Windows: The popular anti-spyware tool Ad-Aware has finally reached the open beta stage. The new Ad-Aware 2008 Beta features improved performance and stability, a better resource management and noticeably faster scans and updates. Download the open Beta and get a trial serial number to test a fully functioning Pro version for free during 42 days.

Mac: The big news today is Microsoft’s release of Messenger for Mac 7. The updated chat client now allows you to give nicknames to your contacts and offers Bonjour support to find connected users on your network. Corporate users are the better served though as they get detailed presence information and, most important audio and video support.

Symbian: Are you a fan of board games? Then make sure you check out Astraware Boardgames on your mobile phone. The pack includes classics such as Backgammon, Chess, Ludo, Checkers and Reversi. Each of the eight games comes with customizable rules and a range of difficulty level, so the fun keeps going for quite some time.

PC maintenance is something that most people carry out in the first few months of receiving their new machine and then proceed to completely forget or ignore for the remainder of the computer’s lifetime. That lifetime is often considerably shorter than it would have been if they’d only managed to carry out regular basic maintenance. When the computer starts to slow down, most people think that buying more memory, tweaking the operating system or simply buying a new one is the answer to their problems. In fact, I’d guess that poor maintenance is the reason that many a PC has been needlessly consigned to an early grave. Remembering to defrag, clean and scan your PC for spyware never usually works - it’s far better to schedule the tasks to automatically work. Windows System Scheduler is the basic tool that comes bundled with Windows to help you do this but it’s neither particularly easy to configure or customise. These top 5 maintenance schedulers should make life much easier and ensure that your PC lives a longer life:

Ghost Control - Record macros to automatically execute maintenance programs at any time

nCleaner - Schedule regular and thorough cleaning of your hard drive

JkDefrag - Prevent hard drive slow downs by scheduling defrags with this tool

Advanced Registry Doctor - Keep your registry in tip top condition by scheduling scans

GetRight - Don’t let downloads slow down your PC - schedule them for completion later

Windows: Though it doesn’t really add any new great functionalities, Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) could be considered a must-have for all Windows XP users, as it contains the latest patches and fixes to ensure the maximum functionality, security and performance. The Service Pack 3 is compatible with all Windows XP versions.

Mac: ForkLift is a fast and robust file manager which should improve your workflow. Fitted with a Leopard ready interface, it is very intuitive yet offers enough powerful features like Spotlight integration, filters or archiving to handle your files seriously. You can quickly view all files on your volumes and devices and send them to other servers via FTP, SFTP or TLS all from ForkLift.

BlackBerry: Are you fed up with having to fend off calls from your boss, your ex or pestering money-lenders? If you have a Blackberry phone then you should definitely get your hands on iBerry Black & Whitelist, an application that allows you to block certain numbers from calling you. Best of all, when they try to phone you won’t hear a ring or feel any vibration.

Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 3 just yesterday, so now it’s time for all XP users to update their operating systems and have the latest security and performance fixes properly applied. But how do you know which patches have you installed so far? Is there a way to see all the Microsoft updates on your system?

Yes, there is, and a very easy way indeed. Simply open the Start menu, go to the Control Panel and click on the Add or Remove programs icon. When the program list opens, check the “Show updates” option on top of the window and you’ll get all Microsoft fixes, patches and other update files included in the software list.

In this way you’ll be able to check the exact updates that have been installed so far and see if you miss any, both for the operating system in itself and for any native Microsoft application such as Internet Explorer.

Corruption is not just something isolated to politics. It’s also something that can affect your PC and ruin your hard drive or files for good. The scary thing about it is that it can happen at almost any moment. Particularly if you’ve got an old hard drive or you’ve suffered from a virus at some stage, there’s a good chance that files could corrupt meaning that you simply can’t open them anymore.

There are many tools out there however that can help you rescue corrupted files and drives, depending on the file type and how badly damaged they really are. One of the most powerful is Magic Recovery Professional which works on all NTFS drives which is so through, that it’s even used in criminal investigations to ascertain exactly what may have corrupted a drive and to repair it. It’s not only hard drives and files that corrupt however - your registry can also corrupt which can cause general problems with your PC such as slow performance, frequent crashes and program errors. If you think that some of your registry entries may be damaged, Registry Mechanic is widely recognised as one of the most powerful and effective registry scanners and repairers.

One of the most common types of file to corrupt are Microsoft Word files and there’s nothing worse than spending hours or even days on a document to find that you can no longer open it. Word Repair can’t guarantee to recover your corrupted Word Files - in fact it only works in around 50% of cases - but it’s definitely worth a shot if the worst has happened to you. Another frequent victim of corruption are PDF documents and if you’re receiving a message that your PDF file is unreadable or may be corrupt, then PDF Repair is your answer. Finally, if your precious photos that are seemingly corrupted and no longer readable, Digital Photo Recovery 3 is a free tool which can help you recover corrupted photos on both your hard drive and removable memory cards.

