Most of us have an extensive digital audio collection and one of the wisest moves would be to synchronise this audio with a digital media player and then take that on the road. However, we're not always able to get from the office to home, before we head out on the road or need to stay over night somewhere, but we still want to be able to access our favourite audio tracks.

TVersity 1.0 RC5 is a media streaming device that you can install on your computer (or media centre) and then use this to provide and stream your audio tracks over the Internet. It also enables you to stream your media, video and audio, to other devices within your home, such as your Playstation 3, XBOX 360 or mobile device.

TVersity link.

Back in the 80s, when users were starting to learn about computers, we had to use to have to edit the config.sys to configure our startup applications and much more. However, it was always far easier to get a friend to show you how to do this, rather than try and read a book and learn for yourself. The same principle applies now, but as most of us spend more time engaged in 'leisure pursuits' with our PC, it's very rare to be able to source knowledge locally. The best idea is to find and someone over the Internet.

CrossLoop 2.4.1 is technology that you can use to enable a remote user to access your desktop and show you how to perform a particular task. It also enables someone with knowledge to offer their skills (perhaps for a fee) to other users.

CrossLoop link.

Maybe someone can correct us here, but it seems the recent rush to develop a decent free email client seems to have diminished somewhat? The Mozilla-based Thunderbird is only receiving small and minor bug or security fixes, whilst Thunderbird 3 is way off a final release. Eudora development was cancelled and has been incorporated in to Mozilla development. Of course, there are others, and you could just use Windows Live Mail or the web-based Google Mail, which would enable you to access your email from any browser, from any location.

The Bat! 4.0.38 Professional is an email client that's been around for ages. It's a powerful application that's also available as a free Home edition. Sadly the Home edition is rather limited as it doesn't even ship with an inline spell checker, which is essential for writing email. However, the Bat! ships with a whole host of features, including many pre-designed templates which will make your email look rather professional.

The Bat! Professional link.

The dream must be to setup your own digital audio media centre where you could move from room to room and hear the same track being played, through any audio device, wherever you are located in you house. It's possible, it's easy and cheap to create. Apple iTunes already allows you to distribute audio to various locations, whether this is your computer speaker or a remote Airport Express audio unit. Connect one of these Airport Express devices to an audio device and you can get iTunes to send audio to any or all of these units, at the same time, wirelessly. However, what happens when you don't want to use iTunes?

Airfoil for Windows 2.6.2 is a commercial tool that uses the same standard that Apple uses within iTunes to distribute any audio to your Airport Express device. You can hijack Windows Media Player, your web browser or most other applications. This means you can listen to Internet radio on your hifi, wirelessly.

Airfoil for Windows 2.6.2 link.

It's more common to own or use a desktop, laptop and perhaps factor in your work PC. These computers may be a combination of machines running Windows or Mac OS X. Either way, you'll want to make sure the same data is synchronised between each machine. If you regularly note your ideas, thoughts and other tasks, then you may find that you want the same information both at work and home.

Evernote 3 is one of the best synchronisation tools available. It enables you to add a note, which can consist of text, images, web clips and other information, then make sure that this information is always up-to-date on any machine where you've both installed Evernote and authorise the app to login to your account. If you are using a temporary host PC, you can still access your notes by logging in through a web browser.

The only downside of Evernote is that you can't share your notes or ideas with other users. For example, if you are working on ideas for a forthcoming project, it should be possible to share those thoughts and notes with other people who are part of this project. There's free and premium version available.

Evernote link.

Only a few years ago, WinZip was the primary choice for archive management and, to be fair, is the primary reason why the .zip format became so popular across every operating system. Even Mac OS X has moved to .zip, even though it used the .sit format for years. Now Windows and OS X enable you to quickly open and create basic .zip archives from your files. However, what happens if you want to open an alternative archive format or want to compress your files beyond what the .zip format can offer?

PeaZip 2.4.1 is one of the better free archive managers that enables you to work with the standard .zip format, as well as .7z, tar and many others. It's available for both the Windows and Linux platform and there's a portable version, so you can take your archive manager on the road and use it to open archives on a temporary host PC.

PeaZip 2.4.1 and PeaZip Portable link.

Now you can pick up another 20" LCD monitor for a couple of hundred pounds, more of us are turning to use a dual-monitor setup to help our productivity. Two monitors enable you to open and use one key application, full-screen, on both displays. As a web designer, you could have Dreamweaver open on one screen and Fireworks on the other. Problem is that we also want to configure each desktop so they are easily distinguishable. With Windows, you can only have one wallpaper per desktop, irrespective if you have more than one monitor.

DisplayFusion 2.2.1 is the free version of the wallpaper manager which will enable you to stretch a wallpaper across two desktops or one per desktop. The Pro version will allow you to stream images from Flickr as well as randomly change each wallpaper.

DisplayFusion link.

