MobileRated

For all of you people who seem to always have a few minutes here and there to kill then check out a website called MobileRated. It has games and other downloads for your phone.

Download free mobile phone games & apps to your cell phone. MobileRated is your free and legalprovider of Java games, puzzles, trivia, productivity apps and other phone applications. Getting free mobile games & apps has never been easier.

Get Free Mobile Phone Software in 3 Steps

1. Select your mobile cellular phone, handheld, or PDA.
2. Browse or search by game or app name & category.
3. Download our free mobile phone software.

From the looks of it there seems to be a lot of cool downloads on their website. Check it out for yourself and see if there is anything you find interesting.

Link: MobileRated

Windows Media Components for QuickTime

Something handy for all of you Mac users out there is the ability to play Windows Media Player files in QuickTime. This is a great extension for Mac users who prefer to use QuickTime as the default media player. Here is a brief description from the download page over at Microsoft:

With Windows Media® Components for QuickTime, by Flip4Mac™, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser.

The extension will work on Mac OSX and QuickTime 7 or higher. The author of the extension also offers many different packages and features from their website. Check it out if this sounds useful to you.

Download: Windows Media Components for QuickTime

aTunes

No, before you say anything I did not spell iTunes wrong. There is actually a program out there called aTunes that is an iTunes look-alike for the most part. It is a completely open source alternative to iTunes that is definitely worth a look at if having Apple take over your computer is not your style.

aTunes is a full-featured audio player and manager, developed in Java programming language, so it can be executed on different platforms: Windows, Linux and Unix-like systems, …

Currently plays mp3, ogg, wma, wav, flac, mp4 and radio streaming, allowing users to easily edit tags, organize music and rip Audio CDs.

The nice thing I notice from the screenshots of this program is the similar look it has to iTunes. Of course its not going to be 100% similar but gets pretty close. It does sound like from their website that version 2 will be coming out in the near future. If you are looking for an alternative music player or are just wanting to get rid of iTunes or Windows Media Player for something different then check out aTunes and leave some feedback about it below.

Download: aTunes

TrayEverything

There are sometimes programs that you need to have open most of the time but don’t want them on your taskbar. A good example might be that history paper you are working on as you think of ideas while you are using your computer complete your other homework or personal work. A good way to keep your taskbar less cluttered is by using a program called TrayEverything.

Have you ever found your toolbar full of programs, and asked yourself why a program doesn’t disappear into the tray? Or, have you ever wanted a program to disappear, becoming invisible to everyone except you?

Thanks to TrayEverything this can be done with two simple clicks! The main window shows a list of the currently opened programs with their associated windows, from which you can minimize to tray every window. You can also choose not to show any icon in the system tray, and to hide the selected window with a password, to keep your "work" secret!

Features

• You can minimize to tray ANY window
• You can completely hide the window, that is, no icon in the tray
• You can hide the window and protect it with a password
• You can group icons of the same application in one single icon – let’s not overfill the tray too!
• You have FIVE different ways to minimize an application into tray:
  • Double click on the window’s caption in the TrayEverything main window
  • TrayEverything can add a new button in the title bar of each window to minimize it
  • TrayEverything can catch the click on the minimize button of the window and minimize it – no buttons added to the title bar
  • You can choose an hotkey to minimize windows with a single key press
  • Or you can let the application go by itself in the tray with the Autominimize feature – inactive windows will be autominimized by TrayEverything
• The program has a built-in update engine
• English, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Chinese and Czech languages available
• This program has been created using WinAPIs – no MFC!
• Compatible with Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP – Not tested with Vista
• Completely freeware

I can see this program helping people that run many programs at once keep their taskbar free of clutter. As for me I’m not usually running that many programs all at the same time. And since I have been using an application dock for my desktop as of late (I will talk about some of these in the future) there is an option to minimize windows to the dock.

