Reduce Cell Phone/VoIP Background Noise With SoliCall!

We can often find ourselves in an environment that is not telephone friendly; noisy conferences, on the boat while at the cottage – think about the noise produced by twin Mercury outboard motors, sporting events, or dare I say it, loud raucous parties.

Background distractions produced by unwanted environmental noises may, at a minimum, be no more than an annoyance, or in more extreme cases can lead to confusion, frustration, misunderstanding, and irritation for both parties to a telephone call. Think about the impact on the listener, while you shout to be heard over background noises.

Often we have limited choices as to when we either make, or take, a telephone call, and circumstances may dictate that we do so despite environmental background noises which are sure to produce some degree of anxiety.

Recently, while using my cell phone I instructed my Broker to sell all my holdings in Chrysler – not hearing me clearly, instead he bought additional shares in Chrysler. I’m only kidding you – but you see the point. Background environmental noise, while using the telephone, has the potential to produce unintended consequences.

There’s a great new solution to this common scenario. SoliCall, a company which specializes in noise reduction, noise cancellation and noise suppression technology has developed a personalized voice filtering solution. This noise reduction software operates as a voice pass filter which can be integrated in any phone system, and in any voice call.

(Before and after the application of this technology)

This amazing technology – I admit, I’m old enough to still be amazed by unique technology – is based on identifying the voice of the speaker – it does not center on specific noises but only on the user’s voice. To accomplish this, the application records and analyzes a sample of the user’s voice and stores the unique acoustic parameters. The end result is; all other voices, noises and sounds are filtered out.

Unlike some existing voice filtering technologies which rely to some extent on telephone speaker position – physical contact using jaw bone sensors for example – this new technology does not rely on the position of the telephone speaker, with the obvious comfort advantage this entails.

Installation is easy even for a novice computer user, but to ensure seamless installation the company provides a terrific FAQ page, supplemented with an application integration page, which covers more than just the basics.

Recording telephone calls can often be important for both business and personal reasons, and surprisingly (well I was surprised); the SoliCall program includes the capacity to do so.

With SoliCall’s personalized noise reduction you can now improve voice quality and get rid of those virtually impossible to deal with background distractions, in cell phone, headset, and other telephone calls.

There is an obvious need for this exciting technology, and the number of free downloads thus far (32,000+ at Download.com alone), speaks to this.

Fast facts:

Compatible with all SoftPhones

Compatible with business centers, e.g. Gateways, PBXs and Conference bridges

Improves sound quality on any type of VoIP call, e.g. PC-to-PC, PC-to-Phone

Robust echo cancellation

Transmits only your voice – personalized to your specific voice

Screens all other voices, noises and sounds

Becomes more efficient as it learns

Small 1.23 MB free download

System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP

Download at: Download.com

Please note, that all other products offered by SoliCall, for cell phones and for PBXs (the SDK and the PBXMate), are already in the production phase. In fact, the company recently reported on their signing three international deals in the telecom sector.

Pay a visit to SoliCall’s new Website and checkout their full complement of noise reduction and echo cancellation technologies.

How to use a Blackberry Smartphone with a cheap “Pay As You Go” mobile phone plan…

I love my gadgets, and when opportunity presents itself to try something different, I cannot resist.

The object of the this story is to demonstrate how I maximized the usage  of a Blackberry Smartphone using one of the cheapest mobile phone plans out there. For the sake of this article, the model phone that I used for this project was the Blackberry Curve 8320 Smartphone.

If you do not know what a Blackberry is, I encourage to visit the Blackberry website [ CLICK HERE ] .

When it comes to mobile (cell) phones I cannot see myself conversing for a 1000 minutes (16.66 hours) a month. That is two workdays to me or time that I can allocate to other things where I can see results.

Please do not get me wrong, a mobile phone is very much needed in circumstances where your business or livelihood is dependent on quick communications. The plan which I currently use is a “pay as you go” plan (with T-Mobile). I have learned to discipline myself with the usage; PLUS I do not give my number out or use it for lengthy conversation.

I have always been fascinated with PDA’s, have owned quite a few, and was currently looking for something that would provide PDA capabilities, as well as, mobile phone capabilities. I did not want to pay a lot or get trapped into a lengthy service contract with a mobile phone provider just to own a computer in my pocket.

