I have tested out both the apps, and I much prefer TIPP10 to TypingWeb. First of all, it’s a desktop app, so it’s faster, doesn’t require an account, and is available all the time – Internet or not. Second, TIPP10 senses the characters that you mistype more frequently, and repeats them more during tutorials to get you accustomed. This is a really cool feature, and I have found myself getting more conscious and better with every tutorial.

Once you’ve completed a lesson, TIPP10 displays your score and charts your progress into graphs and other cool visualizations. All your lessons are saved, hence the data aggregates over time and the details add up.

As an added bonus, there’s a bubble- shooter-like game included in which you’ve to type the falling characters before they hit the bottom. You’ll find it under Go > ABC-Game.

Needless to say, TIPP10 is immensely useful for anyone who struggles at touch typing. And believe me, touch typing has its own perks.

Get TIPP10 from here. Windows users may also grab the portable version available at PortableApps.com.

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Hone Your Typing Skills With TIPP10 | PC Tonic

While all of the above clients provide perfectly usable Windows installers, did you know that you can actually use them as portable apps too?!

What’s the big deal about portable apps, huh?

Okay, so a portable app does look and work like a normal installed app. From that perspective, it’s really not that different. But! It’s portable, and that’s what magical about it. It won’t add junk registry items to your computer. It’s just one single folder that you can put anywhere (Dropbox!), use on any number of computers, and delete anytime.

Portable apps do have poor system integration, but that hardly matters in the case of DC++ client – all you do with the app is open it, join a hub or three, and share your files like crazy. Absolutely no system integration is necessary.

Get those portables!

We shall be covering more about the awesomeness of portable apps (including the PortableApps.com platform) in future posts, but this post is here to help you find portable builds for your favourite DC++ client. So lets get started.

Official DC++

You’ll find all the available DC++ builds on this SourceForge page. Click on the version number (currently 0.782), and download the .zip file from the list. Once downloaded, unzip the folder contents to somewhere on your computer (again, I’d recommend the Dropbox or SugarSync folder, if you use either), and create a shortcut for the DCPlusPlus.exe file on your desktop or taskbar.

Strong DC++

Visit the Strong DC++ files on SourceForge, click on the latest version number (currently 2.42), and get the 32/64 bit .7z file depending on your OS. Rest of the process is same as above. Do make sure that you’ve an archiving app like PeaZip, that can unpack the .7z file.

Apex DC++

Again, say hello to the SourceForge page for Apex DC++. Click on the latest version (currently 1.4.2), and download the ApexDC++_x.x.x_slim.7z file, x.x.x being the version number. The other .7z archives contains the source files, and is not meant for normal users.

Do note that Apex DC++ will add itself to the “Installed Programs” list, allowing you to uninstall it from the Control Panel.

There are, of course, many other DC++ clients, and you can quite possibly find their portable builds with a bit of Googling and searching their SourceForge archives.

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Most of the purchased laptops and netbooks do come pre-installed with Cyberlink Youcam, but it’s not free and you won’t have it once you format your system (unless you’ve an HP computer). For the rest of us, there are some very unusual yet useful tools that’ll do the job just fine.

Windows Live Movie Maker

We start with unusual tool #1 – Microsoft’s own Windows Live Movie Maker. As its name suggests, WLMM allows you to create casual movies and personal videos from an input stream of photos , music and videos. For what it’s worth, it can also record and create videos from your webcam.

Download and install Movie Maker from here, and launch it from your Start menu. Now click on the “Webcam Video” button on the ribbon, and Movie Maker will turn on and show your webcam.

You can then record to your heart’s fill and Movie Maker will create a nice video for you. To get photos, you have to split the video into frames and extract the required frames from it.

Media Players

The ‘geekier’ media players, like VLC and Media Player Classic, can stream directly from your webcam which you can then record using built-in functionalities.

