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AutoCAD LT 2011 | Unboxing

By Matthew Guay on August 10, 2010 in PC Software

Ready to get started with AutoCAD LT 2011? AutoCAD is one of the larger programs you’ll install on your computer, just like Photoshop or Microsoft Office. But that doesn’t mean it’s difficult; in fact, we were pleased that the installer was so simple and easy to use, and in fact inspired us to go design as soon as it was installed. Let’s look at a quick unboxing, and then we’ll dive into the setup process.

AutoCAD LT 2011 Unboxing

AutoCAD LT 2011 is still sold by default as a packaged product, which is good for most users as it includes 2 DVDs in the package. This can take a long time to download, depending on your internet connection, so even if you prefer to purchase software electronically you might be better to go for the disk with this. You can purchase it as a boxed copy from Amazon.com or from select software retailers in your area. Or, you can get it directly from AutoDesk via download or DVD.

Here’s our copy fresh out of the FedEx envelope. Shiny!

Here’s a nicer, stock shot of the box cover:

On the back, you’ll see your Serial Number and Product key, as well as some copyright info about AutoCAD. Note that AutoCAD LT 2011 is fully Compatible with Windows 7, and we can confirm that it runs great on it.

Once you open the DVD case, you’ll see 2 DVDs as well as some support literature. The first disk on the top is the 32 bit installer, and the second is the 64 bit installer. Do note that you should remove the top, 32 bit disk before removing the lower 64 bit one.

Here’s everything out of the case. Our copy included a support brochure in 6 languages listing websites and phone numbers for technical support, as well as extended support options.

And that’s all. Now you’re ready to get AutoCAD installed on your computer, so head to the next article to see how to get it setup and ready to run!

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AutoCAD @ Techinch

By Matthew Guay on August 4, 2010 in Reviews

No matter how nice your new PC is, what’s really important is the software you can use on it. From communications to advanced design to videos and photography, computers today are some of the most versatile tools available. We always love seeing innovative, new applications for PCs, but sometimes it can be even more exciting to see how mainstays of the software industry keep their products relevant. Microsoft reinvigorated Office with the 2007 edition and has continued the tradition with the latest 2010. Other major companies are doing the same, and we’re excited to see how new versions of traditional programs make them fresh and exciting all over again.

Starting this week, we’ll be running a series about AutoCAD LT 2011, AutoCAD Freestyle, special discounts and free Autodesk software for students, and more. Autodesk has done a great job at integrating the Aero and ribbon interface into AutoCAD 2011, and we’ll be exploring how it works great with Windows 7’s new features. Even if you prefer the traditional file menu interface, you’ll still feel at home with AutoCAD 2011 as it still includes the traditional interface as an option. It also takes full advantage of the latest computers with both 32 and 64 bit editions. We’ll let you see exactly how the latest version works, how to set it up, and unique features it offers. And we’ll take a look at Autodesk’s Education Community that offers free software and training for students!

Then, AutoCAD Freestyle is a great tool to help home users get started doing CAD design without “going pro” and spending hundreds of dollars on advanced tools without knowing how to use them. Freestyle can help you create amazing 2D drawings and designs with little or no training. Plus, it can view and create full DWG files that you can share with other AutoCAD users. Similar to Photoshop Elements, Freestyle lets you get started with AutoCAD quickly, easily, and more economically.

Whether you’re heading to college this fall to study design, have used CAD programs for years, or are simply curious about using CAD software, you’ll be sure to find some interesting information. Stay tuned, and please let us know anything you’d like to find out about the latest AutoCAD software and we’ll do our best to fill you in with the articles.

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Evernote Essentials | Review

By Matthew Guay on July 22, 2010 in Books, Techinch

Like it or not, humans are forgetful. Admit it … even the best of us have forgotten lots of important information over the years. Ask me; I managed to forget to make hotel reservations three days in a row this week, even though people reminded me each day! I’ve often envied cameras and phones; they run out of storage space, and we simply stick in a new, larger SD card. Evernote claims it can help you Remember Everything, but somehow it seems like the most obvious solutions don’t seem that obvious at first. It seems like a good idea; just jot down all your thoughts, and then find them again anytime, anywhere. But for me, Evernote didn’t click until recently. If you’ve been feeling in the dark about Evernote, perhaps using it haphazardly but not regularly, you might need something to help it make more sense. Or, even if you’ve been using it for a while, you might be wondering how you can get more usefulness out of it.

