Maximum PC client RSS Feed

Freeware Files: Five BitTorrent Apps for Maximum Downloading!

David Murphy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:00:00 -0600

I don't care what you use BitTorrent for. I don't even want to know. What you download is your own business. That said, don't even think about coming in the comments with a "omg check out this awesome freeware Pirate Bay scanning app it helped me download all the copies of My Little Pony in like no time whatsoever." Not cool.

Now that the semi-useful disclaimer is out of the way, let's get down to business. There's no denying that BitTorrent is a powerful tool for downloading (legal) files of all kinds. It can run faster than a straight one-to-one transfer from a Web site and, more importantly, it allows you to preserve files online when you would otherwise have no direct way to host them.

That sounds a little weird, so hear me out: Suppose you have an awesome recording of you playing piano in eight grade and you want everyone to hear it, only you don't really have access to a direct host for these files. Nor do you want your files to be dependent on a Web host that could theoretically go down at any time. No worries--just find a place to stash a .torrent link to your information and let everyone connect (and subsequently share) your information with the world. Your files will live in perpetuity provided others are as willing to share your data as you.

Got it? Good. I'm taking the BitTorrent concept to the next level this week by showing you five different ways to take your downloading to the next level... with a particular emphasis on one of the best BitTorrent clients around, uTorrent!

uTorrent

Speaking of... no, really. Although the program is corporate-owned at this point, that's not to say that its initial goal of delivering an easy-to-use, lightweight experience for torrent downloads has gone south in the slightest. With uTorrent, it's really more a question of where does one begin? If you're a novice user or somebody who just wants a simple download or two (or twenty), you'll appreciate uTorrent's support for Magnet Links (decentralizing the need for actual .torrent files), bandwidth scheduling, and automatic client or PC shutdowns once the download finishes. Advanced users will want to make use of the app's Web UI for remote torrent downloading or--if you're really hardcore--the beta 2.1 client, which builds video streaming for ongoing file downloads into the mix.

uTorrent 2.0 just officially hit the Web a little bit ago. There are a few new features worth noting, including the ability to set permanent bandwidth caps (as to not hack off your greedy ISP) and a new uTP communication method which functions as a kind of Quality-of-Service protocol for your network. Download files all you want--in theory, uTP should allow others on your network to continue their habits sans slowdowns or interruptions.

Download it here (and the beta here!)

uTorrent Portable

PortableApps has done it again! If you want to carry a powerful BitTorrent tool wherever you go, then this modification of the core uTorrent program is an excellent way to satisfy your downloading urges on the go. The only issue with this portable app is that it's not as frequently updated as the main uTorrent application. At the time of this article's writing, uTorrent Portable uses the 1.8.5 version of the program. That's not a huge deal, as it's just one revision behind the current 2.0 version. This portable application, while useful, is always going to be just a little bit behind. If that's OK with you--and I don't see why it wouldn't be--it's OK with me.

Download it here!

Torrent Magnifier

Looking for a way to find torrent files from your desktop? The search is over: Torrent Magnifier is an awesome, no-frills utility that allows you to scour the net for your next big download without ever having to fire up a Web browser. Sort-of. Torrent Magnifier pulls down a list of relevant torrent files from a wide range of sources. You can see seed counts, leech counts, the tracker and the torrent's name in the program. Double-clicking on any entry pulls up the associated Web page in your browser of choice. From there, I would assume you're only a click or two away from grabbing the file yourself!

Download it here!

Vuze

Older torrent fans might remember the Azureus client. You're still looking at it, but the Vuze application isn't just a direct rip-off of the lineage you might have grown accustom to. I include Vuze on the list--even though it's not a true addon or helpful accessory to uTorrent--because its social features and emphasis on media downloading simply can't be found in the more popular uTorrent app. How's that? For starters, a built-in transcoding tool allows you to convert videos you've downloaded into formats playable on your iPod (or like devices), PS3, and Xbox 360, amongst others. Beyond that, an integrated video content distribution network will give you a host of new sources for compelling content. You can add Vuze friends, grab files your pals recommend, and create your own online identity for your (legal) bandwidth-killing.

