LogMeIn.com

LogMeIn is a great program for remotley accessing a PC. With it you can leave your home PC on and access it from the office, out on the road with your laptop (and an Internet connection) or while you’re on holidays interstate or overseas. There are different versions of the software but the free version is more than enough for simple remote control of a PC (more advanced versions include features like remote sound and drag-and-drop file transfer).

LogMeIn is available for both PCs and Macs and the setup is easy. You just sign up and install the small client file onto the PC (or Mac) you want to control and then from any web browser, you can click onto logmein.com and sign-in, then just select your computer and you’ll have remote access. With the free version, you can have access to up to 5 different computers on one account, so you can have you home PC, office workstation and your laptop all available at once. This also makes it handy for helping out friends & family with their computers (and for complete IT support solutions, LogMeIn offer software such as LogMeIn IT Reach). If you’re looking for a remote access solution that is easy to setup, secure and quick then LogMeIn is for you.

Gmail.com

Gmail is a webmail service offered by Google and is highly recommended. If you’re looking for your first email service or would like to integrate all your existing accounts into one spot, Gmail is ideal.

Why Webmail? There are many good reasons why you should be using webmail and having access to your email anywhere you have an Internet connection is one of the best. Not to mention the fact that a change in Internet provider or domain name doesn’t mean you have to get a brand new email address and let everyone else know about it.

So why Gmail?

6GB of space
Gmail was the first webmail service to offer such a massive amount of storage space, when Gmail first launched you had 1GB (1,000+ megabytes) and it’s constantly growing, now giving users over 6GB of storage. What this means really is that you never have to delete your emails again… ever!

Conversation view
Emails and all relevant replies are grouped together, making tracking the conversation simple. It may sound odd at first but once you use it, you wont go back.

Spam protection
The junk mail filter on Gmail is excellent and unlike a lot of services that claim to block spam, Gmail is genuinly effective.

POP3 Access
So if you do have an existing email account but would rather read them in Gmail, you can. Sending from these accounts right out of Gmail is just as easy, so you can access all your email accounts in one spot.

Notifier & Extensions
While Google offers it’s own notifier application that lets you know when a new email has arrived, there are also tons of others including Firefox extensions so you can be surfing the net and keeping up to date with your email, without lifting a finger! Some other great extensions even allow you to use your Gmail space as an online hard drive.
The list goes on and other features include;

• Great email searching capabilities
• Complete chat system
• Labelling and archive system (so emails aren’t resticted to one folder or catagory, meaning better organisation)
• Gmail on your mobile
• Free IMAP support
• Full HTML Email
• Virus scanning
• Attachement previewing…

There is more but the bottom line is if you’re not using Gmail yet, check it out now.

This areticle is part of a series showing you stuff you can do with your Google Account.

https://www.google.com/accounts/

Not just a search engine anymore, Google now has a whole heap of services on offer (and most of them are free!). This article is the beginning of a series which will show off some of the different things you can now do with your Google account. So if you already have a Google account (maybe for Gmail or Google Docs), see what else you can do with it. If you don’t have one yet, you can sign up right here.

The first Google Account Stuff to check out is Gmail

www.microsoft.com/downloads/

This is a handy one, especially for business, as it allows you to open Microsoft Office 2007 files in earlier Office versions (such as XP, 2000 & more). With the release of Office 2007, Microsoft introduced a new default file format for Office files called Office Open XML which comes with a new file extension (in Word for example, files now have a .docx extension instead of the previous .doc). These new files will not open properly in previous versions of Office so Microsoft have released this converter which allows you to do so. Once installed, 2007 files will open just like your regular files and you can also ‘Save As’ and save the file as a pre-2007 file format, so you can then send the file to other non-Office 2007 users to open (without them needing the converter tool). Installation is simple and once the tool is installed, you wont have to worry about it again.

