Windows task-switcher (Alt+Tab or Win+Tab) sucks. It’s as simple as that. The much hyped Flip-3D (first introduced in Windows Vista) may look cool but is practically worthless. It definitely doesn’t make switching do another window any easier. I don’t know anyone who actually finds Flip-3D productive. The task-switcher found in Mac Operating Systems – called Expose, is a much better option. It displays all open windows as thumbnails on the screen. I had written about a free application (XNeat Windows Manager) to get Expose like task-switcher in Windows. However, recently I came across a better alternative called Switcher.
Switcher features 3 main modes – Tile – This mode is similar to Expose and shrinks the windows until you can see all the Windows. Grid – This is my favourite mode. Its similar to Tile and shrinks the windows to make them fit inside the screen. However instead of scattering them all over the place arranges them in a neat grid. In fact even Apple decided to implement a similar feature in its upcoming operating system Snow Leopard. Dock – In this mode the maximum screenspace is dedicated to the active window and the other windows are displayed as think strips that occupy the top edge of the screen. Continue reading “Switcher Brings Expose To Windows”
Making a game is an expensive affair, often costing millions of dollars. Half Life 2 cost Valve in excess of $40 million. Considering the amount of effort and money it takes to create a game, it’s not surprising that high quality free games are few and far in between. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t exceptions. I present to you ten truly awesome free games. Some of them were initially released as commercial ventures and were later re-released as free downloads. But many of the games are freeware in the true sense of the term. Some of these games are in fact so good that you would have a hard time believing that they are free. Here are my top ten free games:
1. & 2. America’s Army 3 and Area-51 (Action)
Choosing the best game for this category was fairly easy. Released earlier this month America’s Army features high quality visuals delivered by the Unreal 3 engine. The games release itself was plagued with problems and mired in controversy. The huge demand clogged up Steam’s servers and many people weren’t able to download it on the day of release. On top of that the game servers also had issues coping up with the demand and often took as long as a day to update your status. A patch has been issued to bypass these initial problems. Ignoring these initial hiccups, America’s Army is a fantastic shooter for its price. It is developed by the US Army and features realistic team based gameplay. Be careful while shooting because, as in real life friendly fires are scorned upon and result in serious penalty. Like the previous instalments AA3 is mainly an online game and online multiplayer is where all the fun is. Head over to the official website to enroll yourself and download the game.
Although Windows has included visual styles (also known as MSStyles) since Windows XP, they only support official themes digitally signed by Microsoft – which are few and far in between. Bypassing this built in limitation and enabling support for third-party themes in Windows XP was easy. It only involved patching a single dll file (uxtheme.dll). However, things got much more complicated in Windows Vista and Windows Seven. What was initially just a matter of modifying a few bytes of code in a single file now became a matter of patching multiple files spread across the system. This often created security and stability issue and degraded system performance. This prompted Rafael Rivera – the Windows Guru and the guy behind the original UxTheme patches to envision a solution that won’t involve patching multiple system files. The result of the labour of Rafael and his friend Max is UxStyle.
At the moment, UxStyleis still in its infancy. In its current form it is just a driver that employs kernel level access to enable support for third-party themes in Windows XP, Vista and Seven. It doesn’t include any theme manager or theme installer. You would still have to use the interface provided by Microsoft for applying your themes and visual styles. However, in upcoming beta releases Rafael does plan to provide a fully functional UI for applying themes. The GUI version is expected to be provided under UxStyle Premium package. It won’t be free and would also feature live/automatic updates. The UxStyle Core (containing necessary code for enabling third-party themes) will however be provided for free. Continue reading “UxStyle Makes Skinning Windows Easy And Painless”
While there are hundreds of applications that are capable of displaying lyrics very few support synchronised lyrics and karaoke mode. MiniLyrics belongs to this rare category of lyrics plugins. It supports an insane number of applications (21 in all) including Windows Media Player, Winamp, Foobar, The KMPlayer, VLC Player, Songbird, iTunes and RealPlayer. And since it works through its own unique interface rather than integrating itself with the application interface it works very well irrespective of the player you are using.
That brings us to the lyrics display part. The default MiniLyrics skin displays scrolling lyrics with the current song line highlighted. Album art as well as basic playback controls are also integrated into the MiniLyrics interface thus ensuring that you won’t really need to use the player once you start playing the songs. If you find this too bloated you can switch to the single line mini-mode or use any of the 9 skins that the software comes with. However, I prefer to use the alternate interface that MiniLyrics provides – floating lyrics.It is the best thing about MiniLyrics. The Floating Lyrics window displays scrolling lyrics in a selected portion of the screen. This region is transparent in appearance as well in behaviour. You can actually click through this region and access any object beneath it. Thus ensures that no region of your screen is blocked and allows you to work without having to deal with the Lyrics window interfering. Continue reading “Download Fully Synchronised Song Lyrics with MiniLyrics”
Imagine this scenario: You are wasting time browsing YouTube or chatting over Yahoo Messenger where as you should be working on your spreadsheet. Suddenly you see your boss approaching ; leaving you short of time to close all the open instant messenger and browser windows.
Whether you are in school or in home or in office – we have all been there. At some point or the other we have used our computers for tasks were are not supposed to do. And invariably we have been in situations where the boss/guardian/supervisor turns up all of a sudden.
