Archive for: Software
OESIS OK presented an interesting report about antivirus software and their current market share. Within this report some important, and some surprising, facts were revealed. Take a look.
This is the report regarding most used security applications:
OESIS OK presents as a company for “Antivirus interoperability certification software testing”, that means they are continuously evaluating the antivirus market share and the possibilities behind it. Here are some of the quick facts about this report:
- 42% of antivirus and security tools installed are freeware. They say “It would appear that end users have as much faith in the ability of free antivirus applications to keep them secure as they do paid antivirus”.
- Avast Free is the most popular application with 11.45%.
- The list of free antivirus and applications completes with: Avira Antivir Personal (9.19%); AVG Free (8.6%) and fourth Microsoft Security Essentials with (7.48%).
- Regarding paid applications: Avast with 5.54%; Kaspersky with 4.48%; Norton with 4.24% and finally ESET NOD32 with 3.84%
A PDF version of the complete report can be found here.
This is also the graph of the distribution of the market share regarding vendors:
Not too long ago the Blackberry Desktop Manager was leaked and now RIM has decided to counter this by placing up some 6.0 screenshots. The Blackberry Desktop Manageris now available as a limited beta release in the Blackberry Beta Zone.
Below are the screenshots of the Blackberry Desktop Manager 6.0. The user interface looks a lot better and it seems to resemble the Mac version. If you’re looking to get in on BDM 6.0, head over to the BlackBerry Beta Zone and see if you are eligible to try it out.
Watching movies online has never been more popular, and previously here on Crenk we have review so many sites trying to get user eyeballs. Today we have come across yet another great movie links site which is called Watch Movies.
After looking to their directory they seem to have a great list of new and old movies in pretty much every genre possible. All you need to do is search their database for the movie or movies you want to watch and then they provide a very simple link in which you can click and download your movie, its that simple!
Im not entirely sure how legal this site is, plus when you go to download your movie you need a special piece of software. This is all provided for free but is a lot more annoying then just heading to Hulu and seeing if they have the same movie.
It seems like Watch Movies and Movies Links are pretty much exactly the same site and probably owned by the same guy.
Windows, Mac, Linux and even Firefox offer more now than ever before in terms of software pre-installed and ready to make your life easier and the experience on a computer better. While each newer version offers more, sometimes it’s not enough to really make your computer experience as smooth or fulfilling as it could be. Here’s 20 apps you probably never heard of that will help make using your computer more efficient, fun and better.
Sapiens (Mac) – Probably the most intuitive apple launcher I’ve ever used, Sapiens is accessed from either a circular motion from your mouse / touchpad or a keyboard shortcut and actually learns which programs you use the most and anticipates what you’ll need. Sadly, it’s still not working with 10.6.
SuperDuper! (Mac) – The easiest way I’ve ever cloned a hard drive, ever. Want to upgrade to a larger hard drive in your Mac, get SuperDuper, connect the new hard drive via an SATA to USB adapter, run it. Pull the existing hard drive and replace with the new one and turn the power on. Brilliant!
PixelStick (Mac) – If you do web design or web graphics, PixelStick is an amazing little app to measure distance and angles on the screen. I can’t tell you how often I use this for laying out sites, creating banner ads and doing alignments of web graphics.
Paparazzi! (Mac) - A small and unobtrusive app for taking screenshots of web pages.
XXCLONE (Windows) – The Windows version of SuperDuper! and it does an excellent job of cloning hard drives.
CutePDF (Windows) – Create PDF files from any printable document, for free!
EASEUS Partition Master (Windows) – Create partitions, resize, format and merge on nearly all Windows platforms, for free!
SpinRite (Windows) – Hard drives aren’t perfect, when you need to do maintenance on them or recover data, SpinRite can help.
PhotoRec (Windows / Mac / Linux) – If you’ve ever formatted the memory card in your digital camera by accident, PhotoRec will be worth it’s weight in gold. Best photo recovery tool ever, and it’s free!
