Today sees the arrival of another edition of Softonic’s software blog, OnSoftware. That’s right: fr.onsoftware.com has launched!

We’re very pleased to welcome our French colleagues to the blogosphere. They’re all experienced software journalists with Softonic.fr already… and they’ve really been chomping at the bit to get their blog online.

As you’ll expect, they’ll be providing the very best software coverage, tips, tricks, advice and more… just in French! So whether you’re a French speaker or you’re still learning, check out fr.onsoftware.com and let the guys know what you think!

In case you hadn’t heard, rumor has it that Apple will release a new ‘tablet’ on Wednesday. Here at OnSoftware, we decided that rather than add to the echo chamber, we’d stay out of any debate on the putative features and software of this alleged device. We’ll be offering our thoughts when we know how the machine looks and feels, which version of OS X it runs and what software-enhancing goodies it has packed into its super-thin body.

At the same time, there is a lot of great analysis and gossip-mongering going on out there in the blogosphere. So with about 28 hours to go, here’s a round up of some of the best articles we’ve read about the mysterious “Jesus Tablet”.

TUAW has a rundown of their tablet coverage. They discussed the ramifications for software developers, ‘print’ publishers and how the tablet might connect with the world. They also think that Steve Jobs might be planning to revolutionize the education sector with this device.

Seth Weintraub at 9 to 5 Mac wrote a great post arguing that the tablet will be a breakthrough convergence device. In short: it’s going to do most of what you want it to, plus lots more.

Plenty commentators reckon that the Wall Street Journal is receiving lots of leaked information directly from Apple, which would explain why that newspaper is so packed with insightful, authoritative articles about a device ‘no one’ has seen. Like this one.

MacRumors has been, as usual, a great place to read up on the latest gossip. One of its most repeated topics is that the tablet might be called the iPad.  Personally, I prefer Canvas as a name, but a forum user has pointed out a good reason why that might not be so.

John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog is always an excellent place to visit for news and analysis, and he’s been particularly good as the hype has built around the tablet. (That last link includes a link to a very entertaining and incisive article by Chicago Sun-Times writer Andy Ihnatko, which is among the best tablet-related pieces we’ve seen so far).

Leigh McMullen at Cult of Mac wrote a piece which really resonated with us. He doesn’t want to see a tablet that runs something like iPhone OS. Nor do we. A hybrid between Mac and iPhone makes more sense… but Apple might well ignore that.

The Guardian is also crowdsourcing a prediction on the possible specs of the new tablet. It’ll be interesting to see how close the results are to reality.

Finally, here’s Mosspuppet reviewing the tablet [via: 9 to 5 Mac]

This Ask OnSoftware topic is a hardy perennial which we’ve received lots of emails about. Most recently, reader Alvas wrote to ask:

I just can’t settle down with Nero. Its bloat just disturbs me. Now I am settled with Burnaware Free. Can you guys please recommend some good VCD/DVD authoring tools?

Of course we can!

Alvas is completely right about Nero. While it’s very easy to use for relative newcomers,  it’s so overloaded with features that it can feel totally overwhelming. After all, what do most of us want Nero to do? Burn DVDs, surely? So if you’re sick of Nero too, here are some suggestions for quality, free DVD authoring tools.

DVD Flick

For fairly experienced Windows users, DVD Flick could be the best solution. It allows you to compile your own DVDs, stitching videos together and adding menus. It may not be the prettiest program out there, and your menus may not look quite as good as the ridiculous ones I saw on the Blu-ray for Terminator 2 last night… but DVD Flick is a sturdy and reliable little app.

Sothink DVD Movie Maker

Boasting a sexier user interface than DVD Flick, DVD Movie Maker is one of several great apps from Sothink. It performs mostly the same functions, but includes more templates for creating DVD menus. Our editor Nick liked its features for including subtitles on your DVD as well as its good support for multiple formats.

InfraRecorder

This is my recommendation, mainly because I used it quite a lot over Christmas. InfraRecorder is  a quick and simple DVD writing tool that does away with such graceful touches as menu creation templates. What it does, though, is handle burning DVD images and video files: and it performs these tasks with the minimum of fuss. If you’re looking for a basic, high-speed DVD writing app for your Windows machine, go for InfraRecorder.

Don’t forget that if you have any software related questions, just email us at:

ask@onsoftware.com

…and if we like your question, we’ll answer it here on the blog.

