Download Alarm Beep Clock (ABC)

Alarm Beep Clock (or ABC if you like acronyms) is my take at a really really simple quick and easy alarm clock for windows. It's so simple that it's only 15 lines of code! No kidding! It's free to download and free to modify any way you wish, and comes with full source code (completely commented of course).

The idea behind ABC is that if you ever need a simple alarm clock or a timer, just use ABC. ABC works great if you only use Alarms (on your computer) once in a while, and need a little secondary alarm to help you out on those days before the test or to remind you to remove the pizza from the oven before it becomes "well done".

Learning to Program Python with Computer Games

While I never really bothered to learn Python (I don't really know why), a resource named Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python (2nd Edition!), has piqued my interest. The book is geared towards people who are just learning to program and introduced Python in a rather enjoyable and fun way with simple games like Hangman and TicTacToe.

Free Norton Antivirus, Internet Security and 360 download alternatives

Photo Credit: Sophos Germany via flickr.

Security measures every Windows user must take

Let's face it - viruses exist. Whether one chooses to accept this or not, malicious software can do a lot more damage that you can imagine. Your computer can be turned into a zombie to attack other computers (see botnet) and can be compromised so badly that a malevolent person can track every key stroke and every move that you make (yes, this includes all your e-banking passwords, credit card numbers and e-mail passwords). It's almost as though you are leaving a blank cheque in a public place, free for any person with a malicious intent to take advantage of.
Given this scenario, I'm sure you'll agree that virus protection is necessary. So spending a few dollars to protect your information should be justifiable. However, let’s say that you feel that you’re not such a heavy computer user, and would like to resort to using a free antivirus program. In that case I provide a few free alternatives to paying the yearly fees charged by most commercial security companies.

How to enable Hibernation on a Mac

Did you know that you can still "hibernate" your mac (as in shut down the machine and save all the information in your ram to your hard drive) instead of just putting it to sleep (where the ram is still powered on, and the machine can randomly wake up when it detects change)?

Turns out that Macs also have the hibernate feature. Except, it's not available by default. This is most likely because Apple just wants you to use their sleep feature instead of shutting down the computer all together.

Nevertheless, ever since OS X 10.4.3, all Macs can go into what is called 'Deep Sleep'. How you ask? Very simply put, all you need to do is use this widget called Deep Sleep. Once it's installed (and authenticated) merely clicking on the widget will put your Mac into a deep zzz... To install all you need to do is download it and agree to the prompt that asks you to Install the widget. Then, for your first use, just open Dashboard, and click on the widget. The first time you use it, you will have to authenticate it by providing your administrator password. Thereafter, all you need to do is just click on the moon!

Note: If you have a Intel machine, it should work flawlessly. However, if you have an older PPC machine, you'll have to read the user manual to see if you're in luck.

Alternatively, you can also tinker around with the Terminal if you wish to do so. Normally, this is what the mac uses:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

However, you can change it to:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1

to enable DeepSleep.

Happy Zzzzzing!

On a side note: the way I came across this feature by "accident" was when my battery ran out of power. So I removed the battery from the computer and plugged in the computer without the battery installed. Interestingly enough, the computer booted into a state that was exactly they way I left it before my reserve battery power ran out. Knowing this fact piqued my curiosity regarding a possible Windows like hibernate feature on the mac, leading to the discovery of the wonderful widget.

Download Free Parallels and VMware Fusion alternative for Mac

Have you checked the price of Parallels lately? It's going to cost you about $80 dollars (USD) plus taxes. The price of VMware Fusion is also the same. If you're like me, and paying for virtualization software just isn't an option (I mean, you already paid for the operating system you'll be running on it... except if that operating system is Linux), you'll want to look into something else to help you run Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. and Mac OS X at the same time on your computer, without having to use BootCamp and going through its cumbersome install process.

Turns out that you don't have to pirate virtual machine software to be able to run a virtual machine. I just came across a great FREE virtual machine program for the Mac Desktop developed by Sun Microsystems called Virtual Box that does the exact same thing. It even has support for expandable virtual machine drives, and provides virtual machine tools (so all you have to do to use the mouse in the virtual machine is hover your mouse over the VM window, and to go back to your Mac just move you mouse away from the mouse window).

