Jailbreaking an iPhone allows you to not only use the phone on any wireless service, including T-Mobile and Sprint, it also allows you to download a wealth of apps not found in the iTunes app store—some of which offer valuable features, such as the ability to turn your iPhone into a mobile, WiFi hotspot.

So, is it worth the money to buy a jailbroken iPhone? Yes, and no. Yes, the features are worth the cost…but no, you do not need to buy an iPhone that is pre-jailbroken. Instead, a two minute download and installation process is all you need.

The program that can nearly instantly jailbreak an iPhone is called BlackRa1n. It is completely free, funded only through donations from happy customers.

First, go to BlackRa1n.com and click the icon for your operating system. There are versions for both Windows and Mac.

The program instantly downloads to the location of your choice. It then appears on your computer as a big, black raindrop. Double-click the raindrop and the program will run. A window appears with a button that says Make it Rain.

Plug your iPhone into your computer. If iTunes opens, close it. Once your iPhone is connected, click the Make it Rain button. Your iPhone will then go into recovery mode, and a screen will appear on the phone showing the USB plug and the iTunes icon. This just shows the phone is in recovery mode. The screen then goes black—this is ok.

When Blackra1n is finished jailbreaking your iPhone, a message will appear telling you the process was successful and your phone is rebooting. The Apple symbol will appear on the phone’s screen, signifying the phone is restarting.

Now, if you scroll through your apps, you should see the black raindrop at the end of your app list. If you click it, you will be able to download Rock Your Phone and other third-party apps.

BlackRa1n will work on all iPhones, including 3G and 3GS, so long as the firmware has not been upgraded to 3.1.3. You can check this by clicking settings>general>about on your iPhone and verifying the firmware version listed there.

According to BlackRa1n’s developer blog, if you upgrade to 3.1.3 at a later date, it will delete the program. A fix for this glitch is in the works.

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Jailbreak iPhone the Easy Way

To get started, download the setup file here: http://www.grabout.com/Download.aspx

Open the downloaded file and follow the installation instructions. Once finished, you will be presented with this screen:

To grab a section of the screen, click on the green Grab now button.

Choose a section of the screen that you want to grab or capture.

The program will return a white screen with a message that tells you to wait for a moment as the program uploads the captured part of the screen. After a few seconds, the ‘Grab now’ message on the user interface will be replaced by a URL.

Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the capture’s GrabOut page.

GrabOut is a free software that is less than 500k in size. The program is convenient to use but it is rather limited in features. For one, it is more difficult to capture precisely what you want without a zoom feature that allows you to magnify the points where you want to start and end the capture. It is easy to get something that you might not have intended to capture.

This would have been fine if the program has some way for the user to edit the captured file before uploading it. But GrabOut does not.

Furthermore, the URLs are somewhat difficult to remember so you would have to store them somewhere like a text file for you to be able to retrieve them later. The GrabOut server and pages would have been better if it had a blog capability that makes it easy for you to track pages and come back to these at a future time.

A blog feature would also make it the graphical equivalent of social bookmarking sites.

Yet, as a free program, it is still very useful for a lot of situations. Like when you need to point out details on an online picture or artwork. Perhaps you are sharing a group picture, you can capture your crush and show it to your best friend.

And there is room for improvement, this is just phase 1 of a project that its publishers, OutPost11.com, promised to keep on developing and adding more features.

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Capture and Upload Screenshots with GrabOut

Some claim that Microsoft’s decline in the web browser market was due to its unwillingness to release a successor to its popular Internet Explorer 6 for so long. Long after many browsers adopted new technologies and functions, Microsoft was simply playing catch up when it released IE7 and later IE8.

One of the most convenient features adopted by contemporary web browsers is tabbed browsing. No longer must you open a separate instance of the application to display multiple web pages.

Firefox’s tabbed browsing feature is one of the best examples of this advancement. Read on to learn how to configure Firefox 3.6’s tabbed browsing feature to customize your browsing experience.

Manage Firefox 3.6’s Tabs

To see the tabbed browsing options available to you in Firefox 3.6, begin by opening Firefox and clicking on Tools>Options.

You should now be looking at Firefox’s Options window. Click on the Tabs tab and you will see five options, several of which may or may not be checked already.

What follows is an option-by-option description of how each if these tab options affect your browsing experience.