Enter Evernote Essentials. This hot-off-the-press eBook (assuming, as I do, that in 2010 Tumblr and PDFs count as a press) helps you quickly discover all of Evernote’s features and start using them to make you more productive and forget less. Evernote may not be the most confusing application ever; in fact, it may be one of the simplest. But author Brett Kelly, a new member of the Evernote team, ties it all together and helps you see how Evernote brings your thoughts from your browser, desktop, and mobile device all together. This is not a weighty, 500 page book that takes you through every nook and cranny of a program, but instead is a light-reading book that can help you get the most out of Evernote. Let’s look at what Evernote Essentials contains, and why you just might want to read it.

Screenshots, captions, witty comments … Evernote Essentials has it all!

Evernote Essentials starts with a quick overview of the Evernote service in general, and helps new users get up to speed on some terminology. Then it dives into a look at the features and settings in all of Evernote’s major platforms: the desktop, web, and mobile versions, Evernote via email, and more. Next you’ll learn how to effectively organize and find anything you store in Evernote. Tagging is often difficult for new users to understand, and can be messy and confusing for advanced users who’ve used Evernote a long time, so you may want to pay extra attention to the section on tagging to help you stay organized.

Examples of great Evernote usage ideas ranging from cooking to programming follow. Bloggers, you’re not neglected; there’s a whole section on how Evernote can help you keep up with your ideas and post drafts. Secret Service agent looking for a way to remember everything? You’re covered too.

The sections I found most useful were the ones about using Evernote via email and about the advanced search options in Evernote. Did you know you could search for all notes containing images with text that Evernote recognized? Or that you could find all notes created in the past week by just entering created:week-1 in Evernote’s search box? Guess what; you can! I’ve used Evernote for over a year, but this one section taught me a lot that I’d overlooked in Evernote. Anything that can make you more productive and organized is valuable, and this one book helped me get a lot more out of the free Evernote service. The best thing is, you’ll likely have fun reading the book too, and be more excited about getting your notes organized in Evernote.

Getting Evernote Essentials

Evernote Essentials is available as a DRM-free PDF for $25, and the author promises to regularly update the book with new information and make the latest version available free of charge to customers. In fact, you won’t even have to worry about having the latest copy; when the book is updated, you’ll be automatically emailed with the newest version. The PDF is fully searchable, so you can easily find anything you’re looking for in the book anytime. In fact, since all Evernote users can store PDFs in Evernote, I’d suggest you save the book in Evernote for a quick reference guide! To top it off, the author promises a full refund within 30 days if you don’t feel the book met your expectations. Not bad, eh? Check it out at the link below:

Get More Info and Purchase Evernote Essentials Today!

Let us know how this book helped you use Evernote more effectively to remember and find your info easier than ever.

P.S.: Hey Mr. Brett Kelly, would you mind sharing a couple of your Cumin Waffle recipes with us? A public Evernote notebook would do! After all, reading your book made me hungry

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Review of VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide

By Matthew Guay on July 5, 2010 in Books, Techinch

Are you just getting started with desktop virtualization? Let’s look at the new book VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide, which is a book that may be a great help getting started with desktop virtualization quickly and easily.

Computers today can be very complicated machines. Even though popular mobile devices are being pointed out as the future in easy computing, there are still many reasons you’ll want to use a full PC for the foreseeable future. However, constant upgrades and changes make it hard to stay on top and often mess up older programs. This is where virtualization comes in, as it lets you run older or newer operating systems on top of your main computer without getting rid of your existing version of Windows, programs, and files.