During a recent visit to the local mall I entered into my usual question and answer session with the sales rep at one of the T-Mobile kiosks.  I have done this in the past at other locations in an effort to educate myself about mobile phones.

One of my primary questions has been,  “What phones will my T-Mobile “pay-as-you-go” SIM card work in?”. You would be surprised at the answers I have received. I have always been told I would have to purchase another phone plan, if I wanted a Blackberry, etc…

Ultimately I always leave very confused about mobile phones. In this case, the sales rep proceeded to inform me that my SIM card in my cheapie phone would function in any of the phones they had. The sales rep proceeded to show me several phones including the Blackberry (all with heavy price tags if I were to buy the phone straight out).

As my “gadget luck” would have it, I was preparing to leave and the sales rep proceeds to tell me that he had an used Blackberry Curve 8320 for sale, minus the software for the phone.

Long story short, I get what I think is a good deal on this phone…  I buy the phone and with my cheap “pay as you go” plan, I challenge myself (as a project) to find workarounds to getting data to and from the Blackberry without the need to purchase a high priced data plan.

Reflected below is highlights of how my project turned out…  Some of the information alone may be helpful to other Blackberry owners and in some cases, depending on the phone (and provider), may not work at all. Some of the information reflected may be common information to mobile phone power users and may make me appear as if I don’t have a clue about mobile phones…

Well I don’t, but I am learning!  All I can tell you is, that I took a cheap phone plan (pay-as-you-go) and an expensive smartphone and customized it for my personal needs.

SIM Card

SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) is the card located in your phone that is a module that identifies to the mobile phone provider, who you are. It can also serve as storage media for your contacts, etc… The module can usually be removed and swapped to other phones (with the same provider).  In my case the SIM card worked with no problems and all my contacts were transferred to the Blackberry.  I now have voice communications with the Blackberry using my “pay as you go” plan.

Coverage

My phone coverage improved noticeably.  Locations where I could not get service, I now have service.  Proves to me that some mobile phones are better in transmission and reception than others.

Blackberry Desktop Manager Software

Since there was no software with the smartphone to manage the phone from my computer, I had to go find the software on the internet. I easily located and downloaded the software from “Blackberry” and installed it on my PC .

The Desktop Manager Software is an integral piece that you need to keep your phone software up to date; AND to provide file management, software management, and backup capabilities.

The installation was also bundled with a Roxio package to manage and convert audio, video and photo files.  After learning the Desktop Manager Software, I knew at that point this was my gateway for installing third party software onto Blackberry.

Calendar, Contact, and Task Management

In order to take full advantage of the calendar, contact and task management portion of the phone, I needed some type of syncing capabilities.

The Desktop Manager Software provides syncing capability to Microsoft Outlook and to Yahoo.  I exclusively configured my Yahoo internet mail account to manage my contacts, calendar, notes and tasks on my Blackberry.

When I connect my Blackberry to my computer, run the Desktop Manager Software, it automatically syncs with my Yahoo account on the internet. This also gives me the ability to pull up my information from any PC connected to the internet.

Wi-Fi

The Blackberry Curve 8320 has wi-fi (wireless) capability.  I configured the Blackberry to connect to the wireless router in my home, which provided me with (at first) limited access to the internet.  You will see below the workaround I utilized to gain full access.

Internet Browser

The browser on this particular phone was very, very limited (proprietary to T-Mobile) and did not provide complete internet access via my wireless access point. I initially did not think this was possible without a data plan, but after some careful thinking, I knew there had to be some way that I could bridge that gap.

I downloaded and installed Opera-Mini which is browser software designed for mobile phones. I now have full access to the internet via my wireless router or at any Wi-Fi access point that will let me in.  (Note: Opera-Mini is an awesome browser for this purpose).

MicroSD Card (with PC Adapter)

RadioShack had an 8 gig MicroSD memory card on sale ($20), which I installed into the Blackberry…  I now have storage capability; plus when  connecting the Blackberry to my computer it is recognized as a mass storage device.

I can now transport my files, portable apps, etc… This particular phone model has a camera (w/photo viewer), video camera (with video player) and voice recorder (w/audio player) built in.

