Recently Google celebrated a milestone the 1 year anniversary launch of the Google Chrome browser.  I remember when it was swirling around the internet that Google was about to drop a browser on the Internet community we were all a buzz over it.  That was over 366+ days ago and what have the super geeks at Google been up to, well they have been making improvements in the Google Chrome browser.  They say that the Google browser now has quicker load times, and runs web applications faster.

The stable release of Chrome under windows was released yesterday some of the benefits are listed below:

• 150% increase in javascript performance
• Redesigned new tab page
• Some HTML 5 features are included
• Form auto fill
• Side by side view
• Ability to remove items from the tabs

Give the stable version a try here

For those of us who use a Mac or Linux they state that at this time, there is no release, but they are making rapid progress.  You can download a copy of the developers version for Mac & Linux which will let you try Chrome on your Mac or Linux, but understand it’s not a stable release.  Us geeks can try it out anyways and at least see how things are coming along.

TBTR

It’s not everyday that you will need a utility like WinMerge but, I will tell you this it can save you a ton of time. WinMerge 2.8.6 is another great Open Source tool created with you the user in mind. Why do you need WinMerge? Why should you even give WinMerge a chance to grace your desktop real estate? I think if you work with text based files such as HTML, CSS, or just Text files in general then this tool will help you a lot.

Visual differencing and merging of text files

Say your working on a new project where a client has updated his HTML code and your trying to fix the problem they are having because something is just not right. If you use WinMerge you can input the old HTML code on one side, and the New HTML code on another and compare the files. You can see where the changes have been made and with that being said, fix the issue without having to go line for line in a HTML document that could be pretty long. WinMerge will color code the changes and show you where the differences are no longer will you have to rely on site alone.

Handles DOS, UNIX and MAC text file formats

Not only does this tool let you see the differences of files, but if you want it can Merge the files together to create a new document. This is a great feature where changes have been made and you want to make sure to keep all text streamlined and in working order. WinMerge will do the trick with ease.

Website: http://www.winmerge.org/

Download Link: WinMerge 2.8.6

Enjoy,

TBTR

How many passwords do you enter on a daily basis? If you answered more than 4 you need SuperGenPass. SuperGenPass is a password generator but not in the normal sense. Normally with password generators you have to install a program. That puts another software program on your computer and that takes up precious system resources. Installing a program means when you want to use it you have to find the program, start the program, and use the program that’s time consuming.

SuperGenPass allows you to remember just one password (your “master password”), which is used to generate unique, complex passwords for the Web sites you visit.

The great thing about SuperGenPass is you don’t install any software on your computer. Remember when I reviewed Password safe & Any Password here each one of those programs had to be installed on your computer.

SuperGenPass uses MD5, a one-way hash algorithm, which means that no one can determine your master password from your generated passwords.

As we know the biggest problem on the internet now days is keeping up with every single new site we join and keeping up with that password. You could do what most people do and that is to create one to two password that you use all over the internet. In other words you use that for your email, bank account, and even your computer logon password.

Nothing is ever transmitted by SuperGenPass, and your passwords are not stored anywhere.

We all know this is not the smartest thing to do, you see if a hacker gets a hold of just one password, they could potentially have access to your whole internet life. Trying to keep up with all the different passwords is the issue here and SuperGenPass lets you use one Master Password and that generates the passwords for each site.

Don’t worry SuperGenPass does not save passwords to your computer it’s a bookmark that you save to your browser.

See the video I created to show you how this works:

More about how it works

Link to SuperGenPass Website

Enjoy,

TBTR

Imagine a program that many of the top podcasters use on a daily basis. When you want to record, mix, and master your recordings use Audacity. Audacity is a FREE Open Source software for recording and editing sound.

With Audacity you can:

• Record Live Audio
• Convert tapes & records into digital files
• See a massive list of features here

Audacity runs on:

• Linux
• Os X
• Windows (from 98 to Vista)

Personally I use Audacity to record & edit my podcast for TheBlackTechReport. I absolutely love this program the ease of use and shear horsepower of this program is internationally known. A great plus to using Audacity is the great community input and resources created by the developers and users of audacity.

