Bobby's Tech

WiFi data collection: An update

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:51:00 +0000

Post by Google about StreetView Cars retrieving unprotected wifi info.

WiFi data collection: An update: "Nine days ago the data protection authority (DPA) in Hamburg, Germany asked to audit the WiFi data that our Street View cars collect for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile, which enables people to find local restaurants or get directions. His request prompted us to re-examine everything we have been collecting, and during our review we discovered that a statement made in a blog post on April 27 was incorrect.

In that blog post, and in a technical note sent to data protection authorities the same day, we said that while Google did collect publicly broadcast SSID information (the WiFi network name) and MAC addresses (the unique number given to a device like a WiFi router) using Street View cars, we did not collect payload data (information sent over the network). But it’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks, even though we never used that data in any Google products.

However, we will typically have collected only fragments of payload data because: our cars are on the move; someone would need to be using the network as a car passed by; and our in-car WiFi equipment automatically changes channels roughly five times a second. In addition, we did not collect information traveling over secure, password-protected WiFi networks.

So how did this happen? Quite simply, it was a mistake. In 2006 an engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software—although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.

As soon as we became aware of this problem, we grounded our Street View cars and segregated the data on our network, which we then disconnected to make it inaccessible. We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and are currently reaching out to regulators in the relevant countries about how to quickly dispose of it.

Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short. So we will be:

Asking a third party to review the software at issue, how it worked and what data it gathered, as well as to confirm that we deleted the data appropriately; and

Internally reviewing our procedures to ensure that our controls are sufficiently robust to address these kinds of problems in the future.

In addition, given the concerns raised, we have decided that it’s best to stop our Street View cars collecting WiFi network data entirely.

This incident highlights just how publicly accessible open, non-password-protected WiFi networks are today. Earlier this year, we encrypted Gmail for all our users, and next week we will start offering an encrypted version of Google Search. For other services users can check that pages are encrypted by looking to see whether the URL begins with “https”, rather than just “http”; browsers will generally show a lock icon when the connection is secure. For more information about how to password-protect your network, read this.

The engineering team at Google works hard to earn your trust—and we are acutely aware that we failed badly here. We are profoundly sorry for this error and are determined to learn all the lessons we can from our mistake.

Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior VP, Engineering & Research

Cell Phone Plans Price Comparisons

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:53:00 +0000

Source: http://www.billshrink.com/blog/cell-phone-plans-comparison/

Find the best cell phone plans and more graphics at BillShrink.com

Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About: "

We have become so addicted to the mouse that we do not realize how much it disrupts our work as we keep reaching out for it. And just how annoying does it become when your mouse is unresponsive, gets stuck or you trip it over as you try to quickly get a hold of it.

The keyboard on the other hand is far more powerful than we realize. And don’t we have our hands all over it anyways? There are a few cool keyboard tricks that can help you save time and make you more productive.

Here is a short list for the most handy Windows XP and Firefox shortcuts. Some of these may also work in other applications.

Windows XP

1. [SHIFT] + [alt] + [PrntScrn] – high contrast

A window will open, click OK or simply hit [Enter]. This will enlarge the font on all open Windows and change colors to high contrast. For example the desktop will turn black, what was black text on white background will be reversed. Clicking the same key combination again reverts the changes.

2. [Ctrl] + [alt] + [up/down/left/right arrow] – rotate screen

This won’t work on every machine as it depends on your graphics card and video drivers. However, if it does work, it will rotate your desktop.

3. [Ctrl] + select items from taskbar, right-click selected – mass control open windows

You need to hold the [Ctrl] key while selecting open windows from the taskbar. To open the menu seen on the left, right-click any of the selected items.

With this trick you can simultaneously close a group of applications at once or show them side by side or stacked or in a cascade.

This can save a ton of time wasted on rearranging windows.

4. [Alt] + [Tab] – switch between running programs

A little window will launch showing all open programs. Click the [Tab] key to jump to the next application, release keys to open the selected one.