Only yesterday we were letting you know that you can the full commercial version of EASEUS Partition Manager 2.1 Professional with the latest PCW magazine. The Professional version offers additional functionality over the free Home edition. In particular Vista 64-bit support (although, we don't understand why developers insists on thinking that home users won't be using Vista 64-bit) and the facility to create a bootable recovery CD. However, if you only want basic partition management, such as the creation, deletion or ability to resize a partition, then the Home edition is for you.

EASEUS Partition Manager 3 Home is the latest version and is free for personal use. In addition to basic partitioning tools, the latest v3 now enables you to quickly copy a partition and an entire drive, if necessary.

EASEUS Partition Manager 3 Home link.

Whatever system you own, whether it's a PC or a Mac, there are various components that you should be able to upgrade, including the memory and the primary hard drive. Buying a larger and faster hard drive can make a big difference. Your computer should boot more swiftly, as an example. Problem is that the drive will be partitioned as one large continuous block and the first thing you will want to do is re-configure so you can use a partition for your work, another for your media files and so on.

Within the January 2009 edition of PCW magazine, on-sale right now, you can get the full version of EASEUS Partition Manager 2.1 Professional worth £22. This tool will handle all your partitioning requirements from creating, resizing or deleting existing partitions.

PCW January 2009 link.

Few people are aware but when you install Windows on your PC it will install as a vanilla configuration that is designed to work most effectively on your computer, without it affecting your other software. Essentially, it's designed to be as safe, secure and trouble-free as possible. For that reason, there are many ways you can tweak and optimise your PC and installed software. Quite frankly, there are few tools better than TuneUp Utilities 2009 which is a tool we recently stumbled across and use regularly. We've upgraded from the 2007 edition through to the current 2009.

TuneUp Utilities 2009 will examine and tweak every aspect of your PCs performance. You can examine and check for problematic startup applications, check individual applications and see how you can get more from each app. There are tools for defragmenting your drive, optimising your Registry, fixing issues and much more.

TuneUp Utilities 2009 link.

We all know that if we use our system for any length of time it becomes cluttered with temporary files, files that are stored when you download to your computer and entries within your Registry that leave your system more bloated than necessary. There are many commercial tuning and tweaking tools and some of these are superb. Two good examples are TuneUp Utilities 2009 and System Mechanic 8, which is due to get 64-bit support soon. However, one advantage of using freeware is that updates are always free and they are released very regularly.

CCleaner 2.14 is the latest version of the popular free system cleansing and optimisation tool. The latest version supports Google Chrome as well as Windows 7, so if you're testing these two products, you can use CCleaner to remove temporary or unncessary files.

CCleaner 2.14 link.

As hard drives have got larger, many of us now have large audio collections on our PCs. It's possible to store your entire CD collection on a modern hard drive, but not all music is extracted from audio CDs, you may have MP3s and other audio files sourced from online music stores or download sites, even old records that you have recorded. Once you have all these files on your computer it gets more and more difficult to keep them organised, especially when they have misspelt titles, missing artwork and other discrepancies.  

TuneUp 1.1.2 is a plug-in for iTunes designed to help you maintain an organised audio library. This useful utility sits to the right of the standard iTunes interface and can be used to find missing artwork and identify incorrect track names via the Gracenote database, all of which can be done in batches.  

TuneUp 1.1.2 link.

Testing software on your computer can be problematic. Install new software, then remove, and you'll find that the uninstaller isn't always a effective as the original installer. It can leave behind entries in your Registry, files that attempt to start when you boot your computer and temporary files that you may need to remove manually. One solution is to use a virtual operating system, such as another version of Windows on top of your existing OS. You can use that for testing new software. You can also use it for testing a brand new operating system or an alternative, such as as Linux distro.

VMware Player 2.5.1 is a free tool that will enable you to open and use a virtual operating system that has been created by another user. If you know someone who has VMware Workstation, give them a Windows serial code and they can create you a virtual OS. Either that or download one from the VMware website.

VMware Player link.

We tend not to seek our drive or system repair software until our computer experiences a fault. If it's a scenario where we can't even boot in to our PC, you need a rescue CD so you can repair your faulty drive (by 'faulty drive', it's most likely a software-related issue). We suggest you take a more proactive approach to drive management and, rather than collect together a number of tools to partition, defragment, partition, copy or backup your drive, why not buy a suite instead?

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite is one of the best hard drive management tools that will let you get the most from your PC. You can use this tool to backup your drive (and restore), copy a partition, defragment your drive and recovery if necessary. The new 2009 edition ships with a few new features - for Vista users you can quickly migrate your Vista-based drive to a new machine or other partition.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite link.

For a secure and smooth running PC it's important to keep software up-to-date, this will prevent potential problems and will enable you to benefit from the latest features and any improvements made to the software. Manually checking each application for updates can be time consuming, but by using an update tool this task can be performed quickly and easily. Standalone update tools are often more effective than the ones that ship with applications as they provide information on all installed software, rather than a single application.