All you need to do start using VirtualBox to take the place of VMware Fusion or Parallels desktop is your Windows/Linux/Solaris/etc. DVD/CD or even just an iso image (so you can technically test out Windows 7 on your mac too although Aero won't work!). When VirtualBox opens up it'll give you the opportunity to create a new hard drive for your VM and allow you mount your .iso image or use the CD drive to install windows onto the virtual hard disk.

On top of that VirtualBox supports other features too that parallels does. For example, you can use Fullscreen mode and increase the size of the window to increase the resolution of the screen. You can also share folders between your Mac and the Windows or Linux virtual machine. Beware of viruses though, because they can still infect your mac partitions through the shared folders (provided they were written to take advantage of this). So you'll still have to keep your virtual machine updated and tuned up.

The only feature that VirtualBox does not support is 'Unity' mode or 'Coherence' features that allow you to run Windows applications just like a mac application without having the ugly windows desktop behind it. So you can minimize Windows applications to the dock and move them around just like a mac application. However, for the price you are paying (nothing!) I think its a great trade off. Besides, I was never a fan of that feature anyway.

If you want to run Outlook, Photoshop for Windows or any other windows specific application, or just want to test out things on the windows side, Virtual Box should be able to handle anything you can throw at it. In fact the configuration screen looks just like the VMware Fusion or Parallels configuration screen. The only downside is that if you ever upgrade to VMware or Parallels, the applications will not recognize the virtual machine hard drive created by VirtualBox, and you'll have to start from scratch.
So if you are looking for a great free (and karma free too) way to get Parallels Desktop/Parallels Workstation/Parallels Workstation Extreme on your desktop, look no further than VirtualBox - the ultimate free VM solution!

Download Free Windows 7 Copy!

Just like the free Windows Vista copies Microsoft was giving out 3 years ago, Microsoft is now giving out free copies of Windows 7 to anyone who is willing to give it a go. The offer that started a while ago is going to continue on till August 15th apparently, and anyone who has a broadband connection can take advantage of it.

To get your free copy of the Windows 7 release candidate, head on over to Microsoft’s Free Windows 7 download website, scroll down, choose your language under the proper heading and click Go. You’ll need a Windows Live ID (sign up for one here) because it’ll ask you to log in first so that you can get the download link and the product key. Oh and as Microsoft says, do not try it on your main computer, because chances are it isn’t going to work right (so technically Microsoft just wants a bunch of free beta testers, a.k.a. guinea pigs). The Windows copy will stay valid till June next year, so you’ll have a while to see how much you like it.

 

Also, you’ll need to either burn the .iso image that you download from Microsoft, or you can probably write the image to a USB drive and then boot off the USB drive if you’re cheap like me. To burn it either use software like Nero or download (as Microsoft says) ISObuster or some other freeware like CDBurnerXP to burn it to a DVD. You’ll also need to have a DVD burner to do that though, but chances are that you already have one, since you want to run Windows 7 on that machine.

Furthermore, according to Microsoft, you wont be able to upgrade from the Windows 7 RC to the final version. You’ll have to start all over again with a clean install. So keep that in mind as well. But for the purposes of just testing out the operating system and all its little feature, it should work quite well. You could also of course, just use a Virtual Machine like Microsoft Virtual PC to run it on your current Vista or XP installation, provided you have quite a bit of RAM on your computer.

Mac Tip: Use Nocturne or a shortcut to make your screen dark

Here's a great little mac tip that'll help you if you feel that having a screaming white background for all windows on your screen is a bit too overpowering for your eyes. Instead of having a white background, that hurts your eyes and perhaps is not as conducive to your creativity (citation needed...) why not turn the background black and the text white! May be, you'll even save a attowatt of power in the process too (again, citation needed...).

Anyway, here are two tips that you can use to turn down the brighteness of the screen by inverting the colours of your screen to get a much darker background.

