Safeguard, Optimize and Enhance your Windows with YAC

An old computer can’t match the performance capabilities of a new computer, however we can always try to reduce this gap and maintain our own computer to extract the most of it. Maintaining old computer is not easy as it tends to get slow over the time (not by degrading hardware but because of the temp and junk files), is prone to attacks and other things.

Thus, to protect our computer from external attacks and keep it running like in a new state, we need some third party tools. There are many tools available for this purpose; one which I am reviewing today is called as YAC (Yet Another Cleaner).

What is YAC?

In short, YAC is an all-in-one PC Protection service with Malware Removal, outdated Registry & Cookies Cleaner with Privacy Protection and System Cleaning Capabilities.

In detail, what YAC does is: it cleans your PC for outdated registry entries without breaking them, cookies and junk files. YAC also helps protect your browser from malicious plug-ins by clearing out of cache/browser history, emptying the recycle bin, old Windows logs, memory dumps and other “unseen” objects to speeds up slow computers. Also helps in saving disk space and keep the computer running fast.

Why use YAC?

This small program is free to use and has been trusted by many users worldwide. The tool has also been cleared to use by Norton and McAfee agencies. So if you are mesmerized by what this small tool can do, you should give it a try.

YAC is really simple to use and has a GUI that can be operated by even someone who doesn’t have much information about the computers. It lets you see the scores based on your PC health, and lets you clean the issues in just a click. However, we would suggest you to look into the causes before blindly removing them.

So if you liked the tool and want to give it a try, then the download link is provided at the bottom of this article. Please don’t forget to create a System Restore Point before installation, to undo the changes if anything goes wrong.

Download YAC

Tools to Password Protect External USB Hard Disk Drives

We know how important it is to safeguard our data from unwanted people and if the data is in our external hard disk or USB drives, then it becomes more important to keep it secure. Since the drives lacks ability to password protect the data by themselves, the information is at risk all the time.

So if you are looking for some tool that can password protect your drive so that you can feel free with peace of mind, then here are some that can help you. Using these tools, you can not only protect your data from reaching the wrong hands but also be sure that without your knowledge no one will be able to access the information.

USB Safeguard

The first tool that I liked to password protect your USB drives is the USB Safeguard as it is a small tool that needs no installation and can be run directly from the USB drive. What you need to do is just run the tool from the drive and provide a password to lock it. That’s it, now anyone who will try to access the drive will require the password to unlock it. However there is a limitation with it, that the free version is not full and has some limitations to it.

Folder Lock

Another tool for the same purpose is the famous Folder Lock. You can use this tool to lockdown your data, files and also the USB drive. Folder Lock lets you password-protect files, folders and drives; encrypt your important files on–the-fly; backup them in real-time; protect USB drives and portable devices; shred files and clean history.

Folder Lock Lite

You can also try the lite version of the Folder Lock, which provides the same level of security but with easiness. Drag and drop feature is a plus.

File Secure Free

A freeware that allows you to encrypt, backup, shred and lock the USB drive. The tool works great and lets you lockdown the USB drive with a password so that no one is able to access it. However you will need to unlock the drive each time to access the contents.

Let me know which tool worked great for you.

Jump to Next Pages on Websites in Firefox using Space Key

For all those who like to surf internet and spend time reading stuffs online, this will prove to be a great relief. These days most websites that we come across have multi page formats, which means the content is spread across different pages which supports various things one of which being, faster page load and less time taken to display some of the information.

Moreover if you search anything on Google, the results in displayed in different pages (as seen here too), so if you are someone who uses keyboard more than the mouse or just hate using mouse only for clicking the page number every time you are done with a page, here is something to help.

So, if you are using Firefox as your browser, here is an extension or an add-on (as called by Firefox), Space Next which allows you to jump to the next page by pressing the Space keyand without using the mouse at all. Sounds great, isn’t it? Usually what Space key does is, it takes the webpage like couple of rows down when pressed once but if we keep it pressed then we reach the bottom. But if you install this add-on you will get the added functionality of opening the next page with only a press on the Space key.

This already seems like effort saver to me, but it also allows some more features like append.Append mode here allows you to open a webpage appended to the previous one, in a single page and instead of opening in new page. Check the screenshot below, this should help.

The add-on also allows you to customize your shortcut and do some configurations. If you liked it and want to use in Firefox then the link is at the bottom. P.S. I tried looking for something like this in Chrome, but couldn’t find something reliable.

Download Space Next

Check Windows Experience Index Score on windows 8.1

Computer is one device which gets old really fast, and the reason why I am saying this is because there are lots and lots of improvements in hardware and software technology that even if you buy the latest configuration model from the market, it feels old and slow in couple of years.

If you wish to check the performance of your machine, you don’t need to install any third party software for that as Windows had got Windows Experience Index for that by default. The Windows Experience Index measures the capability of your computer’s hardware and software configuration and expresses this measurement as a number called abase score. A higher base score generally means that your computer will perform better and faster than a computer with a lower base score, especially when performing more advanced and resource-intensive tasks.

