Windows: Do you need to convert any audio or video file? Oxelon Media Converter is the perfect tool for the task. This simple app can convert multiple media files simultaneously, and it works surprisingly fast! Oxelon Media Converter supports dozens of formats and is perfectly embedded with Windows Explorer, which enables you to convert files with one click.

iPhone: Halloween is upon us once again, but if you haven’t got the money or the inclination to go trick or treating this year then check out Spooky Photo Free. This app allows you to make scary scenes out of your photographs. For example, you could put a zombie into a wedding picture, make bats appear in the sky above your house, or add a menacing pumpkin head onto an image of your dog.

Mac: Keychain on Mac does a pretty good job of managing passwords but once you’ve tried 1Password you’ll probably never look back. If you’re tired of making up passwords to access sites or worried that your passwords are not secure enough, it really is invaluable. 1Password creates strong, unique passwords for you, then remembers and restores them all within your web browser.

USB sticks, flash drives, memory keys, pendrives. It doesn’t really matter what you call them, memory sticks are extremely useful creatures. It’s precisely this usefulness, though, that leads to their major weakness: most people use them all the time without a second thought. They swap them between colleagues, lend them to friends and stick them into unfamiliar computers. Is it any wonder they are a major security risk?!

If you are an occasional user of a memory stick, it might be enough to run a context menu scan when you plug it in. Of course, this option has to be facilitated by your regular anti-virus, but most of the top ones, AVG and Kaspersky for example, offer this tool. Just find the memory stick in My Computer, right click, and chose ‘Scan with…’.

If you are a more frequent user, you might want a specific anti-virus that targets memory sticks and USB drives. The trial version of USB Disk Security only offers one option, but it’s a good one - real-time monitoring of your computer for security risks from USB devices. It sits in the taskbar until you connect USB stick and lets you know if it there’s a problem. Read the rest of this entry »

The 12th Annual Independent Games Festival is almost upon us, and has a huge selection of submissions to check out. There’s a record 306 entries, covering a huge range of genres. Lewie Procter at SavvyGames has completed part one of a ‘Pretend you are an IGF judge‘ series, which usefully brings together all the publicly available submitted games, so you can check them out yourself.

The sheer volume of games is pretty intimidating, but there’s sure to be tons of great stuff. I’ve already reviewed AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, which I love and Terry Cavanagh’s excellent Don’t Look Back is also there, alongside his upcoming and highly anticipated VVVVVV (no demo for this yet, sniff!).

While publishing giant Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 will break barriers by allowing you to be a brutal terrorist, these indie developers are proving that you don’t need to shock or ask ridiculous moral non-choices of your players to do something revolutionary with video games or story telling. There’s also a wealth of humor, weirdness and creative enthusiasm that I feel is lacking from many of the season’s big upcoming releases - which unless I’m forgetting something are all sequels. While there is certainly lots of good stuff to play, like Hollywood before it, the games industry seems stuck in a blockbuster-sequel cycle, making it seem difficult for genuinely new games to make their mark.

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 »

Windows: The quintessential optimization suite for Windows is back! The all-new TuneUp Utilities 2010 has a new redesigned interface and a bunch of new features and improvements that make it even better: Turbo mode, Live optimization, TuneUp desktop gadget, Optimization report and support for Windows 7 in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

iPhone: Aside from a jellyfish attack or a sudden downpour, another guaranteed thing to a ruin a day at the beach is an attack by the entire Japanese Imperial Navy. Blood Beach puts you in the unenviable position of a soldier who must take down the entire Japanese WWII fleet alone. You’re holed up on a thin stretch of beach in the Solomon Islands and must take down the waves of planes, boats and foot soldiers landing on the beach.

Mac: Renaming huge numbers of files can be a real pain, especially when you only need to make a few minor changes. Renamer (formerly known as Renamer4Mac) makes it easy to rename a huge number of files at once, in several different ways. One possibility is to search and replace certain components or words, much like using a word processor. Alternatively, you can simply insert or copy over a chunk of text to multiple files.

After waiting all day yesterday with no joy, finally this morning the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is available to download and play! The first game offered some of the best cooperative multiplayer gaming around, and on first impressions, that certainly hasn’t changed.