TrayEverything is an application worth a look at if this seems like it could be useful for you. When I get some time here in the future I’m going to give this program a test drive and see how it works. But in the mean time go ahead and give it a try if it sounds helpful and leave some feedback in the comments.

Download: TrayEverything

How to Install a Program from an ISO File

Yesterday I passed along an email from PCMech.com about archiving your install CDs and DVDs. But what if you were wanting to install your programs from those ISO files you created? Well it can be done and here’s how:

Yesterday I posted about archiving CD/DVDs to your hard drive for easy access and distribution. So now, what if you want to install from one of these? With the use of a tool I have referenced in the past, Virtual Clone Drive, here are simple instructions for installing from an ISO.

Note: These instructions are intended to read by end users I distribute the zip file containing the ISO file (and serial number if needed). I thought this would be the easiest way to write the how to.

1. Download and install Virtual Clone Drive.
2. Extract the ISO file from the zip file to your desktop. Note: If a serial number is needed, a text file will be included in this zip file.
3. Open My Computer and select the Virtual Clone Drive (it will look like a sheep). Right-click it and go to Virtual Clone Drive > Mount.
4. Browse to and select the ISO you extracted from step 2.
5. You can now access the CD from the Virtual Clone Drive like you would from a normal CD drive.
6. Install the program.
7. Once finished, select the Virtual Clone Drive in My Computer. Right-click it and go to Virtual Clone Drive > Unmount to ‘eject’ the CD.
8. You can now delete the ISO file.

This method is a quick and easy way to install programs without having the CD handy.

This is definitely a handy thing to remember if you misplaced the install CD or DVD for a program but do have a copy of the archive. I can see myself using this in the future for installing programs. Thanks to Jason Faulkner over at PCMech.com for sharing these two tips with us.

Archive Install CDs/DVDs to Your Hard Drive

I received an email with a tip from PCMech.com back in May about backing up your installation media in case of disc failure. This is a problem that I have had happen a few times but not very often. Take a look:

As you have probably read many times on this siteoptical media (i.e. CD and DVDs), while reliable and cheap, doesn’t last forever. Because of this, it is a good idea to create copies of your optical media, particularly install CDs to your hard drive. The best choice for archiving these is to use ISO files.

In addition to having a backup you can burn to CD at any time, you can also install directly from the ISO file instead of having to dig for the original media.

One thing I do at work is create an ISO file of all our CD/DVDs and if there is a serial number you need to enter, I create a file named ’serial.txt’ and put in the appropriate information. I then create a zip file (using 7-Zip with maximum compression) of the two and store them. This allows me to distribute the program easily to offsite users without having to burn and mail CDs.

Now Jason mentions making copies of your install CDs and DVDs to your hard drive in the form of ISO files. Now this is definitely a good thing to do but I would suggest trying to keep them separate from the hard drive that your windows partition is installed on. For a few archived install disks that’s fine but if you have many like me you might want to purchase an external hard drive to store all of them. This way if something happens to your computer all of your archives are not lost and are store in a safe place.

A large sized flash drive could also work for  this nowadays due to the relatively cheap cost of flash memory. However you archive your install discs is totally up to you but definitely a good idea.

Lightscreen

Since I have started this blog some of my longer posts have used screenshots to show the programs various features and functions. A good example of this would be when I covered Google Chrome when it first came out about a year ago. It was in beta at the time and there was lots of hype about this browser in the technology community and was able to find good screenshots of the program in action. But this is not always the case. Sometimes its required for you to create your own screenshots and a good tool to get this done is Lightscreen.

Lightscreen is a simple tool to automate the tedious process of saving and cataloging screenshots, it operates as a hidden background process that is invoked with one (or multiple) hotkeys and then saves a screenshot file to disk according to the user’s preferences.

Main Features

• Can execute at Windows startup (hidden or displaying the main window).
• System tray icon for easy access.
• Five configurable actions, each with it’s own hotkey (screen, window, area, etc).
• Multiple image formats (PNG, JPEG, etc) and image quality selector.
• A notification when the screenshot is taken.
• Screenshot delay.

