ESET Smart Security 5 Review

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ESET Smart Security is one of the popular security solution in the premium category. Smart Security is designed to protect your computer from threats and safe-guard your digital data. In addition to providing basic antivirus protection, the security suite comes bundled with a spam filter, firewall protection and parental controls.

Here we took ESET Smart Security 5 for a test to see how effective it is in protecting our system from threats. Please read after the break for the complete ESET Smart Security 5 review. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Software Review, Windows

Rip, Save, Convert All Your DVDs, Videos Using Handbrake [Review]

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Everyone of us likes watching movies and if a movie is worth keeping in our collection, we also look forward to its official DVD/Blu-ray release. After we’ve brought the movie DVD, we either want to keep a copy of it in our computer for archival purpose or want to watch it on our growing collection of portable media devices.

Now, you might be wondering how to rip and encode your DVDs for keeping them safe and watch them on your iPod, iPad, Android, iPhone or other portable device? Handbrake is one such good free tool to rip and encode your DVDs for keeping them safe.

Handbrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. Let’s take a quick read and know more about Handbrake.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Apple, Audio/Video, Linux, Software Review, Windows

Sygic: GPS Navigation for Android [Full Review]

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Third-party premium navigation apps for Android faces stiff competing from Google Maps on Google’s Android Platform. Since, almost all Android devices comes bundled with free Google Maps plus Navigation app. Though Google Maps Navigation is not available everywhere. This stiff competition is good for end users as it brings in some good and innovative features for them. To compete with free Google Maps, premium GPS navigation apps comes up with innovative features. We started evaluating Sygic: GPS Navigation app for Android, a premium navigation app to find out if people will pay for something which they have grown accustomed to getting free?

Sygic lists its premium app for free (actually a 7 day trial version) in the Android Market. The app is around 6 MB download and after installing it, users must download the maps. You don’t need to download all maps available through Sygic to your Android phone as it will take up precious space on their device. Using the Sygic Downloader, you have the choice to download each map. Sygic recommends using WiFi for downloading maps data as some maps are very big in size. After the 7-day trial expires, the app prompts the user to buy an activation key from the official webpage.  Read on for more in-depth review of the app. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Android, Mobile, Software Review

Giveaway: 5 Licenses Of Auslogics File Recovery 3 Worth $250

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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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Contests, Giveaway, Software Review, Utilities, Windows

TuneUp Utilities 2012 Giveaway Winners Announced

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TuneUp Utilities 2012 is one of the best Windows system tweaking and optimization program. Recently, we did a review of TuneUp Utilities 2012 along with a giveaway, and we thank TuneUp Corporation for sponsoring the licenses. We had 5 licenses up for the giveaway and received good number of responses. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Contests, Giveaway, News and Updates

TuneUp Utilities 2012 Review

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TuneUp Utilities 2012 is the latest version of one of the most popular Windows system optimization and tweaking program. Every year it is getting perfected with new unique features added to the program. TuneUp Utilities 2012 features all the functions that were present in the earlier version, viz, TuneUp Utilities 2011 (which we have reviewed earlier). Along with all those features, two notable features added to the latest version are TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator.

TuneUp Economy Mode will extend the battery life of notebook, netbook and tablet computers by shutting off processes and hardware components that aren’t required or in use. TuneUp Economy Mode is the new introduced feature of 2012 while TuneUp Program Deactivator, introduced in 2011 version, has gone through major overhauling in 2012 edition. Both TuneUp Economy Mode and TuneUp Program Deactivator, when used in combination can boost the energy efficiency of Windows 7 systems by up to 30 percent, when compared with the Windows 7 built-in energy savings mode.

With today’s increasing computing power, multi-core processors and gigabytes of RAM, many users will argue if they need a system optimization program? But, many users will agree with us that even with so much of computation power in hand, Windows tends to become sluggish after usage. Microsoft promises to change this scenario with its upcoming Windows 8 operating system but until than we are left with trusted system optimization utilities like TuneUp Utilities.

Since we have already reviewed TuneUp Utilities 2011 and most of the tools, although improved, have remained same in TuneUp Utilities 2012, in this review we will concentrate only on the most notable two features (discussed above). You can go through the thorough review of TuneUp Utilities 2011 here to know in-depth about what it offers.

At the end of this review (after break), you will find a giveaway contest, through which you can win a free license of TuneUp Utilities 2012 worth $49.95. 5 licenses are up for the giveaway, so the total licenses worth approx $250 (exactly $249.75). More on that later. :) [Read more...]

Filed Under: Contests, Giveaway, Software Review, Utilities, Windows

Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.1 Winners Announced

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Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.1 is a program which really can revitalize your system. The program uses trusted and tested useful system optimization techniques and technologies to take care of your PCs performance. And, you don’t need to have a PhD in Windows or be an expert to use this program. It comes with many integrated utilities which lets you easily tweak almost every area of your computer system.

We reviewed it and Auslogics BoostSpeed performed well in all our tests. It recovered around 800 MB of disk space compared to 100 MB of Windows inbuilt Disk Cleaner. It also optimized our system with effective and easy to apply optimization. Our system performs faster now. You can read the full review of Auslogics BoostSpeed 5.1 here. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Giveaway

Vectorian Giotto: Create Flash Animation Without Adobe Flash [Freeware]

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Last year in August, we reviewed a powerful flash animation software titled “Vectorian Giotto.” Back then it was a premium software worth $89.95. Vectorian Inc., the developers of Vectorian Giotto has announced a great news for all. They have released the new and redesigned version of Vectorian Giotto 3.0 and made it completely free. The developers also said that the new version is exactly 4 and a half times easier to work with the earlier version.

Vectorian Giotto helps create professional quality Flash animations without coding and experience. The application features more than 50 customizable effects that can be applied to both shapes and text. With over a 100 effect presets in store, it can display your flash content in different ways which you can adjust easily. The developer’s website hosts a very handy help manual with many tutorials to guide you through. Although it features full ActionScript 2.0 support, designers won’t need to think about this as the animation is created without any coding required.

vectorian-giotto-3

If you are wondering what is the difference between Giotto and Adobe Flash Professional? Here’s what the developers are saying:

Vectorian Giotto is simpler, easier to use and much cheaper alternative software to Adobe Flash. Both applications use similar approach (with Giotto being easier to use) to produce SWF (“Small Web Format” or “Shockwave Flash”) files that can be embedded into websites to enrich them with animation and/or interactivity.

Using the free flash creator software you can create from simplest to complex vector illustrations, apply effects to them (blur, shadow, glow) and then animate them. You can create Movie Clips and Buttons, store them in the library and use them later. You can easily work with text elements and adjust things such as kerning and alignment. The animation can be executed using motion, shape tweens. Sounds can be included in your creations to make more advanced animations.

The built-in editor of the application’s color palettes is very intuitive. The editor uses special algorithms build upon human perception of colors instead of the old school mathematical models.

To conclude, Vectorian Giotto 3.0 is certainly a very remarkable tool for designers who don’t want to code but instead concentrate on their designing, plus the application is completely freeware for all. You can download Vectorian Giotto 3.0 freeware from the official webpage.

Filed Under: Productivity/ Organization, Windows