This is just a quick post to let our readers know that nearly everyone at OnSoftware will be in holiday between now and the new year. We’ll publish a few posts but not as many as we would normally.

In the meantime, don’t forget to send in your questions and suggestions to ask@onsoftware.com

We wish you all a very happy holiday season and an awesome-software-packed 2010!

The developers of eagerly awaited netbook OS, Jolicloud, have just announced that the new pre-beta release of the OS is available to download. The OS comes in two downloadable versions: Jolicloud Express, a Windows .exe file which will install Jolicloud directly from your Windows desktop; or an ISO for those experienced in such dark arts as partitioning.

If you’re a beginner, we recommend that you stick with the Express edition - just make sure that you back up any important data, photos etc on your netbook before you begin: installing any OS can sometimes cause problems.

When you’ve downloaded and tested the pre-beta, come back and let us know what you thought!

It’s a pretty tall order picking 10 pieces of software from the last 10 years. This has, after all, been a decade increasingly described - and even shaped - by the software we’ve been using. While Nick focused on free downloads for his selection last week, mine will include more web apps, reflecting the huge shift to online and social software that has taken place over the decade. So please forgive me if there are a couple of Google applications that make it into my top ten.

Firefox - released 2004. The ‘noughties’ could appropriately be split into two eras: before and after Firefox. Since 1998, when AOL announced their purchase of Netscape, hopes that a web browser could ever again compete with Internet Explorer had faded. Mozilla issued a statement of intent with Phoenix in 2002 and fired a broadside with Firefox two years later. The market is now more competitive than ever.

Gmail - launched (in beta) 2004.  My first email account was with Hotmail, before that company was bought by Microsoft in 1997. In between then and 2004, I had five or six different accounts with various providers. Google’s reinvention of email, introducing smart conversations, tags, search that works, massive storage… fixed a system that was broken and forced more established providers to pick up their game.

Last.fm - launched 2002. The first great social app that was about something other than socializing. Combining data about what music each user listens to with social features has allowed the website to develop into a powerful recommendation engine, allowing users to discover new music, and make friends with people who share their tastes. The addition of an events section in 2006 made Last.fm’s offering to music fans complete.

Twitter - launched 2006. It remains to be seen whether Twitter can maintain its position as the most cutting edge real-time social/communication tool on the web. Intuition and previous experience suggest that this will be impossible. Over the last 2 years, Twitter has grown to become one of the most popular websites out there, as well as playing an important role in world events.

Google Maps Navigation for Android - released 2009. The Android edition of Google’s popular maps and directions software is a perfect marriage of hardware and software. As all Android devices feature high-speed data connections, GPS and a digital compass, Google found it could produce a real-time navigation app that would have been unthinkably expensive just a couple of years ago.

Skype - released 2003. If there’s one piece of software that has benefited from the global spread of broadband internet, it’s Skype. While VoIP wasn’t exactly a new idea, Skype launched to a fast-expanding at exactly the right moment. Used by millions around the world to stay in touch with loved ones, Skype revolutionized an industry - and improved our lives.

iTunes - released 2001. Now, iTunes isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I think it should be. As a music manager, nothing beats iTunes for ease of use and functionality. And the iTunes Music Store taught the record industry that it could embrace digital downloads, a strategic move that may just have saved that industry.

WordPress - released 2003. As blogging exploded in popularity at the beginning of the decade, there weren’t that many platforms to choose between for budding amateur writers. Those options that existed were typically closed, lacked customization options, or cost money. WordPress made blogs easy to use and personalizable, as well as adhering to a creed of simple, clean code. One of the great open source projects of the decade.

Transmission - released 2006. If the beginning of this decade saw us downloading files with such awful programs as Napster and Shareaza, the latter half has been dominated by BitTorrent. Transmission has become something of a classic OS X application: its simple design, reliability and ease of use all make it the perfect Mac torrent client.

SimGolf - released 2002. OK so SimGolf was never free. And it wasn’t that popular. And no one has ever heard of it except for me. But it’s a great little game and well worth trying out, even 7 years after its release. SimGolf lets you design your own golf course and then play tournaments on it. I know that sounds impossibly exciting but the reality of the game is so much more… try it today and you’ll see.

Update: I sent invites to the first 10 people to comment. However, anyone can now download the pre-beta for Jolicloud here.  Enjoy!