Secunia PSI 1.0.0.1 is a handy tool that searches for installed software, alerting you of any applications that are out-of-date or that need upgrading. This is incredibly useful for identifying any potential vulnerability and could help you to maintain a more efficient PC.

Secunia PSI 1.0.0.1 link.

We forget that, although the Internet is primarily in English, if you write a business document to another user, they may not understand your words or intention. This can cause issues when we're trying to finalise a business deal, by email, across continents. It's too expensive to employ the use of a professional translator and, when you simply want to reply to an email, you haven't got time to wait for someone to translate your work.

SpeakLike is a system where you can send an email to another user, in your local language, and it will be translated and forwarded to the recipient. The reply can be within the local language, yet you receive a translated email back in to English. It's not quite on-the-fly, as you need to wait for the translation, but SpeakLike claim that this will be achieved in under an hour.

SpeakLike link.

With the rise of fast broadband, software developers are starting to realise that they can produce online-only applications that enable you to produce content without downloading software to your computer. This has to be one of the safest ways of using your PC. If the majority of your software was hosted online, you wouldn't have any reasons to defrag your Registry or worry about optimising your PC.

Webnode is an online tool that you can use to produce your own personal or company homepage. It's a well-designed interface which is similar in appearance to the ribbon toolbar found in Office 2007. There's a free version, so you can put a basic and lightweight homepage online that doesn't use more than 1GB of traffic a month and forces you to use a Webnode footer at the bottom of every page. If you want to use it professionally, you can upgrade to the Premium version, with more bandwidth and secure areas on your site.

Webnode link.

Only a few years ago you had to upgrade your PC every year to keep up with the latest version of Windows and the most popular games. These days you can use a system from a few years ago and it will be fine for most scenarios, apart from the very latest games. These games require the latest graphics card. However, before you go out and buy the game you want to run on your system, it might be a good idea to evaluate how your components stack up against the system requirements.

Can You Run It? is an online scanning tool where you can select the game you are intending to purchase and then run an analysis on your computer. The report will show where your system may be lacking and, where a potential problem is located, you can try and remedy the situation - this may be additional memory or an upgraded graphics card.

Can You Run It? link.

Anyone who uses email is aware of spam and junk mail, but for those of us who use it on a daily basis it can be a never ending battle. The number of spam messages we receive is on the rise and spammers are using increasingly clever ways of disguising malicious mail. The trouble is, when you access your email you can end up spending more time sorting your mail than reading it. Why not try one of the many freeware spam filters available?

Spamaware 5.1 is a freeware plug-in for MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express that will automatically filter potentially malicious email messages. You can adjust filter settings as needed, then simply let the filter do the work for you. This is definitely worth a try if you're struggling to cope with the constant barrage of spam. 

Spamaware 5.1 link.

Learning a new language is a major challenge, particularly for us Brits. For example, Italian may prove relatively easy for a Spaniard, but we find it a challenge that often leaves us rather embarrassed and struggling to make progress. The best solution is to immerse yourself in the culture and you'll quickly pick up the language. The other solution is to learn online - not using the traditional methods, as they can prove stale, but in an entertaining way.

Babbel is such a system. You simply choose the language you want to use and the site will give you a personalised learning experience. However, the key point of Babbel is that you share your learning skills with other users. Strange thing is that this seems like a good way to pass certain tests and exams as you can get instant answers to language queries from other others. Fun, indeed.

Babbel link.

Back in the 90s there was this cool method of chatting with other users, irrespective of their location. It was called IRC. Indeed, the technology has not disappeared, but the amount of press coverage it receives is minimal. However, the idea lives on. IRC enabled developers from multiple locations to enter a (closed) chat room and have a real-time discussion about a subject. As IRC enabled you to send a file directly to another user (or group of users) it made chatting and working with code, ideal.

Campfire is a business chat or developer-based chat system that enables multiple users from different locations to login and chat. You can share files, make them available to other users for download later and use the system as a depositry for code and other info. With Campfire, a person can simply upload an image to the chat, for real-time preview, enabling the other users within the discussion to see a pictorial example of an issue.

Campfire link.

No matter how equipped you think your computer is to deal with Internet based threats, you're almost certain to encounter malicious software of some kind. This could be spam email or a fully fledged viral infection, and even if you think your machine is completely protected, there are always new threats to look out for. Is it really necessary for the average computer user to purchase expensive security packages?

Avast Home 4.8.12.96 is a free antivirus package that offers protection from a host of general online threats. Some useful features include a behaviour blocker for analysing and preventing any unusual behaviour, and an email scanner that checks incoming and outgoing email messages for infection.

Avast Home 4.8.12.96 link.

