• Tips

If you’re looking for a free PC maintenance suite then there’s not exactly any shortage of options. A few moments at your favorite search engine will turn up a long list of potential candidates, each promising that they’ve the technology to best improve your PC’s performance, and for no charge at all.

All this free competition makes it difficult for the vendors of commercial PC maintenance packages to stand out from the crowd. But iolo technologies is now fighting back with the new System Mechanic Free, a cut-down version of the company’s flagship System Mechanic suite.

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Anyone who has tried to provide computing assistance over the phone will know just how frustrating an experience it can be. Without the ability to interact with a problematic computer, it can be hard to diagnose just what the problem is, and having to rely on someone else to explain what the issue is can be all but useless. There are a number of remote access tools that can be useful in these circumstances, but Chrome Remote Desktop Beta is an extension for the Chrome browser that brings remote access to the web browser.

The extension can be used from a Windows, OS X or Linux based machine, and the only requirement is that both computers involved need to have both Google Chrome and the extension installed. As things stand, Chrome Remote Desktop Beta is unlike many other remote access tools in that someone needs to be in front of both the host and client computers.

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While much of the IT world has been focused on news about the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, there has been a huge number of other newsworthy releases in the past week.

Related to portable devices such as a the iPhone is Freemake Video Converter 2.4.0, which makes it easy to convert videos between formats and, in particular, convert them optimized for viewing on a specific device.  The app can also be used to rip non-copy-protected DVDs and to share your videos using YouTube. From the same company is Freemake Video Downloader 2.2.0 which can be used to download videos from the likes of YouTube and Dailymotion, and Freemake Audio Converter 1.1.0 which, much like its video related sibling, can be used to convert audio tracks from one format to another.

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Even though the developer preview of Windows 8 is publically available, there will be some people who are keen to try out the upcoming operating system without having to go to the effort of setting up a dual boot system or wiping out their existing installation. This is where transformation packs can help, and the Windows 8 Transformation Pack 2.0 and UX Pack 3.5 have just been released with a view to making the task of mimicking Windows 8 easier and more impressive than ever.

In a matter of moments, the transformation tools enable you to turn your copy of Windows XP, Vista or 7 into a very close match to the look of Windows 8. The pack makes use of genuine Windows 8 resources to give an authentic finish, and this updated version includes changes to UI fonts, as well as the very latest icons navigation buttons and other interface components.

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If you're tired of sluggish antivirus tools taking forever to scan your system, then you're not alone.

But the good news is that at least the security vendors are finally listening. Emsisoft today became the latest company to announce major performance improvements, with the claim that their new Anti-Malware 6 is now on average 450-percent faster than before. And by making smarter decisions about what it checks, the program continues to get faster with every scan.

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Paramount Software (UK) Ltd has updated Macrium Reflect Free Edition, its free-for-personal-use drive imaging tool, to version 5.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition 5.0.4033 sports a completely redesigned drag-and-drop user interface, plus adds a number of new features, including the ability to clone drives, set alternate backup locations and create WinPE-based recovery media, allowing users to recover from USB 3.0 drives outside of Windows.

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Webroot is describing its new SecureAnywhere 2012 range as being “the fastest and lightest virus and spyware protection you can buy”. And while this sounds like more security company hype, on first glance at least it looks like they may have a point.

The core antivirus engine is a compact and ultra-lightweight cloud-based affair, which makes smart choices about the files it checks to minimize scan times. Webroot say this means system scans will typically be under two minutes, something that we confirmed (they were closer to 30 seconds on our test PC). And the program is very careful about its use of RAM: we found it peaked at around 50MB when scanning, and when idle was closer to 5MB (private working set).

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It was another busy seven days of software releases, with the much anticipated final build of Firefox 7 hitting the severs. With improved memory usage and performance, this is a great upgrade to the popular browser. Firefox Portable 7.0 was also released, and the relentless Firefox update cycle continues with the release of Firefox 8.0 Beta 1, Firefox Aurora 9.0a2, Firefox 10.0a1 (Nightly) and Firefox 10.0a1 UX, which is a sideline project of Nightly, introducing a brand new Firefox user-interface.

