Save Your Data With SyncBack

Like I mentioned before, my external hard drive died. Actually, so did my other hard drive on my family's computer. Which was a pain. In the a**. Because among thousands of photos, there were also important documents and a bunch of music.

This always sucks.  To prevent this happening to YOU, you'll want to download powerful program by 2BrightSparks called SyncBack.  It might look intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's quite actually quite simple.

The premise of it is that you create "profiles" which are instructions on the kind of backup or synchronization that you can do. Create as many profiles as you want. You set the source and destination, and you can schedule the backups as well.  Other features include which subdirectories to backup, filters, as well as more advanced features like FTP, email backup, and compression.

The free version of SyncBack is very versatile, but there is a Pro version which packs in much more. It's definitely worth it, and it saved me on many occasions.  The backups run in the background without interrupting you, and only run when scheduled.

Tag Your MP3 Files With Mp3tag!

After my external WD Passport harddrive crashed, my music collection became a mess because I just didn't pay attention to tagging the music properly.

Your music collection is probably also not tagged very well, especially if you have single tracks that did not come from CD rips. Maybe you want to retag your songs the way you would like, not the way they're currently tagged.  From my experience, the best MP3 tagger is... Mp3tag.  It's incredibly fast and you can bulk edit track names, artists, albums, and other attributes with ease.  As in all good mp3 taggers, it is possible to convert between tags and filenames, look up tracks and cover art using the integrated database lookup functions, and edit the tracks to YOUR preferred syntax. I even noticed that writing the tags to the file is faster than what it looks like if you're doing it individually in Explorer.

Furthermore, the files are handled like they are in Explorer which means that you can double click on them to play them in your default media player, drag them out to different folders, and do any sort of manipulation.

Mp3tag really expands the flexibility of tagging your tracks so that they stay organized and clean, and so that you always know what you're listening to!

Your Dropbox are belong to you. Everywhere.

USB flash drives are SO passé. I don't even know where my 1GB drive is and I think its cap is lost. If I may be so bold, you are probably in a similar situation.

With cloud computing becoming more and more prominent, we are seeing increasingly more options for online storage. And for good reason. Online storage is easy, always accessible with internet access, and you can have more capacity depending on the service you use.

A really good service that I can definitely recommend is Dropbox. Here's what's awesome about this. When you create a Dropbox account, you automatically get 2 FREE! GB of storage. If you can refer someone to use it, you get additional storage as well as the person you refer. Basically, you get a folder that is your central storage system, and that is attached to that computer. Whenever you put something in that folder, all the files get synchronized online, and you can access them from anywhere! If you have more than one computer, you will probably want to connect them all. What this means is that as soon as a file gets into your Dropbox folder, it now exists in ALL of your Dropbox folders.

Other features include public links for files, photo galleries, and sharing select folders from within your Dropbox folder with other users. All in all, this is an excellent and simple piece of software that does not slow down your computer.  If you want to decentralize your "online" folders and have more than one, then I suggest Syncplicity, which is a little bit heavier on the resources.

Burn Images.. with ImgBurn

Well what do you know! You decided to download and try Linux! But it's an ISO file. And your computer probably came with crap burning software that gave you a 30-day trial along with several coasters.

By the way, do NOT use Windows' native CD burner. It sucks.
Instead, go and do yourself a favor and just download ImgBurn. It's really small. It's really simple to use.  When you launch it, it gives you several options that include burning image files to a disc, as well as data files. You can also create image files from data files and back from discs.

For the more advanced user, you can run burns in test mode, verify them, set the speed at which to burn, and how many copies you'd like to make.  Otherwise it's really easy. Just select files, and WRITE!

As simple as that. And totally free! ImgBurn.

Piriform CCleaner - Remove Crap

Do you like crap? Probably not. Get rid of it!

Unfortunately, it is not that easy to delete it manually on a Windows machine, since you have crap hidden everywhere. Crap in your Temp folder, crap in every browser's application data folders, crap in the.. well you get my point.


Here's a powerful piece of software that I personally use by Piriform called CCleaner. I believe the first 'C' originally stood for.. well, crap.  This program will look through all those stinky pockets of your Windows box that you never ever will open and remove anything that is not needed anymore and just clutters your hard drive.  But that's not all.  CCleaner gives you a faster and cleaner Uninstaller, Startup Manager, as well as System Restore manager.  By the way, if you have a small hard drive, and I really do mean that in every sense (no, just kidding =P), you'll really want to keep it especially crap free. CCleaner also gives you the option to clean your registry as well. It's like if you just ate a cookie, you'll want to swipe the crumbs off the table. Yeah, CCleaner will do that for you.

So what are you waiting for? Get it while it's hot! Oh wait.. it's always hot. And free. Updates are frequent as they are for all Piriform software.

Supports all versions of Windows

Alternative to Photoshop? Paint.NET

Who loves Adobe Photoshop? Who wants something similar Photoshop that doesn't drain their wallet or bank account?
Well, there are two possibilities. You can go with GIMP if you'd like. Actually, if you're an avid Linux junkie, GIMP is what to go with. On my Windows platform, I prefer Paint.NET.

When you launch it, you'll notice that the interface looks terribly similar to Photoshop. All your toolbars and palettes are in the same place, they even give you a nice translucent look to them. Images can be managed easily from the preview on the top right, and you get most if not all of the control that you can get from Photoshop. Best part? Paint.NET is completely free to use.

My only drawback is that you need to have the clunky .NET Framework installed, which the setup does for you automatically. It's definitely faster than Adobe's framework.

OS: Windows Only

First Review! Piriform Defraggler

When it comes to operating systems, I am still one of those people that uses tried and true systems even if they're really old. Basically, I love my Windows XP box. It's running on an old (and by old, I mean about 5 years old) HP Pavilion zv6000 laptop that is so past its time, it is comparable to cavemen. Contrary to popular belief, however, it is not very difficult to maintain it and keep it running smoothly. If you have the right software, it is really a breeze.

Want your OS to run quickly? Take a look at Piriform's Defraggler. If you are using Windows XP, you do not want to be defragmenting with its native defragmenter since it is extremely low on features, is way too slow, and doesn't do a good job at all. Defraggler is alot more versatile. If you want a defragmenter that shows you exactly which files are fragmented, how many fragments there are, and select which files you want to defragment, then I absolutely recommend this piece of software. It's very sleek, easy to understand and use, and the best thing about it? It's free! And is updated frequently by giving you a reminder that there's a new version.

For a full list of features, visit http://www.piriform.com/defraggler. Works on all NTFS and FAT32 systems, including Windows 7.