Category: News

Not only has NewsGator updated its line of products, but in a significant move, it has also decided to offer FeedDemon, NetNewsWire and NewsGator Go for free. The online service, which lets you get your news updates from anywhere will also be opened up to everyone.

The move comes at the right time, with Google Reader dominating the RSS market and having offered up a lot of updates recently, such as recommendations and sharing. As TechCrunch note, NewsGator had already secured $12 million of funding back in December, in a bid to keep its line of products competitive. The move towards freeware seems to be a way to grow the popularity of NewsGator apps even more, with revenue coming exclusively from sales of the NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES). Over on his blog, Nick Bradbury of NewsGator gives two reasons for going free: getting the brand known and getting more attention data from users. Greg Reinacker, founder of NewsGator, goes into the details a little further:

What we’re working to do is to saturate the market with our clients. Anyone who wants a rich experience for consuming content, or anyone who uses multiple computers or devices and wants a best-of-breed experience on each can now use our clients. Using a Mac at home, along with an iPhone? NetNewsWire and our iPhone reader will sync up. Have a PC at the office? FeedDemon will sync with your other two applications. And they’ll all sync with NewsGator Online. It all just works.

He promises big changes in the coming months both in the clients and online services offered by NewsGator. I personally think this is great news. NetNewsWire was my first RSS reader, but I ditched it for Google Reader because it wasn’t free. Now I may just consider reinstalling it on my Mac.

Photo site Flickr has teamed up with online editing site Picnik to add some really cool functionality to your Flickr account. From now on, you can easily perform simple edits on any photo in your account, just by clicking a new ‘Edit’ button that has appeared on single image view mode. The editing features, familiar to anyone who has already played around with Picnik, are fairly basic like adjusting colour temperature, contrast, cropping, resizing and so on. But there is also a premium mode which allows for more artistic range of effects and frames which unfortunately is only available to Picnik premium members (not Flickr Pro account holders).

For those who haven’t tried Picnik before, it’s really a joy to use. Responsive, quick, effective and packed with tips and advice, it was probably already the best of the free online photo editors before teaming up with Flickr. The best comparison I can think of is the controls in Picasa for Windows or iPhoto on Mac: simple and intuitive. If you’ve got a Flickr account, go and check out the new features now. If you haven’t, go and create one!

Being able to access the news from your mobile is great, but it’s even better if you have an RSS reader so you don’t need to sift through lots of slow-loading sites to find the content you want to read. Simply install NewsCopier and you’ll get access to the latest headlines on your Windows Mobile via RSS.

Hungry for news from the biggest American newspapers? iActu USA can show you headlines for major national news sites like the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal in a sexy little widget. Whether it’s main stories, or special sections like sports or cooking, iActu USA will display all the latest news in clear lists. If you buy the full version you’ll also be able to print and zoom in on stories.

Sapiens is an application launcher that gives you quick access to anything on your Mac. The program exercises your memory by arranging applications in a certain way, which you’ll become accustomed to the more you use the program. It offers five different interface layouts and a handy “find as you type” feature to make any application reachable within seconds.

After a few months of invite-only beta testing, Joost has finally launched its first public version. Though still labeled as beta, Joost 1.0 features important new features such as new sign up and login modules, and a fully revamped user interface. But above all, we were excited to see loads of new content. So what are you waiting for? Join the future of television now!

It seems like only yesterday that we, the crew of the good ship Softonic English set sail on our quest for the very best software downloads on the world wide web. Now, nearly two years later, Softonic is delighted to announce the launch of its latest mission: Softonic en Français.

Dedicated to just the same editorial independence and critical analysis as Softonic Español, Deutsch and English, the French site is packed with software reviews and downloads for Francophones from all over the world.

Félicitations à l’équipe française! To all our French-speaking visitors, please check out the new site and let us – and the French team – know what you think!

If you share your PC with other people, then there’s nothing more annoying than finding new programs installed or old ones removed. What’s more, it’s even worse when you find out that someone has been filling valuable space on your hard drive with their own downloads or files.

If you’re not a network administrator then the only way to stop this is to install access prevention software. In the case of unauthorised installations and hard drive use, the best solution is Public Access Desktop which prevents users having any access to Window’s major control panel components. It also prevents them from adding or removing files from your system without permission. This ‘locked mode’ can be configured to activate at a certain time of day or when a specific user logs on. The only way to unlock it is via an admin password. The unlock dialogue can be triggered in three ways – through a specified hotkey, a combination of keys or double clicking on the toolbar at the base of the screen.

Cybercafe owners will be particularly impressed by Public Access Desktop as it allows you to set a time limit on how long users are able to use a terminal before it automatically shuts down. This is also useful for worried parents who want to ensure their kids are not using the family PC after a certain time.