Category Archives: free software

How to free some hard disk space and substitute Acrobat Reader without giving up any features

This week, in our Freeware Page, we posted some thoughts on pdf readers. Some days ago I had some problems with my office Windows XP PC because the hard disk space was ending. As usual, I cleaned up the disk using CCleaner and I earned ca. 200MB of space and proceed to compress the hard disk. Unfortunately, this strategy did not solve my problems so I decided to have a deep look into the numbers of Kb each program occupied on the HD and I was surprised in noticing that Acrobat Reader needs more than 200MB of HD space to work. Then I focus my attention on Foxit Reader and I discovered that it occupied more or less 7MB of HD space. Obviously I disinstall Acrobat Reader and earned ca. 190MB of hard disk. Today, I am not able to affirm that I solved all my problems with my PC but I am confident that, with an intelligent use of CCleaner, I will able to go ahead for another couple of months without contacting the administrator for a new HD and stop my work for (sic) at least a couple of days. Something to think about….

Pokerth: a good way to spend some hours of relax

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It is vacation time and this week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we have posted some brief suggestion about playing Poker Texas Holdem just for fun with Pokerth. This version, optimized for Linux, has a nice graphics (e.g. you can select between different table) colors and is very intuitive to play. If you prefer, you can also play with other remote players clicking on the option you find in the below left menu. We played some good (bur not lucky) test games and the overall results were really positive. Unfortunately, tonight the pokerth.net server seems to be down… we hope tomorrow we will be lucky! Interesting.

Ultamatix: the most powerful software to install new programs, themes and games on Ubuntu

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we have added a post about Ultamatix which has been developed to be a valid substitute for Automatix. Ultamatix can be downloaded (in a practical .deb package) from its website and, with just few clicks, installed on your Ubuntu (now, also the jaunty 9.04 is fully supported). Ultamatix is very useful especially for the Linux beginners who have the possibility to add many programs, themes and icons in just with few clicks. We executed some different tests on Ubuntu 9.04 and the results were positive. Moreover, you can decide to uninstall the software directly from the Ultamatix menu at any time. This project is in continuous development and every new version contains new surprises. Anyway, even if we are not expert gamers but we were really satisfied from some titles we tested. Recommended!

How to create free different local telephone numbers linked to your Skype identity: Ring2Skype

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief post about Ring2Skype. Ring2Skype is a new free service which allows you to create local telephone numbers linked to your Skype user-id. After filling in few datas you get a telephone number in 31 different countries. In your email you will find a welcome letter with a summary of all the data of your new Ring2Skype account, your new telephone number and an extension to share with your local contacts. In this way, a person located in a different country could call you spending just for a local call. On the other hand it is possible to create more local telephone numbers so all your contacts in different countries could be in contact with you as if you are living in their same city. Recommended if it will remain free also in the future!

Something to know before the release of Firefox 3.5: how to disable the geo-locating feature.

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This week in our Freeware Page we we have written a quick post about disabling geo-locating feature in the upcoming Firefox 3.5. I have always been an enthusiastic supporter of Firefox because I think it is so flexible that I can find any add-on I need for any purpose. I am also sure that the new Firefox 3.5 will be the perfect tool for my everyday navigation but there is something I am a little bit annoyed. In fact, the Firefox 3.5 will contain a default feature (which can be triggered remotely by a website you are visiting) declaring your geo-location everytime you connect to a site. This feature (previously known as project Geode by Mozilla Labs) could be useful for people involved in social networking but it is a potential wasting time feature for all the others. In fact, you have to declare if you want to automatically display your geo-location each time a website triggers this feature. For this reason, if you are not a social network addict, my personal advice is to disable this geo-locating feature as soon as you install (or update to) Firefox 3.5… (it continues in the Freeware Page).

QuotePad a useful portable freeware to take notes “on the go” when in internet.

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This week, in our Freeware Page , we have added a short review about QuotePad which is a very interesting notepad that can be used to better organizing your online day by day work especially when in internet. In particular this light freeware allows you also to copy and paste large amounts of texts from web-pages and automatically recording the web-address. After coping the text you have only to go into your QuotePad and paste it using Ctr-Shift-Q. QuotePad directly memorizes the time of your “cut and paste” and allows you to write the most appropriate title for each of your notes. Moreover, clicking on “stay on top” (on the right in the upper bar) you can also stitch your notes above the browser you are using. Recommended.

How to share notes and images using thepiratebay.org satellite websites: PasteBay and bayimg

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Today, in our Freeware Page, we added a brief review about two, multiplatform free services offered by th piratebay.org. The first one is PasteBay which allows you to quickly create, save and protect (in a basic way) your own notes when browsing on internet. PasteBay is very intuitive, quick to use and effective. The only “trouble” could be the simple http connection (instead of https) and the password you choose that could be weak if you do not choose it in a proper way. The second online service offered by thepiratebay.org is bayimg which allows you to store images for your websites in 140 different formats. Each image could be uploaded till 100MB so it is possible to save online also high resolution images. We have spent five days testing the features offered by these two websites and we have really not found any problem or bug. Recommended!

How to easily check HD health using a cross platform software: GSmartControl 0.8.3

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GSmartControl is a multiplatform (Windows, OS X, Linux) freeware drive health inspection tool which is very useful in all that case when you think something is not working perfectly on your HD. Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we have posted a brief comment about this software which basically is the graphical user interface for smartct. The program is very intuitive and easy to use; it automatically detects all your internal HDs (with some external USB disks we had some problems because they were detected as unknown) and let you decide if you want to activate the SMART feature. This particular feature let you “predict certain kinds of failures with certain chance of success” so you have a better chance to avoid HD crashes and all the consequent data loss. If you prefer, clicking on the “Enable Auto Offline Data Collection” the HDs will be tested every four hours without impacting your CPU performance. I would like to focus your attention that GSmartControl is very well developed and it is possible to download many “personalized” versions for all the main Linux distributions, OS X and Windows. Last but not least, do not forget that SMART could predict some HD crashes but it is not 100% safe; for this reason we strongly recommend you to backup your PCs, at least every week!

How to create a terrific slideshow in just three steps using Animoto.

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This week, in our Freeware Page, we have posted some brief comments about the free part of services offered by Animoto, a Web 2.0 website which allows you to create short free multimedia slideshows. Using Animoto, it is possible to make a 30 seconds video clip which directly melts your images/photographs with a soundtrack you can freely select in their data bank. The link of the video will be sent directly to your email and to all your friends if you prefer. Obviously, a paid subscription allows you to obtain longer videos with HD quality but, after some tests, we were actually satisfied from the Animoto slideshow we had obtained without paying anything. It is a pity we had so many problems when we decided to use Linux OSs to test Animoto… Something to try if you like to show some photos on your website (especially if you have a dark background).

How to install XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief tutorial about installing XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10. As you certainly know, XBCM is a complete Media Center based on Ubuntu. This program is multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OS X and also XBOX – not officially supported-) and, in our opinion, is the most efficient and complete open source media center you can find today on the Internet. Moreover, XBMC has developed a special version that could be installed on a USB Key on a Live CD to freely test the application before installing on your PC. The post is brief but contains all the complete instructions to quickly install XBMC without problems. Please, be sure to digit sudo apt-get update in Terminal after you install the new repositories. Recommended!!