Last week I posed a hypothetical question asking what free products would you pay for if they were not free, so as a follow up what programs have you paid for? For most people Windows/Mac OS is the first thing that comes to mind, so we can leave that one off the list. So here goes my list (keep in mind this machine is used for work):Office 2007 Visual Studio...

If you use multiple social networking sites and typically post the same stuff on each, a service you should check out is Ping.fm. Basically you make a post from any of Ping.fm’s supported methods (desktop app, text, etc.) and then your content is sent to each of your configured social network pages. Ping.fm supports almost every social networking site out...

One of YouTube’s lesser used features is the playlist function. It is actually a good feature but a bit on the difficult side to get the hang of. It’s also darn near impossible to find out where the direct-URL link and/or embed code is in case you want to post it to your blog or send via Facebook/Twitter/etc. The video below will show you how to do...

Pretty much any processor you can buy today has multiple cores. Two cores seems to be the defacto standard, however you can get up to 4 cores without breaking the bank, but do you see a worthwhile gain from these additional cores? This article titled “How Many CPU Cores Do You Need?” addresses this very question. Jumping to the results of the...

The fit-PC2 is a tiny PC. And I mean really tiny. The dimensions of the entire computer are 4" x 4.5" x 1.05". It roughly has the same processing power as a netbook, but the beauty is its size and the fact it only uses 10 watts of power. While this can be used as a regular desktop computer, this is more or less the ultimate in green and small. And...

In the late 2007/early 2008 era I was telling people that in the future the notebook style portable computer would be replaced by a one-piece slab. Well, we have it. It’s called iPad. And in no way at this stage of the game will it replace the notebook format. Here’s a short list of things the iPad doesn’t do: No Flash support This is just like...

A utility I have written about in the past is Sysinternal’s BgInfo which takes a snapshot of your system info and resources and then overlays this information on your desktop background. While I do not see this as something the everyday user would find useful, it is an incredibly useful tool for system admins. For example, I have several servers I have to...

Per my last article on the subject, I said in a comment that I would eat my words if the Apple tablet was priced right. It is, so consider words eaten. It comes in $599, $699, and $799 configurations. This is far below the $1,000 to $1,500 people were expecting. It is well above the price of entry level laptops and all netbooks, but considering it is full...

The keyboard is the most used physical thing attached to your computer. It is very difficult (but not impossible) to operate your operating system without one. When it comes to keyboards there are four basic types of users: From-OEM This is not a bad option as OEMs typically provide decent keyboards. Even the cheapest Dell box comes provided with a...

For many of you, a lot (if not all) programs/utilities on your computer are probably free or open source software. So I ask, which of these programs would you pay for if they had the same features but where only commercially available? List the software title and the highest price you would pay for it. Here are my lists of programs I use on a regular...

Microsoft’s Silverlight is one of those platforms that most people have heard about but never found a good use for as a user. The platform itself was originally supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to Adobe’s Flash. But then Adobe released AIR. What does Silverlight compete against now? I have no idea. You be the judge. For most people, the only...

Mark your calendar: this Friday (Jan 29, 2010) only , WinPatrol Plus will be available for only $0.99. If you want to upgrade to WinPatrol PLUS on January 29th, I’ll give you a lifetime WinPatrol membership for less than a dollar. Instead of the regular price of $29.95 I’ll provide a coupon on WinPatrol.com that brings the price down to $0.99 USD. As many of...

Planned obsolescence is, in a nutshell, any product that is purposely designed to break and/or be non-functional within a specified period of time. This is done so that the manufacturer can sell you more products over time. Apple, unfortunately, proved to the world that people would be willing to buy a smartphone without a removable battery, that being the...

Since the Quick Launch toolbar was added in Windows XP, there has been a simple shortcut you click which minimizes all open Windows and displays your desktop. A shortcut available in Windows 7 is the ability to see your desktop without minimizing open windows by using the Windows Key + Spacebar shortcut. While you have this pressed down, you can see your desktop...

Whenever you purchase a Windows disc, it always comes on a CD/DVD. The problem with optical media is it is slow and easily damaged. On the other hand flash drives are fast and durable, so if you do Windows installs often, creating an install USB drive makes sense. To accomplish this, check out WinToFlash. WinToFlash works with Windows XP and later and easily...

If you are a system admin who manages lots of computers on a network, having a tool to help is must have. If you are in the market for something like this, check out Spiceworks. Spiceworks is the complete network management & monitoring, helpdesk, PC inventory & software reporting solution to manage Everything IT in small and medium businesses. This tool...

You might have heard that Apple is going to be introducing a tablet this year. When? Probably in the third quarter. How much will it cost? Too much, obviously. Before continuing, let me define tablet in the context of this article: I’m talking about a one-piece device with a screen of at least 14 inches in size, which is a complete computer, and no tactile...

Most programs you use have an installer included which handles copying files to your system and creating shortcuts on your desktop/Start Menu. Alternately, portable applications and (some) utilities are just download and run. If you want to install these portable utilities then a tool to handle this is ZipInstaller. It automatically extracts all files from the...

For those of you who watch their incoming/outgoing internet connections closely, you may have noticed the domain 1e100.net pop up periodically for seemingly no reason, and in some instances you may have a persistent connection to it – even as soon as you start your computer. What is 1e100.net? It’s Google. A WHOIS lookup for that domain reveals...

A feature which has been added to Google Docs recently is the ability to upload files of any type, not just documents. At the time of this writing, you have the ability to upload files up to 250 MB in size. Additionally, you can create folder structures to organize your files and documents. This essentially becomes a personal FTP site, without all the hassles of...