5. [SHIFT] + [Del] – bypass Recycle Bin

Selecting a file and pressing the combination above will invoke a delete confirmation dialog. Clicking ‘Yes’ will delete the file without sending it to the Recycle Bin.

6. [Windows] + [D] – show desktop or restore open windows

This is the keyboard shortcut to the respective quick launch taskbar icon.

7. [Windows] + [L] – lock system

An easy way to quickly protect and lock your system. When you log back in, all programs will still be running and windows will appear just the way you left them.

8. [Ctrl] + [Z] and [Ctrl] + [Y] – undo and redo

I’m sure you all know that you can undo changes using the [Ctrl] + [Z] shortcut. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have this feature outside the computer? Anyways, you can undo an undo, i.e. redo what you did using the [Ctrl] + [Y] key combination.

9. [Windows] + [R], type cmd, hold [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] and hit Enter – run command prompt as Administrator

The command prompt will now be run as Administrator.

10. Create your own keyboard trick!

Are there folders or applications you need a lot? Why not create your own keyboard shortcut to quickly access these tools?

This will only work for shortcuts located on your desktop!

First you need to create an actual desktop shortcut. Right-click on the application and select > Create Shortcut from the context menu. Make sure the shortcut sits on your desktop. Now right-click the shortcut and select > Properties. You should see a line that says “Shortcut Key: <none>”. Click that line and then click a letter ony our keyboard, for example P. A shortcut will be created, in this example [Ctrl] + [alt] + [P]. And there you go, now you have your own personal shortcut key.

Firefox

1. [Ctrl] + [1] to [9] – jump to tab numbers 1 to 8 or last tab (9)

Rather than scrolling through all your open tabs, you can quickly navigate to a specific tab if you know its position. For example, clicking [Ctrl] + [4] will open to tab number 4 (from the left). With [Ctrl] + [9] you will jump to the very last tab, no matter how many you have open.

2. [Ctrl] + [Tab] or [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [Tab] – move up/right or down/left in tabs

Neat shortcut to move between tabs.

3. [/] or ['] – Find As You Type Text or Link

Firefox has a neat search feature, which is Find As You Type. When you click the [/] key before starting to type your search, Firefox will only search in text. Likewise, clicking the ['] key will only find links.

4. [Ctrl] + mouse wheel – change font size

With the new generation high resolution screens we often find that text on websites is way too small to read properly. Here is a little trick that can quickly increase the font size for better reading.

While you hold down the control key, move your mousewheel to increase or decrease the font size in Firefox. This will also work in other programs, for example Word.

This is also very useful for making a website fit your window size, rather than to adapt the browser window.

5. [Ctrl] + [F4] – close tab

A quick, mouseless way to close a tab.

6. [alt] + [F4] – close window

This will rapidly shut down Firefox.

7. [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [T] – open closed tab/s

Did you accidentally close that tab? Re-open it using this key combination.

8. [Spacebar] or [SHIFT] + [Spacebar] – scroll PageDown or PageUp

Give your mouse wheel a break and use the spacebar to move up and down a website.

9. [F7] – caret browsing

Caret browsing allows you to select and copy text from web pages using the keyboard.

10. [F11] – toggle full screen

Quickly change into full screen mode.

Find out about more shortcuts for Firefox, Windows and more Windows. Also find out your favourite Firefox shortcut in our Poll.

Which ones are your favorites that didn’t make it to the list above?

Image credits: thesaint

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more.

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Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:42:00 +0000

Some Cool Keyboard Tricks That Few People Know About: "

Here is a short list for the most handy Windows XP and Firefox shortcuts. Some of these may also work in other applications.

Windows XP

1. [SHIFT] + [alt] + [PrntScrn] – high contrast

2. [Ctrl] + [alt] + [up/down/left/right arrow] – rotate screen

This won’t work on every machine as it depends on your graphics card and video drivers. However, if it does work, it will rotate your desktop.