Method 1 - Use a shortcut to invert the screen colours on mac

For the first method simply press Command (the key with the apple logo) + Control + Alt + 8 to invert the colour of your screen. It'll make all the white colours black, and all the blue colours orange. However, if you'd like to invert the colours on your screen a bit more gracefully, I'd like to recommend Nocturne. Nevertheless, here's what you get for using the default "accessibility" option provided on your mac without downloading anything: (note: image was similated using Photoshop.. so that you can get an idea of how it looks)

Method 2 - Download Nocturne and Switch to Night

Nocturne

(Free, Mac Only) is a little app that you can use to gracefully invert the colours on the screen to get a much darker background. When I say gracefully, I mean that Nocturne wont just invert all the colours on your screen, but only the desired ones. For example, blues will remain blue and wont be inverted to orange. The same goes for other dark colours like green and so on. You can also do other things like switch the screen to grayscale and pretend like you are using a computer with a monochrome monitor from the past, except its a million times faster. Likewise, you can tint colours to suit your liking and use the light sensors on your Macbook/Macbook Pro to trigger nocturne, and hopefully reduce the stress on your eyes.

Although you might not need it all the time, nocturne is a great little app that is worth the download. Plus, it barely hogs any memory so its great to have it sitting around on the menubar in times of need. It's quite a big step forward from the default inversion tool, and its FREE!

OpenBlu - a presentation theme for OpenOffice Impress/IBM Symphony

The great thing about open source is that it motivates everyone who uses the software to give back to the community. In fact, I this is the very reason I'm giving away my latest theme designed for OpenOffice Impress entirely using Open Source software (Ubuntu + Gimp + Impress) - OpenBlu.

What is OpenBlu all about?

OpenBlu is a theme that was designed to rival that of themes available for other software in the market, namely Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote. Now, with OpenBlu you don't have to feel that by using OpenOffice Impress (free and open source software - learn more here) you have to use themes that aren't as pretty and functional as themes that come with paid software.

For more themes like this (but not designed by me), you might want to see this post.

Download OpenBlu

OpenBlu can be downloaded from dropbox:

Click here to Download OpenBlu

Also, I've included the .png background files as well as the GIMP .xcf files so feel free to modify the theme. If you do modify it though, please do let me know if possible... I'd like to see what other are doing with OpenBlu.

How can I use OpenBlu?

Simple:

1. Download the .zip file from the link above
2. Unzip the contents of the .zip file
3. Double click on Blu.odp and use it like the template presentation to form your presentation
4. Edit/Add/Modify etc.
5. Save the file as your own presentation.
6. Optional: Share it with others and encourage them to use OpenOffice as well.
   

Note: To use OpenBlu you'll need either OpenOffice or IBM Symphony.

License

OpenBlu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. This means that you can download it, share it and modify it. In fact, I encourage you to download it, share it and modify it to suit your own needs. However, you can't sell it for monetary value (this is mainly to keep the spirit of free and OpenSource alive).

How to search the web faster with Inquisitor

Have you ever wondered if there was an easier way to get to your search results without having to actually see the search results page? If you ask me... there is! It's free, download-able for Windows and Mac (and iPhone!) and it's called Inquisitor.

Originally, in order to search the web, you'd have to go to a search engine first. Like Google, Yahoo or MSN for example. Then you'd have to type in a query, and hit enter, and search the best results from a list of 6 billion search results (although you see them 10 at a time, there are a LOT of search results). Then you'd click the 3rd or 4th or may be even 1st link to go to the website.

Then came the advent of toolbars and inbuilt search bars, from where you could search the web without having to go the search engine website first. Plus, with the search query features you didn't even have to type in the full "thing" that you would have liked to search for.

Now there is a better way to search the web faster:

Instead of going to the website, inquisitor (sponsored by Yahoo I must say) takes the place of the normal search tool in your browser (currently it only supports Safari, Firefox and IE). However, the most important feature that inquisitor has is - it displays the SEARCH RESULTS of top 6 results from search results page right in the drop down menu! So, you don't even have to visit the search results page in most cases. You can directly go to the search results page without ever having to visit tie middle man. Plus, it also finishes your queries for you if you want, and gives you the option of searching similar queries in different search engines. Plus, it tells you the websites you've already visited, so if you're searching for the same website again, you can go to it instantly!

So the next time you want to search, you'll not only be saving time, but you'll also be saving some mouse clicks.

xMod - Change hidden Mac OSX settings for Leopard!

