The UK's #1 Mobile Phone Recycling Comparison Site. Sell mobile phone handsets with leading phone recyclers - Envirofone, Mazuma & Fonebank

• Search for:


• 
  The Sell Cell Phone Price Comparison Site.

• Cash For Mobile Phones you no longer need

• Categories

  • Auto & Motorcycle Tech
  • Consoles
  • Desktops & Laptops
  • Gadgets
  • Gaming
  • Graphics / Design
  • Hardware
  • Internet
  • Mobile
  • Multimedia
  • News
  • Operating Systems
  • Performance
  • Reviews
  • Security
  • Software
  • Technology
  • Tips & Tricks
  • Tutorials
  • Web publishing



• Affiliates

  • bork designs – affordable web design
  • Software Development
  • Wifi Antenna

• Recent Posts

  • Fire vs. Nook: Different Strokes For Different Folks

    ---

  • Windows 7 lag when using dual monitors with different refresh rates

    ---

  • Sticker Mule Review

    ---

  • Supermoto on Highway 1 – DRZ400 and Ducati Multistrada

    ---

  • Rider brushes flying crashed motorcycle during race

    ---

• Random Posts

  • Nissan GT-R

    ---

  • The Most Badass Video Game Intro Movie: GTA 2

    ---

  • Firefox 3 beta - ready for daily use?

    ---

  • How to Access Blocked Websites Without Using Proxies

    ---

  • Google Search Deal With Twitter Will Include Tweets in Google Search Results

    ---

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3 RC 2 today. This will supposedly be the last version of Release Candidates for Firefox 3 that will be released before the final version.

Release Candidate 2 has fixed the major bugs that were seen in RC1. If no major bugs are found in Firefox 3 RC2, it will become Firefox 3.0 (final).

It is good to see that Mozilla won’t be rushing the release of Firefox 3, and will take the time it needs to iron out the bugs in the release candidates. This should make the final version of Firefox 3 as bug-free as possible.

Now all that’s left for me to make the switch to Firefox 3 is plugin compatibility. That’s the plugin creators’ problem. So a word to any plugin creators – update your plugins to work with Firefox 3 so everyone can download Firefox when it’s released.

Mozilla wants to break the Guinness World Record for Most Software Downloaded in 24 hours. You can help by downloading Firefox 3 on the Firefox Download Day of 2008.

You can make a pledge to download Firefox 3 on the Download Day if you wish to help Firefox achieve this record. The official release date of Firefox 3 will also be posted on that page.

Firefox 3 is the latest installment of the Firefox browser from Mozilla. Firefox 3 will have more than 14,000 improvements.

When Adobe Photoshop CS4 comes out this October, it will feature GPU and Physics acceleration, as well as 64 bit processing.

This means Photoshop CS4 will not only be the first version of Photoshop to come in a 64 bit version, but also the first version to feature graphics and physics processor acceleration. This will make Photoshop CS4 faster than any previous versions, and it will let you manipulate 3D graphics. The physics acceleration might be able to generate particle and lighting effects dynamically and in 3D.

The GPU acceleration alone will increase the speed of Photoshop CS4 in certain tasks up to 100 times. At a recent Nvidia demo, “the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly.”

There is no word yet on whether CS4 will only take advantage of workstation GPU’s such as the Nvidia Quadro series. I am hoping that it will be able to use any GPU for an extra speed and power boost.

More information should be available as the October 1st release date approaches.

If you have a messy and disorganized (Windows) desktop, you are probably taking longer than you should to do basic tasks. Follow these simple tips to make it easier to find shortcuts, launch frequently used applications faster, and make your Windows desktop a more productive environment.

click to enlarge

If you have at least 20 different shortcuts on your desktop, you will find that separating them into groups will make it easier to find a particular shortcut. For example, you can put your internet browser and IM apps in the top left, your games on the bottom, and productivity apps on the top. This not only gives your desktop a neater look and lets you see the wallpaper better, but it also makes it easier to find applications.

2. Delete Shortcuts You Never Use

It’s very likely that your computer came with a lot of crapware preinstalled. You should delete shortcuts such as “Sign up with X Company” and “Register with …”. Also remove shortcuts to things you never use, like antivirus. Your antivirus runs in the background and most come with automatically scheduled scans. You will most likely never need to open the main screen of your antivirus program, so why keep the icon on the desktop?

3. Customize Your Quick Launch Toolbar

When you install a lot of apps, some come with the “Add shortcut to quick launch” pre-checked. If you don’t uncheck it, you will have a lot of shortcuts in your quick launch toolbar that are useless. Remove the shortcuts you don’t need, and add ones that you do need. Add programs that you tend to open a lot while another window is open. I recommend having no more than 10 shortcuts, depending on your screen resolution.

4. Get a Clean Wallpaper

If you have a graphic-heavy wallpaper, you might find it hard to find some shortcuts. A multi-color wallpaper might look cool, but your icons will blend in and you will take longer than you should to find them. This doesn’t mean you should use a single color as your wallpaper, but make it something smooth with a specific color scheme, so you can read shortcut names easier.

