Google Toolbar has been recently updated - only the Internet Explorer version, though - and now includes an efficient Translate feature that will make web browsing easier, even in those websites you can’t understand. The new Translate feature is displayed as one more button in Google Toolbar, and one click is enough to make it detect the language of the web page you’re currently visiting and translate to the language you’ve set as default in the toolbar’s configuration menu.

Google Toolbar works surprisingly well, although the quality of the resulting translation depends on the language pair, and is never going to be as reliable as a translation done by a professional translator. The good thing about it is that it keeps on translating pages as you browse the site, and if you often translate from and to the same languages, Google Toolbar will remember your settings and translate web pages without having to click anywhere. The Translate feature supports 41 different languages and will soon be offered in Google Toolbar for Firefox as well.

But what if you don’t want to install a toolbar? There are other ways to turn foreign texts in something you can more or less understand. One of them is Google’s Language Tools, where you can paste text fragments for immediate translation or type in a web URL to obtain a complete web page translated to the language of your choice, while keeping the original design and layout as much as possible. Another option is using translation software, like the well-respected Babylon.

If you prefer online tools, you can check ProZ.com, where professional translators can solve your doubts, or IATE, a powerful online dictionary with support for all European languages that’s mainly focused on technical terms. Finally, I’d recommend WordReference as an excellent online dictionary with support for six languages, an active user community willing to help you and a special app for the iPhone / iPod Touch.

Windows: Are you a Firefox user? If so, you’ll be happy to know your favorite browser has been updated. Firefox 3.5 includes exciting new features such as a private browsing mode, an enhanced Awesome bar, better support for embedded videos, more powerful tools to manage your browsing history and a new engine that makes websites load even faster.

Symbian: There are plenty of applications for taking screen captures on your PC, but what happens if you want to grab an image of your phone’s displa? Well, grab a copy Best Screen Snap and your problems will be solved. Best Screen Snap is specifically designed to take screenshots of applications installed on your phone, which you can then send to your PC.

Mac: Ask anyone who’s used a Mac for a long period of time and they’ll tell you that Cocktail (now updated to version 4.4)  still remains one of the best all round admin tools out there. Cocktail can do all your essential maintenance tasks from clearing your cache to controlling sleep times. There’s nothing new in Cocktail that you can’t do in Terminal but Cocktail makes it so much easier through its GUI.

Switching to a whole new browser is a tough decision, but the launch of updated versions for both Opera, Safari and Firefox may have encouraged you to take the step. In that case, you probably need a way to keep all those precious bookmarks safe in the transition from one browser to another.

Most browsers nowadays include internal tools that let you export bookmarks to a standalone file and then open that from the new browser, or even import all data from the old browser right after installation. But in case none of these solutions work for you, here are a few apps that can help you sync bookmarks across different web browsers.

Xmarks - This excellent bookmarking tool, previously known as Foxmarks, started as Firefox-compatible only but can now be used with Internet Explorer and Safari as well. Xmarks not only enables you to sync and backup bookmarks, but also displays additional information about the websites you browse and enhances your web searches.

AM-DeadLink - Using Opera? Then this is the tool you need. With AM-DeadLink you can manage bookmarks from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. The program also does a bit of housecleaning, by removing links to websites that are no longer available and recovering lost favicons.

Transmute - This is probably the most powerful bookmark synchronizer out there. It lets you sync, convert and organize bookmarks from the most popular web browsers, including the ones I mentioned before and also Google Chrome and Flock. it also helps you keep your bookmark collection clean by removing duplicates.

The Web is full of handy software applications that can contribute to make your life a bit easier. Whatever your need is, it’ll probably take you only a few minutes of Googling to find a suitable program for it. But if you look further, you’ll see there are other applications the aim of which is not precisely to be useful and efficient. In fact, there are a quite a few of these useless programs that seem to have been created for no reason at all - or at least, for no sane reason. Here are some examples I found on the Web, though I’m sure you’ll know many more.

Alien Communicator - Believe or not, ‘the truth is out there’. And if you want to find it, you better start contacting aliens right now. When you run this tool, aliens will be able to communicate telepathically with you and leave messages by controlling the number generation capabilities of your PC.