I've always wondered if there was some application like the ones for windows where you could tweak additional system settings to make the mac perform better or customize it. Turns out, there's a great little application that can do a lot more than that.
It's called xMod, and it's a small, free utility that can do a lot of things. You can find a whole list of stuff it does on their website, but here's a list of things I find interesting:

• It can repair permissions to make sure everything is fine on the OS X file system. (Yes, I know, disk utility can do this too.. but xMod can do so much more!)
• It can check the SMART status of your Disks, and tell you if your hard drive is about to fail (hah. and you thought computers couldn't have fortune tellers)
• It can verify preference files (these are the settings and so on for the applications on your Mac) and find out if there are any errors in them
• It can tweak finder and it's appearance. It can also tweak screen capture settings and menubar styles. Plus, it can also make your screensaver as your desktop wallpaper! (Sort of like Windows DreamScene, but it takes up too many resources on your computer and will slow you down, so I'd recommend that you only have your screensaver as your desktop wallpaper when you aren't doing any actual "work" on your mac)
• It can change the appearance of your OS X dock to make it a 3d dock or a 2d dock
• It can disable dashboard
• It can Enable 'Sticky' mode for Dashboard widgets (so you can drag them on to your desktop if you wish)
• It can:
  
• Enable/Disable Spaces
• Add dock spacers
• Remove Dead tracks from iTunes
• Change a whole load of Disk utility/Address Book/Expose/ Terminal/Safari Options!

Plus, you can change all the things listed above with just clicking on the 'Apply button!'. Undeniably, xMod is a great little application that's powerful and easy to use at the same time!

Great free PowerPoint/OpenOffice/Symphony Templates

If you tend to give a lot of presentations, or even if you only give presentations occasionally, then you know how hard it can be to find a good background for your slideshow. Most people I see often use vague combinations of colours and text that makes it harder to read the slides… if you’re one of them (ask your friends, they’ll know) then the following site will help you too.

The resource I’m talking about here is the IBM Symphony Gallery Page, where you can download all sorts of presentation templates and background for your OpenOffice and IBM Symphony (Symphony is also something like PowerPoint… but free like OpenOffice’s Impress software). As a result, you can probably use them in PowerPoint too (although you’ll have to open it in Open Office first and save it as a .ppt file to open it up in PowerPoint).

I find that these templates are fairly professional and can be used for a variety of presentations, whether it’s a presentation at school or at the workplace. Here are some examples:

  

So, what are you waiting for? Head over to the IBM Lotus Symphony Gallery and find that perfect template!

Download Free Windows 7 Wallpapers

This goes out to all the Windows/Microsoft/Windows 7 fans out there, who are searching for ways to pimp-out your Windows Vista or Windows XP. Please note that I have not created any of these wallpapers or wallpaper packs, but merely put together a collection of the stuff so that all of you can download it freely and fast.

Oh and by the way you might also want to check out my ‘make your Windows Vista install look like Windows 7 tutorial’ if you really want to get on the Windows 7 bandwagon.

Official Windows 7 Wallpapers (from the Betas and from Vista Final Releases)

DeviantArt Windows 7 Wallpaper Packs (from fellow Windows loving artists)

Windows Se7en Pack 1 by ~Frnak

With some beautiful wallpapers this is probably one of the best Windows “Se7en packs” out there. It has the abstract art, the logos and even the colour schemes that are so prominent in modern Microsoft design. This pack even comes with regular screen and widescreen sizes, so that it won’t look distorted on your widescreen monitor or look like its stretched on your regular monitor.

Windows 7 Wallpaper Pack by ~maoractive

This pack is a great pack for those who want some cool ‘Aurora’ looking Windows 7 ish wallpapers without having the Windows 7 Logo pasted all over the place. It’s clean, simple, and mimics the style of the original Microsoft wallpapers found in the Windows 7 builds.

Tremulous: Free Open Source Online Multiplayer Game

Here's a good computer video games that isn't expensive. It's free You don't need expensive consoles or super fast computers to play it. And you don't need Windows or Mac to play it because it runs on Linux too (You can however, use a Windows and Mac to play it too... if you wish to do so).

Plus, this games also has elements of a first person shooter game, real time strategy and additional multiplayer online game features. It's based on the Quake engine, and has two main skillsets of aliens and humans.

The game I'm talking about here is called: Tremulous.





It's free, open source (yes, that means hackable too...) fast and easy to learn. The objective of the game is this: There are two teams, humans and aliens. Each team has to build their own base and defend it, while attacking the enemy base to destroy it. Plus it looks pretty good too.

