Utilities

Bricko packs

This is a installer that changes your windows XP desktop to a new interface that looks a little like vista. With new sound sequence and icons. If you don't like it, you can uninstall.

Speed Fan

This program shows temperature , voltage of multiple fans on your computer. Good for monitoring system temperature. If there is any unusual rise in temperature, it is time to clean the fans or even replace fans that have broken down

Gamma panel

For those who are familiar with power strip for ati, this is the alternate choice. It can adjust the brightness and correct gamma with a simple user interface whether be it for games or watching videos.

USB Disk Ejector

Have you ever try to figure out which device is the correct one that you should remove from the safety remove hardware icon? This is an application that allows you to identify and help you eject the device easily. Good for external storage if you are afraid of ejecting the wrong one.

New Gadgets

Creative ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook

This is creatives newest external sound card that packs even more features in a small package. Apart from being a sound card, it has 1GB built in storage that can be used as a thumb drive for easy retrieval of gaming data, like save games or gaming profile etc.

Another feature is the Voice FX that has 18 effects to disguise your voice when you are gaming.

Needless to say about its ability to improve sound quality when it plays compressed Mp3, as it uses X-Fi sound card technology.

One more new feature about this device is that it can stream audio through WiFi. You can walk around without restrictions in your home and listen to audio that is streamed from your computer.

Sony USM8GH 8GB Micro Vault Tiny

Good things come in small packages. This tweeny thing measures 3cm from top to bottom. You can easily carry this anywhere like a spy agent. It is not a SD card that requires a card reader, but a usb device. Just plug and a drive shows up, and you can copy anything over. Good for students who like to sneak large programs into a computer lab class to exchange with friends. It's a whooping 8Gig.

RAZER Salmosa Black Gaming Mouse

Can't afford to buy a razer gaming mouse? Razer has come up with a scaled down mouse that has great sensitivity with 1800dpi 3G Infrared Sensor.

The Razer 3G Infrared sensor is rated as the fastest tracking optical mouse sensor in the world, enabling movement speeds of up to 2.25 times faster than other regular gaming mice

Those who are on a budget, and are eyeing Razer mouse for a long time can get this for around $40

ZyXEL Powerline Homeplug AV

Setting up wireless connection is a chore. With so many settings and installation CD or setting passcode to encrypt bandwidth. This device turns any wired connection into a wireless one by transmitting the wired signal across to its receiver. Simply plug the ethernet cable to the device on both sides , and no settings required , turn on and surf.





Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen

It has a 2GB flash memory, mini camera, mic and completed with software in a pen. You can book mark your written notes with recordings. As you are writing, you can talk and record down at the same time. Tapping on a word that you have written on the writing pad will jump to the part of the recording when that word was written.
Connecting this device to your PC and it will send a digital replica of your written notes like a scanned document embedded with audio recordings.
It has calculator mode that calculates as you to write and will display the answer on the LCD display on the pen.
It even has a music mode, instructing you to draw lines and making 9 cells. Then tapping on the cells create music like playing the piano.

This device is a head turner

Western Digital My Book Office 1TB 3.5" External Hard Drive

Looking a a budget storage solution and don't want it to be out dated too soon. This device goes for around $200.

Interface: 1 x Hi-Speed Mini-USB Type

BRotational speed: 7,200 RPM Buffer size: 16 MBTransfer rates (serial bus): 480 Mbps maximum

Vigsys HSPDA Modem

What's this device used for? Insert in any 3G sim card and you will have a portable broadband on the go.

For road warriors who need a strong connection on the go will love this baby, it has dowload

rates of 7.2Mbps and upload speeds of up to 384kbps.

This device was reported to achieve downloads speeds of 412.2kbps at a ping of 300 milliseconds traveling at 90km/hr in a vehicle using M1's 1 Mbps connection service.

Even though the speed achieved is considered kinda lame, compared to a wired connection, But with a good position and signal strength, decent speeds are possible, after all... What's there to bargain for when the M1 broadband is only $22.42 a month for unlimited plan.

Looks like after much complaining to M1, they finally woken up from their senses. Even at night the speed is awesome. I'm sure M1 mobile broadband users will be happy.

Creative USB Sound Blaster Play! EAX ADVANCED HD X-FI

Experience better music and movies everywhere you go!

This device will turn into a sound blaster live sound card onto any computer when plugged in. Device drivers are flashed on in the hardware itself. Plug and play. Very handy for people who use VoIP calls. Now you can have an enjoyable chat with your friends via Instant Messaging services over the Internet with our quality headphone output and mic input.

File compressors

Archiving your files to carry them around.

A lot of us are very familiar with the Winzip program. In the past, compressor programs are a must have. With limited storage space in a diskette, users will need to compress the files to fully utilize the space they have. Unless you enjoy carrying large amounts of diskettes around.