DVD Flick (Windows) – Convert nearly any video file into a playable DVD.
Mac The Ripper (Mac) – Quickly and easily rip any DVD movie to your hard drive. This application is great if you travel a lot and need to extend the battery life between charges. Using your built in DVD slot consumes far more battery juice compared to playing a movie from your hard drive.
HandBrake (Mac / Windows / Linux) - An open source video transcoder for all platforms, you can now extract video or audio or both from any video source and convert it into nearly any other source.
Vixy (Mac / Windows) – Vixy is an online service to rip YouTube videos to your hard drive, but the site can be somewhat unstable due to high traffic. To resolve this problem they’ve released the desktop app. Still in Beta with a few quirks, the options to save as .avi, .mov or just extract the audio as .mp3 are nice.
Pidgin (Mac / Windows / Linux) – Possibly one of the best chat clients available that loads nearly all formats of chat available, from AIM to Gtalk, Facebook to Yahoo.
FireBug (Firefox) An add-on for Firefox, FireBug is essential for anyone who does web design to quickly and efficiently track down errors with web page development.
SciTE (Windows) – Based on the Scintilla text editor, SciTE has extensions built in. This is hands down one of the best text editors available, and it’s free!
Audacity (Mac) – Going further than GarageBand, Audacity gives you a level of fine tuning and editing that is second to none. This open-source project is also free!
FireFTP (Firefox) – If you need to FTP data, chances are you probably already have a web browser open, so why not do it right in Firefox? FireFTP is a small add-on that is simple to use and provide rock solid stability.
Keyfinder (Windows) – This tiny little app does one thing, sniffs out the product key of nearly any version of Windows. Very helpful when you need to reinstall the operating system but the sticker has been scratched or worn off the case.
Foxit (Windows / Linux / Firefox) – Simply the fastest PDF reader I’ve ever used, period. Uninstall Acrobat reader and install this free PDF reader, period.
AnalyzePal it’s a free application that collects all of your PayPal transactions and generates some really nice stats and graphics, where you can check your historical virtual businesses connections.
PayPal has become one of the main tools that any webmaster, blogger and several web users could have in their virtual and real life. With eBay as one of the largest sites supporting PayPal, the “virtual money” has a different meaning and use.
AnalyzePal it’s an Adobe-AIR application that could be really helpful for you, which will let you analyze in detail your transactions in (using the free version) the last three months, where you can also export the data to a PDF.
One important disclaimer is that AnalyzePal does not connect to your PayPal account to retrieve the information, the input works with the logs you can download from your PayPal home page. That feature avoids any suspect that the tool could recollect some private information about the users and their transactions.
Other possibilities to use AnalyzePal are the Pro (U$S99) and Business (U$S199) versions, that have some improvements in the reporting area and other options. More info about versions here.
TypeFace allows you to make your very own font using your face. Basically, the program uses a camera as an input tool to scan your face. Then, your face is analysed for specific features, lines, curves and angles. This is all then computer and a font is designed specifically for you. Like your very own font fingerprint!
It has been made my Mary Huang and it has some cool features. For example, you can edit and distort your face to change up your font and select what area of your face you want to use if you don’t want to use all of it. You can also make TypeFace books like the one pictured above from all the different fonts of your friends and family.
Yesterday, I did my first screencast for my personal blog. Prior to making it, I had to choose a screencasting program. I wasn’t to fussed about paying a few bucks for something that’s good, but would have liked to get a free program too. That’s when myself and Jing crossed paths. Without a doubt this is the best screen casting program I have used. What’s more there is both a free version and a pro version.
The download is quick and simple. As is the program. Here’s how it works. There will be a small ‘sun’ around the edge of your screen while the program is running. Once you have clicked on this sun you then have to drag your mouse and select what portion of the screen you want to record. You can either select it all or any specific area. Then you have to choose whether you want a screenshot or a video. I selected video. Then, the program locates a microphone connected to your system and does a countdown to the beginning of recording. And just like that you can record a screencast for up to five minutes.