3. [Ctrl] + select items from taskbar, right-click selected – mass control open windows

You need to hold the [Ctrl] key while selecting open windows from the taskbar. To open the menu seen on the left, right-click any of the selected items.

With this trick you can simultaneously close a group of applications at once or show them side by side or stacked or in a cascade.

This can save a ton of time wasted on rearranging windows.

4. [Alt] + [Tab] – switch between running programs

A little window will launch showing all open programs. Click the [Tab] key to jump to the next application, release keys to open the selected one.

5. [SHIFT] + [Del] – bypass Recycle Bin

Selecting a file and pressing the combination above will invoke a delete confirmation dialog. Clicking ‘Yes’ will delete the file without sending it to the Recycle Bin.

6. [Windows] + [D] – show desktop or restore open windows

This is the keyboard shortcut to the respective quick launch taskbar icon.

7. [Windows] + [L] – lock system

An easy way to quickly protect and lock your system. When you log back in, all programs will still be running and windows will appear just the way you left them.

8. [Ctrl] + [Z] and [Ctrl] + [Y] – undo and redo

9. [Windows] + [R], type cmd, hold [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] and hit Enter – run command prompt as Administrator

The command prompt will now be run as Administrator.

10. Create your own keyboard trick!

Are there folders or applications you need a lot? Why not create your own keyboard shortcut to quickly access these tools?

This will only work for shortcuts located on your desktop!

Firefox

1. [Ctrl] + [1] to [9] – jump to tab numbers 1 to 8 or last tab (9)

2. [Ctrl] + [Tab] or [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [Tab] – move up/right or down/left in tabs

Neat shortcut to move between tabs.

3. [/] or ['] – Find As You Type Text or Link

4. [Ctrl] + mouse wheel – change font size

While you hold down the control key, move your mousewheel to increase or decrease the font size in Firefox. This will also work in other programs, for example Word.

This is also very useful for making a website fit your window size, rather than to adapt the browser window.

5. [Ctrl] + [F4] – close tab

A quick, mouseless way to close a tab.

6. [alt] + [F4] – close window

This will rapidly shut down Firefox.

7. [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [T] – open closed tab/s

Did you accidentally close that tab? Re-open it using this key combination.

8. [Spacebar] or [SHIFT] + [Spacebar] – scroll PageDown or PageUp

Give your mouse wheel a break and use the spacebar to move up and down a website.

9. [F7] – caret browsing

Caret browsing allows you to select and copy text from web pages using the keyboard.

10. [F11] – toggle full screen

Quickly change into full screen mode.

Find out about more shortcuts for Firefox, Windows and more Windows. Also find out your favourite Firefox shortcut in our Poll.

Which ones are your favorites that didn’t make it to the list above?

Image credits: thesaint

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Become a MakeUseOf fan on Facebook? – Our photos, MakeUseOf specials and more.

Related posts

It Takes only 7 SHORTCUTS to Become a Lightning Fast User (52)

Firefox Quick Tip : Using Keyboard to Navigate Between Pages (6)

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Abandon Your Mouse & Click On Links With Your Keyboard (14)

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Backup Your Photos Online & Preserve Memories Forever

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:52:00 +0000

Backup Your Photos Online & Preserve Memories Forever: "

What’s the first thing that you do when you are back from a vacation or from a family wedding? You probably connect the digital camera to your computer and transfer the photographs (a better word would be "memories") from the camera to your hard-drive.

You’ve following this routine for quite some time and, as a result, a few hundred thousand photographs reside on your computer now neatly tagged and arranged in folders. But wait, do you have a backup plan for these "priceless" digital photos?

How to Backup your Digital Photos

There are basically four ways by which you can backup your photos at home:

1. Backup your photos on CDs and DVDs – This is a cheap and easy option but please remember that disks have a finite shelf life so pictures that you burn today on to a DVD disk may not be accessible after few years.

2. Use an external hard drive – You can get a portable 500 GB drive for less than $100, they connect to your computer via USB (or Firewire) ports but again, you can’t expect an external hard drive to last forever.