If this sounds complicated, trust me, it’s not that bad. Modern virtualization programs are quite easy to use, but still can be somewhat confusing. This is where VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide comes in. Virtualization sounds confusing, so author Alfonso V. Romero simply steps you through the process. Ever step of each process is demonstrated with a screenshot, so you’ll easily know what’s going on even if you’ve never ran a virtual machine before. When I first started reading the book, I thought at first that it didn’t explain enough at first, but soon it became clear that the author intended you to learn by doing. He finishes each chapter with a pop quiz; the questions and provided answers were often humorous, but may help drive home the points if you’re having trouble remembering them. Otherwise, you don’t have to do the quizzes; after all, that’s the virtue of self-study, right?

If you’ve already been using desktop virtualization, but have not done much more than run XP on your newer computer or played with Linux on top of Windows, then this book still offers stuff to help you take virtualization even further. Chapter 6 covers advanced networking with VirtualBox, helping you create virtual networks so you can simulate and group-manage several virtual machines just like you would an office of traditional computers. Chapter 7 then takes you on an overview of Virtual Appliances, prebuilt virtual machines that have become popular with VMware and VirtualBox. Chapter 8 shows you how you can remotely manage your virtual machines, though there’s one other way that the book doesn’t mention: since they’re all running directly on your main normal computer, you could always manage your virtual machines via Remote Desktop or a tool like LogMeIn. I’ve done this several times, and it works great . Finally, Appendix A covers VirtualBox’ snapshot feature, which lets you roll back changes in your virtual machines. In all, these sections will be interesting and informative for more advanced users.

However, if you’ve been using virtualization for years and already understand the concepts (or perhaps could manage virtual machines in your sleep), then this book is likely not for you. But, you still could find it useful if you ever need to teach your boss, coworker, or friend how to use virtualization.

Mac and Linux Users Welcome, Too

While this book is generally Windows-centric, VirtualBox itself runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. The program itself works mainly the same across all these platforms, so even if you’re wanting to use VirtualBox to run Windows on your Mac you may still find it helpful. It will look somewhat different, so you may want to check out the sample chapter (link below) first and make sure you can follow it on your operating system.

The eBook

Considering I reviewed an eBook copy of VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide, I thought I’d mention the overall eBook experience with the book. First, this book is published by Packt Publishing, and they offer all of their books either in standard paper (a real book) or as a DRM-free PDF. Just like most publishers today, they offer the eBook versions for much less than the paper version, so if you don’t mind reading on your screen or ereader device they can be a great value. The PDFs are fully searchable and are designed to fit nicely on the screen. The actual text of the book is about 520 pixels wide, so it will display nicely even on smaller screens. And, you can even print the eBook yourself if you decide you’d rather have it on paper.

You can always re-download your PDF eBook purchases from Packt with your online account. Simply login to your account and scroll down to the Recent Downloads section. Here you can select and download your purchased eBooks along with other free eBooks that may be available. The download will be in zip format, so download it and then extract the PDF from the zip file, and you’re ready to read.

One interesting thing about Packt eBooks is that they include your name and billing address on the footer of each page. This is an anti-piracy measure, and I found it a nice way to make sure people are honest with their digital purchases while still giving you the freedom of a PDF eBook without DRM.

Conclusion

VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide is available directly from Packt Publishing for $44.99 for the standard book or $33.99 for the eBook. If you’d rather have both, you can purchase both the ebook and the paper book as a set for $50.99. Packt offers free shipping in many locations around the world. Alternately, if you’re an Amazon customer, it is also available from Amazon.com for $39.50, which is actually the best deal if you wish to purchase the paper book. Or, if you’d like to read more before you actually purchase the book, check out this sample chapter for a full exercise you can try out and see if this book is good for you.

As always, the VirtualBox software itself is a free download from Oracle (formally Sun). You may notice that the current version is 3.2 (or possibly a higher version, depending on when you check), but as long as the version is 3.something, it should generally look and work the same as the book shows. The recent 3.2 update added some features, but it didn’t change anything covered in the book.

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Foxit Reader 4.0 | Freer than ever before!

By Matthew Guay on June 29, 2010 in PC Software

Foxit Reader is one of the most popular alternates to Adobe Reader, and users around the world have chosen to use it as their default PDF reader on Windows, Linux, and a variety of mobile devices. Today the latest version, Foxit Reader 4.0, is being released, so here’s our look at the new features.

