Posted 02/02/09 at 10:00:00 AM by David Murphy

Are you ready for some f... reeware?  It's Super Bowl weekend at Maximum PC, and we're doing all we can to find you the best, quick-hit freeware applications that will make a profound difference in your computing life.  It's hard to manage the grill and install freeware, so we're giving you a mix this week: Tiny applications that don't require much of your input at all to interact with, as well as a pretty big application or two that should easily distract you if football-watching isn't your thing.  We're covering a lot of field this week with our applications.  Be prepared to check out everything from efficient file unzippers, to 3D designing programs, to pretty desktop RSS feed readers.

So what are you waiting for?  Put on your helmet and get ready to go third and long with our latest batch of freeware applications!

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Posted 01/10/09 at 08:42:44 PM by Justin Kerr

If you’re in to RSS feeds to help capture your news, then you’re more than likely already using Google Reader. Alternatives to the popular RSS aggregator exist, but as one of the best cloud based solutions out there it enjoys one of the largest and most robust user bases. Since it appears as though RSS has peaked as a technology, the creative minds at Google are hoping to bring in fresh blood by offering video tutorials to help get new users over the learning curve. These videos attempt to teach everything from the basics, to the more advanced features. They are no doubt hoping this will help push up adoption rate.

Unofficial how to clips have been around on You Tube for awhile now. In fact, last year’s help video challenge spawned a great many of them. This however, is the first official series offered by the company and even covers off some of the newest features that were just added during December’s redesign. As an avid user of Google reader I can defiantly recommend the advanced tutorials. You are almost guaranteed to pick up something you didn’t know. Want to try out Google Reader with some of the Maximum PC RSS feeds? Look no further.

Do you use Google's Reader? If not what is your RSS reader of choice?

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Posted 11/12/08 at 12:00:00 PM by Alex Castle

If you spend a lot of time on the internet (and let’s be frank, if you’re reading maximumpc.com, you do) you’ve probably become intimately familiar with Google search. After all, the web’s a big place, and finding what you need can be pretty damn tough without the help of a search engine.

But you don’t need to be Googling as much as you are. A host of new web-based tools are becoming available which do the searching for you. They can keep track of subjects that interest you, as well as housing and job listings, product pricing and availability, and more. Best of all, you can have updates sent right to your email inbox, as often as you want. In this guide we’ll show you the best tools for keeping track of the changing web, and give you examples of how they can be effectively used.

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Posted 10/21/08 at 02:48:00 PM by Alex Castle

If you’re a news junkie, chances are you use RSS feeds. According to a new study about the technology, that puts you decidedly in the minority, and it looks like that’s not going to change any time soon. The report found that only 11% of those surveyed used RSS feeds, and that that percentage is unlikely to see a large increase in the future, unless changes are made in how RSS is promoted.

The study found that of those people who don’t use RSS, 81% aren’t interested in using it in the future, seriously limiting the technology’s potential for growth. In the report, analysts explained the problem as follows:

“Unless marketers make a move to hook them—and to try to convert their apathetic counterparts—RSS will never be more than a niche technology.”

It’s not all bad news for RSS, though. The report mentions that feed usage has risen from 2% to 11% in the last three years, and that about half of marketers have added feeds to their websites.

Do you think RSS is doomed to be a tool only for the technological top tenth? Let us know after the jump.

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Posted 10/09/08 at 06:40:30 PM by Mark Edward Soper

The Eye-Fi line of Wi-Fi enabled SD cards just keeps getting more social. The October update of the Eye-Fi Manager, in addition to adding à la carte support for geotagging, webshare, and hotspot access service updates, also adds support Twitter and RSS integration. You can use Twitter to tell your contacts when you have new photos posted on line, and RSS support enables you to publish pictures in real-time to your preferred RSS aggregator.

Eye-Fi now offers cards through its online store as well as at an ever-growing list of retailers.

RSS logo courtesy Variawa.co.za.

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Posted 10/08/08 at 02:05:41 PM by Paul Lilly

We'd venture to guess that most Maximum PC readers use Firefox as their primary browser, but when it comes to alternative browsers (those not developed by Microsoft or Mozilla), Opera remains a popular choice due to its feature-set and speed. For fans of the Opera browser, the good gets even better with the latest release, version 9.6.

Among the changes, the new magazine-style RSS feeds are sure to be a hit. The new feature converts any RSS feed into a magazine-like page with the articles laid out in columns, making them more accessible for casual readers to view content before subscribing or bookmarking it.

Other changes include speed enhancements for faster page load times, optimized Opera Mail with a 'low bandwidth mode' to retrieve emails faster when bandwidth is limited, and expansions to Opera Link which now include custom search engines and typed history.

Grab the new download here, hit the jump, and let us know what you think.

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