With the added storage I successfully converted a full length movie to play on the Blackberry; added MP3 music files, photos, documents, etc…

Software

Now that I have learned to install software onto the Blackberry, I am currently exploring the internet for “freeware” software for the Blackberry.  Several sources that I have located are:

Blackberry Freeware

Blackberryfreaks.com

Blackberry Freeware Directory

In closing, I have been quite pleased with the outcome of this project and the Blackberry Curve Smartphone.  I welcome any comments or suggestions.

This is a guest post by Rick Robinette, who brings a background as a security/police officer professional, and as an information technology specialist to the Blogging world.

Why not pay a visit to Rick’s site at What’s On My PC.

Reduce Cell Phone/VoIP Background Noise Free with SoliCall

We can often find ourselves in an environment that is not telephone friendly; noisy conferences, on the boat while at the cottage – think about the noise produced by twin Mercury’s, sporting events, or dare I say it, loud raucous parties.

Background distractions produced by unwanted environmental noises may, at a minimum, be no more than an annoyance, or in more extreme cases can lead to confusion, frustration, misunderstanding, and irritation for both parties to a telephone call. Think about the impact on the listener, while you shout to be heard over background noises.

Often we have limited choices as to when we either make, or take, a telephone call, and circumstances may dictate that we do so despite environmental background noises which are sure to produce some degree of anxiety.

There’s a great new solution to this common scenario. SoliCall, a company which specializes in noise reduction, noise cancellation and noise suppression technology has developed a personalized voice filtering solution, currently in Beta. This noise reduction software operates as a voice pass filter which can be integrated in any phone system, and in any voice call.

(Before and After the application of this technology)

This amazing technology – I admit, I’m old enough to still be amazed by unique technology – is based on identifying the voice of the speaker – it does not center on specific noises but only on the user’s voice. To accomplish this, the application records and analyzes a sample of the user’s voice and stores the unique acoustic parameters. The end result is, all other voices, noises and sounds are filtered out.

Unlike some existing voice filtering technologies which rely to some extent on telephone speaker position – physical contact using jaw bone sensors for example – this new technology does not rely on the position of the telephone speaker, with the obvious comfort advantage this entails.

Installation is easy even for a novice computer user, but to ensure seamless installation the company provides a terrific FAQ page, supplemented with an application integration page, which covers more than just the basics.

(Click pic for larger)

Recording telephone calls can often be important for both business and personal reasons, and surprisingly (well I was surprised); the SoliCall program includes the capacity to do so.

With SoliCall’s personalized noise reduction you can now improve voice quality and get rid of those virtually impossible to deal with background distractions, in cell phone, headset, and other telephone calls.

There is an obvious need for this exciting technology, and the number of free downloads thus far (25,000+ at Download.com alone), speaks to this.

Fast facts:

Compatible with all SoftPhones

Compatible with business centers, e.g. Gateways, PBXs and Conference bridges

Improves sound quality on any type of VoIP call, e.g. PC-to-PC, PC-to-Phone

Robust echo cancellation

Transmits only your voice – personalized to your specific voice

Screens all other voices, noises and sounds

Becomes more efficient as it learns

Small 1.23 MB free download

System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP

Download at: Download.com

Please note, that all other products offered by SoliCall, for cell phones and for PBXs (the SDK and the PBXMate), are already in the production phase.

The 35 Best Free Applications – Tried, Tested and Reliable!

There’s a wealth of tried and tested free software out in the wild blue of the Internet that will meet virtually every need you’re likely to have. Take a look at the following recommended free downloads that will help you communicate, improve your photos, have some fun, and manage and protect your system.

All of these applications have been well tested over the years for reliability and functionality, and all have developed a strong, loyal following.

Process those words:

OpenOffice

OpenOffice 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages including Microsoft Word.

AbiWord

AbiWord is a free light weight word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

WordWeb

WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Manipulate and correct your pics – put them online:

FastStone Image Viewer

This is one of my favorite photo applications, with good reason. It’s not just a viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. You’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use. This program is loaded with features including, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, lossless JPEG transformation, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and much more.

IrfanView

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Strange name – terrific application.

Google Picasa

Free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.

Play those tunes:

Audacity

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Definitely the best of breed.

iTunes

According to Apple this is the world’s best digital music jukebox. Download music, TV shows, movies, and more.

Winamp

A multimedia player that supports numerous audio and video formats. It also plays streamed video and audio content, live and recorded, authored worldwide.

