We have come a long way from those giant floppy diskettes that used to be the only means of portable storage system. The mighty usb flash drive is the best of them all. With most of us using pen drives with a capacity larger than 1GB, here is a post that will tell you how you can make most of the little boon.
1. Mini Operating systems
Yeah!! You can carry a portable operating system on your pen drive which will help you log into any PC with your own password and fix the crashes. There is a long list of available options though it will invariably be a flavor of Linux. To make your job easier I would recommend a visit to pendrivelinux.com and here.
2. Virtual Machine
You can turn your pen drive into a virtual PC by installing portable virtualization softwares like Mojopac. It will help you carry your files and softwares with ease.
3. Security on the move
There are a host of security related applications that can fit in your pen drive and thus travel with you. Thus your data will always be secured whether or not the host PC has an anti-virus or spam guard. Avast Virus Cleaner, ClamWin, and McAfee Avert Stinger are some of my recommendations.
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No matter how much people may rant against the applications on Facebook, the developer community keeps coming up with zillions of them every day. And now the most popular social networking site in India – Orkut too has announced the opening up of the site for them real soon. Soon we will find Orkut too flooded with applications.
While this may provide a great advertisement opportunity to many companies and a showcase for the enthusiastic developers, I just hope this doesn’t turn out to be another means of spamming people with hundreds of requests and invitations (Mayank recently wrote about the sorry state of spam in social networks).
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Vista may have its patrons. But I am certainly not one of them and TopDesk has increased my reasons. One really likable feature in Vista is Window Flip (AERO). It is certainly eye catching and gives the desktop more 3d look. But then there’s nothing that’s not possible on XP.
TopDesk comes as a great tool which adds this feature to your Windows XP giving you one more reason to stick to the aging OS. Using a reasonable 18-20 Mb of your RAM, it runs in the tray and gives a decent performance without slowing down your PC. It has ample options to customize the program according to your needs. Here are some of the options it provides -
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Data management has become crucial for every mouse potato these days and what data could be more important than your passwords. Right from your operating system log in to the hundreds of sites,forums and accounts you visit – all know you by your password and many of them might not bear the question ‘forgot your password?’. This is where a utility like KeePass can come really handy.
Keepass is a free,secure and portable password manager which comes with some good and useful features. It supports the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, Rijndael) and the Twofish algorithms to encrypt its password databases. The best part about it is that the passwords are encrypted while KeePass is running, so that even if Windows caches the KeePass process to disk, your passwords are not revealed in any case.
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For a movie buff like me, database management of my video collection has become a necessity and I guess I am not the only one of the kind. This is what made me search a few useful movie organizers and here’s the first one for you.
Collectorz.com Movie Collector is a comprehensive movie database organizer which can obtain movie related data from IMDB, Amazon.com, MovieCollector.net and its own database.
The Highs
1. Interface
It has a well designed user friendly interface which is pretty conventional in looks but offers great ease of use. It serves you with all the data related to movie including its front and back covers on a single window. The left part of the screen contains the details of the movie while the right part contains the same and more in a visually pleasing format along with a list of cast and character and the plot synopsis.The left part can also be used to view to view just the front covers of the movies.
2. Sources
It obtains its data from perhaps the best and largest sources of movie database online I.e. IMDB, Amazon.com and MovieCollector.net. To add to it, it also has a vast database of its own to support. Thus you will never be disappointed in your search.
3. Comprehensibility
It offers you myriad details to be stored for each movie. These details can be edited manually or can be downloaded from the source sites online.
4. Television Series support
You can also store the details of your favorite television series including their telecast timings.
The Lows
1. No Integrated Player
I don’t know whether this would actually qualify as a low for the software or not as most of its counterparts provide this feature neither but I really feel it would be be a great value addition to the software. It does have a button to start the media center but that’s hardly of any use in PCs without Windows media center which most of them are.
2.Expensive
For any collector tool, I find a price tag of $39.95 a bit too expensive.
Bottom Line
Movie database management would never in the category of must haves but if you do need a movie manger, this is the one for you. It leaves little to be desired in terms of database management and contains certain features that make the job a lot easier.
Software Details
Version:5.2 Build 5
License: Free Trial Price : $39.95
Homepage: Collectorz.com
OS Requirements: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP,Windows Vista and Mac OS X
Rating
3.5 Dinos out of 5
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