Voice Lie Detector - If you think your partner or your kids are not completely sincere, you need a lie detector. This program uses an old algorithm to detect voice stress, an unmistakable signal that will enable you to discover if you’re being lied to.

Parrot Trainer - So you have a parrot, but can’t be bothered to train it by yourself? Let your PC do the hard work for you! This app repeats the same sound over and over again until your parrot learns them by heart. According to the developer, you can also use to nag your kids, husband, wife… What’s more, it comes with four sound samples recorded by the developer himself. Read the rest of this entry »

After reading dozens of articles about the wonders of Ubuntu and hearing some of my workmates constantly praising it, I was so curious to test it for myself that I couldn’t help it: I’ve downloaded the latest version of this popular Linux distro from their official website and I’m just about to install it. I want to see it with my own eyes and check if Ubuntu really deserves all those kind words. I plan to be using Ubuntu for a few days, not only to test it as an operating system, but also to test myself and see if I can manage to accomplish the most basic tasks (browsing the web, downloading software, blogging, listening to music, editing photos…) in a completely new operating system. If you’re also curious about Ubuntu, get ready because the trip is about to start!

They say that a thousand mile journey starts with a single step and in this case, our first step is obviously installing Ubuntu. After downloading the Ubuntu 9.04 ISO file, burn it to a CD with your favorite burning app, following these instructions if necessary. Insert the newly recorded CD into the CD drive and restart your system so that it boots from the CD drive and launches the installation. You may have to modify the boot-up sequence on your system to do this.

The first step is choosing the language used for installation. Note that this will also be the default language for the system once Ubuntu is installed. Read the rest of this entry »

A while ago I wrote a post about how to find album covers on the Internet and import them to iTunes, so that when you browse your music library - either on the PC or on your iPod - you can enjoy colorful artwork instead of those boring gray music notes. Today, I’m focusing on something that will also contribute to make your music collection a bit better: searching the Web for the lyrics to your favorite songs and importing them directly into the files’ ID tags, all with a minimum of effort.

The trick is using LyricsFetcher,  a handy free app that scans your iTunes or Windows Media Player library and searches the web for the lyrics of all the songs you have - or just the ones you select. The first time you launch it, LyricsFetcher may seem to be a bit slow but that’s just because it needs to load your whole music library before doing anything else. From that moment on, finding the lyrics to all your favorite songs will be a piece of cake. Read the rest of this entry »

The web browser has slowly evolved from being just one more program on our hard drive to becoming almost the only tool you’ll ever need, thanks to the popularity of web apps. This is why it’s important to keep it perfectly updated, and tailor it according to your needs and tastes. One of these small customization details is the browser home page, that is, the first web page that loads when launching the browser; something our reader David seemed to have some problems with:

I want to delete the Google search page from my Firefox home page.  Don’t quite know how it got there in the first place but I want to delete it.  Please advise how I can do this and thanks!

I must say I don’t really understand what David meant by ‘deleting’ the home page, but assuming that what he wants to do is changing the home page, it’s quite easy: simply open Firefox, go to Tools > Options and in the Main tab, enter the address of your preferred website in the ‘Home Page‘ text field.

Besides this basic functionality, there are other tricks you can use to spice up your browser home page. One of them is opening several webpages at the same when you launch the browser. All you have to do is entering the addresses of all the web pages you want to use as home pages in the same field described before, separating them with vertical bars.

An easier way to configure multiple home pages without having to type that much is opening all the web pages you want to use, then go to Tools > Options and click the ‘Use Current Pages‘ button. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you probably know what Twitter is. What’s more, you may have been using it for a while now, to share links, keep in touch with friends and follow the ups and downs of a few celebrities.