Now I know that this isn’t a program that everyone is going to use but is something that could be useful for some people. Let’s say you have a friend who is struggling with something on their computer and they come to you for help. What makes it even worse is that they live a long distance from where you do so you are unable to physically visit them. Well you can use this tool to take screenshots of you going through the steps on your computer then email them to your friend. Of course you would want to add captions to the pictures in your email but this would be a good use for Lightscreen.

There are other reason why you might use Lightscreen to take screenshots of your computer but this could be one of them. Hopefully in the near future I will give Lightscreen a test drive and most of my blog posts (especially the larger, more detailed ones) will have more pictures added allowing me to show more details. In the meantime if this sound like a useful program go ahead and give it a try and comment about what you use if for.

Download: Lightscreen

ArsClip

As a person that uses a computer almost all the time one of the most helpful features is copy and paste (or cut and paste). But one of the things that I find quite annoying is when you need to keep many things on the clipboard at one time. The clipboard is a part of windows that will store all the information you cut or copy to it. But once you cut or copy something else the previous thing will be replaced by the newer selection. To help manage your clipboard check out this piece of freeware called ArsClip.

ArsClip is a FREE (freeware) utility for the windows clipboard. ArsClip monitors the clipboard and keeps track of the entries. Press a configurable hotkey and select an item (or items) to quickly paste into a program.

ArsClip used to be barebonez, but I think I can safely say that it has become a nicely featured program (due to user requests for changes). ArsClip remembers the last 15 (default) or more text entries entered into the Window’s clipboard and can be configured to monitor non-text items. Delphi 6 (Personal) source code is included – modify it freely for any non-profit use. NOTE: The newer versions are compiled with Turbo Delphi for Win32 (also a free download).

One thing that I would like to point out is that it will work from Windows 98 to Windows Vista as stated on their website. Something to keep in mind right now is that for most software (keep in mind most) if it says it will work in Windows Vista it should run without problem in Windows 7. I have had the Release Candidate of Windows 7 tell me on occasion that some of my computer game would not run properly but have had no problems related to the warning.

I am getting ready to try out ArsClip soon on my laptop with Windows 7 and I’ll see how it goes. I’m expecting no problems and hopefully it will help me be more productive. If you seem to be using copy and paste frequently throughout the day or when your on the computer quite often then check out ArsClip and leave some feedback in the comments.

Download: ArsClip

Graphical Disk Usage Utility

Something that can be quite handy to have is a graphical disk usage utility. This is a great way in figuring out which files or folders are sucking up all of your disk space. A good open source disk utility that you can use is KDirStat for Linux and WinDirStat for Windows.

The program gives you a graphical representation of what files and folders are taking up your disk space. The bigger sized boxes are files or folders that are using more space and the smaller ones are using not as much. If you click on the respective box it will take you to the file or folder that is in association with that box. This tool can be quite useful when you are cleaning up disk space on your computer. Give it a good look if this sounds like it could be helpful.

Vista Start Menu

A nice handy utility that exists out there for windows users is a tool called Vista Start Menu. Now your probably thinking "Does this make my Windows XP start menu look like the one in Vista?" Wrong! The tool works for Windows XP, Vista, and the new Windows 7 and is a start menu replacement but does not look like the one in Vista or 7.

Vista Start Menu is the convenient alternative to the plain Start menu you find in Windows XP and Windows Vista. The program uses your cognitive abilities (visual memory, reflexes,etc.); however, while it is easily understandable for beginners, it is also highly efficient for experienced users.

I have used Vista Start Menu in the past and found it to be a great replacement for your start menu and can help you work faster. But at the time when I was using the tool it just didn’t seem to fit into my daily routine. I am going to be giving it another try here in the future and I will see how it goes. Overall it is a great tool and one that I would highly recommend to anyone who is trying to be more productive when using the computer.

Download: Vista Start Menu