Turn your mobile into a powerful calculator
May 7th by James Thornton
Counting devices have come a long way since the days of the abacus and most of us now have a calculator to hand on our mobile phones. Many of these default calculation programs are pretty crude though and are far too basic for the likes of scientists, maths students or financial workers, who often need powerful equation-solving tools in their daily lives. Luckily there are plenty of third-party calculators you can install that will make your phone as smart as Stephen Hawking. Here are some of the best:
- MxCalc SE - Programmable calculator that specializes in financial mathematics
- Abakus - Perform complex engineering and business calculations on your Sony Ericsson
- Best Calc - Displays 24 digits and performs a wide range of scientific functions
- Calcium - One of the most gorgeous and enjoyable-to-use calculators you’ll see
- SpaceTime - Advanced Pocket PC calculator with support for 4D graphs
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:
The world is going through a tough economic period: rising inflation, high unemployment, crises in the housing and banking sectors, oil prices running high….things are looking pretty bleak this year and aren’t expected to get any better for some time. While the US economy isn’t officially in a recession, at least not yet, it is expected to stagnate this year. What is it you can do to prepare for an eventual recession? The best I can do is suggest a few widgets to help you monitor your stock and news on your Mac. At least you won’t be surprised if a real crisis hits.
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 
Parents are often worried about the games their children play on the computer. In my opinion this is due partly to ignorance and partly to the image that media creates of video-games, depicting them as elements of evil that only have negative effects on players.
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’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 
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:
ISO images are archive files - also known as disk images - of an optical disc using the conventional ISO format that has become the standard for file burning. The name is taken from the “ISO 9660″ file system that’s used with CD-ROMs but nowadays, it refers to any optical image. Creating ISOs is an excellent way to backup data, especially large amounts such as the contents of your operating system or to backup large programs. The advantage with them is that any problems can be easily remedied by simply replacing the damaged copy with the image you’ve burned. However, to create an ISO image you’ll need some decent ISO imaging software and so here are 5 of the best:
Inspired by 
Working from home definitely has its advantages and disadvantages. Obviously you get the freedom to choose your own hours and can manage other areas of your life or devote more time to your family. What many people fail to realize when they start their tele-working career is that you suddenly need to take on more responsibility and become much better organized than you ever have been. You no longer have your boss in your ear all day reminding you to complete certain tasks, accounts need to be taken care of yourself, and communication in general becomes more of an issue.
Choosing the right domain name can make or break your online project. Equally, getting in there early before 
Among all the mail clients available for Mac, I consider Apple Mail to be one of the best. It’s easy to use, making it attractive to new users, yet has enough features to keep more advanced users pleased. Another major plus is that it comes preinstalled in your Mac.
Video converters are ten a penny these days, which generally means that you’ll come across as many good programs as terrible ones. Although you may not have excessively high technical requirements and may simply want to convert from one format to another it’s still best to go for a better known application.
My favourite games have always been racing games and I remember the days when racing against a friend involved being in the same room and even sometimes using the same keyboard. Nowadays, however, distance is no issue. You can race against buddies in any part of the globe as long as they’ve got a fairly decent internet connection. The only question is, which game do you choose? There are so many great racing games out there that’s it’s not easy to choose but these 5 must surely rank as a selection of the best ever made that can also be enjoyed against online opponents: