It’s been almost two years since we last looked at a security product from PC Tools—PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition—and the experience left such a bad taste in our mouths that we knew exactly how Will Ferrell felt when he was forced to lick a pile of white dog doo-doo in the movie Step Brothers. Yes, it was that bad.

This time around, the experience was measurably more palatable, which is to say it was a lot less like eating dung and more like ordering from the value menu. At $50 for a one-year license, PC Tools will protect up to three PCs and ranks as one of the more affordably priced security suites we’ve dined on this year. If your Google-fu is up to snuff, coupon codes abound, knocking the price down by as much as 30 percent. That comes out to only $35, folks, making this the poor man’s security suite. As such, PC Tools stuffs a comparatively meager feature-set into the box, consisting of an antivirus scanner, spyware module, anti-spam controls, and a firewall. Noticeably absent are some of the side entrees other security vendors embellish their AV suites with, including parental controls, file shredders, identity safeguards, cloud storage, and various other garnishes.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

Read More

Microsoft Office: Can’t live with it, can’t live with… ok, so that’s not entirely true. A number of you likely live without the Microsoft Office suite and, for that, I commend you. That’s not because there’s anything wrong with Office per se; it’s a pricing thing. I don’t always have the money to fork out for a new Office license for whatever systems I acquire, especially when compelling freeware alternatives present themselves in an easy-to-use (and easy-to-download) kind of fashion. Same goes for you.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Dave,” you ask, “why not just install OpenOffice.org and be done with it?” That is certainly a solution for your Office woes. However, that doesn’t mean that the OpenOffice.org suite is the end-all be-all alternative to Microsoft Office Insert-Year-Here. From Web apps to downloadable programs, it’s entirely possible to recreate some of the best parts of this paid-for hunk of apps without resorting to the tried-and-true OpenOffice.org open-source bundle.

And guess what? By going the piecemeal route, you’ll be able to find some new features that simply don’t exist in either aforementioned bundle! So, that said, click the jump to check out some of the best freeware and open-source Microsoft Office replacement apps for your system!

Read More

Google Voice.  Situation: It's a pretty awesome competitor to good ol' Skype, especially when you use its crazy powers to forward calls from your magical number to physical locations all over the world.  I, for one, use Google voice to get into my own apartment.  Ringing me up on the ol' call box in front of my condo complex calls my Google Voice number (local calls only!), which in turn buzzes up my cell phone which, in turn, lets me go home.

That's just one interesting use of an otherwise awesome service.  There are many more.  Problem: There are not nearly as many apps--Web-based or downloadable--that allow you to interact with Google Voice in unique, cool ways.  I've scrounged together five for your enjoyment but, honestly, we're scraping the barrel this week in terms of available software.

So, that said, go register a Google Voice number.  And while you're doing that, start skimming this article for awesome new ways to use the service!

Read More

It's quickly becoming apparent that there's no limit to what Google Labs will concoct to make everyday life a little easier. The latest experiment is called "Open Spot," which is a free app intended to help Android users find free parking spaces.

There aren't any fancy GPS tricks or spy cameras hidden around town, and instead Open Spot relies on you, Joe Citizen, to tap the "Mark a Spot" button on the app when you leave your parking space. Other Android users within about a 1 mile radius will then see the open spot as designed by a red (just vacated), orange (vacated 5 minutes ago), or yellow (vacated 10 minutes ago) dot. And as an incentive, the more open spots you mark, the more "karma points" you're awarded.

So what happens when some jackass gets the bright idea to mark a bunch of spots as open even when they're not?

"We're watching for behavior that looks like a griefer spoofing parking spots," Google said. "We have a couple of mechanisms available to make sure someone can't leave a bunch of fake parking spots. If we see this happening we will take steps to fix it."

It's a neat idea, but one with limited utility until there are more Android users for something like to truly be effective.

Open Spot Download

Read More