Find your files more quickly with Windows Search 4 Preview
If you've used a tool such as Copernic Desktop Search or the OS X based Spotlight search function, you'll know that your search results are displayed almost instantaneously. Vista has a much improved search routine, but it's still not at the level of various competitors, who do the job more effectively. These tools work by indexing your system at a low level, whilst you are working on your PC. Once indexed, any new information you add to your PC is added to the search database. For instance, if you wanted to search for the term 'conference', any files, documents or email with this word will be displayed as a result.
Microsoft Windows Search 4 Preview is a technology preview of the new search function from Microsoft. This is based on the search function from Vista, with a few new features. For instance, with Windows Search 4 Preview, you'll be able to search across computers connected to your network.
There are many reasons why Windows and Microsoft Office are so popular. It's not always down to what's the 'best' operating system or office suite. Look at the original betamax v VHS debate. It wasn't what was best that ended up as the format winner. For this reason, people believe that they require Microsoft Word in order to fully compatible with the .doc format. Buy Microsoft Word 2007 as a standalone product, and you won't receive chance from a £100.
Who would guess that there would be a run on disc burning suites that would enable you to pick up a professional burner, for nothing? First security software went from commercial to free, now the burning developers are keen to get their software on to your system, without charge. This means there are a number of excellent free burning tools from the recent 
With numerous
free and commercial applications offering to provide protection from spyware,
where do you begin to look? Ok, there are plenty of free applications out there,
most of which offer reasonable protection and there are also many commercial
applications available, all varying in performance and price. A good place to
start is with a trusted commercial developer, someone who specialises in PC
protection and who have been doing so for number of years.
Music
libraries can be frustrating to manage, even more so when you have to manually
find and then edit missing track information. This information could include the
artist, track name or album artwork. The information is often void when you’ve
downloaded audio prepared incorrectly by other people, as they’ve labelled them
incorrectly. In this scenario, it would be helpful to have an application to
assist the maintenance of your library. 
The nature of
the burning suite has gradually evolved. Basic burning applications are being
replaced with media style suites which are becoming more difficult to use. A lot
of the time all we need to do is burn a CD quickly, either to play on the move
or even make a copy of something you are working on to take with you. You hardly
need a large ¨media suite¨ to copy a CD quickly. 
Although it seems
were spoilt for choice when it comes to antimalware and antispyware
applications, it’s highly unlikely that one single application will do
everything we’d like it to. Many of them claim to identify and remove all current
threats, but its virtually impossible for an application to identify constantly
updated malicious applications accessing your PC when. 
We're big fans of pushing portability. Indeed, so are others, too. Did anyone see the feature in the Sunday Times, at the weekend? People are starting to realise that you can whack all your favourite applications, work files, documents and more, on a portable USB stick or iPod and then take this and work on any host computer. You could go one step further and forget the applications and use the rising number of online tools such as 
Losing
important files is easy and has happened to most of us at some point. It’s one
of the most frustrating elements of working with computers as your file may have
simple been deleted, by mistake. Although PCs have become more stable, it’s a
good idea to keep work or important files backed up. Even if you haven’t got a
great deal of free hard drive space to do so, it’s possible to use an FTP server
as a place to store files. 
ZIP compression has been around for ages, but has become mainstream not because it is the most efficient, but because the developers behind the technology (and particularly WinZIP) knew that if they distributed it for free, users would quickly adopt it as the default archive management tool of choice. That happened and basic ZIP support is now available from within Windows, OS X and many third-party applications. However, space is limited and your digital media is huge. If you want to get the most from compressing your audio files or photos, do you rely on ZIP compression to save space?
With regular and
constant use, PCs start to accumulate files and folders which are of no use and
reside on your computer. Browsing the web, uninstalled programs, cookies and
passwords all contribute to system clutter. Most files aren’t necessarily a
threat to your machine but as a collective, if you leave these files to build
up, in severe cases they could eventually begin to take there toll on system
resources. Not only this but it’s possible for someone to access websites and
your browser history if these files remain on your computer. 
We recently posted some forward information about the forthcoming OpenOffice 3, which is due to hit public beta in around September this year. Many new features are planned for this major release, so any interim update for the existing OpenOffice 2.x will be minor. More security and fixes than new updates.
The performance
of your computer is obviously dependant on the components you installed in your
PC. If you are seeking to upgrade any hardware, it''s important to choose
components that suit the requirements of the user. For instance, a PC that is
used to browse the Internet won't benefit from a large RAM upgrade. Any
hardware upgrade will have a positive affect on system performance, but why
spend money on upgrades which are not necessary? Run an analysis tool and
perform checks on all aspects of your PCs performance. 