Open New Windows in a New Tab Instead. Some websites make use of certain code to open their links in a new window rather than using the current one. This is done so you remember to come back to the original page and continue viewing its content. Also, middle clicking (wheel mouse click) on any link also opens a link in a new window. Checking this option forces Firefox 3.6 to use tabs rather than new windows to display new content.

Warn Me When Closing Multiple Tabs. This option is most useful when you routinely have many tabs open at the same time. Nothing is more frustrating than when you have lots of websites displayed in many tabs and you accidentally close the browser losing all of the content you had displayed. Check this option to help you avoid losing what you were doing with multiple tabs open at the same time.

Warn Me When Opening Multiple Tabs Might Slow Down Firefox. This one won’t come up much but it is possible to open so many tabs that your computer and Firefox will slow down considerably while they fulfill all of your requests to load lots of web pages. It is best to keep this one checked to avoid slowdowns or unresponsive programs.

Always Show the Tab Bar. This option lets you specify whether the tab bar is present even when you have only one web page displayed in Firefox. You can add additional tabs by clicking to the right of the current tab.

Unless you need to preserve every millimeter of screen real estate, it is much more convenient to leave this option checked so you can add as many tabs as you need without having to first click on a link.

When I Open a Link in a New Tab, Switch to it Immediately. This option is one of personal preference depending on how you browse web pages. If you want to see web pages when you click on their links, then make sure this option is checked.

However, some people prefer to open a bunch of web pages and then browse them one by one. One popular way of doing this is to go to a news site and click on each of the stories that interest you to set up a kind of queue. If this is your style of browsing the web, leave this option unchecked.

Firefox 3.6 offers the user some useful options when it comes to how browsing tabs are handled. However, consider using Tabberwocky if you really want to take control of Firefox’s tabs.

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Manage and Customize Tabs in Firefox

Google Reader Play has a nearly unlimited amount of information for us to digest, all presented with picture thumbnails. The thumbnails appear at the bottom of a black page.

Click the thumbnails that interest you and other pictures and information appears in the black box above the thumbnails.

If you are interested in what you see, you can click the Read More link to view the entire blog or news post. The source of the information is listed beside the Read More link. If you like the article, you click the smiley face to let Google Reader Play know you like it.

This is important because Google Reader Play is completely adaptable. If you tell it what you like, it will find more articles, pictures, movies and blog posts you might also like.

If you are in a hurry and would rather read the article later, you can click the star beside the smiley face to save your place. This is also a good way to save the articles you like for later. The icon on the far left allows you to share the article on the social networking site of your choice.

At the bottom of each movie, article, blog post or picture, there is a link to either email the article to someone else or share it on Facebook.

You have complete control in how you view items in Google Reader Play. If you would like to see all items scroll through in a quick slide show so you can decide which you would like to read, click the link at the bottom left of the screen that looks like a television.

The link above that looks like two boxes together hides the thumbnails at the bottom of the screen. The eyeball link restores the original view. The mixer link beside the control panel gives you the option to see which articles you liked, shared or starred. You can also choose specific item categories for Google Reader Play to show you.

Since Google Reader Play is still in lab phase, there are many more features Google plans to add in the future. For now, it is a nice way to browse through interesting articles, blog posts and videos. For those who would rather look at a picture than read, this is a great option. Its boredom-killing potential is strong.

To try Google Reader Play, visit the Google Reader Play Web site. You can also check out Google Fast Flip, a neat way to browse through magazines quickly.

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Browse Blogs, Videos and News with Google Reader Play

However, starting with Windows 7, Microsoft changed the Start Menu to be more static. When you click on All Programs, the part of the Start Menu that displays all of your program shortcuts stays the same size as the size of the Start Menu when you first click on it.

If you have more program or folder shortcuts than the current size of the Start Menu can hold, you have to use a scrollbar or the scroll wheel on your mouse to access some of the shortcuts.

If you don’t have a lot of shortcuts on your All Programs menu because you don’t have many programs installed on your computer, you may not even have realized that Microsoft moved to a scrollbar rather than expanding menu system to access program shortcuts.

You do have the option of typing in the name of the program you want to run but it is inconvenient to click on the Start orb with your mouse and then have to relocate your hand to the keyboard just to open a program. This kind of defeats the purpose of having quick access to the Start Menu in the first place.

