Software to Ease The Pain

When you spend all day in front of a computer screen like I do, it's the little things that can make your day better. What might seem like a small annoyance at first can quickly spiral and cause frustration. That said here are a number of programs that I find can help easy the pain.

Slow performance

A lot of what goes on behind the scenes of your computer is best left that way. There are many files in many folders, but to go digging would undoubtedly break something. While you run your daily tasks, which in this case lets say your changing a desktop theme, moving a folder, installing a program etc., what your computer is doing is altering registry files that control the file system for your OS. Now if you do a lot of things on a daily basis, your registry can become a bit bloated. What Ccleaner can do is to clean unwanted files, broken links or missing references. Thus helping to speed up your computers file system, and speed up its responses. An added feature is also to clean the computer, a lot like the Microsoft Disk Cleanup, which cleans up both file and browser files for you. You can check and un-check options at your leisure during this option.

Keeping out the bad guys

This one goes hand in hand with security. What the folks at PeerBlock have done is to generate genuine peer lists of known computers and servers that have either been hacked or infected and can try to control your computer. While you have this software active, you are safely preventing your computer from being accessed while also preventing you computer from sending them anything either. With recent talks large BotNet activity, its wise to get yourself protected, and for free!

The demonPad

This one is a small annoyance fixer. Being a laptop user at home there was something that just began to grind my gears. I'd be happily browsing or writing up some bit of a post, and not long into my post I'd begin to jump and continue typing in the middle of previous text. (Damn thumbs!) I was inadvertently grazing the Touchpad and sending it off on a tangent. With TouchFreeze, this clever little bit of software jumps in and when ever it spots your typing, switches off the Touchpad and visa versa. Letting you get that trolling rant out in a oner!

Visual Subtlety

This one isn't such a big one but I think it deserves a bit of light anyway. My stock dell notifications for volume and screen brightness can be a bit too in your face especially if your watching a film or something. What you get with 3RVX is a stylish and customisable alternative. With a selection of skins bundled with it and settings for position and fade out its a perfect and subtle free bit of kit.

I love a good stretch.

I'm always reading articles about how bad it is for you to sit down for long periods, eye strain, RSI. You need to give your eyes a rest, you need to straighten up and you need to take breaks. Well introducing this handy little guy. A small notification, tweakable to your routine and a good way to remind yourself to have a good old Stretch. I swear you feel much better from a good stretch. A nice little feature for this notification is it either gives you health suggestions or your own custom message with every reminder. Perfect if you feel you need to give yourself that extra boost to get up!

Well that's a few of my personal favourites, but I'd be interested to hear what you use to ease your day that little bit at a time.

Mooch.

Xbox 720, Wii U, PS4 Rumour Review 2012

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with all the rumours floating around about the new consoles. So here at Tech-17 we’ve compiled all of them to make it nice and easy for you to catch up on all the gossip. We’ve also given each rumour an evaluation on how likely we think it it to come true (teacups don’t fail me now!)

I'm betting on the one that looks like the old Sega

Xbox 720

So first up we have the 720, the replacement for the 360. There’s a lot of hype surrounding this, so let’s crack right in:

Rumour – it will be announced this year.

Likelihood – almost certainly

The web is buzzing with the prospect of the 720 formally being announced this year, and with the 360 now into its 7^th year, this will almost certainly be the case. Some have claimed it will be unveiled at the GDC (Games Developer Conference), but don’t be fooled! Except to see this as the highlight of Microsoft’s presentation at E3, and the whole show. Microsoft have confirmed we shall not be seeing a 720 release this year (no surprise given Halo 4).

Rumour – it will have 6 times the power of the 360

Likelihood – probably around that

It’s no surprise that the new console will have much more powerful capabilities than its forbears and that increase being six fold is no surprise. While specifics are under rap, the graphics card is supposed to be the Radeon 6000, decent but not the best.

Rumour – there’ll be Blue Ray

Likelihood – I’d place a modest bet on it.

The 360 famously only had a DVD drive thanks to Microsoft being on the losing end of the last content war (HD DVD vs Blue Ray).  The 720 will probably now feature Blue Ray, but the licensing could be tricky with Sony, mainly for the increase to 50GB disks opposed to 8GB DVDs. If not true, the 720 will have some real trouble keeping pace with the rest.

Rumour – will be cloud enabled

Likelihood – yes!

Not sure whether this’ll be storage, streaming films and games (think OnLive) or something else (maybe file sharing downloads when using your accound on a friend’s console), but the 720 will be cloud enabled – it makes sense. Would imagine that this will also be used for media streaming between various devices and the 720, eg. throwing up a video from your phone onto the tv through the xbox. 

Rumour – won’t support secondhand games

Likelihood – hmm, I suspect not

This is one of the more interesting and stranger rumours floating about. If true, it would change the entire industry in massive ways, and for that I highly doubt it is. How would it even be implemented across all games and people? If this turns out to be correct, I’ll be damed.

The hands come with it.