Facebook is the primary social networking choice for those wanting to keep in touch with other friends. It enables users to give people a day-by-day record of their life, including who they've seen and where they've been. Of course, fascinating for many. It also enables users to send a instant message to other members, so people are ditching regular IM clients such as Windows Live Messenger, AOL Messenger and others. Problem is, what happens when one of your friends decides they want to use Bebo instead?

Yahoo oneConnect is a solution that attempts to bring together various social networking sites within one user-interface. Snag is, it doesn't seem to allow cross-network communication. You can't log in to your Yahoo Messenger account and chat with a Facebook member, for example. You can see notifications, but you need to chat through the standard Yahoo network or by, erm, SMS. Still, you can at least access multiple contact databases from your various social network, phone and other address books.

Yahoo oneConnect link.

One key problem with the Internet is that we use it to track our friends, keep in touch with the family, check our bank balance and the latest sports news. Get in to work and it's all too easy for a lot of people to spend too much time trawling through their various sites searching for updated information, when they should be working.

PageOnce is an online tool that you can also use with your iPhone to aggregate a number of online account in to one user-interface. You simply open a PageOnce online account, choose the sites you want to add (with their relevant login and password) and then acess this info when you're on your iPhone. It's all read-only, so you can't interact with your bank account from your mobile, but you can see daily update info, securely.

PageOnce link.

Some of our better audio tracks are those that were remixed by other producers. However, you might feel that you could do something better or more suited to your taste. If you feel a track is slower than you'd like or feel it could be enhanced by a loop from another track, there's no reason why you couldn't remix the track yourself and then save it as a new track. As long as you don't make it available commercially or spread to other users without permission, you can do what you like with your own audio (DRM free) audio tracks.

With Computeractive 281 magazine, on-sale now, we're giving you the full version of MixVibes Home v6 which will enable you to mix together two different audio tracks and then output the result as a new track.

Computeractive 281 link.

Working on the same machine each day you get used to having all you need at your fingertips, everything for a days work. This may be your favourite applications, but may also be important contacts and web addresses. Sometimes though you may be away on business or working in a different office and will be required to use a different computer. If you are on an unfamiliar machine it may be difficult to remember specific and important URLs, so how do you access them?

Foxmarks has been a popular add-on for Firefox that has now been made available for Internet Explorer. It enables you to synchronise bookmarks across multiple computers via my.foxmarks.com, so it's possible to access your bookmarks from any computer with Internet access.

Foxmarks for Internet Explorer. link.  

Although Google does a great job of finding websites, the results can be a little hit and miss. The trouble is that Google is so good at finding sites that it's sometimes difficult to identify which site are legitimate and which sites aren't. The last thing you want is to find out the hard way and end up on a rogue site accidentally, so surely there's a way of identifying the good from the bad?

GooglePreview 3.16 is a useful Firefox extension that may help. It provides a small visual representation of your search results; this can help identify any potential rogue sites before you visit them. One downside to the add-on is that your browser speeds maybe slightly decreased if you don't have a great Internet connection, but it does provide an extra level of security.

GooglePreview 3.16 link.

There comes a time when you may need to cleanse your PC, by removing or filing desktop clutter, uninstalling unused or unwanted applications as well as remove old and unnecessary files and folders. The trouble is, it's all too easy to get a little carried away and start deleting items you may still need. Some of this information could be important, maybe even private, so how do you recover these files once you've emptied your recycle bin.

Recuva 1.21 is a small and popular application that enables you to recover any files you may have accidentally deleted, even if you have emptied your recycle bin. Recuva can also be used to salvage photographs from your digital camera or memory card and you can even recover songs from your MP3 player.

Recuva 1.21 link.

It's become so easy to install software that sometimes you can do so without even realising, like downloading a media player plug-in online. It takes a few simple steps and then it's installed, but when it comes time to remove it, it's a completely different story. The Windows Add/Remove utility can struggle to completely remove some more stubborn applications and will often leave associated files and folders on your computer. It may then be time to resort to a third party application, one that will remove all traces of an unwanted application.

Total Uninstall 5.0.2 is an application designed to completely remove all traces of files and folders associated with any installed applications. It will monitor where associated files are placed during the instillation of a new application so that removal is much more thorough and effective.

Total Uninstall 5.0.2 link.

Even if your new PC ships with basic security software, from the moment you connect to the Internet it's susceptible to numerous online threats. It may be worth investing in a solid all-in-one security package that offers complete protection, one that is updated regularly. A goo security application will protect your computer from viruses as well as identify potential threats and be capable of removing them. The benefit of using a single security package is that you won't have any difficulty getting different applications working together correctly.

Comodo Internet Security 3.5.55.810 is a free security suite made up of different security utilities which are designed to provide complete protection for your computer. This tool provides solid protection against almost anything you may encounter online and if you require further protection, there is also a professional version available.

Comodo Internet Security 3.5.55.810 link.

