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Whigs, 'Right Hand on My Heart': Free MP3 of the Day
It's fitting that one of the country's great young rock bands comes from one of our longtime great rock towns: Athens, GA. The trio follow up their winning self-made debut with an equally addictive set on ATO. Guitars are gutty, drums thrill, and a pro studio doesn't soften the Southern rock grit.
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Audio/MP3
Print-to-PDF battle: Primo versus Do
Creating your own PDFs used to require purchasing a PDF-creator like Adobe Acrobat. With PrimoPDF and doPDF, though, all that's required is a program with a print function. Interestingly, while both Do and Primo do the same thing, one is stripped-down and simple, while the other adds an extra step and some extra features to attract users.
Both doPDF and PrimoPDF add PDF output to your Print options.
(Credit: CNET Networks)DoPDF is the more basic of the two programs. It's utterly bereft of features beyond its main function: to let users create PDF documents from within any program using the native Print option. Along with whatever printer you've got hooked up that shows up in the Print dialog box, doPDF adds an eponymous option. Select it, hit print, and you get the chance to change the name of the PDF you're creating. Hit enter and the PDF gets created, then automatically opens for you to proofread it.
Lacking any customization features and the control panel to manage them, doPDF is definitely meant for fast PDF creation with a minimum of fuss. However, not all PDFs are created equal, and that's where PrimoPDF comes in.
Primo uses the same mechanism to create PDFs as Do does: It lets users create PDFs via the Print function of most--if not all--programs that have a print option. However, the addition of extra features should appeal to more advanced users who need their PDFs to be of higher-than-average quality.... Read more
Bold, stylish Zune themes are a knockout
Microsoft started it. And this time we can all give thanks.
The Seattle giant's search for a sleek, cool iPod competitor produced the Zune, and the Zune's youth culture appeal produced Microsoft's Zune-flavored desktop theme. Couple that with the Firefox Zune theme created by the prolific theme meister Brett Bodine--also known as Bodizzle--and you've got yourself a bold, sleek screenscape in orange and black gradations, with just enough strokes of white for emphasis.
XP with a trench coat and shades.
(Credit: CNET Networks)YouSendIt gets desktop help
I've found that I frequently use the large file transfer service YouSendIt to send big files, videos, scans, and pictures. And I've taken to recommending the service to others when I hear about a problem getting a file from one place to another. That's rare--usually the Web services I like the most are a bit too rickety to recommend to people with real lives and jobs.
But one thing about YouSendIt has always bugged me: the need to go to the browser to upload a file for transfer. I hate browser uploaders. Fortunately, the company just released a desktop app, YouSendIt Express, that lets you drag files from your system into it, from which it will then upload the file to the transfer service. And if your connection drops, it will resume the upload when it can. It's available for PC and Mac.
The company also has a plug-in for Outlook, which makes perfect sense. Except I have yet to meet an Outlook plug-in that doesn't somehow degrade the mail application itself. So, I haven't tried it and I have no intention to.
I do wish YouSendIt's pricing structure for occasional users was more reasonable. The free service is very limited, but what do you want for nothing? The problem is that the lowest-cost paid account is $9.99 a month. I'd like to see a per-use fee or a much cheaper monthly fee. For occasional use, $120 a year is just ... Read more
Connect to your PC from anywhere with LogMeIn Free
LogMeIn's browser-based connection screen
(Credit: Rick Broida)A perennial Cheapskate favorite, LogMeIn Free lets you connect to your PC from any other PC. This comes in impossibly handy when you're working offsite and need to access files, run programs, check your e-mail, and so on. It's like sitting at your PC when you're not actually sitting at your PC.
All you do is download and install the free LogMeIn utility on your primary PC; it runs quietly in the background until needed. When you want to connect to your system from somewhere else, just fire up that PC's browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.), head to the LogMeIn site, and sign in. A few clicks later, you're remotely connected to--and in control of--your PC.
LogMeIn is available for Windows and Macintosh. The only downside is that it doesn't allow you to transfer files between PCs; for that you need one of the paid versions of LogMeIn (or a remote-control program like TeamViewer, which does support file transfers). But I've found I very rarely need to transfer files anyway, so the free version suits me just fine. I can't recommend LogMeIn highly enough.
Rahsaan Patterson, 'Burnin'': Free MP3 of the Day
Patterson describes the title of his latest, "Wines & Spirits," as sounding "biblical," but it's the songs that really belong in church. Rich vocal harmonies and sermon-strength lyrics point straight to gospel, while funked-out bass lines and biting synths earn their own believers.
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Audio/MP3
A better way to defrag your hard disk
In the long list of odious chores, defragmenting your hard drive is right up there with flossing your teeth and washing your dog--or flossing your dog's teeth, for that matter.
There is little agreement on how much--or even whether--defragmenting improves your PC's performance, but having files closer together on the disk reduces the amount of movement required by the drive's mechanical parts. This should make it last longer, though such factors as operating environment and the quality of its components probably have a greater impact on its life span.
Regardless of whether it will actually improve your system's performance and reliability, I do know that there's a better way to defragment your drive than using the utility built into Windows: you'll get the job done in less time by using Auslogics' free Disk Defrag utility.
Windows' own Disk Defragmenter is a slug compared to Auslogics' alternative. At least in XP, you got some feedback while the Windows defragger was working; Vista doesn't give you a clue what's happening after you click the Defragment Now button, other than to let you know that the process could take from a few minutes to a few hours (my bet's on the latter). I know many people scoff at the dancing colored blocks on the map as pointless, but I kinda like 'em.
By default, Vista defragments your drive once a week. You can set the defragmenter to run on a different schedule, though you ... Read more
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Bon Iver, 'Skinny Love': Free MP3 of the Day
Justin Vernon comes by this project name--sorta-French for "good winter"--honestly, having cut his LP in the snowy isolation of rural Wisconsin. There's a reason we mythologize such outings. This is pristine lo-fi, run through with icy acoustic guitar and fragile vocals.
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Audio/MP3
J Dilla, 'Airworks': Free MP3 of the Day
A former Slum Village member, a beatsmith for Madlib, MF DOOM, Common, Busta and many more, an increasingly cherished solo artist--by the time of his recent death at age 32, Jay Dee had made the rap game his plaything. Jay's last LP "Donuts" finds new troves of soul inside taut hip-hop beats.
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Audio/MP3
