Tuesday, April 29, 2008
CCleaner 2.0 Decrapifies Your PC
11:30PM Gina Trapani | Windows only: One of our favourite PC cleansers CCleaner (which stands for “Crap Cleaner”) saw an upgrade this week. Since the last time we mentioned CCleaner several new versions have come out; this week’s added support for the Firefox 3 beta plus performance improvements and bug fixes. CCleaner scans your PC for unnecessary temporary and log files, cookies, memory dumps, and more and wipes them out at the press of the “Run Cleaner” button. You might be surprised at how much disk space it can recover—in fact, it managed to clear out 1.6GB of crap from my PC. See screenshot evidence after the jump. More »
K7 Offers Free Fax/Voicemail Lines
11:05PM Kevin Purdy | Need a phone line to receive a one-time fax or voicemails on a particular project, auction, or job search? Free service K7 hands out 10-digit Seattle-area phone numbers that can answer calls with customised voicemail greetings or accept faxes. You can access both the audio files and fax documents through your sign-up account, and the only restrictions are a 20-message/fax limit (the site starts deleting the oldest after that) and an account wipe out after 30 days of inactivity. Other than that, you’ve got a free bin to keep your personal numbers private and still get at your messages. K7 [via MakeUseOf.com] More »
Windows XP Service Pack 3 Available on Microsoft’s Servers
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | The gHacks blog sniffs out some installation files for Windows XP Service Pack 3 hosted on Microsoft’s Windows Update servers, as official notice of the update seems to be running a bit late. Downloads for 32-bit systems in many languages are available at the link below. The full download is about 300 MB, but anyone who’s been keeping up on their bug fixes and update since SP3 will likely have a lighter package to carry. We’ll update here when the official downloads are pushed to Windows Update. Official Windows XP Service Pack 3 Download Links [gHacks] More »
Share Large Files Using Gmail and Box.Net
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Digital Inspiration blog points out a feature of Box.net’s free web storage service that makes sending large files through email links super-easy. If you’re signed up and already have your free 1 GB of space, simply enable the Gmail or Outlook services (the latter will also work with Mozilla Thunderbird), and right-clicking on files or folders will set up a message that shares the files with any recipients. As Digital Inspiration puts it, it’s similar to the RapidShare sharing method, but a lot less painful for the recipients. Email Large Files Quickly with Gmail and Box.net [Digital Inspiration] More »
Boost Your Energy This Morning with Simple Exercises
9:00PM Gina Trapani | Personal trainer Dan Boyle says that you can boost your morning energy and make it a better day in general just by doing a few push-ups. He says: When you get up, right after you eat your breakfast, do this push up routine: Muster up some will, get down and pump out as many push ups as you can do. Wait 30 seconds Pump out more push ups (again as many as you can do) Wait 30 seconds Pump out more pushups (again as many as you can do and don’t hold back… really push it!) When you are done and you stand up, whatever the tired, sluggish, or “get out of my face” morning feeling you might have felt will have been replaced with an “I am the shiznit!!!” feeling. More »Tips for spending less and saving more
4:37PM Sarah Stokely | The Consumerist lists 10 ways to really save money, which include one of my tried and true standbys, rolling your credit card debt over to a new provider which offers you a 6 month interest free period. Of course, the aim should be to pay it off before the honeymoon period elapses and you revert to the full interest rate.(Don’t make the mistake I once made of keeping the old card ‘just in case’ – of course I ended up with two credit cards in debt.)Of course, the only real way to save money is to spend less than you earn and start putting money into savings. But the list has a few suggestions for doing that too, including paying your credit card off in full every month to avoid credit charges, and the old standbys – making your own coffee and lunch instead of buying them.Got any other tips for getting the most out of your money? Share in comments please.
10 ways to save real money [The Consumerist] More » 
Play Nintendo Classics on your PC
4:08PM Sarah Stokely | For any old school Nintendo fans in the audience: PC Authority has published a walkthrough for running Nintendo Classic games on a PC. The article steps you through how to set up the Project64 emulator on your PC. You’ll also need to grab the games – so you’ll need to download some N64 ROMs.You’ll be able to buff the screen resolution to get a nicer looking game than you would have gotten from the original console, but unless you have a joystick or analogue controller, you’ll be playing with the keyboard, which seems, well, kinda wrong.
Thanks for the tip, William!
Walkthrough: How to play Nintendo Classics on your PC [PC Authority] More » 
Stay in touch with a hospitalised loved one using CaringBridge
12:15PM Sarah Stokely | I was recently introduced to the CaringBridge website when a colleague became ill and was hospitalised. It’s a pretty cool site where you can create a free, personalised journal which serves as a hub for the ill person (or their family) to post photos and updates on their progress, and where friends can leave messages of support.There are two levels of privacy available – one lets anyone view your CaringBridge site as long as they know your chosen CaringBridge site name, or you can choose to only show your site to people who have registered with the site.Once you sign up you can browse the patient’s online journal, and subscribe to be notified by email when their journal is updated.I’ve really appreciated being able to receive email updates to hear how my friend is going, and I can imagine that for people who are facing serious illness, CaringBridge would be a nice and unobtrusive tool for keeping wellwishers updated and receiving messages of support. My one slight niggle was that it does nag you for donations to keep the site running, but I suppose it’s fair enough – funding has to come from somewhere. More » 
How to Eat Healthy at Top Chain Restaurants
9:00AM Adam Pash | US-centric: The food experts at Health magazine have scoured the menus at popular restaurant chains in search of the healthiest foods on the menu, rounding up several healthy menu options at otherwise unhealthy chains. For example, next time you find yourself staring down your fork at a never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden, you could opt instead for the low-fat Capellini Pomodoro (644 calories, 14 grams of fat) or the Venetian Apricot Chicken (448 calories, 11 grams of fat). Aside from the Olive Garden, the article runs down and handful of other chain favourites like Denny’s, Ruby Tuesday, and P.F. Chang’s. We’ve already covered five fast-food chains you can feel good about, but Health magazine’s list offers a few healthy alternatives for sit-down fare. Got your own favourite low-calorie dish at a national chain? Let’s hear about it in the comments. Health magazine names top chain restaurant fare [CNN] More »