Also released by Mozilla is SeaMonkey 2.4.1, a suite of Internet tools including an email client, IRC client and web editor. Again a portable version is available in the form ofSeaMonkey Portable 2.4. Rounding up Mozilla’s trio of releases is Thunderbird 7. This email client includes more tools than ever to help you to manage your inbox and while many of the changes amount to little more than minor tweaks, this is now a solid and impressive piece of software. Fans of portable software will be pleased to know that Thunderbird Portable 7.0 has also been released.

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Some Registry values are easy to understand. Find a file path, say, and you’ll often be able to figure out its purpose at a glance.

Dates and times, though? That’s often a very different matter.

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Skype’s iPhone app proved to be incredibly popular, and the recently released iPad version soon picked up a healthy following as well. Both versions of the app have been updated to include support for Bluetooth devices while the iPhone version has a new anti-shake feature designed to eliminate wobbly footage when conducting a video call.

Bluetooth support has been enabled for iPhone 3GS and 4 users as well as for the iPad 2 and fourth generation iPods. This opens up the opportunity to use headsets to make and receive hands-free calls.

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PCs are certainly the most common target for virus attacks, but this does not mean that other platforms are immune. The increased use of mobile devices means that platforms such as Android devices are prone to virus infection and antivirus software is now available to help counter this. AVG is most famous for its desktop virus protection software, but Anti-Virus Free is also available for Android and its aim is to protect your mobile in a number of ways.

As you might expect, the app provide virus protection on a real-time basis as well as enabling you to scan on a schedule or manually. Surfing the web is the source of many threats, and to this end the app includes phishing and malware protection. But Anti-Virus Free also goes far beyond this, and includes a number of handy extra tools and utilities.

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Converting video from one format to another can be a real chore. Whether you are looking to reduce the size of a video file so you can more easily add it to your website, or if you need to have a file in a particular format so you can play it back on your chosen media device, almost everyone will have to battle with video formats and conversion software at some point. Free WebM Video Converter is a free tool that may just be able to make your life a little easier.

There are a large number of applications available that can be used to convert video files from one format to another, many of them are rather expensive and complicated beasts. Free WebM Video Converter is different as it is completely free of charge and an absolute doddle to use. There is no need to fiddle with complex menus or tweak endless options, with Free WebM Video Converter successful video conversion can be achieved in just a few mouse clicks.

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Another busy week of software updates has passed. What could you possibly have missed?

Right Click Enhancer 2.0 is a handy tool that gives you the chance to add new option to Windows’ context menu. There are a number of pre-defined examples that you can add by simply selecting from a list, or you can go to the effort of creating menu links of your own as well as adding and removing  entries from the Send To menu.

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Why wait until Windows 8 is released before you sample the look and feel of the next version of Windows? WindowsX has released not one, but two tools that can revamp the Windows interface and give you a fresh new look that matches Windows 8’s look and feel quite closely, right down to Metro-like functionality.

Windows 7 users should take a look at the Windows 8 UX Pack, recently updated to version 3.0, which contains everything you need. Vista, XP and Windows Server users will need a bit more help in the form of the Windows 8 Transformation Pack.

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The hallmark of effective security in any field, especially computers, is defense-in-depth. There is always a way around any particular defensive measure, so you need multiple defenses in order to stop attacks with a high level of confidence. Large organizations are full of multilayered defenses, but they are no less essential to small businesses.

It's never big news, but small businesses get hit all the time by cybercrime. Reporter and analyst Brian Krebs has many stories of small businesses that fell victim to attacks, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Specialized malware (malicious programs) named Zeus and SpyEye find ways to get into your bank accounts and steal your money. In some cases, businesses have sued their banks to get their money back, but the courts have sided with the bank. It's the business's responsibility to secure the access the bank has given to the account.

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