Backing up computer data is all too often overlooked. Fortunately Microsoft’s Windows Vista has some built in backup utilities to help persuade users to perform this regularly. I’m interested in seeing how user friendly the file backup utility is.

I decided to test out the file backup utility in Vista RC2. I was interested in trying [...]

If you do any work with jpg images and would like an easy to use and free image resizer, Picture Resizer 1.5 may be for you. Picture Resizer has a very interesting way of making it easy to use. You control the changes made by renaming the executable. For example, the default name is PhotoResize400.exe, [...]

If you are not married to iTunes, or your audio player of choice, and are interested in a highly configurable yet light on the system resources media player, consider giving foobar2000 a try.

Foobar2000 offers support for a large selection of file formats such as mp3, ogg, flac, aac, wma, and a host more. The [...]

The search bar that is integrated with Firefox has been a tremendous help in my web surfing. Internet Explorer 7 has added a similar search capability, but by default offers only the Microsoft Live Search. Fortunately adding Google or your search engine of choice is quite easy.

The first step is to click the little down [...]

Microsoft recently released an update that integrated 3D into their Virtual Earth software. This announcement of the release of the Photosynth Technology Preview has me far more interested. I installed the ActiveX component into Internet Explorer 7 and was met with a 3D looking environment that I believe has to be seen to be appreciated. [...]

Firefox is my browser of choice for many reasons. One of the reasons is the vast number of ways to customize Firefox to suit your needs with add-ins created by a very active community. If I were to chose one add-in that would top my list of “must have”, it would be the All-in-One Gestures [...]

When it comes to word processors, users have a variety to chose from. From the ever popular commercial Microsoft Word, to the open-source and free OpenOffice.org Writer. There is another option in the open-source and free realm, AbiWord.
AbiWord is a available for a large number of operating systems including Windows, Linux, QNX, FreeBSD and Solaris. [...]

FoxyTunes, a media player for Firefox which has been available for some time now, has announced a beta release for Internet Explorer. It offers the same features that the Firefox users have come to enjoy including Music Web searches, currently playing track information, automatically finds and displays album covers, and more.
The 647KB download installed [...]

With the large number of different media players, and even larger number of media formats they collectively support, having some good software for converting between media formats can be a real boon. When it comes to audio formats, the freely availble dBpowerAMP Music Converter is a real workhorse.

dBpowerAMP offers many features, including a cd [...]

If you run Windows XP SP2 and are interested in free image manipulation software, how about giving Paint.net a try. It has some good features, especially considering the price. It features unlimited undo, various built in special effects, and plugins.
I decided to install and try Paint.Net 3.0 alpha out in my Windows Vista [...]