There has been much attention given to Google Chromium OS over the last few weeks (here at OnSoftware as much as anywhere else). This is hardly surprising, given that a lot of netbook owners share the dream of an ultra light, fast-booting OS targeted at the web.

As we’ve seen from trying Chromium OS out, Google have a long way to go before they’ve got anything that vaguely resembles a functioning operating system. So while you wait for a workable beta (hopefully some time next year) - why not try the best alternative on the market?

Jolicloud is a light, fast web-focused Linux distro based on Ubuntu. It has a fairly smart one-click-to-install user interface, fast boot times and relatively low power consumption. It feels more ‘built for netbooks’ than Windows 7 and is simple enough for even the most novice of users. We’ve been testing Jolicloud for a few months now and we really like it.

Unlike Chromium OS, Jolicloud lets more advanced users do what they want, so key elements of the Gnome/Linux OS are still accessible via the terminal. Another big criticism of Google’s OS is its insistence on being connected to the Internet all the time. Jolicloud, meanwhile, supports more local storage options and lets you install VLC Player along with other powerful offline apps.

We’ve got 10 invites for the Jolicloud alpha, so to get your hands on this cool little OS, simply leave a comment below telling us what you’re planning to do with your smart new Jolicloud-powered netbook.

Every now and then, you come across a piece of software that genuinely surprises. Normally, the thing that surprises us about such pieces of software is what it does: features and functionalities. QQ doesn’t really do anything new. It doesn’t contain any particularly ground breaking features. It’s an instant messaging client. What’s surprising about QQ is that its network has over 1 billion registered accounts… and unless you’re in contact with China, you probably never heard of it.

Depending on who you believe, QQ is either the #1 or the #3 most popular instant messaging client on the internet. It’s published by QQ.com, which in turn has an Alexa rank of 11. And yes, the fact that this is such a popular app is what makes it so important.

Apart from the fairly generic functions that you’d expect in any IM client, QQ does pack a few features which you won’t find in either Yahoo’s or Microsoft’s offerings. For example: QQ allows you to resume an interrupted download when you’re sharing files with friends. That may not sound particularly exciting but if you consider the stability of networks in parts of China and plenty of other countries, you’ll see that it’s actually essential. Another cool feature included with QQ is a nifty little screen grab tool which you can use while chatting. It even lets you make small screencasts: great for anyone who’s constantly helping friends out with their PCs.

But does that make QQ an MSN killer? Well the answer is: possibly. QQ is already a better designed and more up-to-date client than MSN. What QQ needs is a way to convince Messenger users to jump ship. One way this could be done would be by interacting with the MSN network: I don’t think that would work. But some promotion on American and European websites could well have a major impact.

You can download QQ Messenger from Softonic here, and don’t forget to check out our QQ review, too!

As you may have read elsewhere, today marks the 5th anniversary of the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0. The browser, intended as a direct attack on the market dominance (and abysmal build quality) of Internet Explorer, has gone from strength to strength in those five years, proving that the software we use to view the web can be as important as the content we’re viewing.

But this story didn’t really begin on November 9th, 2004. Firefox had already been around for a couple of years, under the name of Phoenix (and, briefly, Firebird). That was when many internet users, including myself, first had a chance to get to grips with what was to become a revolutionary piece of software. I was still using a 56k dialup connection when I first used Phoenix, so load times really mattered!

You can still download Phoenix 0.5 (from 2002) and, apart from gaping security holes it’s riddled with, the program itself is eminently usable and very reminiscent of Firefox 3.5.5. Some page elements display incorrectly on newer websites, but the most notable difference is how much faster ‘bloated’ Firefox 3.5.5 is. Also, Firefox uses a heck of a lot more memory than Phoenix ever did, but that seems OK because computers have so much more memory available.

Many of the keyboard shortcuts and features in Firefox were already available in Phoenix. Tabbed browsing, for example, works well in the older browser, though you couldn’t carry out advanced tab operations like dragging tabs to reorder them. Phoenix 0.5 also fails the Acid3 browser test, with a score of 39/100 - still strikingly better than ’standards be damned’ Internet Explorer 7 (12/100).

Taking another look at Phoenix 0.5 today has brought back a lot of memories… like how the default theme was ugly but the favorites manager was streets ahead of IE’s offering (which it still is). Phoenix was an important piece of software that restored hope to web users like me who’d grown up with Netscape, only to see it die from lack of development. So yes, today is Firefox’s birthday. But I’m remembering Phoenix.