Foxit Reader has always been a great PDF reader, since it’s lightweight (using under 10Mb of ram when running without a PDF open), fast, and secure. Foxit Reader was also extendable with a variety of for-pay addons including the Pro Pack that let you markup and perform basic edits on PDFs. And since it is cross-platform, Foxit has been the go-to PDF reader for users who want the same features on both Windows and Linux.

But now, there’s 4.0

Today, however, Foxit Reader is freer than ever. The latest version, Reader 4.0, that is being released today, included markup and editing tools for free in the standard Reader install. You can add notes, insert words, stamp your signature, or even add multimedia files such as mp4 videos directly to PDFs, all in Foxit Reader for free. Let’s look at the latest version, and what you’ll find to make your PDF editing easier than ever.

Getting Started

Download the latest version of Foxit Reader from the link below, and run the installer as normal.

Foxit Reader 4 uses Safe Reading Mode by default, which helps protect your computer from malicious PDFs. As PDFs have been increasingly targeted by hackers, we recommend you leave it enabled as default; however, if you’d prefer, you can uncheck the box during the setup to have PDFs render in standard mode.

Additionally, you can choose to not install links to 3rd party sites if you do not want these. Unlike in previous versions, Foxit Reader 4 still includes all of its advanced features even if you don’t install the optional tie-in products.

Once it’s installed, launch it from the start menu or select to run it immediately at the end of the installation. Welcome to the latest version of Foxit!

Note that some features, including spell checking and OnDemand CM, require a separate, free download. When you try to use a feature that needs a download, Foxit will prompt you to download the extra component. Click Yes at the prompt to automatically download and install the extra components.

New Features

Foxit Reader 4 looks very similar to previous versions, and uses the same toolbars and menu system. This makes it easy for longtime users to find their way around, though we were slightly disappointed to not see a more updated UI.

It still renders PDFs great, and we could not tell any formatting differences from other PDF applications.

But, there’s plenty more to be excited about under the hood. You can quickly get started marking up and adding content to PDFs from the toolbar on the bottom right.

You can insert text directly on a PDF document. Note that you cannot actually remove existing words and replace them, but you could add an extra line of text if you need.

Fun Fact: Interestingly, Foxit Reader uses Helvetica as the default editing font, even if Helvetica isn’t installed on your computer.

You can also select any section of the PDF and make it into a link to a file, website, or location in a PDF. This is very useful if you’d like to add a linked Table of Contents to a PDF ebook, for example.

One of the most exciting features is the ability to add multimedia content to a PDF. From the Edit menu, you can add images or movies to a PDF, or even attach another file to the document.

Foxit makes it easy to find more information about anything. Simply select a word with the selection tool, and a small popup will hover near the selection that lets you search for the term on the internet.

Another cool feature is that you can view a PDF as a text file. Click the glasses icon to activate this feature.

Now you can focus just on the content, which can be nice if you’re distracted by sidebars and images in a PDF ebook. This also makes it easy to select text to copy and use elsewhere.

Conclusion

Foxit Reader 4 is still an excellent PDF reader, but more exciting are the new markup and editing tools. While Reader is still not a full-fledged PDF editing suite, it does include many features that will make it nice for many home and business users. And, since all of the features are free, Foxit Reader 4 doesn’t feel like a limited product, and doesn’t nag you to purchase upgrades.

So if you’re a longtime Foxit Reader user, or regularly use another PDF reader but would like more control over your documents, Foxit Reader 4 is a great upgrade. It’s fast, keeps you secure, and even lets you take your documents further!

Download Foxit Reader 4 now!

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Backup Your Files to Windows Azure With CloudBerry

By Matthew Guay on June 15, 2010 in PC Software, Techinch

Cloud computing has taken the world by storm. From the newly released Microsoft Office Web Apps and the popular Google Apps to collaboration tools such as Dropbox and Backpack from 37signals, more and more of us are using online applications and storing more data in the “cloud” every day. But with our data scattered around between various services, we still keep large amounts of data on our computers. Favorite mp3s, irreplaceable pictures, and critical documents are often left on our computers, venerable to hard drive crashes and theft. Most backup media, including DVDs and external hard drives, are susceptible to the same problems.

