All posts by Locutus »
Windows software of the day [March 20, 2012]
![Windows software of the day [March 20, 2012]](http://cdn.dottech.org/media/2012/03/feeddemon-290x160.png)
Windows has hundreds of thousands of programs. Because of this great volume and lack of a central store, software discovery (aka finding new and useful programs) is extremely difficult. With our Windows Software of the Day initiative, dotTech aims to change that. Everyday we post three programs, allowing our readers [...]
Read More »Learn JavaScript with free weekly courses from Codecademy
A lot of people want to know how to program but don’t know where to start. It’s a complicated and confusing topic, and there are hundreds of guides teaching dozens of languages. However, a new company called Codecademy has taken a lot of the uncertainty and doubt away from learning [...]
Microsoft releases Windows 8 Consumer Preview: Try out Windows 8 for free, without that pesky “release” label
This morning at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Essentially a “Beta”, this release is intended to let Windows users see if Windows 8 is right for them. But what’s new in Windows 8 that Microsoft wants you to try? Their site gives [...]
Read More »Early alpha of Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” now available for HP Touchpad, courtesy of the CyanogenMod Team
Do you have a Touchpad and find that webOS is somewhat… lacking? It looks great, and has some amazing user interface ideas, but it App Catalog is sparse and has very few apps in it. With webOS being officially cancelled, it also brings to light the issue of HP shutting [...]
Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”: A beautiful Android optimized for both tablets and phones [dotTech Analysis]
Android 4.0, recently made available for the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus S, and a few other devices, is Google’s answer to the criticisms that Android has previously fetched. It features a new visual style, better user experience, and several new features designed to make your phone easier to use. But [...]
Youtubian: Improve YouTube with a simple bookmarklet
Have you ever looked at the YouTube interface and thought, “this could use a face lift”? Or perhaps you thought, “a download link and some fancy drop shadows would be nice”. Well, then, let me introduce you to Youtubian.
Youtubian is a simple bookmarklet that can improve YouTube by cleaning [...]
Read More »Create new Google Docs documents from your desktop by adding Google Docs to the right-click context menu
The cloud is the future of tomorrow. Today Google announced Google Chrome OS and the Chrome Web Store, so now more than ever before the cloud is on everybody’s mind. The cloud, being the cloud, mainly operates through the web browser. Unfortunately, there is minimal integration of cloud-based services with [...]
Operating System Review: Ubuntu Netbook Edition
What is that and where’d the taskbar go? That’s Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Netbook Edition, a free operating system designed for small-screen netbooks. Why’d anyone ever want it? Let’s find out!
That’s the “home screen”. Basically, it’s the single place that all of your applications and sites go-and the section shown [...]
Read More »Thinking of buying RAM? Crucial tells you just how much – and what type – to get
Having a slow computer can be annoying. A lot of the time, your computer is slow because it is running low on RAM. RAM comes in sizes from 32MB to 8GB in the consumer range, and nowadays generally costs under $50 for a stick of 2GB RAM. While this price [...]
Read More »Customize Firefox’s about:blank page
Every time I open a new tab in Firefox, I’m greeted with about:blank. As far as creative names go, the name of this page is not very creative because it is just that – blank:
For most of us this isn’t a big deal because we don’t really spend much [...]
Read More »Organize your desktop with Fences
Have you ever taken a look at your desktop and wondered if it could look any worse?
Lets just say I am familiar with the issue. (OK, the above picture is faked, but still… it doesn’t reach my minimum standards!) So to tackle the problem of a messy desktop, I [...]
Read More »Teamviewer: Easily control other computers from across the world
Controlling other people’s computers from far away sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Well it’s not. Teamviewer is a great–and free–application for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X that makes screensharing a snap (and two numbers). I needed to help a friend set up an application, and I just couldn’t figure it [...]
Read More »Google’s giving away 10 free Galaxy Nexuses: Here’s how to get ‘em
Want a Galaxy Nexus, Google’s latest and greatest flagship smartphone? Good news! Google will be giving away 10 of the devices over the next 10 days, and all it takes is to solve a challenge to win one.
Each day for the next ten days Google will post a new [...]
Read More »Mousepath: Track your mouse cursor wherever it goes
Update: Mousepath is now known as IOGraph. Please read the article on IOGraph for more information.
Have you ever wondered where your cursor goes? Mouthpath is a small Java application that helps you quench your curiosity: it makes a little image file that traces your mouse pointer. Here’s an example:[...]
Read More »Virtual Machines, Part One: What, why, and how
Not to be confused with virtual process machines, virtual machines are, as Wikipedia puts it, “a software implementation of a machine (i.e. a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine”. They’re operating systems like Windows or Linux inside a separate program on your existing operating system. They can do [...]
Read More »How to: Free up hard drive space
Ever been just using your computer, and suddenly a message pops up saying you need more disk space?
Don’t fret, we’ve all got it at least once! However, this is no need to run out and buy a new hard drive. Sometimes, all you have to do is clean up.[...]
Read More »dotTech Showdown: Free online backup services – which one is the best?
Sometimes hard drives croak. Maybe you’re writing an essay and your computer catches fire. Perhaps you deleted that file that you needed by accident and now you don’t have it. If you did not make external and/or offsite backups, you are SOL. Today we take a look at some of [...]
Scr.im: Share your email address publicly without the risk of giving it to spammers
Spam, n: a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to… blah blah blah. We all know what spam is. We all know if we were to publicly display our e-mail addresses, spambots may pick up on it and start, well, spamming us. Luckily, a website by the [...]