Wii U

The console with the most credible information due to its earlier release date of Q4 2012.

Rumour – dropping of the name

Likelihood – certainly plausible

I could see this happening as there have been fears the name Wii U is not distinct enough from the original Wii. Of course Nintendo wish to keep the brand identity, but concerns have risen over whether people will think of it as a distinct product or an update. The 3DS is reported to have performed poorly in part because not enough customers realised it was a separate handheld, not an updated version – like the DSlite.

Rumour – it’s not powerful enough

Likelihood – again, probably

There are two rumours here: the first that the U is 20% less powerful than the 720, and secondly that it’s twice as powerful as the 360, which if the 720 rumour is to be believed puts it at 50% (something doesn’t quite seem right here). An apparent insider has confirmed that many developers have had to scale back their ambitions when the hardware became evident.

Can't wait for this bad boy!

PS4

There’s not too much to be said here and only one rumour.

Rumour – it’ll be unveiled at E3

Likelihood – debunked

This is simply false. Sony have announced it’s not happening and anyway, it makes no sense given their 10 year plan for the PS3. Ignore anyone who says differently.

App of the week

Evernote

So, going to try and make this a regular instalment - a quick recommendation and review of some of my most useful (and time wasting) apps ranging from computer addons to phone applications.

First up we have the Evernote app. This is actually cross platform for computers/smartphones/tablets. As cunningly suggested by the name and picture, this is a note taking application that will sync with all your devices.   There is a browser extension for both Firefox and Chrome, and an app for ios and android.

Simply create a user account and login in start using! You can type in notes and reminders or (and here's the fancy part) clip URLs, add tags and copy entire articles from website for offline viewing! You get 60mb allowance a month (I've barely used 29kb - or as it tells me 0%) which is plenty for a multitude of notes.

Starting Fresh Guide

Whether you've just burnt a hole in your pocket by buying a fancy new Samsung Series 9 laptop, or you've burnt a hole in your current desktop and need a refresh then here's a little guide to help you on your way.

I'm going to focus on Windows7 for now but I'd hope to get something for Linux(Ubuntu) at some point, and Ally may want to set you Mac boys on your way.

So first things first, lets think about what generally comes standard with Windows systems. There can for one be a lot of bloatware that just doesn't get used. Not to mention trial versions that only last until next Monday. I recently rebooted my laptop with Windows7 Ultimate 64Bit and was delighted to see a nice clean slate to get stuck into. A lot of the big brands, HP, Dell and Sony can be bad for bundling bloatware with new laptops as well as trials so be aware and as they can even slow boot times.

While I'm not going to specifically tell you how to install your chosen OS or software, (automatic wizards do a better job of that) I am going to share a few of what I feel should be essential items of software to get you started.

Walls of cyber steel.

Now I understand that it is probably very good practice to spend a bit of money when it comes to internet security, it is after all your sensitive data at stake. I for one am running AVG Internet Security which you can grab a free copy here. There are plenty of alternatives to put you out of pocket too *cough* *Norton*. But as I mention to everyone who asks me, "Oh where can I get an antivirus?", I say Microsoft Internet Security Essentials is as safe a bet then any, and is a very light weight but effective bit of software. Get security sorted before you start anything else.

Simple and effective

As previously covered by Ally here, a browser is almost the most essential bit of software you are going to need. Please, if you take anything from this post, go ahead right now and remove IE from your system. It just hurts to see people still using IE6 (Microsoft I believe are hoping to roll out a silent update for those poor thousands out there). My choice, as well as Ally's, is Chrome, moving from Firefox because even with Palemoon, the customized Firefox optimizer, and some additional add-ons, things just got slow especially for start up times. Chrome offers both quick launch and quick browsing capability, crash support and a wealth of add-ons to enhance your browsing experience. Google sync allows you to also carry your custom settings with your email.

Back to the old days.

Surprise surprise, Microsoft put a time limit on Microsoft office too. And while it comes in a fancy new shell, with what can be seen as a positive step towards usability, it will put off the more veteran Office user. Lets face it, who actually gets round to using all the different office applications anyway. I'd like to suggest something a little closer to what we once knew. OpenOffice, is an open source Java built bit of kit to satisfy all your document needs, with standard formats and the ability to read a write other document files. Best of all its free and open to the support of its ever growing user base.

Warning - May play videos better.

Next stop is for your viewing pleasure. Now while I don't completely hate Windows Media Player, it still just doesn't do what it claims without some 'geektavention'. Introducing VLC player, an open source multimedia solution. Not only is this another piece of free software, but it is both faster running, has far more video formatting options and its Codec library will allow you to dig up those long and forgotten video formats and bring back their glory. As well as keeping up to date with new encodings present today. It also has streaming capability and a media converter to boot. GOM Player, isn't a bad alternative either.

