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Buying a new PC,
or upgrading your current computer can become a potential minefield; all of us
have certain criteria for what we want from a machine, and comparing
specifications and figures printed in printed adverts or on television isn’t
always the best way of making your final decision. A good way of getting a
fairer and more rounded view on your machines performance is for you to test
and compare your machine to other PCs, yourself.
Mac OS X is designed to be so straightforward that users can get in to the operating system with the minimum of fuss. Some could say it's a tad too 'glossy', which means that hardened users work with the command, rather than the Finder. The Finder was improved with Leopard, but still doesn't please all. Anyone who has used Directory Opus on Windows will know that this true Explorer replacement offers so much flexibility and power over the standard Explorer based system. For instance, simply double-click on the desktop and an Opus window will launch.
With most users given free web space as their broadband connection, most
of us would consider creating our own homepage. Creating a website is far
easier than it ever has been; there are a number of web design tools that
supply templates, ready for anyone to add their content. Although most of these
templates can be changed, colours, patterns etc, these programs do not enable
you to create a completely original web page. You also do not learn th web tags
you'll require to make changes to web pages.
The addition of web browser tabs was a major feature that has since been implemented across all browsers. Rather than open multiple windows, you can simply open a website in a tab instead. Recently browsers have also had the facility to move tabs around on your interface, which can be useful if like working with your websites in a particular order. However, the problem with any tabbed system is that you can't easily see the open website, especially when you have pages from a site open in multiple tabs. It's not always easy to remember which page is open in which tab.
On any average day at work, you may spend your time performing several different computer based tasks. When you’re working on your PC, you can easily lose track of time and spend too long concentrating on a single task. Some of us have important deadlines, and when you focus on just one task, you can then leave yourself little time to complete other important work. 
Up until this week, I've always used either Windows XP or Vista as the primary operating system for my desktop computer. My laptop has OS X installed, which is enough for web browsing, email and access to our internal CMS. Someone once mentioned that Windows XP running under virtualisation on Leopard worked effectively. Indeed, using the Unity feature of 
There are some security applications that have been around for ages. Spybot Search & Destroy is one of these applications and has slowly risen to second in our 'most popular downloads' chart on vnunet.com. There's a good reason for this. Firstly it's free. Secondly it's a strong application and definition updates are made available fairly frequently.
As more of us are starting to work from home, we'll use our PCs for important work-related tasks. Alternatively, you may use your PC for your studies and have spent months working on a particular project. In both instances, it would be important to backup your files, and make sure documents are saved regularly. Unfortunately this is often easier said than done, and you can often end up working for a significant period of time without saving your documents. It is also possible you may want to refer to an older version of a file too.
Security software is designed to protect against intruders, malicious software and system attack. The snag with this is that you can easily overly rely on your security software to protect your system from going down. We therefore get complacent and don't bother to backup our important data. One day, you'll try booting in to your computer to find it has been infected and the bootloader fails to start. How do you get around this problem and remove the Trojan from your PC?
The other day we featured the 
If you work across multiple computers, you probably use a different email client on each to download and process your email. On your work PC you may have Microsoft Outlook installed, your Mac-based laptop may use Mozilla Thunderbird, whilst you may only bother with an online mail service from your home PC. Either way, you'll be using different email clients to access your email. Wouldn't be handy to be able to bring the email under one interface, on one system?
Just before the end of the year, a traditionally quiet time of the year for software developers, we put various promotions online. Most of these are due to expire 31st of January 2008. The biggest promo has to be the discounted 
Take your laptop on the road and you'll find a whole host of WiFi networks. Often it's difficult to figure which is a preferred network, a legitimate network and one you can connect to as part of your subscription service. Then you have the problem of remembering the various username and passwords required to connect to a network. Do you write them down, store them on your computer or try to remember?
