Hard drives are such an essential part of our PCs, and with the rapid reduction in prices of hard drive disks over the years, it’s easy to take them for granted. But just like any machine, even hard drives need their timely dose of fine tuning to ensure that they perform at their optimum capabilities.

1. How To Recover Accidentally Deleted Data From Your Hard Drive

Anyone who’s ever accidentally deleted a portfolio of family vacation photos from your camera thinking that you’ve already backed them up to your computer, will know the pain of losing a treasure trove of precious, irreplaceable memories forever, never to be recovered. Thankfully, we’re not the only ones who’ve lost precious data before, and Restoration is here to change all that.

You see, when you’ve deleted a bunch of items from your Recycle Bin, that data isn’t actually deleted immediately. It still sits dormant in a corner of the hard drive, waiting to be overwritten over by another newer file when the time comes; but without the appropriate software to access it, it might as well be lost forever. Restoration changes that by providing a “bridge” to the dormant “deleted” data, allowing you to access it as long as not too much time has passed.

2. How To Significantly Improve Your System Speeds

Ever felt like your computer was running at speeds comparable to the glacial movements of ice sheets? Always feel like Microsoft Word takes way too long to load? That’s because Windows is an extremely large piece of software, and just like a house left unkempt, there’s bound to be digital dust and cobwebs stranded all over your PC. You could use Windows’ very own Disk Cleanup tool to try and keep things tidy, or you could use Advanced SystemCare Free 5.

Unlike Disk Cleanup or other “sweep” programs, which only targets rouge files and deletes them, Advanced SystemCare Free 5 acts like a Swiss knife with solutions like diving into your network configuration, fixing vulnerability exploits, and fine tuning areas with red flags, in addition to doing the aforementioned “sweep” task.

The differences in speed after performing a check is astounding, and its user interface is simple and welcoming enough, unlike many programs of its type. You’ll probably see the biggest gains on dated PCs which haven’t been reformatted in a long time, but even if you’re running a fairly new computer, you’re bound to see improvements.

3. How To Speed Up Your Windows Boot Time

Perhaps one of the oldest gripes about running a Windows PC which has continued to persist into the current day is the amount of time it takes to boot up Windows. WinPatrol presents a nice and tidy solution to reducing your boot times. It’s separated into multiple functions, but the 2 you really need to focus on are Startup Programs and Delayed Start.

Startup Programs identifies the programs which Windows automatically loads on boot, and if there are a significant number of programs listed in this pane, you might want to turn off those which you never really use anyway. Delayed Start is an alternative solution to turning off your non-essential startup programs (e.g. Windows Messenger); by delaying loading them until after a few minutes into startup, it allows you to begin your work more quickly than if you had to wait for them to finish loading first.

4. How To Remove Duplicate Files From Your Hard Drive

Duplicate files are the bane of existence of any photo or music enthusiast, or just about anybody who finds themselves constantly transferring Word files back and forth from a thumbdrive. Aside from the nagging experience of having multiple files with indecipherable names like “IMG_00129”, having a large double backlog of photos, videos and music files can eat up a sizeable amount of disk space.

With CloneSpy, you can quickly let your computer do the work of scanning for duplicate files for you. CloneSpy works not just by identifying files with the same names – it also compares the data within the files themselves for a thorough sweep through of duplicate files. If you’ve always been wondering if you may have duplicate photos tucked away in the recesses your photo album, you could give CloneSpy a try.

5. How To Nurture A Blissful Copy/Paste Experience

Copy and pasting are probably one of the most-used features of the average computer, and while Windows’ default copy and pasting system is pleasing, it still leaves a lot to be desired. As a remedy, UltraCopier brings with it faster copying times by running extra functions which optimize the copying process, and implements error and collision management methods to reduce copy times and instances which require user intervention.

Ultracopier also introduces a host of extra options, such as the ability to pause and resume copying at will, speed regulation – for times when you want to save system resources for other more important tasks, and a search feature for your copy list – in case you want to review what you may have or have not copied during a bulk file transfer.

This guest post was written by Aaron Pek

If there’s one great thing about switching to a Linux-based system, it is that the word ‘FREE’ is encoded deep in its DNA. Open-source, free software is how Linux was built, and most Linux distros (whether Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora or Debian) slip onto your computer, without coming anywhere near your wallet. 

Naturally enough, there’s a whole universe of free software, apps and programs out there, all jostling for your attention. But just because it’s free doesn’t make it fabulous. So, to help you sort the wheat from chaff, we’ve put together a list of the very best free software that no Linux desktop should be without. Enjoy.

GIMPshop – Linux alternative to Photoshop

First there was GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), the superb graphics package from the guys at GNU that upped the ante for image manipulation.

Now there is GIMPshop. This takes the rich graphical and image editing functionality of GIMP, and wraps it in an Adobe Photoshop-like front-end. This is a huge step forward, making GIMP much easier to use, and opening up Linux image editing to generation of Photoshop-familiar users. A must-have.

GnuCash – Linux alternative to Microsoft Money

If you’re looking to better manage your cash-flow, or even for a tool able to run small business accounting, then GNUCash could be the answer to your prayers. This software has been built from the ground up with professional bookkeeping in mind, so it has such top-end features as invoicing, stock-tracking, and double-entry accounting But is also very handy for day-to-day tracking of your personal finances, with its checkbook register.

What makes it doubly useful is that GNUCash is not an island unto itself – you can import from Quicken or Microsoft Money. Equally you can export your financial data to standard spreadsheet formats. Add in a flexible and powerful reporting tool, and you’ve got a free financial package that is hard to beat.

Chromium – Linux alternative to Internet Explorer

Google’s Chrome web browser has won plenty of plaudits, for its uncluttered interface, fast loading, synchronized bookmarks, and easy integration with Google’s growing stable of apps. But Chrome isn’t just freely available on Windows; it has an open-source, free-to-use cousin, called Chromium.

This open license means that many open software-based Linux distros now have Chrome in their base installations – including Ubuntu, one of the top Linux installations. So Chrome on Linux is well worth looking at – whether you’ve come from an Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox background. It is now fully featured, fast and stable – and real contender for the browser-of-choice for Linux systems.

Banshee – Linux alternative to iTunes

For music-lovers out there, Banshee is the program that ties all of the threads of the modern music player together. So, yes, it can play MP3 files (often a hassle with Linux distributions), as well as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files. Yes, it can play and rip audio CDs. And yes, it has rich music library functionality, pulling play-lists and album art down for you on the fly. But Banshee does much more.

It also integrates with Amazon’s MP3 store, not mention Apple’s iTunes and Last.fm, fully interconnecting your audio multiverse. Oh, and did we say – and it can play videos too.

Ardour – Linux alternative to Garage Band (Yes I know Garage Band is Mac software)

Linux has always had a special place in the heart of music-makers, with a generous suite of open-source audio applications, developed over a number of years. Ardour builds on that tradition, offering a fully-fledged recording and mixing tool that wouldn’t look out of place in a studio.

While it is a little tricky to set up and use, it does allow you to hook up directly into your computers sound system. That ensures fast and professional sound recording. Ardour also allows you to edit soundtracks, apply filters, and mix them together; and it is indispensable for recording CDs, LPs and old-time tapes. Time to shift those old-time media into the online digital age?

LibreOffice – Linux alternative to Microsoft Office

One of the first things that ex-Windows users worry about with Linux is how they’ll cope without Microsoft Office. That turns out to be a non-issue, especially once you’ve taken a look at LibreOffice. Previously known as OpenOffice, this is a suite of productivity apps that matches MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint – and the rest – on everything except the price.

LibreOffice has a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool, which not only have similar functionality – they also share many of the menu layouts and shortcuts of the Office equivalents. They also save documents in standard open doc formats, and you have the option of reading (and creating) the typical MS DOC and XLS formats. In short, the move to LibreOffice is as painless as it is charge-free.

ClamAV – Linux alternative to McAfee Antivirus

Although Linux is often-touted as a much-more secure system than Windows, that’s not to say it’s invulnerable to viruses and malware threats. E-mail is a particular vulnerability, with the bad guys potentially being delivered through attachments. So it’s a good idea to get an anti-virus tool to lock the vaunted Linux security down that little bit tighter.

ClamAV is just such a tool, developed especially for scanning emails for malicious software. It automatically keeps itself up-to-date with the latest viruses. The one drawback is that it’s a command line tool – which some users may find scary. But once setup, ClamAV is pretty self-sufficient, and most importantly, it gets the job done.