5. Rename Your Desktop Shortcuts

Your shortcuts shouldn’t be so long that they get cut off with “…” at the end. For example, you can rename “Mozilla Firefox 3.0 RC1″ to “Firefox”, “Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended” to “Photoshop”, etc. One line names are even better since they take up less space, which makes your desktop look neater overall.

6. Customize Individual Folders

Make your music folder sort by “title”, and make your pictures folder sort by “date modified”. This is just an example, but I find this useful because if I’m adding new pics from my digital camera, they are titled with random letters and numbers, so sorting by title here wouldn’t work. Date modified will make newer photos show up on top or on bottom. You can customize any folder with different icon sizes, sort orders, and other options.

7. Firefox – Customize the Bookmarks Toolbar

If you use Firefox, you should customize the bookmarks toolbar. I have never seen anyone with a customized toolbar, so I guess many people don’t know you can customize it. You can right click on individual shortcuts and click “Properties”, and change the name of the shortcut. If you have a lot of shortcuts this will make them all appear on one line of the toolbar. For example, you can rename “Gmail – Inbox” to “Gmail”, “YouTube – Broadcast Yourself” to “YouTube”, etc. This will save a huge amount of space on the toolbar. You can also drag the bookmarks toolbar anywhere to save space.

8. Set a Quick Loading Home Page

If you want to get to a certain URL right after opening your browser, you need a quick-loading home page. I recommend iGoogle. If you’ve never heard of iGoogle, go to Google and log in (or create an account), and on the top right click the “iGoogle” link. You can customize iGoogle with different themes and gadgets. The reason I recommend iGoogle is because it loads incredibly fast, even with lots of gadgets. And the gadgets are very useful.

Be sure to comment with your own tips for a better desktop below.

Have you ever asked a friend where to get the latest Linux distro, and you were told to download it from a torrent and didn’t know what that meant? Well here is my guide on how to use torrents.

First, you will need a torrent website. If you are reading this you probably aren’t a member of any private sites, so use something like The Pirate Bay or Mini Nova.

Second, you need a program to use the torrents. I highly recommend uTorrent. Download and install the program. Now configure it properly by setting your internet connection speed and anything else it asks for.

Now do a search for what you are looking for on a torrent site, in this example being a Linux distro. Download the torrent and open it. uTorrent will open and begin downloading the torrent.

Here’s the tricky part for most people. The download might be going very slow. If it is, you need to open up your router configuration and unblock the port the torrent program is using. This will be different for every router and torrent application, so I can’t really help you here. Try a Google search if you’re not sure how to unblock a port in your router.

After your port is unblocked, the torrent should be going full speed, unless you picked a bad torrent. Try to pick the torrent with the most seeds. If it has a low number of seeds, like 20, it will go slow. Most of the time 50 or more seeds will be fast. Seeds are the number of people uploading the files.

Make sure you pick a torrent with good comments. Most torrent sites have comments for each torrent, so see what people are saying. People usually comment if there is a virus or if it’s a bad torrent. However, even if the comments are all good, you still need to scan what you download.

Make sure not to seed too fast. Configure your “up” speed to be around half of your real up speed. If you’re not sure what your upload speed is, for DSL set it to 10kbps, and for cable set it to 100kbps. You should seed until it shows 100% or more, and then you can stop seeding and delete the .torrent file. If you seed too fast, it will slow down your entire internet connection and your download.

Many torrents are compressed and split up into multiple files. You might find around 50 files with unknown extensions, such as .000. You need to open up the first of these with a program like 7-zip or Winrar. Then it will open the other files automatically.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other small things that you can do to make your torrent experience better. These are the basic tips that should get you downloading your first torrent.

With Microsoft releasing a new version of Works that is advertisement supported, many people will be wondering which is better – MS Works, Open Office, or Google Docs. This is a comparison between the three.

Microsoft Works

MS Works is a home productivity suite that is smaller, less expensive, and has fewer features than Microsoft Office. MS Works has a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database. It also has some other small features, but these are the main ones most people will be using. Works comes free with most prebuilt computers, and now Microsoft has inserted advertisements into Works to allow smaller PC makers to preinstall it and make it available to you for free.

Works doesn’t have many features, and it can’t create standard DOC and XLS documents. Instead it uses the WPS and WKS file formats. This means you will only be able to edit Works documents in Works.

Open Office

Open Office is an office application suite that is available on multiple operating systems. It supports Microsoft Office’s DOC format, so you can create and edit files that will be supported in both Open Office and Microsoft Word. It also supports many other formats. The thing that makes Open Office a competitor to Microsoft Office is that it is completely free and available under the LGPL license. Open Office is available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, and in part for Mac OS X.

