We’ve just had a plea in from OnSoftware reader for some help with a problem she’s having with Windows Live Messenger. Shirley writes:

I have MSN Messenger Live 8 (or it might be 8.5) and I have a problem when I try to do video chats with my granddaughter. Sometimes when we both can see each other, but others she will not be able to see me, even though I can see her. Do you have any suggestions for me on how to correct this problem?

This isn’t an uncommon problem, Shirley, and unfortunately there is no straight answer because the cause of the problem could be one of a number of things, related to your webcam hardware or software, or to Live Messenger. Here’s what I’d recommend you try to do, in chronological order, until you find the solution:

1. Check your hardware - It might sound obvious but you should make sure that your webcam is plugged in correctly and switched on. You should be able to see the device from the ‘My Computer’ panel the Windows Start menu. If it’s not showing up then try reinstalling the driver software that came with your webcam.
2. Update Live Messenger - It sounds like you’re using an old version of Windows Live Messenger there, Shirley. Download the latest build of the program from here and install it. It could be that there are some compatibility issues with the version your granddaughter is using.
3. Try Trillian - If you’re still having no luck with the Live Messenger program, try switching to Trillian Astra instead. This is a free application that lets you make video conferences over a range of different instant messaging networks, including Windows Live. It’s a great program, and I find it a lot more streamlined than Live Messenger (note, that your granddaughter wouldn’t have to switch to using Trillian as well).
4. Switch to Skype - If all else fails, you could always both switch to using Skype as your means of video chatting. The video features of Skype are second to none, and the call quality is excellent. This is the solution I always use for chatting with my friends - even with my buddies who I normally text chat with on Live!

After reviewing the improved snapshot management functionality in the latest version of VirtualBox, OnSoftware reader Mark contacted us with an interesting question:

I’ve become an avid reader of your weekly newsletter and look forward each week to explore your recommendations. I was interested in VirtualBox after reading about it on your site. I’m running Windows XP. I tried downloading the file “VirtualBox 3.0.6 for Windows hosts x86/amd64″ from www.virtualbox.org but during the installation a warning came up suggesting that I should not continue as the software  is not recognized as being approved with “Windows Logo” and went on  to say that completing the download could corrupt my system. Should I be concerned?

The Windows Logo testing error message Mark refers to is not something that just happens in VirtualBox. It may appear when installing other applications as well, but as long as you trust the software developers and the application you’re about to install, you don’t have anything to worry about.

This error means that some components – usually drivers -  inside the program you’re installing couldn’t be properly tested by Windows during installation. It doesn’t mean that the program is dangerous, or that it’s going to crash your system, erase your hard drive or any of those horrible things you may have thought about… well, not necessarily. It’s just that Windows wasn’t able to complete the test on those particular items. Our advice for Mark then, in this particular case of VirtualBox, is to ignore that message and go on with the installation. I did, and my Windows XP is perfectly fine!

Once again, this message should be ignored only in those cases when you’re installing a trustworthy application, coming from a reputable developer. In case of doubt, do some Google research. It may help you decide whether you should continue with the installation or not.

Don’t forget to keep on sending all your problems, questions and doubts to ask@onsoftware.com so that we can provide handy solutions for you and the rest of our readers!

There are few things as annoying as a program that’s easy to install, but almost impossible to remove from your computer. One of them is Windows Live Messenger, which comes preinstalled with Windows Vista and can get a bit stubborn when trying to get rid of it. One of our readers, Jean, had this problem and decided to ask OnSoftware for help:

I already have enough stuff registered in this lousy, abominable pop-up computer. How do I get rid of that WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER window that pops on my screen??!!

If you’re in the same situation as Jean, you’ll be glad to know it’s easier to solve that it seems. All you have to do is download WLMUninstaller, a handy application that locates Windows Live Messenger on your hard drive and removes it in a couple of minutes.

WLMUninstaller is dead easy to use: run the program – no installation required – and click Uninstall to remove Windows Live Messenger from your computer. That’s all! WLMUninstaller does leave some traces behind (a couple of folders and files inside the Windows Live directory) but the actual IM client will be gone forever.