Striking the hearts of fans

Now I'm undecided on this so it's down to one thing, do you own an IPhone or IPod? If the answer is yes to either then Itunes is for you. While its not the best audio software out there, you are a little restricted when it comes to syncing any of your apple devices, unless you've 'Jailbroken' it of course. There are some nice features none the less like, access to Itunes store for very competitive track prices, Itunes cloud service allowing you to take your music to the cloud and the genius function. Genius scans your track list and uploads them to a central on line system which is then able to identify trends in music to help suggest a seamless playlist. And so while I like itunes, strictly because I have an IPod, you could also try something like Winamp. A more professional and far more customisable media player at your fingertips. With one of the latest releases you are even also able to sync to your Ipod like this.

Fancy yourself an artist?

So that's one side of media covered, which just leaves pictures. I quite like Google's take with Picasso. On first load it prompts you to scan for media files so no need to organise yourself, just let it churn through your folders. Once its done, you're free to do some rearranging and deleting etc. A variety of editing features are at your disposal too if you feel like getting a bit creative. Don't worry if you get too carried away, Picasso allows you to undo to original. Social integration now also lets you tag your friends and share photos on your Google+ profile.

I guess that's the basics for now, enough to get you going and handle most of your daily needs. There are a few other hidden gems out there but I'll get back to you on that one.


Mooch.

Vita Dead Before Launch?

Really?

Sony’s new handheld is due to launch in the UK on the 22^nd Feb and by the looks of it will have much the same sort of problems they faced with the PSP and PS3: price and developer involvement (so says my crystal ball, best not argue).

Retailing the wifi version at £229.99, it’s certainly not cheap, and while the hardware is powerful, I cannot help but feel that something is missing in the design concept. As I see it, Sony has done much as Nintendo with the 3DS and not fully understood its market base in handhelds. While both companies have massive resource structures and teams of people just to check this stuff, something is wrong still, otherwise the PSP and 3DS would have sold like hot cakes.

The crux of it is gamers on the move are not as interested in hardware capabilities as us gamers on comfy sofas. Games like Angry Birds have done so well because they are so simple; perfect pick up and play titles suited to quick commutes, or waiting for a mate at the pub. Handhelds should be catering towards ease of use, not power and graphics because it a. is not what the customer wants and b. will be harder to attract developers and publishers to put in large sums of money.

Power in mobile gaming

However, if you are after proper power, Infinity Blade II proves the power of iOS (or Android) games; smartphones are becoming more and more like handhelds without the buttons, and are you really prepared to splash out so much on those buttons? Look at the new Razor tablet, a perfect example of a meld between high end gaming and tablet convenience. I expect to see more and more such products announced this year as the market for dedicated machinery dwindles. The handheld market evolved way before mobiles and has struggled to compete since the smartphone revolution.

So, what's the Vita like? From all corners, it does seem to be a nifty little machine capable of delivering where it counts. Unfortunately, there's no need for it as we see more and more devices emulate a crossover ideal.

Droid Razr Maxx (long name, long battery)

No excuses for not calling the wife now.

At CES the new Droid Razr Maxx was introduced. It’s similar to the standard model, a stunningly designed android smartphone, though it’s not quite as slim. However, the selling point is the battery; it’s twice as big at 3300mh – a massive increase!

Most phones now have battery sizes of around 1200mh, with a talktime of 8 hours or so. The Razr Maxx (still a ridiculous name, no matter how many times you say it) claims 21 hours of talktime, 7 hours of web browsing, 15 hours of video viewing and a full two and a half days of music playback! This makes it the largest 4G phone battery in the world, and by quite a sizeable margin. You could probably combine my entire life’s phone calls into that with room to spare. Well, I am a guy.

Smart and sexy: I need a girlfriend.

As phones (and tablets too) become ever more sophisticated and run more demanding programmes, battery life is reduced – more power is needed to run all of the various applications simultaneously. Apart from simply developing better batteries (like the Razr Maxx and Ultrabooks), there also needs to be more progression in how they are employed. A great example here is the new Asus Transformer Prime, currently holding the crown as the king of tablets. It features quad core processors capable of running more demanding applications over the dual core generations, but it actually has longer battery. It manages this by having a 5^th companion core than only runs up to around 500Mhz, perfect for things like viewing media and web browsing and using only a fraction of the battery of its larger brothers. When more processing power is needed, this small one shuts down and one at a time the quad cores engage. Simple, but very clever.

Definitely hoping that this soon becomes the standard for phones, as the average smartphone dies by suppertime while those old gems, like the Nokia 3310, which could last up to 3 days. Amazing then, and would be now too. 

I’m after new tech to learn from this sort of example; it’s not all about hardware specs, rather hwo they are used. Rant over.

Third guys a charm.

And last but not least is myself, Ben.

I'm a little late to the game but I'll be posting much like Ally, I'll drop in on some handy tips, what I did when it goes wrong, a look at some top software contenders in the field and some hidden gems.

On the odd occasion I might post a small response to any articles that keeps me glued.

So sit back and enjoy the mindless yet inspired ramblings of us here at ©Tech-17.


Mooch.