It’s safe to
assume that you’ve spent time building, creating and storing your audio library
on your PC; it’s a fairly straight forward exercise, copying your CDs to your
hard drive. However, it does become more challenging getting old and sometimes
rare recordings from audio tapes or VHS, to eventually get them on to a CD. Most
old recordings need some form of editing such as cropping, noise reduction and
rendering in order to make them audible. 
There a wide
number of useful tool that you could regard as a necessity for your system. Keep
them installed until you need to use them in the future. For instance, an
effective screen grabbing tool that will extract a grab from an open application
window, screen selection or other area. They enable you to capture text and
images that you wouldn’t normally be able to grab. 
If you upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007 you may have found that Microsoft Outlook different little from the previous version. Indeed, there are some users who prefer the previous Office 2003, with it's more simplistic user-interface, rather than the ribbon you find in the latest suite. However, there aren't too many alternatives to Outlook that offer the flexibility and collaboration tools. Install Outlook 2007 across a number of workstations and it isn't a cheap solution for enabling your staff to access their email.
Only yesterday we presented you with the full 
The problem with most corporate websites is that the news is in the form of a press release and isn't always accessible to the end user. If you want to see if a product has been updated, you have to wade through the info to find the latest details. However, there is an easier way. People will write and update a blog and it's easier to keep an eye out on the blog than it is on the website. Take a look at the latest Microsoft Vista blog, which was the first location most people realised that the Service Pack 1 was publicly available.
When you bought your computer or upgraded your disc burner, you are likely to have kept the burning software that was pre-installed or shipped with the burner. That's fine, if you're happy with that software. However, there are plenty of alternatives. For instance, Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.6 was made available for free and we'd also recommend BurnAware.
If you're an avid system user, but no programmer, there's no reason why you couldn't make use of your IT resources to make some money. For instance, there are a wide number of novice users who simply cannot understand how to perform basic tasks. They won't want anyone they don't know, in their house, and you won't probably want to visit a strangers house to fix their machine. Once there, you'll end up staying a lot longer than you'd expect.
Install Vista Service Pack 1 and you'd expect the update tool to either overwrite the old files or install the new updates and delete the old, saving you space on your drive. It does neither. It leaves all the old pre-SP1 files on your system, just in case you want to go back and remove SP1. However, if you've been using SP1 on your system for a few days, and your system is running without issues, then you could safely remove these old files.
It wasn’t so
long ago when we’d browse a PC magazine looking for the latest PC adverts,
comparing system specs against value-for-money. Cheapest isn’t always the best.
By the time you’ve made your decision and parted with your hard earned money,
does your PC do what it says on the tin? How do you know that your machine will
perform as the manufacturer declared in the advert? Maybe a system information
utility would help satisfy your curiosity. 
If you were one of the early adopters, you may wonder why you upgraded to Vista. Well, we often wondered why we bothered. We've spent the last year upgrading all our commercial software, across various systems connected to the network. Reason for the upgrades? Vista compatibility. Surely an operating is merely a platform to run your software, not the other way around? Anyway, given the choice, we'd prefer to use Vista over XP, partly due to the improved security and enhanced visuals.
Answers on a postcard why Apple decided to release a web browser for the Windows platform. Applications such as QuickTime and iTunes we can understand. QuickTime drives iTunes and enables playback of certain encoded video on your PC. However, there was no reason behind Safari. The Internet Explorer webcore is builtin to Windows and that's what drives the HTML components of the Windows version of iTunes, whereas the Mac version uses the Safari core, built in to Mac OS X.
Not all of us
have moved over to Vista, maybe you just haven’t got round to it or, like some,
you simply prefer XP as your applications work effectively on this operating
system. If you’re an experienced PC user and have been using XP for quite some
time, you’ll be aware that when you install, it installs a number of unnecessary
applications, files and drivers. However, you can customise your installation,
producing your own original XP install CD, adding/removing drivers,
applications, customising with your own logo and more. 
With faster broadband, watching television
via the Internet, is becoming a realistic option, and more of us are starting
to tune in. You can quite easily search for TV channels from all over the
globe. As audiences continue to grow, more channels are starting to see the
possibilities of online TV, including well known and popular channels such as
MTV. With large, worldwide audiences, MTV have now shown that it’s possible to
move from terrestrial to an even larger fan base over the Internet. 
There are many different anti-spyware, anti-virus and other security applications. Until you experience an issue with your machine, you'll probably never think you need another security tool. The problem is that when you have an issue, it's often too late. The virus or trojan is on your PC, may stop you from booting your computer and most end users will not know how to remove and fix their PC. For this reason, it's always wise to install anti-spyware technology from trusted developers who invest in resources required to fight the latest threats.
