Display your iPad on a PC for FREE
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 23:12
- Written by Christian Dunn
If you ever need to train or demonstrate on an iPad or you just want to have your screen appear on your big screen TV at home then you have probably considered purchasing the HDMI or VGA adapter available, or an Apple TV.
Unfortunately these all cost and you can't really take an Apple TV to a customer presentation or walk around the room.
Today I have found 2 free solutions which enable you to display your iPad on your computer. Simply plug your computer into a projector and seamlessly switch from your presentation to your mobile device.
One of these requires you to use your usb cable but is absolutely free. The other allows you to wirelessly roam while you present using any adhoc wireless network but only gives a 7 day free trial (unless you get your friends to also start using it).
To check out these great applications read on...
PDFtoExcel.org
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 23:26
- Written by Christian Dunn
Converting PDFs to Excel is always a challenge, especially with complex formats and layouts.
PDFs however are a preferred method of sharing business documents as they are secure and convenient. Unfortunately extracting data from them is often difficult or impossible. Now however all you need is a web browser and you can convert these documents quickly and easily using PDFtoExcel.org in conjunction with CometDocs (www.cometdocs.com).
Investintech Able2Extract Mobile
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 21 April 2013 16:01
- Written by Christian Dunn
Programs to create and convert PDF files are nothing new and these days most of us use PDF printers or similiar software in our day to day work activities to generate documents for clients that can't be edited or convert provided documentation into an editable format.
Investintech.com PDF Solutions has taken this one step further with their new mobile solution Able2Extract Mobile.
Able2Extract provides all the benefits of Investintech PDF conversion utilities on your mobile device. Are you a mobile office worker? Constantly sending emails, editing documents, responding to enquiries and reading documentation on your tablet or mobile phone?
Able2Extract provides you with the capability to convert Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents to or from PDF on the go. This is the ultimate productivity tool for the mobile worker and it is free to use. A wifi or data connection is required as conversion happens in real time using the Investintech servers.
Not only is it free but it is available for both iOS and Android. Conversion is quick and easy and happens in real time and converted documents can be quickly and easily shared with other users or services in seconds directly from the app.
Already a staple of my mobile business toolkit, add it to yours today.
Check out the easy steps to converting a PDF and download it here: http://www.investintech.com/apps/
Wave Accounting
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 08 March 2013 01:00
- Written by Christian Dunn
Recently I needed to begin separating my personal and professional finances properly in order to better manage my taxes and invoices. Unfortunately my 6 year old copy of MYOB no longer cut it and I wanted something simple, easy to use and ideally free.
As is the current trend I have been slowly migrating my software and services to the cloud providing complete online access for my site, services, email and finally accounts so that I can work from anywhere, anytime on any device. I decided my accounting software had to meet this requirement.
Unfortunately this made my search harder and my solution simpler as I discovered that when it comes to accounting software my options were very limited, especially when I wanted extensive capabilities to customise my invoices and configure my accounts.
The I found Wave. Wave makes it easy, allowing me to customise my invoices, configure my accounts and even import transaction information from paypal or my bank accounts. Best of all when you setup company accounting they also allow you to track your personal finances but keep them separated from your company information giving my 2 apps in one. In fact, even more than that as they threw in payroll and invoicing.
Now my customers can receive invoices from me anytime, anywhere and pay me online and I have real-time visibility of my business transactions.
Check it out here: https://www.waveapps.com/
Acronis Drive Monitor
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 06 March 2013 01:00
- Written by Christian Dunn
Recently I was faced with a home computer that intermittently shutdown and a Managing Director's laptop that would have startup and shutdown problems. While everyone suggested a range of problems from hardware to software I was determined to find out for sure.
Fortunately the Managing Director's laptop simply required a repair of the windows system files using the System File Checker, my personal computer was not in as good a shape. Technically my home computer was in excellent condition software wise (as you would hope) but it just wouldn't perform as expected.
This gave me a chance to test out the Acronis Drive Monitor and I couldn't recommend it more highly.
This little utility which is FREE and runs in your system tray provides real time status of the state of your hard drives. As it turned out 2 of the 3 hard drives in my home computer were operating with a health rating of just 30% indicating many bad sectors and faults and ultimately imminent failure.
You can imagine my shock and surprise as this computer holds at least 15 years of my work. Fortunately this heads up gave me time to order some new hard drives, clean and rebuild my computer and even upgrade it to Windows 8.
So if you are concerned about the health or age of your computer try Acronis Drive Monitor and it could save you a lot of heartache.
Ninite makes software deployment easy
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 21 November 2012 00:22
- Written by Christian Dunn
Ninite is an installer or updater that will save you an amazing amount of time in selecting and installing software on your computer.
Everything from Antivirus and Malware protection through to office applications, browser plugins and even a classic start menu for Windows 8 users.
No technical understanding or assistance is required. No bloatware or malware.
Ninite brings enterprise application deployment to everyone.
How hard is it to use?
a) Visit ninite.com and select the programs you want and click Get Installer.
b) Run the small file that was downloaded. All your applications will be installed.
Repeat for updating. A pro version can be purchased to enable automatic updating.
Simple yet amazing! Highly Recommended.
VOIP is for everyone and almost free
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 07 November 2012 01:00
- Written by Christian Dunn
KZTechs.COM Software Suite
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 29 July 2012 01:50
- Written by Christian Dunn
KZTechs.COM Software Suite including System Repair Engineer
Another awesome tool for system administrators, System Repair Engineer, also called SREng, developed by KZTechs.COM webmaster Smallfrogs. SREng is a security related software and a system maintenance software, the main purpose of SREng is try to detect some common system issues and most common damages caused by computer viruses or malware.