This demo lets you play one campaign, entitled “The Parish” either in one player mode (with three AI companions), or online with four players fighting to survive together. There’s plenty of high speed frights and thrills in both, but playing with bots just isn’t the same. Multiplayer games are much more dynamic, and there’s more emotional involvement - whether it’s anger at a selfish player, or pleasant surprise when people are working together!

It looks like Left 4 Dead 2 is cementing its supremacy over the aged, lumbering Resident Evil series - these zombies are varied, fast moving and extremely vicious. There’s really nothing like the moment when a horde of zombies is rushing towards you: it’s one of the most visceral, adrenalin pumping creations in gaming history.

To play you’ll need the Steam client, and from there you can download the demo - but be warned, it’s not for the faint hearted.

TuneUp Utilities is one of those programs that improves with every new release. We were particularly eager for its latest version, TuneUp Utilities 2010, because it offers full support for Microsoft’s brand new Windows 7 in both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. But this isn’t the only new feature in this excellent program. Let’s take a look at all the new functions and improvements we can find in TuneUp Utilities 2010.

Redesigned Interface
The Start Center in TuneUp 2010 has been redesigned. A quick glance is enough to learn about the system’s current status and find out if there’s any problem. A cleaner, more minimalist style makes the program more comfortable and easier to use.

Turbo Mode
When you’re playing your favorite game, you need your computer to offer the highest performance possible. Turbo Mode can help you with that, disabling all superfluous Windows services and background applications with a single click. Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: The most annoying part of getting a new computer is backing up and import browser bookmarks, but now there’s a tool that can make the task much easier! Recently updated FavBackup 2.0.0 backs up and imports bookmarks and user preferences in the most popular web browsers. The new version features a ribbon-style interface, support multiple profiles and consumes less RAM memory.

Mac: Do you hate watching dubbed movies? Prefer to enjoy films in original language with subtitles? Then install Submerge, which does a great job at merging subtitle files with your movies. It handles most of the subtitle formats, like SubRip or MicroDVD and automatically syncs them to your videos, with very little work on your part.

iPhone: Facebook has grown very quickly to become one of the most popular sites on the Web. Now you can access the service from your Apple mobile thanks to Facebook for iPhone. Adding pictures, comments and mood states can all be done easily through Facebook for iPhone. The application provides four different views of your essential data, namely: your own profile, your friends, recent changes in friends’ status and recently received messages.

One of the new features introduced in Windows 7 is the use of themes to customize the system’s appearance in a very easy way. Themes enable you to personalize wallpaper, screensaver, window color and system sounds in just one click. Then, if you want, you can change small details inside the selected theme and create a new custom version of it.

Themes can be selected from the Personalization window, which you can open by right clicking anywhere on the desktop and selecting Personalize. Switching to a new theme is as easy as clicking the theme’s thumbnail. The theme will be immediately applied to your system, so you get the full preview before formally applying it. You can then click on any of the customizable elements at the bottom of the window (desktop background, window color, sounds and screensaver) and change them to suit your taste. Read the rest of this entry »

There are several ways to create a collage with your digital pictures: doing it yourself from scratch with Photoshop (which obviously requires a certain Photoshop knowledge), using an automated Photoshop action that does almost all the hard work for you or simply turning to easier, more specific collage-oriented tools like Shape Collage.

This awesome program lets you create completely customizable photo collages in just a few minutes, and without any artistic or technical skill required. As long as you know how to select photos from your hard drive, and tweak a few simple configuration settings, you’re good to go. Shape Collage is completely free for personal use, and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

But if you’re the kind of person who prefers not to install software if there’s a web app that does the same job, we’ve got good news for you: Shape Collage has just launched an online version! Shape Collage Online is a stripped-down version of the desktop app, with less options and reduced functionality, but it works perfectly fine for the occasional photo collage. Just select the photos you want to use in your collage (they must be all online, either as standalone photos or photo galleries), pick a shape for your collage and hit ‘Create’. After a few seconds, your collage will be ready!

Windows: Do you like Skype? Then you’re going to love Skype Portable! This is a special version of the popular VoIP client that doesn’t require installation and can be taken anywhere on a USB pendrive. Skype Portable works just like its desktop brother, features great audio and video quality, and has everything you need to keep in touch with your beloved ones!

iPhone: It’s been a long time coming but iPhone gamers at last got a decent driving sim. Firemint Real Racing GTI is a Volkswagen-sponsored racing game which makes wonderful use of the iPhone’s hardware to deliver a high-octane, realistic driving experience. The control system is probably the most refined, yet simple you’ll find anywhere on the iPhone platform.