Media Player Classic

Launch Media Player Classic, and press Ctrl + V (or go to File –> Open Device). Choose your webcam, set your audio source to “Video capture device” (you can use your built-in microphones, but I always got a very loud static-like noise from it), and click OK. Media Player Classic will now stream your webcam, which you can then record using Capture Settings (press Ctrl + 8, and tweak your settings).

VLC Player

In VLC, press Ctrl + C (or go to Media –> Open Capture Device), and choose settings as shown in the screenshot. As with Media Player Classic, you might want to turn off the audio to avoid the irritating noise. Once VLC shows your webcam, you can either record it (as detailed in this post) or simply take snapshots using Video -> Snapshot.

Windows (Itself!)

When your webcam is connected via USB, Windows will show it as a separate device under Computer (My Computer in XP). You can also find and launch it from Devices and Printers in Windows 7. Windows allows you to take snapshots from USB connected webcams.

Cameroid (all platforms)

Cameroid is an online webcam app that offers PhotoBooth-esque effects and allows you to save your snapshots, or share them online. The app is Flash-based, yet surprisingly lightweight and easy-to-use. There must be numerous other similar webapps, so do let us know if there is anything else that you use.

Taking occasional snaps or recording family clips with webcams will never be a tough task again, with these nifty tools at your disposal.

Update #1

Gouthaman of PC Geek Blog has pointed out the snapshot taking ability of Skype – this definitely should’ve been included! Anyway, to take a quick snapshot, fire up Skype, go to Tools –> Options, and click on “Take a video snapshot” under Video settings. A new window will pop up, where you’ve to click on the “Take a snapshot” button.

Thanks Gouthaman!

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4 Unusual Webcam Software for Windows | PC Tonic

Even though I’ve never used Apple’s famed desktop OS, there’s one thing about Mac OS X that has always made love it – the font rendering. A lot of people don’t get what’s with all the fuss about fonts, but for me it’s always been the little things that matter.

Ever since ClearType was introduced a few years into Windows XP, font rendering on Windows has undergone a huge facelift. ClearType is quite cripsy and sharp, but that’s exactly what I don’t like about it. The fonts look like thin swords cutting through a piece of fabric that is your PC screen. Compare that to the font rendering on OS X, which is like this creamy blending thing that creates more impact on your eyes and…..okay I’ve no idea how to describe it, so let me just say it looks tons better! Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two -

[source: lifehacker; click on image to view in full size]

Notice the difference?

• Yes? Welcome to the camp! I don’t know which of the two you like, but for me it’s easily OS X.
• No? It’s probably awesome you can’t make out the difference because then you won’t have to like one or the other!

Anyway, for those of you who do like the OS X rendering but are using Windows instead, there’s an easy way to get the former on your PC!

Enter GDI++. This tiny app, when activated, kills Windows’ ClearType font rendering and uses its own OS X-style rendering, which is based off the original gdi++.dll project.

To get started, download the GDI zip file from the link provided at the end of this post, extract the folder anywhere on your PC, and double-click the gditray.exe file to start the utility.

If the rendering doesn’t change immediately, right click on the gditray icon on your system tray, make sure ‘Enable’ is enabled, and click on ‘Apply Now’. Now, sit back and enjoy the magic!

If you want to make it start automatically with Windows, make a shortcut of the gditray.exe file and put it in the Startup folder.

Should you want your ClearType back, simply exit the gditray.exe file and everything will be back to normal.

Do note that GDI++ doesn’t work everywhere. For example, I can’t get it to work on Google Chrome and uTorrent, two of my favorite apps, for the love of it. The, err, chrome of Chrome gets rendered in gdi++, but not the webpages. Firefox has no problems.

Also, if you don’t run the gditray.exe file as administrator (right click > Run as administrator), it’ll naturally fail to render areas that require administrative privilege.