Go out and buy the latest operating system and it will be pre-configured so that it will work effectively across a range of systems. Sure, the configuration will work out of the box, but it won’t be optimised for your individual PC. Unfortunately, many of us use this setup from day one, not realising that there are a number of optimisations and tweaks that can be performed to enhance the functionality of Vista on your own PC. You can quite easily speed up, boost, tweak existing preferences, turn on/off hidden settings and much more.
Not so long
ago, disc burning suites did exactly what they said on the tin. The aim, to burn
your discs as quickly and efficiently as possible, making them easy to use,
ideal for those of us who haven’t got time to sit at the computer and burn
¨semi-professional¨ DVDs of holiday videos or photos. Luckily there are a number
of new burning solutions, including BurnAware and
FinalBurner.
When we hear
a track we like, maybe through a radio or a TV advert, we get on iTunes or other
online music store and purchase. That’s providing you know the track title or
artists name. If you don’t have this information, finding the track, especially
if it’s an old or rare recording, can prove virtually impossible. Most music
hosted online is from the last few years and old recordings are not always
available. Where do you begin searching? The chances of you stumbling across it
are very slim. 
Trying to find a free domain is almost impossible these days. Who on earth decided to offer .com and similar domains, without restrictions, made a serious error of judgement. It's resulted in holding companies and individuals registering domains and then parking them to be sold on at a later today. The problem is, instead of paying $10 for a domain, you could quite easily end up paying $10,000. However, there is still the chance you can think of a memorable domain based on a combination of words.
For drafting
basic text, Notepad can be extremely useful for producing a document without
formatting or to remove text style that existing in a pre-formatted document. If
you’re an experienced developer, you could use this basic application to write
up code quickly and easily before using an 
If you use your email client to write to different users, you might want to customise your messages depending on the recipient. For instance, if you write to the boss, you might want your email to be formalm with a particular signature. Write to your customers and it could be more informal with a basic signature, as you might not want them calling you on your direct line.
Everyone stores notes, whether you use traditional post-it sticky notes or software to post your notes to your desktop. The snag is, you could do so much more if you had a tool that enabled you to add images and web clips to your text notes. You could use this application to store your info and then quickly refer to your scrapbook at a later date, when you're writing up a project, report or presentation.
If someone had said that you could safely ditch your laptop, grab your iPod and then take your applications on the road, along with your work documents and other important files, I don't think I'd have taken them seriously. However, with the rise in portable applications, you really can take some of your favourite applications on the road and then safely connect your external drive to any host computer, then work without leaving a trace of the files on the host machine.
Knowing what
time it is somewhere else in the world does have its advantage, particularly
when you’re planning an international call. You may travel, for business or
pleasure, and it would be useful to have this information to hand for
organisation purposes. What time is it back in the office, in the UK? On the
other hand, you may have colleagues or associates working in other countries
and, due to time differences, you may have a specific period when you can
communicate. 
Inevitably,
when we increase the size of our drive, we just fill it up with additional files
and other media. Many of us benefit from a large internal drive, and if you do
not want to upgrade your drive, you could simply purchase a larger volume
external hard drive. However, over time you may have stored thousands of files
and searching for a specific one across multiple drives, especially through
Windows, can be a laborious task. 
If you run a small business, you might not be able to afford to employ the services of a commercial point of sale system, but then how do you track your sales, manage your customer base, send out marketing information and make sure your stock levels are kept up-to-date. One solution would be to grab a refurbished iMac from the Apple UK store, purchase a software-based POS solution such as the superb 
Disc burning software used to be so simple. There was a time when you could buy commercial burning software and the emphasis was based around getting content to your discs, quickly. These days, most disc burning developers are more interested in adding various media editing tools to their suite, such as photo managers, video editors and even music sequencers. What we need is a simple and well-designed disc burning suite that enables you to get your data, audio and others to disc, with the minimum of fuss.
With many of us moving over to web mail, this enables us to access our incoming email from just about any location, as long as you have access to a web browser. If you're at work, you can't set up your email client to download your personal email and you won't want to be seen to be checking your Gmail account every 10 minutes to see if you've received mail. The answer is an assistant that will keep checking your account to see if you have a new message and then notify you discreetly.
Mac OS X has always had the function to print directly to a PDF. This has many advantages. You can upload a PDF to your homepage and offer it to other users, safe in the knowledge that it will be readable across most operating systems. You can use a PDF document for your commercial printing, as long as it is prepared in the correct format. A PDF document will also retain the formatting and fonts, even if the other user does not have these fonts installed on their system.
Originally 
When you bought your fast broadband connection, we bet you were really impressed that your ISP could offer you a 24MB (or higher!) service? The problem is that most people do not realise that the bottleneck isn't your connection to your ISP, it's often the ability of a remote server to deliver content fast enough to your computer. The connection from server to your ISP is often slower than your ISP to your computer. Download a large file and it can take a frustrating amount of time. It may even stop before the download is complete.