WINE – Linux alternative to Windows

Finally, whatever the richness and breadth of free software coverage in the Linux world, there’s often a Windows tool, app or game which has no real equivalent. That’s where the WINdows Emulator (WINE) makes a very welcome addition to your Linux system. WINE has been under development for a number of years, and does an excellent job of creating a Windows ‘sandbox’ for all of those legacy Windows apps to play in. Get WINE and you’ll never have to moan about what’s missing from your Linux ever again.

This article is a guest post from Chee Seng, a blogger who writes about freeware reviews at BestFreeOnline.net/

Streaming video has marked a new era in multimedia content delivering. What was earlier broadcasted on TV or distributed on DVDs, today is rather streamed through video-sharing sites like YouTube or Megavideo. The main asset of streaming video is that you don’t have to download a video file in order to play it – the content is always displayed in real time. However, sometimes we need to save web videos onto a hard drive in order to transfer them to a smartphone, portable media player or just escape the problems with a slow Internet connection.

It’s no longer a secret that almost any web video may ripped off a website. The technologies may vary from video grabbing to stream recording. The tools may be also quite different: browser plugins, web services, desktop software. The point is that not all "video downloaders" do what is promised: most of them fail to overcome frequent changes in video portals’ coding procedures, others are so user-unfriendly that it’s next to impossible to use them on a regular basis. Still there are rare exceptions. Here is the roundup of top 5 tools which really work and deliver free and fast streaming video downloads.

1. Freemake Video Downloader

This is a free Windows-based desktop software which uses an intricate grabbing technique thus allowing users to download streaming video from thousands of websites. In addition to popular portals like YouTube and Vimeo, the downloader works for most local video resources and any sites embedding video. The tool lets download videos in any quality or format available, extract audio tracks or convert to MP3, AVI, MP4 (iPod, iPhone, PSP, Android), 3GP, MKV. There are also handy browser plugins for Chrome and Firefox which let download video within one click only. To work with the software users will need to install .Net 4.0.

2. Firefox Video DownloadHelper

This is one of the most demanded Firefox addons. It lets download videos from YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion and other sites, so you can watch them whenever you want. When you are on a page containing links to images or movies, you can download some or all of them at once. All you’ll have to do is click the Video DownloadHelper icon and save the video. You can also setup the extension to automatically convert the downloaded movies to your preferred video format: AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG, MP3, MOV, 3PG and popular portable gadgets. The only minus is that you can’t use it in other web browser but Firefox.

3. BienneSoft YouTube Downloader

This is an ad-supported desktop software for Windows. Leaving aside the utilitarian interface, this is a good option to rip streaming videos based on YouTube, Facebook and some other video sharing sites. The download process is quick and easy: just paste a URL, set a resolution and click “Download”. The program allows users to convert YouTube videos to handheld devices and formats and play the downloaded video as well. There is also a paid version for $19.90 which promises to be faster and download video in batch.

4. Zamzar

This is a free web service to convert various files between formats and download streaming videos from YouTube, BlipTV, Metacafe, Myspace and some other sites. The service doesn’t provide “only download” option, therefore the conversion to some video format is indispensable. The link with a resulted video is sent to your email. You may download only one video at once. The other drawback is 100 MB limit for source files, still there are Pro pricing plans for the advanced users.

5. Xenra

This is another free online tool which allows you to convert and download YouTube streaming videos to MP3, AVI, MP4 and other formats. All you need is a video URL and the software will download the video to server, convert it and then pass you a link to the converted file. Users can easily customize video and audio bitrate, audio volume, or add information about artist, album. The service also provides a handy Chrome addon. Unfortunately, there is only YouTube in the list of supported websites.

Guest Author’s Bio

Elena Vakhromova is IT enthusiast, freelance blogger and SMO fan. She enjoys writing about popular Windows and web-based apps.

Major computer games are complex and very realistic. The upside is that games are very deep and engaging.  But what if you’re a busy person with busy things to do, and you just want to unwind after a long day? Here are 30 free indie games which are boatloads of fun, while simple to play – with video previews so you can see before you try :)

4 Free Racing Indie Games

1. Nitronic Rush

Nitronic Rush is easily the prettiest, and possibly the most well-developed indie game to grace our PCs for a long time. It’s developed by Team Nitronic of game studio DigiPen, perhaps as a side project that didn’t make it to the main arena, but all the hints points towards a beautiful project crafted with care and detail.

Nitronic Rush is basically a racing game set in a digital ‘Tron’ like setting where your cars can hop, boost and even fly. Throw in an online multiplayer component and a few amazing racetracks which includes loops, broken tracks, and revolving obstacles, and you have an amazing racing game which rivals the likes of top names like Need for Speed or Burnout. And unbelievably, it’s all absolutely FREE!

2. SWERVE

In case you haven’t had enough of racing games, here’s one more to add to your list. Unlike Nitronic Rush, with its bright, shiny colors and uber smooth controls, SWERVE is more of an old-school style of racing games, where all the cars move at around the same speed and strategy is key to winning the races.

If you’ve played the Rush Hour games before (completely unrelated to the Rush Hour movie starring Jackie Chan), you have a good idea of what SWERVE is all about. Old timers who want a taste of nostalgia will be delighted to learn that the controls handle well, and the toy car setup with realistic engine sounds reflect almost identically the way Rush Hour used to play.

3. Dirche Kart

If you’ve ever fallen in love with the go-cart racing genre, such as the wildly popular Mario Kart series, you’ll have a ton of fun with Dirche Kart. Even though the trailer above showcases the Xbox 360 version, the PC version is “even better”, in the sense that the director has already begun work on Dirche Kart 2 and is making the beta available for anyone to try.

In any case, it’s clear that a lot of work has gone into Dirche Kart. The controls are butter smooth, which are all-important in this game given the tight corners you’ll be turning, and the cell-shaded graphics pay a tribute to Mario Kart, giving gamers a sense of familiarity from the moment they start. Overall, the gameplay experience is just delightful. You can even play with your friends, if you hook up enough controllers or keyboards. If there’s one thing you’ll never get bored of, it’s pitting your driving skills against 3 other friends in a race to the finish, with super powers and go-karts to boot.

4. Wroom

Physics-based games are the best. They incorporate the game mechanics of the real world, so you’d somewhat know what to expect when your ball or cloud falls off from a ledge or gets trampoline-d up by a fan, as opposed to the unrealistic, flailing physics in most games. So how do we make it better? By including sweet, toothache-inducing graphics and throwing in a racing component.

Wroom does just exactly that. The artwork is so cute and sweet, you can’t help but marvel at its ingenuity. In addition, there’s a huge array of levels for your car(s) to roam around in with the object of reaching the finish line, all governed by the game’s rather good approximate idea of physics – so you can perform loop-a-loops, ramp launches, 360 degree somersaults, and the like. In addition, you can play with up to 3 other friends, making it the perfect getaway session for your colleagues, mates, etc.

3 Free Platform Indie Games

1. Spelunky

Spelunky is reminiscent towards the old-school platformers of the days of old, such as Mario and Prince of Persia. It combines a sense of puzzle-ness together with a confusing layout of caves to spelunk in, and throws in some enemies peppered here and there to give a sense of urgency to the atmosphere. Spelunky, as the name would suggest, tells the story of a spelunker who traverses the intricate mazes of caves to reach a fabulous treasure at the end!

The game has received critical acclaim among the indie-game community, and has achieved such high status among the gaming community, that the developer has already ported it for the XBLA community last fall, and has featured it at the games festival PAX 2011. Although PC fans won’t be able to play the slightly enhanced ported version, there’s still the original which started the entire phenomenon.

2. NeonPlat Adventures

NeonPlat Adventures tells the charming story of an individual neon boy/girl made of bright colors making their way through a neon bright world to reach the end of NeonPlat. It may look a little dated, but NeonPlat really stands out among the indie game crowd due to its bright, well-placed rainbow colors. Where most indie games are constrained by their budget and end up looking less pretty in the graphics department, NeonPlat’s makes up for its simple design with its colorful style and turns out looking pretty swell.

In the course of your adventure, you’ll come across creatures like ‘pinkies’ and giant floating heads which try to block your way, and the game bears a cutesy theme throughout its entire package, which fits with the colorful neon world. Also, the developer has promised to create one new level every day, so it’s really something to look forward to when you come back from a long day.

3. Voxatron

Voxatron can be easily defined as Space Invaders, modern-style. It features the classic top-down alien invading shoot-them-before-they-reach-the-bottom type of enemy swarms trying to overwhelm your character, who hugs the bottom of the screen fending them off by shooting projectiles upwards.

However, where Voxatron is different is in its unique application of the Space Invader concept, by including traversable levels. Thus, you can not only shoot from down-to-up, but even side-to-side as you move your character along levels, and in some cases fall into areas requiring you to dispose of surrounding enemies swarming at you from all sides. The levels are created with a lot of detail and color, and this indie developer has paid a lot of attention to its 3D 8-bit artwork, so you can expect to have a load of fun with this game.