Windows: If you like the way Ubuntu looks but don’t feel like migrating to a new operating system, don’t worry: you can still get the Ubuntu look and feel in your Windows computer with the Smooth Ubuntu Human visual theme. It features everything you need, from fonts to wallpapers, to make your XP look just like the most popular Linux distro.

Mac: Want to share your iPhoto and iTunes libraries on your Xbox 360? Connect360 is the perfect tool for the job. This little preference pane item lets you easily browse through iTunes and iPhoto and stream live internet radio. Through the preference pane item you get to see if the Xbox is well connected and that iTunes and iPhoto are in sync. Absolutely necessary if you own a Mac and an Xbox360!

Java: If you were around in the 80s then you’re sure to remember one of the greatest inventions of that era - the Rubix cube. Rubix Redux is a mobile game that plays in a similar way to the original only this time you only need to rotate the blocks on horizontal and vertical axes, so that every row or column is the same color.

Widgets have added a whole new dimension to Windows desktops allowing you to track and stay informed about your favourite sites and news sources more easily than ever before. If you’ve never tried one then widgets are basically downloadable tools that provide services such as showing you the latest news, the current weather, the time, a calendar, a map program, a calculator, a language translator among many other things. Windows Vista has incorporated widgets into its very make up automatically providing you with a calendar and clock widget as standard with options to add many more. Mac fans will be keen to point out that widgets have been a part of their world for a long time already as Cyril highlighted a while back. XP users however have had to wait until developers and software giants such as Yahoo have slowly released widgets that work on XP’s desktop but it’s been worth the wait.

Here are 5 XP widgets from Yahoo that you might not know about but should definitely check out:

Vista Sidebar XP - Get Vista’s widget sidebar on Windows XP for free

Picture Frame - The quickest way to upload your favourite photos to Flickr

Yahoo! Widget Gallery - Get updated with the latest Yahoo widget releases

Rainlender - Fully customisable desktop calendar to make you better organised

Desktop X - Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Then make your own widget with this

Windows: Though Windows is relatively easy to customize, there are still a few options that remain hidden under unknown menus. TweakNow WinSecret unveils them all in an attractive, well organized interface where you’ll be able to tweak all sorts of special Windows settings concerning appearance, security and behavior.

Mac: The Sudoku fad may have been replaced by all the brain training games popping up everywhere, but Sudoku is still pretty popular, and remains a very enjoyable logic game. SudokuAdept is great for beginners as it features loads of settings to help you finish off your sudoku and adjustable difficulty levels, great to help you progress.

Mobile: Looking to travel during the weekend? GPS Tuner offers high precision measurements to show you detailed maps. The application works very well whether you are on the road, out on a boat, hiking in the mountains or even flying. GPS Tuner also makes it very easy to manage, modify, import and export your waypoints.

Where can you monitor processes on your Mac? The Activity Monitor, found in Applications>Utilities. This tool, in fact, is one which I almost always keep open on my Mac. I like seeing how much CPU is being used, and what applications take up the most memory. The Activity Monitor is also great for overlooking disk usage and activity and checking data sent and received over your network.

I don’t feel it really has evolved over the latest versions of OS X, yet it hasn’t really needed to. One useful hint to know is that by simply opening up Activity Monitor you can unfreeze any blocked application. You don’t have to stick with Activity Monitor if you don’t want to. In this case try one of these five different alternatives:

• Peek-a-boo - A cool process throb diagram view which shows you how processes connect to one another. Clicking on a process which show detailed info on it like CPU or memory usage.
• iStat pro - A nifty little widget which includes nine different process sections. It has a sleek little interface, is very regularly updated and is accessible straight from your Dashboard. What more could you ask for.
• iStat menus - Comes from the same developers as iStat pro, yet this one appears in your menu bar. Very advanced, and process windows can be organized and moved around your screen.
• MenuMeters - Another menu bar process manager, yet this one won’t show you all the details, only the processes that you deem most important.
• XRG - A clean interface showing detailed graphics and all processes. It can even show other elements like weather or stock data.

I’ve never been a dab hand with a paintbrush - I had more fun flicking paint at kids in my class than being the next Picasso. For people like me, there’s only one thing for it and that’s to either kick me out of the classroom or give me a sketching application on the PC. There are so many sketch applications nowadays that it’s hard to know where to start, especially with an increasing number of online applications on offer. However, there are definite differences in the amount of options and control that some offline apps give you over others. One very common use for sketch apps is to turn your photos into sketches which you can then modify as Elena illustrates here. Your choice of sketch app will be largely influenced by how experienced you are with sketch applications because while some are designed for professionals, others are designed for those that don’t know their palette from their paintbrush. Here’s a selection of five of the best downloadable options:

Artweaver - Use this excellent program to create sketch versions of your photos

FotoSketcher - Fool your friends into thinking you’ve sketched paintings and photos

Sketch Master - Use effects ranging from crayon and pen to charcoal and airbrush

Intocartoon Professional - Convert photos into sketch style cartoon style drawing in seconds

AKVIS Sketch Plugin - Professional plugin for Photoshop to produce stunning sketch effects

At some point during our lives as Windows users, we all end up getting this message:

Yes, it’s the famous desktop cleanup wizard! I don’t know about you, but I personally find this feature pretty irritating. Seriously, I’m old enough to know which icons I use and which I don’t. Plus I think I have the right to keep as many of them as I want on my desktop, whether I use them or not.