3. Use Network Storage – If you have pictures across multiple computers, you can use a network attached storage (NAS) device like HP’s MediaSmart Home Server* or Apple’s Time Capsule to automatically backup all your digital content in one place.

[*] The HP device can transfer files to Amazon S3 so you have an added layer of protection.

4. Use an online backup services – You can use photo-sharing websites (like Flickr) or an online backup service (like Mozy) to put your photos on to the "cloud" and access them from any other computer.

For most users, the best option for preserving digital photographs is often "online backup" because it doesn’t require you to burn DVDs (which are unreliable anyway), you don’t have to invest in any new hardware and your photos are likely to last forever as long as you pay the yearly bills.

Online Backup for your Digital Photos

There are again four different routes for online backup:

#1. Online backup services like Mozy that offer unlimited storage and allow not just photographs but files of all types.

#2. Photo-sharing services like Flickr or Picasa Web Albums that allow you to store both photographs and video clips online.

#3. File-synchronization services like Dropbox, SugarSync or Windows Live Mesh.

#4. Online storage services like Amazon S3 or Windows Live SkyDrive.

Also see this comparison of Windows Live Mesh with SkyDrive.

What should you use?

Well, photo-sharing sites allow you to visually browse pictures in the web browser itself while a backup service like Mozy will first require you to download the photos on to the computer before you can show them to your visiting grand-parents.

File-synchronization services like Live Mesh not only provide online backup but they also save a copy of your digital files (pictures in this case) on to your other computers so even if your main hard-drive suffers a crash, you can quickly retrieve files from the other computers.

The Cost of Online Storage for Digital Photos

If you only have a few hundred photos on your computer that occupy anywhere between 1-2 GB of storage space, you can enjoy any of above backup services for free but if your storage requirements are slightly more, you probably need to for a paid version.

Now here’s a visual graph that compares the storage cost of various online backup services where you can safely store your priceless photos.

Flickr Pro costs around $25 an year and you can store unlimited number of pictures here though the maximum size of individual pictures should not exceed 20 MB (~~bad for professional photographs who shoot in RAW~~ – see comments).

Picasa Web Albums on the other hand lets you purchase storage on-demand so you only pay $5 per year for 20 GB of online storage but end-up paying $100 for 400 GB of storage. Like Flickr, images uploaded to Picasa Web Albums can be no larger than 20MB and are restricted to 50 megapixels or less.

Live Skydrive is the best online storage service – it offers 25 GB of free space (50 MB limit for individual files) and that should be enough for most home users. You can upload picture libraries from your desktop to Windows Live SkyDrive using the free Windows Live Photo Gallery client though it’s only available for Windows.

Online backup services like Mozy cost around $60 per year respectively but here you get unlimited storage, your files are automatically backed up (in the background) and there are no restrictions on file-size.

SmugMug, another popular photo-sharing site, offers a service called SmugVault that uses Amazon S3 to backup your photos, videos and all other file-types that you can imagine. They have a relaxed 600 MB per file limit and you pay the normal Amazon S3 rent for files that are not photos.

Amazon S3, where you pay only for what you use, is very reliable (their SLA promises 99.9% uptime) turns out to be very expensive if your yearly storage requirement exceeds 10 GB.

Here’s another representation of the same graph – Yearly costs (in $) vs. storage offered (in GB).

Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25 GB of online storage space for your pictures for free though there’s no option to purchase extra storage. In paid services, Google’s Picasa offers the best value for money if your photo collection can fit in 20 GB else a Flickr Pro account probably makes more sense.

Picasa desktop software makes it easy for you to upload and download photos from Picasa Web Albums. Flickr provides an uploading utility but you need to rely on a third-party hacks to download the original (full-resolution) albums from Flickr.

Backup Your Photos Online & Preserve Memories Forever

Originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal.