Most current graphics cards will come with a number of different display options. These settings are often pre-configured on any card installed on your machine, providing very limited adjustments. These basic settings may not enable you to get the most from your display settings, or even manually tweak settings. What if you wish to change your current monitor or connect additional monitors?

PowerStrip 3.84.640 enables you to adjust a huge number of different display settings using over five hundred controls and settings. You can create multi-monitor set-ups and control all settings. The application supports numerous graphic cards and all popular chipset vendors, so it should work with most machines.

PowerStrip 3.84.640  

Checking weather forecasts is not something many of us do on a daily basis; maybe we hear the forecast on local radio or catch it on T.V before work. The trouble is if you're job requires you to travel, maybe even abroad, staying updated with current weather can be difficult. There are a number of useful websites available offering national and international weather forecasts, but there are other useful applications that make it even easier to retrieve global weather information.

Weather Watcher 5.64.1 is a desktop weather watching application for Windows that enables you to track hourly and daily forecasts. You can use it to get forecast and alerts from thousands of cities worldwide as well as customise the application with a choice of skins, to make it less of a feature on your desktop.

Weather Watcher 5.64.1 link.  

Almost all image viewers, even basic freeware tools, enable you to convert the format of your images. Images are often gathered from a number of different sources, from your own photographs to pictures received via email and are often in several different formats. This can cause issues when trying to view images and you may find it more convenient to convert these images into a single, unified format. This makes your images easier to manage, send to friends and upload to a website.

XnView 1.95.4 is a small utility that enables you to convert images into around fifty different formats. It's a useful tool for browsing images and it can be used to edit, adjust and crop any images before conversion. XnView can also be used to rename batches of images.

XnView 1.95.4

There are a number of tools available you can use to paint and create original works with, from basic freeware utilities to expensive, professional applications. Although these applications enable you to paint, they tend to be geared around graphic design and image manipulation rather than helping you to create more artistic pieces. If you are a more creative artist you may find it difficult finding an application that suits a more expressive style, but there are applications worth investigating.  

Artweaver 0.5.6 is an application designed for users who prefer working with a mouse or directly on a tablet. The program offers a number of realistic tools such as pencils, charcoal, chalk and numerous other brush styles. You can import a range of image formats as well as use existing images and photos to create sketches from.

Artweaver 0.5.6 link. 

There are now a huge number of add-ons available for Mozilla's Firefox, and depending on your needs, some may be more useful than others. The right Add-ons can greatly enhance your browsing experience, but it can be a chore trying to find ones that work for you, or combination of add-ons that work for you.

Mozilla have now introduced a new way for Firefox users to get add-ons most suited to their needs via ¨Fashion Your Firefox¨. Packs have been assembled containing recommended plug-ins, all with individual names and based on themes depending on personal preference. For example, there's ¨Social Butterfly¨ for those who just can't stay away from social networking sites, ¨Shutterbug¨ for anyone viewing or sharing photos and videos online and ¨News Junkie¨ for keeping up-to-date with the latest news and weather. There are a number of other packs available too; all aimed a specific type of user, so there is something for everyone.

With around five thousand add-ons currently available and with Firefox add-on downloads recently topping one billion; this is probably the easiest way to get a selection of add-ons that best suit your needs.

Use your computer online, even if it's to keep in touch with friends, and you run the risk of being a target for identity fraud. The problem with social networking sites is that it offers both your friends and other users a way to find your name, date of birth, contact email address and more. The first step is to attempt to change your password for your email account. They only need key personal info to gain access. Once inside, they may find other information that leads them to access an online account such as your PayPal login info.

Get Safe Online is a new government-backed UK site that gives you detailed information about the potential threats, how to protect your machine and, of course, various download links that enable you to obtain security software. However, refer to vnunet.com and you can find the latest anti-virus and other security tools, including Secuni PSI which we discussed this morning.

Get Safe Online and vnunet.com links.

If you're a Windows user, there are so many threats to your system you wonder if it's safe to do anything with your machine. Only today the BBC reported that UK identities were available for £80 per person. Problem is that we're now encouraged to use our computer to access our bank account, pay bills and other sites that require a password. Most security tools will stop a virus attached to an email, an application or a tool that attempts to get behind your firewall. However, you can quite easily make your PC vulnerable by installing (legit) software.

Secunia PSI 0.9.0.6 is a tool that will look at installed software and examine potential security holes from applications that may need patching/updating. Rogue developers will often spend serious time looking at legitimate software and potential holes then, once found, use these holes to access your hard drive, personal info or other areas.

Secunia PSI link.

Backing up your drive is a necessity if you have a media partition with all your audio downloads as you won't be able to get them again, without paying. To back up this partition, you'll need drive backup software and the two best tools are Acronis True Image 2009 and Paragon Drive Backup 9. We recommend both. With the latest Acronis True Image 2009, you can also backup individual files, if you only need to backup key office documents. There are loads of other tools, too, such as being able to test software in a safe 'sandbox' environment.

