Category Archives: Software reviews

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Ever heard of a wireless home webcam?

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Have you ever heard of a wireless webcam for use in the home? No, not one of those spy cameras; I mean just a normal IM webcam for video conversations? Well, if you have a PSP (or a custom firmware one) and a PSP Go!Cam, you may already have one.

A piece of software has been released meaning that the PSP system can use the Go!Cam to send a number of photos over a local wifi connection every second, in theory meaning it is a webcam. It can be used with Windows Live Messenger and Skype.

Sadly, I doubt it is actually legal as it relies on custom firmware, which Sony doesn’t approve of, so I am not going to post a link to it. However, it does show that Sony should really be doing this on the PSP. Why can’t Sony make the PSP work as a webcam – it would be very cool.

If you are a PSP owner, you’ve probably noticed that Sony have been neglecting us slightly in terms of PSP firmware updates. Come on Sony, do something about it!

Two things I really want sorted in Chrome

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I love Chrome, it’s a fantastic browser that’s super-quick and very reliable. However, there are two things I really want Google to fix.

1. RSS: Why doesn’t Google Chrome support RSS? It seems a little dim, but can prove really annoying after a little while. Firefox shows an icon when an RSS feed is available on a website (see below) and even has a built in feed subscriber (see below), but Chrome has neither. Google need to sort this in my opinion. 

windowclippings_1c6f2f5f2b6442b6afb74ed86e013abd1Above: Firefox

ChromeAbove: Chrome

2. Downloads: I have a real issue with Chrome when you download something. When I download a file, I often ask it to download and then get into the habit of closing the web browser and forgetting something was downloading. In Firefox, this is no problem as a ‘Downloads’ window appears when you download a file and if you close the browser window by mistake, the file continues to download. However, in Chrome downloads run more internally and it doesn’t have a separate window for downloads. So if you close the browser, Chrome cancels the download! No problem if the file is 1MB or something as small as that, but if you’re in the middle of a 100MB file this is a pain. Even Internet Explorer (dare I say it) handles downloads better than Chrome. 

Those are my two rants with Chrome. Google, fix the RSS and the downloads. The problems aren’t big enough to put me off (Chrome is still my default browser) but they do get really annoying after a while. If Google would fix this in a later version, it would definately be to my benefit, and to many others.

Safari 4.0 Beta – The good, the bad and the ugly.

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It looks like Apple have been working on their next release of the well known Apple web browser which was released for Windows a couple of years back. Safari 4.0 Beta is their latest release, and I took the courage and downloaded the beta.

The first thing you notice when you download it is that it’s quite a big file – for a web browser anyway. Baring in mind that Google Chrome’s installer is about 3 or 4 MB (including the installer downloads), Safari’s installer size of 25.5 MB is a little bit of a shock. Once it has downloaded and you run the install program, you are presented with the usual terms and optional extra installs (which I proudly unticked – I personally think the Bonjour crap is a waste of time), after which it will spend a couple of minutes installing the program.

Once it’s installed you will find the program immediately fires up, and you are presented with a “Welcome to Safari” video, followed by a very snazzy looking frequently used tabs screen.

 

Safari

Safari

As for generally browsing the web, the experience is relatively good. There are a few bugs, but these can be reported with ease via the bug button at the top right. 

The new interface has definitely made an improvement to the general feel of Safari since version 3. I still prefer Chrome – despite what Apple says, Safari is not the fastest web browser. It has to be Chrome – by miles. Don’t you agree?

I recommend you go and try it. I don’t think I’ll keep Safari as it’s just unbeatable to Chrome, but maybe in the future when the final release comes around, maybe I’ll do a full review. Head over to apple.com/safari to try the new beta.

Windows Live Onecare – fantastic if it was free.

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I’ve been using Windows Live Onecare for a short while now. A friend recommended it to me, so I took the 90 day trial and that has just recently expired.

So what did I think? Well, I love it. It does my backups, antivirus, firewall, and all my other security for me all in one piece of it. It runs smoothly and quietly on my computer, doesn’t use much resources, and in general is very accurate on what is good and what is bad.

There’s one catch – it’s not free. It will cost you around £30-40 for a one-year license which will cover up to 3 computers in your home. That includes all updates and once you’ve paid up you can leave it alone. Now most people would say, “well thirty quid aint bad for a piece of kit that’ll cover my computers for a year” and I’d agree, but there is software out there that will do the same for free.

However, Microsoft (who owns and runs Onecare) did announce late last year that they were going to discontinue Onecare and replace it with a newer, better, free piece of kit that will do the same job. This I’m looking forward to. I’d love to use Onecare, but I just don’t feel the money is worth it when there’s software out there will do the same job for free. So if Microsoft can launch a good free piece of kit, I will definately be happy to use it.

But for now, I’m going to revert to good old Comodo Internet Security. I love Comodo software. It’s free, easy to use, and a “set and forget” firewall. It does my firewall, antivirus and anything else security related – like Onecare, but free. Updates are free, it doesn’t spam me with ads and adware, and I can just leave it to do its job. Perfect.

Can you run a normal website using WordPress?

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Since, over the last few months, I have become a massive fan of the well-known blogging platform WordPress, it begs the question could you run a normal website using WordPress?

Well, I am quite confident in saying yes. I am now designing and setting up websites for a small range of people, and with all of them I’ve set them up using WordPress.

WordPress was originally designed as a platform for blogging. It is used by millions at wordpress.com, and you can also run it on your own site by installing the package at wordpress.org.

I love using WordPress with GEEK!. I have used it even since it was launched back in September 2008. It’s a great platform that not only blogs well, but has really neat features and great expansion capabilities.

And I believe that WordPress can be used for websites and not just blogs. Frankly, it beats many web design software packages available, both free and paid. The community that has accumulated with WordPress is also unbelievable. People are now producing fantastic plugins and themes that can be used for free on any site. Even the theme that I use on GEEK! is used with thanks to the people at jide.fr who produced the fantastic ‘Freshy 2’ theme.

So, if you are thinking of building a website any time soon, take a look at WordPress. It is quite obviously designed for blogs, but if you’ve got the time to play around with it a bit, you can get a perfectly good website going in a few hours. In my opinion, it’s better than any freeware or commercial product around.