Computeractive! Latest downloads

Google Earth 5.1

Rena Thirumalai — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:27:51 GMT

Rena Thirumalai, V3.co.uk, Friday 20 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Quickly view satellite maps of the Earth

Google has brought technology and geography together in an application where you can zoom in on anywhere in the world at the click of a mouse.

In addition to displaying the cities and places that you choose to see, Google Earth can allow you to view specific restaurants, hospitals, libraries and schools, including driving directions and specific maps.

You can zoom in to pinpoint your desired destination in 3D graphics.

Google Earth is available as a free download, but it is not compatible with all systems, namely Windows PCs older than four years and notebook PCs older than two years.

This new v5 now enables you to monitor earth changes, such as a timeline of building work in your local area.

The Windows version available to download here. Mac OS X and Linux editions available at the Google website.

FastStone Image Viewer 4

Lee Collins — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:27:51 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Friday 20 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Image and digital photo viewer

This is the software publisher’s description.

Fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and colour adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touch the four edges of the screen.

Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

WinCDEmu 3.0

Chris Wiles — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:27:50 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Friday 20 November 2009 at 11:30:00

Mount an ISO image as a virtual drive

Providing files to other users, across the Internet, isn’t so straightforward. As we’ve found, if you ZIP up some files and provide the ZIP as a download, there will still be users who can’t work with the archive, understand the contents or understand that you need to extract before you can install the contents.

One other option is an ISO image. This enables you to take a CD of content and then turn it in to a distributable file that you can then give to other people who can burn the contents directly to their own disc. Nearly every disc burning tool can enable you to burn a disc from an ISO image, so it should be straightforward for most users.

The other alternative is WinCDEmu which will enable you to take an ISO image and mount it as a virtual drive within Windows Explorer. Suddenly the ISO image becomes an H: drive and you can use it as a virtual CD. When you’re finished, you can eject the virtual disk as you would any removable drive.

Jokosher multitrack audio editor

Tim Smith — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:06:38 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 14:02:00

Record and edit music and podcasts in Linux

If you want to record music with Linux you might think that your options are more limited than with Windows. Audacity is good but is a little limited when it comes to putting together a track from several recordings. Jokosher is more capable and has a much better interface.

This download is for the Ubuntu build of Jokosher. Downloads for other distributions such as openSuse, or the source code, can be found on the Jokosher download page.

It is similar to Audacity but it has an improved interface. Individual tracks can be given an icon to show the kind of instrument in that track.

There are lots of different effects that can be applied to tracks such as Limiters to avoid the recording being too loud. Many of these have fine controls for getting a better sound than might be possible with basic effects units.

There are also forums for support or for showing off completed works.

ClamWin Portable 0.95.3

Lee Collins — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:31:23 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 10:49:00

Free portable anti-virus tool

ClamWin is one of only a handful of free antivirus tools for Windows, the most popular of which is AVG Antivirus.

It's based on the Clam Antivirus engine which, like ClamWin, uses the GNU General Public Licence making it open source software.

It doesn't have the slickest of interfaces but this isn't really a problem as once it's installed and you've set its options to suit your needs, you'll rarely go into the application itself. You can set the software to scan your PC at regular intervals, and it includes context menu integration in Windows Explorer so you can scan a file or folder simply by right-clicking and selecting 'scan'.

ClamWin can be set to automatically download updates to the virus definitions, ensuring that you are as safe as possible. It also includes a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, should this be your email client.

On the downside, it doesn't have a real-time scanner so it won't automatically check downloaded files for viruses. The Outlook plug-in, however, will delete a virus-infected attachment immediately.

Note that this is the portable version of ClamWin.

AceMoney Lite 3.17.3

Paul Rowlingson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:15:43 GMT

Paul Rowlingson, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Financial management without the cost

AceMoney Lite is a freeware tool that helps you organise and manage your finances with ease.