Acronis have given us a 20%-off discount coupon so you can either buy Acronis True Image 2009 or upgrade to the latest version and save a significant price from the RRP. Simply follow the instructions on our Acronis True Image 2009 page.

Acronis True Image 2009 link.

Only yesterday we were busy telling you that Paragon had released Partition Manager 9 Express, which was a basic version of their partitioning software that enabled you to create, delete or resize a partition. It has all the basic tools required to manage your partitioning tasks. It's completely free for personal-use, too.

With the latest Computeractive magazine, issue 280, on-sale right now, we're giving you the full commercial version of Paragon Partition Manager 9 SE, which is based on the Personal edition and worth £21. The Personal edition will enable you to do more than just basic partitioning found in the Express edition. You can merge two existing partitions and make a backup of a partition, as well as cloning a partition or drive, so you can quickly move data to a new PC or larger drive.

Computeractive magazine, issue 280, link.

Go out, buy a new computer and may find it ships with a huge 500GB drive. That's fantastic, until you find it's either pre-configured as one large block or as six small partitions where the manufacturer thinks you need a system, media, work, files, backup and other partitions. There's little point backing up your data to another partition on the same drive, so that partition can be deleted. Snag is, Windows doesn't ship with a decent consumer-friendly partitioning tool, so you need to look elsewhere.

Paragon Partition Manager 9 Express is a free tool that should enable home users manage their basic partitioning requirements. You can create a new partition, delete an existing partition or resize a small partition. Many of the more advanced functions are reserved for the commercial personal or professional edition, but it's enough for basic home use. Note that the Express version is 32-bit only.

Paragon Partition Manager 9 Express link.

Back in the 90s I was involved with developing Internet software - before Microsoft entered the market - using various developers from different European locations. We used IRC to chat, keep in touch, swap notes and a server to store code and software builds. Back then, using the Internet for collaboration was unheard of, yet it worked. It worked very well. By bringing together some of the best developers from around Europe, we could code and fix bugs quicker than many of our rivals who used much slower in-house development teams.

Gobby 0.4.7 is a cross-platform code and document collaboration tool that will enable users and developers to use the Internet to open, work on and update documents and code from one application. Gobby enables users to chat whilst they work and see, by the way of coloured code, who has added code to a particular document.

Gobby link.

It's not uncommon for people to own, or work on more than one computer. This could be a desktop of some kind, at home or in the office and laptop for working on the train or away from home. Having access to multiple machines offers greater flexibility but, on the other hand, can cause confusion. It's important to make sure all necessary documents are updated across these machines so that any saves made to modified documents can be easily identified.  

GoodSync 7.5.5 is a handy tool that enables anyone using multiple computers to keep documents up-to-date. By using this synchronisation tool it's possible to work on a document when you're on the train, arrive at work, turn on your office machine and continue working on the document you were editing on the train.

GoodSync 7.5.5 link.     

The Internet enables you to look at and read about almost anything, the perfect base for someone trying to drum up awareness for a new business or product. If you own a business, are self employed or are an unsigned musician, creating a website is a great way of enabling people to find out more about you and what you do. Unfortunately, not everyone has the funds to pay a professional to create, host and maintain a website and for many people, doing it yourself can seem too complex. However, even if you have a basic understanding of web building and its languages, a template-driven web builder could help you create a solid website.

Rapidweaver4.2 enables users to create professional looking sites with relatives ease. It's template-driven and ships with numerous themes you can base your site on, all with pre-defined colours and layouts. It also supports Flash so you can add slideshows to your site as well as supporting a number of other useful features you may wish to get your site online.

Rapidweaver4.2 link.    

I must admit that I'd forgotten that I had purchased Parallels 3 back in 2006. The latest version was released yesterday and, as I'm now a VMware Fusion 2 user (and happy with Fusion), completely forgot that I was an original Parallels user and that the upgrade was reasonably compelling. I say reasonable, as they add 19% tax on to the upgrade price so it's over £30, compared to the free upgrade for VMware Fusion 1 users when v2 was released a couple of months ago.

Parallels 4 is a virtualisation tool that enables you to run another operating system on your Mac. The obvious choice is Windows, although you can also use Linux or a similar OS or multiple operating systems on your Mac. My choice is Windows XP as it proves a faster experience than Vista under virtualisation. It requires less memory, too. The new Parallels 4 is said to be up to 50% faster than the previous version and there are also a number of other features. Still, you have to pay to upgrade, but I guess it's a couple of years since the original v3.0 release.

Parallels 4 link.

Forget the telephone or email, we now seem to demand to know what are friends are doing from one day to the next. No idea why, but people do not seem to value anonymity with their social network. There's a need to show their friends the photos from their night out. Fine if you're 19; not so mature when you're 29. Still, social networking is very popular. So popular that it's almost impossible to bring all your friends and family together within one network.