Do you know any other trick to effectively uninstall Windows Live Messenger? Feel free to share it in comments! Also, keep on sending all your problems, questions and doubts to ask@onsoftware.com so that we can provide handy solutions for you and the rest of our readers.

Here at OnSoftware we get lots of emails asking about software. Most of the time they are complicated questions, like how to partition your disc while dual booting on an external drive… or something along those lines. Sometimes, however, we get questions with more human interest.

A while ago a reader emailed asking for help with her math skills. She wanted to know if there were any programs or applications that could help her become more comfortable with numbers and less embarrassed by her lack of math skills. The good news is that there are - lots of them! Even better news is that our reader is not alone, and there are many people who have similar problems. Lucky that our reader was brave enough to ask, right?

That got us thinking here at the office - always a dangerous thing - but this time, we’ve come up with a great idea! We’re going to produce a short series of posts with advice and software tips for people who have problems with numeracy, reading, spelling or money skills. They’ll be of use to lots of people, and best of all, you’ll be able to brush up on your skills without even leaving the house. Whatever your level, you’ll find something useful, so stay tuned and don’t forget to spread the word. You never know who might need the extra help…

Part 2: Math

Part 3: Reading

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 »

If there’s one thing that’s still poorly supported on Macs by Instant Messenger clients, it’s the iSight camera. You’d think by now, IM clients would have advanced enough to allow users to make video calls but even major ones such as Adium still don’t. Biggest culprit of them all however is Microsoft Messenger for Mac which left one OnSoftware reader ruing the day he’d bought a Mac:

Hi, I am hoping that you can give me some assistance in how to get the webcam feature to work on MSN Messenger for Macs. I was assured that before I bought my Mac that MSN Messenger works as it does on my old PC. It mentions about being a corporate user and the webcam function working. How do I become a corporate user? If you could get back to me as soon as you can with a solution it would be much appreciated.

I really feel for this user because converting to Mac can be a frustrating experience at first and stupid things like this can really make you wonder whether it was worth all the bother. It’s ridiculously unfair of Microsoft when PC users can use webcams and audio with MSN Live Messenger but Mac users can’t.

Microsoft have obviously decided that, if you’ve got enough money to buy a Mac, then you should have enough to give them some too because as the user suspects, only Messenger for Mac corporate users can use a webcam. If you’re in the same position you have two options. One is to pay hundreds (if not thousands depending on the license) of dollars and upgrade to the corporate edition which also requires Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. The second, is to use pay nothing and use aMSN instead. Hmm, tough one.

aMSN is an open source MSN Messenger clone so its interface will feel familiar to Messenger for Mac users. The important thing however is that it’s absolutely free and it supports webcams. Starting a webcam conversation is easy.

1. Open a chat dialog with the person you want to chat to:

2. Click on the webcam symbol:

That’s it you’re done! I was using an integrated iSight camera but it should work with any external webcam. Although you can’t do audio conversations with aMSN, you can record and send sound bytes to other users. There are other advantages to aMSN over Messenger for Mac too including the possibility to sign-in to more than one account at once and conduct video conferences for free.

In case you don’t know, OnSoftware is on Twitter: so if you want to keep up with what’s going on here, follow us! Find us here at twitter/softonic_en.

If you don’t use Twitter, why not give it a go? It’s a surprisingly good way to stay up to date with whatever you’re interested in! And if you follow us, we’ll follow you back - meaning you can send us suggestions, tips and software questions that we’ll answer here on the blog.

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 »

We’ve received quite a few emails in our Ask OnSoftware inbox, but when it’s time to turn any of them into a post, we try to select the ones that are more useful for our readers - and for us as well. This is the case of one of the latest emails we got, where Alicia complained about opening PDF files in Firefox. Here’s what she wrote:

I’d like to take advantage of this great service to ask about something that makes my life a bit more complicated. I switched to Firefox a while ago, I love it and I find plug-ins really useful. However I have a big problem with it: PDF files.