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free web based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Several people can edit one document at the same time. You can create spreadsheets, presentations, and word documents through a user friendly web interface, and then save it to your computer, email it, or save it to Google’s servers. You can save as DOC or XLS, as well as other formats.

The only problem with Google Docs is that there are file size limitations for all documents you create.

The Winner

1. Open Office
2. Google Docs
3. Microsoft Works

Open Office has the most features, it’s free, it supports standard file formats, and it’s available for many operating systems.

Google Docs is free, supports standard file formats, and has some unique features.

Microsoft Works is ad supported or free only when it comes with a new computer, doesn’t support saving as standard formats, and doesn’t have many features.

While Microsoft Office is better than all of these applications, these are the free alternatives that people might look into if they can’t afford paying $300 for an application. This is a completely unbiased comparison. Comment on your experiences with these programs below!

iTunes can be quite buggy and slow when running on Windows. It lags when scrolling on a dual core system with 4 gigs of RAM and an 8800gts, with nothing running in the background. It’s a simple to use program, but that shouldn’t stop you from switching to something else if you experience problems with it on your computer. Here are some great free iTunes alternatives for Windows.

VLC

VLC media player is not just an audio player, it’s also a movie player and a format converter. VLC probably has the most features out of all Windows media players. It is lightweight and supports more features than most people would ever need. You can also use it to convert videos into iPod format. This is a great all-around media player that will play practically anything you throw at it.

foobar2000

While the name might sound a bit weird, this is a great audio player. It is very lightweight, supports thousands of skins, and has many plugins to support almost every audio format imaginable. Take a look at screenshots of some of the features, although when not using custom themes it might look very plain. foobar2000 also works with popular MP3 players.

Winamp

Winamp has improved greatly over the past few years. A few years ago I wouldn’t recommend this program, but I do today. It’s lightweight and has many features. You can download custom skins and plugins. It supports a lot of popular MP3 players. Check out the full feature list here.

Windows Media Player

It’s not that bad. Windows Media Player comes built into your Windows operating system, so why not give it a try? It opens up quick and plays back your audio and movie files. It can rip and burn discs too, and has a nice library manager. With this plugin you can sync your iPod with it too.

Disc Mode

If you’re not satisfied with any of these media players, you can always open up your MP3 player as an external drive. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks with a Sansa e250 on Windows Vista:

I have an iPod Nano first gen also and it shows up like this too. Then you just configure your folders to show hidden files, and you’ll see the Music folder inside it. Just drag your music in there or from there as if it were a flash drive.

If there are any other media players you like, comment on them below.

itunes screenshot from apple.com

Digital cameras take pictures in huge resolutions. If you’re going to email your photos, post them in forums, or do things like that, you should resize your images so they’re not huge. This also makes them anywhere from 30% – 80% smaller in file size, so it will be much faster uploading them. It will also be easier for people to download them if they have slower internet connections. This short tutorial will show you how to resize multiple images in Adobe Photoshop with a few clicks. I’m using Photoshop CS3 for this tutorial.

1. Once you have Photoshop opened, click on File > Scripts > Image Processor… (click here for a screenshot)
2. In the Image Processor window, select the folder your images are in by clicking Select Folder… (click here for a screenshot)
3. You can save in the current folder, or choose a different folder. If you save in the current folder, it will create a new folder inside it called JPEG and put the processed images there. It will not overwrite your original images.
4. File Type – I recommend saving as JPEG with a quality of 10. Your photos will be reduced in file size noticeably and will remain good quality.
5. If you want to resize your images, which I recommend for posting them online, select Resize to Fit and enter the dimensions you want. Note: you need to keep the aspect ratio of your images. Make sure your original images are the same dimensions (they should be if they’re from the same camera) and divide the height and width separately by the same number to keep the ratio. My photos are originally 2592 x 1944, so I resize them to 1296 x 972. This is half of the original size, keeping the aspect ratio.
6. Click Run and Photoshop will start processing your images. Wait for it to finish, then you can close it.

And that’s all. Now you can resize thousands of images with a few clicks.

In response to this screenshot of a Mac running 150 applications, here is a screenshot and video of my PC running 155 apps. Also, if you count the apps on the Mac, you will see there are only about 100 open, not 150 as the author claims. If you count mine, there are 155 open. And I have powerful apps open like Adobe Photoshop CS3, Flash CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Premiere CS3, Vegas 8 Pro, every app from the Roxio 10 suite, and more.

Click to enlarge and drag:

Adobe announced today that Photoshop CS4 will feature a 64-bit version for Windows Vista. The 64-bit version will not be available on OS X. Adobe gave no details of whether they will eventually develop a 64-bit version for Mac.

Performance will be 10% greater with the 64-bit version, and that’s not including the time it will take to load a file. It will also mean Photoshop will be able to use all of your RAM, so for those of us who have 4GB or more, this will give even greater benefits.

Speaking of RAM, it sounds like 4GB will be the minimum for CS4.

There is no word on when CS4 will be released.

Source: TG Daily