22 Most Useful Free Applications for your PC - System Utilities

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System Utilities

Keeping my system healthy and working its best is a never ending challenge. These are some of the tools that I use to help.

CCleaner - Keep your PC squeaky clean with this System Optimization tool. It deletes just about every kind of unnecessary crap from your computer. Temporary files, Cookies and other junk from every browser, Programs running at Startup, Uninstalls software and fixes all kinds of problems in your Registry. Click about five buttons and wait about a minute and your machine is a new person. Alternatives: NCleaner – better in some ways, but worse interface. AdAware and Spybot for spyware removal.

Filezilla - My favorite FTP client. Quick, simple, and easy. FTP from your browser with FireFTP. Not secure enough, try WinSCP for secure FTP. Use Putty for Telnet and SSH access.

Rocket Dock - Do you have Mac Envy? This launching doc is nearly a dead clone of Apple’s dock. You can launch Applications, Folders, Files, and other processes so quickly and easily, you’ll never click the Start button again. Alternatives: Object Dock

7Zip - This WinZip alternative will open just about any archive file format known to man. It’s faster and lighter on resources than any archive tool I’ve used. Alternatives: There are a bunch, here is a list of free winzip alternatives.

TightVNC - Remotely view and control other computers from your desktop. Install the server software on one (remote) computer and then control it with the viewer software from your main computer. Great for helping diagnose computer problems on your family and friend’s computers. Alternatives: UltraVNC and RealVNC have comparable feature sets and decent followings. See this tutorial for Using VNC to remotely control another computer.

uTorrent - The best way to download huge files is with BitTorrent technology. My (current) favorite BitTorrent client is uTorrent. Nothing spectacular, just a solid tool that fills an important role. Alternatives: Azureus is a java based bit torrent client with similar features.

SyncBack Freeware - Very powerful backup program with numerous configuration options including: Backup and Restore of files, Synchronization of files, Zip Compression of backed up files to save space, Back up to FTP servers, Filters for choosing what to back up or ignore. Alternatives: Mozy Backup (web base $5/per month)

AVG Antivirus - Don’t destroy your computer with that garbage that Norton and McAfee are peddling. Those two applications will screw up you computer worse than any virus. AVG Antivirus (free version) protects your computer from viruses, spyware, and heebie-jeebies of all types without bogging down your computer. Alternatives: Antivir and Avast also offer very good free antivirus options.

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What are Virtual Private Servers (VDS) and their advantages?

Do you think that Virtual Private Server also known as VPS is a popular and a new concept? No it is an old concept of dividing a physical device, which is large and costly into many parts and allowing more and more people access to it at affordable price. It is just more than shared server and less than a dedicated servers. Virtual Private Server is similar to a building, which is divided into different flats, and each flat is independent unit having its own drawing room, kitchen and its own lock and key.

VPS is a hosting environment that gives you your own machine. Each VPS is a private and protected area that operates as an independent server. The VPS allows multiple customers to share the expense of hardware and network connections (and completely eliminate the hassle of maintaining it all) without sacrificing performance or the freedom to run whatever software they choose. Every VPS has its own complete directory structure and set of dedicated applications (web server, mail server, etc.). And each VPS can be rebooted without affecting any other VPS on the physical server.

Virtual Private Servers Known by different names Virtual Private Server, VPS, VPS Server, VDS, Virtual Dedicated Server, Virtual Shared Server have same meaning that is, partition of Dedicated Server. Virtual Private Servers are more costly than a shared hosting plan, but if you don't want to pay for dedicated server, then the choice is VPS. VPS bundles the privacy, performance, and controls of a dedicated plan but because it's on a shared server, it's more
affordable.


Advantage of Virtual Private Server (VDS)

1. Setup of servers in minutes
2. Utmost reliability and security
3. True root access on your own virtual dedicated server.
4. Install the software you want!
5. Increase server utilization and maximize server potential
6. Increase profitability through better management
7. Leverage of hardware and software investments
8. Provide complete self-administration panels
9. Manage servers with a minimal skill set
10.Minimize software license and support requirements
11.Create your own virtual disks for your server, including swap!


Virtual Private Server technology allows your Server to be completely isolated from every other Server on the same physical machine - other users are unaware of you, can not access your files (unlike some shared hosting solutions!) and, importantly, can not crash your server. For you, this means that you get the utmost reliability and security - features that your website deserves.