5 Audacity resources:

• File Management Tips
• Navigation Tips
• Podcasting with Audacity (full resources)
• Noise Removal
• Official Audacity User Manual

Remember with any program it might take a little time getting used to it, but don’t let that scare you I wanna see you using this wonderful program.

Enjoy,

TBTR

When it comes to download Wednesday I’m always thinking of new and exciting FREE software to write about. Today’s Free download comes from Pidgin which formally had the name GAIM.

I remember using GAIM along time ago when you had to download and install the 3 major players in IM AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. GAIM was one of the first but they changed the name to Pidgin. I heard they changed the name for legal reasons but that’s another story.

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messenger client that allows you to use all of your IM account at once from ONE program.

Pidgin runs on all Windows and UNIX platforms.

Pidgin can work with:

• AIM
• YAHOO
• Google Talk
• MSN
• IRC (Wowzer I’m excited about this one)

And about 12 other services

Give Pidgin a try you just might like it.

Link to Pidgin Site
Link to Download Page
Link to Third Party Plugins

Enjoy,

TBTR

We all need email in today’s world for a host of reasons.  To communicate with staff, friends, and family not in that order.  Since email is so important I wanted to bring to the table a product that will help you out with your everyday emails.  If your a PC user then your probably familiar with Outlook Express, and Outlook.  Outlook Express was created as a free email client included in your computer build.  Outlook Express has been around for a long time and gone through various revision I think we are up to Version 6 at this time.

If your smart or wealthy you probably upgraded to Outlook which was created on the same platform as Outlook Express but with the intent of the business user in mind.  When this happened many people said Outlook Express would die and by all accounts in my opinion it has.  Microsoft has done no active updates to Outlook Express in years thus leaving another dinosaur in the dust.  While we could argue the point of weather Outlook or Outlook Express is a good product we will save that for another post.

The Open source movement has created great products in my opinion Thunderbird from Mozilla.org is one of the best email clients I’ve used.  Since today is Download Wednesday I just had to bring Thunderbird into the picture Thunderbird has won numerous awards and we have to remember the product is FREE.

Thunderbird provides you with a fast robust email client that can not only hand emails but RSS feeds, and newsgroups all in this one product.  While I like to personally keep all those in separate programs I have to commend Mozilla.org for including this sort of as a one stop shop.

I have created two screencast that show you the process from downloading the product, to install, and the configuration or setup.

Video 1: Download, and Install

Video 2: Configuration

More information about Thunderbird features here and Thunderbird download link.

Popular Thunderbird addons listed under this article on Makeuseof.com

Enjoy and leave comments.

TBTR

Working a full time job you probably sit at a computer for 8 hours then go home and you have another computer your using. Using so many computers there are gonna be times when you wish you had access to your documents from any computer at any time. If you have Google Docs your not missing a thing in fact your probably laughing right now saying “Is this really news TBTR, I mean honestly.”

There’s nothing to download; you access your documents, spreadsheets and presentations from any computer with an Internet connection and a standard browser. And it’s free.

Scenario your at work taking care of some last minute changes to a document, you get a call and leave in haste. When you get home your winding down about to watch your favorite TV show when you get a call that your friend she needs the list of things you were writing ASAP. You think back did I email that document before I left work? Then you remember it’s saved to your hard drive at work not at home. This leaves your friend with out the document and there is nothing you can do about it. Well sort of, if you had written and saved that document in Google Docs you could use your computer to login find the document and then edit or just send the document to your friend. Thus fixing a situation that may have been disastorious.

Online storage and auto-save mean you needn’t fear local hard drive failures or power outages.

While this is little far fetched it’s still true Google Docs is an online application that lets you create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online at anytime from any computer. Google has set up the system to enable anyone to share, and collaborate in real time. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. Access to your documents can be emailed to anyone you want and they get instant access.

You can publish to the entire world, just a few people or no one — it’s up to you. (You can also un-publish at any time.)

With Google Docs there is nothing to download it’s all done over the internet that also helps with backup of documents. No longer do you have to worry about a hard drive failure or misplacing some important documents you have access from anywhere. Google Docs even lets you post a document to the web with a single click you can set this for viewing by select people or anyone around the world.

You can now track how much traffic a particular published document is getting through Google Analytics.

While most of this article is written for the newbie in mind here is where I explain some of the NEW features that have been placed in this Online Application.