6 Free Puzzle Indie Games

1. JNKPlat

JNKPlat is an old-school game that takes its roots in platformers like Prince of Persia and Lode Runner, which results in a game which resembles a combination of the two. It has platforming aspects, in the sense that the little yellow man which you control tries to run from one end of the level to the other, climbing ladders in the process, dropping down chutes etc.

The difference here is that JNKPlat is at its heart not a platformer game. This quickly becomes evident with the lack of in-air mechanics, i.e. your character cannot move while falling, which you may not think much of at first but quickly becomes striking when you start playing the game. Although this may seem less than a little quirky, the levels are actually arranged in a “Grid” format, meaning that you have to think about the limitations of your character instead of mindlessly blowing your way through the entire level. If you’re looking for a puzzle game which plays like a platformer, give JNKPlat a try.

2. Brainsplode

If you’ve played Angry Birds before, then you’ll immediately feel at home with Brainsplode, except for maybe the “brains” aspect of it. Brainsplode is about controlling a stationery rocket launcher, and firing rockets at… you guessed it, brains. The object is to destroy all the brains stationed upon the various walls, floors, and ceilings of the many levels, and you’ll have a wicked fun time trying to achieve that.

Just like Angry Birds, the developer has designed the game to be challenging enough to be fun, without making it frustrating. The cartoonish artwork bears a resemblance to the old PC game ‘Worms’ of 10 years back or the more recent World of Goo, which is pleasant to the eye and conveys the physics aspect of the game quite nicely.

3. Tag: The Power of Paint

Tag: The Power of Paint, is familiar to two other indie games in this article for good reason. The first one is Nabacular Drop, whose development team was absorbed by Valve together with this one, to work on Portal 2. The second reason is that it also started life as a student project from DigiPen, the same studio which contributed to the epic racing installment, Nitronic Rush. With the backing of these big names, it’s understandable if you might already have high expectations for this game.

So how does it play in practice? I’m delighted to report that Tag: The Power of Paint is oodles of fun. Basically, in this game’s world, each color of paint represents different properties, such as jumping higher, running faster, or transporting you to a different point in space. Of course, the fact that you’re equipped with a “paint gun” really helps even out the fun factor. By implementing different strategies, the goal is to overcome all the obstacles and reach the end of the level – with mind-numbingly challenging, yet endless solutions and possibilities.

4. The Big Sea

The Big Sea is a traditional rolling ball game which takes you through a path of select mazes and obstacles to reach a goal. You play as a pulsing blue orb with red stripes traversing your way over elevations, slopes, cylinders, revolving blocks and the like, until you reach the end of the level.

The stark white scenery reminds one of an Escher’s painting, and the cool colors against the white backgrounds with soft shadows really imbue a relaxing mood upon the player during play. It’s one of those games that you can really escape into when you need a moment to relax or two.

5. BallMan Planets

Ballman Planets aims to bring back the joys of Pacman, the little yellow man who ran around mazes gobbling up yellow dots while ghosts chased him. Indie game developer Code Viking recreates this classic adventure in full 3D, giving players a chance to roam around the game worlds collecting the yellow dots, all in the third dimension.

Ballman Planets was the brainchild of a programming competition which the developers eventually won, and their win is proof to the game’s capacity. Besides the obviously entertaining aspect of playing Pacman on a 3D planet environment, there are multiple different environments to choose from, a “fake” 3D anaglyph mode (if you have cyan-blue glasses), and it features in-game music developed by actual music professionals. Whether or not you were a fan of Pacman before, you’d be one by the end of this game.

6. Waker

Waker is an indie game developed by developers from the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, and is a puzzle-platformer game at heart. Its narrative concept is quite interesting: you play as a “waker”, a being which reconnects the broken bridges which returns sleeping dreamers to the real world. The team claims that it was created as an educational game to teach players about physics, more specifically how displacement and velocity work in tandem using the manipulation of graphical representations.

So how does it play? Waker employs a distinct hand painted artwork style, which reminds players of the World of Goo games. Alongside its theme, it also bears a very soothing, calm, zen-like music, so playing this in isolation, perhaps in a dark enclosed room, will really give you a sense of immersion into the game. The puzzles are adequately challenging and intuitive, and overall Waker is a really well-developed game.

2 Free Music (Rhythm) Indie Games

1. Frets on Fire

Fancy a music themed rhythm-game like Guitar Hero but don’t have a Playstation 3 or a plastic guitar? Well, fret not, as Frets on Fire is here to fulfill that void in your life with a free, open-sourced indie game that not only plays like Guitar Hero, it even looks entirely like an identical copy, with slightly dated graphics. If you’re still not sure how it plays like, just think of hitting the corresponding keys in sync with the music as they slide down along a backdrop of a rock-themed layout.

The great thing about it is that since the game is open-sourced, there’s a huge developer’s community which constantly updates the already burgeoning availability of song selections, meaning you’ll never have to worry about depleting the supply of songs. If you happen to have Guitar Hero song files, you can also upload them and play them right away on this program.

2. MusicRacer

MusicRacer is the definitive rhythm game that you just have to try out. Inspired by the spaceship tube riding concept of the WipeOut series, MusicRacer adds a notch to the franchise by analyzing any music files residing on your hard drive and creating a track which matches the rhythm of that song. Be it pop, rock, jazz, or whatever your music preferences are, MusicRacer adapts to that genre and creates a track with powerups specifically placed in the areas where they correspond with the beat of the song.

The graphics are pretty decent even compared to some of the modern budget games, and the controls are slick and smooth, as they should be for it to be considered a good rhythm game. The point system works well and adapts to whatever song you’re using, so you get an objective representation of your progress no matter what song you play it with.

6 Free Action Indie Games

1. Thunder Gut

Ever wanted to be Neo of the Matrix, flying off walls, coolly swinging through the air and firing rounds of bullets into your enemies? Well now you can have all that, except for perhaps the “cool” factor. Thunder Gut features a nameless hero bearing a really huge moustache, and tries to mix the shooter, platformer and arcade styles of games. The resulting batter turns out to be quite a successful, entertaining mix.

Thunder Gut’s hero jumps off walls, ricochets along ramps, and mercilessly unloads rounds and rounds of ammo into his enemies in a swift, smooth motion. The gameplay mechanics are nothing short of awesome, and the “Matrix” effect certainly is there thanks to the workable physics engine incorporated within the game. In addition, the light cartoon style complements the entire package, and the inclusion of timers within which to clear the levels of enemies only serves to up the ante of the challenge.

2. Super Crate Box

Have you ever come across games by big-name studios which are adorned with bright, terrific graphics, a heightened plot involving aliens and guns, backed by a huge production and advertising budget and having gained enormous word of mouth… but somehow falling short of expectations? Well, Super Crate Box is the antithesis (opposite) of that.

Despite its 8-bit, polygon style artwork, simplicity in concept and having a practically irrelevant storyline, Super Crate Box somehow manages to remain not just fun, but exceedingly addictive. It involves picking up all the crates on a level, with a twist – each crate packs a random weapon with which to destroy enemies, including the likes of bazookas, laser guns and projectile ammunition. See where I’m coming from? You can easily while away hours on this game without even realizing it.

3. Alien Arena

If you try to recall the games from the early 2000s, the typical online multiplayer first-person shooters that will come to mind are Counter Strike (which is still being played now) and Unreal Tournament. While not as popular as Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, which featured an intergalactic space marine war theme, had nearly the same magnitude in its user base in its glory days.

Alien Arena plays (and looks) almost exactly like Unreal Tournament. You have your standard shoot-it-out arenas, team deathmatches and capture-the-flag game modes, except this time you’re playing as aliens of different races. It’s a fight to the death with laser guns and rocket launchers, and the “frag” system works pretty much how you’d expect. If you’re looking for a decent indie game of the first person shooter genre, Alien Arena fits the bill nicely.

4. Death Worm

Death Worm follows the adventure of… a gigantic worm, which is out to eat, destroy and claim everything that stands in its path. While the premise may not sound all that vein-popping in itself, Death Worm actually stands out among the indie game crowd as a genuinely entertaining way to pass your time and fulfill your destructive tendencies.

The game basically revolves around a giant brown worm which grows in length (a la Snake) and size as he consumes more and more victims in its wake. You control the worm and snake around underground, occasionally popping up to claim people, animals, airplanes and the like to fulfill your all-consuming, everlasting hunger. It may not sound like much, but the fast-paced excitement from mindlessly destroying virtual people and property positions this as an action game to look forward to in your free time.