Cloud computing offers an ideal solution to this. Cloud computing, boiled down to its essence, is simply using computer resources on servers via the internet. And today there are many tools that can help you take advantage of cloud computing to backup your computer. Microsoft has recently released a new cloud computing platform, Windows Azure, that lets you run applications and store your data on their servers. No matter what happens to your computer, anything you store on Azure will still be accessible from any computer.

Using services like Azure can seem confusing, especially if you’re not a geek. Today, however, anyone can easily use Windows Azure to backup their computers quickly and easily with the brand-new CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Azure. This simple to use application lets you backup your computer intuitively, just like many other backup programs you may have used. But while most backup programs help you save your files to DVDs or an external drive, CloudBerry for Windows Azure backs up your files to Windows Azure, so you can always access your backups wherever you are. And, best of all, for a limited time, you can use both CloudBerry for Windows Azure and the Windows Azure service for free! Keep reading to see how easy it is to keep your data backed up … in the Windows Azure cloud.

Getting Started

First you’ll need to have a Windows Azure account. If you don’t already have an account, check out our article on how to Setup Your Windows Azure Account. And, remember, until July 31, 2010, you can store up to 500Mb for free.

Now you’re ready to start using CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Azure. Download it from the link below, and install as usual. CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Azure is free with registration during the beta period, so if you install it now you’ll get to keep it for free. If you’re getting started with CloudBerry after the beta period is over, you can run the free trial for 14 days and then purchase a full version for $29.99.

Once it’s installed, run the program to get started backing up your computer. During the free beta period, enter your name and email to get a free registration key. Enter the key you receive in an email, and then click Ok.

If you’re getting started with CloudBerry after the free beta period, you can click Request Trial to activate a 14 day trial, or click Buy to purchase a license key. Once you have your key, enter it in the box and click Activate.

Now you’re all set … Welcome to CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Azure!

Setup an Online Backup

Now you’re ready to start backing up your files online to Windows Azure. Click Setup Backup Plan in the CloudBerry main window.

It’s fairly easy to setup your backup, but we’ll step through the wizard together so you’ll know what to expect.

First choose if you want Advanced or Simple mode. Advanced mode is selected by default, but we chose Simple mode so we can access our files with any Azure Blob tool including ClourBerry’s free Explorer for Azure.

Since this is our first backup to setup, we’ll need to create a new account.

Enter your Azure account information. Notice that your Account name is the same as the first part of your Display name’s address. Now click the Container button, and select Create New Container.

Enter a name for your container, and choose if you want this container to be open for public access. For most backups, you’ll want to choose No public read access, but if you’re backing up files you want to link to on your blog or website, you could choose public access. Click Ok when you’re done, and then click Ok in the previous dialog.

Now, choose the files and/or folders you wish to backup. You can backup whole top-level folders such as your User folder, or you can simply choose the folders and files you want backed up online.

Choose if you want to backup all of the files in the folders, or if you want to not backup certain files such as system and hidden files. You can then choose to compress the files to save space, and choose whether you want to save older versions of changed files. This is a great option to help you save only the most important files and scale the amount of storage used on Azure to the level that works best for you.

Finally, set the schedule you want to use for your backup. You can choose to only run it manually, or set it to automatically run. And, you can even choose to have CloudBerry email you a status report when it runs the backup.

We can now run our backup. In our test, the files uploaded to Azure very quickly, though it still may take quite a while depending on your internet upload speed and the number and size of files you’re backing up.

You can also now activate preset backup plans, such as the very useful My Internet Bookmarks backup plan. Simply select the plan, and click Run backup now. You may have to configure a few settings, but with only a couple clicks we were able to have our Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome bookmarks backed up to our Azure storage.

Note: The Internet Bookmarks backup plan only worked when running CloudBerry in Administrative Mode in Windows 7. This is a bug that is planned to be fixed in an upcoming update.

Once your files are backed up, you can browse them in Azure and restore them quickly via the Backup Storage tab.