While it is present by default in Windows, the feature has been taken off from Windows 8.1, so if you wish to operate on the latest OS while still enjoy the WEI, you can use this tool called as ChrisPC Win Experience Index.

What this tool does is that, it brings the Windows Experience Index back to your Win 8.1 OS so that you can run and check the performance of your machine’s hardware and software handling abilities. All you need to do is just install and run this tool, it will take some time in the backend and present you the results.

Using this tool you can know where is your PC’s abilities are lacking and what you should consider upgrading. If you wish to improve this score, there is only one thing that you can do, which is, to take care of your machine, clean the junks periodically and upgrade the low performing parts.

Download ChrisPC Win Experience Index

Facebook to Officially Launch Graph Search for Mobile

Facebook is the most used social website today and you can find most of your friends on it too. So whether it is your lost old friend or someone who just met last night, chances are you can find them on Facebook. This is where Facebook Search comes pretty handy and if you remember Facebook had rolled out its Graph Search not so long ago.

The advantage that Graph Search has over usual search is that it makes it easy to search someone by suggesting the keywords like that of location, work and others. I like the Facebook Search feature a lot as I have been able to find most people using the Search (only those with some uncommon names as there are lots of people with common names).

Now since most of the people use Facebook through their mobile phones, Facebook has decided to launch the Graph Search for mobile users too. Graph search which is nothing just another way of using the Facebook search in your own natural language, is currently available for desktops and that too in English.

Facebook officials are aware that most people access the site from their hand held devices, thus they have decided to come up with the graph search on the portable devices too. The date of release is not yet announced by the officials however they have started working on the release.

According to Facebook, this Graph search feature on the mobile phone will help lot many users to find their buddies even on the go, easily.

Is this something that did interest you? Leave a comment.

Check if your Email ID Provider Leaks your IP Address

Since emails are the best way to officially communicate with someone anywhere in the world, it becomes really important to ensure the email address we are using is safe and secure. If the information we are exchanging online falls into wrong hands, then we might suffer at business. Hence we should ensure that the email address service we are using, is secure enough.

For all of you tech geeks out there, you know that IP address is one such information that can provide the information about the user and can also lead to its actual physical location. Every machine connected to the internet has got its own IP address and hence it is our responsibility to keep it secure.

But what you people might not know that every email which is received has got its header which is nothing but detailed information about the email received. So what should you do, is to check that if the header of your own email reveals or leaks your IP address or not.

Here is a service called as Email Leak Test (or Email IP Leak) which not only lets you know your own IP address but also allows you to see if your email service provider leaks your IP address or not. So here is what you need to do. Visit the service page, get started and copy the randomly generated email address listed there.

Now send out the email to this address and head back to the Email Leak Test webpage to see the result. If the page updates to show that IP address is leaked, then your header of the email is leaking it whereas if the page remains the same, then it is not. As you can see in the screenshot, Yahoo email service is leaking it for me.

So check the Email IP leak test for yourself and never use that email provider to send any confidential information.

Visit Email Leak Test

Reduce the Size of PDF files with Free PDF Compressor

The biggest advantage of using the PDF file over word documents is that it keeps the quality of the contents same and non-editable thereby protecting from unintentional edits. However this might result in heavy sized file which can create some issues in transferring and sending online.

Well, if you are looking for something that can compress the file for you and still keep the contents printer friendly, here is something that I found for you. This is a free to use tool called as Free PDF Compressor and the reason why we are reviewing it today on our blog is that it not only compresses the PDF file with ease to reduce size but also keeps the contents like the images to the best possible quality to fit in that size.

The tool is very simple and easy to use, as you just need to browse for the input file and select the preset conversion method out of the given 5 options as listed below:

The software supports five different compression settings.
• Screen – Use this setting to produce the file with least size having low display resolution so that it can be best viewed on mobile devices like phone, tablets and others. The images are converted to 72 dpi quality.
• eBook – This setting is good to produce medium resolution files which are good to read on tablets as eBook. The images are converted to 150 dpi quality which is still not good for printing.
• Printer – If you need to take prints of your file, then this setting will suit you the best as the images are converted to 300 dpi which is the best for printing while still reducing the size.
• Prepress – This setting will produce the highest quality of the file and will reduce the size minimally as it will focus on color preserving of the images while using the 300 dpi quality for the images. This setting is the best for keeping the document in highest possible quality.
• Default – Setting used for wide variety of uses and possibly larger output file. So if you are unsure what you need to do with the compressed file later on, then possibly select this setting.

It is worth noting here that, the tool compresses the files page by page and thus takes time depending upon the pages in the document. So if you liked the tool, then give it a try from the link below.

Download Free PDF Compressor

Convert Audio and Video Files to any Format right on your Android Phone

For all the people out there who love to watch videos or listen to songs a lot, this post should prove to be quite helpful. Well, if you are entertainment lover then you know there are lot many audio and video formats that it sometimes become very irritating to find out that the file we have with us is not supported by our media player.

There are two options available as a solution to this problem, one that you install somemedia player that can play any codec (which is sort of impractical, seeing huge number of codecs present today) or install some converter that can convert a media from one format to another with ease.