5. RunMan: Race Around The World

One of the most iconic games ever created in the 20^th century has to be Sonic the Hedgehog. The speedy little blue ball which races along through side scrolling screens is easily recognized by any child of the 90’s, but unfortunately, not many indie attempts have managed to successfully recreate the fast, fluid, motion that the original Sonic delivers. Fortunately, RunMan not only succeeds at that, it surpasses it.

One of the hardest aspects of Sonic to preserve was the fluidity of its controls, given the level of speed and tight responses Sonic has been known to deliver. RunMan: Race Around The World not only manages to be such a game with rapid control delivery, it’s also an engaging colorful world to explore in as well. Given the tons of positive reviews it has garnered, it’s safe to say that this game is worth giving a shot.

6. Walkie Tonky

In Walkie Tonky, you play as a cute giant alien robot bent on the destruction of an unnamed city in an invasion on Earth. It’s a side-scroller game in its essence, in the sense that it requires you to keep up with the scrolling on the left side of the screen, and the challenge comes in the form of obstacles trying to impede your path. It may not be an extremely unique concept, but it’s one that turns out to be really fun.

In the game, the human government tries to stop your onslaught against the city by throwing barriers, helicopters, jets, missiles and even buildings at you, in an attempt to squish you against the advancing left side of the screen and damaging you in the process. You can pick up the obstacles which stand in your way (or else you’ll get stuck in them) and hurl them at enemies, and there is a variety of enemies and bosses for you to defend against in your quest to reach the rightmost part of the level. The difficulty level has been tuned just right to provide a fun and challenging, yet not frustrating gaming experience as you engross yourself in trying to beat the level without getting destroyed.

6 Free RPG (Role-playing) Indie Games

1. Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure

Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure plays exactly how it sounds like – it takes place in a dreamy cartoony world, hand-drawn with color pencils, and tells a story about magic portals, love, happiness, rainbows and ponycorns (a hybrid of ponies and unicorns). However, that’s where its likeness to children’s games ends, as Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure is jam packed with all the elements of a good mature fairy tale – sarcasm, witty banter, utter and complete suspension from reality, and the like.

It’s debatable whether the game author’s intention was to design the game towards children or adults, but what’s indubitable is that Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure is an immersive game which completely sucks you into its universe. It’s definitely a game which takes you away from life for a minute or two, giving you a respite from your daily life throughout the duration of your play.

2. Frogatto & Friends

Frogatto & Friends is a delightful little game that, if you’re a gamer from the 1990s, will take you way back. It’s reminiscent of the games of old such as Tales of Destiny 2, Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger, just to name a few, and it really harkens the melody of the hottest blockbusters of those times. Of course, you won’t get the same level of detail as the JRPGs which were created by massively financially-supported game studios, but the hand painted pixel artwork and MIDI music will send shivers of nostalgia racing down your backs.

3. Narbacular Drop

Ever heard of Portal? No, really? Well, to bring you up to speed, Portal was created by Valve, which counts among its big-budget titles popular games such as Half-Life and Warcraft: Defense of the Ancients (or D.O.T.A.). In fact, Portal has garnered such widespread critical acclaim for its uniqueness, that it has been given the privilege of being turned from a pet project into one of Valve’s most recognized games.

So what are Portal’s roots, one might ask? Where did such inspired creativity come from? Look no further than the indie game which begot Portal, Narbacular Drop. Its teleportation concept amazed Valve’s CEO so much, that he decided to absorb the small game development team into Valve, leading to the team’s eventual production of one of the hottest and most critically acclaimed games on the face of the earth.

4. Cave Story

Cave Story can be said to be one of the earliest flagship indie games that started the indie game bandwagon along the road that it has taken up till today. And despite its age, its gameplay is no less compelling. Telling the story of a young boy who is travelling the world, you play by shooting enemies with various types of guns which grants the boy specific abilities.

Cave Story has a huge fledging community fan base, and nearly everyone who has played it has recommended it over and over again. It has been ported to the Mac, PSP and Xbox, and you’ll have to spend a little bit of time to figure out how to install the English version patch and read up on the controls, but once you’re done, you’re guaranteed to have a blast playing this little game.

5. Iji

If you’ve played Duke Nukem before, then Iji will feel very familiar to you. Iji follows the tale of Iji, a strong willed girl who is thrust into an apocalyptic robot world and has to fight her way through to find her lost brother. She has a bunch of guns in her arsenal, but the main weapon which makes Iji so distinct from other RPGs is her high kick, which can destroy robots, sentry turrets, boxes, and just about anything she comes across.

Iji has a compelling story to tell, which is rare in most indie games, so it’s really worth checking out. The plot builds nicely, and the hard, flat color palette really invokes a sense of nostalgia which is hard to place, but will certainly reverberate with older gamers. The action sequences are also nicely laid out for an indie game, and there are a ton of choices, including multiple endings (which has only recently appeared in big budget games), to partake from.

6. Burning Thirst

We’ve covered first person shooters, racers, real-time strategy games, platformers, side-scrollers, and even JRPGs, but we still haven’t touched on one of the most popular genres of all time, the third person perspective game. Burning Thirst is an amazing tribute to the genre, given the fact that it’s free – it has a decent storyline, an engaging experience, and awesome gamplay mechanics.

If there’s a game that it has to be referenced against, it would be a combination of two of Capcom’s biggest franchises – Devil May Cry and Resident Evil. In Burning Thirst, you play as a man named Joe, equipped with a giant oversized dual-edged sword and superpowers. You can fling your sword around like a boomerang, cause explosions by stomping on the ground, and in general just hack-and-slash your way through zombies and mutants like there’s no tomorrow. Given its lush 3D environments and modern day graphics, it’s probably the best zombie apocalyptic indie game you’ll ever be able to find.

Free RTS (Real-Time Strategy) Indie Games

1. Base Invaders

We’ve covered action games, platformers, puzzle games, and even racing games, but is there no love for real-time strategy (RTS) games? For those of you reminiscing about the times spent playing Red Alert, worry not, as there is also an indie game for you.

Base Invaders isn’t Red Alert, in the sense that your objective isn’t to conquer and annihilate your enemy’s base; but it does feature the self-preservation aspect of the games and many different types of units for you to choose from. There are assault towers, sentry guns, iron barricades and the like to defend your base against, and you have to defeat a select number of increasingly challenging enemies that are trying to destroy your base to proceed. In addition, it has a pretty nice soundtrack, so that’s a picky bonus.

2 Free Miscellaneous Indie Games

1. Cloud

Cloud was voted among the Top Ten Games You’ve Never Heard Of by Game Informer Magazine, and has to be one of the most unique concepts to ever grace the world of gaming in a while. Unlike other games, Cloud doesn’t have a very specific objective; it’s basically a free-roaming game in which you interact with your environment. If you think that’s boring, then you have another thing heading your way.

In Cloud, you control a cloud sprite, who has the power to control white puffy clouds in the sky. While there’s no in-game objective to accomplish, the game draws you in by delving you into a huge degree of interactivity: you can use “puffs” to draw surrounding clouds into your area of control, crash into dark clouds to create rain, fight with “enemy” clouds to start a lightning battle, and such. But the true gem of Cloud lies in the ability to freely roam around the land, and the feeling of power that you wield to affect the environments, cities and people which roam beneath your field of control. That’s the true crystal of Cloud: seeing how the environment reacts to your actions.

2. QWOP

QWOP is one of the most hilarious games to be ever created; and the amazing thing is that it is so creative that it manages to combine fun, ingenuity, and sheer hardcore challenge into one package. In the game, you play as QWOP, which incidentally is the name of the runner that you’re controlling. However, instead of controlling the runner as a whole, you control his thighs and calves individually – which makes for a very unique experience.

Basically, since you’re individually controlling the runner’s muscle segments, your player runs like a stumbling block. The trick is balance, you’ve got to maintain the equilibrium between control and speed to reach the farthest distance in the fastest time possible without falling over, amid obstacles such as hurdles (which you have to mind-bogglingly attempt to jump over). There’s also a leaderboard, so you can compare your attempts with millions of other people who have already given the game their best shot.

QWOP has already intrigued millions of players around the world ever since its inception, and has become so popular that it has also inspired an iPhone version of the game.

This post was written by Aaron Pek

As a Web design student you’re constantly learning new and often complex concepts that can sometimes seem overwhelming. You’ll need all of the tools possible in order to help you learn and to also make your job easier. With Google Chrome’s speediness and growing popularity, it’s a perfect browser for Web design students to get their feet wet with. This list of extensions are especially great for Web designers just starting out. They’re not only easy to use, but they will also help inspire students and make learning fun.