Elegantly browse two websites at the sametime with TwoBrowse
Need to browse two sites at once? Need to split the screen 50-50? Try TwoBrowse, a free HTML page developed by myself and Caleb Stein. TwoBrowse is based on the QuickBrowser source code and is a great way to look at two pages at once:
TwoBrowse has two different sets [...]
Read More »Free TuneUp Utilities 2011!
Update: This promotion is now over. Looks like TuneUp pulled the promotion very quickly. Sorry to those that missed it!
If you’re a regular on dotTech, you know that we’ve featured TuneUp Utilities many, many times before. We’ve shown you freebies on TU2007, TU2008, TU2009, TU2010, and finally, TuneUp Utilities [...]
Read More »Lost your Windows and/or Microsoft Office license key? Use WinKeyFinder to recover them and store them safely encrypted
Do you know your Windows license key? What about your Microsoft Office license key? No? Bummer – what would happen if your computer crashed? Sure, most computers have little stickers on the side that display the Windows license key on them but those little stickers can easily be messed up [...]
Tweak and tune Windows with TweakNow’s PowerPack 2011
Are you happy with your computer? Are there certain tweaks you could use to make it better? There are several programs you can try. Although CCleaner and the like immediately step into mind, there are good, lesser known pieces of software. TweakNow PowerPack 2011 is one of those programs: easy [...]
How To: Change the size of an animated GIF
While the animated GIF file that you see on the right is certainly pretty fu
nny, what if we want it as a favicon? Or maybe as a giant, huge picture? Resizing an animated GIF is not as easy as resizing, say, a JPG or PNG image. Typically for a [...]
Wubi: Get a taste of Linux without the pain – install Ubuntu like a program in Windows
Windows is a great operating system, but want to know just how green the grass is on the other side? Try Wubi, a Ubuntu installer for Windows.
The cool thing about Wubi is it installs Ubuntu like a program onto your computer, requiring you to perform no dual-booting or partitioning; [...]
Read More »Have unusual hardware? Make reinstalls easier by saving your drivers with Double Driver
Have unusual hardware? Do you spend hours hunting down drivers for your computer every time you do a reinstall? Go right to enjoying your new installation with Double Driver, a free piece of software that lets you back up, restore, and even print out a list of your drivers.[...]
Why
Read More »WARNING: CNET Download.com downloads now come bundled with opt-out crapware and toolbars
One of the worst parts of bundled software is that the vast majority of people don’t actually read installers as they go by, they simply click NEXT NEXT NEXT NEXT. This means downloader’s computers get filled to the brim with stuff they don’t want and stuff they’ll never use. Luckily, [...]
Virtual Machines, Part Two: Snapshots, guest additions, and shared folders
Now that you’ve gotten either Windows or Ubuntu – or both – installed in VirtualBox it’s time to go further. This article – the second in the series on virtual machines – will teach you how to restoring virtual machines, integrate your mouse (and other guest additions), and even how [...]
Read More »Don’t be part of the crowd – make custom mobile phone ringtones with Audacity
Does your phone still sound like this? Make your phone more interesting, more yours with a customized ringtone. Making a ringtone with Audacity is surprisingly easy and allows for a lot of control.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
Setting up Audacity for ringtone making
To start making your own ringtones, install Audacity. [...]
Read More »gImageReader: Open source, Google-powered OCR (optical character recognition) program that actually works
Optical character recognition is one of a few types of technology meant to make our lives easier. The only problem is, to take advantage of this convenience, one typically has to shell out a lot of cash: Good OCR programs are bloody expensive. Luckily, Google is in the business of [...]
Free Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate!
Software Description
Says Wondershare about their ultimate video converter Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate:
Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate is an all-in-one DVD & Video converter tool and DVD burner for assisting you to convert videos/audios among formats like AVI, WMV, MP4, MKV, FLV, 3GP, MPG etc. even convert video to 3D
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Hating the new Google bar? Make it look better with a quick script.
Updated 6/29 with a better script.
As part of Google’s newest, most social redesign yet, the search engine giant has decided to go for a whole new color scheme, one of whites, reds, greys and blacks, as apposed to their old scheme of light blues and whites.
This new black [...]
Read More »Free Able2Doc v.6.0, PDF to Word converter!
Software Description
PDF to Word conversions are tough to get accurate. Investintech has taken their own shot at the game and come up with Able2Doc, which they describe as this:
Able2Doc 6.0 performs fast and accurate conversions to MS Word and Open Office Writer with columns, tables, headers, footers, graphics
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Free BDlot DVD Clone Ultimate [Like WinX DVD Copy Pro]!
Software Description
Did you just drop that DVD?! You’ll never be able to see that movie ever again! And it was a good movie, Pirates of the Carribean, not Pirates of the Carribean 4 or whatever it’s called. Luckily, if you backed it up with BDlot DVD Clone [...]
Read More »Free Wise Disk Cleaner Professional!
Software Description
How big is your hard drive? 500GB? 250GB? 120GB? No matter how big or small it is, it always seems like you’re about to fill it. Wise Disk Cleaner Pro can help, however:
Wise Disk Cleaner Professional is a user friendly, fast and easy to use application developed
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Free MacX DVD Ripper Pro for Windows & Mac! [six days left!]
Software Description
It’s something everybody does, and it’s something everybody gets annoyed by: lost or broken DVDs. However, there are pieces of software written to back up DVDs so this doesn’t matter, such as Digiarty’s MacX DVD Ripper Pro:
MacX DVD Ripper Pro for Windows is fastest DVD ripper to
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