TuneUp Media on Sale Through Midnight
Last Updated on Saturday, 31 March 2012 06:36 Written by Alan Saturday, 31 March 2012 06:36
One of the apps we are always looking for in my house is one that can clean up our music library, which is shared across all household member’s computers. Over the years we have looked at many music apps, both free and paid, and one of the best we have found is TuneUp Media. It’s unfortunately one that falls in the paid category, but it works so well we shelled out the money for it last year. Today the folks at TuneUp announced a twelve hour sale that runs through midnight tonight (March 31st) Pacific Time.
TuneUp Media features the ability to clean up your library, fix cover art, get rid of duplicate files and a whole lot more. You can do all of that manually, but if you have a large library then you don’t really want to undertake that task.
- Clean — Accurately fixes mislabeled or missing song information (like “Track 01″ or “Unknown Artist”) using cutting-edge waveform recognition.
- Cover Art — Scans your entire music collection in seconds and automagically™ fills in missing album artwork.
- DeDuper — Intelligently finds and removes duplicate music files from your music library using waveform recognition.
- Tuniverse — Delivers music videos, artist bios, concert alerts, social network integration and more.
TuneUp Media runs for $39.95 annually or $49.95 for a lifetime membership. If you grab it before midnight tonight then you can take 40% off of that price by entering the coupon code “SURPRISE12“. A paid version will give you unlimited access to the TuneUp Media library. Visit TuneUp Media to check it out.
Power up Windows Clipboard with Ditto
Last Updated on Saturday, 3 March 2012 11:34 Written by Alan Monday, 26 March 2012 07:00
The clipboard is one the most frequently used parts of Windows, but most users probably don’t really understand how it works. That’s fine because most people have no need to know. The clipboard is small part of the computer’s memory that holds the information you copy thereby allowing you to paste that information somewhere else. The clipboard, though, is not a very powerful tool. For one thing it only holds the most-recently copied piece of data.
Over the years a number of apps have surfaced to help beef to the Windows Clipboard. One free, open source solution is called Ditto. It’s a small 3.4 MB file that will bring a lot more functionality to clipboard users. It’s just as useful to average users as it is for power users.
During the setup process you will have the option to run Ditto every time Windows starts up. By default this option is turned on and there’s no reason to change that unless you have a pressing need.
You may receive a message telling you that Windows Firewall would like to block access to Ditto unless you click the “Allow Access” button. If you don’t allow this then your new extension will be pretty useless. Ditto is an open source program so we can be sure that’s it’s safe.
After setup you may not see anything because Ditto automatically runs in your system tray. You can right-click the icon to see a list of options or double-click the icon to open the app.
For such a small, simple app, Ditto has an extensive list of options which you will want to look through to make sure all of the defaults are to your liking or if you need to do a little customization.
With Ditto running you will now have access to a list of previously copied items that you can choose from. You can also sync your clipboard items across multiple computers on a network. Synced data is even encrypted to keep it safe. To select an item from the clipboard you can just double-click it or drag and drop. For more information a Help file comes with the app.
You can download Ditto from Sourceforge.
EaseUS Partition Master Updates for Windows 8
Last Updated on Thursday, 15 March 2012 09:48 Written by Alan Sunday, 18 March 2012 07:00
Windows has built-in partition management, but it’s a very basic version. In the past, many users have paid for more fully functional partition tools, but now there are good free versions on the market. One of those great free utilities is EasUS Partition Master, and it has recently been updated to version 9.1.1, which adds support for Windows 8.
Many of you out there are probably already testing out Windows 8, which was released a couple of weeks ago at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Version 9.1.1 of EaseUS Partition Master adds one single new feature, which is support for both the Consumer Preview and Server Beta editions of Windows 8, way ahead of their official release later in the year.
EaseUS offers the ability to merge two adjacent partitions together without any loss of data (it’s also possible to split a single partition into two, choosing what files go where), or the option to securely wipe unallocated space after removing a partition containing sensitive data. Those are both features that you won’t find in the built-in partition tool in Windows 7 or Windows 8.
If you are planning too dual-boot Windows 8 with Windows 7 then you definitely should consider a good third-party partition tool instead of using what Windows offers. EaseUS is free, which should make it one of the top ones on that consideration list. You can get it by visiting EaseUS.
