Month: January 2010

Today’s downloads for Windows, Mac and Mobile

Unlocker PortableWindows: Deleting a file from your computer may not be as easy as it seems. Sometimes you get an error message telling you that the file is being used by another application and can’t be erased. What’s the solution then? The solution is called Unlocker Portable: a simple tool that lets you get rid of those stubborn files that can’t be deleted in the standard way.

VMWare FusionMac: The ability to run Windows on Macs has massively increased the reach and popularity of Apple computers. VMWare Fusion allows you to run Windows through its clean and intuitive Cocoa-native interface that Mac users will be familiar with. It allows you to launch your Windows applications from the Dock and switch between Windows and Mac applications using Expose.

Link4iPhone: If you think you’re a bit tasty at Connect 4 then check out Link4 Online and test your skills against other players from around the planet. It’s very easy to get into Link4 Online, and you don’t even need a user account if you don’t want one. Simply launch the app, hit the ‘Play Link4’ button and an online opponent will be found for you.

How to digitize your comics (or other paper media!)

If you’re a fan of comics, and can’t bear to be away from your favorites when you’re on the move, a neat option is to digitize them, and use a comic book reader on your laptop or netbook . This method will work for anything you can scan, like books and magazines too.

Digitizing unfortunately means scanning comics manually, but the rest of the process is easy, and dedicated comic book readers are much better than traditional image viewers.

There’s no way to make scanning enjoyable, but bear these factors in mind when doing so:

– Save images as JPEG files,

– Save them in a dedicated folder for that comic and name them numerically (001, 002 etc)

– Make sure you are scanning the pages the same way up throughout – while you can sort that out later, it’s much faster if you don’t have to!

Once you have your folder full of numbered JPEG images, it’s necessary to compress it. With a Mac, simply Ctrl + click to bring up a menu, where ‘compress’ is an option. In Windows, use a compression application like IZArc or 7-Zip. Choose either RAR or ZIP format – no other compression format will do!

To get a dedicated comic book reader file, simply edit the file name. For a ZIP file, go from ‘comic.zip’ to ‘comic.cbz’, for a RAR file ‘comic.rar’ to ‘comic.cbr’. CBR and CBZ are compressed formats comic book readers will work with.

Choose a  reader – there are a variety, though I like the open source and cross platform Comical, and Mac only Sequential best. Both make flicking through your digital comics really easy, and they’re quick and responsive too. It’s not the same as reading from paper, but it means you can keep your comics safe at home while you’re not there.

Quicken for Mac due in February but may disappoint

Quicken for MacThose who have made a new year resolution to keep their finances in check this year will be pleased to hear that Quicken for Mac 2010 is due for release in February. The popular financial app, which allows you to track and monitor your finances, hasn’t been updated since 2007 and a revamp is long overdue. However, the app is likely is receive a frosty reception from disgruntled Mac users.

One problem with Quicken 2007 is that there are very few other financial apps that you can import data into meaning Quicken users have had no choice but to wait for the much delayed update. It is the decision to drop certain features though that may disappoint many.

Annoyingly, major features such as the ability to pay bills, store investment transaction history and export to TurboTax have been dropped in the 2010 version. It will however continue to import data from previous versions of Quicken including Quicken Windows.

If you’re one of those that’s had enough of Quicken or aren’t too happy about some of the changes that have been made, I suggest you try iBank which offers most of Quicken’s features with a much lower price tag. However, it won’t import data from Quicken and if this is a priority for you, try using Fortora Fresh Finance which can although it is a bit limited.