Tip: For Office 2007 users, remember that you can still save your files to be pre-2007 compatible by selecting it from the drop-down box when you save the file. If you are sending documents to other people and aren’t sure what version of Office they are using, doing this will ensure they can open it in any version.

http://www.donationcoder.com

OK, so this software is a bit of a maybe. The idea behind it is great as it basically allows you to recover any programs you have closed in the last 60 seconds (but you can increase/decrease this timer as well to give you as much recovery time as you want). This is very handy if you have a habit of accidentally closing programs, especially if you haven’t saved your work. The GoneIn60s icon sits in your system tray, to recover a closed program all you need to do is right click on the icon and select it from the pop-up menu.

The program does, however, have a few bugs at the moment. Certain programs that prompt you to save documents before closing (such as Word, Excel, Dreamweaver) are an issue because if you have an unsaved document open and close the program, the application window will close (and be kept in memory by GoneIn60s) only to reopen 60 seconds later (when the timer runs out) with the ’save before closing?’ prompt. Also, if you do decide to close the system tray icon, all recently closed applications will be recovered (without you telling them to). This program is fairly new though, so bugs like these will hopefully be ironed out in future versions. This is definitely worth trying out, even with the minor bugs, if it will help save some important work for you.

Tip: GoneIn60s does not have a standard installer, once you’ve downloaded the program and double click, it will run from that location. So you should save it somewhere out of the way (e.g. create a GoneIn60s folder in Program Files and save it there) as the program also creates a configuration file. It may also be worth adding to your startup folder (or a shortcut of GoneIn60s) so that you are always covered.

http://free.grisoft.com/
AVG Anti-Virus is one of the top Anti-Virus programs out there. Their free version, for home and non-commercial use, is a great alternative to the paid anti-virus programs that are available. It comes with all the standard features of a good anti-virus system;

• Automatic Updates
• Real-time protection for active and downloaded files
• Scheduler for regular scans
• A virus ‘vault’ for handling infected files

It also uses very little system resources, unlike a lot of anti-virus programs that are bloated, running AVG will not slow you down at all. Once installed, AVG runs in the system tray, protecting you from the latest virus threats, without any extra hassle. You are notified when updates are installed for you and any results from completed system scans are displayed.

So if you’re looking for a new anti-virus program or need to replace your current one when the subscription runs out try AVG, the free version is available here.

CutePDF.com
Adobe Acrobat documents, also known as PDF (Portable Document Format) files have become commonplace on the Internet and in business. With CutePDF, you can turn almost any document straight into a PDF file, except that unlike Adobe Acrobat, CutePDF offers a totally free version.

Like the official Adobe Acrobat Distiller application, CutePDF acts like a printer, so any document that opens in a program that allows printing (just about everything) you can select CutePDF as a printer and send it off, you will be prompted for a location for your PDF file and that’s it, your file is ready.
Direct Download

Note: You’ll also need to install a free PS2PDF converter, which is also available from the CutePDF site, here.

Browsing done better. Chances are you may already be using Firefox as your web browser but if you’re not, it’s time to leave Internet Explorer behind. Firefox has a lot of advantages over IE like…

• Tabbed browsing (even though IE7 has it, Firefox did it first and still does it better)
• Better security
• Extensions (such as better downloads, usage meters, weather forecasting, web developer tools, FTP….the list goes on)
• Theme support
• Better ad blocking, bookmarks, news reading
• Search as you type (you’ll use this more than you think)

There is plenty more, you can find info out at www.switch2firefox.com or the Official Firefox Site

Synergy SourceForge Page

This one is for those of us with multiple computers lying around who want to avoid the hassle and clutter of having a mouse + keyboard for each one. Like a KVM switch which allows you to attach one keyboard + mouse to multiple machines except synergy is a piece of software that works with network computers, so it cuts down on the mess further by getting rid of the switch and KVM cables. Plus, no more buttons or hot-keys are needed to move between monitors, once you’re set up you just drag your cursor off one screen and onto another. Better still, you can copy and paste (clipboard not files) between machines and it’s multi-platform so you can move between your Windows PC to your Macbook and your Unix box (Linux, Solaris, Irix etc). You can even synchronize your screen savers.

Screenshots don’t really show what Synergy does too well, so take a look at these YouTube clips.

So what can you do with it? Well like multiple monitor setups you get the ability to extend your desktop and increase your workspace for things like graphic design and multitasking like gaming & surfing/IM at the same time.