Now your Welcome Page will show your backup plans, total space used on Azure, settings, and more. You can also now restore files from your backup directly from the Welcome Page.

And you’ll always be sure to have the latest version of CloudBerry Backup installed, since it will automatically check for updates on startup when you’re online. If a newer version of CloudBerry Backup is available, click Download and install the update. The update installer may be the same as the original installer, but don’t be worried, you backup settings will still be kept the same after it’s installed.

Price

As mentioned before, both Cloudberry for Windows Azure and the Windows Azure service are free for a limited time. And, the great thing is, if you start using Cloudberry backup now, you’ll get to keep using the program for free, even when the free beta period is over. If you didn’t get in on the free beta, Cloudberry Backup is reasonably priced at $29.99 per copy.

Windows Azure additionally is free for up to 500Mb of storage until July 31, 2010. Any data over that amount, and all data after that date, will cost $0.15 per gigabyte per month. Plus, it will cost $0.10 per gigabyte of data transferred to Windows Azure. Still, for most users, this works out to a fairly reasonable amount. Say you want to backup 15Gb of pictures and 5Gb of documents with Windows Azure starting on August 1, 2010, and you upload 1Gb worth of changes per month. Here’s what the backup would cost you between now and the end of the year:

August $5.00 Initial Backup + storage

September $3.10 Storage + backup updates

October $3.10 -

November $3.10 -

December $3.10 -

Total: $17.40

This works out very reasonably, especially when you consider that your files are being backed up redundantly in Azure servers around the world, so you’re certain to be able to recover your files no matter what happens.

Conclusion

CloudBerry Online Backup for Windows Azure is a great tool to help you keep your files backed up online. It worked very good in our tests, and we were very impressed with the upload speeds to the Windows Azure server. Setup is still somewhat confusing right now, partly due to Azure setup, but we hope this will be streamlined in future versions. Additionally, we’d like to see CloudBerry’s S3 and Azure backup programs merged so we could manager backups on both services simultaneously. Still, if you’d like to get started backing up your files on the Azure cloud, there’s no better time to get started than now since you can get started now for free! So give it a try, and let us know how backing up your computer in the Azure cloud works for you!

And, if you’re curious about CloudBerry’s other tools such as Explorer for Azure and Backup for Amazon S3 work, check back soon for reviews of these products as well!

Nitro PDF Professional – Edit PDFs without breaking the bank

By Matthew Guay on March 9, 2010 in PC Software, Techinch

We regularly edit and create documents, images, videos, and more on our computers, but PDFs are the one file format that many people still cannot easily edit or create. Adobe Acrobat, the industry leading PDF solution, is expensive, and most people simply have the free Adobe Reader so they can view, but not edit or create, PDF files. With PDFs being one of the most used files for professional documents, a simple and affordable PDF editor is an increasingly needed thing. Nitro PDF Professional offers such a solution, and at $99 it is much more affordable than Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Last year I reviewed a wide range of free tools from Nitro to create and convert PDF files, ranging from their PrimoPDF creator to the excellent PDF to Word online conversion service. These products are all excellent and highly recommended, and a recent update to PrimoPDF made it an even more valuable PDF creator. But if you want to edit PDF files directly, or create your own rich PDF documents and forms, Nitro PDF may be the best solution for you.

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Easy and cheap surveillance with Vitamin D 1.0!

By Matthew Guay on February 9, 2010 in PC Software

Ok, when’s the last time someone told you to give your computer vitamins? We try to protect our computers from viruses with antivirus software, so what would giving your computer vitamins do? Well, antivirus (and antimalware) software protects your computer from digital harm and data theft, but vitamins might protect your computer and more from physical theft! Well, Vitamin D that is.

Vitamin D is an amazingly powerful home security program that was just released after a beta testing period. I recently reviewed several home surveillance programs, and came away exceedingly impressed with Vitamin D. This program lets you easily monitor your home with as many webcams as you’d like. All that video would be hard to process, though, so this is where Vitamin D’s power shines. It has sophisticated searching capabilities that let you identify motion at specific places in your video and be immediately notified via email when motion is detected. Then, if you want to review your video, you can see those instances and can even add new criteria to monitor. It will then immediately rescan your video and show you the motion from the new area you selected. I tested this in the Beta version, and it worked great! This is only a sampling of Vitamin D’s features, so check out their feature list for more information.