1. Chrome Palette

Lets you create a color palette from any image. This is useful for finding out the different colors used in an image that can then be used for your website. You can use these colors to make everything blend and look aesthetically pleasing.

2. Google Font Previewer

A great way to preview different fonts in different variations before using them on your own website. This is useful for finding a font that will look good with the design of your site. The fonts are taken from the Google Font Directory.

3. Window Resizer

The concept is simple: it resizes the browser window for you so that you can see what the page will look like at other resolutions. This is important because not every computer user will have the same screen size. You’ll need to know what your website will look like to those with smaller or larger monitors as well as those on mobile devices.

4. Web Developer

An easy way to add numerous advanced Web developer tools to your browser in an organized format. You can edit CSS as well as display and disable other types of information and elements on the current Web page. Great for doing extensive developing and debugging.

5. BuiltWith Technology Profiler

Are you wondering what the currently website you’re viewing was built with? Wondering how they got that cool feature to work? This extension can tell you all of that by looking up a page and telling you all of the technologies used on it. This is great for learning about new technologies that you may be able to implement on your own website.

6. Eye Dropper

A very handy tool that can pick colors from any Web page and show you the exactly what the hexadecimal and RGB values are for it. This is great for matching colors on a website without having to look through the code. If you see a color that you like as you’re browsing the Web, you can just use this to find out what it is and then use it on your own site.

7. MeasureIt!

With this you can draw a ruler around any element on a Web page to find out its exact measurement in pixels. Web design is all about measurements and making sure everything fits perfectly without overlapping and this extension can help you with that.

8. Firebug

Another great Web development tool that is meant to be used in conjunction with other development tools for modifying and debugging websites. “Provides some cool features like inspecting HTML elements with your mouse, and live editing CSS properties.”

9. Lorem Ipsum Generator

A very easy way to create the ever-popular “Lorem Ipsum” dummy text for your website templates. “The main purpose of this is to use the less amount of code (and also memory) and help the developer get the job done.”

10. Validity

The easiest way to validate the HTML coding of any website. Just click on the icon and within seconds you’ll be given any validation errors for the page. Since it’s so important to have valid code for performance as well as SEO, this is a must-have extension.

11. Webpage Screenshot

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so does that mean a screenshot is too? Well with this extension you can take screenshots and then save, share, print or edit them. Sometimes you may come across a Web page that will inspire you or give you a great idea to use on your own site. With this you can capture it, add notes and then save for later reference.

12. Code Cola

A great tool for modifying the CSS styling of any Web page. “Operators can type the generated code in the cms’ node style properties; no need to open Photoshop, Axure and other tools, but directly open the tools to edit, save and then throw the file to front-end; front-end check the code, then coding based on the generated code.”
If you’re also looking to enhance your productivity while working, StayFocused may be your best bet. It’s normal to get frustrated and give into distractions, but StayFocused can help you overcome all of that by blocking out those distracting sites and forcing you stay focused on work – thus increasing productivity. With all of these cool extension though, it should be pretty easy to stay focused on Web designing. Good luck!

This guest post is written by Lior Levine, a marketing advisor for an online company specializing in a to-do list app. Lior also advises at a cancer treatment center that specializes in personalized oncology exams.

In our world, where information is constantly being plugged into one device after another and frequently changes hands, many people don’t realize how vital it can be to safeguard their digital information from sniffers and malware – destructive programs which can steal sensitive information. Here are 5 free software encryption tools for your on-the-go use.

1. How To Encrypt Your Files On The Cloud, e.g. Dropbox

It may be all smooth and easy going encrypting files on your own hard drives, but what about files on the cloud? As we become increasingly dependent on the cloud for storage, we also become more and more wary of the fact that all our personal, and potentially important files, are floating on some foreign server, exposed to the vulnerabilities of that server.

So if you have files on Dropbox, for instance, what’s a person to do? Thankfully, there’s BoxCryptor, a great free program which allows you to encrypt files even on cloud servers. The free version works great with the standard AES-256 encryption, but does not allow commercial usage and is only limited to encryption of files up to 2 GB. Still, that’s plenty enough for most of us, and is an excellent solution towards solving file encryption on the cloud.

2. What To Do If You Want to Encrypt Entire Hard Drives

The issue: Enabling encryption on one machine disables it from being read on another unless they both have the same encryption software installed; which is sometimes not practical when you have to constantly switch between PCs in an environment, such as a school setting.

Enter TruCrypt, a truly real-time encryption program which encrypts data as it is being written onto the file partition (e.g. folders), and decrypts it in real-time as it is being removed. Impressive feature aside, this gives you the peace of mind that you won’t ever find yourself stuck with an inaccessible file simply because you were trying to be careful.

TruCrypt also allows you to encrypt entire hard drives, which can be useful if you run your own company, and has a hundred and one other fancy uses such as enabling hardware acceleration during encrypting on modern processors. It is by far the most highly recommended free encryption software on the Internet, customizable for nearly all but the most specific uses.

3. How to Encrypt Your Entire USB Flash Drive Without Installing Anything

PenProtect doesn’t give you any excuse to not use file encryption while transferring files. There’s absolutely no hassle in using it – all you have to do is copy the downloaded file to the home folder of your USB drive – no installation required! It really doesn’t get any simpler than this, and it provides full 256-bit key AES encryption to your entire USB flash drive, hiding files from being interpreted by the host computer.

4. How To Plug In Your USB Drive With Peace Of Mind at Internet Cafés

By now, we should all already have recognized how dangerous it can be to plug in your flash drive into a port of a computer at a cyber café. Since you never know what the computer has been uploaded with, the potential for your information being compromised is mind boggling; there could be key-loggers to trace your passwords, malware to read your Word files, trojans to sneak onto your device… the list goes on and on…

Add to this the fact that most of the time, you don’t get administrator privileges in a computer at such places, disabling the option to install a “safe” encryption program on-the-spot. So what can you do? Well, there’s a solution with FreeOTFE Explorer, an encryption software which not only does not require installation, but works even on PCs where administrator privileges have been disabled! It works by creating a “virtual disk” on the computer in question, where everything that is written to that “disk” is encrypted securely before being stored.

5. How To Enable File Encryption using Tools Already Within Reach

Some people just don’t like having an extra program hanging around on their computer, especially something like encryption which isn’t visible enough to warrant having to stare at its icon every time you access My Computer. Well, did you know that you probably already have a fully sufficient encryption program sitting on your desktop?

7-Zip, the great file compressor, is also a decent file encryptor.  Providing only AES-256, it’s really solid. Whether it’s sending work documents over email, or personal items to your loved ones, if you really don’t want to deal with the hassle of an extra program, 7-Zip may just be the perfect file encryptor for you.

This post was written by staff writer Aaron Pek

There has always been two major camps in the personal computer sphere – the PC and the Mac. So defined is this distinction, that Apple itself draws upon this fact to make hilarious ads. But all the passion and glitter aside, the truth is that Windows and OSX work and act in highly different ways, and that they both offer significant advantages in their own measure over the other. If you’re reading this, chances are you already have a PC running Windows; so how does one make your PC feel more like a Mac? Here’s how:

1. How to emulate Mac Spaces : Dexpot

Spaces is Mac’s answer to having multiple applications open at once cluttering up your workspace. Anyone who has ever had to juggle different duties at the same time – like managing Youtube, iTunes and a bunch of minor tasks while you’re doing an assignment on Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, perhaps – will find that compartmentalizing the two categories will yield better results. PC users, however, do not have access to this feature natively; but they do now.

Dexpot is a nifty little third-party program which allows you to implement a Spaces-like function to your screen. While it’s not the only function of the program, it certainly is the best – with it, you can open 4 separate desktops and, for instance, write your assignment in one, and switch to the other when you’re doing miscellaneous stuff. Here are all the new functions (including Spaces) which are present in the newest revision of Dextpot.

2. How to emulate the Mac Dashboard : myBoard

Dashboard is an apt name for the Mac OS functionality – it dims the screen and opens a dashboard of sorts where your collections of widgets sit waiting for you. By itself, Dashboard comes with a few useful native apps included, including a weather widget, a calculator and a clock, but the real deal of widgets arrive in the full-blown third party support developers have injected into the functionality.

For Windows, Dashboard arrives in the shape of myBoard, and instead of widgets, they’re now called magnets. It’s hardly surprising that there is a lot less third-party support given that this isn’t a native application in Windows, but the basics are there; calculator, weather, notepad, clock, calendar etc.

Tip: After you install myBoard, you’ll be prompted to click the middle mouse button to bring up the empty ‘Dashboard’; look for a “+” sign on the bottom-left side of the screen. That brings up the option to access the Magnet Store, where you can obtain magnets.

