Having access to files on the move is a boon. The more storage, the merrier – and better still if it is free.

Some programs like Dropbox offer 2GB of free storage but SugarSync offers 5GB free plus more user control.

Instead of having to create a special folder for sharing, SugarSync allows you to select existing folders on your PC that can be synchronised automatically every time any file in them is changed. You can access the synched files via many mobile devices, such as those on the Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian and Windows platforms.

The best feature is that the previous five versions of the files are also saved, should you need to recover them. Only the current version is counted as part of your 5GB quota.

More: https://www.sugarsync.com/

You have heaps of files tucked away in many folders in your PCs. A client has asked for some old files to be sent to him quickly but you have no idea where you saved them. The Search tool in the Windows operating system works but it is not exactly fast.

Try Everything instead. It is a small program and is miserly in its use of system resources yet works at lightning speed.

The first search may take minutes as the search engine needs to index your local hard disk drives. But once that is done, suggestions of search results are given and refined with each letter typed into the search bar.

It is a pity that this software searches only folders and file names. Imagine if it can search within files. Also, it works only on NTFS – the standard file system of Windows – hard disk drives. So your old USB flash drives and network drives will not be searched.

Do you have a multilingual product manual in a PDF file that you want to send to someone but wish to delete the portions that are in a foreign language? You can, with this freeware.

It can do more, like merge several PDF files into one, or reorder or rotate the pages in a file. You can even extract pages from different files and rearrange them in a new PDF document.

This PDF Split and Merge allows you to view the different pages of a file in thumbnail form, so that it is easier to pick the ones you want to read. Alternatively, you can view them as page numbers; the files will load faster.

One caveat though, some PDF files are encrypted so that they can be viewed but not altered. In the software, such files are displayed with a lock icon.

It is frustrating to receive a critical file in an e-mail attachment which you cannot open because it is compressed in an uncommon format.

PeaZip is an open source utility that can open most compressed files. This includes files that end with .cab, .iso, .rar and .tar to powerful but experimental compression formats like .paq and .zpaq.

The program can also be used to compress files and more. Create a compressed, or zipped, file that is self-extracting – it can open or unzip itself – so that no extra software is needed.

Split a big compressed file into smaller ones so that it will not choke up someone’s inbox if you send it as an attachment.

You can also secure sensitive files with encryption so that only someone with the password that you have locked the file with can access the contents.

You may not have the latest laptop with all the bells and whistles but DIY maintenance will keep your workhorse running smoothly. An occasional electronic tidying up ensures that your hard disk drives continue to perform well in reading and writing files.

DeFraggler does the job and has a pretty and clear interface to boot. You can choose what you wish to defragment: an entire disk, a folder or even a single file. You can leave it running at the end of a workday as the program is able to shut down your PC after it is done.

You can also choose to move large files to the back portion of the hard drive. This speeds up access as large files are usually videos and archived photos which you call on less often.

Free space on a disk can also be defragmented or placed together, so that new files can be saved faster.

iLife ’11

• Intel-based Mac computer running Mac OS X v 10.6.3 or later
• Intel Dual-Core Duo processor or better
• At least 1GB of RAM and 5GB of available hard disk space
• Display resolution of at least 1,280 x 768 pixels
• DVD drive for installation

iLife 11
In its sixth release, the iLife suite of applications for Mac OS X operating system has been around for as many years. Consisting iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, iLife ’11 shows off the combination of ease-of-use and great functionality that this affordable package is known for.

New features in iPhoto include Faces, which can identify the people in your photos, and Places, which places your photos’ location on a map.

There is much to like in this new release, which sports several innovative additions.

iLife ’11

For starters, iPhoto has been enhanced with face-recognition and geo-location capabilities. Named Faces and Places respectively, these two new features keep me occupied for hours applying them to my huge collection of photos.

Like a feature found in many point-and-shoot digital cameras, Faces automatically detects and tags people in your photos. I found that after using it on the faces of a few friends, it was able to come up with very accurate detection.

To test the Places function, I used a series of photos I had taken and geo-tagged using a GPS logger during my recent trip to Los Angeles.

When I opened the photos in iPhoto and clicked on the Info button, a map showing the exact locations where the photos were shot was automatically shown. Hitting the Create button brought up a list of options that allowed me to create photo books, greeting cards, calendars and slide shows.

iLife ’11

Using the My Favorite Places theme allowed me to create slide shows that wowed my audience: imagine a clip that starts with an outer-space view of a rotating globe which then zooms in on an overhead view of the actual spot where your picture was taken. This overhead map view then forms the backdrop for the rest of the slide show.

The Export function allows you to convert the slide show into various video formats with resolutions ranging from 240 x 300 pixels to 1,280 x 800 pixels for high-definition movies.

iMovies now allows you to create full-blown movies in just a few simple steps. When you start a new project, you can choose from a set of eight themes, including Photo Album, Scrapbook and Filmstrip.

Alternatively, you can choose from a set of 15 templates called Movie Trailers. These start-to-finish movie templates allow you to create professionally designed introductions, storyboards and end credits.

In a storyboard, you are prompted to insert your video clips according to whether they are action scenes or landscapes, for instance. From there, the software chooses the appropriate transition effects to link them.

You render your videos from low-resolution 480 x 272 pixels for the iPhone all the way to full-HD 1080p resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels.

With GarageBand, you will find that two new features have been added to make the music creation process even more seamless and professional-sounding.

One is Flex Time, which allows you to lengthen or compress your musical composition to fit the required timing.