Short of making your Windows 7 Start Menu function like Windows XP, there is a somewhat clunky fix to help you access you program shortcuts more quickly by removing the scrollbar. Read on to learn how.

Remove the Scrollbar from the Windows 7 Start Menu

When you first click on the Start Menu, Windows 7 lists several shortcuts depending on your settings. It may display shortcuts to recently-used files or it may list shortcut to often-used programs. Whatever the case, the size of the Start Menu changes to accommodate the number of these shortcuts.

You can use this to your advantage by forcing the Start Menu to be bigger than it normally would be. You do this by permanently pinning shortcuts directly to the Start Menu.

To pin a shortcut to the Start Menu, begin by clicking on Start>All Programs and locating a program you use often. For our purposes, we will pin the Windows calculator to the Start Menu. Click on Accessories and right click on Calculator and choose Pin To Start Menu from the menu that pops up.

Notice that when you now click on the Start Menu, there is a shortcut to the calculator right on the Start Menu. Keep doing this for various programs until you have about ten or so shortcuts pinned to the Start Menu.

You’ll see that each time you add a shortcut to the Start Menu in this way, it grows in size, You can stop when you click on Start>All Programs and a scroll bar is no longer needed to see all of your program and folder shortcuts.

Granted, this is not an elegant solution to the problem of having a scrollbar appear on the All Programs menu. However, it does remove the need for a scrollbar to be there in the first place.

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Remove the Scrollbar from the Windows 7 Start Menu

Mixero can help you post updates and keep up-to-date with your friends by showing you all the tweets and messages they have posted all in one place. Mixero allows you to do the same things you could on Twitter and Facebook, like reply, repost, and share posts.

The Mixero application has two versions—one for the PC and another one for the iPhone. To install the desktop version, go to http://www.mixero.com/desktop.html and click on the green Install for Desktop icon.

Mixero is an Adobe AIR application. If you do not have Adobe AIR installed, click on the link underneath the same Install for Desktop button to install it.

After installing Adobe AIR, you can launch the Mixero file. This window will open:

Click on Install.

The preferences window will appear. Tick the boxes to add a shortcut icon on your desktop or to start the application after you install it. You could also specify where to put Mixero’s files. Click on Continue after specifying your preferences.

After the installation, Mixero will launch.

To add your Twitter account, click on the add account text next to the Twitter icon.

As you add your user Twitter username and password, your profile picture for your Twitter account will appear.

To add your Facebook account click on the add Facebook text next to the Facebook icon.

You will not be asked for your Facebook username and password. Click on the green Login button instead. A window will appear to show that you are being logged in.

A window will pop-up asking for permission to connect with Facebook. Enter your Facebook email address and password, then click on the blue Connect button.

A window will appear asking you to allow Mixero to access your Facebook news feed and wall. Click on the blue Allow Access button.

Mixero will then ask for permission to place comments or posts to your wall without prompting. If you want to save time using Mixero to post comments, you should click on Allow Publishing. If you want Mixero to ask you every time you post a message or comment, then click Don’t Allow.

Mixero’s user interface is divided into three: the messages you have, the control panel, and your contacts. You could minimize both the left and right panels (leaving only the center panel) by clicking on the X icon on the top right portion of the panels.

By default, Mixero shows only Facebook or Twitter updates as you prefer, but you can mix updates from both services by turning the mixed mode on.

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Manage Twitter and Facebook Accounts using Mixero

Advanced SystemCare Free vs. System Mechanic

Want to optimize Windows for best performance? Give your PC a tune up? One of the top premium apps for doing just that is System Mechanic, by iolo technologies. System Mechanic has many convenient features designed to tackle system maintenance, optimization, and performance.

According to System Mechanic, their flagship software will: clean and defragment the registry, accelerate PC startup in 19 ways, recover lost RAM speed, boost internet speed, and more. It’s difficult to believe that an all-in-one utility will boost internet speed.

Anyways, System Mechanic will run you around $39.95 for the basic edition, and $49.95 for the pro version, which adds a couple of additional features. If you want to take advantage of fixes and updates, that will be an additional $29.95 a year.