Download it here!

Download at Work

I normally don't opt for Web apps in these freeware updates--Web apps aren't freeware, after all. However, the thought occurred to me: What good is a BitTorrent file (or client) if you can't download it at work? I'm not actually suggesting that you should use the considerable resources of your T1 connection to grab every episode of Scrubs under the sun. However, work-based limitations on what you're actually allowed to download are lame. Solve that by hitting up the site Download at Work, which converts URLs you enter into downloads with conventional (or weird) file extensions. If you can't grab .exe or .torrent files from the 'net, surely your job won't limit a PDF or DOC file, right?

Check it out here!

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Microsoft's Silverlight Facebook Client is all Class

Justin Ker — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:27:49 -0600

You don't hear much about Silverlight these days, but rest assured, Microsoft is still hard at work on the speedy little flash competitor. Of course, a platform is only as powerful as its applications, and a new Silverlight Facebook client does a fantastic job of showcasing this power. The lightweight and lightening fast new interface works on both Mac's and PC's, and is a significant improvement to the look and feel of Facebook.

Created using the developer preview edition of Silverlight 4, the new Facebook client pretty much bypasses any need you would ever have to visit the full website. You can access your groups, friends list, inbox, and even upload / manage your photo galleries. It makes a great alternative for those who wish to get caught up with family and friends in peace, while conveniently doing away with those pesky ads.

Future versions are expected to strip away the Window chrome , and will allow you to quickly and easily import pictures from a digital camera directly into any photo gallery. To give the beta a spin, simply navigate on over to the landing page to install the new version of Silverlight. Give it a try, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Freeware Files: 5 Add-ons for Ultimate Email Tweaking!

David Murphy — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:45:43 -0600

It's difficult to envision a life without email. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Suffice, digital messaging is just a fact of geek life that we all have to deal with on a daily basis. Whether your inbox gets flooded with messages like the Nile during rainy season, or it's barren as one of those outback wastelands that Bear Grylls likes to visit, you probably aren't using your email client of choice to its fullest potential.

That's ok. Neither was I before undertaking the research for this week's open-source and freeware roundup. But now that I have seen the light, as it were, I would never go back to the ol' vanilla installations of Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, or whatever one's particular email utility of choice happens to be. There are just too many interesting ways to tweak and alter the normal email experience to better enhance your ability to read, organize, and shuffle your messages.

That's kind of "the big point" of the roundup this week--making your email work better for you. Click the jump, and I'll show you five apps and utilities for taking your email processing to the next level!

KLS Email Backup

If you're the kind of person who likes to run full system backups, then congratulations--you may skip over this helpful piece of freeware because you're as protected as you're going to get on your PC. That said, you might want to keep reading anyway. If your email is a lot more critical to your daily life than what your weekly (or whatever) backups provide, then you'll want to check out KLS Email Backup and its wide array of potential uses. This simple app makes it easy to backup and restore a huge range of programs to local or network drives, including both full and incremental backups as well as zip-based compression. I'd list the all the supported clients here, but it might take up another full paragraph...

Download it here!

MailDrop

You've seen plenty of examples of how to use the popular file-synchronizing client Dropbox to, well, keep a consistent folder full of files across however many desktops or laptops you use. Here's another trick: MailDrop is a little utility that, once run, will open up your common Dropbox folder to the wonderful world of email. The program runs in the background of your system and checks an email account you specify on a fairly regular basis. When it finds new messages and attachments in this account, it'll automatically download the files and slap them into your Dropbox folder, which will then synchronize said files across whatever computers you've elected to put into your Dropbox Web.

And no, you don't need to make a new email account to use this functionality--MailDrop will only look for files and messages in a specific "Dropbox" folder in your messaging system (or Dropbox label, if you're on Gmail).