Using System Repair Engineer (SREng), a user can detects the most common issues in user’s computer and repair them by themselves. Beginner user of SREng can use Smart Scan function scan their computer to generate a report log, computer expert can analyze the log and provides some advices.
The latest version includes plugins to add even more capability than before including:
- NTFS Stream Scanner
- Network Activity Monitor
But wait, there's more...
Now System Repair Engineer is part of the KZTechs.COM Software Suite which also includes:
- Windows Shell Menus Manager
- File Digital Sign Verify Tool
- Windows Notifaction Area Tooltip Fix Tool
- Windows Installer UnUsed File Cleanup Tool
- RenamePlus
- PendMove
This adds even more capability to this great little repair tool. Definitely one to add to the toolkit.
Even better this software is absolutely free.
Want to find out more? Check it out here..
D7 System Repair Tool (Windows)
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 26 July 2012 00:00
- Written by Christian Dunn
System Administrators, D7 is the ultimate tool for your team of engineers to repair damaged systems.
D7 is a portable tool for PC technicians that will revolutionize all repair scenarios Providing one-click automation for: Virus / Malware Removal Windows Repair and Maintenance Data Backup / Restore System Info / Reporting Keeping all of your tools updated!
This is no easy tool for end users to repair their computers, this is a powerful, and potentially dangerous repair tool, that should only be used by experienced IT engineers, but it is well worth it.
I love it and have been using it recently on repairs. Every time I open the program I find something new.
So what do you get?
- offline and live malware removal assistance via many internal and 3rd party tools
- automatic download/extraction of 3rd party tools on demand when missing
- offline and live registry editing with mass search & delete features
- offline and live data backup/restore and direct data migration
- CPU/RAM stress testing
- information gathering and quality assurance uses
- Operating System Branding
- IP/DNS configuration + backup & restore
- shortcuts to frequently used Windows components
- quick access to frequently used Windows tweaks
- numerous right-click context menu (in Windows Explorer) features for working with files and directories
- wrappers / one-click execution options for frequently used command line tools
- synchronization of MalwareScan definition files
- automatic updates of all your favorite 3rd party tools via Ketarin
- offline application of password removal tricks enabling you to gain access to password protected live systems
- ...and MORE!
The basic version is FREE but the premium version offers you even more...
- Ability to use D7 v7 and above!
- Ability to use D7's internal update functionality for new releases.
- Ability to use D7's scheduling features for internal update functionality and more.
- Add your own company name to D7's title bar.
- Add your own custom application name to D7's title bar, replacing the D7 name and version information.
- Replace D7's main logo within the main GUI and on splash screens with your own logo.
- Your logo must be in BMP format, named applogo.bmp, and must reside in the D7 directory.
- Your logo should look good as a square, because that's all the space you have for it!
- Recommended 48x48 pixels for best display.
- You can replace the alt icon with applogo.ico, which must reside in the D7 directory.
- IcoFX is one of many apps to import BMPs and save as icon files.
- Be sure to save your icon @ 8 bit or less for optimal appearance.
- NOTE: this does NOT replace the D7 application icon, as this is not technically possible to change these embedded icons on the fly.
- Ability to disable my custom messages appearing in D7's lower status bar (such as donation solicitations, new app adverts, etc.) while D7 is idle. Instead the custom messages you will only see "Idle..."
- NOTE: this does NOT disable new D7 version alerts when your version of D7 is not current.
- Ability to use D7 Auto mode.
- Ability to use DataRestore and DataMigrate.
- No nag screens on certain functions.
- Skins!
- Ability to use D7 Launcher
The Premium version is only $US100 for up to 10 users so definitely worth checking out. Buy it here...
Highly recommended to all Windows support engineers.
In recent news, D7 is linking up with TechUSB to provide online and offline diagnostics for computers called TechUSB PRO.
Read more here.
Build a mobile site with WeeverApps.com (Joomla/Wordpress)
- Details
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 11 June 2012 02:01
- Written by Christian Dunn
Do you have a Joomla or Wordpress website?
Is it mobile enabled? Now you can make it mobile enabled in minutes for free.
Instead of doing the hard work of building or buying mobile templates or redesigning you site to suit a mobile, check out WeeverApps.com.
Weever Apps is a cloud based mobile application host. Their site reads your website and your configuration to display content in a customised mobile phone application they host for you. You have complete control over the configuration including which types of devices are included and which aren't. Some features cost extra but the free application is enough to get you started.
All you need is a Wordpress or Joomla Website. This means you can have a customised website for your mobile users which is suited to their phone setup for free in minutes without requiring assistance from the website designer (unless you want to get really fancy).
All you need to do is visit WeeverApps, sign up and install the Joomla Component or WordPress plugin into your site (they tell you how). In the settings for the component or plugin customise your options. These options are automatically saved to the Weeverapps servers. You can test your design before you make it live and you can turn it off or on at any time.
Don't believe me? I built my own mobile application and site with the free Weever App. Have a look by visiting this site on your mobile device or clicking here.
Each Weever App comes with a QR code you can advertise to your customers to promote your site.
If you haven't got mobile capability on your site, now is the time to add it. Make sure you sign up to google analytics and see how it makes a difference to your visitors.
I would like to thank Steve McBride and the team from WeeverApps for their great technical support while testing the product. This is definitely a company to watch.
Get if for yourself at WeeverApps.com