If you're seeking to revamp your website, the first thing you'll probably do is source inspiration from other sites. Not necessarily copy how these sites have been put together, just ideas for navigation, structure, colour schemes and more. Working with colours isn't always easy as you need to build a web-friendly palette which will be limited to a range of colours that have to apply to the background, buttons and more. The first thing you should do is source colours from elsewhere, for inspiration, including making sure you have key colours from your logo, stationary and other sources.
Perform a Google search and you'll be presented with pages of options. How do you pick up a potential Trojan or malicious software? By heading to a rogue website and downloading or accessing files made available to download. But how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? You look through all the text-based Google searches and, apart from a minor description, you'll have to visit the site and hope for the best.
Computers last for ages these days. Unlike you're a die-hard gamer, even a three year old PC (or Mac) is going to suffice for the majority of your computing-related work. For this reason, we don't need to get rid of our old machine if we consider upgrading to the latest model. We might as well keep it and use it as a home server, media storage, web server or for backup purposes. However, you probably won't want to assign a monitor to the machine and certainly won't need a keyboard and mouse hanging off the ports, when you barely use the old computer.
It can be a dilemma for some. You create your very first self-running home DVD and you want to get this to the rest of your family, located in different areas of the world. You could create a ZIP file and let them extract the files and work out where they've been extracted and what they need to do with the contents. Another option would be to supply an ISO file from your homepage. However, they'd need a disc burning package and knowledge of importing an ISO file to burn to disc. The best option might be to grab the files and package them within a self-extracting archive. They'd only have to double-click the exe file and you could even make it run a file after extraction, automatically.
How many times have you written a sticky note and attached it to your computer, left it connected to your monitor for a few weeks, only to find the note has dropped off and the note has been lost forever? It's easily done. At work we've got people brushing past our machine and cleaners who are employed to keep our desks in shape. Any important notes should be stored on your computer, rather than a bit of paper.
Checking the
weather forecasts regularly on your PC is not something that most of us tend to
do. Maybe we hear the local weather forecast on the radio, or even catch it on
T.V. before work. The trouble is, the weather is always changing and although
it’s not always important, it would be useful to see what’s going on. In this
instance, an unobtrusive desktop weather station could come in handy. 
Buy a new computer or a new hard drive and you'll either find it ships with one big partition or loads of little partitions pre-created so you can use one for your work, one for your audio and another for backup. However, most of us do not like to be told how to manage your own computer, so the first thing you'll want to do is re-format, merge or delete a partition before you start moving across your work.
Working between
computers is not always ideal, for example, at work your machine will almost
certainly be equipped with everything needed to complete your day-to-day
workload. However, what if you have to work from home or on the move? It then
becomes far trickier to remember passwords or websites you may use for work. 
From time to time, you stumble across a tool which is particularly useful. This term can be applied to Remote Buddy, which is a remote control application for your Mac. Sound boring? Think of this scenario. Try and get hold of an old PowerPC based Mac Mini and then set this Mac Mini as an iTunes-based audio server. Next, buy one or two Airport Express devices and connect these up to your hi-fi, TV or even directly to your self-powered speakers. Next, grab a remote control - better still, an iPod Touch - and then install 
During the last couple of years we've seen the release of various applications that are designed to get your website online, professionally, with the minimum of fuss. We're talking everything from the initial design through to hosting and uploading the files to the remote site. Take a tool such as Rapidweaver or Sandvox and you'll get your website up over a weekend. Snag is, the more that people use these apps, the more likely we'll realise that they were created by these kind of design tools.
Performing a virus
scan, and waiting for it to run through ever file on your drive takes ages,
especially if you have to run the task whilst you want to use your computer. No
doubt you’re reminded to scan your computer by your antivirus software when
you’d rather be using your PC for something far less mundane. In this instance,
the quicker these tasks can be completed, the better. Once you’ve scanned your
system, you can get on with what you intended knowing your PC is free from
infection. 