Download it here!

OutSync

Outlook-only on this one, folks. And what a bummer that is, because OutSync is a pretty useful tool for automatically populating your Windows contacts with photographs of your friends. The only catch is that you have to have a working Facebook account for this to happen. Why's that? OutSync mashes up your Windows contacts with their respective profile photographs on their Facebook accounts. It might sound lame at first glance, especially to those of you who aren't into the whole Web 2.0 community thing. But the alternative--manually finding a picture for every single contact you know--sounds a bit mind-numbing to me.

Download it here!

Zindus

Fair's fair, Thunderbird users. Here's an add-on that's for you and you alone. Zindus is a simple little utility that allows you to synchronize your Google Contacts with Thunderbird's Personal Address Book (or an address book that's been named after your particular Gmail address). The synchronization is two-way, so feel free to add and update new information on either the Thunderbird or Gmail side. If you're an intrepid user, you might notice that certain fields don't exactly correlate between the desktop client and your Web client. Zindus tracks following fields during your synchronization attempts:

Full Name
Primary Email address and Second Email address
Phone Numbers: Home, Work, Work Fax, Pager, Mobile
Instant Messaging (AIM)
Company and Title
Notes

Download it here!

Googsystray

All this talk of desktop clients makes me feel like I've overlooked a biggie. I apologize for not finding an application or utility that's more applicable for a whole host of Web-based email services than what's offered by Googsystray. However, I think it's safe to say that most--if not all--of us have Google accounts for some kind of service. I mention that fact, because Googsystray is an excellent tool for keeping abreast of what's going on in all of the Google services worth knowing about. As the name implies, this app pops up a little message box in the corner of your desktop whenever something new happens in one of the following services:

Gmail
Google Voice
Calendar
Reader
Wave

It's as simple as that! You can have the app notify you with a little sound if you prefer, and even run a specific command whenever a particular action takes place (like a new item popping up in your RSS feed, for example).

Download it here!

Seesmic Look Debuts: Twitter and Aero Have a Baby

David Murphy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:30:00 -0600

Seesmic, popular creators of the Seesmic Desktop and Seesmic (for Windows) Twitter utilities, have partnered up with Microsoft to unleash a new way to browse the real-time Web. Don't roll your eyes just yet: I realize there are just about as many different ways to engage Twitter from a computer as there are tweets to track. I, too, was skeptical upon downloading the company's new Seesmic Look client. These fears didn't last long. It's clear that Seesmic has really put its time into a thorough analysis of the existing market, because there simply aren't any other Twitter clients that look quite like, well, Look.

Here's why.

You'll be surprised by the app's artistic interactivity when you first load it up. It's a big separation from the typical Twitter client layout, which is often some Adobe Air-based program filled with columns or floating windows. There's still a lot of floating going on in Look, but it's done more like a screensaver than a rigid information display. When you're using Look's "Playback" mode--one of three different interactive layers to choose from--new messages in the Twittersphere fade in and out of existence alongside giant, pulsating, transparent circles. The Timeline and Alphabetical features are just that--huge boxes of your Twitter friends' thoughts that are easily scrolled through via a standard mouse wheel or "I'm going to click a lot" technique.

One of Look's more unique features--and one that should be replicated in every Twitter client from now until the death of the service-- is its snarky, yet useful commentary regarding the day's most popular hash-tags or subjects. For the uninformed, hash tags are a way for users to categorize posts throughout the Twitter service. If you and I are both making commentary about how awesome Nathan Edwards is, we could simply offer up our thoughts and append #nathanrobot to the end. Thus, we now have an easy way to track all related posts throughout Twitter even if said posts don't directly reference a subject or name.

Anyway, clicking on the easily accessible "Trends" category on Look's left-hand table of contents pulls up a list of the most popular twitter topics of the present-time, of the day, or of the week. If you have no idea what "Follow Friday" or "Danny" refers to, just hover your mouse over the word. A handy little description appears to give you a bit more insight on what all these people are Tweetin' about.