Although limited to managing a single account, the software is powerful enough to suit the home user.

Generate reports by category or payer/payee, and see at a glance how much money was spent. Add pie charts and you have all you need.

Manage your bills, complete with reminders of when they are due, track the performance of your stock options/investments, and use the 100 predefined spending categories to set budget limits.

Small businesses are catered for with support for QIF and OFX formats for downloading information from online banks. Data can also be exported in HTML, text or CSV formats.

As is sensible with such a program, bank account and credit card information can be password protected to prevent unauthorised access.

AceMoney Lite can handle multiple currencies and has the ability to download current exchange rates via the internet.

Hotspot Shield 1.34

Chris Wiles — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:15:43 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 09:55:00

Create a secure WIFI connection

This is the software publisher's description.

Sure, public networks (both wired and wireless) are great. After all, what would life be without connecting while at airports, hotels, coffee shops and more. But while you're connecting to any open network - even if you pay an access fee from a recognized provider, you’re still at risk of insecurely sending your data over the wires and airways. Your passwords, credit card numbers, and any data you send can be seen and associated with you personally. Standard antivirus software won't protect you as this threat is on the network, not your laptop or iPhone.

That's why AnchorFree is pleased to offer Hotspot Shield. This free privacy/security software keeps your Internet connection secure and anonymous on public networks: including hotels, airports, coffee shops, even work and home.

Hotspot Shield creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and our Internet gateway. This impenetrable tunnel prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over the network. This means you’ll remain anonymous and secure while on-line. Hotspot Shield security software is free to download, employs the latest VPN technology, and is easy to install and use.

WinSnap 3.1.4

Lee Collins — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:15 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Professional screen grabbing tool

This is the software publisher’s description.

WinSnap is a small enhancement utility for taking and editing screenshots. It can easily capture windows of non-rectangular form with the background of your choice, automatically perform simple canvas transformations and colouring effects, add professional smoothing shadows in Photoshop style and more. Also, WinSnap supports variety of image formats and provides advanced auto-save features.

Of course, WinSnap is not the only one screen capture tool in the world, but this is designed to perform differently in the respect that it will enable you to take grabs of your applications with their rounded corners along with their rounded shadows, where appropriate.

The latest v3 now enables you to take screengrabs of non-rectangular and transparent windows.

PureSync 2.1.9

Chris Wiles — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:14 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 10:42:00

Sync remote files to & from your computer

External web storage is available for next to nothing these days. One of my old basic email accounts originally shipped with 250MB of storage. Over the years, due to server-hosting competition, this has been increased to 1GB of data, with some bandwidth restrictions. However, I’ve noticed that both this server space and restrictions were often exceeded and I was never charged any more than the basic flat rate.

Since moving to commercial servers, this old account has remained redundant and the space used for little more than storing email. This got me thinking. 1GB is enough to store key files, documents and other important data and, as the server is ultra-fast (it’s not used for anything but email), getting files up there is very swift. This space could quite easily be used as a backup source for my key files and, where I’m away from the office, can be accessed remotely and by other people from within the office as the user/password for the server space is different from my account login and email mailbox.

PureSync is a tool that you can use to get your files across to another location, whether this is a connected USB drive, network location or remote server space. It’s synchronisation software, so you simply upload the files you require and then run PureSync each time you need to update those files. The process works both ways. If you or someone else has uploaded a newer file to the remote server, then PureSync will sync the updated file back to your PC.

Note that the Professional (non-free) version of PureSync supports additional functionality, such as the ability to sync locked/open files, a commercial/business license and FTP support, so you can resume files that are partially downloaded.

GoodSync 8.0.8.0

Tim Smith — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:44:58 GMT

Tim Smith, V3.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Sync files across computers and USB keys

USB keys are very useful for transporting information but it can quickly become difficult to remember which files are the most up to date.

Goodsync solves this problem by making sure that the latest copies of files are automatically copied between different computers.

