Every operating system user faces the problem of accumulating temporary/junk files eating up disk space. As you go on using your operating system, you suddenly realize that the system partition is having less amount of free space. Since, the operating system doesn’t automatically deleted these unneeded files, the files takes up gigabytes of disk space. At the end system performance takes the toll and you notice computer running slow.

Windows users have some good utilities like CCleaner for cleaning up the junk and temporary files. Mac users also have CCleaner for Mac, but it’s still under development and is in beta stage at time of writing. If you don’t want to try out a beta product for your Mac, check out MacCleaning, developed by EaseUs, the developers of many good hard disk utilities.

MacCleaning is a freeware, all-in-one Mac OS based menu bar utility which lets you clean junk files and features disk space monitor and drive ejection. The disk space monitor lets you monitor the amount of disk space being used and left. Whenever any drives in your Mac is running out of space, MacCleaning will recommend you to clean out the junk files to free up some space.

MacCleaning Free by default empties system and user caches, and system and user logs. If you also want to clean the Trash and the contents of your personal Downloads folder you can do so by selecting them under Preferences of the application.

The application sits unobtrusively in the menu bar. The program is configured to start with your Mac. The application shows a bar chart revealing the overall free space available. If the amount of free space dips below 10 percent, the application starts an alarm. If you click on the menu bar icon, you can watch each chart for each drive or external partitions connected to your Mac. You also have an option to eject removable drives, so that you can quickly and safely unmount them from your computer.

Download MacCleaning

gBurner Virtual Drive is a freeware app for Windows users. The lightweight application, whose download size is only 389KB, lets you create and manage up to 16 virtual drives on your computer. Users who are always working with ISO images or other proprietary CD/DVD images or gamers will find gBurner Virtual Drive very useful. With the large number of CD/DVD image file formats, that includes ISO, GBI/GBP, DAA, NRG, MDF/MDS, BIN/CUE, UIF, ISZ, ASHDISC, DMG, GI, BWI/B5I, IMG, CDI, PDI, NCD, LCD, CIF, P01, PXI, C2D, FCD, VCD, it is a must have solution for every computer user.

gBurner Virtual Drive allows you to easily mount any supported CD/DVD image file to get access to your favorite games, music, or software programs. Since, this is a virtual drive, so if you mount and run any image file, it will run at a very fast speed than when you would have run it through your optical drive.

How to use gBurner Virtual Drive?

After downloading the gBurner setup file, proceed to install it. After installation completes, you will notice gBurner Virtual Drive running in the system tray.

Right-click on the gBurner icon to show options for: Mount image file to drive, Unmount drive, Set Number of Drives, Unmount all drives and Options. Through the “Set number of drives” option, you can create up to 16 virtual drives.

When you select “Configuration” from “Options” menu, you can get access to the “gBurner Virtual Drive Configuration” window.

Through this window, you can set ”Virtual Drive Options” like setting the “Number of Virtual Drives”, enable or disable “Autostart” and “Automount“. You can also manually drive letters from the Virtual Drive Letter Assignment menu.

gBurner Virtual Drive works on all Windows editions starting from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit supported).

Download gBurner Virtual Drive

In this digital age, when we keep all our important data dumped into electronic devices, it’s not very hard to lose the data either by human error or for any other reasons. Also, there is a threat of data being stolen when we thought that we got rid of it. Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a simple to use professional application to recover deleted files or lost partitions. It also includes advanced privacy protection and backup tools too; it includes a secure file eraser and disk wiper.

We completed our earlier Auslogics giveaway successfully, so we are here again with another Auslogics software giveaway! This time, the Auslogics File Recovery 3 is up for giveaway. We’ll be giving away 5 copies of Auslogics File Recovery 3 worth almost $250 in total this week. But, first, let’s see the features offered by this application.

File Recovery is a very straight forward and easy to use program. Inclusion of advanced privacy protection and backup tools further increases its value. Let’s take a quick walk-through of the program features before we talk about the giveaway.

As soon as you launch the program, you’ve the option to begin searching for your files in all available locations. The user-interface is very well laid out and even a novice user can get used to the functions in no time. In the left sidebar, all the detected hard disk drives are listed. In the right pane, you’ll be asked for the task you want to do with the program. In this case, the option to begin searching for deleted files.

There is an option to narrow down your search to certain file types only, if you know what exactly you’re looking for. Otherwise, you may search for all delete files on your drive. Further, you can narrow down to include only the files modified within or after a certain date. Next, the program asks you to enter any specific file name if you’re looking for just a particular file.

The program now provides you the option to do a deep scan, which is basically a thorough search and rescue method. After you click on the Search button, Auslogics File Recovery 3 begins its work. Depending on the size of your hard drive and the limits set by you, the search could take several minutes.