Second, and the feature I like the most, is Groove Matching. With it, I was able to save much time – and aggravation – when matching the rhythm and beat of an instrument to the rest of the tracks.

Get iLife ’11 now.

LapLink’s PCsync version 6.0 lets you synchronize folders and individual files on multiple computers automatically, manually, or in a combo of the two. You can synchronize via a network, a Laplink USB cable, or a Windows Easy Transfer cable. it also lets you synchronize to external hard drives and USB drives, so you can use it as a backup program as well.

Version 6.0 works with Macs and with Windows Xp, Server 2003, Vista, and 7 PCs. Even though it’s a 32-bit app, it is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.

PCsync faces stiff competition from two free apps, SugarSync and Microsof’s Windows Live Sync, but neither offers PCsync 6.0’s level of fine-grained control over files and folders.

WinZip pro 14.5 adds lots of useful features to the program’s roster of tools, most notably a Microsof office style ribbon that puts all of the program’s options within easy reach so you can start tasks with a simple click ribbon haters can opt for the earlier WinZip interface.

Among the sofware’s new features are a Zip-file previewer (for looking inside Zip files when you use Windows Explorer or Microsof outlook) and the ability to back up files to phones and digital cameras in .zip format.

Goodies specific to Windows 7 include integration with the OS’s libraries and jump lists to perform many Zip-related tasks, such as opening a Zip archive and creating a new Zip archive. WinZip pro 14.5 offers improved security for encrypted files. it will automatically destroy temporary, created for-viewing copies of encrypted files, and work with intel-based hardware that uses built-in AES encryption. in addition, it can easily zip and mail files, and extract files from .iso images.

Also new to this version of WINzip Pro is support for the .zipx compression standard, which compresses files more efficiently than did the previous standard (.zip).

if using Zip archives isn’t part of your routine, there’s no compelling reason to buy WINzip 14.5; Windows does simple jobs perfectly well. But if you want a ribbon interface, higher compression ratios, better integration with Windows 7, and useful extra features, the new WinZip pro is worth buying.

WINzip 14 Standard 1-User

Avira AntiVir Personal

The Avira AntiVir Personal offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation.

In order to make possible an easy operation, the Avira AntiVir Personal is developed to the essential points.

Info: www.free-av.com

You’re using with Windows 2000/XP notebook, and you run across a file you can’t open. What’s more, uou can’t reach anyone for help. You may not be familiar with the type of file you’re dealing with, but you’re pretty sure that the sender or download site indicated that it’s a compressed file.

Here’s some help.

Compressed files, or archives, contain one or more files or folders that have been compacted into a format that takes up less storage space. Much like a trash compactor squashes the air out of garbage to make a much smaller brick out of a pile of rubbish, a file compression utility uses various tricks to reduce a file’s size. One of the most basic such tricks is to remove redundant data. Instead of storing a piece of data for every yellow pixel in a photo of your new car, for instance, an archive might store one yellow dot and a digital note to repeat that pixel as needed throughout the image. Archives are sometimes called zipped files after the ZIP format popularized by the PKZip and WinZip utilities.

Compressing a file or folder means saving it in a new format. There are lots of compressed file formats, but some of the most common have the file extensions .ZIP, .SIT, and .RAR. If you use WinRAR to compress a document named Presentation .ppt, for example, you’ll get an archive called Presentation.rar. Presentation.rar should take up significantly less space on your hard drive than it did in its PPT form, but anyone who wants to open the compacted file will need WinRAR, UnRAR, or some other utility that can decompress the format. After unpacking a file, its extension will revert back to what it was before it was zipped, such as TXT for a text document or XLS for an Excel sheet.

Some compressed files can unpack themselves when you double-click them. Most self-extracting archives have .EXE extensions, though they may be referred to as SFX or other types of files. These can be handy when you want to send someone a compressed file, but you don’t want her to spend time trying to find a suitable decompression utility.

How to decompressed?
Before you do anything else, check to see whether the file is available in another form. If someone emailed it to you, ask him to send you an uncompressed version or an archive in a format your PC can open. This can save you a great deal of time.

No dice? OK, see what Windows can do for you. Win2000 can’t natively open ZIPs or most other compressed files. On the other hand, WinXP will open a wizard to help you decompress most ZIPs when you double-click them. However, WinXP can’t handle them all.

If WinXP can’t open a particular file, compressed or not, it will ask you whether you want it to go online to try to find a utility that can. Select Use The Web Service To Find The Appropriate Program and click OK. When we tried this with a SIT compressed file, Microsoft provided us with a hyperlink to a download page with the StuffIt Expander utility.

Try downloading the indicated program and using it to open the file.

If you don’t want WinXP to go online, choose Select The Program From The List and click OK. Click the checkbox next to the application on your PC that you think might be able to unpack the archive, if any, or click Browse to find one that isn’t listed. Don’t check the box next to Always Use The Selected Program To Open This Kind Of File at this stage. That option says that you’re absolutely sure that you’ve guessed right that the app can unpack the archive, stacked against which is the fact that the program hasn’t already associated itself with opening that type of file. Click OK when you’re done.

StuffIt Expander seems to cover most of the format bases, so it’s a good place to start for your decompression needs. It’s a free utility, but it comes wrapped in a trial version of StuffIt Standard or Deluxe. The StuffIt Standard 15 Day Free Trial option, which didn’t require a credit card as did the Deluxe download.

After Stuff-It 9.0.0.21 is installed, we could open several ZIP and SIT archive files by right-clicking them, choosing StuffIt Archive and Expand Here, and clicking Continue when a nag window popped up.