Filehippo.com and Filehippo.com Update Checker - Downloading and Updating Streamlined

http://www.filehippo.com

Although Filehippo is certainly nothing new (I have used it for years), I felt it was worth a mention.

Filehippo.com at first sounds like another one of those online file sharing programs, but it is actually a download service that aggregates different popular and commonly downloaded applications (such as Firefox, AVG, Pidgin, Open Office, just to name a few), and offers them all in one location. Other than the obvious convenience factor, the folks at Filehippo also do a stand up job of making sure that all of their files are up to date with the latest releases, further streamlining the experience. If you are the type to often reinstall your OS (*cough* me *cough cough*), Filehippo can make the hassle of downloading the installations of your favorite applications much easier. They also cater to you "bleeding edge" people out there by often carrying the beta versions of applications (however, they do provide a handy "off switch" if you don't want to risk it).

Another useful service Filehippo provides is the filehippo.com Update Checker, which has certainly came a long way since I last used it. It is now installable program (Unlike before, where it was simply an executable file that I found horrendously easy to misplace.) that hangs out in your taskbar and periodically checks for new versions of your installed applications. However, I found it a little discerning that the program used a little bit more memory (almost 8k) than Winamp in action, but I feel it is not too much of a hit on resources as long as you run it only every once in a while, and try to avoid leaving it on constantly. All in all, it is a definite improvement over previous versions, and it performs its purpose nicely.

Link

Search Better with Windows Desktop Search 4.0 Preview

Via http://www.lifehacker.com -

"Microsoft has released a new version of their Windows Search tool out into the wild—an update to the desktop search tool that comes baked into Vista. Aside from promises of having squashed most reported bugs from the original and improving search times by about 33%, the Windows Search 4.0 Preview also includes support for XP. That's right, XP users, one of the best things that Microsoft did when they made Vista is now available for your XP desktop as well. Of course, if you haven't already found a competent desktop search app on XP (like Google Desktop, for example) while Microsoft has been taking its sweet time, chances are you may not really need one to begin with. On the other hand, if the promises of the 4.0 Preview sound worth a shot, head over to Microsoft and grab the free download." (Link)

Can't Get Enough South Park? Get Your Fill

http://www.southparkstudios.com - Well well, it seems that South Park Studios has been relaunched. Fans of the show will no longer have to resort to torrenting or finding hosted flash videos of this popular Comedy Central series. South Park Studios features full episodes both and new. That's right people, all twelve seasons are freely and legally online for all your viewing pleasure. Who killed Kenny this time?

What's Going on Pownce? Lots of Errors Today

http://www.pownce.com - I've been getting a lot of errors from the Pownce website this evening. Are they just having database and server issues or are they working on something big? Conversation tracking maybe? I can only hope.

See Who's Watching Your YouTube Videos

http://www.youtube.com - Well, you can't find out exactly who's watching your videos, but at least you can see what country its coming from. YouTube now lets you see your video stats, and examine how many views you get over time and from which countries. It's pretty cool. Not as slick as Google Analytics, but hey, I'm not complaning.

Just click on 'Videos, Favourites, & Playlists' under "Manage My Channel" in your account settings. From there you can info about your videos.

Adobe Photoshop Express: Edit Your Photos For Free

https://www.photoshop.com/express/ - Adobe Photoshop Express is online and running for your basic photo editing needs. It's not a full-fledged Photoshop webapp where you can play with layers and add smoke effects, but the included features should prove useful enough for the everyday user.

Photoshop Express pretty much gives you several photo editing tools, all in simple yet powerful Flash app. Because it runs of Flash, you can open it using any Flash supported browser in any operating system. This web app brings you basic editing tools, such as cropping, touch up, and colour correction. There are also several simple effects that you can add rangine from hue, distortion, and sketch tweaks. Even if you mess up, you can revert to the original photo or even go back to any previous change you had made.

When you sign up for the service, Adobe gives you 2Gb of online storage all for free. You can upload your photos, edit them, and then share them on Facebook, Flickr, and other social networks integrated within the web app. I'm sure a "pro" version is coming, with more space and added features ... for a fee. But for now, any typical user will be satisfied with the free version.

Adobe Photoshop Express isn't CS3 in a web app. However, it's powerful enough that anyone can take a photo and make it look better with ease. Think of it as Photoshop: non-fat and now made with Splenda. It's still sweet, just without the added calories.

Where Did All Your Gigabytes Go? Find Out With JDiskReport

http://www.jgoodies.com/ - JDiskReport is a useful tool that lets you visualize how data is stored on your hard drive. Once you choose where you want the program to scan, it will go through the folders and bring up a pie chart showing the space distribution of those folders. This is very useful in seeing which folders are taking up the most space on your drive.

This was very useful to me because I saw that in my Program Files folder, andLinux was taking up 2Gb worth of space, even though I had uninstalled the program. I also saw that I had over 5Gb of video in my documents folder. These were raw files from a video editing project that I did over a year ago and no longer needed.

You can even organize the pie chart to desplay which file types are taking up the most space on your drive. JDiskReport is a very useful tool because vizualizing how data is stored on your hard drive really helps you to keep it organized and free from junk.

We Haven't Forgotten About You Google GrandCentral. But, Have You Forgotten About Us?

http://www.grandcentral.com/ - GrandCentral has been a Google acquisition for almost a year now. It's been in private beta from the start, but has anything really changed since then? For those of you who don't know, GrandCentral is an internet service that provides its users with a phone number for life. Even if you change your number, your GrandCentral number remains.