Advanced SystemCare Free, the freeware alternative to System Mechanic, has actually received better reviews from most experts and consumers. As its name suggests, Advanced SystemCare Free is the free version of a paid premium software, Advanced SystemCare.

Advanced SystemCare Free, being the basic edition, does lack on some features of the Pro. However, for basic system optimization, cleaning, and secure file deletion, it does its job quite well. If you’re looking for an easy to use Windows optimizer, without the price tag, give Advanced SystemCare Free a try.

Alternatively, if you find that Advanced SystemCare is not the software for you, you may want to check out Glary Utilities and CCleaner. If you are looking for some basic tips, to get more speed out of Windows, Help Desk Geek has a great article titled 99 Ways to Make Your Computer Blazingly Fast.

Advanced SystemCare Free can save you $40.

Virtual Box vs. VMware Workstation

Looking for a way to run multiple operating systems on your PC, but don’t want to partition your hard drive and dual boot? For that, you will need a good virtualization software.

VMware Workstation, by VMware, Inc, is one of the most popular PC virtualization solutions. Everyone from companies to individuals use Workstation to install Linux on top of Windows, Windows on top of Windows, and more.

In fact, there is even a way that you can install Mac OS X Snow Leopard within a Windows 7 virtual machine with VMware Workstation. All of this sounds great, until you see the price tag. VMware Workstation will run you close to $200 ($189.00). That, plus purchasing any addition operating systems to install, can quickly break right through your $500 virtualization budget.

Rather, you may want to consider using the open source freeware, Virtual Box. Although it doesn’t have quite as many bells and whistles as VMware Workstation, Virtual Box is simple to use, and can do just about anything VMware Workstation can.

Being an open source software, Virtual Box also has a large support community. Meaning, if you need help installing, troubleshooting, etc., it should be easy enough to find.

Virtual Box can save you $189.00

Filezilla vs. Cute FTP

Anyone with even the least bit of website/blog making experience probably knows what an FTP app is. Basically, an FTP program allows you to upload/download files to a web server from your PC.

Cute FTP, a program by GlobalSCAPE, is one of the best FTP programs out there. It has a very intuitive interface, which goes a long ways when working with FTP programs. It also has all of the basic features that one would need in an FTP program.

Unfortunately, it costs $45.00. Although $45 is still a fairly cheap price to pay for good software, some people may prefer a free alternative, as they don’t require frequent maintenance/uploading/downloading for their website or blogs.

Filezilla is a great, free alternative to Cute FTP. Honestly, Filezilla offers just about every feature that Cute FTP offers, without the price. Filezilla is also open source, meaning that it has a community behind it. Any bugs, fixes, updates, etc, are completely free.

Filezilla can save you $65.00

Free RAR Extract Frog vs. WinRar

RAR is quickly becoming one of the most popular file archiving and compression formats. When you download something with Windows, it’s actually rare to get a straight .exe.

Rather, you will get either a ZIP or RAR file. The most popular utility to open RAR files is WinRAR. WinRAR is an excellent program. It’s easy to use, full featured, and has good speed. However, you can only get WinRAR as a limited trial. After the trial expires, you will need to purchase WinRAR, which costs approximately $29.00.

A good alternative to WinRAR, which is completely free, is Free RAR Extract Frog. Don’t let the weird name fool you. In terms of doing what it’s supposed to do, archiving RAR files, Free RAR Extract Frog works excellent. Give it a try.

Free RAR Extract Frog can save you $29.00.

Conclusion

This three part series mentioned 20 overall programs: 10 freeware vs. 10 premium. In some cases, the premium software may be the way to go, for you. But for the majority of people, the freeware mentioned in this series is capable of getting the job done.

The savings is quite clear for each software. If you are a PC user that has a use for all of the premium software on this list, and would consider purchasing it, you can save yourself $1,160.00 on the low end, and over $3000 on the high end, by using the freeware alternatives.

Related posts

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10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part 3

Art Plus Digital Photo Recovery was free two years ago when we first discovered it, but now charges a fee. Also, check out our previous list of the five best photo recovery programs.

Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) is as simple to use as either of the aforementioned programs, but recovers files Recuva will not find, and does not charge a fee for image recovery (although they do have software to recover other file types for a fee).

ZAR’s install file is 2.53 MB, and takes just a few seconds to download on a broadband connection.  After installation, a license window appears stating this is an evaluation version that will only scan four folders—but image recovery is free.  So, click Next to bypass this screen.