Apart from being a modern and updated browser, Firefox is a wise choice simply as so many third-party developers are busy producing various add-ons. In the last week, we've put Cookie Swap, Mini Map Sidebar and Weave online. All fantastic and worthwhile add-ons. Everyone likes a customised experienced, which is why one persons idea of interior design differs widely from another. The problem with life is finding the time to experiment. Who has time to download various themes and then worry about whether they'll be compatible with their machine?
With Firefox 3 closer to primetime, some of us will have already moved across to the new web browser. The major update ships with a brand new bookmarks manager, called Places, so many of your existing bookmark management and backup tools will cease to work. That's a shame as, if you're anything like me, you'll want the same bookmarks synchronised across all your computers. I want to access the same bookmarks whether I'm at work, home or on the road, with the laptop.
Although many of us prefer to use commercial software where you walk in to your local PC superstore and walk out with a boxed product, there's no reason why many of the free equivalents are not as or more useful than these commercial editions. Indeed, the main benefit of system maintenance software is that it's updated regularly. If a problem is found, the software developer will make a new build available as soon as possible. With commercial-grade software, you may not find new features until the next major revision.
Most of us look forward to purchasing and using a new PC as the machine will run smoothly and boot quickly as they have not yet accumulated any clutter. As with any computer, it doesn’t take too long for the junk to build up, Registry to be expanded and erroneous software to be installed. Browsing the web, downloading files and installing software will all add to the accumulation unused or unwanted files. Over time, your system will slow and your drive will become enlarged.
The problem with software is that it's all too easy to install an old version on your system and not realise that an update is available and, best of all, the update, contains new features. How many of us have time to trawl versions website to check whether our installed software has been updated? The solution would be a tool that checks your installed software, figures the version installed then checks and online database to see if an update is available.
When you're on the road, if you bring your own laptop, you can't afford to install your own software, so you just stick with the basics. There will be times when you receive a PDF document by email and are asked to make a few changes. You may want to type up your own page, or add an index, then include this within the existing PDF document. However, you'll need a PDF editor to do this and you won't want to make a purchase to make this small addition.
Most magazines
spend ages telling you how to optimise, enhance and diagnose system-related
issues. You could run a defrag tool to speed up your hard drive, a cleanser to
streamline your Registry and spend time uninstalling unwanted applications.
However, you need more than one application to do this and, this can cause
other issues. For instance, the cleanser might clash with the defrag tool.
Unlikely, but you don’t want additional issues.
An obvious
way of sharing your photos or videos with friends and family is to make them
available online; this enables them to access the files over the Internet from
almost anywhere which is especially convenient if your relations live half way
round the world. A useful and relatively low maintenance way of doing this is to
enable selected people to remotely access files that are stored on your home PC,
rather than spending time uploading them all to your
homepage.
With many kids owning their own laptop or having a computer in their bedroom, how do you know what they're doing through the night? With broadband being an always-on connection, unless you disconnect and remove the router, your kids could be up in the middle of the night, chatting with 'friends' and surfing the Internet, rather then getting a good nights sleep. If you stop them using the Internet, they might rebel by playing games late in to the evening.
Only yesterday we were describing the positive reasons for using an auction management application such as 
When you browse the Internet, visit a commercial website, order products online and take advantage of a promotional offer, you'll be leaving your personal information on your computer in the form of a cookie. Next time you visit the page, the information that was stored and purchasing information will be extracted from the cookie. If you share your computer, this means that you'll need to delete your cookies each time you end your web browsing.
How often do you find an address or postcode when browsing the Internet, then need to copy and paste this information in to another window, or tab, so you can find the location? Wouldn't it be far easier if you could turn the address information in to a searchable option, so you could run the location from within your browser?
Setting up your own home media server isn't particular easy for the majority. How do you configure your system to share audio and video files across different computers, enable playback through your TV or via your hi-fi? You could purchase something like the Windows Home Media Server or the Apple TV. Alternatively, you could find and use some simple software that will enable you to take your audio collection and stream it to various locations in your house.