Multiple jobs can be created so it is possible to use this for simple backups as well as keeping on top of multiple file versions. Jobs can also be set to only work in particular directions so the original files are untouched.

Note that with this free version, after 30 days you can have three synchronisation jobs set up, each with a limit of 100 files at any one point in time.

Task Coach 0.76.1

Chris Wiles — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:08:38 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 10:31:00

Schedule a project & track tasks

How many of us start a new project but do not bother to write down the tasks required to reach completion? If you’re a project leader, managing a development team, it’s best to have a solution that enables you to assign tasks to the other users, schedule deadlines and even manage the cost aspect of each task. For instance, if you require graphic work for your project, you won’t want someone managing this task to spend twice as much as you’ve assigned.

Unless you know how to work with Gantt charts and can understand an advanced project management tool such as Microsoft Project, tracking your tasks may present more problems than they solve (ie. you’ll spend too long trying to understand your project management tool). The solution is something far more simplistic.

One solution is Task Coach, which is a single-person solution for managing a project, or a set of projects. You can assign tasks, users, time schedules and costs involved with completing a project. At this stage, it’s a single-person task manager, which means that you can’t share the task information with other users. Hopefully that will change in the future – the developer has stated he intends to migrate the tool so you can share the info with other users, using iCalendar standard, which means you will be able to share the information through the Internet.

Now, if only the Task Coach developer takes note of something like Evernote that is a cross-platform note and information sharing tool that enables you to sync information across your installed editions, whatever the OS.

Note that Task Coach is available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux and other operating systems, although the download here is for the Windows version.

Task Coach Portable 0.76.1

Lee Collins — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:08:38 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 14:44:00

Schedule a project & track your tasks

Note that this is the portable version of Task Coach.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Tim Smith — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:06:19 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 16:59:00

A special version of Ubuntu designed for low-powered netbooks

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is optimised to run on a new category of affordable Internet-centric devices called netbooks. It includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and easily get on-line and use their favourite applications. This interface is optimised for a retail sales environment.

Canonical has collaborated with Intel and is working with a number of OEM's to deliver Ubuntu on netbooks in retail.

In keeping with the philosophy of our best work being available to everyone, the core remix product is available to all through the Canonical repositories. This version is free to download and modify by any user.

What is a remix?

A remix is a 'respun' version of Ubuntu built for a specific purpose. Although Canonical has encouraged community projects to use this terminology for some time, this is the first time that Canonical has used it.

We are using it to differentiate from an 'Edition' which we consider a complete version with daily builds suitable for the average user with no additional work beyond installing the CD.

All of the initial Ubuntu Netbook remixes combine optimisations from the Moblin project for Intel® Atom™ processors and it is specially designed for netbooks. Intel and Canonical are working to create a new computing experience across a rapidly expanding category of portable devices.

Reasons to choose Ubuntu Netbook Remix:

New Interface - built for accessing your favourite online and offline applications rapidly and optimised for the restricted screen size this is radically different
No viruses - Ubuntu is a smooth, safe computing and browsing experience
Optimised for netbook components - built from the ground up to take advantage of speed and power capabilities of the chip set
Large developer community - gain the benefits of innovation from some of the world’s leading free and open source developers

To Do List

Tim Smith — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:47:36 GMT

Tim Smith, Computeractive, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 14:37:00

An organiser ideal for complex projects

A window appears when To Do List first starts asking whether to keep the settings in the Registry or a file in the To Do List folder. The latter option means that it can be used as portable app on a USB key. There is also an option to share tasks over a network. This setting can be changed later if required.

The next step is to select the various columns that will be displayed when To Do List starts. Again this can be adjusted later but it helps to keep life simple. This is also the first hint at the capabilities of To Do List.

There are no fewer than 28 columns that can be displayed, information that is not selected can be hidden to reduce complexity and there are sample tasks that can be loaded.