But besides its main purpose as microblogging platform, and thanks to the Twitter API, Twitter has become also the ground base for a wide variety of apps and services, created by hundreds of developers worldwide. Thanks to this stream of creativity, Twitter is now much more than just a microblogging service. Here’s a small sample of everything you can do with Twitter - apart from exchanging 140-character long messages:

• TwitPic - Probably one of the most popular Twitter-based apps, TwitPic lets you easily share photos on Twitter. Simply upload the image to the TwitPic site and it’ll be automatically sent to your Twitter account.
• FileTwt - Lets you send files online via Twitter, up to 20 MB in size. Files are shared in either in your public timeline or in a private message addressed to only one person (which requires signing for a free account on the app’s website).
• TwitVid - It’s similar to TwitPic, only that it lets you share videos instead. TwitVid supports multiple video sharing - in playlists - and can also capture the image source from your webcam.
• Twisten - With Twisten you can discover new music everyday. This app searches Twitter for music-related tweets and lets you listen to those songs on the spot. There are also links to download the MP3 from Amazon or iTunes.
• TwtJobs - Believe or not, Twitter can also help you get a job! Twtjobs lets you create and publish your “twitter resume”, or advertise a job post in Twitter. The 140-character limit can be quite challenging though.
• TwitterCal - If you use Google Calendar, you’re going to love this one: TwitterCal lets you create new tasks and appointments by sending direct messages to a specific Twitter account.
• TweetStats -Finally, a little nourishment for your ego: with TweetStats you can quickly generate statistics about your own Twitter account: how many tweets per hour do you send? Who do you retweet most?

One of the new features included in Microsoft Outlook 2007 is native support for RSS , which comes in quite handy because it allows you to manage email and feeds from one single application. But what happens if you’re still using Outlook 2003 - like me - or even older versions, and still would like to embed RSS feeds in Microsoft’s email client? The answer is RSS Popper: a useful Outlook plug-in developed by Paradisoft with which you can comfortably read your favorite feeds right on Outlook’s interface.

Once RSS Popper is installed, launch or restart Outlook and you’ll see a new toolbar. Click on RSS Popper > Edit Feeds and you’ll open a window where you can start adding your feeds straight away. RSS Popper brings some example feeds by default, but you may as well delete them if they’re not your cup of tea.

The good thing about RSS Popper is that it also features support for importing and exporting, which means you can import your complete feed collection in XML format and embed it directly in Outlook. RSS Popper will organize each feed into different folders - just like your email folders - and display selected items as if they were email messages.

 RSS Popper can be configured to refresh feeds automatically according to a certain period of time, though you can also refresh them manually by clicking the correspondent button on the toolbar.

After launching a first set of add-on kits under the suggestive name of Fashion Your Firefox a few months ago, Mozilla have taken a step beyond in themed packs with the so called Add-on Collections. Collections are customizable groups of related add-ons that anyone can create and share on the Mozilla website. In this way you can easily keep track of new updates for your favorite add-ons, create personal packs with your basic add-on kit for quick browser installations and share new exciting add-ons with your friends online.

Collections have now their own section in the Mozilla Add-on official website - which, by the way, has been redesigned. From here you can browse collections by popularity, and also check Editor’s picks and latest additions to the site. You can also subscribe to any collections you like, and create your own. Creating a personal collection is as easy as filling in a form with a name, description and a choice of a few selected add-ons. Plus, they can be made public or restricted to only people you invite.

But the best way to keep track of your favorite collections and manage the ones created by you is probably installing the Collector add-on. This add-on has been especially designed to keep track of any updates in the collections you’ve subscribed to, and let you update your own collections with new additions, all directly from your browser.

Windows: are you tired of always listening to the same MP3 libraries and local radio stations? Then give Internet radio a try! RadioSure is a lightweight yet powerful online radio player that lets you listen to thousands of free online radio stations worldwide. Plus it lets you add your own radio stations and record streaming music to your hard drive in MP3 format.

BlackBerry: If you ever wished you were around when the industrial revolution kicked off, then Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon will give you the chance to revisit history. This BlackBerry version of the popular PC-based Railroad Tycoon game allows you to build your very own transportation empire. Your aim is to master supply and demand and use your tactical know-how to expand your rail network.