Now the latter option sounds little practical and convenient. There are lot many famous audio and video converters available for your computer but what if you have some media on your phone which you are unable to play on it? You will a need one media converter for your phone too.

That’s right; today we have some apps for this purpose too. One such app is called Format Factory. Format Factory can convert all your video and music files on your android device (well at least most of them). The app supports conversion in all the major formats like Mp4, Flv, Avi, Mkv, Mp3, Flac, Wma, Ogg, Aac, M4a, Ac3, Ape and Wav.

This means, whether it is an audio or a video file, you can convert it to a supported file format using this app right on your Android phone. The conversion process too is very simple as you just need to browse for the media, set the desired output format and the codec and let it take care for you.

The app also allows you to split the media from any point to certain point, so that you can convert only some part of the media and not whole of it. The app is available in the play store at the following location.

Download Format Factory

Convert Files into any Format with Right Click using Cometdocs for Desktop

There are lots of file formats being used today, and every format has its own advantage. While we use PDF files where we wish to protect the data, we use images to capture some info. So what if you need to convert the same file you are using into some other format, you may go to the free online web services and get them converted or may be download and install a tool just for this purpose.

Meet a new tool called as Cometdocs for Desktop, and what this have in different from others is that it incorporates the converter right into the file context menu. This means, if you come across any file that needs to be converted into some other format, look nowhere, just right click on it and select the output format. The converted file will be presented to you in some time.

Cometdocs is an online file conversion site which has launched this desktop tool for Windows. While uploading large documents to convert them online can slow down your browser (thereby preventing you from working) or converting the document in the system can slow down your machine, this converter works in a different way. It still uses its old way of converting which is to upload the file from the client directly (without you doing it) and then downloading back to the machine and the same folder automatically.

Although this will use your data plan but will save the machine from getting slowed down. To be able to use this tool, you need to login into the cometdocs account which you can register for free anytime (simple email address and password is all it need).

You can convert the file into any format from the list present in the right click context menu and the conversion status can be seen in a separate window. If you think it is a really useful tool, then you can get it for free from the link below.

Download Cometdocs for Desktop

Scan End User License Agreements while Installing Software with EULAlyzer

Whenever you install a new software you come across the End User License Agreementalso known as End User License Agreementin short which lets you know what the software aims at and thus needs your acceptance for it. While most of the times, the EULA is genuine and doesn’t contain any bad intent but there may be some developers who wish to do something else. Therefore it is very important to go through the entire agreement before accepting it but almost everyone out there doesn’t do it.

In fact, I haven’t seen anyone till date who has gone through even a single agreement before accepting it, may be because these are generally too long or boring to read. Therefore, for all of the people who have this habit of not reading the EULA, here is a tool that can do it for you.

This tool is called as EULAlyzer and is actually an EULA Analyzer for Windows that scans the EULA for you and aims at finding out some of the interesting points in the agreement. Here are the areas that this tool aims to scan for you:

• Advertising
• Tracking
• Data Collection
• Privacy-Related Concerns
• Installation of Third-Party / Additional Software
• Inclusion of External Agreements By Reference
• Potentially Suspicious Clauses
• and much more…

How EULAlyzer works

You need to install this tool (you might want to go through its EULA too lol), and run it whenever you want to scan a new agreement. On the main screen you, then, need to click the Scan button to start a new EULA scan and then paste the entire agreement there.

You will then need to press the Analyze button, clicking on which it will scan the agreement and will present to you the results as a rating.

EULAlyzer can only suggest you if the software being installed is clean or not, based on the scan results, but its on you to abide the suggestion or not. The tool also stores the agreements as a database so that you can refer to it back at a later point of time.

Download EULAlyzer

Cover app for Android lets you Access right Apps at the Right Time

Whenever your phone screen is locked then you can’t use the apps before unlocking it. So in case you need to access any app instantly, you will have to go through the big process of unlocking the phone, finding the app and then starting it. However with the firmware 4.2 onAndroid, you have the option of placing the most used apps right on the lock screen so that you can run the apps without having to unlock the screen first.

Well there are many lockscreen replacement apps available for Android but today we are reviewing one such app called as Cover which is better than the rest. What Cover does is, it places the right apps on the lockscreen at the right time by learning your location and time so that you don’t have to unlock the screen to use that app. This way, you will have more options of the apps on your lock screen.

How does Cover work:

After installing the app Cover, you just need to set your home and work address and the rest it will take care. So say, you just woke up in the morning, what are the apps that you would need, likely news and songs etc. This is what it will do, place these kind of apps on the lock screen.

Now suppose you are in the car heading for your work, what are the apps you are likely to use, probably, maps, yelp and weather etc. Thus it will replace the earlier apps on the lock screen with these kind of apps.

Now suppose you are at work, you would probably use apps like Notes, Docs and Emails etc. Thus it will again replace the apps for you. If you are thinking, how does it know your location? Then may be you are forgetting that your smartphone now comes with lot many sensors like accelerometer, gyrometer and of course the GPS.

So if the app sounds fantastic to you, then you should head on to the app website and get the invite as it is right now available only on the invitation. However it is planned to be launched in the Android store soon.

Visit Cover for Android