Chameleon is a software tailor made for situations like this. Chameleon allows you to instantly hide any open window. With the press of a button (rather two buttons: Ctrl+Win) it can hide of the undesirable Windows from the screen. You can bring back hidden windows later using the same hotkey. Chameleon allows grouping several windows into a Hide Group. All windows in this group are hidden when required. Additionally Chameleon also allows you to alter the transparency level of multiple windows. You are free to set any desired transparency level that will be applied to all windows in this group. Continue reading “Hide Any Window With Chameleon”
A lot of Opera users would be familiar with the concept of mouse gestures. It’s one of the many awesome features available in Opera. Simply told mouse gestures allow you to perform specific predefined tasks by simple movements of the mouse. For e.g. if you right click on a link and drag is slightly downwards it will be opened in a new tab in opera. Or if you right click anywhere in the page and drag your mouse left Opera will open the previous page (same as back button). I hope you get the idea. Mouse gestures work wonderfully well during browsing and people who have got used to it just can’t go back to a life without mouse gestures. This can be guessed from the popularity of Mouse Gesture extensions like Mouse Gestures Redox for Firefox.
With StrokeIt you can now use Mouse Gestures across your system. Stroke it fully supports Windows Explorer and Windows Desktop along with a host of other applications like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, Safari, Winamp, Windows Media Player, Photoshop etc. StrokeIt has an extensive list of built in gestures that should help you get started. You can view the full list over here. But don’t let yourself be limited to only the built-in set of mouse gestures. You can easily create your own gestures to carry out a task.
Don’t forget to read my review of other databackup softwares including Carbonite and Mozy
Sometime back I had reviewed Carbonite – Data Backup Software. This time I will look at another popular option for databackups : Syncplicity. As you can guess from the name Syncplicity’s main aim is to make databackup as simple as possible. Syncplicity has comes in two flavours. The free edition supports two computers and allows you to store upto 2 GB of data. The pro edition which costs $9 per month supports unlimited computers, allows you to store 2 GB of data. This is technically less than Carobonite (which offers you unlimited space), but should be more than enough for almost everyone. Free users can add upto 3GB and premium users can add upto 6 GB of storage space by inviting their friends.
Synplicity’s client is available for Windows and Mac. Unfortunately no Linux version is available. After installation the client will offer to automatically synchronize your Documents. You can manually add any folder you want to be backed up by adding them to the list either from the client or from the right click context menu. Surprisingly enough I couldn’t find a way to directly backup selected files. The only way to selectively backup a file seems to add the folder to the list and manually exclude all other files from being backed up. Like Carbonite Data Backup Syncplicity makes use of little icons to inform you about the synchronisation status of the file.
The secret new free antivirus software from Microsoft, that a lot of people have been waiting for has been leaked. Until now it was known only by its codename Morro. However, it seems that Microsoft has settled on Microsoft Security Essentials as the final name of the product.
Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is currently in private beta and not ready for consumption. However, being the inquisitive kind, I decided to have a look. Morro or MSE is a really tiny package and the setup occupies just 4.7 MB. This is significantly less than most other products in its category. Immediately after installation MSE prompted me to update the antivirus database. In fact it refused to work before updating! This is because MSE comes without an database. The first update was a whopping 31.2 MB download. Besides the update option MSE also comes with a separate Upgrade option, that is indented to install the latest version of the client. Continue reading “Microsoft’s Free Antivirus Software Leaked – It’s Called Microsoft Security Essentials”
It’s here. After almost a week of suspense, Opera has finally unveiled their secret new product. And yes, its big. Opera has lived upto the sky high expectations by introducing something radical and revolutionary. As many had predicted, it is related to Cloud Computing. Its called Opera Unite. Opera Unite tears down the distinction between a client and a sever and cloud computing to the next stage. Now even your browser is capable of serving data.
Even though Opera Unite revolutionary, it is based on the same open Web standards as Web sites today. This will make authoring new services a lot easier. Not only that the Opera Unite API Library is Open Source. Interested developers can find all the info they need to get started over here.
To kick things off Opera has released a catalog demonstrating some of the applications of Opera Unite. Here’s what you can currently do with Opera Unite :
Media Player : Access your complete home music library from whereever you are. Web Server : Host your Web sites running from your own computer. File Sharing : Instantly share file with your friends. Generate unique URLs for remotely accessing files and folders on your computer. The Lounge : Set up a chat server, aka The Lounge, on your computer, without any need for third-party Web sites or desktop applications. Fridge : A fun place for people to leave notes on your computer. Photo Sharing : Share your personal photos with friends around the world without the need to upload them. Instantly create attractive galleries accessible through the web using Opera Unite. Continue reading “Opera Reinvents the Web – Shakes Up The Old Client-Server Computing Model With Opera Unite”
Blank DVDs are dirt cheap these days and most of us think little before picking them up. But choosing the right media can be important in the long term. Low quality discs get damaged very quickly and loose their readability in less than a year.
Unfortunately for us there isn’t any easy way to judge a blank DVDs quality. Fortunately for us The Digits FAQ has done all the hard work for us. The DF Blank DVD Media Quality Guide contains an extensive list of blank DVD manufacturers around the world, grouped in 3 categories based on quality. Class 1 Media consists of discs that provide almost flawless burns with 95-100% reliable results. Class 2 Media consists of mixed quality media. 75-90% of discs in this category tend to be good. Class 3 media consist of low quality DVD manufacturers. The quality of these discs can be very questionable. Verbatim and MoserBaer which are easily available in India come in Class 1 and Class 2 respectively.
Check out the full list and don’t forget to tell us what you think. Is your favourite brand in the list? Do you agree with their findings?
Tile – This mode is similar to Expose and shrinks the windows until you can see all the Windows.
The secret new free antivirus software from Microsoft, that a lot of people have been waiting for has been leaked. Until now it was known only by its codename Morro. However, it seems that Microsoft has settled on Microsoft Security Essentials as the final name of the product. 
Blank DVDs are dirt cheap these days and most of us think little before picking them up. But choosing the right media can be important in the long term. Low quality discs get damaged very quickly and loose their readability in less than a year.
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