3. How to Emulate the Mac Dock : RocketDock

Dock is a solid, unique way of getting around Mac OS in the way Windows does with shortcuts, except prettier, and is one of the most defining features of OS X. Windows Vista and 7 both have taskbars which allow you to pin items to them, but it’s just not the same as having a row of icons which ‘pop’ when you hover over them.

Being one of the most famous functions of the Mac, there are many third-party iterations of Dock; but my personal favorite is RocketDock. RocketDock behaves exactly like Dock does in OS X, just less snazzy-looking; you can place customizable shortcuts in it, the Recycle Bin, and it has the familiar ‘pop-out’ effect as you hover over it.

4. How to Emulate Mac Expose : Switcher

All of us who have used Windows before should now be familiar with the Alt+Tab function, which surprisingly hasn’t been given a dedicated name besides its key presses. Nevertheless, it’s a practical way to get around; but it still can’t beat OS X’s Expose though. That’s why it’s Windows alter ego exists – in the form of Switcher.

Anyone who has used Expose will instantly relate to how mind-blowingly profound the visual representation of tasks arranged in sizes according to their importance is – it takes every lesson of human psychology in the book and applies it to the simple function of task-switching. It just feels right. And more and more importantly, that has become what we as users are increasingly looking for. Just using Switcher for the first time has got me utterly convinced that I’ll be using it for a long time to come.

5. How to emulate Mac Stacks : 7Stacks

Stacks in OS X is precisely what its name supposes it to be – a way to stack programs into one icon to save space, which pop out like a pop-out book upon clicking. There are so many ways this could be done wrong, but Apple has managed to make it not only eye-catching, but functional as well. There’s no greater joy than the convenience of watching all your Microsoft Office shortcuts unfold neatly into a list of choices.

The third-party Windows alternative that you’re looking for here is 7Stacks. Developer Alastria wasn’t able to incorporate the pop-out aesthetics into 7Stacks, but what they’ve done is pretty close and equally as practical. 7Stacks is definitely worth a shot, as it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

6. How to Emulate Mac Multi-task Scrolling : KatMouse

One of the biggest complaints about Windows is that despite its maturity as an operating system, it still misses out on a few elementary functions – the ability to maintain different screen resolutions for different users, the ability to run .ISO files out of the box, and among the most glaring, the ability to scroll through open programs when they’re not being selected as the primary application.

For instance, if you’re doing some research on your Internet browser, you can’t scroll through your open Word document unless you click on it first. And then you’d have to click on your browser again to scroll through your research material, and back and forth.

KatMouse does away with this concern by bestowing the all-empowering function – of middle-mouse scrolling just by hovering over the application – upon your Windows computer, which has been on Macs since eons ago. I can’t tell you how much time this little third-party software that runs quietly in the background has saved for me. If you’re a student or someone whose work involves looking for information online, be sure to get this.

This post was written by Aaron Pek

Hard drives are often only as good as the care and maintenance you put into them.  Here are 5 hard drive management tools you can put to use  to maximize its performance your computer.

1. Best Hard Disk Space Analyzer

Are you the type that frequently checks on the contents of your hard drive? Maybe you’ve got a beast of a media collection, and want to find out how much space those cat videos are robbing from your enormous iTunes playlist and work documents?

Well, WinDirStat takes the entire contents of your hard drive, digests its files, and regurgitates the unidentified chaos into a colorful tree map which shows you a visual representation of how much space a particular type of file is taking up. It’s pretty speedy too; the entire process took about a minute and a half for my 500 GB partition.

If you’re not a fan of blocky shapes or you just prefer a more ‘Apple’ solution, Disk Space Fan does an equally good job of representing your system. Or, if you’re a Mac user, DaisyDisk offers more of the same.

2. Best Partition Manager Tool

All of us have come to know the pain of losing your documents or music collection to viruses, malware or plain system failure, and partitioning your hard drive is one of the best ways to quarantine fatal software failures.

In case you didn’t know, partitioning is the act of dividing the space on your physical HDD into individually recognized disk drives by your computer (i.e. C: drive, E: drive). This not only serves as an effective compartmentalization tool (such as designating space between family members), but also plays a crucial role in restricting the travel of malicious code (viruses, malware etc.) from one partition to another. Think of it as having a moat in between two castles; the enemy might get into one castle, but the treasure in the other castle stays safe.

I’ve tried a number of hard disk partition tools in my days, and by far the most efficient free solution is Windows’ very own Disk Management tool. To access it, just go to Control Panel -> System and Security, and under Administrative Tools look for Create and format hard disk partitions. Here, you can enable or disable partitions, make new partitions from free space, or even format a partition in case you ever want to.

3. Best File Compression Software

There are many flavors of file compression software out in the wild, but none of them is as popular as the well known WINRAR software. Winrar has been around long since the early days of the Internet, and at the time was the only viable challenger to the king-at-the-time, Winzip. Today, Winrar has claimed the crown from its rival, and boasts the .rar extension as recognizable in nearly every tech community.

The amazing thing about file compression is just how much file space you can save from it. In my daily use, Winrar often reduces file size by 40% – 50%, and it’s been a lifesaver in transferring huge amounts of important data over the internet to my peers. You can also use it to herd multiple files into one group, then send the entire batch over in one fell swoop instead of dragging-and-clicking each file one by one.

4. Best Disk Cleanup & Disk Defragmenter

Just as dust often collects in an oft-used room, so does waste bits of data and temporary files which get strewn around on your hard drive go unnoticed. In the course of our computing activities, the hard drive frequently writes, removes, and rewrites data hundreds and thousands of times a day, so metaphorically speaking, there’s bound to be junk lying around. Unfortunately, this junk can accumulate to the point where it slows down our computer or disrupts smooth execution of data, and cleaning it up is akin to spring cleaning your room.

For the job, I have to recommend the recommendable CCleaner. It’s a community supported software which has become the McDonalds of the disk cleanup utilities, and it does its job rather well. The free version cleans up all the famous Internet browsers, including IE, Firefox and Chrome, and also does a number on your temporary files and the Recycle Bin. As a bonus, CCleaner is capable of investigating your registry for redundant data, which can potentially speed up your system by miles depending on the clutter.

When you’re done with cleaning up your system, it’s time to defragment it. What’s disk defragmentation? To use an anology, the hard drive is like a map of the world. When you save a Word document to your hard drive, it can be saved to America as well as Japan. So when it tries to retrieve the file, it has to go back and forth over the Pacific Ocean to retrieve the two parts of the file. Disk defragmentation, hence the name, moves the data next to each other so that retrieving the data is sped up much faster.

Disk Defragmenter is Windows’ built-in software for the function. In my opinion, it works pretty well, so it’s good enough without having to rely on third-party software. From the Start Menu, just navigate to Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter, select Analyze disk, then select Defragment disk.

5. Best Backup and Recovery Tool

Backing up one’s hard drive is a precious reminder which we should all adhere to, in the event of a catastrophic system failure or a malicious attack from virus-like code. It saves us the hardship of having to restore the system to its original state, and the very real consequences of losing irreplaceable files related to our work or school life.

To accommodate this need, Paragon Backup & Recovery (Advanced) Free accommodates this just nicely. Unlike many of its command-line brethren, its pleasing user interface will hold your hand throughout the entire process. It provides support for more files than the default backup utility on Windows, and makes use of complicated algorithms with fancy names (but which are ultimately useful) to save your backup. You can also image your backup onto removable media, such as a flash drive or a DVD, if you ever feel the need to.

This post was written by Aaron Pek

When you start the app, it will access your current ability by asking you to do as many reps as you can, then design an appropriate program to fit your fitness level.

To make sure you don’t cheat, the app requires you to actually go down low enough to have your chin touch the screen before it registers as a successful pushup.  What I like about it is that it also logs your pushups, and enables you to slowly progress as your fitness improves.

… And for lazy exercisers like me, it provides you reminders and notifications so you don’t slack off :)

Two thumbs up for this app!

Download the Push Ups Pro Android App here.

If you own an Android device, these are some must-try free games that will bring some stress relief on a hectic day.

Alchemy

Alchemy is a surprisingly addictive ‘game’ which sees you mixing together elements of every kind to create new ones. You start off with four main Elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air, dragging elements onto one another to create combinations. For example, mixing Earth + Water gets you a Swamp. This unassuming game will hook you as you try and intuitively figure out how each different element reacts with another.

This quirky game features almost 400 different elements to unlock and don’t be surprised if you find yourself losing hours trying to create Vampires or even Skyscrapers.

