Today Only – Free Android Splashtop Remote Desktop At Bookmarks4Techs

Good friend, super tech blogger, and Mighty Freeware Hunter, Rick Robinette (well known to many regular readers here as an informative guest writer and, as the owner of What’s On My PC), has a topnotch free deal happening right now on his super tech site – Bookmarks4Techs.

Rick is spot on when he makes the point –

If you own an Android Tablet PC or Smartphone, this app is a MUST HAVE.  It is remote software that allows you to remotely access and stream content from your home computer to your tablet computer or smartphone.  Very cool app…  Get it FREE – TODAY ONLY!

From Bookmarks4Techs:

You’re out and about with your Android device and you suddenly realize that you need to access a file sitting on your home computer. You’re stuck, right? Not if you have Splashtop Remote Desktop, an app that brings your entire computer to your phone or tablet.

Note: If you have an Android 3.x tablet, it is recommended that you download Splashtop Remote Desktop HD. This version features enhanced performance and is optimized specifically for Android 3.x/Tegra-based tablets.

With this app, you can control your home computer from your Android device via Wi-Fi or a 3G/4G connection. Get Splashtop Remote Desktop and you can view your desktop, use your regular Web browser with your plug-ins and bookmarks, and access all your important PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Outlook files.

If Android is your thing – take a run over to Rick’s site and get in on the action. If you’re in the IT game, then I highly recommend that you capture Bookmarks4Techs in your Bookmarks/Favorites.

Free GooReader – Making It Easy To Read Google Books On Your PC

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, the “Mighty Freeware Hunter”, is back again with another terrific freeware find – GooReader.

GooReader is a free desktop application that allows you to search, download and read books and magazines available on Google Books.

Here’s Rick’s review:

Reading on a PC is just not the same as reading from a book or magazine. I guess it is part of the generation that I was raised with, but there is something about turning that page and the feel of that book. I always envisioned the day when I could read a book on my computer screen and turn the pages in a similar manner as a real book.

Well today is the day where this vision is coming true. I recently went on the hunt for a reading application that would allow you to read a book (or magazine) on your computer where the pages appeared to actually turn. What I came across, that closely meets my criteria, is a Google Books reader called GooReader.

If you are not familiar with Google Books, it is an online collection of millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide using Google Book Search

GooReader provides a sweet interface for reading publicly available books and magazines on Google Books. Instead of awkward page scrolling in your browser you can get pleasure of reading on your desktop in the same way as you read hardcover books or paperback magazines. With natural mouse moves you can turn over pages, zoom in and out, jump to the needed TOC item.

You start using GooReader by entering a search criteria in the search box that is directly tied into Google Books Search.  If you notice above, I performed a search for Windows 7 and the books started appearing on the shelf.  You can select a book from the shelf to read full screen if you like, zoom in, zoom out AND turn the pages like a real book. The controls to turn the pages and perform these other functions are located at the bottom of the pages.

In GooReader the search results are represented as 3D book models on a bookshelf. You can setup the number of search results and the scale of the bookshelf. The program can search online books by title, author or keyword that can be used in its description or content. If you want to read or save specific book, you can simply enter its Book_ID and open it in Gooreader.

Sometimes you may need to print Google Books or read them offline when you don’t have the internet connection. Besides, most people love to read books on mobile devices (like iPad) or popular e-Book readers (like Sony Reader, Kindle or Nook). In this case the PDF format is a perfect solution. GooReader allows to automatically save publicly available books and magazines to PDF files (please read the FAQ for details). Note that this feature is available in paid version.

GooReader works only on Windows XP/Vista/7 and requires .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 installed. You do not need a Google login account to access these books; all books and magazines on Google Books are available for unregistered users.

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free HAMSTER High End Video Converter – Works With Over 200 Devices

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has done it again. Rick has a knack for finding the best in Freeware, and this time, he has found a terrific free video converter; HAMSTER.

Here’s Rick’s review:

In today’s world of technology we are presented with numerous devices that allow us to watch video (such as iPod, iPad, iPhone, PS3, PSP, Blackberry, xBox, Zune, Apple TV, iRiver, etc.).

The gap we face is that a video (such as a movie) may play OK on one device, but not another. In order to bridge this gap you must have available to you a good video converter that can make the necessary audio and video configuration changes (i.e. resolution, bitrate, framerate, compression, etc.), on the fly, to match the required specifications of the device.

Often, as part of the purchase of the device, you are given software to assist with video conversions; however, learning that software or even getting future upgrades is a problem.

The solution to all of these problems is in a NEW software video converter called HAMSTER.

I just started using HAMSTER and I must say it is one of the best, easy to use, video converters I have experienced. The components that I like the most is that it is nice looking in appearance, provides a step-by-step, 1-2-3 interface that is very easy to understand; AND MOST IMPORTANTLY you can specifically pick your device during the conversion process. I do not know of too many video converters that let you do that.