Other than that, there are categories for Tweets you've marked as favorites, chunks of Tweets organized by predefined interests, Twitter channels based on popular brands or Internet presences (what, oh what does Red Bull's twitter have to say today!), and the usual laundry list of past searches you've made in the program. You can organize your friends by lists (that aren't linked to Twitter lists, mind you) to better keep separate Twitt... Twittizens you care about versus less helpful contributors. That's a lot of organization wrapped around Look's beautiful interface--but what is this app missing?

Looking For...

For starters, there aren't really any configuration options at all beyond the opportunity to select the Dark or Light version of Look's skin. The app has essentially locked you into its interface--frankly, I'd love the ability to be able to minimize the size of the large Tweet boxes in order to fit more onto the screen. You also can't select which Twitter-themed service you want to use for various add-ons like link shortening and what-have-you, as Look defaults to the TinyURL service for such things. Most frustrating, Look doesn't auto-complete a Twitter follower's name when addressing them a message. That's not quite as big a deal when you're replying to someone based on a message they've previously Tweeted, but it makes it difficult and annoying to reference someone out of the blue.

Oh, and Look places all new tweets on your timeline above the one you're currently viewing. Since the app doesn't automatically scroll to the top when new Tweets come in, you have to constantly grab your mouse and shuffle around your messages just to catch whatever's new. For a program that's as into the user interface as Look, you'd think there would be a better way to set-it-and-forget-it that isn't just the app's tweet-repeating Playback mode. The interface is big enough to see from an adjacent room, but there's just not a good way to let this program run on a laptop or computer without your constant input.

These criticisms aside, Look is still an awesome platform for interacting with Twitter in a more engaging, eye-catching manner. It's not the best Twitter client from a usability standpoint, but here's hoping that its omissions get fixed in subsequent revisions. It would be a shame for Look's powerful aesthetic to fade away because the software just isn't as practical as it could be for good ol' Twitter.

uTorrent Market Share Nearly Doubles to 52 Million a Year

Justin Kerr — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:04:00 -0600

With the rise of popular streaming services such as Hulu, many would probably speculate that BitTorrent usage would be on the decline, but according to the folks over at TorrentFreak, nothing could be further from the truth. Nearly doubling its 28 million a year user base to 52 million, uTorrent usage is continuing to rise with no end in sight. “In addition to this, at the start of this year we saw almost 5 million monthly users of BitTorrent Mainline,” said Simon Morris, BitTorrents VP of Product Management. “In November 2009 we saw over 10 million”. “We see no evidence whatever that BitTorrent clients are any less popular”.

It seems pretty obvious that the legal woes of The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and others have done little to stem the tide of torrent adoption, and unless things change drastically, its hard to figure out what will. The uTorrent development team has several major improvements planned over the next 12 months, and hope to add options to increase file security, and even the ability for torrent site owners to promote their own content from within the client.

I’m sure all 52 million users are downloading the latest Linux build right? I had no idea it was becoming that popular! If you would like to join me in leaping to conclusions, feel free to leave your comments below.

Download of the Week: Fishbowl

David Murphy — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:43:54 -0600

Well, there you have it--someone's gone and made a desktop client for interacting with Facebook. It sounds a little lame at first glance. Facebook, after all, works quite well across a number of desktop and portable devices. Since you need an internet connection to make any kind of use of the service, be it in a separate client or through the usual Web-based format, what's stopping one from simply eschewing any kind of downloaded application and going straight to Facebook-dot-com itself?

For what it's worth, the Fishbowl application does make for an interesting new way to interact with Facebook as a whole. There's no additional functionality beyond what you would otherwise find at the facebook.com site. However, I do enjoy the application's looks--an emphasis is really placed on delivering large images next to updates, and you can quickly access any part of the Facebook service through easy-to-toggle navigation buttons. Using the Fishbowl app to interact with Facebook does feel a wee bit faster than surfing Facebook through a browser. I'm curious to see how the application deals with Facebook's frequent hiccups in service, but that (fortunately) hasn't happened yet in my fiddling with the application.