Watch your fav videos:

Miro

Miro is a free application for channels of internet video (also known as ‘video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed to be easy to use and to give you an elegant full screen viewing experience.

VLC

A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Free FLV Converter

This free software let you search YouTube and dailyMotion videos without opening your browser and you can even watch the videos using the built-in video player.

Free Video to iPhone Converter

Convert video files to Apple iPhone MP4 video format. Convert the whole movie or select a partition from the movie to convert (trim video).

iPod Video Converter

Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and completed way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video.

Better browsing:

FireFox

FireFox includes tons of useful features such as tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, a built-in RSS reader and a huge library of extensions developed by thousand of developers.

Opera

Opera introduces Speed Dial which vastly improves navigation to your favorite sites. In addition, there’s Fraud protection, anti-phishing detection keeps browsing safe and secure.

Web of Trust (WOT)

WOT is a free Internet Browser add-on (my personal favorite), that has established an impressive 4.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET. WOT tests web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams, helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

Protect your system:

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0.1

AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 now incorporates protection against spyware through a new combined anti-virus and anti-spyware engine as well as a “safe-searching component” which has been incorporated into the new AVG Internet Security Toolbar. This program scans files on access, on demand, and on schedule and scans email incoming and outgoing. For those on Vista, you’re in luck, it’s Vista-ready

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition from PC Tools is an excellent choice, as a secondary line of defense. This free version of the award winning program, with its easy to use interface, is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their computers; it’s reported there are a million+ additional downloads every week. Be aware however, there is no real-time protection offered with this version and this is the reason I recommend this application as a secondary scanner only.

Spyware Terminator

Having tested virtually all of the major anti-spyware applications over the past year or more, I’ve settled, for now, on Spyware Terminator primarily due to its strong real-time protection against spyware, adware, Trojans, key-loggers, home page hijackers and other malware threats. Spyware Terminator excels in strong active protection against know and unknown threats. If anything, I find it perhaps a little overly aggressive. On the other hand, better this than the alternative.

Comodo Firewall Pro

The definitive free firewall, Comodo Firewall protects your system by defeating hackers and restricting unauthorized programs from accessing the Internet. I have been using this application for 10 months and I continue to feel very secure. It resists being forcibly terminated and it works as well, or better, than any firewall I’ve paid for. This is one I highly recommend. Amazing that it’s free!

HiJackFree

If you are an experienced/advanced computer user and you’re looking for a program to strengthen your anti-malware resources, then HiJackFree is one that’s worth taking a look at. This free application, from EMSI Software, offers a potent layer of additional protection to add to your major anti-malware programs. The program operates as a detailed system analysis tool that can help you in the detection and removal of Hijackers, Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Worms, and other malware. It doesn’t offer live protection but instead, it examines your system, determines if it’s been infected, and then allows you to eradicate the malware.

Ad-Aware 2008

In my view, Ad-Aware 2008 Free is the best free spyware and adware remover available. It does a good job of protecting against known data-mining, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers and tracking components. The only downside with the free version; real-time protection is not included.

ThreatFire 3

ThreatFire 3 blocks mal-ware, including zero-day threats, by analyzing program behavior and it does a stellar job. Again, this is one of the security applications that forms part of my front line defenses. I have found it to have high success rate at blocking mal-ware based on analysis of behavior. Highly recommend this one!

Web of Trust (WOT)

WOT is a free Internet Browser add-on (my personal favorite), that has established an impressive 4.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET. WOT tests web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams, helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

SnoopFree Privacy Shield

SnoopFree Privacy Shield is a powerful application that guards your keyboard, screen and open windows from all spy software. I have been using this application for quite some time, and I have been amazed at the number of programs that have requested access to my keyboard and screen. In particular, programs that I am in the process of installing. If you’re serious about privacy, this is a must have addition to your security toolbox.

Staying in touch:

Windows Live messenger

The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new i’m Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.

Pidgin

A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.

Trillian

A fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.

System Tools:

CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast; normally taking less than a second to run.

Glary Utilities

Glary Utilities, a free all-in-one utility, is a terrific collection of system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Personal experience with this application for the last 8 months has convinced me that a typical user can really benefit by having this application on their system. With this free program you can tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system’s performance; and its ease of operation makes it ideal for less experienced users.