As a matter of fact it provides the ability to select from over 200 devices. For example, I have a Blackberry. I can take a full size movie, put it through the HAMSTER process, select Blackberry from the list and HAMSTER will do the work to make it work on my Blackberry.

It’s FREE! Full version is free for everybody!

Features:

Converts any video to iPod, iPad, iPhone, PS3, PSP, Blackberry, xBox, Zune, Apple TV, iRiver, etc. More than 200+ devices

Converts to AVI, MPG, WMV, MPEG, FLV, HD, DVD, M2TS and others! Integrated video player!

Easy-to-use! Drag-n-Drop! It does not require special knowledge. There is Wizard for beginners.

Changes codec/System type/De-interlaces your video file

Converts many video files in batches

Adjusts audio video bitrate, frame rate

Integrates into Windows!

Supports 40 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Japan, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, etc.)

System requirements: Windows 7, Vista, XP

Download at: HamsterSoft

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free CheckDrive – Detect And Fix Hard Drive Errors

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, who is always on the hunt for the best in Freeware, has just come across CheckDrive, a great little Hard Drive error checking utility.

Here’s Rick’s review:

Looking for and writing content for a blog is a job, especially when you are on the run; however, in my email this morning a company called  Abelssoft, dropped me a line about a new FREE hard disk utility called CheckDrive 2011, that saved the day and possibly my hard disks.

From my early testing of this utility, it is like using chkdsk (checkdisk), with a very nice GUI (graphical user interface). As with chkdsk, if errors are found on any of your drives, repairing those errors can take some time.

Failure to identify and repair errors on your hard disks  (in the file system), can result in data corruption; thus, the importance of an utility such as CheckDrive.

As always, maintain backups of your data prior to running any maintenance utility. This is the type of utility I usually run on a monthly basis to check the integrity of my disks.

If you are not familiar with chkdsk (checkdisk):

Chkdsk (Checkdisk) is a command on computers running DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems, that displays the file system integrity status of hard disks and floppy disk, and can fix logical file system errors. It is similar to the fsck command in Unix.

On computers running NT-based versions of Windows, CHKDSK can also check the disk surface for physical errors or bad sectors, a task previously done by SCANDISK. This version of CHKDSK can also handle some physical errors and recover data that is still readable. – Wikipedia

CheckDrive offers you an easy way to check your hard drives for errors. CheckDrive may detect and fix hard drive errors that might appear on system crashes or when switching off your PC without a proper Windows shutdown.

If you’ve ever had a system crash, then CheckDrive is for you. CheckDrive is completely free! Download it today to check your system for hard drive errors.

CheckDrive – Features:

Check Hard Disks for Errors – CheckDrive offers you an easy way of checking your PCs hard drives for errors. Those errors can be fixed immediately if you like.

Shows Drive Information – CheckDrive shows info about your drives and determines if your hard drive needs to be cleaned or defragmented.

Detects current fragmentation of your hard drives.

Shows the amount of garbage on your disks.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7 (all – 32 and 64 bit).

Download at: Developer’s site (Abelssoft)

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free Paragon Backup and Recovery – Incremental Backup Included!

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has a knack for finding great free applications. Paragon Backup and Recovery, one of Rick’s latest finds, is a highly inclusive free backup and recovery application which even includes incremental backup, something that’s rarely found in a free application. This application is a “must have”, for average computer users.

Paragon, a software development leader for over 15 years has available for non-commercial use (at home) a powerful disk imaging (backup) and recovery package (for FREE), called Paragon Backup and Recovery.

“Smart people backup; Backup & Recovery is smart backup.”

With Paragon Backup and Recovery, you can create a backup image of an entire hard disk (including GPT-discs!), or system partitions, to guarantee the operating system’s working capability.

The “cool factor” with this application is its ability to perform a differential backup that will only archive changes since the last full sector-based image, thus saving backup storage space.

In other words once you have made a complete backup image of your PC (preferably to an external drive), you can perform (select) subsequent differential backups that will only backup the changes from the initial full backup; thus saving time and drive storage space.

As with most disk imaging applications, make sure you create a recovery disk that can be used to boot up your system in the event your computer is no longer booting into Windows. With Paragon Backup and Recovery, you will have the option to create a bootable  USB Flash drive, CD or DVD to recover your PC on demand.

As you continue to read, you will notice that Paragon Backup and Recovery is loaded with numerous features that you typically do not see in other FREE comparable disk imaging applications.

If you currently do not have a backup or disaster recovery plan in place, Paragon Backup and Recovery is a great option.

If you want to learn more, I encourage you to take a look at the User’s Manual [ HERE ] that provides in-depth and detailed instructions on “how to” use this software.  These instructions are also a great starting to place to learn about disk imaging software.