One of the most widespread problems people had with Snow Leopard when it launched was a compatibility issue in Mail.app (aka Apple Mail) which prevented messages being sent and even crashed the program in some cases. Nick wrote a guide to fixing these issues, so this obvious failing in Apple’s QA testing needn’t be too much of a hindrance.

That said, my first thought when I read about people having problems with Mail.app was: why are these people even using Mail.app? I’ve had my current iMac for around two years and I’ve never even run the Mail program. Not once. That’s because I use Gmail, a mail application that renders Mail.app and all other desktop email clients more or less obsolete.

For those of you still toiling in the dark with an email client, I know there is sometimes a good reason for that. If you’re trying to handle lots of different accounts, or if you need to connect to an Exchange server, it’s difficult to live without a mail client. But for the average home user and even for most home office users, webmail solutions will always be a better idea than clients. Here’s why:

Security and stability

Desktop email clients are inherently less stable than Gmail or other equivalent webmail services. Storing your data on a local disk (even if you backup) will never be as safe as trusting Google’s datacenters (which are, themselves never 100% safe: nothing is).

But perhaps more importantly, email clients generally rely on downloading message files (and often attachments) to your computer before you filter out content you don’t want. This means that the potential for spam and even malware finding its way onto your computer is significantly higher if you use a mail client application. Read the rest of this entry »

This week will see the release of Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest push for control of your PC. As the launch date approaches, we’ll be posting lots of helpful articles, reviews and videos all about the brand new edition of Windows. To kick things off, here’s our first ever OnSoftware poll. Yeah, I can’t believe it either! So how do you feel about the new OS’s imminent arrival?

Let us know by voting in the poll below - and leave a comment to let us know why!

The problem

The more digital content we store on our computers, the more important reliable backup solutions become. For example, my iMac has about 50GB of music and photos on its primary disk drive. While much of the music could probably be replaced, any photo not yet uploaded to Flickr would be lost forever if that disk failed. So, like many other Mac users, I use Time Machine to maintain a secure copy of all my files, albeit on a potentially unstable portable hard disk in the same room as my Mac.

It was this potential unreliability of my Time Machine disk that got me interested in online backup options. What could be better than being able to backup to a remote server, safe in the knowledge that should any disaster befall my Time Machine disk, everything would still be OK. At least, that was the theory.

Solution found!

After some research and a little help from OnSoftware, I settled on Mozy - generally regarded as being a great online backup tool. I signed up for the $4.95/month unlimited backup plan: I thought (and still think) that $5 a month is a pretty good price point for total piece of mind. After setting up my account - a really simple process - and installing the Mozy desktop client - also a breeze - I let Mozy get to work on its initial backup. It was about eight hours after this that I spotted the main flaw in Mozy’s design: you have to complete an entire backup in one go right at the beginning, without any interruptions whatsoever. You can’t go restarting your Mac (not that I did), and you can’t lose connectivity for even a short time, which seems to have happened to me.

Around this time, my Mac was acting a little weird. I’d narrowed the problem down to a graphics driver error, but the truth is that my Mac was freezing from time to time. This meant that every time the driver error reared its ugly exception, I’d have to start from scratch on the Mozy backup. That’s not Mozy’s fault, nor is the occasional eccentricity of my ADSL connection. But Mozy could come up with a way of resuming backups, even for the initial backup process.

In order to be fair, I tried running Mozy after I’d fixed the driver issue and done a clean install, to see if it performed better under optimal conditions. Left overnight, I expected Mozy to be up to about 25% when I checked it in the morning. Unfortunately, Mozy had failed for some unknown reason at some point during the evening… all I could do was start it again. Then it failed again during the day. So I canceled my account, disappointed by a product that I’d been planning on loving.

Two things Mozy could do to win me back

Find a way of resuming backups. When backing up 100GB of data, it’s just ridiculous that an interruption causes the whole process to be canceled. Building a decent file index at the beginning of the backup operation should allow for Mozy to pick up where it left off, and then look for changes after the initial backup is complete.

Clearer error messages. One of the biggest problems I found was that when Mozy’s backup process failed, the information available about what had happened was very limited. More information, on the web side of the user interface, if necessary, would make it easier to diagnose and fix problems preventing the backup from working properly.