At work, we sit on
the same chair, desks and in the same location every day. It’s almost inevitable
we adjust our PC to our personal tastes. First port-of-call will be the system
preferences and Windows will enable you to adjust basic visual options within
your preferences menu. However, there are a number of other tools available that
also enable you to personalise Vista, some allow you to perform basic
personalisation functions, others allow you to personalise your PC more
extensively. 
Many of us
have stopped using the phone and resorted to email as our primary communication
tool; it’s an easy way to communicate, especially for work purposes. It’s easier
to be harsh with people through your keyboard, rather than the phone. The
trouble with email is the more you send, the more likely you’ll increase the
junk that builds on your system. It is possible to receive hundreds of junk
emails per day, alongside a small number of genuine mail. Not only are these
junk emails annoying, it’s very likely that some are malicious, so not only are
they a nuisance they then become a threat to your PC. 
You'll have noticed that we spend quite a bit of time telling you how to optimise, defrag, speed up and update your computer. We all know that when we first bought our PC, it booted quickly, operated smoothly and applications launched immediately. It's only because our Registry was clean, drive was defragmented and we had few startup applications. A few months down the lines, things have slowed right down.
There are situations that you might want to consider, if you're seeking new security software. For instance, we're big fans of Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5, one of the oldest and best commercial anti-spyware tools. Indeed, we recently gave away the full and current version, along with a years worth of definition updates, for free, on the previous edition of 
If you follow our advice, we often recommend you go to the Apple Refurbished store, pick up an iMac or MacBook for around 20% off the standard retail price and then, if you need Windows, pick up the OEM edition of Windows XP or Vista and install through Bootcamp. You'll then have native versions of both OS X and Windows installed. Better still, you can access your Windows partition through OS X. However, there will be times that you want to write files back to your Windows partition, and you can't do this if it is NTFS formatted (as most drives are under XP or Vista).
If you're a Mac fan, you probably spent yesterday evening sitting through the various annual announcements as part of the MacWorld Expo. As a resident of the UK, I'm not entirely convinced. Apple TV was updated, but movie rentals are only available in the States. So it's not too exciting for those outside the States. MacBook Air is ok, but a tad expensive in the UK (£1199?) compared to the MacBook Pro or black MacBook. The TimeCapsule was reasonably priced, but is really designed to connect to your modem, where we broadband users tend to already have a router and wireless network. So it's a drive that connects to your network.
How many times have you collated a number of files in to a directory and wished you could export the contents of this directory to your printer or to a text file? In many business scenarios, people worth with files and are often told to print off a list of drive contents, for analysis. It may not happen every day, but it's a scenario where you might want a tool that will quickly print of the contents of a directory.
The problem with owning a PC is that, after a months of installing and using software, it seems to operate at about half the speed as when you first purchased your computer. Applications start when you boot your machine, your Registry is cluttered with erroneous information and your drive becomes fragmented. We'd all love to go back to how our PC used to operate and you can get close by regularly optimising your memory, drive and installed applications. 
Install software on your computer and you'll often find that it starts with your computer. Media players are particular annoying for this reason, so are security tools. Not only does this slow the booting process, it can cause the applications to interact with each other as they start in the wrong order. Uninstalling the software might not sort out the problem. If you launch an application when you boot your machine, it's in your system memory, which means it can't always be removed, until you close and remove from memory.
As an average eBay user, I've noticed a change in customer focus over the last few years. Three or so years ago it was an auction house for private individuals to shift their unwanted products and for customers to take the risk on bidding for these items. You rarely saw new stuff, it was nearly always second hand. These days, it's more like a marketplace or shopping mall. More new products than second hand, more dealers than private individuals and too many 'buy now' options. More worryingly is that people use eBay as some kind of key shopping portal and I've noticed that, as people do not like to be outbid, they'll often bid more than that the price of the goods from online stores. Why? Simply order from Amazon, Play.com or a reputed retailer.