When someone calls your GrandCentral number, you can choose which phone will ring, whether it's your mobile, home, or work phone. Once you give this number out to your friends and co-workers, you can then organize them into groups and have different phones ring for each one. So, you can have your co-workers ring your work phone, while your family's calls get forwarded to your home. GrandCentral even allows you to switch phones during a conversation without interrupting your current call. Additionally, the service lets you opt to record your calls. The voicemail features are also great, which are downloadable along with your recorded conversations. You can set different greeting for different people and GrandCentral can screen your calls when someone calls from an unknown number.

I only have several criticisms about Google GrandCentral. First of all, you need to be somewhere with an available internet connection to check your voicemail or make outgoing calls from your GrandCentral number. To make an outgoing call, you log in to the GrandCentral portal, go to your address book, and choose who you want to call. GrandCentral will then call your phone and after you pick up, they will call your contact and connect the calls. So, this can be done on a computer or on a cell phone with internet capabilities. I would like to see a feature that will ease the process of making outgoing calls. For example, GrandCentral should recognize when you call from your own number, and then let you connect to someone in your address book, either by voice recognition or a touchtone menu via your phone's keypad. Additionally, voicemails can only be downloaded in mp3 format, which can lead to expensive service costs if someone is on a pay-per-kilobyte data plan. Also, there is currently no support for text messaging. It would be nice if text messages to your GrandCentral number could be forwarded to your cell or even an email address.

Nevertheless, what's great about GrandCentral now is that it remains free. However, before Google's acquisition, there were talks of implementing a $15/mo subscription fee. With the features included now, I doubt that Google will charge anything for the service, as they have been known to offer free, useful products. I can understand paying money for better and premium features (such as multiple numbers, unlimited voicemail space, etc.), but the basic service that we get during the private beta should remain free.

So now that we're on the brink of Google's 1 year anniversary with GrandCentral, it should be about time that we see some news right? Wrong, it seems that nothing has really changed about GrandCentral since June of last year. Come on Google, we'd really like to see where this will go. Also, those who can't find an invitation for the private beta are anxious to try it out.

So how about some news Google? We're dying to see what's in store for GrandCentral.

Hulu - After a Few Weeks out to the Public: Thoughts and Impressions

http://www.hulu.com - On March 12, 2008, online video on demand service, Hulu, came out of private beta and out into the hands of the public. So after two weeks with the service, what do we all think of it?

I've been a member of the Hulu service since October of last year, and from the start I've been very impressed with it. The interface has changed slightly since the private beta but remains easy to use, clean, and organized. Users will have no problem navigating the menus as the layout is intuitive everything is easy to find.

Hulu offers clips and full episodes from several television networks, as well as movies. They all range from old to new (all shows and all movies). However, not all the shows have full episodes from all season. Several only provide the most recent airings. Although, you can subscribe via rss and keep updated on when episodes for your favourite shows become available.

The streaming quality of the videos is crisp. I have no complaints on the visual quality of the shows, even though it would be a plus to see them offered in high definition. What's also nice about Hulu is that advertisements bear minimal distraction. 30 seconds commercials appear in shows every now and then, usually when a commercial break would take place.

At first, I'd thought that Hulu would just be another Joost, which offers many shows I've never heard of. There is an upside to that, because Joost offers original and entertaining programming not found elsewhere. I can safely say that even though Hulu hasn't been out for as long as Joost, I've gotten a lot more use out of it. Also unlike Joost, Hulu doesn't require a separate download and can be accessed on any browser that supports flash.

At any rate, Hulu is the best online on demand service I've used. They have an excellent media collection in a user-friendly environment. And the best thing about it? It's free! Go sign up if you haven't yet.

Wubi: Dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows Just Got Easier

http://wubi-installer.org/, http://www.ubuntu.com/- Excited for the final release of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron next month? But dreading the dual-boot setup? Wipe away your worries, in Canonical's upcoming release, you'll no longer have to go through the troubles of partitioning your hard drive or mess with file systems to set up a Windows/Linux dual-boot. Well, you still can if you want ... but now there's an alternative, with Wubi. It let's you install Ubuntu directly onto your C: drive, in a virtual disk image, right within Windows.

The first step was to download the Ubuntu 8.04 iso from (link). Now, instead of burning the iso onto a blank CD-R, I mounted the disk image onto a virtual cd-rom drive using Daemon Tools Lite. I did this because I didn't have any blank CDs on hand.

So on to Ubuntu. The first thing you'll see when putting in the Ubuntu 8.04 CD in Windows is the Ubuntu CD Menu. Here, it will tell you that you can reboot your computer with the CD in the drive to try out the Live CD and do a standard installation from there, or install inside Windows. Choosing to install inside Windows brings you to the Wubi installer. Here, you can choose how much space on your C: drive, or whatever drive you want to install it on, you want to allocate for Ubuntu.

Wubi will create a two virtual disk files within Windows where Ubuntu will be installed: a root.disk file for your root installation and swap.disk for Linux's swap partition. Once finished, it will ask you to restart the computer. After restarting, the windows boot manager pops up, asking whether to boot into Vista or Ubuntu. Choosing Ubuntu will complete the installation, and in no time, I was running the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Beta.


I felt little to no changes in performance when running Ubuntu. Of course, if you choose to use Wubi, it means that you'll be running Linux from the NTFS file system that Windows uses, which is prone to fragmentation. Severe fragmentation can reduce performance by slow write and read speeds when in Ubuntu. Other than that, it ran just as well as a standard installation.

Uninstallation is also just as easy. If you decide to ever get rid of your Linux side, just go into the program manager in Windows and uninstall Wubi. You'll then get the space you allocated for Ubuntu back in Windows.


Since I can't bring myself to only use Linux as my sole operating system, dual-booting is essential for me. With Wubi, the process has become a lot simpler, and safer than messing with partitioning your hard drive.