We are then asked to select the recovery type.  Choose Recover images from the digital camera memory card and click Next.

Then, choose the drive where the deleted files you are trying to recover are located.  In the example below, ZAR sees the computer’s hard drive, as well as a card reader.

However, the status of the card reader is “unknown,” as we are using a card that has suffered an untimely death with about 100 pictures still on it.  There was no explanation for the card death—it simply stopped responding while in the camera. Windows does not currently recognize the card.

Choose your card reader, then click Next.

As ZAR scans for your pictures, a control windows appears on the right with various options.  It asks how long you want it to wait for Bad Sectors on the disk to respond, and how many times should it retry to access these sectors.

You have the option to forget bad sectors all together, which is useful if the scan is taking a long time.  It also asks you how big the disk is—Increasing the size will help ZAR look at more sectors of the your disk.  In our example, the card is 2 GB.

Unfortunately, ZAR was unable to find anything but bad sectors on the dead SD card in our example.  But, in its defense, no other program has found anything on the dead SD card either.

An entire scan took about four hours, but again, the disk in the example is completely corrupted.  A disk in better shape would have much better results.  ZAR is a viable free option for data recovery, so long as you have time to recover your files and Windows acknowledges your card’s existence.

Once your pictures are recovered, if they do not look as splendid as they should, try our previous article, Repair and View Corrupted or Damaged Images.

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Recover Deleted or Lost Photos for Free

Ashampoo vs. Roxio Creator

Looking for a quality CD/DVD burning application? One of the most popular choices is Roxio Creator. Although Roxio Creator is a great, feature packed program, it doesn’t come cheap. Roxio offers two versions of the software: Roxio Creator 2010, which retails for $99.99 and Roxio Creator Pro, which retails for $129.99.

For many computer users, this is not a reasonable buy, as they only burn CDs and DVDs once in a while.

Luckily, Ashampoo offers a free CD/DVD burning software loaded with plenty of features. Ashampoo should be able to meet the majority of people’s disc burning needs, as it supports all major file formats (Ex. WAV, MP3, VCD, more) and can be used for CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs.

Projects like creating data discs, audio ripping, and more, are simple to do with Ashampoo’s easy to use interface.

Ashampoo can save you anywhere from $100 to $150.

Paint.net vs. Adobe CS4 Photoshop

Just about everyone who takes pictures will want to do some photo editing at one point or another. Unfortunately, Microsoft Paint is just not a reasonable app for doing even the most basic of photo editing.

Thus, most people choose to purchase Adobe Photoshop. Although no one can discredit the capabilities of Photoshop, as well as it’s wide popularity and appeal, it’s price is questionable.

The starting price is $699 for the full version, and you can choose to upgrade from a previous version of Photoshop for $199. One disadvantage of Photoshop is that it does have a learning curve. Computer users who just need a software to do basic photo editing may find Photoshop a bit of overkill.

Paint.net is the free alternative. Does it have as many features as Photoshop? No, not at all. However, Paint.net will handle the majority of photo editing projects that you throw at it. It’s also easy to use.

The interface is similar to the default Microsoft Paint application (mentioned above), with several additional features. If you need an image editor that allows you to work with layers, as well as add effects, crop, and more, Paint.net is an ideal free solution.

If you should find that Paint.net does not have a feature you are looking for, there are still several other free photo editors that might have that particular feature. You may want to check out our article, 25 Free Online Image/Photo Editors.

Paint.net can save you anywhere from $199 to $699.

Notepad++ vs. Adobe Dreamweaver/Microsoft Expression Web

If you were to search the web for “Best HTML Editors” you would most likely find two definitive results: Adobe CS4 Dreamweaver, and Microsoft Expression Web 3. These two programs are the most heavily favored HTML/Web editors among designers and web developers.

However, these two programs are also the most heavily priced HTML/Web editors. Adobe CS4 Dreamweaver will run you approximately $400 for a full version, and $199 for an upgrade. Microsoft Expression Web is a bit more reasonably priced, retailing for $149 full and $79 upgrade.

As feature packed as these two programs may be, most people will not use 3/4 of their options. In fact, some of the best web developers out there use Window’s built-in Notepad app for the majority of their work.

