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.
Since first trying Spotify earlier this year I’ve become a firm convert and even more so now that they’ve introduced some handy little features to enhance the listening experience. If you haven’t been using the service long, you may be unaware of everything that Spotify can do. Here are a selection of tips from sharing links to searching by record label to help you get even more out of the app:
Link To Your Favourite Track Moments
Want to share your favourite guitar riff or solo with a friend? Spotify allows you to link to a specific moment in a track with a little trick. While you are listening to a song, simply go to the Edit menu and select “Copy”. Then just add “%23″ with the time in the song that you want to share e.g. http://open.spotify.com/track/4caRcqZl3JyrxwhgV5HGQ8%23.
Share Tracks in Facebook or Delicious
You can now share tracks to Facebook or Delicious simply by right-clicking on a track and selecting the “Share to” option.
See What The World Is Listening To
To see what you, your country or Spotify users worldwide have been listening to most, click on “Home” in Spotify and then select the “Top Lists” tab. Clicking on the tab allows you to select top lists from around the world which is an interesting way to assess music tastes in other countries or see which artists you might be missing out on. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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 »
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.
If you’ve never performed a backup of your hard drive, then you’re risking potential disaster if it fails or that “on” switch simply doesn’t work one day for some reason. We all come-up with poor excuses for not doing so - our external drive is full, we don’t have time, we simply forgot etc. but CrashPlan is an application that definitely leaves no room for excuses. These are some of the ways you can backup with CrashPlan:
- Online Encrypted and unlimited size hard drive backups online for a modest fee
- PC/Mac Backup your hard drive to another PC or Mac and vice versa
- External Drive Backups performed in real time to USB and Firewire drives
- Friends You can even select a friend over the net to backup your files to
Best of all, not only does it work across platforms and is free but using CrashPlan couldn’t be simpler. I setup CrashPlan on a Mac and within a minute, a backup of my entire hard drive was being performed to my USB drive. Note that the program is only free for personal use (they’ve got a special CrashPlan Pro for companies) although it is supported by a few ads. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Although some bloggers are hailing it as a “new” release from Google, Google Quick Search Box was included as part of the Google Codes project earlier this year but it’s now been given an official release by Google with its own webpage. And you can see why Google think the tool is fitting of a major release. Google Quick Search Box is a basically a Spotlight style app that can search for just about anything both on and offline as well as launch apps.
In this way, it’s very similar to Google Desktop except it’s far more discreet and lightweight and there’s no annoying indexing to wait for. Rather, Google Quick Search Box floats on your desktop ready for action whenever you need it. Previously, it only performed basic searches on your hard and online but this official release makes it an altogether more powerful proposition.
Google Quick Search Box can performs more through hard drive and online searches and even launch applications. As you’d expect from a Google product, searches are incredibly detailed and quick and results are displayed clearly. Search for “Firefox” for example and it immediately brings-up the Firefox icon ready for launching. In this way, Google Quick Search Box acts not only as a search tool, but as a launcher as well.
You can even customise Google Quick Search Box to search only those online sites that you choose such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Gmail and Google Docs. To search both your Gmail and Google Docs account, you need to enter your Gmail account credentials in the “Accounts” section in preferences. However, when I tried to search my accounts using Google Quick Search Box, the search seemed to hang for a while and no results were found. Whether this was an error on my side or a bug I’m not sure but it was a little disappointing. Read the rest of this entry »
Google Earth gets more and more features all the time. Its 3D mapping is always improving, the not very interesting ocean floors have been included as well as historical sites and lots of buildings.
You can now choose to add weather conditions and the sun to your experience. Clicking View - Sun, will add a time slide to the interface. You can now move time, and see the sun rise, set and create shadow all over the globe. All the information is astronomically correct - so you can see the change in sunrises over the year. The sun effect can be quite spectacular. With the weather, which is activated on the sidebar of Google Earth, you simply select Weather, then conditions. You can then click on any weather icon to get a forecast for that place. 
On the same sidebar, there is also a Street View button, giving you the same images you can find on Google Maps in your browser. It’s not quite as well implemented - moving around is definitely easier in your browser,but it’s still a cool feature. Incidentally, if you haven’t tried the revamped street view in Google Maps, it’s much improved. If you’re looking for a holiday experience, you can now visit a modeled Euro Disney site, and watch the sun go up and down, repeatedly! alternatively, try some mountains for a more epic view.
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.
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 »
My favorite tool for downloading YouTube clips on Mac is the DownloadHelper extension for Firefox. It’s convenient, quick and even converts videos into the format of your choice while it downloads. For a while however I’ve been plagued with a ”Conversion requires external application” error message when downloading certain clips.
The exact error read: “Conversion requires an external application that appears to be missing on your system. Configure conversion? > Cancel > OK.” When I selected OK, it opened the Preferences for DownloadHelper highlighting in red the location path for the selected converter option which is either FFMpeg or MEncoder.
I eventually found the start of the solution was to install the ffmpegX video/audio encoder for Mac. ffmpegX is basically a Mac OS X graphic user interface designed to operate more than 20 video and audio processing tools including ffmpeg which is a very fast video and audio encoder.
For the purposes of correcting the DownloadHelper error, you don’t actually need to use the ffmpegX interface. You do however need it to use it to install the mpeg2enc binary for ffmpegX. Once you’ve installed ffmpegX, you’ll be immediately taken to the main interface where you’ll be prompted to load 3 binaries. You only need to load one binary to fix DownloadHelper - the mpeg2enc binary - which can be found here.
You don’t have to worry about the mencoder or mplayer binaries but you do need to check the box next to mpeg2enc and locate the binaries that you’ve downloaded onto your hard drive. The resulting installation places the binaries in your Mac’s application support library. The final step is to re-open your DownloadHelper preferences (in Firefox’s Tools menu) and enter the path where the binaries are located. For most people, it will be “/Library/Application Support/ffmpegX”:
When the DownloadHelper logo animates next to the URL bar while you are using YouTube, you should now be able to download videos again with it. However, it hasn’t worked perfectly for me. For some reason, videos are being downloaded to a temporary file on my Mac rather than the directory I’ve configured downloaded files to be saved in DownloadHelper. In addition, the files are not being converted to QuickTime format they were previously. However, I can sort-out all of this by manually moving the files and converting them myself later. The important thing is that this work-around allows you to download YouTube clips again using DownloadHelper.
I recently lost the USB cable for my digital camera and so tried to connect it to my Mac with another one that I thought was exactly the same. However, when I connected the camera, I received the following warning:
My immediate reaction was that there was something wrong with the USB port. However, I tried to connect the camera with the same cable, to a Windows laptop and received exactly the same warning. Most forums suggested that the problem was due to a short-circuit in the cable but I knew this wasn’t the case because it worked fine with an older camera I have. One unlucky forum user spent 1 hour on the phone to Apple trying to solve the problem and even resorted to reinstalling OS X!
However, I found the solution was much simpler than that. I bought a new cable and hey presto, it worked fine. So what was the problem with the original cable? When I compared them, I noticed that the “faulty” cable had a slightly bigger coil at the end of it (pictured here in grey) than the new one that worked. I presume that this somehow “supercharged” the power being drawn from the USB port when the camera was connected.
What I don’t understand is why the USB cable needed to draw any power at all from the port at all. The camera is powered by its own lithium battery and so doesn’t need any extra power from the cable in order to transfer photos to the Mac. The moral of the story is, if you do ever encounter the USB Over Current warning, don’t panic. Change the cable first before you call Apple or presume your USB ports are fried!
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