I’ve been going about this all wrong, evidently. For months I’ve been looking for a free utility to easily create Ringtones for my iPhone 3G (no, I didn’t rush out and buy the upgrade to 3GS) out of MP3’s I already have. On several occasions I’ve found some decent guides and a lot of free software, but that was exactly the problem: I needed a lot of free software to do what I wanted to do. As far as I’ve been able to locate, no single utility exists that you can download, install and use to create Ringtones for iPhone all within a single package. Without an unacceptable level of complexity, it just wasn’t going to happen.

That’s unfortunate, but hardly a deal breaker thanks to a free service called Myxer. It’s stupidly simple: Browse your nerdy ass over to the Myxer website and find the cute little box (snipped above so you know what to look for) that asks-no, demands-that you upload your very favorite non-DRM’d MP3. If you’re a self respecting nerd of any repute, all your MP3’s are DRM-free, but I digress. Moving on, upload your file (the speed will depend on your internet connection, obviously. I have a stupidly fast connection so for me it’s seconds) and wait while the site processes it for a few seconds. (more…)

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The Age of Access

 Microsoft has finally released its Security Essentials Antivirus software onto the world, and man, let there be rejoicing. I’m always a fan of free software, especially if it can handle an essential task well (and make no mistake, antivirus is absolutely essential) without being too intrusive. Microsoft Security Essentials is exactly this kind of software, surpassing most other freeware options while using only a fraction of the system resources others like Comodo and AVG do. As a bonus, MSSE is legal to use on any legitimate copy of Windows (therefore you should expect to have Window Genuine Advantage validate your PC’s OS).

So what exactly is Security Essentials? Well, to put it succinctly, MSSE is Microsoft’s former “Windows Live OneCare” software, minus the feature bloat. Gone are such things as online photo backup, central management of multiple copies on different computers (some people may miss this feature), preventing other programs from adding system tray icons and so on. What it does do, though, is provide a robust anti-malware package that’s very small (about an 8MB download, less than a third of alternatives such as AVG and Comodo), very light and very fast, with a small memory footprint. MSSE makes use of a derivative of the antimalware engine in MS’s Forefront security product (marketed at Enterprises…no, not the ones from Star Trek) and like you would imagine (yet dare not actually hope for) it never nags you for, well, anything. I suppose if you get a virus it’ll pop up an alert to tell you, but luckily enough I have yet to actually encounter anything malicious.

So if you’re using one of the bloated freeware packages out there or just wish you had something less intrusive on your system, I highly recommend you get your free copy of Microsoft Security Essentials. Just be sure to uninstall your other package right away!

We all know by now that these are tough times, and when tough times come along what do nerds do? We troll the internet for Freeware, of course! Probably the most successful of our (more or less) ongoing series’ here on ATNS has been our reviews of excellent free applications that anyone can use at no charge to do the kinds of things that the big boys pay big bucks for. While we’ve recently been, shall we say, a bit lax concerning our reviewing responsibilities–things are about to kick up in a serious way. We’ve been gathering the latest and greatest freeware apps to our sides, glued our butts to our chairs (well, OK, so it isn’t actual glue…) and have begun sifting through more free goodies than even Lord Voldemort could shake his rather deadly stick at.

In anticipation of the forthcoming explosion of Freeware reviews, we’ve decided that a monthly newsletter, to serve as a digest of sorts, would probably be a darn good idea. With that in mind, I bid you look to the sidebar for the simple and easy sign up form. You’ll have to check your email for the confirmation letter and click that sucker, but beyond that you should be in relatively good shape. We’ll promise not to sell your email to spammers (well, unless they offer us a really big bag of money) and in return we ask that you promise not to do terrible things to our pets. Which, let me tell you, if you harm one hair on my Nintendog’s head, you’re in for a butt kickin’!

Today Apple, in what appears to be a vicious pattern of flogging my wallet until it cries, introduced the new iPhone 3G-S, which will launch in just shy of a week and a half. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some hot iPhone action and I’ve been in a perpetual state of enthrallment with my current iPhone 3G since I got it in December. Nevertheless a gurgling, hissing voice has arisen with me and several heads have turned as I’ve uttered (uncontrollably) the words “We wants it, precious! Give it to us, it’s ours!” Yes, that’s just the kind of day I’ve had, thank you very much, Mr. Jobs.

So, beyond the obvious shiny, what does the new iPhone 3G-S bring to all those patient consumers who decided to tough it out? Here’s a quick and dirty chart to show you the difference and what you can expect to pay for that difference. Note also that the chart reflects todays price drop of the existing 8GB model iPhone 3G to 99 effing dollars.

Nevertheless, even the iPhone 3G remains an amazing device that can offer you the ability to be much more productive in your daily doings, so if the price has been what’s holding you back you no longer have any excuse. Unless I’m horribly mistaken (a distinct possibility, I haven’t done the research), this officially makes iPhone 3G the cheapest non-refurb Smartphone on the market.