We tested the program on our virtual computer. Since, VM was newly deployed by us, the program returned results within seconds. On purpose, to test the effectiveness of the program, we detected mixed types of files that included some images, a word document, a PDF file and video file. Another feature of File Recover 3 is it generate a quick preview of certain media file types including PDF files. This feature is very handy in recovering the correct file.

Restoring files is also very easy using this program. You simply select the check box(es) next to the file(s), you want to recover and then click on the Recover Selected button. You will then receive a prompt to select the destination place, where you want to save the recovered files to.

Two important features of File Recovery 3 are recovering lost partitions and create a disk image. The lost partitions feature included in the program lets you recover accidentally deleted partitions from your system. File Recovery can find the information about deleted portions of the disk, so that you will be able to recover files from a lost partition. The program allows you to create a complete disk image of the logical drive along with all the information contained on the disk, including deleted files. This option allows you to recover files from the disk image later on while continuing working with the logical drive.

As mentioned earlier, File Recovery 3 comes bundled with two more features. Disk Wiper is one of them. The program lets you securely remove files. It permanently deletes files from the system so that no one can recover the files later. Since, some users may also want to securely wipe out their whole hard disk, File Recovery 3 lets you shutdown your PC automatically after the task completes.

File Shredder is another security feature provided by the program. File Shredder lets you securely delete specific files instead of wiping the hard disk. You simply drag and drop those files into the File Shredder, and click the Shred button. File Shredder starts securely deleting the files. So that, not only the program itself can recover the contents of the file. After the process completes, the program generates an HTML report just like its big brother Auslogics BoostSpeed 5 does.

Auslogics File Recovery 3 Giveaway

Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a very good application that’s very simple to use. The step-by-step file recovery procedure is novice proof and allows anyone to easily recover files or partitions. The security features of the program are also very handy. Auslogics File Recovery 3 works with Windows 7/2008/Vista/2003/XP (32-bit & 64-bit).

The program is available for $49.95 from Auslogics. You may download a trial from here to test the program.

We’re giving 5 copies worth almost $250 away this week so join the giveaway below!

Preference will be given to fans of our Facebook page/Google+ page and newsletter subscribers. So if you haven’t subscribed, do so now by clicking on this link.

In a nutshell, Like us to join our Facebook Page. If you are in Google+ than simply add us to your circle. If you’re already following us, you may skip this step.

Next step is to share about this giveaway using any of the social media buttons under this post.

And finally, to confirm that you are entering this giveaway, comment below.

Please use your real email address (if you are a subscriber, use your subscribed email address for getting preference) so that we can get in touch if you win.

That’s it! You’re done!

Well, not everyone are into social networks like Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

If you are among these, you’re still eligible to join the giveaway.

You have to be either a verified email subscriber of this website or if you have a blog or website, simply publish a post on your blog or website along with a link to this giveaway and a short description. Then come back here and in the comments, tell us where you’ve published it.

This giveaway begins now and ends on next Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 22:00 (PST).

5 winners will be selected randomly and they will be contacted via email.

Have fun and don’t forget to share about this giveaway with your friends. After all sharing is caring.

If you are looking for a software that will backup your flash drive automatically when you are inserting it, but you never found a good useful one, then check USBFlashCopy which makes the process really simple and painless for you. It comes with automatic backups feature that is profile based for individual flash drives, if you have many.

Every time you plug a new USB flash drive into your computer, USBFlashCopy identifies it and asks you if you want to make a new profile, use the default profile, or never backup the contents of the flash drive. If you choose “new profile” USBFlashCopy then offers you an array of options like where you want to store the backup to, name the backup, select copy speed, and filter out file types that you don’t want to back up.

After the profile for that particular flash drive is saved, the task of taking backups using USBFlashCopy becomes automated. Now, when you plug that device to your computer, USBFlashCopy automatically scans it, and according to the filters and rules set by you, it starts backing up the new files. These new files can either be copied or overwritten to the backup according to the profile rules set by you.

USBFlashCopy is a portable freeware Windows application that helps you take automatic backups of portable devices when you plug them in your computer. The app keeps all its settings in an INI file, which is automatically created in the folder it is running from. Simply copy USBFlashCopy.ini along with executable to keep your settings intact across all your computers. It is just 300KB in download size but offers great features and functionality.

Are you using any other application or methods (like using automated scripts) for backing up your flash drive contents? Share them in the comments!

[ Download USBFlashCopy ]

Windows Vista and Windows 7 has a disk caching feature known as ReadyBoost. It allows a system to boost its performance by adding extra cache memory in the form of flash memory. Using a ReadyBoost-capable flash memory for caching allows Windows 7 and Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching applies to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLL. Flash devices typically are slower than a hard disk for sequential I/O so, to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic that recognizes large, sequential read requests and has the hard disk service these requests.