Fast facts:

• Cyclic Backup – complete infrastructure for establishing a self-acting data protection system, fully compliant with the set-and-forget backup policy
• Support for the latest hardware as well as hard disk partitioning schemes.
• Support of all present day techniques to store backup images
• Disk backup to save not only all on-disk information but also the system service structures. It is ideal for making a backup image of an entire hard disk (including GPT-discs!) or system partitions to guarantee the operating system’s working capability
• Differential backup  to a sector image to only archive changes since the last full sector-based image, thus considerably saving the backup storage space. To restore this kind of backup you will require a full image and one of its differentials
• Restore an entire disk, separate partitions image
• Restore with Shrink to restore a backup amount of actual data of the image
• Create bootable USB Flash drive, CD or DVD to recover your PC on demand
• Differential Partition Backup (Create a differential image of a partition)
• Recovery Media Builder: builds a new “recovery media” to boot from in case of an unbootable system
• Check Recovery Discs: checks the recovery media for integrity and boot ability
• Graphical representation of the data to gain a better understanding
• Comprehensive wizards to simplify even the most complex operations
• A context sensitive hint system for all functions of the program
• Previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations (so-called virtual operations)
• Create Partition
• Format Partition
• Delete Partition
• Assign/Remove Drive Letter
• Hide/Unhide Partition
• Mark Partition as Active/Inactive
• Modify: change volume label,Test Surface
• Check File System Integrity
• Add an archive to the database
• Delete the archive from the database
• Restore from the selected archive
• Restore File From Archive
• Differential backup
• Check Archive Integrity
• Mount/Unmount the archive
• Backup Features
• Restore Facilities
• Advanced Backup Tasks
• Supplementary Tools
• User Friendly Fault Minimizing Interface
• Partitioning tools
• Operations with Archives

System requirements: Windows 7 (32/64-bit), Vista (32/64-bit), XP Professional SP2 (32/64-bit), XP Home SP2, Windows 2000 Professional SP4

Download at: Paragon Software Group

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Mirror Your Mood With Free Emotional Internet Radio

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has done it again! Rick, who has a knack for finding great free applications, introduces us to his latest find, StereoMood.  StereoMood is a free service that streams music that best suits your mood, and your activities. It’s very cool!

Feeling sad, feeling glad, feeling nasty, feeling bad…  How would you like to play music to match your mood or emotion?  You can with a cloud app called StereoMood. They say that behind every song is an emotion.

StereoMood is a tag cloud, reflecting various types of moods.  You click on one of the tags and Stereo Mood will suggest a playlist that best suits your mood and your activities.

However, if you wish to customize StereoMood for your own personal taste, you can, by creating libraries and playlists.  You can even go as far as, searching for and  listening to your favorite music by a specific artist, or a track.

In order to create personal customized playlists and libraries, you are required to create an account and be logged into StereoMood.  In my case, I did not create an account; I simply visit the web site, select a mood from the tag cloud, minimize StereoMood to the task bar and life is good.

If you are wondering where the music is generated from for Stereo Mood; the StereoMood tracks are derived from a selection of the best international music blogs.

Overall, the music I have experienced is quite good.  I like the fact that I can click on a mood (e.g. relax) and get music that matches the mood.

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Download SpeechPlayer Free Edition – Let Your PC do the Talking

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has a knack for finding great free applications. SpeechPlayer Free Edition, Rick’s latest find, is a fabulous, free text to speech converter. SpeechPlayer can even read this article to you, if you like!

As a blogger, it is important to convey the written word in a manner that is easily understood.  One tool that I use to proofread my blog posts (read them back to me), is an application called SpeechPlayer Free Edition.

SpeechPlayer Free Edition is a player that will read screen text aloud to you; whether it be a webpage, an email, a blog post, a school paper, etc… You simply highlight the text you want read and copy it to the clipboard.

SpeechPlayer will detect this action and will automatically begin reading the text back to you. The “cool factor” with SpeechPlayer is, it not only reads the text back to you, it also displays the text at the bottom of your computer screen (like closed captioning).  This text-to-speech application is one of the better ones that I have experienced.

Features:

Versatile clipboard text reader

Large TV-like closed captioning

Minimalist user interface

You can control the main functions of SpeechPlayer right from the Windows tray!

Convenient mini player

System requirements: Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP SP2 or better

.NET Framework 3.0 or above

SAPI 5.1-compliant text-to-speech voices (see note below)

Note: Windows 7 and Windows Vista comes with Microsoft Anna (and Microsoft Lili in some editions. Windows XP comes with Microsoft Sam.

Download at: PortableGrove Solutions

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Download Drag ‘n Crypt ULTRA – Easy File Encryption

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has a knack for finding great free applications – applications that make your computer experience smoother, safer and more interesting. See what Rick has to say about his most recent find – Drag ‘n Crypt ULTRA.