Naturally there are several unique elements in the game. For example, you need to be able to shoot (with several different kinds of weapons that work differently), build a base (both human and alien bases are different) and learn how to use an alien (because aliens can't shoot.)

Plus, since its free there are loads of people all over the world playing the game. You too can host your own game server from your very own computer (provided you have a good internet connection and a fairly fast computer) and all you need to play is a regular mouse and keyboard.

We'll instead of me telling you more about the game, why not give the game a try. May be you'll like it, may be you wont. But it's free.. so you've got nothing to loose.

Best Free screencasting/screenrecording software for Windows

I’ve always been one for screen recording/screencast/video capture tutorials. I feel that they help me understand and emulate the ‘tutorial’ better, because I can actually see what the person is try to say. Plus, it’s so much easier as a person who is trying to tell someone something to just show how to do it instead of describing to someone how they can do something. Of course, using things like screenshots (with software like the free and excellent Screenshot Captor) should suffice most of the time, but sometimes, its just easier to do screen captures.

Once you are done recording a screencast, you can easily upload it to a video sharing service like YouTube. Plus, screencasts/screen recordings are useful when you’re doing a presentation and don’t have the luxury of bringing along your laptop or an internet connection. I must mention here that if you are using a video recording for a presentation, please do not make it annoying with all sorts of click noises, and also please make sure that the text is readable. I find that many people just take a screen recording of a screen that is 1900 x 1200 and the mouse cursor looks like an ant moving around on the screen – not good when you want to show people something.

First up –

Free and Open Source screen casting and screen recording software

CamStudio – This is probably one of the most well know free open source screen recording software out there. It has the ability to capture everything on your screen in different file formats (like AVI and SWF) and also has the ability to record audio along with the screen recording. It’s perfect for those tutorials that you might want to do. It also has other feature like mouse highlighting, and mouse clicking sounds. However, I find those two features a bit annoying, so I wouldn’t recommend using them, because I’m sure there are many people like me out there. Recommended for Screencasting Tutorials.

Taksi – A screen recording software that was primarily built to recording video games and other 3d applications. Because of this, it has live compressions systems to keep the size of the files produced down (because video games usually have a high frame rate – which inflates the file size of normal screen recordings). Recommended for Video Game Recordings

Virtual Dub – Another open source screen recorder. It was mainly built for Windows though, so it saves files as AVIs, although it has the ability to use several codecs. This doesn’t have as many options as CamStudio though.

Freeware (but not open source) screen casting/screen recording/video capture software

Wink – This is a program that was specifically created for the purpose of tutorials and presentations. It has many additional features like the ability to add ‘comment boxes’ while the video is playing to tell the viewer about important information, and also saves the output as swf files for easy uploading to your web server. It’s almost like Camtasia/Captivate (both of which are paid software) but it does the same thing for free. However, it does have some limitations when it comes to the video player and the design of the callouts.

Evan’s AVI Screen Capture – Simply captures everything on your screen and your screen cursor. You can then import the AVI into some other kind of video editing software like Windows Movie Maker and then add narration if desired.

Capture Fox – Capture fox is a great little addon for Mozilla Firefox, that can capture video recordings of websites as well as anything else that can be displayed on the computer. It can also capture audio input as well. However, you will require Firefox to be able to use the add-on.

Jing – Although I don’t particularly like Jing, it’s still an application that can record everything that’s on your screen. I can also record system audio or microphone audio (but not both). You can also directly upload screen casts to screencast.com. It’s free for now, but in the future, expect premium services.

Create free logos for your blog, website, business or company

Here’s a great little website that allows you to create and customize your own logos. It’s called Logo Creator from Logo Yes. And that’s just what it helps you do. All you need to do is go the website, and start going through their process of creating a logo.

It’s pretty simple for the most part. Just go the website, choose a logo, and then it’ll give you the option of saving your logo. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend using such logo creators if you are running a considerably big company – that’d be a job for a real graphic designer. But, if you need a logo for your small business, then websites like this would probably be the best bet.

Download Free Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS4 Alternatives

Luckily, you don't have to spend a cent to use products that are just like Adobe Illustrator. In fact, there are several free alternatives that you can download free of cost (provided you have an Internet connection of course) and create art that is just as good if not better than the art you can create in Illustrator. Plus, there are several websites out there that have tutorials related to this software.