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Your Free Guide to building a website - V

Editing objects in WebEden

The beauty of building a website with WebEden is the speed with which you can edit pages or make site wide changes. Here’s 6 Menus to Basic Editing of your webeden.co.uk website

1. Edit menu
This allows you to operate on the currently selected object. Everything you see on a page is an object and to use it, you simply click on it and drag it around the page, or click here to edit it. You can delete objects from the Edit menu, send them to the back (as you can put objects on top of each other, like using layers in DTP programs), or change some more generic settings. For example, you can change the settings for the current page here, so you can set it as a private page that only registered users can see. The Edit menu also allows you to manage who is registered on your site and send them emails if you have chosen a package that includes this feature. Many of these features are not normally available in low end hosting packages or in normal HTML, but are possible because of the unique delivery system WebEden uses.

2. Pages menu
This menu lists the pages on your site, so you can jump to one to edit it. It also allows you to organise the pages and set which is the home page, etc. a great way to create your own website.

3. Insert menu
This is a very powerful menu as it allows you to add all manner of elements to your pages. As well as text and images, you can choose File, which brings up the File Manager. We’ll look at this in detail in the next part of this series, but you will come to love it because it gives you access to the WebEden library, which includes polls, animations, frames, games and much more.

4. Design menu
You can change the fonts, background, and the “Page Master” which is the template that contains elements that are on every page, like the menus. This menu also allows you to change the overall dimensions of your pages.

5. Active object
The currently selected object on a page will show a bounding box, a real help when you make your own website.

6. Editor dialog As you select different objects or add ones, this editor changes to offer options.

When you create your own website with WebEden you can have interactive elements like polls added easily, as well as your own images, all added to the existing template.

DID YOU KNOW?
When you create your WebEden account, you simply step through the wizard as described on the next page and select a subdomain, like tutorial. webeden.co.uk, as your web address. If you want to have a “proper” URL, you can register a web address and simply get it to forward to your WebEden address automatically.

That’s all for now...

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Your Free Guide to building a website - IV

What’s next?
Now you have the site, simply click on any area that you wish to change and you will be able to edit it. Start with the basics, which is entering the text you want on your website.

By single clicking on an item you will see the bounding box that surrounds any item. This is like the boxes you will find in any design package on your PC, so you will find control boxes at the corners and mid-points of the bounding box. You
can use these to stretch or shrink the object. You will also see that the floating Editor dialog changes as you select different objects on a page. This dialog allows you to change the dimensions of an object or the location of it by entering the pixel data. If the object is a text object you can double click on the object and you will now be able to change the text itself. If you already have the text that you want to appear on a web page written in a Word document, then you can copy it into your pages by opening the document and selecting the text and copying it to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C. Then go into WebEden and double click on the text box you wish to edit, then select the text by wanding it in, and press Ctrl-V to paste over it. When you have finished entering the text for a page, you can click on the Save icon to save it, or if you click on a different page in the menu, you will move to edit that page, and WebEden will prompt you to save the page automatically. As long as you don’t simply quit the
browser, there should little chance of you inadvertently losing any changes you make to pages. Clicking on the pages in your site menu may take you to the individual pages so you can edit those, but how do you edit the menu itself to rename pages or add pages to your site. Website Builder makes this easier than any other method we’ve seen. Simply go to Pages / Organise pages and
the dialog there lists the pages currently in your site. To change the order of pages in the menu, click on a page in the Drag column and move it up or down the list. Type over the page’s name in this dialog to change it on all pages, and click on the “Add a new page” to add one to the menu. See below for sub-menus.

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Your Free Guide to building a website - III

Step 2
WebEden has many advanced features which we’ll look at in later tutorials, but for now let’s look at one of the key ones, which is the menu editing feature, which is the key to great website building. The menu changes you make in the site organiser are automatically site wide, so you don’t need to worry about making sure changes are replicated across pages. You may also decide that you want a part of your menu to be a category for new pages, rather than a link to an individual page. Create the new pages and then drag them up so they sit under the category link. Click on the arrow next to the page number in the Organiser and it will make the page a sub-page of the one above it.

Now the website builder knows what type of site - and therefore what pages - are needed, it will combine these with the design template. Again there are buttons which when you click on one the preview will be shown above. The difference here is that as well as choosing the basic template for your page’s design, you will see there are three colour buttons under the preview. Once you’ve selected a template, click on the colour button you prefer and you will see the colour scheme applied to the template. Note that there are two pages of templates to choose from.