Mac: The ability to run Windows on Macs has massively increased the reach and popularity of Apple computers. But you need a virtual environment to do so and the choice usually comes down to either Parallels or VMware Fusion. For developers this ability is absolutely essential, allowing you to run Ubuntu, WinXP and now even Windows 7 (in fact this latest release 3.0 has been optimized for it) all at the same time.

Like the idea of “Massively Multiplayer Online Games”, but put off by all those orcs and demons? Cryptic Studios are making their new comic book inspired Champions Online free this weekend. Boasting excellent character design, you can create your own super-hero and enter a colorful world where the Earth is of course in peril. Help save us all from Doctor Destroyer!

Like their City of Heroes before, this promises a much more light-hearted take on the role-playing genre. You can sign up here and download the client in preparation for 10am Friday (30th Oct) US Pacific time (5pm GMT).

[Via: Eurogamer]

Windows: Are you planning to upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows XP? Microsoft has developed a special tool to make this process much easier. It’s called Windows 7 Easy Transfer for Windows XP and lets you copy all your documents, music, photos, user settings, bookmarks and more to a new computer with Windows 7. Oh, and there’s also a version for Vista!

Mac: If you think Macs don’t need a virus checker then think again. Although the risk of virus attack is very small compared to Windows, Mac viruses are on the increase and this will continue as Macs become more popular. Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac offers quick and thorough scanning options as well as real-time scanning of files download from the internet, via email, etc.

Phones: Hangman Classic Free is an iPhone version of the classic game, in which you need to figure out what a word is by guessing letters. Simply tap a letter on the screen and if it’s in the word it will be displayed, if it’s not then another body part will be drawn onto the hanging stickman. Guess the word before the drawing is complete and you win, or else you die. It’s that simple.

Adobe Photoshop is a legend of a program. Unfortunately, it is also legendarily complicated and expensive, which makes things difficult for the average user. Even if you get past the intimidating price tag, Photoshop’s maze of layers, masks and magic tools can make even the bravest prospective user doubt their ability. Surely there’s an easier alternative?!

Luckily for us, there is. Most people don’t actually need a photo editing program of such epic proportions, which is why developers have created a raft of alternatives that area easier on your wallet AND your blood pressure.

Photoscape - Photoscape has to be number one on any list of free and easy alternatives. Full of features, simple to use and, best of all, completely free, this program is pretty much freeware’s image editing poster child. Come on, with over three MILLION downloads in the last two years on Softonic alone, it has to be doing something right!

GIMP - In second place comes GIMP. Somewhat of a giant, despite the odd name (it’s actually an acronym of GNU Image Manipulation Program), GIMP scores slightly below Photoscape because its installation process can be a little scary. Since we’re looking for stress-free alternatives, this means it loses a few points, but once you get GIMP safely installed on your computer, you’ll find it’s full of features and has an impressive range of cool plug-ins that are almost sure to meet your editing needs.

Photofiltre - Photofiltre scores high in terms of price - it’s free - but a little lower on ease of use. Like Photoshop, its interface is a bit overwhelming at first glace, but the learning curve isn’t half as steep and it is an ideal starting point for budding graphic designers who might well move on to Photoshop in years to come.

PhotoImpression - ArcSoft PhotoImpression come in at number 4 because its major pro is counterbalanced by a major con. This Photoshop-like program is full of features, but way, way easier to use than the original. It’ll give you good practice for the ‘real thing’, helping you to learn the basic concepts of more advanced image editing. The major con? Well, it’s not actually free, but you can try it out and get used to the basics. When you have them down, you can move onto the more complicated tools.

Before looking at the last program in our run-down, ask yourself a question. Do you really need a tool like Photoshop? Although you might want to crop a few photos, tweak color balance or create a fancy slideshow, you probably don’t need to go as far as seamlessly adding an image of Bigfoot into the pictures of your family’s last camping trip in the woods. Photoshop is for professional level photo editing, and most people really don’t need such power.

Picasa - If you need a simple and effective photo editor, but not exactly an alternative to Photoshop, give Picasa a try. The newest version of the Google tool is better than ever, and provides some really slick features for ordinary photo editing. It has none of the headache-inducing options of the more advanced editors, but will still give you fantastic results.

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!