• A host of free templates for documents, spreadsheets or presentations
• Analytics tracking on published documents is now available
• Custom Colors can now be chosen for documents or slides
• Output can be to a PDF file so no need for Adobe Acrobat
• Tech-Savvy users can now apply CSS to documents
• Notes can now be added to your slide presentations
• Off line access to your Google docs, sync when internet connection established
• Presentations can be saved as PPT
• View Google Docs on your mobile phone
• Many more features

While Microsoft has stepped up and offered some of the same things with Office Live, Google Docs 100% FREE. While they do offer this for free there is a pay service if your a organization and want to put the whole company on it’s called Google Apps check it out.

This video explains a lot enjoy.

video by: leelefever

Try out Google Docs it helps you live longer

TBTR

Today I wanted to let you know about OpenOffice which is the clone of Microsoft’s costly product Office. OpenOffice while different gives you some great features such as:

• Text Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentation
• Drawing
• Database

The products listed are FREE you don’t pay for them because OpenOffice is a Open Source product. If you don’t have the money to purchase the most popular product Microsoft Office, download OpenOffice here.

Enjoy

TBTR

While I love taking pictures I don’t like the high cost of photo editing software such as Corel, Paint Shop Pro, and Photoshop. I have always looked for a free way to edit and do cool things with photo software then I came across GIMP.

GIMP is released under the GNU free software license which lets you use the program for free. The GIMP software project has been around for a long time since about 1996 according to the website. Currently the stable version of GIMP is 2.51.

GIMP was created because Linux users wanted a way to be able to use great photo editing software on a Linux computer build.  So they did what they always do, make a better mouse trap. It was later compiled for Windows but the first intention of GIMP were for Linux users. Plug-ins have been created for GIMP to expand the capabilities.

While I would love to really go into the specifics and show you how it really works, I’m gonna let you look the GIMP website over and see for yourself. Tons of Tutorial sites have been created to show you how to set up GIMP and how to do simple things with this extensive software.

• The tutorials here go from beginner to expert helping you to get aclimated to GIMP
• Tons of YouTube videos have been created showing you how to use GIMP here, last count was about 946 videos.
• An awesome Wiki has been created here

Remember you can complain but why? It’s FREE

TBTR

A few weeks ago I discussed my fascination with Meebo in my article “What? You can’t log on at work…I got a solutions” an Online IM program that works from your web browser no application install needed. I found another IM program that goes a step further, the Digsby application has the following connections which any well connected person should have especially a social geek:

······IM (Instant Messenger) – AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, Facebook
······Email – Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AIM, IMAP, POP
······Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter, Myspace

With all those connections from one applicaiton, oh and a recommendation by a reader of this blog I decided to add this program and try it out so here are my findings.

The Digsby interface is fully customizable from the layout to the fonts the whole experience

After downloading the applicaiton from Digsby.com I was able to install the program with no problems. I did like the fact that I could Signup right from the application and create my name with digsby. Once the application was installed I decided to kick the tires and set up all my accounts. I noticed the interface was pleasing to the eyes and was not just thrown together it worked.

It just so happens that a friend of mine was online while I was setting all this up and started a conversation with me. I noticed the window popped up and we started chatting as ususal. Sometimes at work you want things to be a little more private so I minimized the chat window and to my suprise a little little window popped up which I could see what my friend was saying and at the same time it was big enough that I could reply back without opening up the huge chat window cool feature.

While the program has given me some issues once I got it up and running properly this application has turned out to work very nice

Because the system is logged into my Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail account I can see the number of messages or emails that are waiting for me to look at, another cool feature. Everytime a new email is received the Digsby interface shows me a small blurb of the subject line, I also have a small ICON in the bottom right hand corner that represents my Gmail account with a small number that shows how many emails are waiting for me.

The Digsby interface is fully customizable from the layout to the fonts to the whole expericence. Now for the really cool part if you have a blog or website and you want to interact with your customers and/or friends you can place a chat widget on your site. When people see this they can start talking to you right from your website as long as you have Digsby running on your computer at that time, if not I beleive it leaves you a message. This is cool when you want real time communications on your site, no tons of time trying to set everthing up you paste the code on your site and it’s working.

Click here to send me a message in the test area of my site.