Step 3
Once chosen, you can move on to final step which requires you name the site and enter an email address. You can then create your own website and you will be taken to a view of your new site.

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Your Free Guide to building a website - II

Step 1
You can try out WebEden by clicking on the 14 day trial icon on the home page and starting the wizard. The wizard takes only a few steps and you don’t need to enter any credit card or financial data to try out the site, only a valid email address which is used to validate your WebEden account. The first step of the wizard gives you a set of options for the purpose of your website. By selecting the purpose, you decide the number and titles of the pages on your site, so for
example you can have a home page with a music page, links, message board and hit counter, or a site for a club you may run with club news, events and photo gallery. You can see the different pages for each purpose by clicking on the relevant button – the list of pages will appear above. If none suit your purpose, you can choose a Blank purpose and add your own pages later. The next step will allow you to combine the pages titles you’ve chosen with a design template.

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Your Free Guide to building a website - I

What do you do if you want a good looking website, but don’t want to have to install and learn complicated new software? Previously the answer was either to pay someone else to create the site for you, which was very expensive, or to choose a wizard driven online site builder. These create generic, drab looking sites that are very restricted in terms of functionality and in terms of how much you can change them. WebEden is a new service that provides the next generation of website building.

What is excellent about WebEden is the scope of the offering. Starting at only £2.99/month, cheaper than some standard Web Hosting packages, you get a
hosted website together with an online website creator that makes generating a site and updating it, from anywhere in the world, a walk in the park.
Best of all, WebEden grows with you, so you can start out knowing nothing about creating a website and the system is intuitive that you can have your own
new website up and running in half an hour. If you just need a site that looks presentable and offers the right information that you need, then simply use the wizard to set up a site. Even in its most simple form though, it’s better than other wizard driven sites, as you can choose the type of site you are after so that the right pages are created, and then a basic template for the design and then the colour scheme you want as well.

These tick box driven decisions by themselves mean that your site will have an individual look about it, but will look better than 90% of the hand created sites you see online. As you get used to the WebEden system though, you can edit the site and change any part of it that you want, all through the online interface. And we don’t just mean changing the colours, fonts or the graphics, the whole layout of pages can be controlled easily through your browser. The system can even password protect parts of your site and add Message Boards for interactivity. If this sounds interesting, then the good news is that you can try WebEden for free as they have a 14 day free trial, so you can play with the system all you like without any risk. Go to www.webeden.co.uk and sign up for free now.


Get started with WebEden


How to sign up with WebEden and get your first website ready for visitors in half an hour

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Panasonic unveils 1-inch thick HDTV [CES '09]

Panasonic won the day with its unveiling of the Z1 Viera TV. This super thin set — thickness of a mere inch — is also a wireless TV. What this means is that the TV has no inputs. Instead it comes with a set-top box which has the requisite ports and connects with the Z1 Viera wirelessly, with no loss or degradation in quality. The box can then be placed anywhere in the room. And yes, it does all this in full HD 1080p glory.

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About Antivirus Software

This site is a guide about anti virus software and is produced by About, Inc.

The site includes a virus encyclopaedia with descriptions of some of the more prevalent viruses, including prevention tips and a descriptive list of the more common virus hoaxes. A glossary, links to free antivirus downloads, a listing of antivirus vendors, reading material, and articles giving virus removal help are also available.

http://antivirus.about.com/

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Window Managers for X

Window Managers for X is a guide to window managers and desktop environments for the X Window System, and is authored by Matt Chapman.

The site includes basic information about how to install and change window managers, discussion lists, links to information about various window managers and desktop environments, including screenshots, and example configuration files where applicable. Some collections of icons and textures and links to other works by the author such as a beginner's guide to UNIX and an article on the Java 2 user interface are also available.

http://www.xwinman.org/

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Linux Magazine

Articles from this magazine for Linux users are provided here along with an archive of back issues since 1999. Access requires registration of details.

New content is added to the archive monthly. The contents of each new issue appear online sixty days after subscribers receive their copies of the magazine. Job openings are also posted on the site.

http://www.linux-mag.com/

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CNET Download.com

This software download site provides access to shareware and free software.