Eventbox is a beta preview of a Mac-based tool that enables you to bring together various social networking sites within one interface. You can see the latest gossip from your friends through Facebook, whilst viewing their latest photos via their Flickr stream.

Eventbox link.

Managing your finances can be difficult, it's all to easy to spend money especially when shopping online and it can be a bit of a shock when you sit and look at what's come in and gone out. Although looking at the state of your finances isn't always a pleasant surprise, seeing when and where your money goes could help you manage money more effectively. Whether your trying to manage personal finances or that of a family or even a small business, there are a number of applications available which could help you get a grip of your finances.   

iCash 4.5 is an application that enables you to manage all areas of your finances including income as well as credit and bank transactions. It's a user friendly tool designed that's equipped for use by almost anyone from a single user or even a small business.

iCash 4.5 link.  

As most modern browsers are truly cross-platform, there's no reason why you can't use the latest Mozilla Firefox 3 across your work desktop PC, Mac-based laptop and the old Mac you have in your holiday home. Problem is that we always want our favourite bookmarks on our browser, wherever we are located. Although you may be able to remember most websites, if you admin a website or blog, it's too tricky trying to remember the bizarre admin URL.

The solution is to synchronise the bookmarks across each computer. Mozilla Weave and Foxmarks will enable you to do this if you use Firefox, irrespective of operating system. It's a seamless process, so you don't need to worry about adding a new bookmark and it not being available on your Mac when you get home. Snag is though, if you use a different browser across your computers, then you'll need to convert before you can use.

Transmute 1.04 is a simple tool that will convert your bookmarks across different browsers. It supports Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

Transmute link.

They say we should back up our most important files, regularly. Although I've never suffered from any serious system error (thus losing files as a result), it's also very easy to forget which files you should place on your new PC. For example, commercial fonts. There have been many instances where I've spent ages backing up my most important data, moving this across to a new PC and then wiping the old drive, only to find that I forgot to move across a commercial font. This can be of paramount importance if you're responsible for producing company literature using specific fonts.

DFIncBackup 2.8 Home Edition is a free version of the backup tool that will enable you to backup your important files to a ZIP archive. It supports incremental backup, which means you only need to backup data updated since your last backup. The free Home edition only enables you to backup to an archive 2GB in size. Ideal for your most important documents and small files.

DFIncBackup link.

No matter how protected your system may be, you will always encounter new online threats. Unsafe websites will always populate the Internet, many of which are just simple pop-ups but some are more sinister, designed to extract personal information. Many of these sites are difficult to identify and can fool even the most experienced user, but there are ways of avoiding such sites or pages, why not try a simple safeguard for your browser?

Browser Defender 1.0.9 Preview is a release from PC Tools Labs that provides an extra level of security for Mozilla Firefox. Websites that are potentially dangerous are listed in an integrated toolbar, warning you of anything from excessive pop-ups to phishing and browser exploits. The application will also integrate with any search results provided by Yahoo! And Google so you can check if a site is secure enough to visit.

Browser Defender 1.0.9 Preview link.   

Building yourself a website can seem daunting when you have little understanding of the applications and languages used to create one. This leaves many people and small businesses turning to professionals to create a site for them. Paying programmers to build a site from the ground up can get costly, especially once you factor in hosting and maintenance. Although a site built professionally will be well made it may not be worth investing in if you don't have the funds and it may be Worthing trying a simple WYSIWYG web builder to create your own site and see how popular it is.

WYSIWYG Web Builder 5.5.4 which stands for what you see is what you get enables you to drag and drop text images and other content into an interface like a desktop publisher. Easily create sites from scratch or by using a supplied template and add ActiveX code and flash media files. It's a good tool for those who have little understanding knowledge with regards to web building and still produces professional looking results.

WYSIWYG Web Builder 5.5.4 link.

Share a digital camera with another user and you do not know how they'll manage your memory card. They may assume that you've downloaded your photos to your computer, erase the card and start taking their own. That becomes a problem and means that you've lost your photos. However, a memory card is a small hard drive and, unless they've written loads of new photos to the card, you should be able to recover some or all of your deleted photos. This theory also applies to lost data on an external hard drive, USB device or similar.

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard 4.3.6 is a commercial tool that will enable you to check a portable device or your standard hard drive for lost or deleted files and recover. Even formatted drives can be analysed for remnants of old data.

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard link.

Getting your PC to perform how you want can involve a lot of tweaking and most of the time, its just trial and error that gets results. Everyone's needs are different so the first thing you need to do is establish the areas which would be most beneficial for you to optimise. The trouble is that there are a huge number of variables and you could spend more time changing settings than doing anything productive and might benefit from an application that will help you to quickly optimise your PC.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 5.10 is a collection of useful tools designed to help you easily optimise computer performance. The application enables you to manage different areas of performance from hard drive cleansing to online performance as well as helping you to obtain maximum performance with minimal effort for those who don't have the time or in depth knowledge to manually adjust complex settings.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 5.10 link.