PewPew

Want a psychedelic shooter on your Android device? Look no further than PewPew, a Geometry Wars inspired retro themed shooter. In PewPew, you control a tiny ship up against hordes of enemies with slick controls via two virtual sticks. Featuring four game modes, Pandemonium, Dodge This, Assault and Chromatic Conflict, PewPew manages to squeeze a whole load of frantic galactic shoot em up gameplay all while maintaining impressive frame rates even when the screen is flooded with enemy shapes.

Throw in online leaderboards, unlockable ships and a quirky soundtrack, PewPew is a must have for any Android gamer on the go. A sequel, PewPew 2 is also available but it’ll cost you a little bit of money.

Moon Chaser

In Moon Chaser, you play a Ninja with the ability to manipulate gravity and your goal is to make it to your destination before the moon disappears. Half an action game and half a racing game, you navigate through a series of mountain landscapes, using your touch screen to increase and normalize gravity. Fun and potentially addicting, this game takes awhile to master, providing limitless replay value as you chase down your best time.

Featuring slick 2D graphics, Moon Chaser is a great time waster, especially if you love ninjas and competitive gampeplay via online leaderboards and achievements.

Ninjump

From one Ninja game to another, Ninjump has you moving vertically this time, scaling walls as you attempt to avoid killer squirrels, angry birds, evil ninjas, shurikens and exploding bombs. Bathed in gorgeous 3D graphics and simple pick up and play game mechanics, you tap the screen to go from one wall to another racking up combos for destroying three enemies of the same kind to trigger jump bonuses.

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself playing this over and over to beat your highest score. Ninjump features Papaya leaderboards and options to challenge your friends as you strive to reach the top.

Angry Birds

No Android game list is complete without the almighty avian champion of mobile gaming, Angry Birds. The game where you slingshot birds into structures housing pigs is one of our favourite picks due to it being free and constantly updated with new content. Angry Birds has been nothing short of a phenomenon, due to its endearing graphics and sound effects, ultra responsive controls and wonderful physics engine.

With massive amounts of levels and the addictive quest of getting three stars for each level, don’t be surprised to find yourself being kept up late at night launching birds into buildings over and over again. Don’t forget to check out the other two expansions, the seasonal flavoured (and constantly updated) Angry Birds Seasons as well as Fox Motion Picture tieup, Angry Birds Rio, to feed your Angry Birds fix.

This post was guest written by Jay Ong.  You can find him buzzing around on Twitter under the nick @jayong28

With the world getting smaller and smaller thanks to good old globalization, we are now able to see a lot more of it whenever we fancy booking a cheap train or flight to an exotic destination and our iPhones can make the whole travelling process a lot easier. However, seeing as travelling can sometimes cost an arm and a leg, we want to save money wherever we can. So, here are five top iPhone apps that are designed for travelers that will not cost you a penny!

1. Track your flights with Live Flight Tracker

The quickest and easiest way to escape your country is by plane, but as any veteran traveler will know, those flying machines don’t always run on time. Live Flight Tracker allows you to track the real-time flight status and tracking map of any flight in the United States, Canada, or United Kingdom by searching for aircraft registration, airline, route or flight number and will allow you to keep tabs on when your plane will have lift off!

2. Understand the language with Free Translator

Once you arrive at your destination, the first thing that will knock your senses for six will be the foreign language that is being spoken all around you. Unless you are a fantastic linguist then you will surely benefit from having the Free Translator app on your iPhone that essentially provides an interface to the free Google Translate API, which in turn can translate dozens and dozens of languages including French, Italian, Czech and English.

3. Make free calls back home Viber

If you are feeling a little homesick or you have made some new friends whilst travelling and want to make a phone call, but don’t want to pay an extortionate bill at the end of the month, simply download Viber which lets you call any other Viber user for free and for as long as you like. You only need an Internet signal, or better still a Wi-Fi connection, and you can chat away to your heart’s content! Essentially a Skype for phones, Viber requires no email address, making it easier to find other users.

4. Find interesting things with AroundMe

It’s all very well being in another country and enjoying its surroundings, but if you really want to find out where the nearest amenities are, you’ll need AroundMe. This free app allows you to search for pretty much anything the budding traveler needs, from hostels and hotels to restaurants and cinemas, using Google Maps technology to guide you to your destination.

5. Save on data bills using Wi-Fi Finder

Wherever you are in the world, there’s one thing that the new age traveler will want o find and that is Wi-Fi. Whether it’s to send an email to your folks back home, check a connecting flight or update Facebook with pictures of your adventures, Wi-Fi Finder will lead you to the nearest Wi-Fi spot where you can browse the web for free, (or the price of a coffee in a nearby caf©!)

Guest author David Harfield blogs at iphoneappcafe.com about iPhone apps, accessories, and also provides tips to get the most out of your iPhone.

Antivirus software has become a commonplace addition in the majority of home and commercial computers; however, many people are still unaware that periodic maintenance and removal of spyware from your computer is just as important as the removal of viruses, as they can present equally dangerous threats such as identity theft and economic loss. Here are a few great tools which do a great job of clearing spyware from your computer.

1. Microsoft Defender

Included right off the bat with your Windows installation, Microsoft Defender actually does a pretty decent job of keeping your software clean from infections. It may not have the same level of reputation as third-party software providers which cater directly towards spyware prevention, but Microsoft’s clout does offer decent assurance that it works the way it’s supposed to.

Users should take note, however, that while Microsoft Defender is turned on by default, it has been found to be turned off on some computers, perhaps due to automatic changes resulting from software or accidental tweaks manually made by users. It can be toggled on or off in the Control Panel, so it pays to occasionally check if the program is actively running and keeping you safe.

2. Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot Search & Destroy has been around for a long time, having a presence since 2003 when Windows XP was still making its rounds. It’s gained quite a following among professional and amateur tech circles, and has won numerous awards from prestigious names such as PCWorld and Softpedia during its run.

Spybot’s key features shine in its SDHelper and TeaTimer components, which actively prevent spyware which may inadvertently leak into your system from installing itself onto your computer. It has a simple and uncluttered interface to facilitate the user experience, and works on all systems up to Windows 7.

3. LavaSoft Ad-Aware SE

LavaSoft’s Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition is a free anti-spyware module which has been Spybot’s effective competitor since the beginning – which means that it works quite well. It offers real-time protection against malware and spyware threats, so if a rogue program tries to enter into your system, you’ll be notified immediately and be given the chance to clear it before it can perform any lasting damage.

Ad-Aware comes fully packed with protection against obscure but significant terms such as rootkits, trojans and malware, and their support team updates frequently to provide effective protection against potential new threats. In fact, if you want the best of both worlds, it’s recommendable to install both Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D and run both programs at regular intervals.

4. ThreatFire

ThreatFire is another fantastic example of how good things can come in free packages. The award winning software has garnered positive reviews from reputable sources such as PCWorld, and has an Apple-like personality in that it is designed with the average user in mind. In addition to providing the standard protection functionalities, it also has some nifty tricks such as a real-time display of software threat detection around the world.

Thanks to its nature as a spyware removal program, ThreatFire can work together with regular antivirus software such as AVG or Avast without putting an extra burden on your PC’s resources. Since these types of programs are generally never turned off, this can translate into faster speeds on your PC, especially if you’re running an older model.

5. Comodo Internet Security

The antivirus software industry is a saturated one, and only the very best actually stand out enough to be noticed. Comodo Internet Security is the latest variant which has recently actually gained attention from the tech community, so it speaks for itself in being efficient in removing spyware from your computer.

Taking a page from the cloud, Comodo’s scanning methods are somewhat different from the other more established companies; most antivirus download the latest updates periodically to stay recent, whereas Comodo actually scans your system against their servers in real-time. This gives you the peace of mind that your system is protected against the same level of threat as their company servers are, as recently as they are made aware of them.

This post was written by Aaron Pek.  If you want to become a Friedbeef’s Tech writer, just contact us here.

Do you scan for spyware on your system?  Tell us more in the comments :)

It’s a fact of life that the Internet industry runs on advertisements – it’s the source of their revenue streams, a necessary evil to financially support the infrastructure which run the websites we’ve all come to know and love. However, like homework, just because they’re a fact of life doesn’t mean we have to like them. Here are a few ad blockers which should go a long way in making your web experience clutter-free.

1. How To Block Ads Which Appear On Mozilla Firefox

By far the most infamous of the ad-blockers, Adblock Plus has been so recognized by the tech community that it has earned a permanent place in many a Firefox users’ extension base. Adblock Plus works by blocking all HTML and Flash scripts of advertisements, including banner ads and flashy dynamic commercials from almost all websites you may encounter.

