Utilities and drivers

With all his computer experience, Power Downloader gets a lot of calls and e-mails from friends and family who want advice with computer issues. Always happy to oblige, Power tries to find the easiest way to explain how to use various types of software and computer functions, but sometimes words alone are inadequate for complex computer tasks.

To make his explanations a little easier, Power Downloader found a program to make simple screencasts. Screen2Exe lets Power make little demo movies so his friends can see exactly what he's talking about. Screen2Exe leads him through a step-by-step process to record … Read more

By now most Mac users (and certainly Leopard users) know about Stacks, the new file-management feature that resides in the Dock in Mac OS X 10.5. Stacks are great for many things, like organizing a bunch of similar files or keeping all the parts of a project together. To create a stack, you just put a folder in the Dock and start grabbing files and drag them to the same folder. You get your choice of the way it displays your files when you click the folder--either in a grid or fanned out. The less-than-useful issue I noticed, is … Read more

When you uninstall a program, there's a high likelihood that it's left you a little present behind, often in your Windows registry. Like an unclaimed sweater the day after a house party, rarely does this "gift" have much effect. When you've got 700 gifts sitting in your closet, though, you might wish you had room for more important things. Enter: Revo Uninstaller.

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We got a ping earlier today from Tom Churm, the creator of Germany-based Online Alarm Clock, who wanted to let us know about his Web based alarm clock that's quietly been humming along since early 2006. The service's claim to fame is its two-click alarm selector, which lets anyone set a wake-up call or alert without too much complication (note: while Churm says it's two, you still have to select each hour and minute you want with a second button press, so it's actually four clicks). Users have to trudge to their machine to turn off … Read more

Published by William; Sydney, Australia

In our house, we used to share a computer. I had Spybot - Search & Destroy and Norton Antivirus installed on it, and I became the scanning boss since my parents barely knew how to click a mouse. After about a year, I discovered "DriveCleaner" in the program manager window. I tried uninstalling it, got an error, then saw the progress bar roll backward fairly fast. At least these malware people have a sense of humor.

But then: My computer was exceedingly slow and gave me constant pop-up problems. Stress session. I tried … Read more

Just about every computer available these days comes with a CD/DVD burner as part of the package. Whether your primary use for this drive is to make mix CDs for the car, backup data, or burn DVD backups for your movies, you need a good program with the right type of features for the job. Though Windows offers some burning features, you're not going to get the options you'll find in a stand alone app.

There are many paid CD and DVD burning apps to choose from and some of the most popular in this category--like Nero … Read more

Windows taskbars are notorious for being unfriendly, chaotic, and occasionally unresponsive. They also have poor social skills, but I'm not here to pass judgment. Instead, I'm going to show you three great freeware ways to lasso that unruly taskbar of yours and tame it right down, with Taskbar Shuffle, RocketDock, and Launchy.

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With Macworld in full swing, throngs of people are flooding the streets of San Francisco to check out the latest offerings from Apple and all the other vendors exhibiting their wares at the expo. But some Mac-related stuff is only indirectly related to what's happening on the showroom floor or how thin the new MacBook Air is.

One thing I've noticed as a Mac software editor is how, when Apple has its biggest show of the year, the majority of Mac software developers figure it is the best time to release an update for their apps. I've … Read more

It's called the Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate Refresh. It's supposed to be a bug-fixin', feature-enhancin' behemoth that makes Windows Vista leaner, meaner, taller, and sexier.

It'll do your dishes and take out your garbage, too.

Microsoft released this "Release Candidate Refresh" late last week--just one month after the initial release candidate made its debut. The company asserted that it wants additional information from testers, which indicates that even more bugs need to be fixed. But what does RC Refresh really do? Is it really that large? Most importantly, do you need it?

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