Now, there is a big gap when comparing Windows Notepad to Adobe Dreamweaver. Something in between the two would be nice… That’s where Notepad++ comes into play. Notepad++ is a completely free HTML/Web editor with several great features.

Most notably, the tabbed interface of Notepad++ allows developers and designers to work with multiple docs at a time. HTML editing programs are some of the most diverse apps out there. You may or may not like Notepad++. But, why not give it a try? Doing so could save you anywhere from $79 to $600. You can purchase a new laptop for $600!

Any free software on this list working for you? Looking for more free software alternatives? Be sure to check out the last page, Part 3, for the wrap up of the 10 Essential Windows Programs Worth Checking Out, as well as the overall price savings.

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10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part 2

At the end of the meeting, we are left with lovely doodles, but no notes that are sharable with others. If we take notes on a laptop, we struggle with how best to organize the layout, which again, leaves us missing key points in a lecture or meeting. Ketchup eliminates both of these problems.

Other than fantasies of throwing rotten tomatoes at our bosses (if you didn’t have them before, you will now!), we have no clue what the big tomato on the logo has to do with note taking…

But, Ketchup is incredibly easy to use—so easy that we wonder why no one has thought of it before now. Enter a title for your meeting, the date, the location and the people who attended. If using Ketchup for school, you could use your professor’s name for the attendees.

If you are going to share your notes with colleagues and classmates, simply check the box next to Public? and Ketchup creates a custom URL for these notes. Anyone with a Web browser can now see your notes.

From here, you enter agenda items, then type your notes directly under them. What could be more organized?

Attachments, such as pictures and files, can be added to each item on your agenda, so everything is stored all in one place. Ketchup saves everything you type instantly, so if you lose internet connection, you can sign back into Ketchup and start typing again in exactly the same place.

All of your meetings, past and future, are organized by date on the right panel. This way, you can see all of your notes all at once without hunting through countless Word files in hopes of finding the right one.

Right now, Ketchup is completely free. They plan to charge for the service in the future, but promise to offer a free version for light users. You can sign up for Ketchup at UseKetchup.com.

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Organize and Share Notes Online with Ketchup

Aside from listing the free Apps, we will also make a comparison with some popular premium software in the same category. Check out this list and find out how much money you can save by using freeware apps.

vs.

Open Office vs. Microsoft Office

One essential application, that every computer user needs, is a decent word processing software. If you are a student or business professional, you will probably need even more than that.

Rather, a word processing app, presentation software, spreadsheet software, and more. For most people, this is where Microsoft Office comes in handy. Just a reminder, Microsoft Office is Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

However, Microsoft Office costs you approximately $400 for the full version. To be exact, Microsoft Office Standard 2007 goes for $393.99 on Amazon.com.

Is that 30-day trial of Microsoft Office that you got with your new computer about to expire? You may want to consider trying out Open Office’s open source office suite.

Open Office is a completely free alternative to Microsoft Office that gives you many of the same features, without having to spend a dime. Not only that, but Open Office also has the flexibility to work with Word documents.  You can learn more about, and download Open Office here.

Open Office can save you $400.

Microsoft Security Essentials vs. Norton Antivirus

Another popular trial software, that comes pre loaded on most computers, is Norton Antivirus. Norton Antivirus is a premium antivirus software that sells for around $25.

With premium antivirus software like this, you must also pay a fee every year, if you wish to have access to the latest virus definitions and updates. Meaning, Norton Antivirus really isn’t as cheap as $25, if you plan on using it for more than 1 year.

Microsoft offers a completely free antivirus solution called Microsoft Security Essentials. Security Essentials is actually a pretty decent antivirus program, especially for being free. You can read our review of Microsoft Security Essentials.

What does Norton Antivirus offer that Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t?… for the $25 price and yearly update fees? Not much. Essentially, Norton Antivirus and Security Essentials do two basic things: scan your computer for viruses, and protect your computer from viruses using live protection.

Norton Antivirus gives you a couple of extra features such as a CPU and memory monitor. However, the majority of people will never use features like those.

Microsoft Security Essentials can save you $25

Malwarebytes vs. Symantec PC Tools Spyware Doctor

Aside from antivirus protection, another common security software that many people use on their PCs is an anti spyware/malware app. One of the most popular premium programs, Symantec PC Tools Spyware Doctor, retails for approximately $34.00.