A few years ago I used to use an old Mac Mini as a basic FTP server on a fast broadband connection. In fairness, it was a flawless setup, never went offline (unless the broadband line went down), remained quiet in operation and is a recommended setup. However, as the need for a faster connection drove us away from providing content from within the office, the Mac Mini was made redundant. Although it's a Power PC system, we realised recently it could be used to stream audio around the home. Connect an Airport Express to every audio device where you want to play your tunes and you're away. Well, nearly.

Signal 1.1.3 enables you to control your streaming audio through your iPod Touch, iPhone or similar device. Simply install Signal on to your Mac Mini (or another computer, Mac or PC, with iTunes installed) and you can see your music and control output from your iPod Touch. Wherever you're in the house, you can move to another track, control volume, speaker distribution and more.

Signal link.

Sharing files across different users isn't always so easy, particularly if you're using the latest version of Microsoft Office and other users are running Mac OS X or use and old Lotus Notes for their office work. If you want to place a document on your website, what format do you choose? If it's a single page, you could convert to an image and you'd be reassured that nearly any computer can open a JPEG or GIF image. However, if they print this file the result will be terrible. If it's a multi-page document, an image isn't even an option.

Bullzip PDF Printer 6 is free PDF creation software that enables you to output from just about any Windows application as a PDF document. The result is a file that's suitable for displaying on your website or for commercial printing (at the right resolution). The snag is that it's based around Ghostscript, unlike doPDF which is self-contained.

Bullzip PDF Printer link.

If you're planning major renovation work on your home, it's advised that you turn to a professional architect or building surveyor to make sure you draft plans that meet building requirements and so the building team do not spend additional time trying to figure your plans. However, the key problem is trying to let your architect know how you want your design to appear when you only have an outline in your head. One solution is to draft your design on paper. The other is to use a specialist home design tool.

Sweet Home 3D 1.4 is a free home design tool that enables you to draft up the outline of your plan (new kitchen, home extension, loft conversion) and then drop in various objects which have been designed by other users - for example, where you want your electric sockets and units to be placed.

Sweet Home link.

Even if you have an up to date security suite, every time you go online your computer is under threat from viral infection. Identifying and removing unwanted items is just half of the battle, preventing your machine from getting infected is just as difficult. Unfortunately, whether its pop-ups or malicious emails, programmers are developing ever more intelligent ways off targeting us. The only way of staying out of trouble is to identify anything that has the potential to cause any problems before your machine becomes infected.

PC Tools Browser Defender 1.0.9 is an extra tool for Firefox designed to identify anything potentially malicious. The toolbar displays anything that may be dangerous, from pop-ups to browser exploits. The tool will also warn you of any potential dangers lurking in any file you download before it's opened.

PC Tools Browser Defender 1.0.9 link.   

Most disc burning applications have become over-complicated and overblown, making it difficult to quickly burn any kind of disc. Many developers are sacrificing simplicity and usability for useless options such as label and cover designing tools when all we really want is a simple and effective burning package. All most users need from a good burning suite is the ability to create all modern media formats such as CD, DVD and Blu-Ray as well as create bootable discs quickly and with maximum quality.

Ashampoo Burning Studio 8.04 is a comprehensive suite that enables users to easily create any kind of disc they may need. It's fairly simple to navigate and use, so whether you need a full blown Blu-ray movie, quickly backup an audio CD or create a bootable disc for your computer, this suite is more than capable.

Ashampoo Burning Studio 8.04  link.

When you update or upgrade your computer, most of us would like to transfer information from our old drive or machine, straight to the new one. The shear amount of information stored on most modern drives can make transferring all your data confusing and/or time consuming, especially if your new machine ships with a newer operating system. You may require a synchronisation tool to help easily move your files to your new machine.

Easy2Sync 1.31 is a handy freeware application that enables you to synchronise data across multiple machines, irrespective of operating system. This application is well suited to transferring data from an old machine to any new machine, or moving information from a home computer to a work machine with ease.

Easy2Sync 1.31 link.

There seems to be a huge void between professional level image editing applications and budget or freeware alternatives. This often leaves users with no option but to invest in expensive packages such as Photoshop that ship with numerous enhanced features that remain unused by many users or, have to settle for virtually useless freeware alternatives. A good solution would be a freeware tool that implements the most useful elements of the expensive packages.

The GIMP 2.6.2 is a powerful, freeware image editing tool that boast some useful features, unfortunately though, it does suffer in other areas. The application is equipped with all the usual image editing tools but once you begin working you find yourself with a screen full of windows which can be confusing. On the plus side, the application supports an array of file formats and even supports some Photoshop plug-ins. Although it does have its flaws with regards to it's interface, it's a very able tool that provides professional tools for free.

The GIMP 2.6.2 link.