Year Ago: Sync Wallpapers, Double Click Add-ons for Firefox, Multi-Browser Tab Sync

A hand-picked selection of articles containing the best tips, resources and software reviews published between January 20 and February 2 of last year. 2 Free Services to Electronically Sign Documents On Any Device World’s Longest Running Lab Experiment: 85 Years On and Viewable on Webcam SyncWall: Wallpaper Changer With Synchronization and Image Effects 6 Cool Things You Can Do By Double Clicking in Firefox

Grab The $149 Cyberlink PhotoDirector 3 For Free

Here is a quick heads up: CNET is offering Cyberlink PhotoDirector 3 for Windows absolutely free. The software normally sells for $149.95. The offer is valid for only 48 hours starting yesterday, so you only have a couple of hours left. To be precise, the offer ends at 11:59pm PT on Friday, February 1, 2013 .

8 New Windows 7 Themes [February 2013 Edition]

Our first collection for 2013 – 8 fresh third-part themes for Windows 7. Please refer to the theme author’s instructions on how to apply the themes. Checkout our customization section for past collections.

Show Your Portable Apps on Windows Start Menu

The best way to carry portable apps on a removable USB Flash drive is to use a portable application suite. Portable application suites are collection of portable applications in a neat package that can be downloaded and installed directly on a pen drive. There are many portable application suites such as PortableApps.com, WinPenPack, Lupo PenSuite and more, among which PortableApps.com is the most popular because of the sheer number of portable applications that is available and supported by this suite. Another advantage of using a portable application suite instead of manually copying portable executables to a thumb drive is that portable application suites come with their own launchers or start menus that allow you to open your programs without having to hunt for them through a file browser. And do you know what’s better than a portable application launcher? Getting your portable apps to appear under Windows Start Menu.