The best part is the price. Vitamin D is available as a free Starter edition for 1 webcam and QVGA video, or you can purchase a Basic edition ($49) for 2 cameras and up to VGA resolution or a Pro edition ($199) for an unlimited number of cameras. This makes it accessible to everyone, and you can easily choose the level of power you need. So if you’d like to make your home more secure with hardware you already have, check out Vitamin D … you might find that vitamins make your computer better, too!

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Speeed Reader | Google Reader for your Windows Phone

By Matthew Guay on January 18, 2010 in Reviews

Although Windows Phones have been around for many years, the apps built around the platform often feel dated. Additionally, they are often much more expensive than their counterparts on other platforms such as the iPhone. There are notable exceptions to this, however, and the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile offers some exciting new apps.

This past week I came across a new exciting app on the Windows Marketplace thanks to their Twitter feed – a native Google Reader app! Google Reader is great for keeping up with news from your favorite sites and blogs, and many popular feed readers, such as the excellent FeedDemon, automatically sync your read feeds with it. This makes it very easy to keep up with what you’ve read whether you’re at your own computer or an internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.

Speeed Reader (yes, with 3 e’s … that’s not a typo!) now brings this power to Windows Phones in style. Although you can access Google Reader through your mobile browser, Speed Reader gives you a much nicer interface in which to read your feeds. Once you install this app, simply sign in with your Google Reader account and your feeds will automatically synchronize. All of your feeds will be easily viewable, and can additionally be cached for offline viewing. This is my favorite feature, as I can sync my feeds when I’m in a WiFi hotspot and then read them anytime later. When you sync again, Speeed Reader will refresh your read feeds on Google Reader so your feeds will be in sync everywhere.

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Kindle for PC | Amazon’s Future as a Digital Distributor

By Matthew Guay on November 10, 2009 in Reviews, Techinch

Bookworms around the world, rejoice! Amazon’s Kindle for PC is now available, making over 360,000 books only a click away for millions of PC owners worldwide. Announced during the Windows 7 launch event, Kindle for PC has now been released as a beta program today.

Amazon sparked worldwide interest in the eReader market, which is now an increasingly crowded market where the Kindle competes with the Sony Reader, Barnes & Nobel’s Nook, Plastic Logic’s Que, and more. Barnes & Noble and Sony both offer programs to read ebooks from their stores on your computer and other devices. Amazon initially only offered the Kindle program as an iPhone app, but they have now expanded and plan on supporting more platforms in the future. Similar to Microsoft’s Zune, which is a device, a store, and a program for Windows, Kindle is now simply an eBook ecosystem that works with its standalone eReader as well as iPhones, PCs, and more.

Kindle for PC sports a clean, simple UI that integrates nicely with Windows 7 (including support for jumplists and multi-touch on new touch-screen computers) and allows you to easily read your favorite books. After downloading the program, which works on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, you simply sign in with your Amazon account name and password. If you already own a Kindle device or use Kindle on an iPhone, Kindle for PC will automatically download your books complete with your bookmarks, notes, and current reading location in the book. Otherwise, you will be presented with an empty interface that shows helpful popups to highlight Kindle’s features.

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AutoCAD LT 2011 | Unboxing

AutoCAD LT 2011 Unboxing

AutoCAD @ Techinch

Evernote Essentials | Review

Screenshots, captions, witty comments … Evernote Essentials has it all!

Getting Evernote Essentials

Get More Info and Purchase Evernote Essentials Today!

Review of VirtualBox 3.1 Beginner’s Guide

Mac and Linux Users Welcome, Too

The eBook

Conclusion

Foxit Reader 4.0 | Freer than ever before!

But now, there’s 4.0

Getting Started

New Features

Conclusion

Download Foxit Reader 4 now!

Backup Your Files to Windows Azure With CloudBerry

Getting Started

Setup an Online Backup

Price

Conclusion

Links

Purchase CloudBerry Backup

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