Mac: There aren’t half as many video conversion tools available for Mac as there are for Windows, so when one comes along which is quick, easy to use and most importantly, completely free, you take note. Evom ticks all of the above boxes and will even upload your conversions directly to YouTube. Everything is clearly presented, it handles all major formats and using Evom is a breeze.

One of the worst nightmares I’ve had lately is about my precious Android-powered phone being stolen. It would be a complete disaster, no only because of the money value, but also because of all my personal information stored in that small device. So I started looking for a way to protect my HTC Magic in case it got stolen, and finally found this application in the Android Market: SimChecker.

With SimChecker you can configure your phone to send the coordinates for its current location, both by GPS and WiFi network positioning, as soon as the device detects a new, unknown SIM card. The coordinates can be sent either by text message to another phone number, or by e-mail to a predefined address. You can also check both options to be on the safe side.

In this way, as soon as somebody else tries to use your phone with a different SIM card, you’ll get an immediate report about its location. What’s more, if you enable text message alerts, you’ll also get the actual phone number that SIM card is linked to, which may help you trace the phone back to the person who has it now. Another feature I’d like to see would be the possibility to automatically erase all your personal data from the phone in case it’s stolen, but SimChecker doesn’t include it - yet.

In any case, remember that the best way to keep your phone safe is taking proper care of it: don’t leave it lying around, always use a blocking code and jot down the IMEI code in case you need to block it.

Windows: Looking for a nice, clean RSS reader to check your favorite news every morning? ShareFire may be the program you need. This sleek AIR-based app lets you access your RSS feeds in a comfortable interface, organize them by folders, see the selected item on its original website and easily share the most interesting posts in Facebook, Delicious, MySpace, Digg, Twitter and more.

Symbian: Living in a castle is great but it does have its downsides. One of the main ones being that you’re prone to attacks by invaders who want to get into your castle, as you’ll witness in Defender. An interesting mobile strategy game, Defender charges you with the task of defending your citadel from waves of attacks by nasty monsters.

Mac: Sick of Internet Explorer and tired of Firefox? Safari is Apple’s iconic browser, and as you’d expect, it’s a delight to use and easy on the eye. Version 4 (now out of beta) sees some exciting introductions such as Top Pages to instantly see your most visited pages, tabs on top for easier management and Cover Flow to flip through your bookmarked sites iTunes style.

Windows: After a few months in alpha stage, Opera 10 has finally reached the beta milestone in its development. The new Opera 10 Beta web browser has a 40% faster engine and flawless support for Web standards, as well as a customizable speed dial, inline spell-check, automated crash reporting, and the so called Opera Turbo for fast browsing on slow connections.

Mac: If you don’t trust Keychain on the Mac, then take a look at the newly updated 1Password. This tiny but powerful application allows you to store and manage multiple identities and passwords for use in all sorts of programs, websites or browsers. 1Password works with most major browsers and includes an extension to quickly access your credentials while you’re surfing the net.

iPhone: Personally, whenever I go to a theme park I’m usually the one who volunteers to stay at the bottom and look after the bags. I did manage to pluck up the courage to install Rollercoaster Rush on my iPhone though. The aim of the game is to get your carriage from the start of the track to the finish without derailing it. Your only means of doing this is by tapping the right side of the iPhone to accelerate and the left side to brake.

Your desktop is the first thing you see when you start your computer, so why not use it for something more useful than just displaying a cute picture? There are some tricks - and software apps as well - for embedding interesting information (calendars, to-do lists, CPU data) on your desktop, so that you always have it at hand. Here’s a list of five elements you may want to have on your desktop, from a simple text file task list to a fully featured system monitoring tool.

To-do list

Embedding a to-do list in your desktop background is easier than it seems. All it requires is a simple text file that contains your list and an old Windows feature: Active Desktop. The trick consists of creating a very simple HTML document in a text editor with your list, and then using Active Desktop to show it on top of your wallpaper.

A sample HTML to-do list would look like this:

Now, open the Display Properties window by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop and select the Desktop tab. Then click on Customize Desktop and go to the Web tab. Here you’ll be able to select a webpage to display on your desktop, i.e., the HTML file you just created. Read the rest of this entry »