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SimCity and its updates have captivated simulation fans for the last thirty years. Building a city and managing it is a never-ending challenge. If this sort of game appeals to you, Virtual City Playground is worth checking out. A 125MB download, the free app allows you to build and run your own cityscape.

The Virtual City Playground interface is quite simple to use. Lay out roads and other transportation means, zone areas for residential or business use, manage the economy by ensuring produced goods get to consumers, and make sure your citizens are happy with attractive city spaces and special … Read more

MediaHuman Audio Converter for Mac handles the task of converting audio file formats in a simple application. Designed to provide cross-conversion capabilities for WMA, AAC, WAV, FLAC, OGG and Apple Lossless formats, MediaHuman Audio Converter for Mac is a free app that will likely become a staple if you need to convert audio files frequently.

MediaHuman Audio Converter for Mac installs cleanly. The interface is simple and attractive. Select the audio file (or use drag and drop to drop the file over the app), set the format you want to convert to, and let it run. The predefined conversion parameters … Read more

Safari is Apple's stylish, easy-to-use Web browser for its Mac OS. Safari for Windows lets PC users try Safari for themselves. Safari is a great way for Windows users to take a bite of the Apple since, as a Web browser, it can only be so different from the Big Three; IE, Firefox, and Chrome. We tried Safari 5 in Windows 7. Its new features include the Reading List, which collects Web links and bookmarks that you want to check later.

Safari's page layout shows how much Web browser functionality dictates form these days. Safari for Windows is … Read more

There are plenty of tools available for managing your budget, from the old-fashioned envelope method to Web sites that automatically import and categorize your bank transactions. Personal Budget VP falls somewhere in the middle between these two options; it lets you keep track of your budget electronically, but it requires lots of manual data entry.

Personal Budget VP's interface isn't particularly impressive, but it's easy enough to navigate. You first specify the currency you want to use and then identify income sources. Setting up the actual budget is simply a process of creating a new expense plan … Read more

If you enjoy customizing your desktop with your own images -- or need an easy way to create a slideshow for a presentation, party, or other event -- try gPhotoShow. This easy-to-use screensaver makes it simple to display your images in a customizable slideshow format. It's fun for home use, but professional enough for business, too.

gPhotoShow installs just like any other screensaver and is accessed through the Windows Display Properties menu. The program's settings interface is tabbed and easy to navigate, with options for selecting multiple image directories, setting the delay between images and transition speed, setting … Read more

Axantum's AxCrypt is a free, open-source file encryption utility that offers strong symmetric encryption combined with compression, Windows shell integration, and other features. AxCrypt2Go is a portable version of AxCrypt. Since it's a portable tool, it doesn't offer all of the full version's integrated features. Axantum recommends using the fully installed version of AxCrypt as your daily driver and running AxCrypt2Go from your USB flash drive when you need to encrypt or decrypt files when you're away from your main system.

Once you've extracted and saved the program, you can drag it anywhere and … Read more

When computers run short of memory, the best solution is to add more RAM. But if your PC is already maxed out on memory modules, you can use software to free up resources and improve your system's performance. There are several ways to free up system memory. Rizone Memory Booster uses the simple but effective technique of making regular Windows API calls to tell the operating system to clean up running processes, freeing up system memory in the process. Its automatic mode cleans your system memory at regular intervals determined by the software, but you can configure the program'… Read more

Best Buy is on the same track that two former train wrecks were on, CompUSA and Circuit City.

Today, Best Buy reported a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss of $1.7 billion and announced it is closing 50 stores.

The basic pattern that CompUSA (closed brick-and-mortar stores in 2007) and Circuit City (closed stores in 2008) followed was: first select stores were closed, then more were closed, then all stores were shuttered or sold off.

Is this Best Buy's fate? And why? Below I try to offer some reasons for Best Buy's troubles based on my own experience and … Read more

Over time, the Windows Registry becomes fragmented. It can slow down your PC if it becomes bad enough. Defragmenting the Registry makes it more compact, much like your hard drives. Of course, it's not as easy as that when you're dealing with the Registry, since errors can damage your system. You need a tool specifically designed for the job. Ainvo Registry Defrag is a free utility that automatically defragments your Registry on startup, either once or every time, depending on how you set it up.

Ainvo Registry Defrag opened with a simple dialog page explaining the next step, … Read more