Roundup: 15 Free Must-Install Programs for Your New PC

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Roundup: 15 Free Must-Install Programs for Your New PC: "

Over the last three years, the writers here at MakeUseOf have profiled thousands of software apps on the website. With all these thousands being presented to you, it’s hard to decide which apps to use and which ones to discard. To make it easier for you, we have managed to compile a list of the top 15 absolute must-have tools for everyday tasks.

These are the essential programs that we recommend you install and keep on your arsenal.

1. Firefox / Chrome (Web Browser)

Both Firefox and Google Chrome are excellent browsers. They are both fast, user-friendly and known to be secure. So, which one do you choose? The rule of thumb here is that you should use Firefox if you’re looking to add additional features (i.e. ad blocker, password manager, video downloader, page translator etc.) to your browser.

You can see all add-ons for Firefox at https://addons.mozilla.org/. There are extensions for Google Chrome as well, but the choice is rather limited. See, 10 Cool Extensions for Google Chrome.

2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software)

AVG Free Anti-Virus is the most popular free anti-virus software in the world. It’s also the most downloaded software program according to Download.com.

Most of the MakeUseOf authors use AVG and we highly recommend it to others. It’s easy to use, consumes a relatively small amount of system resources and auto-updates itself with virus definitions on a daily basis. Install it once and it will keep your system secure without your intervention.

For those of you who frequently shop online and do regular online banking, AVG recommends AVG Internet Security. While it’s not free, it does offer complete Internet Protection that will keep you safe even from advanced online threats.

Download AVG Free: http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage

Download AVG Internet Security (Free Trial): www.avg.com/gb-en/download

(Platform: Windows only)

3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmenter)

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a must-have free PC maintenance tool that was designed to cure system sluggishness and prevent crashes caused by disk fragmentation. Windows already comes with its own disk-defragmenter but Auslogics Disk Defrag is considerably faster and much more efficient.

It’s extremely simple to use, does not require any analysis phase and is faster than most of the other disk defragmentation software.

While there are several other free disk defragmenters, Auslogics seems to be the defragmenter of choice according to the poll results on MakeUseOf, Lifehacker and mega tech sites like CNET.

Download: www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/overview

(Platform: Windows only)

4. Advanced SystemCare Free (System Maintenance)

Advanced SystemCare (ACS) Free provides a simple way for non-techie users to perform routine maintenance and apply system optimization tweaks. It’s an all-in-one system utility protecting, cleaning, repairing, and speeding up your PC.

Currently ACS is the most downloaded system utility according to download.com. The tool is very simple to use and comes with a "one-click fix" button that can automatically run all optimizations and repair tools with a click of a button.

There are a few things you should keep in mind before using system maintenance tools like ACS. While the program is VERY useful it needs some care on your behalf. Make sure to go through all the settings in the program and set it to create Windows restore points every time you run ACS. This will make sure that you can always revert your PC to an earlier state in case something goes wrong unexpectedly.

The Advanced SystemCare Free integrates more diagnostic and repair utilities than any other alternative (i.e. CCleaner). But there is also a PRO version that comes with even more features including deeper registry scan, more comprehensive speedup tools, and scheduling capability. Highly recommended.

Note: The installation includes a security toolbar for your browser, make sure to uncheck it.

Download: http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

(Platform: Windows only)

5. Security 360 (Spyware Removal)

This new security software comes from the same company as the above mentioned AdvancedSystem Care. Its purpose is to keep your computer safe from spyware, hijackers, keyloggers and other kind of milicious craplets.

While the IObit Security 360 is a relatively new entrant, it already ranks in the top 10 security downloads on Download.com, outnumbering the extremely popular Spyware Search and Destroy.

Now, what you should know is that there are dozens of free spyware removal tools out there, but only a small number of those are known to be good and recommended in tech circles. These are Spyware Search & Destroy, Lavasoft and MalwareBytes.

However, when you look at the free version of the above mentioned alternative products, you will see that none of them comes with a real-time computer monitoring. That it to say, these tools can remove spyware after it has been installed on your system, not prevent it from installing itself. The IObit’s Security 360 on the other hand includes a two level real-time protection that prevents spyware from installing itself in the first place.