There are numerous file (and folder) encryption programs that are available to protect sensitive files on your computer; however, most people do not understand their purpose.

If you are carrying files around on a flash drive that are potentially sensitive in nature, OR maintaining sensitive files on a PC that is accessible by many people, OR storing sensitive files on the internet;  then it is important to protect the content of those files from prying eyes.

One way of doing that is through file encryption. Encryption software is designed to make your files unreadable (or accessible) to other people.  The encryption process usually prompts you to create a key (or password) prior to the software making the file(s) unreadable. As a result, in order to  make the file readable again (through a process called decryption) you must enter the password that you originally provided.

One of my favorite encryption programs, that is FREE, small in file size (< 200 KB), and is portable;  is Drag ‘n Crypt ULTRA.  The “cool factor” to this program is that when you launch the program, a small target (or drop zone) appears on your desktop (see below).

To encrypt a file (or folder), you simply drag the file (or folder) to the target (or drop zone) and drop it.  Drag ‘n Crypt Ultra will go to work automatically, prompt you for a password, and then create the encrypted file. As an added level of security, the source file is erased to prevent someone from restoring the file using data recovery software (which is especially easy on a flash drive).

To decrypt the file you simply drag the file you originally encrypted to the target (or drop zone), enter your password, and the file will be restored to its’ original condition.

If you right mouse click on the target (or drop zone), you also have the following options:

My two favorite options are “create file association” and “Use Context Menu”.  With the “file association” option activated you can open your encrypted files by simply mouse clicking on the file(s) and if you have the “context menu” option activated you can perform your file encryption operations through the Windows Explorer context menu, which is typically activated by a right mouse click on a file (or folder).

Overall, Drag ‘n Crypt is fast, offers decent protection ( Twofish coding algorithm) and does not require installation (can be carried and used on your flash drive). I especially use this program to protect files on my flash drive and to protect files that I store online.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7  (32-Bit)

Download at: Developer’s site

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free DNS Jumper – Easily Change Your Default DNS Settings

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has a knack for finding great free applications – applications that make the Internet experience smoother, safer and more interesting. See what Rick has to say about his most recent find – DNS Jumper.

If you are a regular reader of the blog (What’s On My PC), you may have read the following articles about DNS (Domain Name System) and how changing your default DNS settings on your PC to a service such as OpenDNS or Google’s Public DNS can result in a faster (and safer) internet experience. For example I use the DNS settings that is provided by OpenDNS on all of my computers.

OpenDNS … Something to try…

Google’s Public DNS Resolution Service

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web’s infrastructure, serving as the Internet’s phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day. – Google Public DNS

When I composed those articles, I wondered how many people actually followed up and changed their DNS settings, for fear they would mess up their computers?

Today, I ran across a small software utility called DNS Jumper that you simply download, run, and mouse click a button to select which DNS service you would like to use.

This little utility does all the work for you. If you desire to return to your default DNS settings, you simply mouse click on DNS Default and your settings revert to the original settings. This utility is portable and makes for a nice addition to the tech toolbox.

Download at: Sordum

Note: A beta version (DNS Jumper v1.0.3), is also available. Keep in mind however, that a Beta version is not necessarily a stable release.

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

SIW – System Information for Non-Geeks

If you think developing information on your computer’s operating system and hardware is a tough task, you can relax. Guest writer, Rick Robinette, introduces you to a small, free application that makes it easy.

How would you like to know everything about your computer?  You can with SIW – System Information for Windows…

SIW is a small in size utility that is specially designed to audit your PC and display the results in a very comprehensive manner. The results can subsequently be saved to a report file in several different formats (i.e. HTML, CSV, TXT, XML).

SIW can either be installed on your PC or you can download the “standalone version” that can be installed on your flash drive. The “standalone version” is an excellent choice for diagnostic purposes; and troubleshooting other PCs.

The developer of SIW works hard to continually keep SIW  up-to-date with the current changes in hardware & software configurations.  SIW, highly recommended for the everyday user and for those you are in the spirit of helping others on their PCs.

Examples of what SIW will gather about your PC:

Software Inventory: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Software Licenses (Product Keys / Serial Numbers / CD Key), Secrets (Password Recovery).

Hardware Inventory: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.

Network Information: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.

Network Tools: MAC Address Changer, Neighborhood Scan, Ping, Trace, Statistics

Miscellaneous Tools: Eureka! (Reveal lost passwords hidden behind asterisks), Monitor Test, Shutdown / Restart.

Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.

Platform: Microsoft Windows 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Media Center / Tablet PC / Windows 2003 Server R2 / Vista / Windows Server 2008 / Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 / WinRE / Bart PE / Winternals ERD Commander

Download at: MajorGeeks

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. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.