The programs listed are divided into different operating systems including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Palm OS. Users can either browse or search for software. A summary description is provided which includes, user ratings, description of products, links to the producers and information on minimum hardware requirements, limitations to licences, estimation of download time and cost, if any.

http://www.download.com/

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Blah, blah technology

This blog is produced by Wayne Smallman, a Web design consultant. It provides commentary on a variety of wide-ranging technological topics including software, hardware, science, and socio-technological issues.

A blog archive provides access to previous articles by date.

http://www.blahblahtech.com/

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Linux online

Linux is an operating system, developed by Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki, and is a popular 'free' Unix clone.

The site includes relevant information and links suitable for both beginners and advanced users. The site has news items, general information, coming events information, and is searchable. There are also FAQs and a free Linux course.

http://www.linux.org/

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Beware of Scareware

What Is a Rogue Scanner?

Rogue scanners, also known as scareware, are often advertised as a free antivirus download or free online scan. Once on the system, the rogue scanner typically displays false virus alerts, with instructions to buy the "full version" in order to remove the fictional infections. Wasting your hard-earned dollars on a bogus product isn't the only thing you need to worry about. There have been multiple reports from folks who fell for the scam only to end up with credit card charges much higher than expected - and often a series of fraudulent charges continue to appear on their statements. Here's how you're most likely to encounter a rogue scanner, how to prevent scareware, and how to get rid of it.

Rogue scanners go by many different names, including XP Antivirus 2008, XP Antivirus 2009, SpywareSheriff, SpyFalcon, and several dozen others. Rogue scanners, also known as scareware, are often advertised as a free antivirus download or free online scan. Once on the system, the rogue scanner typically displays false virus alerts, with instructions to buy the "full version" in order to remove the fictional infections. Wasting your hard-earned dollars on a bogus product isn't the only thing you need to worry about. There have been multiple reports from folks who fell for the scam only to end up with credit card charges much higher than expected - and often a series of fraudulent charges continue to appear on their statements. Victims typically encounter rogue scanners in one of three ways:
Preventing Rogue Scanners
Keep your legitimate antivirus/antispyware scanner up to date. You can also help mitigate your risk of exposure by reading email in plain text only and avoid clicking links or opening attachments in email received unexpectedly - even if it comes from someone you know. Don't respond to ads from strangers - stick with the good guys. For a free online scan, use one of these top online scanners. Keep your system patched to prevent exploit: use the free Secunia Software Inspector at least monthly to check your system for vulnerabilities that need patching.
How to Spot a Rogue Scanner
A classic symptom of a rogue scanner is getting unexpected virus alerts from a product you don't recall installing. Before you do install a new scanner or other security software, check first to make sure it's not on the rogue scanner list. If you are receiving virus alerts unexpectedly, follow these Six Steps to Tell if a Virus Alert is Legit.
Removing a Rogue Scanner
First and foremost, absolutely do not let the rogue scanner connect to the Internet. Typically, an uninstaller is placed under the Add/Remove Programs option in Control Panel - but the uninstaller seldom works. If your existing antivirus can't remove the rogue scanner, use SmitFraudFix - a free tool that specializes in the removal of this specific type of malware.

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PC Plus magazine

The PC Plus website is the online version of the print magazine, and is published by Future Publishing.

The archive section contains complete issues of past PC Plus magazines in PDF format. News, featured articles, regular columns and product reviews are also provided. The downloads section lists free software that is available on the Internet and the tutorials section covers topics such as Web development, programming, the Internet, and Linux.
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/

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Classical Greek fonts and utilities for the PC

The Classical Greek Fonts and Utilities website offers PC users several free downloadable fonts, keyboard utilities, and macros. At the time of writing, there was a selection of eleven 'WinGreek' fonts, and twelve Unicode fonts to choose from. Some of the fonts require that a particular utility be installed on the user's computer. These are provided at the site. Such utilities are necessary for typing using the font, in order to access all the required breathings and accents. An example of such a utility is 'Son of WinGreek', which may be downloaded from the site. A more recent program, 'Antioch', takes advantage of the Unicode format that is offered by the more up-to-date word processors. This may also be obtained from the site. Most of the utilities are shareware, being free to download on the understanding that satisfied users will contribute a certain amount of money to the developer. The site also offers help in deciding which font to choose, as well as explanations of how the different encoding systems work.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/GrandLatGreekFonts/

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