You can tell MacWorld has started as we'll see a glut of new Mac software made available through the week. We don't host a great deal of Mac software on vnunet.com - although this will change during 2008 - but we do feature some of the very best and well designed tools. You may not have noticed that there are far fewer commercial web design tools than there used to be back in, say, 2001. Since Adobe took over Macromedia, they've all but dropped GoLive. On the Mac you also have Dreamweaver, but as it's a computer aimed at 'creatives' (so PC users would argue), there are far more web design tools.
I wonder if it is worth a poll to see how many people are better or worse off after installing Vista? I was one of those early adopters, but didn't realise I'd have to fork out hundreds of pounds to upgrade my commercial software, simply so it could be 'Vista compatible'. Worse than that, over Xmas my Vista-based laptop decided that it would become non-genuine for no obvious reason. I didn't even get the opportunity to re-enter the activation code or call Microsoft. Eventually, after trying a repair, it decided it would boot so far, tell me it was non-genuine, then reboot. Loop. Grr! I couldn't check my email, admin servers or write blog entries, until I was back in the office.
You and not the best commercial software is the ultimate defense against Internet attack. It's not difficult. The problem is, we get very complacent and overly rely on our security software to prevent intrusion. All you need to do is be wary of opening email attachments from unknown senders, do not download from sites you do not trust and do not click on any links within unsolicited emails (ie emails from senders who didn't expect - such as your bank) that require you to enter your personal name and password. In addition, you could also make sure you have the latest security software installed, just in case.
Even using the very best digital camera, there are times when you'll need a paint program to touch-up your pictures. You won't want to give these to your friends when they look like they're taken by an amateur. There are quite a few commercial paint packages available. You're almost spoilt for choice. The snag with most commercial packages is that they're updated irregularly. Buy the latest version and you'll have to wait until the next version until any new features are included. With shareware or freeware, you'll often find the developers release new updates on a monthly basis.
Most PC users,
whether they use their computer at home or at work, perform similar tasks on a
daily basis. We get into work, maybe check through our emails then begin our
regular routine. If you are performing the same tasks day in, day out the maybe
it would be beneficial to use a program that enables you to create macros, this
would help to automate simple tasks that you regularly perform on your
computer. These tasks could be, for example, resizing images if you had to work
with images as part of your work. 
When providing files to other Internet users, we often try and email large attachments and then wonder why the recipient hasn't receive your email. The other option is through a chat-client, which will give you a direct link to the other user. However, you have to sit there and manually send each file and it's not the easiest way to get large photos or files to other users. You could put them on your homepage, but then you'll be restricted by bandwidth limitations.
RSS readers are a good way of keeping up-to-date with the latest news, whether it’s the latest headlines, sport or financial news, RSS makes sure that the information is up to the minute. It’s not just the headlines you can stay up-to-date with, you can subscribe to RSS feeds from desired websites, and any information that you are particularly interested in or, important information required for the workplace.
There are a wide number of threats you’ll encounter online, from the moment you first start browsing the web, read your email or download files; your computer is susceptible to infection. Your first port of call would be an anti-virus application, but which one do you choose to protect your system? How do you know which one is more suited to you? A useful way of finding out would be to try a free or basic version of a chosen anti-virus application. This way you can find one most suited to your individual needs. 
If you're one of the many people who is struggling to meet their new year target, then you may need to resort to some old fashioned paper-based planning and organisation. The snag is, can you find the motivation to draft the document you need to keep yourself organised? Thought not. Luckily for you, there are other people doing this for you.
There are times when you go on the road and someone needs a photo, an image resizing or part of the website re-working. However, the snag is that you've forgotten to bring your photo editor, so you can't make the changes. This can leave you stressed and feeling that - being out of the office - is stopping you from doing your work. There is an answer though, you could simply use an online editor to make the changes you require to the photo you need editing.
Although PC Tools may not want you to hear this, the release of