When it comes to spyware detection the Security 360 scores pretty good as well. It also claims to have the fastest scan. They even hold a $25.000 contest inviting amateurs and security experts to test Security 360 against ANY FREE or LIMITED USE anti-malware program.

The IObit Security 360 comes both in a free and a PRO version (not free). The free version has everything you will find in the PRO version apart from automatic definition updates and automatic system scan. Those aren’t really essential unless you don’t mind running them manually once in a while.

Note: The installation includes a a security toolbar for your browser, make sure to uncheck it.

Download: http://www.iobit.com/security360.html?Str=download

(Platform: Windows only)

6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)

One archive utility to rule them all. You no longer need a separate program for ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7-ZIP, TAR files and so on, IZArc can handle ALL of them.

Basically this unpacker/archiver gives you everything you get with other popular archivers (ex. Winzip, Winrar etc.) but with additional features and support for a huge number of archive formats. It can decompress archived folders in over 40 formats. It supports pretty much every format you’re likely to come across.

There is something else, you can also use the IZArc utility to open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG. Do you know of any other free archiver that can do that?

Note: When installing IZArc make sure to uncheck the "recommended" option to install PalTalk.

Download: http://www.izarc.org/download.html

(Platform: Windows only)

7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management)

Picasa automatically finds all the photos on your PC, wherever they are, and organizes them in seconds. It’s an excellent photo manager, editor and viewer for your computer.

With Picasa not only you can nicely organize your photos but also fix common problems (i.e. red eyes), add cool effects and even browse photos by people in them. Yes, it includes face recognition!

Plus one really cool thing about it is that regardless of changes you make to your photos on Picasa the original version of each photo always preserved.

Features include:

- create video slideshows and photo collages from your photos.

- organize photos based on the people in them.

- browse photos by folders, albums, people.

- geotag your photos on Google Maps.

- one-click fixes for common problems like red-eye, color, and lighting.

- 12 cool effects to make your best photos look even better.

You can find out more about Picasa by watching this Youtube video. The Google team compiled a getting started guide for Picasa. Highly recommended for new users.

Download: http://picasa.google.com/

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

8. doPDF (PDF Printer)

Almost everyone once in a while needs to convert documents to PDF. The doPDF is the easiest tool that does exactly that. It installs a virtual printer on your computer that you can select using the print option from any program on Windows.

Whenever you need to convert a web page, Word document, Excel spreadsheet, photo or pretty much anything else to a PDF file just go to the print option in your program and select doPDF from the ‘Printer’ drop-down menu.

You can set the resolution to anything from 72 dpi to 2400 dpi, and the "printed" files are text searchable.

Download: http://download.cnet.com/doPDF-Free-PDF-Converter/3000-18497_4-10648880.html

(Platform: Windows only)

9. Memento (Post-It Notes)

Chances are you have never heard about this program before. Memento is a simple bare-bones post-it notes program for your desktop. It’s better than anything else out there because it’s extremely simple and yet a very effective tool.

Whether you want a program to keep track of your tasks or quick note taking, Memento can help. It’s very intuitive to use and consumes very few system resources. Highly recommended!

It’s an excellent program – and I’ve compared many other free ones! I have been using this for the last 5 years and recommend it to everyone. The very first MakeUseOf article was about this app .

It’s also easily transferrable from one PC to another, it saves all your notes in Memento.notes file that is stored in the My Documents folder.

Features:

- double click memento icon on the taskbar to create a note

- show/hide notes on the desktop

- keep notes expanded or closed

- notes always remain on top of other windows

- position notes anywhere you like

- instant autosave

- notes are resizable

- randomly makes each note a new color

- make notes transparent

Download: http://www.guyswithtowels.com/downloads.html

(Platform: Windows only)

10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader)

Almost everyone is on Youtube these days. And the fact that Youtube has more searches than Yahoo is good indication of this. The only issue with Youtube is that there is no option to download videos so that you can watch them on your computer, PSP, iPhone, mobile phone, iPod etc.