As a bonus, the software works in such a way that it can trace certain malware domains and prevent them from incurring additional harm to your computer. Best of all, Adblock Plus is easy to install: either visit this page or navigate to œTools -> Add-Ons -> Get Add-Ons from your Firefox toolbar and search for œAdblock Plus.

2. How To Disable Advertisements On Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has been the market leader since it beat Netscape in the browser wars, but despite having enormous financial backing from Microsoft, it still hasn’t gained quite the same amount of attention from developers as Firefox and Chrome in terms of third-party support. There are a few ad-blockers which work on Internet Explorer, such as KH Blocker, but by far the best news for regular IE users is that their latest revision sports an in-built ad blocker of sorts.

We’re referring to the new InPrivate feature (which is bundled with IE8 and above), as an option for users who prefer to surf the web in private. However, if you’re willing to get your hands dirty, you can head to œTools -> Manage Add-Ons -> InPrivate Filtering to specify how many times a certain type of content is allowed to appear before it gets blocked. This works by indirectly blocking advertisements after they show up a certain number of times, so you get a free ad-blocker right out of the box!

3. How To Remove Ads From Google Chrome

Google Chrome is relatively new in the market place, having been introduced barely 2 years ago – but it has surprisingly managed to gather a tight following among developers producing extensions for it. Having said that, the ad-blocking community still hasn’t caught up to speed with Firefox’s offerings, as their ad blockers merely hide ads from the user’s view, which doesn’t really help in improving loading speeds.

Enter AdSweep, an advanced solution for advanced users who really want to remove ads from Chrome. Their detailed instructions involve having a basic understanding of script writing, but if you manage to pull this off, it’s even more effective than any available ad-blocker as it injects itself into the core of the program. AdSweep also works on Opera and Firefox browsers, if you happen to use them.

However, if diving under the hood is too much work for you, then head on to AdBlock+ for a quick and easy ad-blocking solution. Take note though that since the developers haven’t fully provided support for the software, it may also unintentionally block RSS Feeds and sites like Google Reader, so remember to include exclusions for these items if you frequent them regularly.

4. How To Quell Distracting Advertisement From Within Safari

If you’re on a Mac, then you’re probably using Safari instead of the aforementioned browsers. While not as popular, Safari still accounts for more than 4% of the total market share, so it’s still a noteworthy mention.

GlimmerBlocker works right out of the box and provides an efficient solution for removing advertisements from your Safari web browser. It has gathered positive reviews from many users as an ad-blocker which œjust works, and the developers appear to be reliably contributing to updates whenever they are required. They’ve even provided step-by-step instructions on their site for uninstalling GlimmerBlocker from your browser!

5. How To Surf The Internet Ad-Free On Your Android Device

Since the inception of the iPhone, it has become increasingly common to surf the web on your mobile device. Currently, the iPhone doesn’t serve any convenient ad-blocking solutions, but if you’re using an Android device, then the free Dolphin Browser HD is right up your alley.

What’s great about this alternative web browser is that it incorporates ad blocking technology natively, so you can toggle between viewing ads easily from the settings page. This is an amazing step forward in web browsing on a mobile device, since these handhelds tend to depend on slower connections which really get bogged down while loading resource-heavy Flash advertisements.

This post was written by Aaron Pek.  If you want to become a Friedbeef’s Tech writer, just contact us here.

Do you block ads on your browser?  Tell us in the comments :)

Let’s assume that you, or someone you know, forgot their Windows password. The initial step someone usually takes when this occurs is to panic (understandably so). After all, none of us want to lose all of the information we have poured so much time into. The second step someone usually takes is to rummage through their drawers, trying to find any information written on a scrap of paper.

Assuming these two steps have been in vain, here is a useful third step to consider. Recover your password through the use of a free software application such as Ophcrack. We could go into detail about what Ophcrack is, and how it does it – but, truthfully, that is of minimal importance. Instead let’s look, step by step, how to use it.

Step by Step Guide on Using Ophcrack

1) Go to the Ophcrack site Download ophcrack LiveCD.

2) Select the XP LiveCD if you are using Windows XP. If you are using anything newer then select the Vista LiveCD. Within a few seconds you will be downloading the LiveCD ISO file.

3) In order to use the ISO file you need to burn it to a disk based media (CD or DVD). If you are using Windows 7, this feature is built in. If not, download and use a free ISO burning program – ISO Recorder is quite popular.

4) Restart your computer and enter the boot menu (likely by hitting F12 as your computer starts up). Making sure that your CD or DVD is in the computer’s drive, choose to boot from the CD or DVD.

5) When you see the ophcrack LiveCD screen select Ophcrack Graphic mode – automatic. In order to do this, you can simply hit the enter key (since this is the default option).

6) The Ophcrack Window will automatically load. Take a look at the leftmost column; this is where all the names of your user accounts are. For this demonstration, we have created a user account with the name œDan.

7) Wait as Ophcrack loads and attempts to discover your password. When it does, the password will appear in the right-hand column. For our demonstration, we had given œDan the password œDanTheMan – which Ophcrack was able to discover.

8) Exit the Ophcrack environment. You can simply reset or shut your computer down at this stage.

Using the program in order to save yourself a great deal of grief is a great idea. The only thing that should be mentioned is that you should never use this type of program to access other people’s accounts. Ophcrack is designed solely as a helpful tool to get yourself out of trouble if you forgot your own Windows password.

Author Bio

Keith writes for Computer Repair Vancouver on many computer related topics including how to recover a lost password.  This post was edited by James Yeang.  If you wish to become a paid writer or guest post for friedbeef, please contact me.

Whether you’re trouble shooting your family PC problems from your home, or just want to access your PC remotely, remote desktop solutions are incredibly useful. Unfortunately, most remote desktop programs aren’t very easily understood by the average computer user.

Here is a rundown of 4 easy-to-use free remote desktop Windows applications which make reaching out to your computer remotely as easy as ABC. All of these are FREE for non-commercial purposes.

1. Teamviewer

Teamviewer is easily the king of amateur remote desktop providers, both because of its wide popularity and instantly recognizable interface. A remote desktop session is created when one partner supplies his securely-generated, unique Teamviewer ID and password to his partner on the other side, upon which the active partner can choose to provide remote support, perform a presentation, transfer files, or create a virtual private network (VPN).

Teamviewer’s one-click solution to remote desktop support and its simple interface makes performing remote desktop a breeze, whether you work at tech support or simply want to reach out to your files at home. There’s also a stripped-down version for passive users for receiving support only, and the program has cross-browser capabilities, working over Windows, Mac, Linux, and even on the iPhone.

2. Instant Housecall

Instant Housecall is basically a simpler version of Teamviewer, and works almost identically minus a few bells and whistles. Similar to Teamviewer, it requires the active partner and the computer he’s reaching out to to have the software installed on both computers, and connects both of them with a unique username and password, or with a basic applet which is marginally smaller in size.

Once you’re logged in, a support window pops up detailing the passive partner’s desktop screen. It’s very speedy, maybe due to its lighter system requirements, so if you’re having problems with Teamviewer or just want to suit a client’s preferences, Instant Housecall provides a nice alternative niche with the same functionality.

3. LogMeIn

LogMeIn is the other major remote desktop provider on the front lines of the market, reaching out to consumers and businesses alike with its easily recognizable brand name. So far, reviews about their service have been top-notch, whether you’re on Windows, Mac or need a link over your iPhone.

Among the choices mentioned here, LogMeIn straddles the extremes rather than provide the best of both worlds. It has the highest stability rates during its remote desktop sessions (which is important), but it limits free users to remote desktop access only and nothing else; paying customers have file transfer, remote printing and desktop sharing options, functions which are completely free in Teamviewer. Still, if all you need is a way to support your clients living on the outer reaches of the globe, LogMeIn is the perfect application to fulfil your tech support needs.

4. ThinVNC

ThinVNC is a new remote desktop solution which provides a revolutionary new approach to performing remote access – through your web browser. Taking advantage of HTML 5′s arsenal of new capabilities, it creates a remote session between the partners and displays the screen within the active partner’s web browser, i.e. Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer. The potential for this type of functionality is enormous, such as creating sessions over a friend’s computer or on a public terminal – which is what makes it such a great free remote desktop Windows application.

The disadvantage of using it is that it’s not as simple to set up as the aforementioned programs, requiring basic knowledge of IP addresses and port numbers – but these are easily obtainable with the right instructions. The advantages are obvious, as web browsers are much more readily acceptable on foreign devices than executable setup files, and you have the assurance of performing remote access on campus or in cybercaf©s if you ever find the need to.

This post was written by Aaron Pek and edited by James Yeang

Would you ever need to use remote desktop applications?  Tell us more in the comments :)