Everything you need to know about wallpapers

Wallpaper appsWallpapers are more than just the image you use as background for your Windows desktop. They often express your personality and current mood, as well as your particular interest in something: an animal, a movie, a famous singer or actress. Also, not all photographs are suitable to be used as wallpapers. They must have some blank areas to place shortcut icons without distorting the original design.

Here at Softonic you’ll find a good bunch of wallpapers, along with software tools that have been specifically designed for them. You can download individual wallpapers – like two of our current Top ranked, Adriana Lima and David Beckham – or packs of images, so that you have a wider choice. VistaMizer Windows Vista Wallpaper Pack is one of them.

If you haven’t found anything to suite your taste yet, then you should probably look for more wallpapers on the web. Fortunately there are apps that can do this job for you, like Webshots and Magentic, both of which offer complete wallpaper galleries organized by categories. Another option is Pic-a-POD, with which you can get the Picture of the Day from various websites.

Once you have a good, varied collection of wallpapers, it’s time to show them off. Download any of our wallpaper managers, such as Walyk Wallpaper Changer or Wallpaper Master Pro, which will take care of organizing wallpapers and automatically changing them for you.

Top 5 portable e-mail clients

Portable e-mail logoFor those on the move, the advent of webmail – such as Gmail and Hotmail – has meant that standalone desktop clients have become increasingly unnecessary. However, if you’re a professional on the move, using a webmail account is not ideal particularly when it comes to questions of security. Fortunately, there are now several e-mail clients that can be taken anywhere on a USB stick. These usually require no installation – just plug-in and go. Here’s 5 of the best portable e-mail clients:

  • Koma-Mail – Simple client with an emphasis on security
  • KooMail – Comprehensive client which even features virtual folders
  • Surfulater – Designed to store web pages for later viewing but includes e-mail

GasLight – an impressive iTunes visualizer

GasLightGasLight is a highly customizable and beautiful visualizer for iTunes. We were really impressed by the range of colors, movements and shapes that it produced. Furthermore the application is simple to set up and works right inside your iTunes, syncing its movements and effects with your music. We recommend trying out the Autopilot function to run the visualizer.

Transfer your vinyl collection to MP3

Long live vinylI’ve just been reading that viynl may be the final nail in the CD’s coffin. Apparently the old plastic format is undergoing something of a resurgance among nostalgic music collectors. I’m a particular fan of the old 45s and 12″ and like to enjoy them when I’m at home. However, save for strapping a record player to your back it’s impossible to listen to LPs on the move. Fear not though, because there are a number of software solutions that allow you to commit your old vinyl to MP3.

Spin It Again is one of my personal favourites, because it makes the whole operation very simple and runs mighty fast. You need no technical knowledge as the the app walks you through the process of connecting your turntable or cassette player to your sound card. Handily, if there’s a piece of equipment you’re missing it will provide you with links to places where you can pick it up from.

The program automatically removes pops, clicks and tape hissing, helping you to get the best sound quality before finally recording to MP3, Ogg, WAV or WMA. Although it gets rid of many audio imperfections, if you want to completely clean things up then try a dedicated repair tool such as the impressive MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab. Together, we can preserve the future of this wonderful format!

Top applications for Diggers

DiggDigg, the community based website, can be quite addictive, especially when you start digging (rating) stories, leaving comments or just looking around for popular new stories. For users who may have never heard of Digg, it’s essentially a website that leaves editorial control to its users, where stories most voted for are brought to the top of the home page. Digg has been criticized for the excessive freedom it gives users and for the control some of the top diggers exert on which stories get at the top. Yet no one can deny the influence Digg has on the web and the importance of the site as a news source. Making the top of the Digg home page can literally take you from obscurity to extreme popularity in a few minutes.

Is there any way to monitor Digg from your desktop? You can install DiggUpdate, available both for PC and Mac, to monitor latest stories on Digg’s home page straight from your menu bar. Another way to follow Digg updates from your desktop, instead this time from your system tray, is by installing TechTray. Working essentially as a simplified RSS reader, TechTray can also bring you news from other big tech websites. Mac users should also set up the excellent Digg.com Dashboard widget. You can choose which of the 17 categories you want to follow, and see stories that have been dugg, submitted or made the front page. Last but not least, Digg-a-meter, claims to calculate your chances of reaching the Digg home page by analyzing your headline and article summary. Not a proven formula though, so don’t get your hopes up too high.

