Category Archives: Software reviews

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VirtuaWin – Run multiple desktops on one system

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Ever had that problem when you’ve got loads of programs open at one time – so many that you can’t remember which one you need to be using?

Here’s a solution – its called VirtuaWin. It means you can basically have more than one desktop running at one time. It’s actually very similar to a system in Linux which allows you to run multiple desktops, but it looks like somebody wanted to have this ability in Windows.

Anyway, it runs on most versions of Windows (although its a little bit buggy in Windows 7 at this time – the site doesn’t claim it works in Windows 7 anyway) and installation is very simple.

Once you’ve got it set up, it’ll start you off with four desktops. If you want more than that you simply double click the icon in the notification area (a green window like icon with one yellow square). and play with the desktop configuration (see here).

To switch desktops, you can simply use the hotkeys automatically assigned by the program. Use the Winkey (windows logo key on your keyboard) and whatever letter that corresponds. For example, to go to the desktop on the left, simply do Winkey + L. For right, Winkey + R. To go down a dekstop its Winkey + D, and to go up a desktop its Winkey + U. You can customize these hotkeys in the configuration (see here).

It’s actually a very handy program if you use lots of programs at one time. Once you’ve used it, you’ll see why it is so useful.

If you’d like to try it, you can get it free from the official VirtuaWin sourceforge page.

WordPress 2.8 Beta Review

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WordPress recently released WordPress 2.8 Beta, which has some interesting new features which will come in handy.

As usual I’ve tested it out, and here are the highlights:

New theme installer

Wordpress Theme Installer

This new theme installer now means that WordPress can install themes you find on the WordPress Theme Directory straight to your theme directory without the need of FTP or manual file copying. It’s very similar to the automatic plugin installation system that was implemented in WordPress 2.7. However, it is more advanced and allows the user to select certain filters to make searching easier. This will definitely be a nifty little feature to look forward to.

Widget handling

widgetsThe widget handling system has been improved, with a much better click and drag interface which is much simpler to use than the previous widget handling system.

Those are the two things I find most useful. Other than that, I can’t find anything else that I would find outstanding.

WordPress has posted a Codex page with information that corresponds to the WordPress 2.8 Beta, so if you’d like a full changelog please click here.

Try it out and see what you think. I haven’t found any major bugs, but I’d recommend you don’t install it on your main blog/site. If you can, create a test blog for WordPress 2.8 beta and wait for the final release before installing it on your main blog/site.

Updated Windows 7 Release Candidate review (screenshots)

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Microsoft has recently released a few updates – one of which fixes a bug with the Windows 7 graphics card driver on my laptop (driver for SiS M672MX), which now means I can use the Aero interface properly and without issues. 

Since Aero is now working, I’ve decided I’ll take some screenshots to give people who haven’t downloaded Windows 7. I recently did a full Windows 7 review without screenshots, so if you’d like to see that instead, please click here.

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A nice app for the iPod Touch – Spawn – create colourful pictures

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I’ve recently been playing on a cool little app on the iPod Touch called Spawn. The free and paid versions are available from the App Store for download, so go ahead and give it ago.

It allows you to take cool screenshots of wonderful, colourful images. Here are just a few I’ve made…

You can view my full library of images I’ve taken with Spawn here on Flickr.

Have fun with it!

Windows 7: The Release Candidate review.

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So now I’ve had a few days to trial out the new Windows 7 Release Candidate, I shall review it as promised. If you haven’t already downloaded it and you feel tempted to, please do so as you get plenty of time to trial around with it. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t have much experience in IT, but if you know what you’re doing don’t hesitate to try it out. Don’t forget to think about your internet bandwidth limit as the ISO image is about 2.5GB. You’ll also need a blank DVD to burn the image to.

Anyway, the review.

What do I think of it? Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. The install was very smooth and worryingly fast, but all seemed to go fine and within 30 minutes of burning it to DVD I was up and running in Windows 7. The new Aero updates are definitely well worth it, and I’m very pleased with some of the new features.

Do I have any complaints? A few yes. My main problem was trying to get drivers for hardware, which proved to be an utter nightmare for me. In fact, it wasn’t so much getting the drivers, but trying to get them to function correctly. My SiS M672MX graphics card in my laptop was a right nightmare in Windows 7. Windows Update found a suitable driver absolutely fine, but the driver would not allow me to use a resolution higher than 1024×768. My laptop’s monitor should run at 1280×800 so you can image how skew-if the display looked. In the end, I used SiS’s official Vista drivers for the monitor which cured the resolution problem, but then the Aero interface refused to run. As of today, I haven’t found any way to resolve that problem. I had similar problems with my Realtek HD Audio sound card – the sound was absolutely dreadful with Microsoft’s drivers for the sound card, but this was fixed by installing Realtek’s Vista drivers.

Will I be buying it when it’s released? Most likely, yes. I really love the new ideas that have gone into Windows 7 and hopefully by the time it is released, Microsoft will have fixed most of the driver issues. As long as the upgrade isn’t too expensive, I should think there’s a 90% chance I will get a copy.

Would I recommend the upgrade from Windows XP/Windows Vista? I’m not entirely sure what to say here. I still reckon there are a large chunk of Windows XP users who aren’t going to like Windows 7. Many people are saying that hopefully Windows 7 will encourage some of the users of Windows XP to upgrade, but I’m not entirely convinced. I personally, would recommend the upgrade to most users but you have to consider that many XP users aren’t going to have hardware powerful enough to cope with the upgrade and now many people don’t have the money to be forking out cash on upgrades. So yes, I would recommend the upgrade, but I think we have to consider what people can afford at this point in time. Also, some people just prefer Windows XP, it’s not that they can’t afford Windows 7 – they just have a personal preference for XP.

I think we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I really like Windows 7 and I’m sure many people would agree that it’s going to be much better than Vista, but in this economic time there just isn’t going to be enough people who can afford to stretch out for it. My verdict is that if you can afford it, buy it. If you can’t, don’t worry about it. Then again, it isn’t going to be out until late 2009 so there might have been a change in economics by then. We’ll just have to sit back and wait.