As someone who has to burn media on a regular basis, I'm often seeking a tool packed with features I need to burn professional media, but enables me to burn the discs with the minimum of fuss. The professional mastering applications are full of options and can easily lead to a master being rejected by a disc duplicator. Some of the more simplistic applications lack features such being able to work with DVD media as they do not ship with the MPEG-2 codec.
Blogs are an ideal way of keeping up with the latest news on a particular subject area. If you're in to software, they are also good for keeping up with the latest and forthcoming features, before they reach the developer website. You'll see a preview of features before they reach mainstream. If personal opinion interests you, then you can follow opinion-based blogs from anything such as the environment through to what we think of our local football team.
There are some websites that simply require Internet Explorer, only display correctly using Explorer or, if you're a web developer, you may wish to view your pages using Explorer. However, if you're a Firefox user and have spent time configuring the browser and sorting out your bookmarks, you won't like to move away to use Internet Explorer just to browse a particular site. Most people do not realise that the Internet Explorer web core is built in to Windows and any developed application can access this engine.
We are all
guilty of wasting time online, checking through email and browsing favourite
websites, looking for updated information. Once someone told me that they had
around ten sites they tended to visit, they went through them all when they got
in to the office first thing in the morning, then went through them again after
lunch. They were ‘proud’ to admit that it took two hours out of their working
day simply checking to see if their favourite sites had been
updated.
With our
laissez-faire approach to modern life, computer games are designed to impress us
with fast moving, smooth and intricate graphics over gameplay and longevity. We
make a quick snapshot decision on buying a game, often after seeing a preview on
YouTube or graphics in a magazine. Remember some of the classic point-and-click
adventure games? Irrespective of the graphics, you could have hours of fun
playing the old adventure games, seeking out the answers to questions posed
through the game.
If you're seeking a professional web design tool to code up your pages, there aren't too many commercial options. For instance, GoLive is on the way out, Frontpage has gone. Dreamweaver is a natural choice, but has a high learning curve. Another option is to seek out the template-driven tools such as Rapidweaver on the Mac or WYSIWYG Web Builder on the PC. These enable you to create simply web pages, easily. However, you don't always have full access to the code, when you use template-driven coding tools.
Use a family
computer between multiple users can be frustrating and we don’t often want to use
different accounts. Your PC will store certain information, even if you’re
running applications or even games, personal information will remain stored on
your machine. For privacy reasons you may not wish for people to view this
information, but surely there must be a more convenient way of using your
computer without the worry of clearing this information each time you finish
using your PC? If you run a game or application within a self-contained
environment, you’ll find that the information is both kept in this environment
and you’re less likely to be infected with malicious data.
If you use Outlook to manage your meetings, to do tasks, your schedule and where you are going to be located during the day, you can often share this information with other users through our network. However, step out of the office and often you can't always connect and share your Outlook calendar information from home or another remote location. If you use your work calendar for tracking personal 'to do' items, you'll want to access these from home.
We are all
aware of the threat posed by spyware, malicious software and Trojan attack. Many
of us do take precautionary measures such installing software that enable us to
remove spyware from our system when it becomes infected. However, can we do more
to prevent our system from becoming infected in the first place? There are
applications for removing spyware, but maybe the answer is a tool that takes
pro-active stance to prevent attack.
Do you remember the old iView Media? This was a professional-level media and photo manager for the Mac and Windows platform that was bought by Microsoft a couple of years ago. This has been integrated in to the Microsoft Expression range of products and has had a few minor visual updates to the user-interface. To me, an old user of iView, it looks worse than the original version. Will be interesting to see how the Mac version stacks up, visually.
People do not realise that an operating system isn't optimised for your PC but supplied as a vanilla operating system that will work across multiple computers. Often the drivers are out of date, configured in a manner that will not cause problems to your system and only the minimum amount of optimisation is performed after an install. There are also a number of hidden features within any edition of Windows and Vista is no exception. You need a tool that can unlock and enable access to these hidden features.
I'm not sure what's going on. Microsoft have surpassed our expectations. Only a couple of weeks ago we were blogging that Microsoft have announced the first details of 
When you look back at software innovation, Apple pushed a few boundaries with the release of iLife, a complete suite of media management software that enabled you to edit your photos, create your own music, produce a home movie and much more. To this day, this hasn't been bettered and it has been left to third-party software developers to produce an iLife equivalent for the Windows operating system.
Although we
encourage you to use and evaluate Mozilla Firefox, there are some websites that
require Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Indeed it’s still the primary browser of
choice for many, primarily as it ships with the Windows operating system.