iPhone/iPod touch only: Simplify Media streams your entire iTunes music library directly to your iPhone or iPod touch over your Wi-Fi or mobile network (the latter an unwise idea on most local iPhone plans). Considering that the largest iPhone currently weighs in at 16GB and most of our music libraries are significantly larger, this one’s got all kinds of obvious potential. We already saw Simplify Media for jailbroken devices, but with this release Simplify Media is officially legit. Apart from your own library, you can also access up to 30 of your friends’ libraries. The app displays album art, lyrics, and artist bios, so in addition to the extra music access, it also provides some nice features you won’t get from the default iPod app.
Windows only: Free application Anti-Malware Tookit automatically downloads popular anti-malware applications to your computer. In essence the application is a specialised downloader that retrieves the latest and greatest releases of popular anti-malware apps like CCleaner, Spybot S&D, and Hijack This. You can selectively choose which apps you want downloaded and which you don’t, so you can stick to the tried-and-true options and avoid the ones you’re not sure of—perfect for when you’ve left your PC rescue kit at home and are working tech support for the family.
As hard drives grow ever cheaper and capacious, keeping track of every file single file is a job suited to no one. Luckily desktop search applications have improved in leaps and bounds beyond the useless Windows file search dialog of yesteryear, leaving users with a wealth of free and diverse desktop search tools at their fingertips. Keep reading for a detailed look at the five best desktop search applications as chosen by our readers.
Windows only: Free slipstreaming utility Microsoft Office Integrator does something similar for Office to what nLite does for Windows XP—namely, save you a lot of time if you have to reinstall the thing. After running the program, pointing it to your Office CD/DVD or installation directory, and choosing service packs, updates, and hotfixes to integrate, it creates a new ISO that installs Office XP, 2003, or 2007 with everything rolled in. You can save more time by checking out the “hotpacks,” or bundles of fixes and updates, at the forum where Office Integrator is released. My Vista installation had some trouble opening the package from the second download link at the app site, but the first opened, with a seemingly different interface. Office Integrator is a free download for Windows XP and Vista only. Microsoft Office Integrator [Siginet Software via gHacks]
Lots of webapps—Flickr, Tumblr, and Remember the Milk, among them—let you upload items through custom email addresses. Those addresses, though, are usually very long, or extremely random, and hard to remember when you’re trying to dash off something. The Digital Inspiration blog recommends putting the ever-clever disposable Gmail address trick to work, which also works with other email providers. Set up a filter to send mail addressed to YourName+Flickr@gmail.com to your custom Flickr address, and those camera pics just got a lot more convenient to post. Hit the link below for more detailed instructions, and share your other webapp email work-arounds in the comments. Interact with Websites via Easy to Remember Email Addresses [Digital Inspiration]