These days, with the advancement in technology, a Thumb Drive can easily have space of 8 Gigs. Else you can carry a small External HardDisk that would easily give you 200 Gigs of space at a affordable price.

However there are good compressor programs out there that still have their stand in the world today. One such example. WINRAR

Winrar is initially only meant for zip files with the RAR extension. Till today, it has improved its extension support to at least 10 different zip extensions. It also has a user interface that is pleasing to the eye.

If you have any file that is confidential, you can use the Winrar to protect the file with a password. Even if you should lose the storage medium, there is no worry that it should get into the wrong hands.

Another feature about Winrar that I like about is its ability to compress at different compression rates. You can choose to compress to max or just create a simple normal rated archive. After which you can choose to split the file to different file size. There's even preset common file size like a 700meg CD. It is so convenient to select a large number of files and burn into discs without bothering about how to fit into 3 CDs.

7 Zip software

I thank Kurt for his valuable comment on this software. Indeed it is able to work with a lot of different compressed extensions. 7 Zip is even able to extract RAR archives. Best of all, It is a freeware. Yoo Hoo.. I did not pay much attention to this program as it's user interface is kind of plain Jane. I only use it to extract 7z archives.

However, there are a few hurdles that the 7zip software is lacking in.

1) Files that are created using winrar splitting feature will not work in 7zip even though 7zip supports rar files.

2) 7Zip does not have the create password feature to secure your archives if you want to. I guess users will need to get the winzip to lock the 7zip archive.

There will probably be more problems in terms of compatibility with the wide range of compressed formats. But I would give it a thumbs up for it ULTRA squeeze ratio of it's 7z archiving system.

Fun And Games

Chill out here for some entertainment

Urban Sniper 2

Free Flash Games by Arcadeway.com

Click on game

Press Enter to start

Press spacebar to play

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Software Shelve

If you know what you need, Self service

Windows

Tweak XP

Power defragmenter

Protection software

Norton antivirus

AVG

Spybot search and Destroy

Peer guardian

Registry and history cleaners

CCleaner

Wise Registry cleaner 3

Internet utilities, booster software

TCP Optimizer

Zilla connection accelerator

Firetune

Moyea FLV Downloader

Media players or converters etc

codec pack

Download SUPER © setup file

Any video convertor

Camstudio

Audacity 

Wavepad sound convertor

Good Browsers

Safari

Firefox
Flock

CD Burning software

SLYSOFT Clone CD

Nero burning rom software

Deamon Tools

Archiving software

WINRAR

7 Zip software

winzip

Recovery and repair

Recover my files

Windows Mobile 6

Phone bak2u software

Clear Temp

Total Commander CE

Macromedia Flash

Sunglobe.cab

Windows mobile browser

You tube player

Screen shot capture

Recovering files

How to recover files in a event of a system crash?

We all know the importance of backing up our precious data, however more then often we are too complacent and until disaster strikes.

One way to recover back the files is to get another hardisk to create another windows operating system.  The one that has crashed will be set to slave and the files in there will be copied back to the new drive.

What happens if the drive is unreadable?  The partition is destroyed.  For Windows users out there.  I am very sure that some of us encounter this incident when the hard disk is failing.  There is no way to even read the data in it.  

If you feel that the data is worth saving, you can get the Recover my files software.

Recover my files

This program has got great features, it can recover data from

Deleted files

Formatted harddisks

Raw mode disk.  -- means a disk with partition destroyed.

Protecting your PC

Virus, Spyware and all the bad stuff that harms your PC.  

There are 3 main areas that we need to cover in order to safe guard your computer.

1) Antivirus software

2) Spyware detector

3) IP protection

For users who do not wish to go through all the 10 mile hike, grandmother story, but still want to protect your PC.  Get the trusty Norton antivirus pack and sleep well at night.

For those who wish to learn more.  Read on.

Getting a Antivirus software.

The good news is there are free antivirus out there, like AVG.  The free version offers protection for virus only.  You have a choice to upgrade to a version that offers more protection.  However if you intend to use Norton, do not use other brands of antivirus.  Don't be greedy.  Conflicts may arise in future.

Getting Spyware protection

The best spyware protection software, Spybot search and Destroy.  Just remember to update regularly.  There are 2 areas.  The updates section and the Immunize section.  The immunize feature will create dummy files to trick the spyware that you are already infected.  

Peer Guardian

Peer guardian is a IP blocker that has automated updates.  It blocks out unwanted activity on the net so that you can have privacy when you surf online.  If any of your favorite websites get blocked, there is always an option that you can allow the site.

Additional protection.

It will be an added advantage if the cookies and personnel information are cleared.  By doing so, Even if your system is hijacked, nothing important gets stolen.

Get the CCleaner