One unique feature of the application (okay, I lied earlier about new features) is its ability to set personalized interest levels for all of your friends. You can then sort your friends list by said interest levels, which gives you a way to quickly scan for updates related to people you're actually friends with. Were there only a way to batch-process your friends--as it stands, setting the interest level for a typical Facebook user's account is going to be quite a long afternoon, depending on how many friends one has.

To its credit, Fishbowl does a great job of displaying photos that your friends have uploaded. You get a thumbnail view akin to Windows folders, where the pictures in a particular group make up a part of the icon of said group in the Fishbowl client. You also get a wealth more picture groups to see at once, versus Facebook's ever-constant 20-group limit per page.

Since the app is still in beta, the bugs and kinks haven't been worked out yet. However, depending on how much it lets users customize the skin of Fishbowl itself, I can see a lot of potential for a desktop client that actually rivals the look of Facebook itself. Stay tuned--you might never surf facebook.com again!

Every Wednesday, Maximum PC picks a new free or shareware download as its favorite of the week. Have a nifty application that you can't live without? Twitter David Murphy @acererak with your latest suggestions.

Thunderbird 3.0 Release Candidate Ready for Download

Paul Lilly — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:12:38 -0600

Just last month, Mozilla announced it would keep its Thunderbird 3.0 email client in Alpha form because "calling something a beta is likely to trigger a bunch of extra press attention we're not yet in a position to deal with." Well, Mozilla's now ready and has pushed its email client into Release Candidate status.

The RC is a public preview and intended for developer testing and community feedback, Mozilla says. Mozilla added that it's looking specifically for feedback on the client's new search tools, tabbed email, message archiving, new mail account setup wizard, and improvements for developers.

There are quite a few changes Mozilla made to the new email client, all of which are outlined in the Release Notes here. Be sure to give it a glance before grabbing the download here.

Image Credit: Mozilla

Asus WL-700gE Wireless Storage Router

Michael Brown — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:38:44 -0500

Asus has solved one of the most common problems download junkies face: By marrying a Wi-Fi router with a hard drive and built-in BitTorrent client, the company has eliminated the need for you to leave your power-hungry PC running 24/7.

Asus doesn’t limit you to BitTorrent, of course; the device is capable of using ftp or http for file transfers, too. It’s also a decent solution for anyone interested in hosting their own website, blog, or online photo album. But with the wide availability of free solutions for the latter, peer-to-peer file sharing is this router’s obvious raison d’Ãªtre.

It’s equally obvious, however, that Asus didn’t spend much time designing the client software—optimistically called Download Master—which comes preloaded on the router’s 160GB PATA hard drive: The user interface is crude and there’s virtually no documentation. It’s easy enough to figure out if you know the basics, but green-peas will be lost.

Asus’s Photo Album Exporter is only slightly more refined: It allows you to create a crude online photo site by transferring digital photos from your PC or a USB memory key onto the router’s hard drive. Once there, you can add captions and then organize the images into albums. You can’t add borders or anything else, but the software does automatically rotate and resize every photo. In fact, you don’t need to fire up your PC to transfer files from a USB thumb drive, either—plug a thumb drive into one of the router’s three USB ports, push a button, and the router automatically sucks up the drive’s contents. Upgrading the router’s built-in hard drive voids the product’s two-year warranty, but you can plug in a USB drive or two to create a rudimentary array.

As a router and wireless access point, the WL-700gE is a solid, no-nonsense part. Asus shunned the shifting sands of Draft 802.11n in favor of the more predictable performance of 802.11g, and it installed a staid four-port 10/100Mb/s switch in the back instead of a sexier gigabit switch. One thing the WL-700gE is not is cheap: At press time, we found it street priced at $235.

Month Reviewed: February 2007
Verdict: 7
URL: www.asus.com