When a user inserts a ReadyBoost compatible USB flash drive and selects Speed up my system from the autoplay menu, Windows Vista or Windows 7 will automatically reserve and allocated memory space for ReadyBoost by creating a ReadyBoost Cache File named ReadyBoost.sfcache. But if a user wants to use the USB flash drive to save and store other data, they can easily disable or turn off ReadyBoost, and reclaim the disk space occupied by ReadyBoost.sfcache.

How to Turn Off and Reclaim Disk Space Used by ReadyBoost

1. First, open Computer from the Start menu or press [Windows Key] + [E] to open Windows Explorer.
2. Right click on the USB flash drive disk icon that is running ReadyBoost, and select Properties.
3. Go to the ReadyBoost tab.
4. Click on radio button option that says Do not use this device.

   

5. Click Apply and then click on OK.

Windows Live SkyDrive (formerly known as Windows Live Folders) is a part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services. It is a free online storage service from Microsoft that offers 25 GB of online storage space, with each file limited to 50 MB, for its users to upload their favorite photos, files, media, etc. It uses Windows Live ID to control access to the user’s files, allowing them to keep the files private, share with contacts, or make the files public. Publicly shared files do not need a Windows Live ID to access. So as long as you have a Hotmail or MSN email account, you have a SkyDrive.

Even though Microsoft is offering so much of online storage space for free, they have not yet provided any easy and user-friendly way to upload files or manage uploaded files from the desktop. But you will now be able to easily access and manage SkyDrive files by using a free and easy-to-use Windows Explorer extension called as SkyDrive Explorer.

SkyDrive Explorer uses the standard Microsoft library for work with Windows Live Id services. Your personal information does not leave this library and even is not passed to SkyDrive Explorer engine. Also, the traffic with online storage goes through HTTPS protocol that protects data from snoopers. So SkyDrive Explorer is secure too. SkyDrive Explorer works both in 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows OS. Minimal required OS is Windows XP, and SkyDrive Explorer will successfully work in Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, and Windows 7.

SkyDrive Explorer allows applying some operations for group of objects that is not possible in web browser. This increases performance of work with SkyDrive. Examples of multi-operations are renaming objects, deleting group of objects, copying folders with sub folders and files from SkyDrive.

SkyDrive Explorer Features

• View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive.
• View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format).
• Create new root folders and sub folders.
• Copy files into the storage.
• Delete files and folders.
• Copy files from the storage to the computer.
• Copy folders and sub folders from the storage to the computer keeping their structure.
• Use drag & drop for files operations.
• Rename files and folders.
• Create links to SkyDrive folders on your computer.
• Does not need to install and configure any more programs or ActiveX components.
• Copy URL of the selected object(s) to the Clipboard.
• Automatic check for the latest version.
• Bidirectional languages support.

[ Download SkyDrive Explorer ]

Windows 7 like Vista and XP inherits supports disk burning feature. This will come handy when you are not having any 3rd party disk burning software installed. If you are having a CD-DVD burning software like Nero or other similar applications installed then it makes sense in disabling the in-built CD/DVD burning support. This will free up some resource also.

Windows 7 automatically ejects the drive tray when a user double-clicks on the optical drive icon in Windows Explorer or when a user single-clicks on the optical drive icon in the File Save or File Open dialog box if it can’t find any disk inside. There are two ways to disable this built-in feature. First one involves the Group Policy Editor and the second one is a registry hack.

Follow the steps described below to disable burning feature:

1. Click on Start, then in the Search Box type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
2. Now in the Group Policy Editor, expand the Local Group Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer.
3. In the right pane, double-click on Remove CD Burning features.
4. Select the Enabled radio button to disable disk burning feature. This will also disable the auto eject disc tray.
5. Click on OK.
6. Now, Restart your computer or Log off and then Log on again for the change to take effect.
7. To revert back to the default settings and re-enable the disk burning feature in, change the radio button setting to Not Configured or Disabled.

This second trick which involves a registry hack will come handy for those folks who are using Windows 7 editions that doesn’t have Group Policy Editor.

1. Click on Start, then in the Search Box type regedit and press Enter.
2. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicrosoftWindows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3. In the right pane double-click on NoCDBurning and assign its value to 1
4. If the entry NoCDBurning is not their, then right-click on a blank space in the right pane, select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
5. Name the new value name as NoCDBurning, and assign its value data to 1.

Alternatively, if you don’t feel easy editing the registry, simply download the DisableOREnable-Burning.zip archive file, which contains two registry files — EnableBurning.reg and DisableBurning.reg. As the name suggests just double-click on DisableBurning.reg to remove disk burning feature and double-click on EnableBurning.reg to restore disk burning feature. Restart or Log off and then Log in for the change to take effective.