 A few months back, I started having problems with my beloved iMac. Lines would appear on the screen, as well as patches of odd color. But worst of all was the series of system crashes I suddenly started suffering, often more than once a day. They’d happen while using Firefox, or opening a stack on the Dock, or just moving my mouse.

I tried disconnecting peripheral devices, used TechTool Deluxe to test the integrity of my hard disk and memory, but found no solution. Looking at Console for a clue (I probably should have done this first), I found lots of serious looking errors occurring just before my system crashes. They all took the form of:

21.06.09 22:25:31 kernel NVDAOpenGL: Channel exception! status 0xffff info32 0x3 Fifo: Unknown Method Error
21.06.09 22:25:31 kernel 0000000b

Now, I may not be a Mac expert per se, but my experiences working with OS X, Windows and Linux told me that “NVDA”, “OpenGL” and “Channel exception!” pointed to the fact that something was gravely wrong and that it had something to do with my Nvidia 7300 GT video card. Which begged the question: is this a hardware or a driver issue?

Reading this helpful thread on the Apple Support forums, I’ve found that plenty of other iMac owners are suffering with the same problem. Consensus there is that it’s related to a driver/software fault… but this is confused by there being at least two problems which cause similar issues. User Asrenzo’s comment from yesterday helps to clarify the situation. After carrying out various tests, he feels certain that the software/driver theory is right. It seems that OS X 10.5.7 introduced a new, faulty driver for the Nvidia graphics card which simply stopped it from working properly.

“But what about the fix?“, you may be wondering. Well, the solution I’ve found is simple: install Snow Leopard. In my case, I backed up my entire home disk with Time Machine, erased and did a clean install, and then imported my apps, files and accounts from Time Machine. I’m not sure that the Time Machine bit is essential but I can say that not only does my 3 year-old iMac run like new now, I’ve also yet to see any Channel exception! or NVDA(OpenGL) errors.

If you’re suffering with frequent crashes and are at your wit’s end (and your Mac’s compatible, of course), try doing a clean install of Snow Leopard. It certainly seems to have worked for me.

An interesting query from one of our (anonymous) readers on a topic which has even cropped up in our editorial meetings:

Hi! I’ve been thinking about buying a smartphone, and one of the features I’ve heard people talking about on mobile blogs is “Augmented Reality”. What is that, and why is it useful? Should it affect my choice of phone?

Though it seems like something of a current buzzword, Augmented Reality as a term was actually coined in the 1980’s. In simple terms, Augmented Reality - also called AR - means the enhancement of what you have around you by adding a layer of data to it. In other words, you can use AR to make your surroundings ’smarter’ - pointing out places of interest, for example.

On my HTC Magic Android phone (AKA the myTouch 3G), I’ve tried out a few of the more popular AR apps and I can honestly say that while I don’t use them 24/7, knowing that I have them to hand is a great feeling. Wikitude AR is the first Augmented Reality app I tried and its results were impressive. Simply point your phone’s camera at anything you like and Wikitude combines GPS location, your phone’s internal compass and a variety of data streams (most notably Wikipedia) to provide you with a wealth of information about what you’re looking at. A newer competitor, Layar, performs similarly but with the advantage of being free and open - meaning that anyone can add their own data layer to it.

Another application, Google’s Sky Map, may not be considered to be a classic use of AR but in my opinion it’s a great example of what Augmented Reality can do. Using it to locate and name celestial objects is actually really fun and enhances a fun hobby. Read the rest of this entry »

Because any excuse is good enough for a celebration, today we’re celebrating that according to our calendars, today’s the 9th day of the 9th month of 2009. To mark the day, we’re giving away 999 licenses for the brand new program FILEminimizer Pictures.

FILEminimizer Pictures is a handy utility which lets you compress images, significantly reducing filesize without losing much in the way of quality.

How do I get my license?

To get a license for FILEminimizer Pictures all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, making sure that you include a valid email address.

UPDATE: there was a great response to this giveaway, and as of Wednesday afternoon, we’ve now run out of licenses. You can buy the full version from Softonic here.

The program is priced at €24.95 (€17.22 from Softonic) but, thanks to the developer (and OnSoftware!) you can get the full version for free. Hurry up, and don’t forget to tell your friends. The offer is open until September 30th, or when the licenses run out.