Fortunately there are lots of free software for that, and my favorite is xVideoServiceThief. Apart from downloading videos, it can automatically convert the downloaded video file to another format.

xVideoServiceThief can convert videos to several formats, including AVI, MOV, MPEG, DIVX, MP4 and several others.

Moreover, xVideoServiceThief works with other sites as well, not only Youtube. It can also download videos from Yahoo Video, Google Videos, Metacafe, Dailymotion, CollegeHumor etc.

Download: http://xviservicethief.sourceforge.net/index.php?action=downloads

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

11. Mozy (Backup)

Backups are very important! Here on MakeUseOf we have published dozens of articles explaining why you should always keep a fresh backup of important data. And Mozy is the perfect program for that. It’s an online backup and recovery service that allows you to select files and folders on your computer and safely back them up online.

It’s fully automated, just set it once and it will do the backups without bothering you again. What’s even better, whenever you make changes to individual documents or files within selected folders, your changes will be replicated on your backup copy as well. So your backup always stays up-to-date.

In the case of file corruption, accidental deletion or hardware failure, you may easily restore your backed up files from the web to the original computer or any another computer, be it a Windows or Mac.

Mozy offers both free and premium accounts (only $4.95/month). The only difference between those two is that free account comes only with 2GBs of storage space. It should be more than enough for backing up important files and documents. On the other hand, if you want to backup your music library, photos, videos or maybe an entire drive then we recommend signing up for a premium account.

(Note: Discount for MakeUseOf users. When signing up for premium account use ‘ MAKEUSEOF’ (all caps) promo code to get 10% off.)

Download Mozy (Free): https://mozy.com/registration/free/

Download Mozy (Unlimited): https://mozy.com/registration/unlimited/

(Platform: Windows / Mac)

12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)

If you chat on a regular basis and are active on social networks then this is a must-have program for you. There is so much this app does that it’s hard to explain it all in a few lines. Firstly, it’s a universal instant messenger that allows you to chat with your friends on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Myspace, ICQ and Jabber, all from a single messenger.

Secondly, it allows you to read and reply to your emails. That’s right folks, whether you have a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account you can receive and reply to emails all from Digsby’s slick interface. Currently Disgby works with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, POP Email, IMAP Mail accounts.

And that’s not all, you may also monitor alerts and set status message notifications for Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIN accounts. Pretty cool, huh!

Other less important but still noteworthy features include:

- chat history (with search option)

- file transfer history to keep a log of sent/received files

- a widget for site owners to chat with visitors

(Note: Pay close attention when installing Digsby on your computer and make sure to deselect (selected on default) the additional components you don’t need. Plus, once the app is installed go to the preferences window and disable Digsby research.)

Download: www.digsby.com

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

13. VLC Media Player (Video Player)

With over 67 million downloads so far and roughly 7 downloads per second it’s one of the most popular video players around.

VLC is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats and can play pretty much any video files you throw at it, including physical media like DVDs. Plus it doesn’t need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.<

The VLC can be used both by beginners as well as expert users for working with video files.

The player can also play Youtube videos, convert video files, play subtitles, etc.

Download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

14. Foobar2000 (Music Player)

The foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for Windows and supports pretty much all popular audio formats. This is an audio player of choice for many audiophiles (the reader polls on MakeUseOf and Lifehacker confirm that). But what’s in it for you? Well, leaving aside its rich feature set, there are two things that make it stand out from the crowd.

First, when it comes to the appearance of the player, it’s HIGHLY customizable. There is NO OTHER audio player out there that can be customized as much. The Foobar2000 lets you change everything starting from buttons, layout, background colors, menus to visualization details.

But the best thing about this gem, it needs very little of your system resources when compared to Windows Media Player, iTunes or Winamp.

The Foobar2000 has also plug-ins for iPod support and things like lyrics and album art. There is also a portable version if you prefer to carry it on your thumbdrive.