WinPatrol

Do you want to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer? Then WinPatrol is the program for you. With WinPatrol, in your system tray, you can monitor system areas that are often changed by malicious programs. You can monitor your startup programs and services, cookies and current tasks. Should you need to, WinPatrol allows you to terminate processes and enable, or disable, startup programs. There are additional features that make WinPatrol a very powerful addition to your security applications.

Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller is a superior program to uninstall programs from your computer. This free program with its advanced and fast algorithm scans before, and after you uninstall an application. After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over (those “orphaned” registry entries we talked about earlier), on your computer. This feature is a definite plus.

Autoruns

This free utility has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, in my view, and shows you what programs are configured to run during system boot up or login, and the order Windows processes them. These programs will include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show additional locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and more. Autoruns goes considerably beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows.

Regseeker

The longer you use Windows, the more cluttered your registry can become, especially if you regularly install and uninstall software. Many applications, on being uninstalled, leave behind “orphan” registry entries. They don’t remove all traces of themselves; causing problems such as sluggish performance, system lockups, or a bloated registry that takes longer to load on startup. With the click of a button, Regseeker will scan your registry for these fragmented files, and safely remove them.

Best Free Software Tools for School – High School/College

School is in and let’s face it, you’ll need to trim your expenses this year and software applications that cost hundreds of dollars are not going to be number one on your list of must haves. Well, they don’t really need to be.

There’s a wealth of tried and tested free software out in the wild blue of the Internet that will meet virtually every need you’re likely to have this school year. Take a look at the following recommended free downloads that will help you communicate, get those assignments done, have some fun, and manage and protect your system while you’re surfing the Internet.

Process those words:

OpenOffice

OpenOffice 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages including Microsoft Word.

AbiWord:

AbiWord is a free light weight word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

WordWeb:

WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Manipulate and correct your pics – put them online:

FastStone Image Viewer:

This is one of my favorite photo applications, with good reason. It’s not just a viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. You’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use. This program is loaded with features including, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, lossless JPEG transformation, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and much more.

IrfanView:

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Strange name – terrific application.

Google Picasa:

A free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.

Play those tunes:

Audacity:

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Definitely the best of breed.

iTunes:

According to Apple this is the world’s best digital music jukebox. Download music, TV shows, movies, and more.

Winamp:

A multimedia player that supports numerous audio and video formats. It also plays streamed video and audio content, live and recorded, authored worldwide.

Watch your fav videos:

Miro:

Miro is a free application for channels of internet video (also known as ‘video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed to be easy to use and to give you an elegant full screen viewing experience.

VLC:

A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Free FLV Converter:

This free software let you search YouTube and dailyMotion videos without opening your browser and you can even watch the videos using the built-in video player.

Free Video To iPhone Converter:

Convert video files to Apple iPhone MP4 video format. Convert the whole movie or select a partition from the movie to convert (trim video).

iPod Video Converter:

Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and completed way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video.

Better browsing:

FireFox:

FireFox includes tons of useful features such as tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, a built-in RSS reader and a huge library of extensions developed by thousand of developers.

Opera:

Opera introduces Speed Dial which vastly improves navigation to your favorite sites. In addition, there’s Fraud protection, anti-phishing detection keeps browsing safe and secure.

Web of Trust (WOT):

WOT is a free Internet Browser add-on (my personal favorite), that has established an impressive 4.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET. WOT tests web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams, helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

Protect your system:

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition:

This free version of the award winning program, with its easy to use interface, is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their computers; it’s reported there are a million+ additional downloads every week.

AVG Anti-Virus:

AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 now incorporates protection against spyware through a new combined anti-virus and anti-spyware engine as well as a “safe-searching component” which has been incorporated into the new AVG Internet Security Toolbar. This program scans files on access, on demand, and on schedule and scans email incoming and outgoing. For those on Vista, you’re in luck, it’s Vista-ready

Comodo Firewall Pro:

The definitive free firewall, Comodo Firewall protects your system by defeating hackers and restricting unauthorized programs from accessing the Internet. I have been using this application for 10 months and I continue to feel very secure. It resists being forcibly terminated and it works as well, or better, than any firewall I’ve paid for. This is one I highly recommend. Amazing that it’s free!

Staying in touch:

Windows Live messenger:

The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new i’m Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.

Pidgin

A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.

Trillian:

A fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.