So today we’re  checking out something especially geeky, the VisualSVN SubVersion Control Server. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? For most folks, this is something you’ll never, ever use. However, if you’re a person who develops, say, software-or artwork-or games, then this will be of interest to you. There’s a lot of Version Control software out there, and believe me I’ve looked at a lot of it lately. But most of it has a problem that prevents it from being accessible to the average user: most of it runs on Linux. Now, Linux software is all well and good, and there’s very little negative I’d ever say about Linux overall. However, the reality remains that for the average user-who by this point has used Windows of one flavor or another for most of their computing life-Linux just isn’t very friendly. As a rule this won’t matter because people who need version control can often afford to hire an engineer who understands Linux just fine, or they may be savvy enough to sort it out on their own. This software, indeed this review, is not for you.

Who this software is for, is the small time developer of something, whether it’s code or art or whatever, who needs version control but doesn’t have a huge budget or a lot of time to spend learning the ins and outs of Linux. This is version control that you can install on Windows in 5 minutes, have it configured in 10, and be using it in 20 (the extra 10 is because you will need to install Tortoise SVN on your client PC and reboot, then configure it to Check Out your repository). If you’re unfamiliar (and I was until a few days ago), what this software does is it runs on a server that your team then connect to via client software on their PC’s. The clients each sync to and from the server, and as changes are made to the files in your project everyone is kept up to date on the latest project files with their own local copy. When they’ve made changes, they sync back to the server and the rest of the team will get their changes next time they sync. 

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Another day comes and goes and another Freeware app begs to be reviewed and called to the forefront of somebody’s consciousness, somewhere. Today we’re going to break away from the trend we’ve followed so far in which I present you with various System Utilities (remind me to subcategory the freeware before we get too deep here). Starting today and continuing for the next few days we’re going to take a look at some free art software, and we’ll begin with what is perhaps the most commonly used and needed type: Photo Editing.

Our app today is called Paint.Net, and is a freeware application originally built to show off the power and flexibility of Microsoft’s .Net framework (back when we all thought that someday we’d be using Windows.Net). You can best think of this software as a lightweight, free Photoshop clone for your home PC. Off the top you should know a few things: First, it is not as full featured as Photoshop, but it doesn’t need to be for the average user. Second, it’s very small, clocking in at a mere 15MB download size. Last but not least you should know that while the software isn’t the end all, be all of feature completeness, it IS extendable with a plugin architecture, so the odds of finding a plugin to add commonly desired functionality are actually pretty decent.

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Today’s nugget of tasty freeware is something for, perhaps, the slightly more advanced user. Now, for a site that’s all about Nerdy Stuff, that shouldn’t present a problem for anyone reading this. Even so, a fair word of warning is in order: this one will require a little patience.

Orb Networks. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not, but what they do primarily is provide the free Orb Media Server software. Now, in theory this is an amazingly cool piece of software, but in practice it’s actually only pretty darn cool. Yes, cool has levels.

Anyway, the software. Orb is pretty slick; what it does is fairly simple in premise: install it on your PC, configure it to point to your folders full of music and video clips, and it will stream all that media to your mobile device, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, cell phone, iPhone or pretty much anything else with a web browser. In cases where the target device doesn’t support the media in its native format Orb will transcode it to something a little more universal, notably Flash FLV format (as you’d find on YouTube or similar sites).

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Perhaps one of the biggest needs that any computer user will have is of a utility to extract the contents of archives they download from the internet. Half the time you download something, particularly if you’re downloading free software, it’s packed up in a zip file–or occasionally some other kind of archive.

Ever since XP you can, of course, always use Windows’ built in unzip utility. But what if you need to open an archive other than a zip? What if you need to compress something that maybe you want to, say, span multiple files so you can fit it onto CD’s or DVD’s? Well then you’re kind of screwed, aren’t you? In those instances you’ve got to get yourself out there, spend a little money, and pony up for WinZip. Except, of course, you don’t.

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OK smartasses, you thought you had me, didn’t ya? You thought “Oh look, he forgot to post up a FreeWare review today”, didn’t ya? Yeah? Well…you’re right. I did forget. I suck! On the bright side, I did already have a plan for it, so we’ll go ahead and with that right now.

Today’s exciting Freeware pick is IOBit’s Smart Defrag software for Windows. Like virtually any defragmenting software it’s far superior to the built in Windows Defrag, but more than that I’d say it’s probably better than many of the commercial defragmenters currently on the market. As a Windows user, the need to defragment your hard drive is a simple fact of life. You either do it or you face a downward spiral of decreasing performance, slower access times for all your software and worse performance for Windows itself. Windows Vista is particularly bad about this; an untended drive can easily become 30-40% fragmented in a matter of weeks or months depending on use (though in fairness, Vista is far more resilient to fragmentation than earlier versions of Windows have been).

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Most people probably haven’t heard of IOBit, but if you use a PC at all you really should. IOBit provides some very interesting free software that I’ve enjoyed using for about a year now, and I’m happy to be able to report that their software is both high quality, professionally polished and updated damn frequently. It’s with this idea in mind that I introduce today’s Freeware Review product, Advanced System Care 3.

Just what is Advanced System Care? Let’s start with the basics. Advanced System Care will help you remove spyware threats from your system, inocculate against future infection by scanning for and plugging known vulnerabilities in the OS (read: Windows flavor) you use, and it will check for items that can be optimized to get a little better performance out of your system. If you’re a user of some of their other free products it’ll integrate with those as well.

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