Firefox is not always able to open them, as IE normally does. Sometimes the browser just goes nuts, as if the PDF plug-in was not working properly.Then I have to manually download the PDF document and open it from the hard drive with my standard viewer.

I have the Adobe plug-in installed and have configured Firefox to use it for PDF files. I’ve also tested the PDF Download plug-in, but that didn’t solve the problem either. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t so I ended up uninstalling it in case it created conflicts with the other Firefox extensions. Is there anything else I can configure, load, test or check?

Opening PDF documents in Firefox is quite a common action but it’s also surprisingly problematic. Clicking on a PDF file link sometimes means ending up with a never-loading tab, a suddenly slow system or even worse, a frozen browser that cries out to be restarted. Here’s a few tips that can help you solve this situation. Read the rest of this entry »

The Web provides you with lots to do: you can follow the news worldwide in real time, listen to your favorite music, enjoy online videos, chat with people on the other side of the globe and learn about hundreds of different subjects, among other things. But there is more to the Internet than just using it for fun. You can, for example, use it as a hard drive to store your files, either for private use or to share them with other people. This is precisely what Nelson asked us about in his email to ask@onsoftware.com:

Dear Sir,

I’d like to know if there is any way (I’m sure there is) to create a free online space where I can store my files (books, videos, audiobooks, pictures, music, etc.) so that I can share them with other people and let my family and friends on the other side of the pond download them with just a couple of clicks - perfect for people without extensive technical skills. Is there anything similar to that? If so, what’s its name, and where can I find it?

Thanks in advance,

Nelson Tobon L.

There are actually dozens of websites that offer storage services for your files. In fact we’ve already written a couple of posts about them. You can find free hosting services with basic functionality, fee-based services with advanced tools, and even storage solutions specializing in a certain kind of content, such as music files or documents. Let’s take a deeper look:

Multipurpose hosting services

First of all, we have a bunch of websites that allow you to upload any kind of file and download it by using an encrypted URL. Rapidshare, Megaupload and Hotshare are just some of the most popular ones. Most of these services offer both a free, slightly crippled version and a paid, full-featured version.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a lawyer, your friends will probably ask you about legal issues. If you’re a doctor, they’ll require your advice about certain symptoms. And what if you’re a computer expert? Yes: you’ll automatically become some kind of personal computer technician, available 24/7 to fix your friends’ problems with software, hardware, viruses and other elements. This is precisely what one of our readers was complaining about when he sent us this email to ask@onsoftware.com:

Hi OnSoftware,

I’m a student of Computer Science and I’m constantly being disturbed by “friends” who need assistance with the simplest computer issues. I’d like you to write a post about software to remotely access and repair computers, but with two conditions:
1. The client application must be easy to install  (some people are hopeless at this)
2. It should work without having to open ports on the customer’s side.

Thanks OnSoftware, keep up the good work!

A few years ago computer remote access sounded more like a hacker crime, but nowadays it’s a fairly common method to solve basic computer issues in real time. It helps technical support teams to provide a better service, while customers don’t run the risk of ruining their systems by trying to resolve the issue on their own. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you need help getting the most out of your favourite program? Has your system locked you out and gone all HAL 9000? Want to find a simple way to fix that annoying little software issue? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Whatever question you have, we want to hear it. Whether it’s about Windows, Linux, Mac, phones, games, whatever. All you have to do is send an email to this address:

ask@onsoftware.com

Make sure you explain your problem or query as clearly as possible. Obviously we won’t help you out with any illegal stuff or do your homework for you… but apart from that, the sky’s the limit. (Though questions that aren’t related to software at all may also get short thrift: this is a software blog, after all).

Each week, we’ll read through your mails (and the ones sent to OnSoftware Spain), we’ll select the most interesting questions,  and answer them here on the blog. We think it’s a pretty good way of sharing knowledge with our readers, as well as a good way to find actual solutions to real problems.

So what are you waiting for? Ask OnSoftware now!