System Tools:

CCleaner:

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast; normally taking less than a second to run.

Glary Utilities:

Glary Utilities, a free all-in-one utility, is a terrific collection of system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Personal experience with this application for the last 8 months has convinced me that a typical user can really benefit by having this application on their system. With this free program you can tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system’s performance; and its ease of operation makes it ideal for less experienced users.

Revo Uninstaller:

Revo Uninstaller is a superior program to uninstall programs from your computer. This free program with its advanced and fast algorithm scans before, and after you uninstall an application. After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over (those “orphaned” registry entries we talked about earlier), on your computer. This feature is a definite plus.

Have a great school year!

Want a Portable PC Free? – Get MojoPac Freedom for Your USB Drive/iPod

MojoPac Freedom is a free software virtualization product from RingCube Technologies which turns any USB2 storage device, such as iPods, USB flash drives, portable hard drives, USB-enabled cell phones, and USB-enabled digital cameras, into a portable computing environment.

The software allows you to carry applications and files from your office to your home, or to a tradeshow in Tokyo for example, on a device that can fit in your pocket. You can then access your personal versions of Quicken, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Yahoo Messenger by plugging in your iPod or USB drive to any PC anywhere in the world. Your language settings are stored on your MojoPac – which means you can connect to a PC in Japan and still have your environment and applications in English!

To setup the MojoPac device, just run the installer and select a USB device attached to the system. Once MojoPac is installed, it creates an executable in the root of that device, along with an auto run file that gives you the option of starting the MojoPac environment automatically when the device is plugged in.

Once the application is started, a new Windows Desktop (with its own wallpaper, icons, shell, etc.) is started in the virtualized MojoPac environment. Any application that runs inside this environment runs off the USB device without affecting the file system of the host.

You can install most applications (including applications such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and Firefox) on the portable storage device by simply running that applications installer inside the MojoPac environment.

You can switch between the host environment and the MojoPac environment at any time by using the MojoBar at the top of the screen. Once you’ve finished with the applications, just exit out of MojoPac and eject the USB device. When the portable storage device is disconnected from the host, there are no traces left behind on the host computer.

To run your applications on a different computer, you don’t need to reinstall the application. Simply plug the portable storage device into any Windows XP computer. All your settings, applications, and documents function the same way irrespective of which computer the portable storage device is connected to.

Take your work with you:

You never need to load work applications on your home system again, or worry about data synchronization. MojoPac can keep all your work applications and data completely separated from your home PC’s disk drive. And once you remove the MojoPac-enabled device, your home PC will not retain a trace of your work information.

Take your home with you:

You can use MojoPac to take your personal applications (for example, multimedia, finance, games, instant message clients, and personal browser) to work with you; connect to your work PC to run all these apps in the privacy of your MojoPac device, without leaving any trace on your work PC. Nothing will be installed or stored on your work PC, in compliance with your IT policies.

Features:

• Supports the majority of popular applications and games
• Works on any USB2 storage device including flash drives, external hard drives, and iPods

 

Requirements:

• Windows XP Home or Pro; Windows 2000 is not supported, though Vista will be supported in the near future
• Requires Administrator access

 

Download at: RingCube

3Guppies’ FaceBook Widget – Send Photos to Your Cell Phone

The only things you need to send a FaceBook photo or video to any cell phone is 3Guppies FaceBook app and a working US or Canadian phone number. The application pulls up all the photos in your friends’ albums as well as your own. Grabbing the photo previews it in a mobile screen frame, though you needn’t worry too much about it fitting–3Guppies Mobile automatically scales photos on the destination phone.

You can crop, title, and tag the image and choose to store a copy in the 3Guppies locker for later reference. Once the photo has landed on the phone, it can be downloaded or sent on its way to sunnier pastures. 3Guppies has worked behind the scenes, striking compatibility deals with 28 carriers for 1,200 phones in North America.

MySpace users have a slightly different product, an embeddable photo album widget that’s then linked to your phone number. Once associated, photo, video, and text auto-uploads from your phone to the widget, essentially creating a mini multimedia blogging platform. You can also send MySpace photos to any phone.

Go to your FaceBook page and add the widget: that’s it.

Most phones will receive a text message with a link in it. To click on the link select Menus or Options and ‘GO TO’. Your photos should download automatically.