One of the good things about To Do List is that tasks can be sub-divided as many times as you want and then the view can be collapsed to show an overview.

Colours and priorities can be assigned to tasks as well as time estimates and the actual time spent on a job.

Rather than starting completely from scratch, To Do List can import lists of tasks from Microsoft Outlook, GanttProject, Freemind and My Life Organised.

Tasklists can be exported as web pages, CSV or iCalendar files.

Comodo Firewall + AntiVirus 3.13

Chris Wiles — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:42:41 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 15:04:00

Give your PC additional protection with this free security suite

Buy a new PC and you’ll often find it ships pre-installed with an anti-virus client. Sometimes you receive more than basic anti-virus support, but the first thing you need to do is go out and find more extensive security software to make sure your new machine is protected against every possible threat.

For this reason, various security developers have resorted to giving away more extensive free software. By combining anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall, Comodo have bundled a few of their free applications and published these as an ‘Internet Security’ bundle.

Comodo Firewal + AntiVirus is a free suite of security tools designed to protect you against the majority of threats you may encounter when you surf the Internet.

This basic Internet Security suite gives you widespread protection, but Comodo also publish a Professional version with additional features such as remote access for removing threats that have infected your PC and have stopped you being able to boot in to your PC.

Note that there is a 64-bit version of Comodo Firewall + AntiVirus. The download here is the 32-bit edition.

Pictomio 1.2.31

Chris Wiles — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:39:10 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Photo & image manager

There are many image and photo editors on the market, from the commercial Aperture or Adobe Lightroom, through to the many freeware alternatives. Some are well designed; some are not so well designed. As a basic rule, they need to be able to support as many digital cameras as possible, so you can import your photos directly in to the application, as well as enabling you to import and edit your RAW images.

To go to the next level, you need to start implementing innovative features in to your photo manager. For instance, ‘Cover Flow’ within Apple software, which you’ll soon find in iPhoto and it’s already implemented in the iPods to enable you to browse your photos.

Pictomio is a new photo manager and editor that includes a number of unique features. Designed in a way that makes it appear as if it’s competing with the commercial Adobe Lightroom, it is predominatly a black interface. It contains all the usual information, informing you of the source of your photos and much more. It ships with basic tools to enable you to enhance your photos. You can also export, create a slideshow and share photos.

Pictomio is one of the first non-Apple applications that implements a cover flow type of photo-browsing, that enables you to quickly move from one photo to another, as if you are browsing through them in a carusel format.

The Bat! 4.2.12 Professional

Paul Rowlingson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:23:38 GMT

Paul Rowlingson, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Modern, professional email client

The Bat! is an email client that, if given the chance, may well become your favoured email client. Rich in features, this is an application that is suitable for both home and business use, without compromising the needs of either.

Like all email clients, The Bat! is easy to use, adopts a familiar layout, and is capable of handling multiple email accounts. In fact, not only do you get everything you would expect from an email client, such as Microsoft Outlook, but you get a few little extras too.

The Bat! provides you with the facilities to create template emails, allowing you to save an unlimited number of pre-written emails ready for instant distribution as and when required. Alternatively, simply create several beginnings to emails that can be used as you wish.

If you're like me, and you keep your email client open but minimised in the task bar, you are no doubt informed of any new mail via a sound. This is okay, but doesn't tell you anything about the email. The Bat!, however, provides a small pop-up window that appears with the arrival of any new mail, and scrolling across the window gives you details of the sender, subject and file size. This is great for at-a-glance checking of email.

If you receive an important email that you wish to make notes on, don't reach for paper and pen - simply add a note directly to the email, keeping all the information in the same place.

Another nice feature is that The Bat! is fully user-definable, with every aspect of the layout, presentation and functionality being completely under your control. Make it work as you want, rather than working as the email client dictates.