So, without further ado, here are some bad-karma free alternatives that you can use instead of Adobe Illustrator CS 4 or CS 3 or whatever version that you wanted to initially use.

Free alternatives for Adobe's Illustrator (or Vector editing software)

Note some of the software here is Linux only (yes, that's right, only runs on linux!) but fear not, take a look at my guide where I mention how to run Linux applications on Windows.

1. Inkscape (Windows, Linux, Mac) - Inkscape is a great piece of free and open source software that can do just about anything Illustrator can do. Bezier curves, typography, an infinite canvas, you name it. Although you will likely have to learn some new tricks and learn Inkscape from scratch if you're used to Illustrator, having free software that you can use whenever you want is always a good thing. It's also the only open source alternative that turns on any platform of your choice.


2. Skencil (Linux / Unix only) - While being Linux only, it is still a very powerful tool to help you create vector art. Check out the preview below! It comes with the Illustrator look and feel and also has similar features. Plus its free too! (well, actually, everything on this page is)



3. Xara LX (Linux only) - Linux only, but boy does it do interesting stuff. It has all the standard tools found in Illustrator, bezier curves and all and has the potential to produce great quality art. Definitely worth a look.


4. OpenOffice Draw (All platforms comes along with OpenOffice.org) - While most people don't find OpenOffice draw to be anything special, people who do not wish to spend the time on learning complex software like InkScape or Illustrator can still take advantage of a much simpler editing program. It's perfect for doing little posters, banners or greeting cards or something with a minimal amount of effort. And you can always save your stuff in a variety of formats.


5. Gimp - While GIMP is almost always known as a raster/bitmap imaging application, You can always still use it to do Illustrator like stuff, provided the factor of scalability that you need isn't as great and the art you are doing is somewhat simple.

There you have it, 5 great alternatives for illustrator, all freely available on the Internet. Also, if you are probably going to use the software for commercial uses, you might want to be kind and donate some money to the developers, however, downloading the applications (and... gasp... their source code!) is completely gratis (or free).

Download the Photoshop CS4 alternatives for free!

Photoshop is expensive. With a copy of Photoshop running at $500+ (it's a bit cheaper if you buy the designer pack though...)... most people, especially students who want to learn Photoshop, feel like the only alternative to get it is to pirate it. But, the truth is, that doesn't always have to be the case. Just like a free alternative to Microsoft Word, there are several free alternatives to photoshop as well!

Most of these alternatives, look like photoshop, feel like photoshop and have tools that are similar to those found in photoshop. The only major difference is that these programs are free (or technically, donation ware)! So now, you don't have to illegally pirate photoshop... you can just use an alternative and reap the benefits of good karma. Here we go...

Free alternatives to Photoshop

GIMP (for Windows, Mac and Linux!)

The GIMP (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is probably the best known alternative for adobe photoshop. The GIMP runs on any platform and has almost the same features found in photoshop and then some! It has several filters that you can use to create things like image editing, banners, logos, greeting cards and whatever else you can do with photoshop with much less effort! Plus, it also supports .PSD file formats, so you can also edit Photoshop files through GIMP if you have any (which provides a great incentive to switch to GIMP).

To add to that, there are also several websites where you can learn how to use the GIMP to create magnificent art work that parallels that of artwork created in Photoshop. I must say here that, if you are very used to Photoshop, it will be definitely a little hard to switch at first, but soon you'll feel right at home with GIMP!

Bonus: You can also get a sort of modified version of GIMP called the GIMPshop, which like photoshop features a window like environment where you can edit things more easily. It also has tool names similar to that of photoshop to make it easier for a photoshop user. However, I personally find that just the usual GIMP is often good enough for me.

Paint.NET - Windows Only

Paint.NET is like Microsoft Paint's older brother and Photoshop's best friend. It has features that are comparable to Photoshop, but at the same time a smaller learning curve, because it looks like Paint! But don't be fooled by the interface, because inside, it's still a monster application that is capable of doing a lot more than just image adjustments and editing.