So I decided to search for a solution and finally came up with a simple trick to disable the desktop cleanup wizard in Windows. Simply open the desktop Properties menu by right clicking anywhere on your desktop, go to the Desktop tab and click on the Customize Desktop button. You’ll open another window where, among other stuff, you’ll find this option: “Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days“. Simply remove the tick beside it and you’re done.

Ad-Aware is one of the most popular anti-spyware tools worldwide, with millions of downloads along its history of development. It comes in three different tastes (Plus, Pro and Enterprise, all paid-for licenses), as well as a free, slightly crippled version for home users. And now all of them are going under a beta testing stage in preparations for their next big release: Ad-Aware 2008.

After their succeed with the previous beta program (more than 335,000 users applied to be beta testers) Lavasoft has decided to release the first public version of Ad-Aware 2008 also as a testing beta, counting on the users’ feedback to give its big shot the final shape before starting to ship it. After signing up as beta user and receiving a confirmation email, you can download the program. Your beta tester username and password also give you access to a special area in the Lavasoft website where you can submit any bugs you find, keep track of them and also suggest any idea you may have about how to improve the program’s functionality and performance.

Ad-Aware 2008 doesn’t change much in itself – at least not in appearance. The program still keeps the same interface from the previous version which, in my opinion, could improve a lot with some small tweaks (those crystal buttons and reflections are a bit out of date now).

According to Lavasoft, this new version has improved its performance and stability and now takes up much less resources. Though I probably didn’t test the program long enough (anti-spyware tools are fully tested when used over a long period of time) I can clearly tell the program is now faster in system scans and lighter on PC resources. Other important improvements include full support for 64-bit systems and Windows Vista, an enhanced rootkit removal system and integrated antivirus protection, though sadly this last feature will only be available for Plus and Pro versions.

So if you want to give Ad-Aware 2008 beta a go, sign up as beta tester and get your copy. Note that being a beta, the program may still be a bit buggy and you shouldn’t use it as your only security app for spyware protection.

Did you just delete a file by mistake? I know how it feels… Don’t worry: you can now fix it with Glary Undelete. This easy application scans your hard drive (or any other drive, including removable ones) and displays a list of deleted files along with their degree of recoverability. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll have your accidentally deleted files back in no time.

SIDPLAY is the ultimate music player for any Commodore 64 fan. The application will allow you to download and listen to thousands of sounds from the classic console. These can be synced regularly and, thanks to the iTunes liked interface, they remain really well organized. You can even create your own smart playlists and export to your iPod.

Why reserve your DVD collection for the house, when it’s possible to take it out and about with you on your mobile? Xilisoft DVD to Pocket PC Ripper allows you to quickly rip DVDs into a Pocket-PC-compatible format. With a variety of custom settings like adjustable bitrate, video size etc., you could convert DVD to Pocket PC supported WMV and WMA easily and fast with excellent quality

One of the scariest things that can ever happen to you on your PC is to accidentally delete a file that you didn’t mean to. We’ve all done and we’ve all been there and usually, there’s not much you can do but lament your error. However, did you know that there is a chance you can recover any accidentally deleted files with undelete utilities? These tools work on the principle that Windows is often not very efficient at completely deleting all traces of your file and parts of it - sometimes all of it - can be reconstructed. Of course, it entirely depends on the type of file you have deleted. Multimedia files are usually very hard to recover but documents are more likely to be recoverable depending on how you deleted it. Here are 5 top tools to get you out of a sticky situation if you’ve just accidentally deleted that novel you’ve been working on for the past 10 years:

Undelete Plus - Can also recover files deleted from the Command prompt

Glary Undelete - Recovers deleted files from your hard drive and external devices

File Scavenger - Powerful recovery program which can also recover corrupted files

DataRecovery - Free utility that works quickly and scans thoroughly

WinUndelete - Works on more or less everything including external drives and digital cameras

The latest version of Google Earth has been released (Version 4.3) and features some nice new features including the option to watch the sunrise in selected locations. Just find a location you’d like to see and click the “sun” button in the toolbar. You’re then presented with a timeline graphic that you can just play or slide to watch the day as it starts.

The new release also features a few other tweaks such as improved navigational controls and 3D photo-realistic buildings in major cities. In this release, Google have also integrated the Street View function available in Google Maps which makes sense. All you have to do is click the camera icons and a view at street level will open in a seperate window. The navigational controls seem more responsive and they’ve added a useful “default to North” feature which allows you to reorientate yourself if you’ve been spinning around for a while.

On a slightly different note, Google Earth is a prime example of something I wrote about yesterday - products that are in perpetual beta phase. It’s now surely a few years since Google Earth was released and although they keep improving it, I see no reason why it’s still in beta!