Xmarks for Internet Explorer 1.1.3

Lee Collins — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:23:37 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 16:15:00

Synchronise your IE, Firefox & Safari bookmarks

Sometimes, for whatever reason, those of us who spend most of our time working on computers may need to use another machine. This may be due to technical difficulties or, we may be working from home or even using a laptop whilst on the train or away on business. The trouble is that we tend to have a particular machine that’s used more regularly, and because of this, it’s probably equipped with all the tools you need, not just the programs we regularly use, but important bookmarks we need for specific websites.

Ever tried accessing a particular web page from a different computer without the URL? It’s almost impossible to remember exact web addresses when you’re using a number of different sites on a daily basis.

Xmarks (was Foxmarks) is an ideal solution for such a scenario. This version of Foxmarks designed to work with Internet Explorer and enables a user to access their bookmarks from any machine they are using via my.foxmarks.com, which constantly keeps your bookmarks synchronised whilst running in the background. You can manage your bookmarks from any computer, and in doing so, enables you to work as efficiently on any machine you happen to be using whether in the office or on the move.

Note that this latest version will enable you to synchronise your bookmarks and passwords between Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

NoScript for Firefox 1.9.9.15

Tim Smith — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:08:02 GMT

Tim Smith, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Prevent websites from running potentially dangerous code

One security risk when browsing the internet is that many websites include scripts, small programs for particular tasks.

Scripts can range from the wholly benign, for producing rounded corners on boxes, to dangerous security risks. Noscript blocks these scripts from running in Firefox unless explicitly told otherwise.

When a script is blocked a bar with an options button appears at the bottom of the screen alerting you. This can be used to mark a website as trusted so that the restrictions are lifted. This bar can be set to disappear after a time limit if it becomes annoying. An sound can also be set to warn of blocked scripts.

Trusted websites can also be added to the whitelist in the options window.

There is a button that can be added to the toolbar with quick options for blocking or allowing scripts on a page. It helpfully changes to show whether or not the current web page has been given permission or not.

Even though Firefox is generally more secure than Internet Explorer, this is still worth installing on any computer using Firefox.

VirtualBox for Windows 3.0.12

Chris Wiles — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:08:01 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Host a virtual operating system

This is the software publisher's description.

Powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction; see "innotek" for more about our company.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while innotek ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria.

On the VirtualBox site, you can find sources, binaries, documentation and other resources for VirtualBox.

Version 3.0 ships with major enhancements such as support for up to 32 CPUs per virtual guest OS, the ability to use DirectX 9 within a Windows guest, support for Windows 7 and much more.

VirtualBox for Mac 3.0.12

Lee Collins — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:08:01 GMT

Lee Collins, V3.co.uk, Wednesday 18 November 2009 at 12:00:00

Host a virtual operating system

This is the software publisher's description.

On the VirtualBox site, you can find sources, binaries, documentation and other resources for VirtualBox.

Version 3.0 ships with major enhancements such as support for up to 32 CPUs per virtual guest OS, the ability to use DirectX 9 within a Windows guest, support for Windows 7 and much more.

WindowBlinds 7.0

Chris Wiles — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:38:59 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Customise your Windows desktop

This is the software publisher's description.

Customise the look and feel of Windows XP or Vista with WindowBlinds. It's a Windows utility that enables users to personalise nearly every aspect of the Windows graphical user interface.

It can 'skin' your title bars, push buttons, Start bar, radio buttons, and nearly every other part of Windows.

There are thousands of freely available skins to choose from. Use WindowBlinds to make Windows look like another operating system (Mac, Linux, etc.) or give it your own unique look and feel. You can also create your own skins using the freely available SkinStudio.

WindowBlinds eliminates the need for any stay-resident program making it use virtually no extra memory. It also makes use of hardware acceleration found on most nVidia and ATI cards resulting in an overall performance increase.

The latest v7 now supports Windows 7.