Not as Powerful free alternatives to Photoshop

Okay, yes, I know, there are only 2 alternatives to photoshop that I consider to be as good as photoshop... but the truth is - most people will never use all the features in Photoshop! I myself use only a few select features in Photoshop. So, naturally some simpler alternatives that are not as powerful might prove to be more useful to do something that you specifically want to do. Here's a little list (although I'm sure there are lots more out there):

Pixia (Windows) - Originally designed for Anima, it's a fairly useful tool for making prototypes of websites, logos and so on, but lacks the ability of being able to fix already existing pictures like Photoshop.

Krita (Linux) - Useful for basic editing without too much trouble. It's also good if you want to do something fast in Linux, as the GIMP might take a little more time to do it. Similarly, there is another tool called Xara Xtreme (or Xara Xtreme for Windows), that does the same things as Krita.

Seashore (Mac) - It has a toolbox that represents that of photoshop, and also several features that look like Photoshop. But it lacks features like filters and advanced abilities found in GIMP (although it is based on the GIMP).

PhotoFilTRE (Windows Only) - Good for basic adjustments to pictures and a few 'filters' here and there. Also useful for screenshots and so on, and adding basic text.

Use a free online virus scanner that won’t slow you down

A while ago, I wrote in my ‘5 steps to make Windows faster’ article that it’s better to stay away from anti-virus programs that constantly scan your computer just because its going to slow you down. Instead I recommended that you turn off the ‘heuristics scanning’ and only scan the files you think are a virus, so that your memory and CPU cycles won’t be taken up by the anti-viruses’ processes. But just now, it struck me, why use a virus scanner at all if you PC is always connected to the internet. Why not just us a online virus scanner, and not have any protection (with the exception of some ‘inbuilt’ tools like Windows Defender) at all. Using an online scanner will ensure that the database against which your file is being checked, is always going to be up to date, and plus it won’t slow down your computer, or even cause it (or other applications on your computer) to crash.

Now, before you start saying how important anti-virus applications are to keep your computer safe… I must say here that anti-virus is absolutely necessary, only if you don’t know what you are doing. If you DO know the way malicious pieces of software work, you probably won’t need any protection at all. So pretty much, if you were to rely on only an online scanner, you shouldn’t be visiting any ‘malicious’ websites (see phishing filter and protecting yourself from malicious websites for free post if you don’t know how to stop yourself from visiting these websites…), you most likely shouldn’t be visiting any bit torrent or private downloading website, and you mustn't open any ‘suspicious’ attachments or e-mails. But if you only use webmail, most web mail providers scan the attachment for your anyway.

Therefore, if you don’t do any of the things above, then you most likely don't NEED an anti-virus program at all, although it might always be a good idea to have it incase someone else using the computer doesn’t fit in the criteria listed above.

In my case, I’m the only one using my computer, so I don’t really have to worry too much about not having an anti-virus on my system. Plus, if I do receive any suspicious attachments and so on, I can always use the online antivirus. Anyway, using or not using anti-virus is completely up to you, but incase you do decide to sacrifice a little bit of security for a lot of speed (and stability) here are some good online antivirus scanners that I find work well (although there is no way in the world to ‘completely’ protect yourself from any malicious program that might be created this instant):

The list of free and recommended Online Virus Scanners

Kaspersky Online Virus Scan – There is a limit of 1MB for files that can be checked, but nevertheless, its fast and efficient. All you need to do is upload your file on their site, and they’ll check it for you. No ActiveX controls needed. The great thing I like about this is that it’s super fast because it’ll only check the files you upload to it – Not your whole system like the scanners below do.

BitDefender Online Scan – Free online scan. ActiveX controls needed. May take a while.

Symantec’s Scanner – Yes, I know. It’s Symantec. But its not necessarily a bad thing when the only thing you have to do is download a little ActiveX control.

ESET’s online scanner – A fast online scanner that does only what it’s supposed to. Again, ActiveX controls are necessary fot it to do its job.

Jotti’s Malware Scan – This is a scanner that claims to check your file against the databases of many anti-virus manufactures and has a 100MB file limit that you can upload to its database so that it can check your file. I wouldn’t recommend using this service, unless it is absolutely necessary (and the file you are checking doesn’t contain any personal information) just because is not a well renowned name in the security business.

Of course, there are others out there too, but I’ve never tested them out, so fell free to try out other options too and post about them in the comments.