Although Symantec PC Tool Spyware Doctor is a great antispyware program, is there anything that works just as good, without the price tag? Absolutely, and that program is called Malwarebytes.

In fact, Malwarebytes is such an effective antispyware/malware application, that many industry professionals use it for their own computers. Malwarebytes has received good to outstanding reviews from experts and consumers alike.

If you have ever seen those local ads that claim to remove spyware/malware from your computer for $50, chances are, those people use Malwarebytes. How’s that for profit! They get Malwarebytes for free here, and then use it to remove spyware off people’s computers, and charge them a fee!

Malwarebytes can save you $34.00.

Want to check out some more great freeware apps, compared against their premium cost counterparts? Be sure to check out part two of the series 10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs.

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10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part I

Process Assassin is a small piece of software designed to kill unresponsive programs immediately, without closing any of your other open programs. This means software hang-ups are a minor glitch in your day, rather than a banging-head-against-keyboard travesty.

Specific options are available for each kind of potential unresponsive offender. For basic Windows programs, there is a button to kill Explorer, Command Line, Task Manager, Kernel processes, Media Player and even Live Messenger.

Microsoft Office’s applications can be particularly ornery, especially for those of us who stack multiple, huge video files into our PowerPoint presentations. Besides the normal offenders (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), Process Assassin can kill Outlook, Onenote, Picture Manager, Access and even Publisher.

Web browsers crash probably more than any of the other programs on our computers. Process Assassin has a button for each of our favorites, including Chrome, FireFox and Internet Explorer.

The final tab in Process Assassin’s repertoire is simply called other programs, and is designed to kill a select few of the other programs we use, such as Pidgin, Nero, BitTorrent and Thunderbird.

For those programs not on the pre-defined lists, you can simply click the great big Assassinate button and choose the non-responsive program from the list of running programs.

The program downloads as a zip file, and once extracted, it runs straight from its folder. So, as long as you can easily reach the folder where you store it, you can terminate programs quickly.

Process Assassin is available on Software Dynanmic’s Web site. It is designed to work with Windows versions XP or later.

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End Unresponsive Programs in Windows with Process Assassin

System restore creates a returnable point, that can be restored to easily, within your current Windows installation. A system restore will only backup certain files and data. System restore should be used to recover light files or folders. Should you accidently delete a file that you need, just restore your computer to “an hour ago” and bam there’s your file.

When you create a system image, you are making an exact duplicate of Windows, as it currently is, to use for backup purposes. From there, the system image file is usually stored on an external hard drive or flash drive in case of emergency. Should something crazy happen to Windows, you can use the system image to recover your data.

Creating a System Image

Now that you know what system images are used for, here is how you create them. Click the Start button, hover your mouse over Getting Started and select Backup your files from the quick menu.

If for some reason you don’t see the Getting Started option in the start menu, you can also use the path Start > Control Panel > Backup and Restore.

Click the Create a system image link, located on the left-hand side of the Backup and Restore window.

Decide how you want to backup your data. Many people use external hard drives. However, a high capacity flash drive or some blank DVDs will work just as well. Select an option and click Next.

By default, Windows will include all essential drives in a system image (your main hard drive). However, you do have the option to add other drives if you want to back those up as well. Keep into consideration, backing up hard drives is not a fast process.

The next screen will give you an estimate of how much space the disk image is going to take up. For example, it may say something like The backup could take up to 15GB of space. 15GB would take approximately 20 minutes to transfer to an external hard drive using USB 2.0. If you are burning DVD’s, a normal DVD can hold 4.7GB of data, meaning you would need to burn 3 DVDs in this particular case.

Proceed to the next screen to start creating the system image backup. This could take a while, especially if you have a lot of files on your computer.

After the system image finishes backing up, you will be prompted to create a system repair disc. It is a good idea to create one. It will help you when it comes time to restoring your data.

Read here for more about creating a system repair disc in Windows 7. After you are done creating the system repair disc, you will have successfully backed up your computer via Windows system image.

Should something happen to your computer, and you need to use the system image, you can find out how to restore the image here. Restoring is a very simple process that only requires a few steps.

