SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system which reports on various reliability indicators, and sometimes highlights imminent hardware failure of HDDs and SSDs.

These predictions can sometimes be questionable, but SMART still has plenty to offer, and the open source HDD Guardian (also available in a portable edition) provides a simple and straightforward way to find out more.

Google has unveiled Google Slides for Android 1.0 and Google Slides iOS 1.0.0, new apps for accessing and editing presentations while on the move.

Both apps provide users with an option for downloading presentations to their devices for editing and viewing while offline. The iOS version is accompanied by updates to both Google Docs for iOS and Google Sheets for iOS that allow users to edit Word and Excel files.

YEd Graph Editor is an interesting free diagram designer with some unusual features.

The core interface works much like many similar applications. You’ll choose your symbols from a palette (flowchart, UML, ERD, BPNM, network, computer, more), drag and drop whatever you need onto the page, and position them as you like. Symbols may then be customized with text, colors, URLs and more, before you join them up with lines to represent your structure or ideas.

Shape Collage is a photo collage tool with a difference. You're not restricted to creating collages with the standard rectangle or "pile of photos" look: they can use whatever shape you like.

The free-for-personal-use program crams a lot of functionality into a single window, but smart interface design means it's still very easy to use. Click the "Add" button, choose a few photos (local, from your online accounts or a general internet search), click "Create" and that's it: your first collage.

UK developers Techy Geeks Home has released Ultimate Settings Panel 1.0, a brand new collection of shortcuts to key system Control Panels and other tools for Windows users.

Version 1.0 offers easy access to key Windows shortcuts as well as useful management utilities for Microsoft Outlook 2010, System Configuration 2007 and System Configuration 2012. More categories are promised in future versions.

Argente Utilities is a one-stop PC maintenance suite with tools to clean, optimize, repair and generally improve your system's speed and reliability.

It's a relatively lightweight, portable package, arriving as a 7.5MB zip file, and there's no adware or similar hassles: just a gentle "donate" screen which you can dismiss forever with a click.

MultiHasher is a very well-designed file hash calculator which comes packed with essential features and functionality.

The good news starts with the download. It’s free, a compact 2.75MB and entirely portable, just unzip and run.

For anyone looking to stay anonymous online, Tor seems like an obvious option. At the same time, it could lull users into a false sense of security -- after all, this is a network that was, at least in the past, funded by the military and US government -- and conspiracy theories abound that Tor is nothing more than a honey trap to catch the kind of people who have a need for anonymity because of their nefarious activities. The network has evolved over the years and now agencies such as the NSA in the US and GCHQ in the UK are actively seeking out vulnerabilities so they can crack the network. But the relationships are actually far more complex than that.

According to Andrew Lewman, chief of operations at Tor, the same agencies that are trying to break Tor are also posting tips anonymously about the vulnerabilities that have been found -- giving a chance for them to be patched. Talking to the BBC Lewman said:

John Haller’s PortableApps.com has announced the release of PortableApps.com Platform 12, a major update for the all-in-one app manager.

Right-clicking the Platform system tray icon now displays a cascading menu containing all your apps, links to system folders, Backup/ Restore/ Eject functions and more.

PhotoWand is a free photo effects app for Windows 8. It’s not going to compete with the desktop equivalents any time soon, but there’s more than enough power here to make it genuinely useful.

There are simple and practical tools to improve your photos, for instance, including a crop function, blur and sharpen filters, and adjustments for hue, saturation, brightness and contrast.

There are thousands of image viewers available for Windows, and the chances are you already have more than you need. Does the free Honeyview have anything to make it worth a download? Let’s see.

One immediate plus is that the program comes from Bandisoft, developer of the excellent free archiver Bandizip, and a firm that knows exactly what it's doing.

The Linux desktop community has reached a sad state. Ubuntu 14.04 was a disappointing release and Fedora is taking way too long between releases. Hell, OpenSUSE is an overall disaster. It is hard to recommend any Linux-based operating system beyond Mint. Even the popular KDE plasma environment and its associated programs are in a transition phase, moving from 4.x to 5.x. As exciting as KDE 5 may be, it is still not ready for prime-time; it is recommended to stay with 4 for now.

In the midst of disappointing releases from the big names, relative newcomer KaOS keeps plugging away and focusing on getting better and being on the forefront of all things KDE. Today, KaOS 2014.08 is made available and it looks amazing. The exciting news is that KDE 4.14.0 is present, making it very modern and stable.

Auslogics has released Auslogics Browser Care 2.0, a major new version of its Windows browser management tool that’s aimed at novices.

Version 2.0 adds a new system health scanner tool, promises better handling of Chrome, Firefox and IE plugins, fixes all known bugs and implements an improved browser cache cleanup feature.

Antivirus software installations are often complex, involving many low-level alterations to your PC and its settings. Sometimes they don’t work as they should -- or the regular uninstaller fails to remove them completely -- and this can leave you with all kinds of frustrating problems and system instabilities.

Security vendors often have stand-alone tools to properly remove and clean up after their products. A quick web search should point you in the right direction, but if you’re regularly cleaning up other people’s PCs then the free Antivirus Remover could save you a little time.

Emsisoft has released Emsisoft Emergency Kit 9, a major new build of its portable malware cleaning toolkit for Windows PCs. The new build jumps from version 4 to 9, which brings its version numbering into sync with the main Emsisoft Anti-Malware line of products.

Version 9 promises a simpler, more user-friendly user interface, faster scans and improved detection, clearer log entries and a new Pro license for use in a commercial environment.