Download: http://www.foobar2000.org/download

(Platform: Windows only)

15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner)

There are many reasons we need a simple, fast way to burn disks. ImgBurn is a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning application that is fast, lightweight, and completely free.

With ImgBurn you can:

- backup your data or media files to DVD.

- backup your DVD movies to your PC.

- create Audio CDs from any music files such as MP3, WAV.

- create a duplicate copy of any DVD or music CD

- create video discs (DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray) playable in your DVD player

ImgBurn supports a variety of image formats and almost all types of discs, so you don’t need to look any further for your disc burning needs. There is also a portable version that you can carry with you on your USB drive. For additional details see the MakeUseOf ImgBurn review here.

(Platform: Windows / Linux)

Download: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

So there you go, the top 15 that you should have on your system and use on a frequent basis. Since everyone is different with different needs, you will probably disagree with us on some of these choices. If so, head on down to the comments section below and let us know which apps you would put in their place and why.

If you like this article, please spread it around and share it with your friends. It took us us a while to get it done and test all the apps thoroughly.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Fake Antivirus

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Here is something noteworthy. I deal almost weekly with people not having proper antivirus protection. Here is a good link from the folks at MakeUseOf.com

In short, please be careful what you click on. There is a lot of phishing (no pun intended) with regard to spyware, malware and viruses.

Here's the link: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fake-antivirus-and-spyware-removals-to-stay-away-from/

Bird come digital

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:07:00 +0000

So I signed up for Twitter (http://twitter.com) a microblogging site. Micoroblogging is a form of blogging but in shorter form. It gives the user opportunity to send brief updates about themselves. It is overly popular these days as it is a very convenient way to let your friends get info about your recent activities.

I been using Twitter on my iPhone and its been working quite well. Its kinda funny to get a update from someone in the middle of the night.

Twitter has been useful for so far in that I can update my facebook status as well as add a tweet (post) to my twitter. Some of my friends have joined as well.

There are also desktop applications for it as the website is often overloaded. I been using TweetDeck since it gives you updates on all your friends and includes facebook status updates too.

Check it out!

-Bobby

iPhone 3G passes in sales over Mot Razr

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:31:00 +0000

Remember the days where everyone had a Motorola Razr? It was the most popular cellular phone...

but...

now Apple's iPhone 3G is on top...

See:
iPhone outsells Razr

Google LatLong: Google Earth now available for iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Google LatLong: Google Earth now available for iPhone

Google Chrome - another web browser?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:41:00 +0000

So yesterday Google released its browser called Chrome.
http://google.com/chrome

It is a Desktop web browser based on the famous Apple Safari Web Kit and Firefox 3.
It uses few resources and each tab uses its one process, so if a tab crashes the whole browser doesn't.

Another great feature is that it integrates a lot of web applications. Google's intent was to "up the scale" on web browsing.

So far in my using it it has been fast, but crashes here and there, mind you its still in Beta.

Sources & Resources
Google developers video on Chrome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGmO7Oximw8
Google's Comic book about Chrome: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

Microsoft vs. Yahoo

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:32:00 +0000

So Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. Microsoft offered Yahoo 31 bilion dollars and they rejected saying they are undervalued. Now this week Microsoft upped their bid and Yahoo jmight consider it.
Can Microsoft pull off a deal? My answer: maybe if the executives at Yahoo want to be greedy and take all the money for them selves

What does this mean to you and me? Well means that competition on searching the web and the different services Yahoo provides will be under Microsoft control or diminished. I belie this is a bad thing. Completion is healthy. Microsoft is only going after Google and they realize that their own service (Microsoft's) is not as useful as Yahoo's nor Google's.

We will see what happens!

Wecome to Bobby Tech

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Bobby Stef) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:34:00 +0000

Welcome guys...

This blog will be about my technical side of life. I will post new stuff and current issues regarding technology aka my life.

I figure I put to use my new Mac Book Pro Core 2 Laptop to very good use.

Hope you guys can learn as much as I want to learn about technology and interesing stuff.

Thanks

Bobby