Top 10 vintage games emulators

MAME logoIf you spent many hours of youth in games arcades or sat behind a games console, you’ll probably occasionally long for those days of poor graphics but great playability. I trashed my Amiga a long time ago but I sometimes get wistful for games such as Kick Off 2, Speedball and Sensible Soccer. When I do, I use an emulator which basically allows you to play old skool games based on their ROM files. Here’s a selection of Softonic’s top 10.

  • Project 64 – Relive all your favourite Nintendo 64 games
  • Mame32 – Emulates games from various consoles
  • iDeaS – Simple Nintendo DS emulator
  • VisualBoyAdvance – Gameboy games in your hands again
  • PCSX2 – Play Playstation games on your PC
  • MyEmulator.Online – All kinds of emulators
  • 1964 – Alternative Nintendo 64 emulator
  • Console Classix – Play hundreds of Sega and Nintendo games
  • Reddit – Emulation subreddit
  • Emulator Zone – Emulator for  classic console games
  • ScummVM – Emulator designed for games based on Lucas Arts films
  • Yabause – Relive those Sega Saturn console classics
  • SainT – Atari ST and Atari console emulator

The creepiest, scariest software for Halloween

Dear Softonic users,

As the shadows lengthen and the leaves fall, the spookiest time of year is upon us yet again. That’s right: it’s Halloween this Wednesday so to celebrate, we’ve gathered the ghostliest, most terrifying and weirdest games, wallpapers and themes into one handy newsletter.

Elena got things rolling with her post covering the scariest games on Softonic. She selected eight games guaranteed to send shivers down your spine, including this week’s game of the week, the terrifying Jericho. Meanwhile, James hunted down the best Halloween wallpapers, themes and screensavers. Reader Amelia felt that his selection wasn’t very scary at all: what do you think?

If, like me, you’re more of a murder mystery fan, you’ll enjoy Nick’s post about the best mystery-busting games. From classic Agatha Christie to the more modern Murder Death Kill, there’s something for everyone. He also had time to take a look at the special Halloween version of PacMan, entitled PacDoom III. Filled with interesting new features and spooky settings, your mission is to help PacMan get to his Halloween party on time.

For those who aren’t big fans of Halloween or scary stuff in general, have no fear! James kindly picked out the loveliest, cutest and most cuddly games for people who’d rather snuggle up by the fireplace than dress up as a zombie with shower curtain for a cape. Check out his post and you’ll cheer up in no time.

Until next week – don’t have nightmares!

Take and edit screenshots in Firefox

Fireshot extensionIf you need to take a screenshot of a webpage in Firefox, there’s no need to use third-party applications. Get this extension and you’ll be able to capture any webpage with a single click. What’s more, Fireshot features a basic editor to add text, shapes, arrows and many other effects to your captured web images, plus sending them by e-mail directly from its interface.

Five quick Safari power-ups

Add more power to SafariIn my opinion, Safari is the best browser for the Mac, and the stable release of version 3.0 that ships with  Leopard provides one of the slickest web navigation experiences ever. Like all things though, there’s always room for improvements, and thanks to Safari’s extensibility it’s possible to fine-tune the browser with some powerful modifications. Here are some tools for instantly supercharging Safari:

  • Quicker tab launching – Tabbed browsing has become the norm among all browsers these days, but the system could still be quicker in many cases. Twicetab is a simple Safari plug-in which allows you to create a new tab by double clicking into the tab region of the app.
  • More search channels – Installing AcidSearch is like feeding steroids to your Safari search bar. Not only does this plug-in include loads of extra search channels for specific topics like Mac or shopping, it also lets you add and reorganize channels via Javascripts.
  • Browse your history visually – Fed up with wading through lists of URLs to try and find that cool site you visited yesterday? Get hold of h(i)Storyboard and you can view your visited sites visually, making things much easier.
  • Hide X-rated content – Isn’t it always the way that the moment you load a page that throws naughty banner ads or lewd pop-ups at you, your boss or your partner is sure to walk over. Prevent this from happening again by installing CutX for Safari, which can block this type of content.
  • Auto-convert video to iPod – Cosmopod is a Safari add-on designed to help you download and convert video from the Internet to your iPod in a single click. This allows you to immediately pick and convert videos you like from the web and have them ready to take with you and watch on your iPod when you’re on the go.