Overall though, I’m pretty impressed with GDI++. It does what it says, and it does that really well. Previously, the only way for me to enjoy the OS X style rendering was by using Apple’s Safari browser, which is otherwise a very clunky software on Windows. However with GDI++, I can enjoy the rendering system wide without taxing my processor in any manner (the gditray.exe process uses only about 1-3 MB of memory while running and almost zero CPU usage). Really, small things like this go a long way in making me a happier soul!

======================

Download GDI++ – Make Windows fonts look as smooth as Mac OS X fonts (look out for ‘Download GDI++’ in step 1).

All credit for me discovering GDI++ goes to the awesome Lifehacker readers, with the app itself being covered at LH way back in March, 2009! Read the entire comment thread on Lifehacker here.

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Bring Mac OS X Style Font Rendering to Windows with GDI++ | PC Tonic

However, a lot of places don’t have printers. My hostel, for one, doesn’t. This is where all the mouth-clasping abilities of my not-so-tech-savvy friends kick in. The obvious problem is how to save the damn page, and carry it in a USB stick to the student store. Some will simply Ctrl + S it as a .htm file, which is quite convenient but looks extraordinarily disgusting. Others tend to follow their own routes, most of which can be best described by this:

[xkcd]

I take the more normal (for us!) route and print the page directly to a beautiful little PDF file that shows the ticket exactly as it should be seen.

It is almost painful to watch my friends struggle innovate while trying to pin down a stupid webpage to their USB drives, and hence this post.

Guys, all you’ve to do is install this free utility called doPDF, and print those web tickets as PDF files in future. doPDF adds a virtual printer to your system, which works like any regular printer, but prints to PDF instead. Once installed, you can click on that ‘Print ERS (English / Hindi)’ button on your e-ticket, and select the doPDF printer in the Print dialog box (actually, make it the default printer during installation so you won’t be bothered again!), and…voila! your ticket is now a freakin’ PDF! Carry it in your pen drives to the student store, print your proper looking tickets, and get your sticks all filled with crazy malware because the store guy won’t bother scanning his damn computer. Yo mama!

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However, it has a few quirks (two, to be specific) that may drive you to using another security tool (a cracked Kaspersky or Norton, maybe?). So we’ll see what these two quirks are, and why you should rather ignore them and keep using this awesome tool.

#1 Revoltingly long first update

Microsoft Security Essentials takes a ridiculous amount of time to update for the first time (just after you install it). On a slow connection, it can be as long as an hour or more! Since future updates are all automatic and silent, this is likely the only time you’re gonna notice the update, and naturally you feel pissed off. People assume it’s always gonna take that long to update (which would be outrageous), and uninstall it without thinking twice. This is not true. The subsequent updates are small and fast as any other antimalware program. So why the gigantic first update? Lets see.

You must have noticed that the MSE installer is surprisingly small (about 8 MB) as compared to other antimalware tools. However, this is because the installer simply installs the core MSE program. Absolutely nothing that’ll protect your computer – the scanner, real-time engine and the malware definitions – come with this installer. After MSE is installed, it downloads and adds these components during the first update. Hence the huge, long update. The solution is just to be patient the first time.

Also, you can simply minimize or close the MSE window when its updating without stopping the update itself, and let it do its job.

#2 Revoltingly long time to remove malware

If you’ve ever been in a situation where MSE detects anything over 10 infections on an external drive or something, you must be knowing it takes just too much time to wipe those out. Most other antimalware that I’ve used suspend/quarantine/kill malware in a matter of seconds. But MSE will often take more than just a few minutes to get the task done. Sometimes it can take upto 20 minutes, or might pretend to just plain hang (while it clearly hasn’t). This can lead you to falsely assume that MSE can’t remove malware effectively.

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. For now. Remember that MSE is still very young (not even a year old, to be exact) and the upcoming version 2 might very well take care of this issue. For the time being, just put MSE in the background, leave it to do its job, and get back to your own work. Be assured that it will remove the malware it detects, no matter how long.