You then sign into your account at Screencast.com (owned by Jing) and upload the video. From here you can share and embed it
But that’s just the free version.
The pro-version offers:
- Unlimited recording time
- The ability to record from your webcam and switch back and forth
- Receive the video in .MP4 format
- Instant upload to YouTube
- Only 13 Euro per year
Overall, I found this to be an amazing product which is well worth the 13 euro price tag. It’s easy, quick, simple and very good at capturing high resolution video on the fly. A must for any tech podcaster.
Here is our list of the top sites to use when you want to watch asian movies online for free without having to download any software.
1. Asian Horror Movies
Asian Horror Movies is neat and friendly website that allows you to watch Asian Horror movies online for free. You can watch it directly on the website’s online player only as it does not give you the option of downloading a movie. The website also gives you a list of A-Z Asian horror movies that you can choose from. The movies that are available on the website also have a small synopsis about the movie so that you get an idea of what the movie is about before watching it.
2. Drama Freak
Drama freak allows you to watch Asian movies and dramas of various genres online for free. This website doesn’t give you the option of downloading stuff but only watch it on the website’s online player. You get a long list of movies and dramas that you can choose and watch from. Movies and dramas have a small description about them so that get a hang of the movie or drama before you watch. You have options of watching movies and dramas of various languages like Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese.
3. My Soju
My Soju provides you with links to watch Korean , Japanese and Taiwanese movies and dramas online for free. This website also does not allow you to download movies but only watch them online on the website’s player. Movies and dramas on this website are rated on a five star basis that helps you choose the drama or movie you want to see better. A short synopsis is also given for every movie and drama available on the website.
4. Youku
Youku is the China’s first video website. It offers a wide range of videos and media to choose from like music, Tv shows, reality shows, movies, news and lots more for free. Its more of a video sharing website. The website is in Chinese but you can Google’s translator to translate the website. This is an excellent website to visit and view all kind of Chinese videos.
5. Kung Fu Flicks
Kung Fu Flicks dedicates itself to offer only Kung Fu movies. It gives you an A-Z list of Kung Fu movies to choose and watch from for free. A short description of every movie is also provided to know more about the movie before you watch it. The movies are updated frequently and the site is very neatly laid out. The website allows you to watch the movies on its online web player and does not let you download it.
For many writers, the main problem when using a computer is the endless amounts of distractions that come along with them. At least I know it was for me. Even if I was just using Word I’d find myself focusing more on formatting, fonts and colours rather than actually getting the word out. However, since I started using Q10 my productivity has almost doubled.
Q10 is a basic word processor that looks like it’s from the early 80s. Just a black screen with basic text when you type. You can also have the noise of a typewriter as you type which I find gets the momentum going.
You can change the colour setting for the text.
There are other benefits to using this program a well. Firstly, it’s better for your eyes as there is less light to process and the text is easier to read. Also, if you’re using a laptop, because much of your screen is black you batter is spared enormously. How much power do you waste while using a word processor to light up 95% of your screen white?
You can get Q10 here.
Since this is a tech blog, there’s a good chance most readers know that their Domain Name System is what compares the typed URL of a website against the IP number of a given website. http://crenk.com, for example translates to 954.236.55.186 on your DNS, which then points your browser to the right place. This checking process has to happen before the page you’ve requested starts downloading, a process that generally takes a fraction of a second.
Google has decided that this fraction of a second is too long for it’s valuable customers to wait, and is now providing its own publicly available DNS. You can change your network settings to point at their service from the one that your ISP uses. Should you bother? Only if your network is making thousands of lookups a minute. For domestic use the 0.01 of a second that switching DNS could save you is largely irrelevant, but if your network is dealing with hundreds of thousands of lookups, as in a big office building or other massive corporate environment, then you could significantly reduce the wait time for your network, which might filter down enough to be appreciable by individual users on your system.
Of course, google will then know every single page that every single user on your system uses, an information gathering facility which is more likely to be their motivation for providing the service than any altruistic time-saving opportunity for users.