All and all i had a great time using Digsby and I’m going to continue to use it for the future, there was only one problem I had which might get a little technical. After using Digsby for a couple of days I noticed now when I start my laptop in the morning I see digsby boot, then display a message from some user who sent the note overnight my Digsby program then freezes. It has happened two days in a row. So the only thing I can do is press Ctrl+Atl+Delete and end task on the Digsby program.

I have gone into the preferences and changed it so Digsby no longer boots on my computer during startup. I’m hoping to get a better response when I boot again, UPDATE>>>well I have booted the system again and now it works properly.

While the program has given me some issues once I got it up and running this application has turned out very nice.

If you are going to download this program remember you have to have administrative right on your machine especially if this is a work machine, if you don’t have rights like that remember to use meebo which I talked about before right here.

TBTR

Have you ever spent money today only to find out tomorrow you could have downloaded that program for free? Today’s Wednesday download brings you a great tested, tweaked, and seasoned free Anti-Virus program.

We all know how important it is to have a Virus program installed and actively running on your computer.

Most new computers come with commercial grade Virus Programs but after just 90 days those programs deactivate leaving you high and dry.

While you could just purchase the upgrade for that Virus program your using, what about alternatives. Free programs are always great and AVG free is the one I recommend.

I have used AVG commercial and Free Versions for over 4 years with great success. So if your looking for a Virus program or your pre-installed Virus program has deactivated after trial try AVG. Understand again there is a commercial version of this program which has many more features, so if you like the free version, please purchase the product in the future.

Click here to download this free program

Enjoy,

TBTR

HTTrack is a Free/Open Source program that can copy a website to your local hard drive. You could set it up to copy a small website or even a huge website, but I would caution you from downloading a site with gigs and gigs of data. The program has some settings you can change but for the most part out of the box it’s ready to go.

Why would you copy a website 1.) To show people how a website works, 2.) To Grab all images out of folders. I could give you many more reason but lets just stop here. As you look at the HTTrack website there are alot of things from documentation, FAQ information, to how not to use this program.

The following video is one I found on youtube Mike explains this pretty well the video is about 4 1/2 minutes enjoy:

Video by: Mike from Northern Kentucky University

TBTR

What is Flock?

Flock is a cross platform browser meaning you can install the browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Flock is build on another favorite of mine from Mozilla called Firefox. Since Flock comes from the Open Source movement you don’t have to pay a dime for it, remember nadda, nothing. A better introduction on what Flock does is here:

When was Flock Build?

Flock was founded in 2005. The flock founders in my opinion, noticed that the internet was changing when social websites started popping up on the net. They have positioned themselves to understand first what was happening, and make a move in a different direction from a browser/surfing perspective.

Why use Flock?

If your into social sites and you want to better surf the web and stay connected Flock. The Flock browser lets you reach across multiple networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Flickr, and others. Flock lets you share things easily such as photo’s Video’s and links. The Flock browser even gives you a build in blog editor to make blogging even easier right from the browser. More about social surfing of the internet with Flock here:

Conclusion

Try out Flock if your really starting to get bogged down by all the social sites out there Flock has a great way of keeping this stuff in a nice group. The experience is enlightening and I think you will see the rewards very quickly. Remember Flock is different so take your time getting to understand Flock, but I assure you once you get the hang of it your in love.

Get your copy of Flock now

Comments about your experience and recommendations are appreciated.

TBTR

FileZilla (website link) is a FREE FTP program which has been released under the GNU Gneral Public License. FTP stands for file transfer protocol and is used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as over the Internet. You can use this program to upload pictures to your website or blog, you can also use it to download files from companies on the internet such has documents, instructions, drivers and much more. Click here for more information on FTP from wikipedia.org

I came across this program one day while I was looking to purchase a FTP program. This program makes it very easy to upload and download files over the internet.

Here are the features:

• Easy to use
• Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
• Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX and more
• Available in many languages
• Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
• Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
• Drag & drop support
• Configurable Speed limits
• Filename filters
• Network configuration wizard
• Remote file editing
• Keep-alive
• FTP-Proxy support

The program can be installed on Windows, Linux, and get this Mac OS X. I personally have been using the program for about 2 years, it has the guts to stand up to any of the price heavy programs such as cuteftp, smartftp, and others.

Leave comments about your experience and recommendations are appreciated.

TBTR