————

MSE is a really, really good security product that doesn’t deserve to be ditched for these minor quirks. If you’re currently paying for your PC security, you should seriously stop now and get MSE instead. Lifehacker tries to explain why.

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2 Reasons Why You Might Want To Ditch MS Security Essentials, And Why Shouldn’t | PC Tonic

Anyway, here’s a good news for me and everyone else who had to look elsewhere after AlZip went shareware – to ‘celebrate’ the release of beta 1 of AlZip 8, the developers have decided to mail a license key of the final version to anyone who signs up for the giveaway. Simply enter your email address in this page, and you’ll receive your key as soon as version 8 hits the market.

Kudos to the AlTools developers for such a simple and awesome giveaway of AlZip.

AlZip Free [via Raymond.cc]

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Miss AlZip? You Can Get The Upcoming Version For Free | PC Tonic

In the Open dialog that’ll launch, navigate to the place where you extracted the contents of the zip file and select any of the 10 sets available.

You can find more at DeviantArt, or even create your own set!

The original Start orb can be replaced anytime with the click of a button.

Windows 7 Start Button Changer [The Windows Club]

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This is definitely not what you’d call a pleasant user experience, and therefore HP has proceeded to fix the issue. By partnering with Cyberlink, HP has released MediaSmart Webcam, which closely resembles YouCam but is completely free to use on HP laptops, desktops, and touch screen PCs. To get MediaSmart, you can wait for HP Update (which should be installed on your computer unless you manually removed it) to deliver it to you. Or, you can Google your computer model, proceed to the HP page for the model, select your OS (you should preferably be running Vista or 7), and choose MediaSmart Webcam from the list of downloads available. Here’s the required page for my laptop model running 32-bit Windows 7 – dv5-1006ax.

Running the downloaded file will automatically remove YouCam and install MediaSmart on your laptop, which can then be accessed from the Start menu.

MediaSmart will run only on HP hardware, though owners of other models can try and get gobsmacked in the face.

P.S. If you’re planning to purchase an HP Pavilion laptop in near future, here’s my advice – DON’T.

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This error message is somewhat informative (though all dialogs on Vista / 7 aren’t so enlightening!). It tells you which program is currently using the file that you’re trying to remove, and that you need to close it to progress.

However, Windows XP users aren’t so fortunate. Here’s the error message that you guys get -

[Source : Bleeping Computer]

Needless to say, it creates more problems rather than solving the one you’re already facing.

“Another person or program using my files!? Have I been hacked or what? :O” You’re driven to panic, and you call your technician guy, who charges a ridiculous amount to get rid of that file and to assure that you’re indeed safe.

Well, take my advice and don’t run for your technician the next time. Download and install a tiny utility called Unlocker instead. It’s completely free. Once it’s installed, right click on that file / folder and select Unlocker.

Unlocker will look for the program (process) that’s locked down your file, and show it to you.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can kill the process, or simply unlock the file from the process. If a file is being accessed by more than one processes at a time, use the Unlock All button. Once the file is free from the process, do whatever you want from the options provided – delete, rename, move, or copy.

Unlocker is a simple, yet very effective tool while dealing with locked files. If you’re looking to remove rogue programs that simply won’t budge, have a look at Revo Uninstaller – which is like Unlocker for installed applications.

Unlocker

Rating : 4.5 / 5

Security Concerns

Unlocker comes bundled with a harmless eBay shortcut along with it. Installing this shortcut is completely optional, and you can opt out during the installation, if you want to. However, a few security products like Microsoft’s Security Essentials and McAfee flag this eBay item as ‘severe’ malware. So if your antivirus warns you while you’re installing Unlocker, simply allow it to remove the eBay icon. Unlocker will continue to work without any problems, and you won’t receive any more alerts. Still, I’d definitely like the security companies to remove this bogus alert through an update.

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Tame Moody Files With Unlocker | PC Tonic