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Free Software Downloads |
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| Useful fast & free software that you didn't know about. |
http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/about.aspx
Growl is an application which gives you a nice visual notification of events on your PC. For example, completed downloads in Firefox or new emails will trigger a subtle little popup to notify you. Growl is available for both Mac and Windows (and also as an iPhone application) |
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http://www.moovida.com/
Moovida is a media centre application which manages all your different types of media such as movies or music and even your photo collection. Moovida is also specially catered to displaying your media on a TV screen so you can sit back and browse your library with a remote control. |
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https://labs.mozilla.com/2009/06/weave-0-4-0-released/
Weave Sync is an add-on for Firefox that basically synchronises your Firefox session to any other instances of Firefox on different computers. You can take your bookmarks, history, preferences, and even your saved passwords. Weave is an official Mozilla add-on as well which means it’s also safe to use with your settings and all data is encrypted beforehand. |
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http://www.getmiro.com/index1.php
Miro is a video player that is designed especially for streamed video content from sites such as Youtube or Hulu. With Miro, you can also save videos straight onto your hard drive and also schedule shows from it’s built in episode guide. |
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Website Watch |
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Typingweb
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http://www.typingweb.com/
Typingweb is a free online typing tutor that you can use to improve your typing speed and efficiency. There’s also no registration required and since it’s web-based, you can access it from anywhere you like.
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Printfriendly
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http://www.printfriendly.com/
Most of the time when you print a page from a website, you also end up printing all those annoying ads and banners and sometimes even end up printing an otherwise blank page with one word on it. Printfriendly.com attempts to reduce these problems by processing the page and removing everything unnecessary before it is sent to your printer.
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Bighugelabs
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http://bighugelabs.com/wallpaper.php
This web based tool simply adds a nice looking calendar onto any picture you choose so you can have a nice looking desktop background with an embedded calendar.
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Techie Tips |
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In the past, we’ve focussed mainly on getting rid of malware and viruses to keep your computer clean. However, prevention is the best cure so this month we’ll have a look at how to spot and avoid these threats. Here are a few useful tips:
- Avoid clicking pop-up warning messages that say your computer is unprotected or contains infected/illegal files. Legitimate warning messages will not request you to download additional software
- A lot of warning messages will show a fake scan taking place; if you look carefully the files being scanned will not match yours completely (and may only take a few seconds to complete)
- Advertisements on websites that tell you that you have won a prize rarely have any good intentions! (They tell everybody the same thing)
- In general, it is a good idea to be wary of any website that tells you to install another program to access a certain feature. Perhaps do a quick search for background information about that application before you commit to installing it
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FAQ of the month |
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I’ve been getting drop-outs on my ADSL2+ connection recently and now the speed is slower, what’s happened?
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When TPG’s systems detect a significant amount of drop-outs on your line, it will automatically lower the sync speed of your connection to provide you with a more stable connection. This to ensure that in case something such as damaged cabling has caused a fault on your line, you can still at least have a usable connection while the problem gets rectified.
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Jargon Buster |
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When looking at sync or download speeds, there are so many different units of measurements that it can get really confusing at times. So this month, let’s re-discover our basic maths knowledge and have a look at bits and bytes.
Bits and bytes are the two most common units of measurement used today; to put it simply, 1 byte = 8 bits. Here are some common examples you might see:
- The theoretical maximum speed of TPG’s ADSL2+: 24 megabits/s or 3 megabytes/s
- The theoretical maximum speed of ADSL1 products: 8000 kilobits/s or 1 megabyte/s
- Standard 1500 ADSL connection speed: 1500 kilobits/s or 187.5 kilobytes/s
Note:
- 1 Gigabyte = 1,000 Megabytes = 1,000,000 Kilobytes = 1,000,000,000 bytes
- 1 Gigabit = 1,000 Gigabits = 1,000,000 Kilobits = 1,000,000,000 bits.
- MB means megabyte and Mb means megabit
As a general rule, when you download or transfer files on the internet the speed will typically be displayed in kilobytes or megabytes whereas the speed reported on your modems will show kilobits. |
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