savings

Google's Net neutrality ideas meet Raging Grannies

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Net neutrality is a difficult concept to sum up in a pithy slogan. But it was a nice day for a protest in Northern California.

Several dozen people gathered Friday here in Charleston Park--a public park steps from the Googleplex--to protest Google's proposed Net neutrality guidelines developed with Verizon Communications. They trotted out the usual "hey hey, ho ho" and "what do we want/when do we want it" chants, hoping to make their voices heard as about two dozen Googlers on their lunch breaks watched in bemusement.

The group was not … Read more

Sync up your drives daily

ChronoSync is a syncing and backup utility with high-powered features underneath a novice-friendly interface. Along with the ChronoAgent companion app, it's especially useful for anyone trying to sync folders and files between multiple computers.

At its most basic, ChronoSync lets you pick a target disk, folder, or file that you want to back up--the "left target" in ChronoSync's visual, left-right interface--and then another disk, folder, or file where you want the new backup located (the "right target"). But ChronoSync doesn't stop there: you can easily swap directions, do a "blind" backup (… Read more

Correct your text on the fly

TextExpander is a popular and reasonably priced autotype/autocorrect program--a productivity-enhancing piece of software designed to save you time and keystrokes by automatically typing out frequently used words and phrases (such as signatures and greetings) and instantly correcting your typos. TextExpander's nearly invisible interface is simple: you type a short, user-specified abbreviation, and the app expands the abbreviation into a longer "snippet," whether a word, a phrase, or even an image or an entire e-mail. (You can even prompt TextExpander to execute a chunk of AppleScript.) You can customize your snippets and manage them in groups, and … Read more

Apps emerge to reset Facebook privacy settings

New third-party applications are trying to make it easier to reset Facebook privacy settings, following recent changes from the company that make a sizable chunk of profile content public by default when it was once under lock and key.

A firewall and spam filter company called Untangle launched a tool on Monday called SaveFace, which takes the form of a browser bookmark utility and sets as many Facebook profile elements as it can--contact information, friend lists and connections, wall posts--to "friends only."

"We wanted to help our customers get back to [the] Facebook of 2005," Untangle … Read more

And now for something completely different

NativeWinds is an interesting software developer based in the mountains of Western Montana; its Tomahawk Gold is an interesting word processor that does a lot in a small, affordable package. It combines many of the essential features found in Microsoft's Word, like quick formatting and advanced editing, with the ability to create and save PDF documents. It handles other documents, too, and includes Mail Merge, network compatibility, and 15 language versions.

Tomahawk Gold's zipped executable is accessible immediately after extraction, with no installation needed. You can download the Help file separately, as well as extras such as a … Read more

PageFocus power for free

PageFocus Pro is an enterprise-capable form-creation, management, and publishing application development package with an integrated database engine. PageFocus Reader is a free tool that you can use to view, navigate, print, and otherwise manage the software's proprietary files as well as PageFocus and PageFocus Pro Forms. It supports electronic data transfer and can be used to distribute e-catalogs, registration and order forms, and documents, as well as for data collection.

This program contains two separate executables, the PageFocus Editor, for creating and editing documents and forms, and the runtime Expo application, which handles the database end. Each uses the … Read more

Flash friend

Flash video on sites like YouTube is great, but what's even better is saving those videos to your computer to be viewed whenever you want. Save2pc Pro is an easy-to-use program that lets users save files from Flash video sites in a variety of formats. It's not the best such program we've ever seen, but overall, it works fine.

The program's interface is simple and intuitive. Users paste the URL of the desired video into a text box, choose a format and destination folder, and click Download. The program downloads the video and saves it in … Read more

Stop Flash from sucking up power

BashFlash is a free, low-profile utility that can identify and terminate Flash video processes in Safari, which can help you improve CPU performance and (on a laptop) conserve battery power--and it can even help keep your computer from heating up and running its fans excessively because of Flash overload.

BashFlash only works in 64-bit Safari (i.e., Safari 4 in Snow Leopard), since earlier versions don't run Flash as a standalone process that can be easily terminated. The app sits in your menu bar, and a small BashFlash icon shows your current Flash use (gray for none, black for … Read more

Rescue passengers from a sinking ship

Titanic Rescue is a simple, cartoonish, quick-to-play arcade game in which you rescue dapper little gentlemen from a sinking ship.

The touch-based interface is both fun and challenging: you can touch and "flick" passengers off the ship (hopefully in a helpful trajectory) and you rescue the passengers by sliding a row of lifeboats (and, later, life preservers) underneath the falling passengers. The gameplay is quick, intuitive, and challenging, as you switch back and forth between flicking dudes and maneuvering boats. Passengers will bounce off of boats and full life preservers (although more than three will sink a boat), … Read more

Copy cat

HM WebCopy is a handy add-on for both Firefox and Internet Explorer that lets users save Web page content without all the ads and other clutter that often fills Web sites these days. Although the application didn't knock our socks off, we can see how it would be useful if you frequently need to save HTML files without the mess.

HM WebCopy is quite easy to use. Let's say, for example, that you find a news story online that you'd like to save as an HTML document, but you don't want all the ads and other … Read more