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How to Create a System Image in Windows 7

KeepVid.com allows you to download videos from YouTube and other video sites for free, without downloading and installing any kind of software.  The interface is straight forward and easy to use, so even the least tech-savvy among us can enjoy videos featuring cats on skateboards for many future years.

First, find the YouTube video you want to watch. Either on the right side of the page or directly under the video is a box that says URL beside it. Select the contents of the box and copy it with ctrl+C.

In your browser’s address bar, type keepvid.com. When the site appears, paste your YouTube URL into the box that says URL and click Download.

You may then be asked to copy the letters from one of those super-annoying visual generators that are supposed to prove you are human. Yeah, like a computer would share your secret love of Lady Gaga videos! Anyway, if asked, oblige by copying the code, and click next.

KeepVid always gives at least two download options for your videos, depending on the original quality of the video. For the Lady Gaga example above, we are given four options from which to choose: three of those options save the file as a FLV file, while the last saves as an MP4.

If concerned about file size, the FLV options are nice. But, if you plan on using the video in a PowerPoint presentation, MP4 is the only format on this list that will play within PowerPoint easily. Click the link next to your choice.

Choose a destination for your video file as you would with any other download, and depending on your internet connection, you can be watching Lady Gaga and skateboarding felines on your machine within 1-10 minutes.

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Download YouTube Videos – No Software Required

If you are paying a premium for your Internet connection, you may want to see if you are getting what you are paying for. Using a free online broadband speed test is one way to test your connection for both download and upload speeds.

Why Test Your Internet Connection Speed?

Other than being a novel way to see your connection speed, free broadband speed tests can help you identify problems with your connection and can even provide evidence to your ISP should you need to file a complaint that you aren’t getting the speed you are paying for.

Speed tests are also a way to troubleshoot why downloads and uploads are taking so long or why your ping to a particular gaming server seems too high. If you regularly download and upload large files for your home business, free online speed tests can help you determine the optimal time during the day to transfer your files.

Whatever your reasons, online speed tests are fast, free, easy to use, and provide you with solid data with which to judge your Internet connection.

Speedtest.net

Speedtest.net offers an easy-to-use, information-rich speed test with which you can test your broadband connection. When the main page loads, Speedtest.net has already determined your location. To begin a speed test, simply choose a destination server node and the speed test begins automatically.

When the test is complete, Speedtest.net gives you several useful metrics. First, your raw download speed and upload speed in Mbps are displayed. Notice that Mbps is Megabits per second and not Megabytes per second.

In addition, the website tells you your ping in milliseconds (ms) to the test server. Speedtest.net even tells you the distance in miles between your connection and the test server.

To help you make sense of the results, Speedtest.net estimates how long it would take you to download an MP3 (5MB), a video clip (35MB), and an entire movie (800MB). However, the most useful metric is the comparison of the results of your speed test with your ISP’s average.

If your speed test results are significantly lower than the average for your ISP, you now have some evidence to motivate your ISP to look into the matter.

Speakeasy.net

Another useful free online broadband speed test is Speakeasy.net. Unlike Speedtest.net, the speed test at speakeasy.net only offers eight test servers in major cities throughout the United States. Still, it is interesting to see how your bandwidth holds up as the test servers get farther and farther from your location.

The metrics reported to you by Speakeast.net are sparse compared to Speedtest.net’s but it is great for when you just want to quickly learn you download and upload speeds. One nice feature of Speakeasy.net’s speed test is that is translates your Kilobits per second (Kbps) download and upload scores into Kilobytes per second (KBps) in case you are more familiar with using bytes than bits.

Bandwidthplace.com

Bandwidthplace.com’s speed test is great when you just want the bare essentials in a bandwidth speed test. Offering no choice of test server, this speed test is the simplest of the three to use. Simply press the Start Test button, and Bandwidthplace.com will estimate your download and upload speeds.

When the test is complete, you are presented with only your download and upload speeds in Kbps. Like Speaskeasy.net’s speed test, Bandwidthplace.com also computes your Kilobytes per second at the bottom of the test results page.

Whether you are just curious or you are collecting information to present to your ISP, each of the bandwidth speed tests above offers something that should appeal to everyone. Ranging from complicated to simple, a speed test can help you determine both the short and long-term quality of your Internet connection.

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Top 3 Free Broadband Speed Test Websites