Boost Productivity by opening applications faster with Launchers

  We all know that the start menu can be used to open an application or start a process. Even fewer of us know about using the run menu to start a program. But do you know about applications like Launchy or Enso that can change your life? If you’re using Windows (especially if you’re still using XP), then one of the things that should be on your computer right now is launchy. If you’re using a mac then try quicksilver or just plain ol’ spotlight. You can take a look at this wikipedia article that mentions a whole lot of other similar programs that do the same thing.

But, I guess you’re wondering, why use a program like this at all? Isn’t it just easier to find the program in the start menu? Good question. Lets look at a couple of factors here that will help you pick launchy or other similar things over the start menu.

Find and open things faster

First off, the thing you have to do with the start menu, or even on the dock, is find your application. If its not one of the most used applications then it’s probably not even in your quick launch bar or your dock. So you’ll have to spend atleast 5 seconds of your precious time, searching for the application you want. Then, you’ll have to wait for another 10 seconds for the application to open.

But wait, you know what the application is called, right? Why not just type in the first few characters of the application and press enter, and let another application open the application for you? That’s exactly want Launchy does.

Let’s say you want to open Microsoft Word. Now, assuming that you know how to spell ‘word’, all you have to do is press Alt+Spacebar, and type in Word. Launchy will automatically detect that you want to open Microsoft word, and it’ll show the word icon. Then, you just press enter to open the application you want. This even works for bookmarks, or even documents if you tell launchy that you want to index ‘.doc’ and ‘.ppt’ files and so on.

Clearly, Launchy helps you open your document or application in 1 second instead of 5 seconds.

Remove the Middle Man (or extra unnecessary steps)

Say you want to search for ‘beyond teck’ (yes, that’s the name of this blog, by the way) on Google. What you would naturally do is, Open Firefox > Click in the Firefox Search Bar > Type in ‘beyond teck’ > Press Enter and only then you’ll be presented with a screen with all the list of search results.

Wouldn’t it just be easier for you to open launchy > type in your search query and get a list of search results in a browser?

Of course, searching through launchers does take a bit of practice (and a bit of manual reading), but its super simple, and super fast. So why use the browser method when launchy (or other such launching applications) is better?

Plug-ins and expandability

Many application launchers are not just limited to doing the tasks they were initially built to do. There are several plug-ins out there that add more functionality to the original application and make it better and much more useful.

For example, with the runny plugin for launchy, you can create your own batch files (more about that later) and run it through launchy. But that’s just one example, there are several other plugins out there for various other launchers.

 

Its rather clear here that using an application launcher is going to improve your productivity and save you a lot of hair pulling.

Use Windows Live Mail or Hotmail with Outlook 2007 or 2003

Now, you don’t need to have a Hotmail Plus account to use your free Windows Live Mail or Hotmail (or even MSN) e-mail account with either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. All you need to do is download and use Microsoft’s Outlook Connector to start taking advantage of your Hotmail account in Outlook.

Setting it up is pretty straight forward, and once you set it up, you’ll never have to log into your hotmail account again to see those annoying little ads and face the slow interface.

According to Microsoft, you can do the following with Outlook connector:

With Outlook Connector, you can use Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages and contacts for free! Calendar, tasks and notes synchronization are not available on all services. If your service offers calendar synchronization, tasks and notes will synchronize as well. See the feature list for your service for details.
Outlook Connector enables you to use your Live Hotmail accounts within Outlook:

• Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages.
• Manage your Live Mail Contacts.
• Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages.
• Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place.

With a paid subscription, Outlook Connector enables these additional features:

• Manage, share, and synchronize your calendar in Hotmail from Outlook.
• Access your Tasks and Notes.

Not bad for a free e-mail account. However, there are a few things that I don’t like about this outlook connector thing. What it does essentially is pair up your hotmail and your other POP accounts together if you have more than one account (may be there is an option to turn this off… but I haven’t yet discovered this). So if you receive an e-mail in your POP account inbox, Outlook Connector will automatically upload a copy of the e-mail to your hotmail account. This of course is rather annoying for a person like me who likes to stay organized…

Speaking of staying organized, more on that coming soon. I feel as though I have way to many e-mail accounts and operating systems containing bits and pieces of my work here and there that I need to somehow come up with the ‘ULTIMATE’ solution to reduce the time I spend finding my stuff and sending a little e-mail.