Spyware Terminator 2.6.4.165

Chris Wiles — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:38:59 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Prevent spyware from attacking your system

There are plenty of anti-spyware programs available, but few as comprehensive (or free!) as Spyware Terminator, which is an application that will prevent spyware, adware, keyloggers and other types of malicious applications from hijacking the use of you computer. It resides in your system tray and works in real-time to prevent unauthorised programs from taking over your computer.

There are others available, but many anti-spyware applications are paid-for products, primarily as the software developer has to update the anti-spyware engine on a daily basis. These developers are always fighting the latest spyware technology.

When Spyware Terminator finds a suspect file, it is moved into Quarantine. Spyware Terminator prevents them from functioning and causing further damage to your computer. You can review and choose to permanently remove suspect files or safely store essential files.

Spyware Terminator will scan your computer manually or schedule an in-depth scan to be performed on a regular basis. The scan process runs in the background so that you will not be disrupted while working on other tasks.

v2 is major update to Spyware Terminator. New features include a brand new user-interface, improved scanning, improved post-scan reports and much more.

TuneUp Utilities 2010 v9.0.2010

Chris Wiles — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:34:29 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 10:07:00

Optimise, tweak & defrag your system

This is the software publisher's description.

TuneUp Utilities is an all-around complete toolbox for optimising Windows. Clearly structured tools in six categories get the best out of your PC. The tools are easy to use and intuitive.

Eliminate the speed brakes in your system and avoid time-consuming new installations. TuneUp Utilities helps you to optimally accelerate Windows, programs, and games and to bring your system back up to speed.

Countless giant files as well as a plethora of temporary and seldom-used data hide in storage and needlessly use up valuable disk space. Bring that to an end and free up space for important things. TuneUp Utilities 2009 provides you with a constant overview and systematically cleans up hard drives. Simple, fast and precise.

You can easily and reliably examine and maintain your system with minimal effort. TuneUp Utilities 2009 offers you all essential maintenance functions for your PC in one interface. Defragment, clean-up, free up space - fully automatically, if you want

Keep the core of your PC in top condition so you can ensure optimum performance. Prevent data loss and recover accidentally deleted files. TuneUp Utilities helps you to solve these and other PC problems with only a few clicks.

TuneUp 2010 is the latest release with a whole host of new features - info to follow. Note that we have a special 25% off the RRP in the new V3.co.uk Software Store.

Mozilla Weave Sync 1.0b1

Chris Wiles — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:47:08 GMT

Chris Wiles, V3.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 00:00:00

Sync your Firefox 3.5 bookmarks, passwords & preferences

Like most office workers, you spend the majority of your time sat at the same PC. During a break during our working day, we’ll quickly skim through our favourite websites and add new sites to our bookmarks so we can visit later. The same applies at home, where we’ll have more time to add sites to our favourites and visit at our leisure. Snag is, if you use more than one computer, how do you transfer and, more importantly, keep updated the bookmarks across your machines?

There are various browser add-ons that try and make this possible. The most powerful was the Google Bookmark Sync add-on that would synchronise your Firefox bookmarks, irrespective of computer or location. You simply installed the add-on, synchronised your bookmarks with the Google server and then performed the same action on other computers.

Mozilla want to go much further than this and have been working on their Weave project, which is still part of the Mozilla Labs and probably not quite ready for primetime.

Mozilla Weave is an add-on for Firefox 3 users that will enable you to backup and synchronise your bookmarks across editions of Firefox, whatever the operating system or location. If you spend years collecting and storing bookmarks and RSS feeds, then have a system crash, you’d only need to install the Weave add-on, enter your username and password and all this info would be retrieved from the server.

At the moment Weave only enables you to automatically backup and synchronise bookmarks across your browsers (so you have the same bookmarks on every machine). In future, you’ll be able to share some bookmarks information with friends and family and more.

We’ve found Mozilla Weave to be stable, although it does appear to slow the browser from time to time, whilst it keeps synchronising your data with the Mozilla servers.